About Me

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Born a mid western girl but an ocean girl at heart! My soul belongs to the sea....I am obsessed with the color TURQUOISE and all things beachy. I love nature, the outdoors, dogs,cooking,wine,art backpacking, cycling and reading. I also have a passion for photography and I absolutely love photographing the beach that is where my soul is happiest.! I hope you enjoy following me and my adventures so welcome to my blog, I hope you are inspired. HAPPY BLOGGING !

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Family Traditions ... Old & New

Polish Poppy Seed Roll (makowiec) or as my Grandma always called it Mock.
My Christmas eve as a kid always started off at my grandmas house with a polish dinner and mock. Then we would head out to midnight mass to celebrate Christmas eve. Growing up with a Polish grandma brought many traditional polish dishes and customs. I have very fond memories of Christmas with my Polish grandma. I am very big on family traditions. I have my grandmas recipes for mock and kifle and I am trying to honor & keep the tradition alive in my family. So here's to old family traditions and to new ones! Try to honor at least one family tradition each year. Hope your new year brings you good health and happiness to your life !
Mimosas on Christmas morning, a newer tradition for my family

Kifle... a family tradition growing up

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Happy Solstice


Festival of Lights
The return of the light is the most prominent feature of most midwinter festivals. In Sweden on St. Lucy’s Day, young girls don white dresses and a wreath of candles and awaken their families with cakes and song. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated by lighting candles over a span of eight days. The Christian custom of the Advent wreath, with its four candles, one lit each of the Sundays before Christmas, is another way of re-kindling the light.

The Christmas candle, a large candle of red or some other bright color decorated with holly or other evergreens, was at one time a popular custom throughout Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. One person, usually the eldest or the head of the household, is designated as the lightbringer. She lights the candle for the first time on Christmas Eve before the festive supper and during each of the remaining evenings of the Twelve Days of Christmas. To extinguish the candle, she snuffs it with tongs rather than blowing it out, since that would blow the luck away. The candle sheds a blessing on the household and so is protected from accidental quenching. It seems likely that the candle also represented the coming year, just as the weather of each of the twelve days of Christmas foretell the weather of the corresponding month. It had protective or fertilizing powers and was kept as a charm. In Denmark, during a lightning storm, the remnant would be brought out and lit to protect the household.

Similar customs once surrounded the Yule log. The Yule log must never be bought but should be received as a gift, found or taken from you own property. Often the log to be burned at midwinter was chosen early in the year and set aside.

Tradition varies about the type of wood to be used. Oak logs were popular in the north of England, birch in Scotland and ash in Cornwall and Devon. Ash is the only wood that burns freely when green and the world-tree, Yggdrasil, in the Nordic tradition was an ash-tree. It is important that the Yule log be the biggest and greenest log available since the Christmas festivities will last only as long as the Yule log burns.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Molly says Happy Holidays Everyone

Words to Live By


Well 3 people in my department lost their jobs yesterday this is a real bummer.
I am truly thankful I still have my job , my health a wonderful husband and truly wonderful friends! So ..... for that I really am thankful. I hope this christmas people re exam what Christmas really means to them and focus on all the positive things in their life and not what we can purchase for each other. Great friends and family and a wonderful husband is all the gift I NEED!
So make this Holiday season about family traditions and spending time together this will give you true happiness in your life. So put on some christmas music , make some hot cocoa , or your favorite cocktail and do at least one family tradition from childhood !
Celebrate the Season~ Happy Holidays !