Preparations

It's cookie baking time again and I have yet to really start. I made my annual batch of gingersnaps, full of candied ginger as well as a good bit of the powdered variety. You really have to love the taste of ginger to appreciate these cookies, and I do! I do! Gingersnaps are about my favorite cookie, although I rarely turn my nose up at any cookie (except hot chocolate chips----can't stand 'em). This years batch of gingies are pretty potent, just the way I like them. I have finally realized that I love them for not only the taste and the crunch but because my adored Grandma Jennie loved ginger in any and all forms. She was also a big fan of a crunchy gingersnap and liked to dunk hers in a cup of tea. Me, too!

I was standing at the kitchen counter yesterday afternoon, rolling little bits of dough into balls and then rolling them in sugar when the memory of baking gingersnaps with Grandma in the kitchen of the house on M Street came flooding back. There was a table in the kitchen and we would sit there with the cookie tray between us and the big bowl of dough where we could both get at it. I had to stand on my chair to be able to reach that far across the table....I must have been, oh, nine? And we each had a cup of tea....and it was warm and cozy and Grandma would be telling me about her friends Pearl and Ruby and what had happened at the garden club meeting on Wednesday. For a tiny bit of time I was nine again, in the kitchen with Grandma, and it was grand. I still miss her.

Last Sunday in the Joggles newsletter Barb had a tutorial on making ornaments with clear glass ornaments, pure pigments and powdered mica. They were stunning. I sat right there at the computer and put in an order to get what I needed to make some of my own. Well, yesterday the supplies arrived and I've been happily making ornaments (and a HUGE mess----those pigments fly all over!) of my own. I really enjoy the process and am amazed at how differently each one turns out. You never quite know what the end result will be and I think that's the part I enjoy the most. It reminds me of making marbled paper. I still have more clear glass waiting to be filled and transformed into something amazing and I hope to sit down tomorrow afternoon and finish them off. I need to clean up my mess before I get more pigments scattered all over the room. I wouldn't call making these beauties art, but it sure is fun! (And messy!)

I was reading Lesley Riley's blog, Art Heart, this evening and she had this You Tube video on her post. It's lovely and I think some of you might enjoy it as much as I did.