Lovelihood

Starting on the second day of this snow event, I've been working on this little tic-tac-toe mat for The Boy. The board itself, with a pocket sewn into the back to contain the markers, came together easily the first night. The hexagons, I've been shuffling around the house to work on while the kids work through their stir-craziness. I finished off the last marker this morning and handed it off to The Boy, who, appreciative of all things rainbow, went to work devising all-new rules to the age-old game.

I decided to get a little fancy with the marshmallows this year. Which gives me license to make them half the size as previous years' and package them in smaller batches. So there are the peppermint candy-topped ones (which, frankly, came out odd-looking), and then these babies, painted with a bit of melted chocolate and sprinkled with crushed graham crackers. A perfect, no-fuss s'more. www.lovelihood.com

Sweeping up the back deck this afternoon, The Boy came across remnants of warmer days spent outside. The plastic bubble wand, having plastic bottle counterpart months ago, was parched for fuel. And I one-upped the old dishsoap in water trick by adding a jigger of glycerin to the solution to make more stable bubbles. So that's why I keep a gallon of glycerin under the sink.

Party season is well under way at Kindergarten, and the first box of store-bought treats we brought in to keep in his class for the occasions that are normally typified by the serving of buttercream laden cupcakes has been spent. And among the awesome qualities of cakes in a jar is the fact that they keep much longer than one's ability to abstain from them. So, of course, I'll bake up a batch to keep at school. And, of course, I'll bake what's left over into some ramekins to be enjoyed more immediately.

You didn't think I was going to fold a bunch of scrap-paper stars and leave it at that, did you? Although, somewhere in the middle of affixing iron-on interfacing and laying on all the folds with the iron and then stitching the folds to achieve a passably crisp line, I wondered if I shouldn't have just settled with maybe just painting some paper ninja stars a nifty color. What I ended up with, though, are pretty kick-ass, ifIdosaysomyself.

Throughout summer, Sunday had been designated barbecue night, prepared by the Mr. and enjoyed on the back deck. Tonight was decidedly autumnal, and called for the first curry of the season. Like any other well-loved recipe, I could whip this up from muscle memory, sprinkling and dashing in spices and chopped-up components from pure instinct, incorporating recipe revisions made long ago but never formally documented. Today's process and ingredient list have strayed so far from what's listed that to follow the instructions would land me far off track from my intended result. But I rustle up the old recipe card anyway, if only to tally up its preparation with yet another splatter of sauce, another smear of a curry-imprinted thumb.

It's been months of Fridays and naptimes spent in labor over this guy (from this book), who I'm sure will one day be named, but for now just bears The Boy's initial. I finished the top the other day, rushed off the final seam and haphazardly folded it up on my table to get an already late dinner made. It wasn't until today that I laid it out in a proper sandwich and got a good look at the whole thing. And I'm pretty happy about it. What's more important, The Boy is excited about it. I've been told to send it off to be quilted, or to wait until Thanksgiving and toss it onto the Oma's long-arm. But I'm convinced that that phrase "labor of love" was coined by a quilter. And I'm resolved to do it myself. By hand, maybe, like the rest of them.