Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Ours was packed with family, fun and a few dramatic moments. Mr. Henry was out of the country for the first 2 weeks of December and upon returning he came down with a bit of cold which after an innocent cough turned into a total back spasm and he was down for the count.
I scratched my crafting plans (boo hoo), but made plans to forge ahead with cooking our full English Christmas dinner – Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Gravy (mmm gravy), Scalloped Potatoes, Wine Glazed Shallots & Green Beans and finally creme brulee.
Our oven is very old – 1940’s kind of old, so I was a bit worried about it retaining the heat that I needed and the fact that it is SMALL. I did all the prep the night before (forgetting that sliced potatoes turn a not so lovely shade of grey once peeled and sliced) and was ready to rock n’roll Christmas afternoon.
The dinner turned out surprisingly super yummy – the most important pieces (roast beast, yorkshire pudding & gravy) all turned out great. The accompanimens were also delicious, including the scalloped potatoes (I covered them with lots of cheese to hide the strange color;) The only loss of the day was the creme brulee. I somehow managed to forget exactly how much whipping creme I needed and my attempt to substitute some half and half did not work at all. Oh well, we were quite full after our feast anyway.
New Year’s Eve we celebrated with just a couple of friends playing a board game and Wii and drinking our fill of champagne.
We still have yet to take down our holiday decorations (Mr. Henry’s back still isn’t in great working order) and I am feeling a bit anxious to start the new year off a little more organized than it is panning out. I dream all the time of taking a week off to just clean and organize the house. I imagine being one of those people who can just throw away all the extra ‘junk’. The problem is that every little piece of ‘junk’ is a possible craft project and so I want to hold onto it “just in case”. But, I can do it, I….can….do….it, I can throw away all sorts of extra stuff and just totally clean my life up. Oooh, to start the new year off like that just sounds divine. That’s it, I’m gonna do it…off to request the time off work now, wish me lots of luck!
