Tag : Holidays

71 posts

Today for T stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing a bit of my Norwegian heritage.

t tuesday: lefse edition | Halles Hobbies

LEFSE

Lefse is made from potatoes, evaporated milk, butter, flour and a touch of sugar and salt.

It’s a two day process. The first day you boil the potatoes and add everything but the flour. The potatoes then have to sit overnight to cool. I make my mashed potatoes as if I’m going to to be making lefse…that way if there are leftovers and I’m so inclined they are ready to go.

I use my Kitchen Aid mixer to stir in the flour. That mixer was our very first major purchase as a married couple even though we really couldn’t afford it at the time.  I told Mr. G that I was going to need one to be as good of cook as my mom.  I use it all the time!  We’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth out of that machine.

t tuesday: lefse edition | Halles Hobbies

The trick to good lefse is rolling them very thin without using a ton of flour.  Its a balancing act between having the potatoes to wet and sticky and having a dry flavorless lefse.

t tuesday: lefse edition | Halles Hobbies

The thin lefse is rolled onto the turning stick (to the right in the photo) then placed on the grill. I got this grill at an auction almost 20 years ago for $7 and it was brand new still in the box! They retail for well over $100.

The lefse is cooked on each side for 1-2 minutes.

There is nothing low cal, low carb about this treat. I like just butter on mine before rolling and inhaling eating. Many use butter and sugar, some cinnamon sugar. It’s really a personal preference and usually a family traditional way to serve them.

Big J drove me to deliver some to a few special Norwegians around here yesterday afternoon. It’s always nice to see those smiling faces when I hand over this decadent treat. Makes the work totally worth it!

We’ve got freezing drizzle coming down today so I’m likely sticking close to home.

What are you doing today?

Over the past few years I’ve started collecting Christmas trees. Mostly because I keep making a new kind each year but I’m not opposed to buying one at a thrift store or garage sale if it really speaks to me.

This year I was inspired by Mini-me. She had to film a tutorial for her technology class. Her group of three girls each picked a different Christmas craft and bought enough material for the three of them to each create their own.  She was inspired by this tree.

inspiration tree | Halle's Hobbies

Her version used smaller pieces of cardstock. It got very tedious for her towards the end of both punching all the scallops and hot gluing them to the paper cone. It was her punching all those pieces that had Mr. G prompting me to try my Silhouette machine again.

Speaking of paper cones…I made the cones from poster board after first seeing the price of a craft store foam version and then realizing that the foam would melt with hot glue. Glad I thought that one through before starting!!

lace wrapped tree materials | Halle's Hobbies

This tree came together really quickly.

vintage lace trim for lace wrapped tree | Halle's Hobbies

This vintage trim was in the bottom of my sewing box likely bought for some project my mom had intended to make in the 1970’s. At least it’s getting used now! lace wrapped Christmas tree| Halle's Hobbies

Isn’t it sweet. I had the tiny glass ornaments in my stash as well. All it needed was a topper. I auditioned several ideas but finally decided a star was in order.handmade star for lace wrapped tree| Halle's Hobbies

I drew a star on a piece of paper so I’d have a guide to do my bending. I used a twisted piece of 22 gauge wire. I had to “tie” the star at the crossover points “barbwire style” for stability.

The second tree (well technically it was the first one) was yarn wrapped.

yarn wrapped tree| Halle's Hobbies

I used a leftover partial skein of acrylic yarn for this one. Again I had some tiny trims in my stash to give the tree a finished look.

Nothing I love more than to use stash items! No cost…no trip to the store…AWESOME!

Tree collection | Halle's Hobbies

My humble little collection in our game area of the family room. You may be able to see both my Suess tree and cork tree. Additionally you also may be able to see the recycled Christmas card balls I made last year and the 12 days of Christmas swap book from several years ago adorning the table.

I came back from a wonderful mini vacation to a surprise in my mailbox…I've been published again! Somerset Holidays & Celebrations |Halle's Hobbies

Thanks once again to Stampington & Company for choosing to publish more of my cards. Now that explains why I hadn’t gotten all of them back in the previous package. :)

We had a busy week leading up to the July 4th holiday weekend. I barely touched my computer for days… I totally missed 2nd on the Second that Elizabeth our T stands for Tuesday also hosts. I didn’t even realize I missed it until the 5th. How’s that for being out of touch!

Lets start back on Tuesday of last week…

hail damage

after writing my T post, we headed off to my inlaws to check out the damage to the garden and their house. The garden was a wreck. Leaves and plants ripped to shreds and beaten into the mud. I cleaned up as much as I could and will just hope for the best. At least we have a thriving garden here at home as well.

Wednesday and Thursday were a blur… I can’t even remember what we did.

Friday evening was spent at the carnival in town. The kids had a great time. I had a great time too. I wasn’t looking forward to going this year but I’m glad I did.

carnival

I don’t know if you can tell from the photo (upper left side) but we’ve been effected by smoke from the Canadian wild fires here. The sun at times is just a red glow in the sky. Yesterday after our heavy rains ended it was so hazy and the air smelled really bad. I found out later that we were under an air quality warning. Our air quality was worse than Beijing, China yesterday.  Thankfully today it has cleared out.

EDIT: I can still smell the smoke but at least the sky is clear.

On to Independence day…chalk collage

Before the parade I walked over to the hockey rink at the Elementary school to check out the chalk drawing contest entries now that they were complete. Amazing work! The girl who drew Uncle Sam was 14 yrs old! Wow!

And now parade time….

T6 Texans flyover

The annual flyover by a T6 Texan squadron announces the start of the parade.  Then we have another good 30 minutes before the parade reaches our seats. That’s ok…we sit with a group of about 55 people in a friends back yard along the parade route. Can’t beat that!

It was a hot and steamy day…my drink of choice…

corona

Ok I didn’t get that fancy that day…I had to take one for the team yesterday for dramatic effect on the post. *grin*

After the sticky day it was time for a dip in the neighbors pool.

pool party

And then some fireworks…

fireworks

We are back to a normal schedule I think. Errands, hopefully knitting and visiting my T friends are on the list for today.

What are you doing?

New year…new word.

FOCUS

Last year I used Balance as my word of the year.  I feel I achieved Balance in some areas but others completely toppled over to one side.

That is why I’ve selected Focus as my word of the year.  I want to Focus on the important things. Focus is necessary for success; reaching that goal. No matter what that goal may be. It’s different for all of us.

reindeer

Today we have a special edition of T stands for Tuesday. Not only is it Earth Day, it is our hostesses birthday….or bEARTHday as she is fond of saying.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Since it’s Earth Day, I thought I’d give you a little overview of my day and what I do to leave a little smaller footprint.reuseI make my grocery lists on junk mail envelopes if I’m bringing coupons to the store. I’ve lost enough using just a paperclip in the past. Originally when I started using envelopes I used new ones…one day while throwing out junk mail about 17 years ago it dawned on me…I should just use those. Duh!

I’ll be combining my errands today to save on gas. I have 4 places to go all around our bustling little town.

One of those stops will be Goodwill. We were fortunate enough to get a couple bags of hand-me-downs from a friend again. Just in time too since the weather is changing and both kids out grew most of their summer items. donationsAnything that is too worn, stained or holey gets torn up for rags around the house. I wash the standard cleaning job rags but the ones used for the nasty jobs…I just throw away. I figure I got one more use out of that sock with a hole so it’s all good.

In our continuing effort to shop local we signed up for a 1/2 share CSA (community supported agriculture) for the summer. We’ll also be getting an egg share from the same farmer. Soon our freezer will once again be filled with butcher wrapped cuts of meat from the  1/4 of beef for the year. Our neighbors go in on buying a whole cow so it keeps the price lower…the processor is only 20 min from here.

I’ve written several other posts over the years with tips and tricks to help leave a smaller footprint. We can all do our part…no matter how small…it all helps.

Happy Earth Day everyone!!

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