Busy, busy, busy… are you feeling that too? When I saw this picture (sigh) my to do list disappeared for a moment. What a beautiful day out in the Swiss Alps enjoying the winter snow, sunshine, blue sky and the beautiful scenery. A little wishful thinking, nothing more or less.
Miette is French for “crumb”. Miette for me also means a bakery shop of fine pastries, cakes, desserts and sweets. In 2001, Meg Ray began selling layered cakes under a pink tent at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. Her business grew and in 2003, she opened her first bakery shop in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. There are now four Miette bakery shops in California located at the Ferry Building, Hayes Valley, Jack London Square, and Marin Country Mart. Below are beautiful pictures taken of the bakery shop at the Marin Country Mart by Neely Wang {photography+design} .
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For the past year, I have been enjoying & baking recipes from Meg Ray’s cookbook, Miette . This book is filled with recipes for cakes, tarts, cookies, homemade marshmallows and fleur de sel carmels.
It’s the start of the advent calendar time! This advent calendar is just as lovely today as it was when The White Company featured it in the 2010 Christmas season. Beyond being a”pretty” display at Christmas time, how, what and why was this tradition started? My lovely friend Sherry recently explained it on her website, Kains on the Creek. Please go and check it out {here}.
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Every year my kids have looked forward to counting down to Christmas day since their little fingers could grab an ornament and hang it on the Christmas tree. Hannah, my oldest at 15 and Grace at 12 are still enjoying their advent calendars. Over the years the sign of wear and tear has become obvious and a little more care and patching up are needed. I’m still in search of one more for my son. The last time I saw the Christmas tree advent calendar was on Ebay and the bidding price was over $300! I will wait and hope to find it somewhere else for a lower price (thinking … $10 – $20). I don’t think my son is all that concerned about it as I am. He’s quite content with his “three” Lego advent calendars. Having traditions, family time and discovering the meanings to Christmas traditions with our kids are precious. Thank you Sherry for your insight into the history about the advent calendar.
Here is Hannah’s well used and loved Advent calendar
Twine is a simple string and quite versatile. I always have some on hand for projects year round. Here are a few ideas and uses for twine in neutral / natural colors.
Cutting down a Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving has been a tradition for us since our kids were little. It’s a fun time to be together as a family and we always look forward to it every year. A week before that, we had some of the big pine and cedar trees (6) taken down on our property. It was amazing to watch the crew members climb the trees and cut it down section by section. To put it in perspective, in the time it took us to drive to the Christmas tree farm, find a tree, cut it down, and bring it home, they would have finished most of the work and began the clean-up. They made the whole process look effortless on a rainy and cold day. Here are a few pictures from that day.