J'Adore

I love Quebec...and what a difference just 60 days can make. The photo on the top I took in October. The one on the bottom someone sent me---taken recently.

Merry Christmas!

ho ho hOCD Christmas

I just found my favorite OCD Christmas Carol here. The words? Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells jingle......

I have previously posted about my OCD tendencies and my little quirks about list making and other "rules I must live by". I give myself no break at Christmas. Want a rule for gift wrapping? Have I got a few for you: 1. Christmas wrapping must all match or be the same. This can vary by group. For instance, all gifts to colleagues must be the same paper or theme but all gifts to family can be wrapped different but must be all wrapped alike. Got it? 2. All gifts to children that still believe in Santa (OK, I DO still believe in the magic of Santa) must have their gifts wrapped in paper that depicts Santa. 3. Try to lighten up next year.

Now where was I? oh yes, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells...to be continued

Two Swans-A-Swimming

A big shopping district near my house has several connecting lakes on the property. Instead of the usual ducks, they have stocked the lakes with pairs of swans. These two are probably "married" and while swans do mate for life, I understand divorce sometimes does occur between swans, especially after nest failure.

I am betting that's Mr. on the left and he has heard enough about "nest failure".

Ready to Wear Water

Evian water does a special holiday bottle every year designed by someone notable. This year, fashion icon Christian Lacroix created the "Pret-a-Porter" look. Very pretty lace. Although I am not sure what coppiced lace means, I like it.

You can order a bottle (or a case) from the Evian website for $13.95 per bottle. Plus shipping.

Or you can pick one up from Target for $3.99.

One more reason I heart Target.

Over the River

This has got to be the most beautiful version of Joni Mitchell's great song "River". Ever. I guess it took another Canadian like Sarah to pull it off.

Do you ever wish you had a river you could skate away on? Oh, I do.

Enjoy.

TWD: Linzer Sables

A quick TWD post before I head to the airport for Tulsa. This week's Linzer Sables were....interesting. I am not sure what I did wrong, but the entire batch only produced 4 filled sandwich cookies and they were very hard, gritty, brittle and tasted like a dental preparation. I think I overdid the cloves and the cookies tasted like Anbesol. I also may have rolled the dough too thick as a lot of TWD bakers commented that the 1/4" that Dorie's recipe called for was too thick. I used a pretty snowflake cookie cutter and dusted with powdered sugar. Had I been succesful baking these cookies, they would have/should have been beautiful and tasty. They were neither.

Oh well, the raspberry jam was good!