Sunday Salon ~ December 14th, 2008

Happy Sunday!  I hope you are having a lovely weekend.  The holiday season is in full swing now and though I don’t get to go to American malls this year, the memories of our home visit last Christmas is still fresh in my head.  Hubby and I were at the mall every day, fighting for parking spots, walking the halls of Tyson’s Corner Mall, Montgomery Mall and Fair Oaks Mall in the D.C. area with thousands of other shoppers, getting all the presents purchased for each other and our family.  This should be our last Christmas in Okinawa so it was back to on-line shopping for Christmas presents for us and family in the states.  I might keep that up even when we get back to “the real world” because it really is so much easier. 

This weekend was a quiet one for us.  The only excitement was dinner with some of Hubby’s co-workers last night.  It was nice to see people I don’t see on a daily basis and meet some new people as well. 

I can’t say that I’ve done much reading this weekend but this week’s social calendar is pretty empty so I won’t really have an excuse for not finishing Dewey.  Today I did play around with my stamping stuff though.  Somewhere along the line I came across this great blog called Fat Cat Stamper.  This lady’s cards are just gorgeous and I was so inspired that I had to try to make something this afternoon.  All of my stamping stuff is from Stampin’ Up!, so I used the Eastern Blooms and the True Friends stamp set and came up with this:

What are you up to this weekend?  Christmas shopping?  Reading an irresistible book?  Working on some crafts too?  I would love to hear about it.

All I Want For Christmas Is…

My favorite catalogue that we receive in the mail is from Williams~Sonoma.  Hubby and I pour over it, oohing and ah-hing over the products and drooling over the recipes.  This year I have asked Santa/Hubby for the Filled-Pancake Pan and the Cuisinart 9-Speed Hand Mixer in Brushed Chrome from W~S.  Now I have been interested in getting this pancake pan ever since I first saw it in a catalogue earlier this year.  You can fill those little pancakes with just about anything and I hope to be able to make something delicious with the pan for breakfast on Christmas morning.  The hand mixer will be a nice addition to our lovely kitchen of gadgets.  I love my Kitchen-Aid Artisan stand mixer dearly and it really has become a staple in our kitchen, especially around the holidays.  There are just some recipes that I don’t need to use the stand mixer for and have wished I had a hand mixer in the moment. 

When I was home last month, I found myself in many a mall.  Be it Tyson’s Corner Mall or White Flint Mall, I made my way into the Williams~Sonoma store to look at all the items I wish for in the catalogue but can actually touch in the store.  If you were ever feeling generous and were looking for a Christmas present or birthday present (January 1st!) for me, I would gladly accept a gift card from W~S.  😉

What catalogue or store do you find yourself excited by, besides bookstores?  Are you a quilt store/fabric store junkie, a kitchen supply store junky (W~S or Sur La Table), or what? 

Shopping In A Small World

So far our trip is going very well.  The air is crisp, the borrowed in-law’s Lexus is driving very smoothly and the money is being spent.  Visiting with family is lovely and meeting our nephew for the first time (when we moved to Okinawa the brother-in-law was neither married nor a parent) has been very cool.  But you know what, we are in the Washington Metro area and if you are familiar with it you know that there are millions of people here and even more traveling to it for the holidays.  So how is it that I can be at the fourth largest mall in the country, Tyson’s Corner Center, in the L.L. Bean store and run into to girlfriends from Okinawa!!!!!  “It’s a small world after all!”  Yeah!  I ran into a girlfriend I’m on the MOSC board with and a Generals wife who is living in the Northern VA area now with her high ranking officer.  They had just had lunch together and the hubby and I were on our last stop in the mall when I saw them.  CRAZY! 

The excitement is never ending here after living on an island of 69 km in length and 17 km wide at the widest point.  (I’m ready to get back to this area to live any time.)  Unfortunately excitement and a busy schedule have left little room for reading, other than the slew of magazines that the mother-in-law have on the coffee table.  Gourmet, Real Simple, Southern Living, & Cooking Light.  I will say that I love Gourmet Magazine and Ruth Reichl’s Letter From The Editor is a great read. 

Tonight it’s happy hour in D.C. at Morton’s Steakhouse with my former bosses who I have kept up with over the last six years.  They are wonderful and I miss them dearly so it will be a treat to see them.  The jet lag was kicking my ass this week so we actually postponed the meeting from Wed. to Thurs. and I’m glad we did.  I would have been sleeping in my apple martini if it hadn’t been changed and that would have been plain embarrassing. 

So, my update is magazines are easy to pick up, The Pillars of the Earth is up in our room growing lonely, shopping in malls is awesome but traffic isn’t, and I miss the dog terribly.  Hope your week is going well and will be back here on the weekend with another update.