Friday Was A Busy Day - Cards Are ALMOST Done!

I worked hard yesterday, but it was a day of accomplishment, all told. I started out by a quick grocery shop, followed by heading to the shop until Chickie got in from her doctor's appointment. I was holding down the fort until she arrived in case she got caught up in traffic and ran late. I had everything ready to go for her, so it was a quick "Hi" "Bye" and I was back out the door to pick up the bag of sugar I had forgotten to buy earlier, and head home. 

This isn't the best photo of the Baking Sale flyer, but 
it's a photo of my computer screen, so it's a bit pixelated. 
My apologies, my photos are usually quite a bit better 
than this - LOL. 

A quick note on the sugar - my local grocery store is running their annual "Baking Sale" with some spectacular bargains on the staples - eggs, butter, sugar, flour, etc. They had a four-pound bag of sugar for 99  cents for members of their shopping club, and we go through 3 or so bags during the average year. I use it to feed my hummingbirds, DH uses it for his coffee, cooking and baking. He'll pick up a second bag on Monday when he shops, so we should be set for a while. (He's a sugar addict and uses a LARGE spoonful of sugar in every cup of coffee he drinks). 

Some day I'm going to get all of these, but I do 
think my gift to myself this year will be to buy 
the refill inks for all of the colors I do own. I have 
six of them already - needed them a year or so ago. 
But I need the rest. I would have found painting my 
cards much faster and easier this year if I had 
refill inks available for my colors. 

I settled down in the computer room with my paints and the last fourteen cards that needed to be painted. Finally got those done, and started finalizing my mailing list, formatting the envelopes, and getting them printed out. I had EXACTLY enough cards and envelopes for the number of people I send to this year, so I'm quite happy. I didn't have to make decisions about who to drop from the list. There are always some that are on the line - people I haven't heard from in too long, or only hear from once a year (if that). Relatives, of course, are always exempt - they're relatives, they get a card. LOL

I dislike eliminating people from my holiday card list, 
but have done so in the past and probably will do so 
again in the future. I always put those who actually 
request a card at the top of the list, right after the 
necessary cards - relatives, mostly. 

After the cards and mailing list were complete, I went to the Post Office to purchase my stamps - 11 International stamps and the remainder of what I needed for my domestic ones. I'll be signing, licking and getting my cards ready for the mail today and they should be in the mail NO LATER THAN MONDAY. I then decided to "relax" a bit by baking some filled and iced danish treats. Although I was never able to get the icing to set up well (so it turned into a glaze instead of a drizzle), the filling is magnificent and I'm totally in love with them as a nice treat. I'll make this again, and be much better at it. It certainly uses my kitchen equipment, though. Both the food processor and my blender were used in this one, along with the oven, of course. 

It's a three stage recipe for these Lemon Blueberry 
Danish. There's the basic danish, then there's the 
filling which is the BEST thing I've eaten in an age! 
Finally, there's the icing. My danish will be better 
next time, I got the hang of shaping them about 
half-way in. The filling needs NO improvement, 
but I'l need to figure out more things I can use it 
for because it's SO good. The icing, as I said, just 
didn't set. That's a problem and I need to figure 
out how to make it stiffer. Maybe flavorless 
gelatin. I can't use most of the usual things - powdered 
sugar, flour, etc. just don't work within my food 
choices. 

So, that was my "relaxing day off" and I hope your Friday was equally productive, or at least enjoyable. I'll feel much better once my cards are in the mail and I can concentrate on the upcoming Christmas holiday. Of course, DH reminded me that we work tomorrow - URGH! I'm already sorry for the fact that I allowed myself to be talked into three days of Sundays. I hate having to work that extra day. Oh well, it is what it is. Hockey today, so I'm wearing my Kaprisov jersey and hoping the Wild can keep their momentum going. Have an excellent day and weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini.