We have a winner! (Actually, we have five winners, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it as “we have a winner!”) I used random.org’s integer generator to generate five numbers. The first three will win vanilla, the fourth will get the plate, and the $15 gift card to either Starbucks, Target or iTunes goes to the fifth commenter. Everyone got that? Okay.

The winners of the vanilla are:

• 46 – Aileen
• 23 – mamalang
• 27 – Carole

The winner of the dessert plate is #43, Kandi.

The winner of the $15 gift card is #42, Sam of Sunday School Rebel. This last one makes me extra happy because 42 is, of course, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Congratulations, winners! Email me your address (and which gift card you want, if you’re Sam) and I’ll get your prizes mailed out to you as soon as I can.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Last week we had a vanilla-making party. The whole thing was Sonja’s idea, and Brenda, Sue, Heather, Jen and Bonnie all quickly agreed it was a brilliant one.

Plans were made, vanilla beans and bottles and vodka were procured, everyone was looking forward to the party. Yay!

Then something sad happened: Sonja got sick, and she couldn’t make the drive down for the vanilla party. We were all bummed she couldn’t be there, but we decided to go ahead with the vanilla-making. Because it had taken approximately two weeks and 78 emails back and forth between everyone to figure out one day when we were all free, we thought if we postponed the party would likely never happen at all.

If the party had never happened that would have been sadder still, because it was a fun day. Annalie wasn’t interested in making vanilla again (she’s made it before) and Bonnie’s son E preferred to chase the cats and play outside. But the rest of the moms and kids were really into it. Bug and Audrey and M and even 2-year-old Molly all stuffed beans into bottles and took turns pouring vodka from a measuring cup into a funnel.

Bug especially enjoyed holding the beans to her nose and sniffing “the yummy, yummy vanilla!” The rest of us enjoyed her cute vanilla-caviar mustache.

Altogether I think we made more than 60 bottles of vanilla extract that day. Since we bought everything in bulk, each 4-ounce bottle cost less than $2.50, which is about one-third what a similar bottle would have cost at the grocery store.

Even though we started out with 5.25 liters of vodka we ran out before we were done. So I grabbed a bottle of rum that had been languishing in our cupboard and used that for a few bottles of extract. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s much of a difference in taste.

M was quite proud of the fact that she did all these bottles by herself. She was a vanilla-making champ. Molly wandered off at some point and jumped on the futon with a yellow balloon. She is a futon-jumping champ.

And these three transformed into kittens with a few strokes of a washable marker. They spent quite a while crawling around on all fours and meowing.

Brenda did some stealthy crafting while the rest of us finished up the vanilla. She’s had wreaths on the brain for a while now.

Basically, a good time was had by all. Except when we were missing Sonja and Noah, and wishing they were there. Thanks for the idea, though, Sonja…consider yourself permanently invited to any and all parties at my house in the future. Especially on January 10th!

Today, as you might know, was Thanksgiving in the U.S. We had a fabulous feast at our house with Brenda and Toby and Bug, and Brenda’s parents Sue and Tom. It was extremely kind of them to come to our house and share the day with us, distracting us from the fact that we really miss Troy and wish he had been here too. When we counted our blessings today—along with the arrival of my newborn niece, the beautiful weather, the upcoming 3rd season of Chuck, the many times this past week we’ve been able to Skype with Troy—we counted each and every one of our friends who have made this long deployment of Troy’s so much easier to bear. Thanks, you guys! You know who you are. I hope you know how much we love and appreciate you!

I am so thankful for all the amazing people the internet has brought into my life. I am thankful that email and this blog have allowed me to maintain friendships that otherwise might have faded away. In honor of that gratitude, I’m going to give some stuff away! If you comment on this post before December 1st, 2009, you will be entered in a drawing for one of five prizes: three bottles of homemade vanilla extract, this plate, or a $15 gift card to the winner’s choice of Starbucks, Target, or iTunes.

Have a great rest-of-the-weekend, everyone! What are some things you are thankful for?

Comments are now closed. Winners will be selected and announced soon!

There are some really nice people on the internet. Kimberly from Tokyo Pen Shop saw that I mentioned buying pens from them in my last post, and she also saw my friend Bekah’s comment that she would love to try the pens but wasn’t that keen on paying shipping, and left a comment herself with a free shipping code for my readers! So now’s your chance, if you want to try the pens I mentioned (or you want to buy a Christmas gift for the pen-lover in your life) just enter the code ACTUALLYFREESHIPPING when you check out. The code expires November 14th, 2009.

On behalf of me and my readers, thanks, Kimberly!