Happy Holidays!

Sorry to go all MIA. It's amazing how much time and energy the holidays consume, yes?

We went into a baking frenzy early last week before heading down to Kentucky to spend the holidays with my family. The marshmallows turned out remarkably well!

I do agree with Angry Chicken, though. Homemade marshmallows taste best when they've been "aged" a bit. We also made candied Buddha's hand, pumpkin loaf, and fudge. Half of all that was shipped off to Mr. Crafty's family in Arizona, but we were still left with more than could be eaten, especially when my grandmother's amazing coconut cake was added to the mix!

One of my favorite things about going home is loading up on the local confections. Kentucky offers up the most sinful, tasty things. I mean, there's bourbon and horses, of course, and then there's marijuana (purported to be the state's #1 cash crop) and tobacco. I go more for the candy, myself.

These, for instance, are bourbon balls.

They are the best of their kind, too, made from Woodford Reserve, bourbon distilled a mere three miles from my rural childhood home. For those adventurous souls wanting to sample some bourbon balls, I'd like to warn you that some are sickly sweet and soupy. These pictured above happen to be a wonderful anomaly.

I'm also fond of Ale81, a local ginger ale-type soda. The bottles are too cumbersome to transport home, though, so I make do with these Ale81 lollipops. Yum.

I didn't get as much work done over the week in Kentucky as I might have liked, but I did brighten up a very green gingham shirt:

This here is a tufted ear squirrel with only one ear tuft. The other one's coming just as soon as I wrap up this post.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and wish you all the best for 2010. It's gonna be a good one, I'm sure!