switching gears

Over the last few years, our family has done "handmade holidays". Here are the guidelines:

• make the gift yourself (could be a cd of your singing voice, a photograph you took, something you knit, sewed, baked etc).
• buy the gift from a local artisan...perhaps a friend, or at a street fair, (having a conversation with the artisan is part of the deal) or maybe at a farmer's market.
• give a book or supplies that the recipient could use in crafty endeavors.

We also try to do minimal or clever gift wrapping that doesn't waste paper. Holiday movies that we watch year after year? Beware, it's a smaltzy bunch...

• Robin Hood, the animated version.
• The Holiday
• Love Actually
• Little Women, this version It's where I got my "Marmie" name from. :-)

And in a few weeks, I'll pull out Rosamund Pilcher's Winter Solstice.

We have yet to celebrate Thanksgiving, the very best holiday of all...but I've been busy in my sewing room/studio and it's FUN! And Sarah, over at greenclogs had a very nice post this morning that got me thinking...

Today, I'm making a big batch of granola and bread with pumpkins from the gardens at "a bit of earth". Hannah is still sound asleep in her cozy bed, after arriving safely home late last night. 

What are you up to on this Saturday morning?

P.S. Due to a change of heart, I am finishing up my AEDM project about a week early.  I appreciate Leah's hard work with this project, and want to thank her for her efforts.