What A Weekend

This was a crazy productive weekend.

Friday night we had band practice, and I've been working on a new part which is pretty intense bow-action-wise, and challenging, and fun. (that becomes more relevant in a few minutes).

Saturday I went out and did some final Christmas shopping, getting not only everything I hoped to find, but finding things that were even better than I hoped! That was nice. I also washed the truck (it was hideous after the recent snows and salt-laden roads), so that made me feel a lot better.

Later Saturday afternoon and evening, I baked cookies - peanut butter cut-outs and jam thumbprints.

Today, I made three of my clay snowman ornaments for my co-workers.


I originally made one of these for myself, but everyone who has seen mine liked it (I already have an offer to sell one), so I made these, but they're still kind of prototypes. Hopefully in time I'll perfect the design.

I spent a few hours working on a present I'm making for someone, too, but I can't talk about that here because, obviously, it's a surprise.

I also baked more cookies (chocolate with peanut butter chips) and decorated some of the peanut butter ones for work.

And oh my God, I made a pan of the world's best fudge. This was my mom's recipe, and I always said my mom's fudge was the best in the world - it wasn't just because she was my mom, I really never have had fudge as good as hers - but I could never duplicate it (even though I was using the same recipe). Hers was so creamy that it just - quite literally - melted in your mouth. Mine tasted just as good, but was always too hard, like it would actually crumble.

Tonight I figured out what I'd been doing wrong all these years. Her hand-written recipe said "2/3 cup (small can) Carnation Evaporated milk." Well, every time I went to buy this, they only had one size can, so I figured that was the 'small can,' and would always use the entire can.

Tonight I decided to make a double batch, as the single batch is always just too small, so I actually decided to measure the evaporated milk. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the one can was actually double what the recipe called for. So all these years I'd been putting in twice as much evaporated milk as it was supposed to have. I'm surprised it didn't make it runny and unable to set up, instead of too hard and crumbly.

This time, using the proper amount, I made the perfect fudge. I'll be in a sugar coma within 48 hours.

But back to the fiddle thing - my right hand is in such excruciating pain I can barely move it. Typing does hurt, but not as bad because I don't have to move it much to do that. But opening and closing it, or trying to pick anything up, is kind of impossible. It was a combination of the fiddle playing Friday night, working with the clay today (conditioning new clay is labor intensive and hard on the hands, and forming the pieces, smoothing, shaping, etc. just added to the mix), and probably washing the truck (manipulating that spray wand at high pressure, in the freezing cold) and cookie making as well (holding a hand-held mixer, stirring things with a spoon, rolling the batch of jam thumbprint cookies into little balls, etc. etc.).

Basically, I beat the hell out of my hand this weekend, and I desperately wish I had a paraffin dip bath. I do have some paraffin ... somewhere ... I suppose I could melt it in a double boiler (i.e., in a tin can in a pan of water) and pour it on ... something to consider.

But, it really was a great weekend. Now I just have to work up the energy to go clean up the kitchen from the last batch of cookie decorating and fudge making, clean up the upstairs from the crafting today, and turn off the lights, and settle myself in downstairs with some rum. Mmmm.

This week I have to take my truck in to my mechanic because it's giving me grief, which is a pain in the ass, because he wants to keep it all day, which means finagling around getting it there, getting to work, and getting it back again. And I have to wrap all my presents and finish decorating cookies.

But, I'm in a good Christmassy mood this year, and it's a holiday week - my favorite time of the entire holiday season is the week leading up to Christmas. And, it's a full-moon winter solstice tomorrow!

So I'm looking forward to a good week.