Its Monday, I ‘ve Been Making Christmas Ornaments!!!

Hello and happy Monday!!! I started a new coffee share on the blog yesterday. If you missed it, check it out here. I think it will be a lot of fun.

The temps here have been so warm and dry. There are burn bans everywhere. We desperately need rain.

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is Thursday. Mark and I are going to my nephew’s house, but I will be making a few things to take with me for the dinner. I will tell you it won’t be a pecan pie. I made one last week for Mark. I forgot I had the oven set high and it burned. It was terrible. Poor Mark tried to dig it out to eat it, but I wouldn’t let him. It was just too bad. I threw it out and promised him another one soon. I don’t know why pecan pies are always tricky for me, but they are. Sometimes good sometimes bad.

I did make a blueberry cobbler that turned out pretty well. I gave half of it to my nephew.

We put up our Christmas tree over the weekend. Someone at work just ask what colors I used and if there was a theme? We have had this tree for about thirty years. I put clear lights on it, and it is decorated with the ornaments that we have collected over thirty plus years of marriage. I love it!!! Every year when we start to decorate it, we pull out all of our ornaments and talk about where we got each one. It may sound boring but to us it is a treasure. I do change the topper out occasionally. I haven’t decided for this year yet.

I have been working on these Christmas ornaments for a week. My friend Annie from work sent me a TikTok video on them and I just loved the idea. I bought clear ball ornaments from Walmart. You can get them just about anywhere this time of year. I used double pointed needles size 5 US. It doesn’t take a lot of yarn so this is a great way to use little bits of yarn from previous projects. I cast on 23 to 24 stitches depending on the yarn weight. Leave a long tail when casting on. I knitted a little pouch about 3.5 inches long. You then thread a darning needle and run through the loops on the bottom and pull together. Do the same thing at the top but put your glass ornament in first. Weave in the ends on the top and bottom. They’re so easy and knit up really quick.

This is some cotton yarn, and it is thinner. I had to cast on 25 for this one. I am a relaxed knitter so that means my stitches tend to be looser. The best thing to do is just knit a few inches, before you get too far, and see how the glass ball will fit into it. I had a bit of trial and error.

This yarn and the one below was thicker, and I only had to cast on 22 stitches for this one. However, don’t knit beyond the 3.5 inches in length for a regular sized ball or you will have a pouch that is too big.

This is what it looks like before you put the ball in and pull the top to make it tight.

***I plan to make a few more of these and put them in a bowl on my table.***

So, Thanksgiving and Christmas are definitely in the air around here. Have a wonderful week!!!

Always remember

Live your day your way!!

Hello Monday

Well here we are the beginning of a new week and almost the end of another month. October, where did you go???? I love October and it went by so fast. I love the leaves falling it makes me feel like I am in leaf globe instead of a snow globe. What a week and month this has been.

I fully intended to post a Friday Favorites post on Friday evening after I got home from work. But when I got home I realized our internet was not working. Remember I live in the boonies in the woods so no internet service means no phone calls or anything. I tried a few things around the house like unplugging everything and resetting the router, you know all the troubleshooting things to try. Nothing worked. It was almost time for Mark to get home so I drove to the top of the driveway where we do have touch and go internet. I called and told him what was going on. He has an app for our internet service. He checked and sure enough it was a wide spread outage. Internet should be restored before 6:00 AM the next morning. WHAT???? how would we survive?? Just kidding I can survive very well without internet it just makes me nervous not having a phone. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that long and it wasn’t. The internet was back up within a few hours but not enough time for me to post my blog. I will save the Favorites for next Friday and have even more favorites to share.

There are a few things I will go ahead and share about last week. On Tuesday I had quite a surprise when my nephew and his wife and their son stopped by my work to visit me. They are from Jacksonville Florida and had been near our area over the weekend for a wedding. I was so happy to see them and it was a total surprise. I hadn’t seen them in over a year. We had a short but very nice visit.

On Wednesday we had Sister Lunch. If you haven’t read any of my posts about Sister Lunch you can catch up right here: Sister Lunch. My sisters and I started this about fifteen years or so just by going to lunch and then we kept adding people and saying “see you next Wednesday” We always go to a little local restaurant at noon on Wednesday. Through the years the number of people who are able to attend changes weekly. Not only sisters but nieces and nephews and friends and cousins have been to Sister Lunch. We hadn’t met for a few weeks because of sickness, doctor visits, vacations etc so it was great to get back to our old tradition.

We have had very warm days here but the cold weather is coming this week. A ton of leaves have fallen. The leaves have been beautiful but they are really starting to come down.

Look how colorful my driveway is. I just love all the different colors of the leaves. A time to say goodbye to Summer and hello Fall let’s regenerate.

***Turkey crossing on my way into work last week.***

We have been busy cleaning my father in laws house and getting it ready to put on the market. I know it is hard for Mark to be there and have to clean it out. It’s something that most of us have to go through at some time in our lives.

On Saturday I decided to clean out some of my bookcases and get rid of a lot of old magazines. While I was going through some old books I found a notebook that my mother had started. I am not sure how long ago. She always kept journals but this seemed like a “book” she had started about her and our family. It is hand written in a plain yellow notebook with lined pages. It starts when she is a very young girl and goes until my oldest brother left for the military around 1969. I’m not sure how we missed it when we were going through her things. I have saved several of her journals through the years but this one, if possible, is even more special. I would like to have it printed and bound and give copies to my family. If you have any ideas how to do that or if you have done that I would be interested to hear about it.

I went to visit MIL in the assisted living village. They have it decorated for Halloween and they are giving out candy and treats to the area children and children and grandchildren of the workers and residents. All of the residents get such a joy out of seeing the children dressed up.

I didn’t decorate a lot this year for Halloween. I out up my Spooky wreath that I made last year.

I painted the little orange pumpkins a couple of years ago. They are actually rocks.

Have a wonderful week.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Meanwhile, Back At The House

I am sure that everyone has insomnia from time to time. I know a lot of people have it worse than others. The old insomnia bug has bitten me in the last few days. It could be that traveling is catching up with me and I am in need of some down time. It could be just a lot on my mind from day to day living and life. That’s just the way it is sometimes and I am hoping that will take care of itself soon

I feel like I have been playing catch up after being gone so much the last few weeks. I had to repot one of my orchids and give the rest of the orchids their weekly watering. Simone is blooming again. I just love this color.

My father in law passed away several years ago. He lived next door to us. We kept the house and my brother in law used it a couple of times. We finally decided to put it on the market. We had to clear everything out of it. We decided to buy a small storage building to put on our property to store what was left from his house and put some things from our house in it as well.

Mark and my nephew Tyler worked last Friday and Saturday getting everything cleared out of the house and moved to the storage building. I was able to help them on Saturday. Lots of memories came up while sorting through the house. Old pictures and letters and stuff. Lots of stuff.

All of this has to be taken to the dump. We also had things to take to Goodwill and some things we took to our house for safe keeping.

***This is Allie Cat (Our mama cat). I call her camo cat this time of the year because her colors blend with the colors of the leaves.***

We have a blink security system. Last week when I was in California I heard the alert one night around midnight. I saw this bobcat. We have seen bobcats before but it was a little unnerving seeing it so close to the house. I am so glad I bring my outside kitties in at night.

***The picture is not the greatest but you can see it is a bobcat and close to the house.***

My sister trip to Gatlinburg a few weeks ago wound up costing me more money than I had planned. I left my bite splint, which I sleep with every night because I grind my teeth, behind in one of the drawers in the bathroom. I immediately realized it the night I got home. The next day I called the condo association. They are just a call center and weren’t actually on site. I told them the room number and exactly where I had left it. They charged me $25.00 just to have someone look for it. They told me they would be in touch. After a week I called back and they said no one had found it. I am thinking it was probably thrown away. On Tuesday I had a dental cleaning and I was fitted for another bite splint. $525.00. OUCH!!!! So yes a much more costly trip than what I had planned. A lesson learned always double check everything before you check out. I usually do and I can’t believe I left it behind.

The weather here has been great!! Cooler temps. We do need some rain. It would help the leaf colors change quicker. Right now the leaves are so dry they are falling off of the trees before changing colors. Some rain is expected here this weekend so maybe that will bring some color changes.

***The Goldenrod is everywhere. I think it’s beautiful even though it is a source of a lot of allergies.***

***You can see some color starting here but not much at all for this time of the year.***

A lot going on right now. This was the first week I have worked five consecutive days in a while. I am happy to see the weekend. I am trying not to be overwhelmed by things. I always think I have to fix things and make everything right and do and be for everyone and make everyone happy and do all of this without making it seem tough. WOW!!! Sometimes that is just not possible. I have to remind myself of that daily. Sometimes it’s easier than others.

I am glad to be taking a breather this weekend with not a lot to do. What wonderful things do you have planned for the weekend?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

Hello Monday (Home Again)

I am so glad to be home after a week in Northern California. I got home late Friday night. Again another long day of travel. I left Redding California at 6:00 AM and then had a long layover in San Francisco. I like the San Francisco airport there is a lot to see and do there. However I barely made my flight leaving Chicago, O’Hare with just minutes to spare.

It was so good to be home and snuggle the babies. I think they were all glad to see me too.

I love the week I spend with other cave people. These are people who own or manage show caves across the US. We get to visit other caves and learn about their area. We also share ideas and experiences that are working or not working for us. This is a great networking time.

This year our host cave was Lake Shasta Caverns in Lakehead California near Redding. Such a beautiful area but man I was unprepared for the heat. Most of the days the temps were mid 90’s F. I thought the temps were going to be more like home so I didn’t bring enough cool clothes. It was hot!!!!

Some of our highlights: Sundial Bridge

We also took a walk on Sundial Bridge it was beautiful and a beautiful night for it.

This boat ramp is sooo steep. The water in the lake is down about 200 feet. It’s hard to believe but it was down even more in the spring and early summer. The sky and water is an unbelievably blue color.

***We had a nice boat ride on Lake Shasta.***

***My best cave girlfriend Ann. She is from Pennsylvania and I only get to see her a couple of times a year.***

When Shasta Lake is full, it is 517 feet deep at the dam 90% of the lake’s water comes from the rainfall. Currently it is about 200 feet lower than it should be.

Shasta Dam was built between 1938 and 1945. It is 602 feet high, 3,460 feet long, and 883 feet thick at its base. There are 15 million tons of concrete in the dam in the form of concrete blocks that are 50 feet square and five feet high. Shasta Dam was the 17th dam built by civil engineer Frank Crowe, who designed a system of towers that were used to get concrete to each of the 16,900 block forms.

Front side of the dam. We were able to walk almost all the way across it. It was so hot.

***We had dinner at a restaurant called Huff’s at the beautiful Bridge Bay Marina***

We had several speakers throughout the week.

Lake Shasta Caverns is one of the most beautiful caves I have ever visited. But it’s not easy to get to. Actually getting to the cave though is half of the fun. You take a boat across the lake from the opposite side of their ticket office. You then take a scary bus ride up a steep mountain road for 1.5 miles. Then you are at the entrance to the cave. There is 300 steps getting into the cave and then 300 steps back out. But it is totally worth it and the Lake Shasta Caverns crew have it all down to a science. They handle it all with ease. They also offer dinner cruises on the lake you can check it all out on their website here

At the top of the hill just before going into the cave. This was an amazing view.

***The inside of a stalactite. This one had been damaged and broken. But you can see the detail and beautiful design within it.***

These two boys are called The Fiddlin’ Brothers. They are 14 and 12 years old. They have only been playing for a few years and they are amazing.

After the cave tour we had dinner at the caverns and some entertainment. Such talented dancers.

On Friday morning I had to leave the hotel at 4:30 AM to catch my flight to San Francisco and then to Chicago and then into Knoxville. It was a long day and I didn’t get back to the house 10:30 PM. What a week.