Tea, cookies and quilting

Amazingly so, but I was up at 5:39 this morning, making Christmas cookies. Yup. Work is having a bake-off today and this is my entry: kringle. (Pronounced kring-lah)

It's a simple sour cream tea cookie, kind of like the Stella Dora "s" cookies. I will put the recipe in a bit.

Next, I took a quilting class on Saturday: tea leaves with Michelle Poor, the pattern designer. It was my first class with an actual designer and it was fun to hear how the pattern evolved. (She liked cathedral windows but didn't like the fussiness of the pattern). It is not too bad for my first attempt. This simple table topper took 4 hours, start to finish.

Knitting tomorrow.

I'm back, baby...I'm back.

Moving On Up

Ten on Tuesday is what it's going to take to get me back in the blogging world? I guess so. 

My top 10 tips for moving:

1. only one person per room. I'm serious. One person packs one room. 

2. Label boxes how YOU need to remember them. Our last move, the boxes had random words and "hello my name is..." stickers on them. The stickers said "kitchen, bath,etc" and the other writing was the contents.

3. Hire movers. I don't think you need to hire someone to pack, but someone to move... yes! Moving is stressful enough without worrying about whether you should go down the stairs forward or backward when moving the dresser. Let the pros do it.

4. Invite your best friend/sister-in-law/mom... anyone who knows you the way only they can know you (and not be sleeping with you). Have them be at the "next house" to receive the moving stuff and be the cleaner of new place. My bff, Sylvie spent an entire morning in my new apartment, cleaning floors and wiping down the bathroom. B/c honestly, who wants to clean the house when you move in?

5. take pictures. Of the old place, the new place. We're renters (and proud of it!), so we do the whole digital camera with the time/date stamp on to document any moving company snafus, new apartment issues, etc. It's easier when you have proof that you didn't crack the bathroom tile, when it comes to security deposits.

6. Start early. I was out of work the last time we moved, so I took 3 full weeks of packing every day, for about 2 hours per day while PC was at work. 

7. Sort and toss. We threw out 38 bags of garbage from our old apartment when we moved. And donated 50 boxes of crap--- kitchen, clothes, dishes, knick-knacks.

8. Have someone watch the pets. Moving is stressful and Pumpkin would have never survived a day with open doors, new houses, strangers and MOVING... so we had PC's folks take her for two days and they brought her to our new house the day we moved in.

9. Know the local pizza/take out # for the night you move in... we were lucky, my mom and dad came over and brought us (and our friends) pizza and beer. 

10. split the work: PC cleaned at our old place while I organized the move at the new place. then we switched the following day.