Back to Blogging: Holiday Recap

Hello! Well, I have to say that my week and a half blogging break (which coincided with a break from work and as much time away from the internet as I could manage) was fantastic. It's been months and months since I took time away from my computer and I truly felt the freeing effects. I expect that now that the memory of time offline is fresh in my brain, I will be trying to do it more often—even if it's just for one weekend a month. Very refreshing.
All of that was made even more wonderful due, of course, to getting to spend the holidays with my family in NJ. It was snowy when we got to the shore and Josh and I promptly headed out for a walk because it is a real rarity to see snow on the beach.

We walked most days that we were there, talked a lot over long meals that my mom had been planning for weeks and weeks, and I am fairly certain that I laughed more than I ever have over the holidays. I am truly thankful for my family and their endless attempts at word puns.

It might be a little unusual, but I actually prefer the beach in the winter. The town where my parents are is mostly a summer town, so the winter is amazingly quiet (apart from when Santa rides around on the firetruck) and deserted, in a good way.

Here you can see my stocking, which my paternal grandmother made for me when I was born (as was her tradition), which is hanging next to the one that I made for Josh. I ran out of time and didn't get to embroider his name on there, but I will make sure to do that for next year. I love that it was plenty big to fill it with treats and that it seemed to fit in very well with the rest of our stockings.

I'm going to spend much of this week sharing a few other handmade highlights from my vacation (which also included time in NYC and skiing in the Catskills) and also gearing up for 2010. Last year I made myself a list of 26 things I wanted to do throughout the year and I love how it motivated me to do more with my own two hands so you can expect to see a new one from me shortly. I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and were able to spend some downtime relaxing with friends and family.

P.S. Aren't you excited that I finally figured out how to make my photos bigger?! I certainly am!