And Now It's December

Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was wonderful! Ann, Eric, Cameron, Keaton and Daniel came to stay Wednesday night and thus began a fun-filled (and food-filled!) holiday.  We relaxed and, as we say, fell in a heap that night and then popped up Thursday morning to get things ready for the big dinner.  Fortunately we are creatures of habit, or maybe I should say traditionalists, so the menu is never an issue.  Turkey, stuffing, gravy and all the other standbys.  Mmmm...

The one thing we've changed in the last few years is our potatoes.  We switched to the Pioneer Woman's decadent recipe for mashed potatoes and as Ann says, we've never looked back.  When it came time to make the potatoes, I had plenty of help!

Kitchen crew at work!

The dinner was a success and we were blessed to have our niece Kirsten, her husband Tim, and little Taylor joining us.  Our table was full and so were our chairs!  

We spent the rest of our days relaxing, reading, visiting, napping and putting a puzzle together.  And, of course, one night we all watched Home Alone 2 as a prelude to the Christmas season.  Even after all these years, the Home Alone movies still make us laugh.  

Saturday morning the guys all helped Dan change out our tires to snow tires, inspired by the light snowfall of the night before.  They worked together, with a team of two on each vehicle and the work went swiftly.

Dan and Keat on the pickup

Eric and Cam on the car

Even Daniel got in on the act when it came time to air up the tires.  

He had to borrow some gloves and tennis shoes from me, hence the pink hands and pink shoelaces.  Yes, this eight-year-old wears the same size shoes as his grammy.  (And why, you are asking did he have to borrow?  Simple.  He came in his shorts--note the bare legs--and his slides.)  ♥

Another Quilt Done!

I finished another baby quilt this week and actually remembered to photograph it for posterity.  

It's the same pattern as the last one I made, and truthfully, I'm excited to start another, this time for a girl.  It's a fun pattern to make up and uses fat quarters for the larger focus fabrics.  I'm about out of whites for the framing, so I may actually have to go fabric shopping.  It's been fun to see how many quilts I can make from my stash.  Kind of like a contest with myself.  

Somehow (maybe through Pinterest?) I stumbled upon a site featuring the most amazing knits for dolls.  The designer is Norwegian and has recently published a book of many of her patterns.  I contacted them to see if it was available in English and was thrilled to find it was. The designer is Maalfrid Gausel and you can find many of her patterns on her website.  Yes, I ordered the book. :-)

Not much else has been going on, but we're gearing up for Thanksgiving.  We have family coming and it will be fun with visiting and of course, lots of food.  We have much to be thankful for! ♥

Coffee and Me

I didn't drink coffee until I was thirty-five years old.  I made coffee for others in the offices where I worked while I worked my way through college, and after Dan and I married, I made coffee for him every morning in the harvest gold coffee pot we got as a wedding present.  But I didn't drink any of it.  It always smelled wonderful, but taste?  Not so wonderful.  

Winter of 1985 I was hired to finish out the year for a teacher who was ill.  I had been subbing for a couple of years and had a good rapport with the principal and staff at the school, so I was thrilled.  That it was the school where Matt and Ann attended was a plus.  The class across the hall from my classroom was taught by a good friend of ours and every morning he'd come into my room and tell me coffee was ready and I would say I didn't drink it.  You guessed it, by the end of the year, I was drinking coffee.  It helped that he had an in with a salesman for a really good brand of coffee and used it in the pot in his room.  Cheap coffee it was not.

I did discover, however, that the addition of a flavored creamer really upped my love of the stuff.  The question now was, was it the coffee or the creamer?  Who knows, but I can't have one without the other unless it's a cup after a big dinner with some yummy dessert.  Then I drink it plain.  

When we moved to Moscow and I began teaching full time, I had a microwave in my classroom and would have to reheat my coffee numerous times during the day.  Since I would often leave my cup here and there in the room as I moved about with the kids, I would sometimes have to have an "alert" to find it.  Finally one of the kids would go look in the microwave and say, "It's in the microwave and it's cold again.  Would you like me to reheat it for you?"  That often happens here at home now, and then, when I finally find my cup in the microwave, I have to reheat it--again.  

My good pal Kathy had a recent blog post about finding a holiday carafe for sale on Etsy and that she had ordered it with good results as it arrived in like-new condition. The post caused me to wonder if she used it to keep her tea warm throughout the morning and then led me to ponder my usual scenario of repeated trips to the microwave as my morning progresses.  Apparently I'm consistent!  ♥

Front Porch

It's a gray day here at the Resort.  It started out foggy, now it's just gray, bleak even, and rain is forecast for this afternoon.  A good day to be indoors, with something warm and comforting to drink.  In my case, pumpkin spice coffee with salted caramel creamer.  Mmmm . . .  she said with a smile.  

But back to my post title.  I've put up pictures of our front porch decorated for fall before, but this year we have something new.  Years ago I made a wreath for the front door but I have been somewhat dissatisfied with it for a while.  We have friends who have a Christmas tree farm outside a neighboring town and they also have a corresponding Christmas shop in their barn.  The past couple of years they have added a fall festival and shop. I was perusing their website and noticed some gorgeous fall wreaths.  I had to have one!  And so I bought.  

I love, love, love it.  So beautiful and welcoming.  It's the perfect addition to our little front porch which was swept clean yesterday courtesy of my sweet husband.

Yes, that poor old scarecrow is still there.  He's tradition.  ♥

Cookbook Reminiscing

I think past posts have made it clear that I am a lover of cookbooks.  I have many, and even often have one on my nightstand for bedtime reading.  Yes, it's true, I do! I kind of rotate though my shelves and when one comes up again after a long time, it's like meeting an old friend.  And one cookbook is especially like that. 

I found this cookbook in a little shop the first time we went to the ocean as a family.  Actually, it was the first time I was ever at the ocean! Dan bought it for me and then he and the kids autographed it.

Ann (known in those days as Annie), was five and about to enter kindergarten. Matt was six and headed for first grade.  A week before our trip, the middle finger on his right hand was broken when it was accidentally smashed in a door and he was sporting a splint and bandages on it following stitches.  Hence his shaky signature.  (We have pictures of him digging in the sand with his left hand, right hand held up in the air to keep it clean and dry.)

The cookbook is a thoughtful read on mindful cooking, and the handwriting on the title page makes it priceless.

♥ ♥ ♥

A Little More Catching Up

Our house is surrounded by trees.  Lots of trees.  Box elders, maples, spruce, poplars, aspen, and a huge birch tree are just some of them.  The birch tree was a thing of beauty, towering high and weeping low.  Until the last few years.  They don't last long and then there's the birch borer.  This year our beautiful tree was a sad sight.  Over three-fourths of it was dead and Dan knew it had to come down.  

A few weeks ago he put in a call to his good buddy, Dennis, and they made plans to take it down.  A tree as large as this one takes some planning and they did that in short order.  The tree had a fork down low and so they began by attaching a cable high up on the taller southern section and running it to the back of our pickup.  This would ensure that it fell in the right place. With Dan manning the truck to keep the cable taut and Dennis on the saw, they began.  

They've worked together for so many years on various projects and hunting that they know each other well. They worked quickly and efficiently and in short order, both sections were down and by nightfall, all that was left were a few leaves and stacks of cut limbs.  Another biggie on Dan's list was scratched off!  (And two days later they rebuilt the chimney in Dennis's garage.)  ♥

Hmmm...

It's not as if I've not had anything going on, because I have. Lots of things.  Sometimes I'm not in the mood to write, sometimes I have so much going on that there's no time to write (coherently at least), and sometimes there are so many things I could write about that I don't know where to start.  So I don't.  These are all valid reasons for why I've been absent for what looks like six weeks.  The time does fly by!!

So, what's been going on?  Well, soccer games and then a soccer tournament this last weekend.  Keaton's team did well!  He was the keeper (goalie) this year and at first I thought it would be so stressful to watch because often it comes down to that person to save the day. Well, Keat, all six-foot four inches (plus) of him with a corresponding arm span was made to be a keeper!  He did a fabulous job and they came in first place at the tournament!!  What a night!  Here's a picture of him with Ann on Senior Night, the last local game of the regular season.

Ann looks like such a shorty, but she's all of five-foot nine or so.  No shortage of tall people in this family (except Dan and me!).  

In further news, Daniel got glasses and looks terrific in them.  He'd mentioned to me that he had trouble seeing things at a distance and I told Ann who took him straight away to the eye doctor.  Now the only one in the family without glasses or contacts is Cameron!

I've started another baby quilt using the same pattern as the one from my last post.  I'm just loving that pattern! Such a simple design but so many possibilities.  I'll share some pictures in my next post. 

Bruder Bear and Karen were here a few weeks ago for Homecoming at our college alma mater.  Niece Kirsten's husband, Tim, and little Taylor, came, too. (Kirsten was off on a girls' weekend with some friends.) What a little cutie Taylor is, and she really bonded with her Great-uncle Dan.

At nineteen months, she even went to the football game and was just about perfect, only starting to fuss in the last minutes.  We knew we were going to win, so we exited and even managed to avoid the end of the game traffic jams.  We came home to Papa Murphy's pizza and fell in a happy heap.