This post has been so fun to read. I am with a few of you who say you don't have hobbies, you have obsessions...definitely describes me. I have so many interests that I can never do all of them so rotate through them (not intentionally, I just get bored and have to move to the next interest frequently). am usually active in 3-4 of them at a time. I have been told more than once that I was born in the wrong century. Some that have always been with me and I regular go back too: Gardening- all of it. I can't remember any time not having some level of garden from the time I was big enough to walk. I love daylilies, roses, iris, herbs, veggies, hybridizing, flowering shrubs, landscaping, annuals, houseplants, native plants. I helped my parents plant & weed their veggie gardens when I was 3 yr old, helped my mom start her tomatoes & squash in the window, and at 15 taught her to enjoy growing flowers instead of only food. I take breaks from it sometimes cutting back to just a few things for several years and then..wham...I'm in it 10 times more than last time. Knitting, crochet, spinning & dying yarns. another one that has been a lifetimer. My mom taught me to knit when I was 4 and grandmother taught me to crochet at 6. I taught myself how to design my own sweaters and eventually took classes to learn how to spin/dye. Garden Photography- another life long love. I picked up my first camera at age 5 and my first picture was of my dog sitting in front of my bed of nasturtiums. I've been published a few times. Most notable the cover of a book about the history of an island my great-grandparents helped to settle. Scrapbooking- this is an on-again-off-again love. Obsessive when its on. Ditto with all kinds of other arts & crafts. Reading- I love historical fiction, especially by Christian authors. I also love "how too" and research subjects- learning is a passion. Church- Well maybe not a hobby but it leads to some. I've been active in my church even preaching a sermon to two and singing on the worship team. Geneology & historical research. This is really my mom's hobby but I'm her chief backup archivist & research assistant. Tech- well I do this for a living but I explore online communities on my own time. Cooking- this is also a necessity because I have children with food allergies. I bake all our breads, make my own mixes, and cook from scratch a lot. I make a lot of my own recipes. I also can & freeze our fruits & veggies. Outdoors- I love camping, fishing, hiking, travel to new places, exploring nature & manmade wonders, native plants. a lot of these are on hietus while the kids get a little bigger and able to join. In years past I was an expert seamstress, marksman on a rifle team, raised rabbits & ducks, and a number of other things that have not lasted the test of time.

It snowed last night so everything is a blanket of white for Christmas day. I feel a little guilty, but I don't think it is too deep so I'm not going out with the snowblower til tomorrow. I'm the caregiver for my Mom, and it is just the two of us this year. We open presents on Christmas Eve, so we had a lovely night with the house decorated, the fireplace going and the tree all decorated and lit. Then about 11:00 pm as I was settling into bed but not asleep yet, I heard this funny thump and a tinkling. Uh oh, that can't be what it sounded like! Sure enough, go out to the living room and the tree had fallen over. Didn't fall out of it's stand, just tipped the stand and flopped over! Luckily only one ornament broken. Unfortunately, it was one of my favorites, my duck bell. If you are now scratching your head and going, "Duck bell???", it has a bell for a body with a duck neck and head on top and duck feet for the clappers. Very cute. Fortunately I think I can glue it back together. And I was very relieved that none of the older (my grandmother's and mother's) ornaments were hurt. Anyway, just stood the tree up again, filled up the water and everything seems back to normal today. We just had a simple dinner (lunch?) today, turkey and cranberries, asparagus, rolls and peppermint ice cream. And just for snacks, of course, we have 3 lbs. of See's candy and assorted cookies, fudge and other goodies in the house. Should be enough to last for awhile! Forgot to mention the wine we had with lunch, which will make Mom nice and sleepy. So I figure she will plop herself down in front of the football game and promptly fall asleep, thus giving me a restful Christmas afternoon to read or shop on the computer - my sister-in-law gave me an Amazon gift certificate. Which reminds me, Mom gave me a moth orchid for Christmas. First orchid I've tried, so anybody who has any tips, send them along. Also growing paperwhites this year (usually do amarylis). They are just starting to bloom. Look lovely. However, they are supposed to have a wonderful fragrance and while they do have quite a strong smell, I'm not so sure yet that it's wonderful. Maybe it will improve as they open more, or maybe I will get used to it. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all of you and yours.

Thank you all for the thank-yous and compliments! Jan, thank you for the lovely video - I do adore that quirky house. If I had someone else to do the cleaning, mind the garden, and pay the property taxes ;-) I would drop everything and move in tonight. hhireno, it would make a lovely gift for your doctors' office, although I think I'd bypass the brandy/rum "dousing" and aging - wouldn't do for the office to be reeking of booze, no? LOL (Most of the alcohol the fruit is marinated in evaporates during the lengthy baking.) Once I made this in "mini-muffin" tins (I love those things) and piped the cream cheese topping below on top with a star tip, which made an elegant presentation. I wonder how it would be made in cookie form, sandwiched with the cream cheese filling? (Fruitcake whoopie pies! Must try this!) We usually make four or five batches, in a range of different sizes ranging from the 1" diameter mini-muffins to the big bundt pan, which is how it gets so expensive (especially since these can be outright ghastly when made with cheap, harsh hooch!). Almost every baking pan we own is pressed into service, and thus we can tailor the size of the cake(s) to the recipient. This is way too acidic for the disposable foil pans, BTW. awm03, ah, Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory. :-) Mama says it was one of those old back-of-the-package recipes from the 1960s, from the mincemeat jar. I forgot to include the cream cheese spread I always serve with it in lieu of frosting, although you can use it that way if you like. This is enough to serve with the bundt-size cake for a party. You want the spread rather tart, not sweet like cream cheese frosting, because the cake itself is quite sweet. Beat together: 1 pound softened cream cheese, the best you can get finely shredded zest of 1 orange 1 tablespoon orange juice 1 tablespoon whatever rum or brandy you used in the cake (or a dash of the rum/brandy flavoring if you skipped the alcohol) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (and if I catch you using imitation vanilla I'll find you and turn you over my knee LOL) 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, adjust to taste Plain old cream cheese is good on the fruitcake too. When leftover fruitcake is starting to get kind of weary and stiff, we pop slices in the toaster oven or under the broiler until warm, softened, and the surface is a tiny bit crusty and spread them with real butter (I'm addicted to Kerrygold Irish butter!) or cream cheese. My birthday is January 21 and sometimes DH will make me a birthday breakfast treat of toasted fruitcake with cream cheese and orange marmalade on top of that, with a cup of tea - lovely! BTW, one of our closest friends is allergic to nuts so we made one without nuts for him (portioned out his cake, using a special pan so it would be easily identifiable, before adding the nuts to the rest of the batch - luckily he is not so severely allergic that cooking something with nuts at the same time would make him ill) and it went over marvelously well even without the nuts. Halfway through his Yule party we had to snatch what was left of it off the table and hide it in the fridge so he would get some of the darn thing, people scarfed it down so quickly! This year, he'll get one of his own. :-)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, plllog! I do love shortbread (my old boss said it was just sugar, held together with butter, LOL), but my kids really prefer chocolate chip and those flourless peanut butter cookies. They do like the peanut butter cookies baked in a mini muffin cup and then when still hot, they stick a mini Reese's cup in the middle. MmmmHmmm. lpink, I do can it because I have pears on the trees in the fall, and they don't last until Christmas. It's actually a recipe that's meant to be canned, but it could easily be reduced and just used when made. I do reduce the sugar, depending on the ripeness and sweetness of the pears, I add half the sugar, cook a few minutes, taste, add more sugar until it is to my liking. It does thicken as it cools, as it's actually a conserve type of mixture. I don't always have to cook the entire 40 minutes, as sometimes it reaches a suitable thickness in less time, depending on the juiciness of the pears. I like the spicy flavor, it reminds me of mincemeat. It's good in pies but I actually like it best in filled cookies, like the filled date nut type, or in a thumbprint cookie. Bud likes a dollop of it baked in the middle of a bran muffin. Old Time Pear Mincemeat (Farm Journal Freezing and Canning Cookbook) 7 lbs. ripe pears 1 lemon 2 lbs. seedless raisins 6 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup vinegar 1 tbls ground cloves 1 tbls ground cinnamon 1 tbls ground allspice 1 tbls ground nutmet 1 tsp ground ginger Cor and quarter pears. Quarter lemon, removing seeds. Chop raisins, lemons and pears (If you use the food processor be very judicious, the pears will puree easily. I leave the peels on the lemons, and I put the lemons and the raisins in the food processor, but I chop up the pears by hand so they stay in definable pieces) combine remaining ingredients in large kettle. Add chopped fruit mixture. Bring to a boil over medium heat and simmer 40 minutes. Pack into hot jars and process in a hot water bath 25 minutes for pints. Annie