Clearing the Decks instead of Decking the Halls

Every year I take a photo of the tree before I take it down.This is 2010's photo.

This is going to be a short post as I am in my annual "clearing the decks" before New Years. I clean, sort, put stuff away, update my files and eat leftovers. I find clearing out a year's accumulation of all sorts of stuff leaves space for the creative ideas to flood in! Plus, it's a good way to review the year to set the intentions of next year. Now, if I could just find the two missing "stocking stuffer" gifts to give New Year's...

Do you "clear the decks" before New Year's? Or do you wait until New Year's itself?

Merry Christmas from Puck the Puppy!

A Video Christmas Card, my first!

Here's hoping that all my friends out there in the net world have a fabulous and fantastic holiday! Everyone relax and enjoy and take a well-deserved break. I'll be baking a virtual pie for everyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A recipe request

Every Christmas season, I try new recipes. I find it keeps me in the creative mode. This one has been a hit.

Gingerbread Spiced cookies:
2 cups white flour
2 generous tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger
1/2 tbsp cloves
1 tbsp vanilla
3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg or egg substitute
1/4 cup molasses
sugar in a bowl to roll cookies

Sift together dry ingredients. Beat butter and sugar until combined and add egg and molasses and beat until mixed well. Beat in dry ingredients. Roll dough into 1" balls and roll in sugar. Place on cookie sheets and press slightly. Bake at 350 degrees 10-12 minutes or until lightly brown around edges.

Like many of my recipes, you can play a little with this one. Try adding chopped nuts. Or a couple of different spices, allspice or cardamom perhaps? This is also good filled with whipped cream and frozen or vanilla ice cream. Or come up with your own version! Create!

Tis the Season...

He's stalking me.

 ...to be overwhelmed. Isn't it? This year has been particularly frantic and frenetic. First, at the start of the month, we traveled to Texas for my niece's college graduation, which was fantastic, but took the first week of December away, so I started out behind. Second, two short stories of mine were published end of November/beginning of December from two different publishers, one in the anthology Dreamspell Nightmares and my story Changing Woman Ways. I've got another story coming out in another anthology soon, plus an article.This means I need to be promoting my new and soon-to-be releases and self promotion is so hard for me! Hmm...perhaps it is for every writer--and a subject for a separate post.

Is there anyone out there in blog land not struggling with the season?Of course, the entire world doesn't have the overkill (and I do mean "kill") of Christmas that we do here in the States... but many people do celebrate the season. How do you still write, create, survive? And perhaps even enjoy?

On a completely different note: I've had a few requests about how to add the "Share" buttons at the bottoms of my posts--I haven't answered these requests because I can't remember! I was ditzing around and fell upon the way to do this by accident and the buttons showed up! Can anybody out there help?