Let the Baking Begin...and a Giveaway...

A clear indicator of the fact that I'm well on the way to recovery over the hole in my gumline where a tooth once lived is that I was able to a) leave the house for the first time this week and b) start (and eat) some holiday baking! My neighbor L and I headed out to a local Artists' Show then to a fantastic little shop that neither of us had gone to before. I expected a little yarn and fabric shop but was instead astounded by a big book, gift, yarn and fabric shop with all sorts of nifty little things that I didn't know I needed until I saw them! After I picked up this super soft scarf for my trip home to visit family in the bitter cold of the North in a few weeks, we headed for home...and made it one block! There was a storefront just calling my name...a pottery shop and studio with my favorite word in the window...SALE! They were selling student work and I picked up this gorgeous bowl for $5!! It has the yummiest glaze on chocolate clay that reminds me of a robin's egg...and reminds me that I have about 20 pounds of chocolate stoneware that I haven't touched in well over a year. I think it might be time to haul it back out and get some pendants made with it. As for baking, this evening I managed to get Thick and Chewy Chocolate Cookie Bars, Ginger Chocolate Chip Bars, and S'Mores Cookie Bars made and sampled...and the verdict from hubster was that they should all be consumed within the next week and not frozen to be judiciously doled out to my favorite people as is the Christmas tradition! Now for the giveaway...pretty much a unanimous decision that my wonky pendants would find loving homes if I held a giveaway, so I aim to please! Here are the (minimal) rules:
1. Leave a comment here...feel free to share your favorite holiday item to bake! Please make sure your email address is in your comment or activated in your profile so I can contact you if you win. If there is no contact information your entry will be disqualified.
2. For extra entries you may tweet, blog,and/or Facebook the giveaway with a link to this post. Leave a new comment for each entry with the link to your post/tweet/update.
Easy peasy right? I will draw three winners and will let them choose their pendant in the order of drawing. Contest closes at midnight, Friday December 10th and I will announce the winners on the blog and by email on Saturday the 11th. I hope to find these three wonkified curvy pendants happy homes!

When Things go Terribly Wrong...

you begin the blog post with lovely eye candy. Or at least this is the approach that I'm choosing to take today...which may be misconstrued as denial but really should just be interpreted as avoidance. This lovely bracelet is by Shannon of For My Sweet Daughter. I love how she echoed the colors in this Robin's Egg Abstract Butterfly pendant but I also think the design is great...not too fussy but enough little details to be special.
In further delay of my traumatic story of gore I will let you know that I have added a whole bunch of new pendants, beads and caps to the website. Look, aren't they shiny and pretty? But there were a few dud pendants that curved on me because of rushing...I thought the glaze turned out great though so I hate to just scrap them...anyone interested in a giveaway of slightly wonky curved pendants? If there's enough interest I'll do a giveaway next post.

So for those of you who are squeamish or just don't want to hear my whiny tale of woe, stop reading here, leave me a comment that you do/don't want wonky curved pendants, and check back on the next post...

I'll wait...

Ok, all heebie jeebie prone sensitive souls gone? (don't worry, no photos for this segment)

What a day yesterday! Mid-way through my morning I feel a little something moving around the back of my upper molar. At first I thought it was just a piece of granola bar or something but then realized it was much too large and it "kind of" hurt. So I finally realized that part of my tooth had broken and called my dentist. They got me in near the end of the day and told me that it was completely crazy that a chunk of my tooth would completely shear away when there wasn't decay present. What can I say, I don't do things halfway...if you're going to be a tooth grinder you might as well create nice deep molar fractures while you're at it!

The dentist pulled out the broken chunk **gore alert** which had pieces of pulp attached from the root. Since the root was hit and the break went all the way below the gum line I had two choices…root canal, gum surgery which might have to include some bone removal, and a cap or pull the tooth and decide after it heals if I want to proceed with a dental implant.

After some discussion between both dentists in the office (husband and wife team) we decided it was best to pull it, but since the root was exposed they figured I was going to be in terrible pain until it was pulled... so they called the oral surgeon who said his next opening wasn't until today at 3:30! The dentist called him back and apparently did some sweet talking (the wife, not the husband)... the surgeon called his babysitter to stay late and I had to zip across town to his office asap.

End result... numb face, hole in the mouth and prescriptions for super strength ibuprofen and percocet. I was foolishly optimistic that I'd be back to "normal" today but it still hurts too much to eat or talk so I'm benched for at least another day or two. Most frustrating for me, unproductive time as it's just too darn uncomfortable to move much.

Wow, thanks to any of you who decided to stick it out with me to the end of the post! The moral of this story...ok, there's no moral but at least I can say that I'm very thankful this didn't happen while I was eating and drinking my way through Napa and Sonoma!

Next post...something uplifting when I'm no longer medicated :)