Embroidery and Rice Custard

A Christmas project for a special four-year-old niece of ours, whom I'm assuming isn't old enough to be reading my blog.  ;-)

Comfort food.  :-)

Little Encouragements and Little Pests

No, these aren't from John.  And, no, they're not from anyone else!  Just listen to the story!

While I was getting ready to leave one of the self-checkout lines at Kroger yesterday, the girl behind the desks asks, "Ma'am, would you like some flowers?"

"Um, excuse me?"

"Would you like some flowers?"

"Would I like some flowers?!" 

"We ordered too many this week and we're giving them away!" 

Wow, that never happens.  Of course I would like flowers, and of course I chose roses.  :-D

The next encouraging thing happened at JC Penney.  Weeks ago I went online and signed up for their mailing list.  Yeah, I do get e-mail ads regularly now, but I was hoping I would also get coupons in the mail like my mom does.  And last week I did, the best being a "$10 off a purchase of $10 or more" coupon.  Nice.

I needed to buy black tights for our CSD concert on Saturday, so I headed to Penney's with my coupon.  Wouldn't you know, there was a "buy one, get one for $1" sale on all hoisery!  Nice.  I found some nice, $10 tights and picked out the most durable pair of regular beige stockings I could find, which happened to be marked $9.  With the sale, the two rang up at a total of $11.  I handed the cashier my coupon, paid my $1.08 and left encouraged. 

God is kind.

Jenni, if you're reading this now, just be glad that you're on the other side of the Atlantic. 

You see, we have a mouse problem.  I've been finding mouse droppings in the kitchen towel drawer and in the napkin basket since we returned from Thanksgiving.  John found a half eaten peanut butter cup in his bag of Reeses.  But, being the laid-back couple that we often are, we dealt with the symptoms and hoped the problem would go away.  Still, I kept finding droppings.  I'd heard that Bounce will keep mice away, so yesterday I also bought some store-brand dryer sheets and tucked one into the towel drawer and one at the bottom of the napkin basket.  Yay, no more droppings!

And yet . . .

And yet, now the little beasts are digging holes into my precious growing herbs!  I'm angry with them now and John agrees that it seems to be trap-time . . . updates to come, with no pictures for the sake of the squeamish.  ;-)

Our Gingerbread Cottage

O Christmas Tree!

Today we got our first Christmas tree!  Now, some people buy a potted Christmas tree and plant it after Christmas, but we did things kind of backwards. 

Here's John wielding the "big toe cutters."  :-)

Yeah, John decided he didn't care for a tree planted amid bushes in one of the flower beds, so we chopped it.  My only desire was for a tree and a real tree, and getting to chop it ourselves makes it even better.  :-)

I wore my boots, even though it's 70F outside. 

 

 

All ready to go!  I potted him in dirt in the large pot which held the artificial plant in the dining room which I brought to Good Will this week.  And now he is in the living room, awaiting white lights, a cranberry string and gingerbread.  :-)

O Christmas Cookies!

Saturday was the day, finally, for some Christmas baking.  I had the motivation of an assignment to make cookies for the monthly luncheon that a group from our church hosts for the international students at our local university.  But I already knew what kinds I wanted to make!  I've had Grandma Reid's gingersnaps on the brain for probably over a week, when I realized I'd have to get some molasses before trying them.  Somehow hers always seemed rounder and puffier, even though I followed her recipe exactly.  Maybe I'll try my own mother's trick of the trade next time and cut the butter in half.  (And maybe I'll actually use butter . . . I did use shortning this time, against my better instincts, but wishing to produce a genuine Grandma Reid gingersnap!) 

We received a pizzelle maker as a wedding gift from a wonderful pizzelle baker at our old home church and this seemed like a great chance to try it!  I could hardly believe that the recipe called for 3 teaspoons of vanilla!  My mother doesn't have a pizzelle maker, so this was a true experiment, but thankfully our instructions were very detailed - just a teaspoon of batter on each half of the iron, clamped shut for 30 seconds, and then gently lifted off and left to harden.  They came out well and tasted yummy. 

John even had rose-tinted plastic wrap in the drawer!  I think it's more likely that it was in the house when we moved here than that he bought it himself.  :-)

And ALL my cookies got eaten at the luncheon, which is a dream come true for every potluck-contributor.  :-) 

Getting in the Christmas Mood

Frankly, it's been a little challenging to get in the Christmas mood today with the weather in the 60's.  But, since today was shopping day, I went to Walmart and picked up a few pretty things.  This evening, with Christmas music playing on my phone (thank you, pandora!), the decorating began. 

I have to admit that neither of these ideas with lights were originally mine!  For now, our fire place is merely ornamental, so I made it a little more ornamental by strewing lights over the wood inside.  It literally took about 5 seconds.  John's opinion on the effect is that "it works," which always means that something looks good.  :-)

I LOVE how the kitchen looks with lights!  I wedged push pins into the joints between cabinets to pull the string taut and keep it at the front edge of the cupboards.  So fun.

I picked up this gold-glittered "peace" ornament at Walmart, too, without any particular design for it until I got home.  Sticking it onto the wreath (which also came with the house!) took, again, literally five seconds.  Yay.

Now, I think I'm officially in the Christmas mood.  :-D

Dining Room Meditations

Eventually, I'd like to post before and after pictures of our house.  It will be more to show our faraway friends that we're using their wedding gifts than to show off how our house looks now because, frankly, there isn't much to boast about in what I've done to the place! 

For example, the dining room hasn't changed much since John first saw it during his walk through.  We were blessed with a house that came furnished and we like a lot of the furniture to boot!  It has changed considerably, but that's because in his bachelorhood, the dining room was a place to store his bicycle and the extra bed that needed a home.  But now it's largely back to how it looked when he first moved in. 

I'd like to redo it with this color scheme: 

This pic is actually an apron which a friend from NY made me!  I love toile and like the almost-teal blue put with a golden brown.  Now, this is what our dining room looks like now: 

Plans include to bring the fake plant to Good Will and eventually take down the quilt on the wall.  It's not bad, but it's not me.  But, like many other things, for a while, I left it up because it added color to a wall I hadn't paid attention to yet.  Now that Christmas is coming, its fall colors are pleading with me even more to be replaced.

We love the table, by the way!  And the chairs have cloth seat covers which I know that I can remove and re-cover with a toile that matches the color scheme. 

But there are some issues.  Looking at the table, here's the wall to your left: 

The issue isn't so much the portrait (which was John's, by the way!) but the color of the mat.  It could be changed, I suppose, but it beautifully matches my beloved tea box underneath it which was a gift from my beloved sister and which could not be so easily changed.  It also matches this: 

This article of furniture is an old entertainment center left at the house which is holding many of the bowls, vases, etc. we received as wedding gifts.  It's on the wall opposite the table.  And it could be repainted, or perhaps ultmately replaced . . .

Another shot: 

We received this table as a wedding gift, and isn't it gorgeous?  But you can see that not all our special dishes fit in the maroon entertainment center. Hence, I'm hoping that we'll at least add another shelf to its enormous TV-shaped space inside.   I also think that our blue and white china will go prettily with almost-teal and a golden color. 

On top of the little chest are the four pieces of a gold-toned frame which I'm hoping to put back together and get mirror glass for.  It belongs above our keyboard, facing the windows. 

Perhaps someday there will be a piano there instead.  :-)

So, almost-teal and a golden color.  But do I boldly paint the upper walls that almost-teal?  Or do I keep it for an accent color on the chair seats and entertainment center?  And if I do paint the upper walls that color, what color do I paint the entertainment center? 

Thoughts most welcome.  :-)

A Few Days Late

For all who try to be careful with how they use words (and I applaud you!), maybe the lyrics "each of us must find our truth" don't clearly refer to a relative or objective truth . . . I believe in objective truth, y'all, and do think that each of us needs to find it, at risk of eternal punishment.

But the main point of the song is that we have much, much to be thankful for! So true.  And Josh Groban's voice is amazing, as always.

Exciting new things:  I drove John's car (standard transmission) by myself while we were in NY!  I also helped drive back down here, including through stop-and-go traffic around Fredericksburg, and never stalled it once that I can remember!  Yay.  John says that my next test will be to see whether I can eat while driving standard, hee hee.  We had a great, though pretty short, time in NY with our families. 

(Quickly posting while I quickly get sucked into Christmas mode!)