Why am I showing you a photo of all* the dottery in my house? Because at the end of this month, I’m teaching a dottery-painting class at the local pottery-painting studio where I’m a regular! If you’re a DC/SoMD local and are interested, leave me a comment and I can email you the info. I’ve been painting at this place for years—it’s the same place where I painted when we lived in Maryland—and I’m excited to teach a class. I think it’s gonna be fun!

*Except for a bread tray, a veggies-and-dip tray, and a large serving bowl. And maybe a Christmas ornament or two. Basically this is all the dottery that was within easy reach in the cupboards.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR from bethany actually’s Flickr photoset farewell fiesta.

Brenda and Toby hosted a last-minute Mexican-themed going-away potluck for us this past weekend, and it was completely fun. I’m not going into detail describing it, because most of what I’d say would probably be pretty boring, and I think the photos above give a good idea of what it was like. Also, Brenda wrote a wonderful post about the party that makes me smile and tear up a little each time I read it, and there’s no way I could top that, so I’m just gonna send you over there to read her post. Before you click over, I’ll just say this: we have awesome friends here in California, and we’re going to miss them a lot. Thanks, you guys!

Annalie and I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. I was awake before Annalie for once, but I stayed in bed where it was warm, listening to the rain. It wasn’t long before Annalie woke up. She immediately hopped out from under the covers to stand on the bed and peer out the window, then turned to me, all excited. “Mom! It’s raining! Can I go outside and play?”

Whaaaat? What do you mean, it’s not everyone’s first impulse to go outside at 8am and play in the rain in their pajamas? This does not compute.

I know some people despise rain. They dread days without sunshine. All I can say is, I sympathize but I don’t really understand. I love rain. I have done for as long as I can remember. Days when I wake up to rain are just about the only days when I’m happy to get up early. When Troy is home he normally lets me sleep in on Saturdays but if it’s a rainy morning he wakes me up, because he knows I won’t want to miss the rain. I’ll go to the kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and then position myself near a (preferably open) window so I can watch and hear the rain.

Rain is my happy weather. It’s next to impossible for me to be in a bad mood when it’s raining.

Annalie loves rain too. I have many, many photos of her playing in the rain, jumping in puddles, holding an umbrella, even drawing with sidewalk chalk in the rain. Rain is fun! Not to mention the cup of hot chocolate she knows she’ll get when she goes inside.

Rainy days are also good for baking. Today I cranked up some Christmas music and got a whole bunch of my Christmas baking done, which means in the next day or two I’ll be getting a whole bunch of Christmas mailing done. And I only ate a half-dozen or so of the World’s Best Apricot Cookies. Maybe a few more than that.

Unfortunately I had to refrain from eating these pretzel pralines. They’re all going into gift packages soon. I only ate a couple of pieces to make sure they were good. Maybe three or four. You should make some and eat more, though, because they’re quite tasty!

Pretzel Pralines
based on Ideas in Food’s Pretzel Pralines (via Brownie Points)

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp. kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
• 4 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 6 cups of sourdough pretzel nuggets (or broken-up pieces of sourdough pretzels)

Butter a large cookie sheet well and set it aside on a heatproof surface. (Note: Don’t do what I did and assume that you can just line a pan with waxed paper, because the waxed paper will stick to the bottom of the caramel-coated pretzels and you’ll waste a good 15 minutes peeling all the bits of paper off the candy at the end.)

In a large stockpot, begin melting the butter over medium heat. Combine the salt and sugar, then add to the melting butter. Add the vanilla. Stir constantly, watching carefully, over medium heat with a wooden spoon.

After a couple of minutes, the sugar mixture will begin to melt and the sugar will caramelize. Once the mixture is smooth and no longer grainy, add the pretzels and quickly stir to coat the pieces evenly. If you leave the pot on the heat too long the sugar will burn, but if you remove it from the heat the mixture will quickly harden and it’ll be nearly impossible to stir, as I learned the hard way. So keep it on the burner but work quickly.

Once the pieces are all coated, dump the caramel-covered pretzel pieces out onto the buttered cookie sheet. Using the spoon, quickly spread the pieces out in a single layer. They’ll cool fast. If you want, you could drizzle a little melted dark or white chocolate over the cookie sheet at this point. Then you can break them up into bite-size pieces and package them to give away as gifts.

Or you can keep them all for yourself. I won’t tell.

Today was a good day. Annalie and I hung out at home in our jammies most of the morning. We had peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, Annalie spent almost an hour telling me an elaborate story about how she was born in Mexico but her parents couldn’t take care of her so she had to live at a children’s helping place and then we adopted her, but not before her abuela taught her how to cook a soup with carrots…only they aren’t really carrots, they’re yellow onions and they have to be cut up very small. That last part she told me while she was using a paring knife to chop up five or six baby carrots into 1/4-inch pieces, which she then put in a bowl and snacked on while she watched The Electric Company.

We ran some errands, including the pottery studio, where I was just going to pick up a couple of mugs to paint later. But while we were there, Annalie said she wanted to paint something. Usually I’m lucky if she’ll paint for ten minutes, and then I’ll try to distract her with snacks for another half-hour before giving up and coming back another day to finish my project. Today I was able to almost finish both mugs (and would have completely finished them except I didn’t have information I needed to write something on the bottom of the mugs). Annalie knew exactly what she wanted to do, and spent 45 minutes painting one thing, then almost as long painting a second item. I offered to wrap my mugs up and take her home when she was done, but she said, “No, that’s okay. I’ll color with markers till you’re done.” And that was on top of earlier today when she was going downstairs for some reason, and she turned back and said, “Can I get you a snack while I’m downstairs? Or a Diet Coke maybe?”

As some commenters noted on my last post, 5 1/2 is just one of those ages where there’s a lot of questioning and challenging going on with most kids. And Annalie certainly does miss her daddy. We talk about Troy all the time and pray for him every night. We take a photo for him every day, and she’s always drawing him pictures or typing him emails. Goodness knows that when I am having a bad day, I’m often thinking Waaah, I want Troy! so it makes perfect sense that she’d be thinking the same thing when she’s having a bad day.

I’m sure we’ll have plenty more time-outs and talks about anger and not letting your temper get the better of you, but for now things are back to normal. Maybe even a little better than normal.

*Troy asked me what the title of this post meant, since it seemed like the day I wrote about had been a pretty good day. It’s actually a line of the song “Bad Day” from Barenaked Ladies’ album SNACKTIME!, the one they wrote with kids in mind. You can find the lyrics and play the song here.

The fabulous Isabel of Alpha+Mom read that Brenda and I took the kids to paint pottery last weekend and graciously asked if she could feature that idea and some of my photos in a column on their site. Of course I said yes: Visit a Pottery Studio and Paint Dottery.

Remember the Pay It Forward blog meme that I did back in 2007? It only took me TEN MONTHS to actually send the gifts out. I’m going to do it again, thanks to Jummy, and this time I hope to send the gifts out in a much more timely manner.

How it works:

1. Be one of the first 3 people with a blog (or Flickr or Twitter or Facebook account) to leave a comment on this post, and I will send you a handmade gift within 365 days!
2. You then need to post the Pay It Forward challenge on your own blog and make a gift also for your first 3 commenters and so on it goes.

I am willing to ship my gifts anywhere in the world, so everyone is eligible to participate regardless of what country you are blogging from! Just please make sure you leave a valid e-mail address so I can contact you for shipping information. The gift can be in any price range you like and you have 365 days to post it.

So, are you in? Leave a comment!

Although in looking for a link just now I learned that it’s considered unlucky to leave Christmas decorations up past Twelfth Night. Great. All our decorations are still up! Even my blog banner is still decorated for the holidays. Oh well, I still have to mail a few more packages containing Christmas gifts too.

But all our cards are mailed! Whew.

Anyone else still checking stuff off that Christmas to-do list?

We flew back home today. We didn’t fly home in the airplane pictured; that is a coin bank painted by my friend Sarah’s son when we were in Dallas two weekends ago. I have not downloaded the newest photos from my camera yet, it’s late and I’m tired. I figured a photo of an airplane bank was close enough.

We had a great vacation and got to see so many people, but it’s nice to be back home…especially so because my cat-sitter extraordinaire unpacked the rest of the boxes for us while we were gone!!!

Photo by SAJ

Brenda not only unpacked boxes and organized closets, she hung art on the walls and arranged photos on the piano and created an art studio for Annalie in the laundry corner of the garage. Then she vacuumed the carpets and mopped the kitchen! This was full-service cat-sitting, let me tell you. And the best part is that I don’t have to feel guilty about the fact that someone else did all that work for us. Brenda did it because she was having fun.

I can understand that, even though unpacking boxes and organizing stuff is NOT my idea of a good time. But making fun birthday cakes from scratch is something that I love to do. I am already excited to make a tall green birthday cake for Bug in a few months, and I know Brenda is relieved that she doesn’t have to do it herself. We figure over the years of friendship we’ll give and take and it’ll all even out in the end.

That, and I owe her a couple of lattes.

Guys, I’m so excited!!! You all know I love painting pottery, right? Well, I also love giving things away and helping out with a good cause. And now, thanks to my friend Jill, I get to do all three at the same time.

Jill is currently in training for her second marathon. She’s doing this one with Team in Training and has committed to raise $3500 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She’s more than halfway to her fundraising goal, and I am hoping I can help her get closer…by doing a fundraising drawing for a piece of pottery, custom-painted by me!

Despite my recent spate of Dottery (that’s dotted pottery—thanks, Sonja!) I am actually capable of painting in a wide variety of styles and techniques. See?

(Okay, some of these pieces are Annalie’s, but you get the idea.)

To win a custom-painted Bethany Actually original, all you have to do is make a $1 donation, kinda like buying a raffle ticket. Make a bigger donation to improve your chances: donate $5, get five “tickets,” donate $10, get twelve “tickets,” etc. The more you donate, the better your odds of winning!

I am really hoping this will get Jill closer to her goal, or—dare I dream—even match or exceed her goal! So please go donate, and spread the word! If you post this on your own blog, leave a comment for Jill so she knows about your link and you’ll score an extra “ticket.”

For more details on how to donate and win your custom-painted piece of pottery, go to Jill’s running blog!

UPDATE: Great news, Jill has had $200 in donations so far! Thanks to all who’ve donated! The rest of you have till October 10th to get your donations in. Go to JillWillRun.com to donate!