I've been busy

In addition to work, handling things with Kacie (which, I may have made some serious progress, more later) and whining (see my last two posts), I've also been crazy busy making stuff.


Cookies.
Thanks to Kerri, there's been a steady supply of flour on my counters. And, I love it. Making cookies is really fun and these turn out fab every time (if I do say so myself).
These were made last night.

And these were a week ago.

And if you want the recipes I use, cookies are here, icing here. (sub out some of the vanilla extract for almond.)

Crocheting:
Um, I've apparently turned into a 90 year-old woman who can't put the yarn and hooks down. My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was 12 or so. We spent the summer with her and I made several barbie dresses and never touched it since.
Until about a month ago. I wanted a new scarf, so I bought yarn and made it. Since then I've made scarves for myself and Kacie and 2 beanies for Brad.
My friend Scotty whose wife gave birth to a 1.5 pound baby 2 years ago has jumped into supporting the NICU at Baptist and sent out a message asking for items to be donated for gift baskets for families who have a baby in the NICU for Christmas. I volunteered to make hats.
And I've gone crazy with it. They're so small that I can usually make about 3 per night while watching TV. I've made somewhere around 20. I have lost count.

Here are just a few of the first ones:

The smallest one is about 8 inches around (think the top of a coffee cup). The largest is twice that at 16 inches. I plan on making around 50 and then harassing you guys with photos of the teeny tiny cuteness.

Crown molding:
OK, we're finally going to crown the living room/kitchen area. We can miter a corner, but the length isn't always, you know, correct. So we decided that the easiest thing for us would be to use corner boxes. Except that the molding we bought is 5 1/4 inch so we need the big boxes. And those cost more, so we decided to build our own.
It kind of went OK. We finished building 12 corner blocks, but it took a bit longer than we expected. This weekend, we hang it all up. (And I harass you with a step-by-step tutorial and bad photos like the one below.)

So, what's keeping you busy right now? Also, Christmas? You should go ahead and expect something crocheted or baked.
It's just going to happen.