How to?

Does anyone know how to clean a tie? Patrick has to wear one for work every day now and was noticing a spot on one that he wore today. I was thinking that I would just spray-n-wash the spot and then throw it in the washer (which, this is a totally different story, but ours may be on the fritz...it overflowed all over the basement yesterday because the water kept running and it wasn't draining). But then I was thinking, can you wash a tie? Or are they dry cleaned? Or what??

It's such a beautiful day here. It's funny that weather is a lot about perspective. 38 degrees and sunny today feels beautiful and dare I say "warm". It's nice for a change from the freezing cold, snowy, gloominess. Patrick and Henry just headed outside to make a snowman, I'll post some pics of that soon. This reminds me of the time that Patrick, Holly and I built a snowman outside of Patrick's college apartment and later we looked out the window and saw some foreign students posing with it and taking pictures. Too funny.

Today I pretty much finished up our Christmas shopping. I feel so relieved and accomplished. It is a crazy zoo out there. So many people, long lines, traffic...and it's a Tuesday afternoon! Henry went to play with his friend Charlie and I brought William along with me. He was such a good boy and slept most of the time, either in his carseat or when I carried him in the snugli. Now off to wrapping, which I actually love when I have the time to do it. I was just realizing that Christmas is really the one time of year that I really wrap presents. Usually throughout the year I resort to gift bags and tissue paper. It's actually fun to take the time to wrap them and embellish them with ribbon and other holiday embellishments.

Oh and one last thing...4 out of 6 batches of caramels worked. I'm happy with that. And I'm DONE making them for the year!