January Bliss

Happy Friday!!! How is your January going? It seems like it was Christmas only yesterday. We have been having a new deck put on the back of our house. We also added new doors, a new front door and doors on our new deck. I am really excited about the deck doors they have the blinds on the inside of the glass. Take that you dust bunnies. Our yard and then our living room has been in a state of disarray. Adding a new deck is something I have wanted to do for a couple of years now. We started the deck before Thanksgiving and then rain and all of the workers being sick slowed the process. They finally finished the deck just before Christmas. There was a mixup on the new deck doors and they had to be reordered and that slowed things even more. The doors were finally put in last week. Of course it was one of the coldest days we’ve had this winter and all of the doors in the living room were out. Mark took this picture from the upstairs. We still haven’t painted the doors. We are waiting for the temps to be a little warmer but I will show you an update when we do.

You can see a little bit of the new deck here. I am loving the new railing. I can’t wait until it gets warmer and we can sit on the deck and enjoy the sunshine.

Last Sunday I decided to make bread with my sour dough starter. I wanted the regular sour dough and the cinnamon pecan sourdough. So each cup of starter makes three loaves, and long story short I wound up with six loaves of bread I gave most of it away. I have to get it out of the house so I won’t eat all of it.

My niece Amy R and I decided to start a craft or project night once or twice a month. Here are some of the things we are planning to do:
Hook a rug
Paint with chalk paint
Stencil
Make candles
Make herb butter

These are just a few things we want to start with.

But we actually started out last Tuesday making one of the knitted arm blankets. Something we hadn’t really planned on at all. Man is that yarn expensive. It is a super bulky yarn and let me say it is a bit of an investment. We decided to go with a slightly smaller bulk. We don’t want to break our budget with these projects. We got the yarn at Hobby Lobby and we each needed two skeins. They are really large. They were on sale 30% off so we got them for about 15.00 each so $30.00 for each blanket. The super bulky that we really wanted would have been about $75.00 per blanket. A little pricey for me on a beginner project.

We picked out a YouTube video and got started. This is an excellent video for beginners

Arm Knit a Blanket in 45 Minutes by Simply Maggie

It took us a little bit to get started but once we got the hang of it it went pretty fast. It is basically knitting with your arms instead of knitting needles. I guess because we were new to it and using our arms the open spaces in the blanket were a little large. We finished in about two hours. I put it over the back of this chair and to be honest with you I was not really happy with it. I think it kind of looked like intestines. Now that Amy and I have the hang of making one of these we think we will invest in the higher priced bulky yarn and try again. I decided to unravel my blanket because I knew I would probably never like it and use it. I can make quite a few knitted scarves out of the yarn. The yarn is very nice and soft and will make excellent scarves.

So as you can see I have been in this sort of nesting mode. I guess with the hustle and bustle of Christmas behind me I just want to take a breather and enjoy being alone and doing things I really want to do.

This is the book we are currently reading for our book club. I just started it. It is sort of the sequel to, To Kill A Mockingbird. So far it is pretty interesting. I need to go back and read Mockingbird because it has been many many years since I read that. What a lot of people don’t realize is that Harper Lee actually wrote Go Set A Watchman first before Mockingbird. Just some trivia for you.

My goals for January are going pretty well you can see them in this post I haven’t lost five pounds yet but I have been more active and I have been trying some new things (like the blanket) but more on that at the end of the month

How is your January going?

Love your day your way

A New Year, A New Word

Hello Hello how have you been? This is my first post for the new year. Happy New Year!!!! I have to say being back at work last week for a whole week, yes I had to work New Year’s Eve and Day, kind of kicked my butt. I had taken quite a bit of vacation time before Christmas so having to work all week kind of did me in. By Friday evening I was dragging. So I didn’t do much this weekend but take some wonderful walks with Scruffy, knit like crazy, and cook. The temps here have been upper fifties and lower sixties. Is this really January? I have also been binge watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I am now on season 2. I love this it is so funny. Mark has recently started working some different hours so we are adjusting to that as well.

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just ignore these last two if you are cutting carbs

We had a very low key New Years. Mark doesn’t even attempt to stay awake until midnight. I do but I have to set the alarm on my phone to wake me up just before midnight. There is just something about watching the ball drop in Times Square that just seems right and a fitting way to start the new year.

2018 was quite a year. A year of good things. Lots of travel and seeing new places. Our vacation to Maine was amazing you can catch up to it here Mainly In Maine But also unbelievably hard because we lost my sweet brother Allen. We got Scruffy and Kitty Kitty and worked with all the adjustments of having them. Scruffy came to us blind because of terrible cataracts and we had the cataracts removed and now he can see!!!! My 85 year old mother in law fell and broke her hip and had to have several surgeries. She is now living in an Assisted Living Center and adjusting quite well to it. So lots of things going on and having to deal with but that’s life isn’t it?

I have been easing into the New Year. I am not one to make a lot of New Year’s resolutions. I am too old for that. I know what I am capable of and what I’m not. I decided to set some goals for the month of January and I will share them with you. Maybe you can help me be accountable.

I do pick a word every year to focus on throughout the year. I have been doing this for several years. My word for this year is “Try” very simple but yet very challenging in itself. What is the harm in trying. If you don’t try you definitely won’t succeed. If you don’t try you may never know what could have been. If you don’t try then you don’t know what you might be capable of. And if it doesn’t work out the first time try, try, try again. So that is my word for this year. I may have to embroider it somewhere on something or maybe get it tattooed somewhere on me.

My goals for January:
1.Help someone everyday (I know this sounds sort of broad but when you think about it, it can be done in one way or another if you focus on doing it.)
2.Lose 5 pounds
3.Work out 4 days a week (At least get in my 10,000 steps a day)
4.Try a new recipe
5.Visit with a friend I have not seen in awhile
6.Try doing something new
7.Be present everyday. (another broad one but stop and enjoy the little things)
8.Not to buy any new clothes or accessories
9.TRY
10. Do a daily devotional

I hope your New Year is starting off to be wonderful. Have you set any new goals?

Love your day your way

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Did “You” Get Bigger Than Christmas?

Christmas has come and gone once again. Whether you had everything exactly the way you wanted or had disappointments I want to ask: Did you let yourself get bigger than Christmas this year? Last year? Every year?

Every year I say that I am going to get on a budget for Christmas and shop early. I tell myself I am going to watch my spending and not go overboard. Every year I tell myself I am not going to wait until the last minute and find myself out grabbing gifts no matter the overpriced cost and the lack of thought and genuineness that goes into them. I tell myself I will give more money to the Angel Trees or other charities instead. And I am telling myself that again this coming year. Yes I am!!!!!

I guess I might have made it about half way this year but still going way over budget and really with no thought of how much I had spent until I go over my credit cards and bank statements. OUCH!!!!

I did manage in the haze of cooking and shopping to wind up coming up with some thoughtful gifts for people that didn’t even cost a lot of money. Just the time spent putting them together. I love giving and getting those gifts the most. But still the spending was a little overboard. When I do this I feel like I am the Christmas and that I am getting away from the real meaning of Christmas.

Gifts are great and they’re special and hopefully given from the heart. I love seeing children get gifts. Our local Kiwanis Club provides gifts for about 50 children in our community. The local school teachers help put the names together for us. The names also include the names of their younger siblings who may not even be in school. The teachers discovered that the children in their classes were asking for things for their younger siblings instead of themselves so the siblings names were then included. This makes me want to sit down and cry my eyes out. How precious is it that a child would be more concerned about their siblings getting gifts instead of themselves.

I remember when I was a little girl of about six years old we were at my grandparents house and my grandfather had started opening his presents. He was really taking his time unwrapping them I had already unwrapped all of mine. I wondered how he could take his time like that and move so slowly. In the middle of unwrapping his gift my dad said something to him and they stepped outside to look at something. I saw him lay the gift down to return to it later. I couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t even finished opening his gift, what?????? I think it was pajamas or something and he probably couldn’t have cared less about it. Ha Ha. But to me being a child and not ripping into that gift was unthinkable.

As I have gotten older I totally understand, it’s so much more than “gifts” it’s love and caring and giving your time and helping each other in whatever way you can. These are times that everyone can use a little help in one way or another. I will try to take that with me into the new year.

Love your day your way

Friday Favorites, 12-28-2018, and Some Catching Up

Happy Friday

I wanted to play catch up just a bit before I tell you about my Favorites.

We had a great Christmas over here. I felt like I had cooked for days but it all came together as it always does and it was wonderful.

We always spend Christmas Eve at my sister Sandy’s house. It is sort of a central location for all of the brothers and sisters. This is just my side of the family. We always spend Christmas Day with Mark’s family. My family has about 25-30 people who attend and Mark’s family has about 5 people. I will never forget the first time we had Christmas at our house and there were so many people, Mark told his mom the next day “Mom there were so many people I think they were coming in off the street”. If you know my family that was probably true and that is alright with us.

Anyway Christmas Eve and the first time we get to see my new Great Niece from California, Elanore, Baby El. We were so excited she is about 14 months old and just the most precious thing you have ever seen. She is the granddaughter of my brother who passed away in February so a very bitter sweet time for all of us. I know how much he would have enjoyed spending time with her.

Se we ate and had gifts and talked and talked and talked and trashed my sister’s house and then we cleaned the dishes and talked some more and ate some more and just had a great time being with each other. I think with the absence of my 2 brothers and my sister it makes us really appreciate each other. Mark was not with us and I always feel his absence so much. Because of his work he has to miss many of our holiday get-togethers and it is just something I have come to terms with. It’s not the same without him.

The next day on Christmas Eve we brought my mother in law from the assisted living center, where she is staying, to her house and I cooked the food and took it there. Mark had to work that day so he had to leave early and it was easier for him to leave from there and get to work on time. We had a wonderful time and his mom seemed happy to be able to be at her own home for awhile. Just a very small crowd here, Me and Mark, Mark’s mom, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, and a neighbor who is a dear friend to us. Again Mark had to go to work and I go home and snuggle with the fur babies until he can get back to us.

So here we are in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I feel a little in limbo. I am taking a few days off to take care of my remaining vacation days at work. I am not sure most days what day it is. I think I like that. I have done a lot of snuggling with the fur babies and watching movies. A little knitting and even some more baking if you can believe that.

Here are a few of my Friday Favorites:

My new Canon Camera that Santa Mark Got me for Christmas. This is the Canon EOS Rebel T6 digital. My husband is such a Techie. If I even mention that I want anything that might fall in this category he is all over it. He researches it to the end to find me the best possible deal he can get with all the bells and whistles. I can’t wait to use this camera. It is digital and blue tooth compatible and as you can see he got me several different lenses to use with it.

Stock photo
This Coconut Cream Pie recipe. This is my favorite and I have probably made it about a million times because it is Mark’s favorite of all the pies I make. I will confess I do not make my own crust.
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 cups milk
1&1/2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1&1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1 baked 9-inch pastry shell
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup sifted powdered sugar
Combine sugar,cornstarch, and salt in a heavy saucepan: stir well. Combine egg yolks and milk: gradually stir into sugar mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in butter and vanilla. Immediately pour into pastry shell. Cover filling with wax paper. Let cool 30 minutes, then chill until firm.
Beat whipping cream until foamy; gradually add powdered sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Spread whipped cream over filling, chill. ( FYI, I have also used cool whip)
The copy of this recipe that belonged to my mama. This was one of her favorites. Coffee Cake. I remember when I was a little girl I loved it when she made this cake. This recipe is in her handwriting and I copied and laminated it and then put it on this wooden frame. I gave out several at Christmas to my nieces and nephews and I kept a copy for me. They loved it and it was a very special gift to them.
My favorite movie of all time, When Harry Met Sally, I love this movie and I watch it whenever it comes on. I have seen it about a million times but I will watch it whenever I catch it on. I think I know every line of this movie.

5. I love these little hearts that come out at Valentines. These are already on the shelves at Walmart. I saw them today. They have different sayings on them. I can eat a million of these. I try not to even buy them because I will eat the whole bag!!!! I used to leave them around in different places for my husband.

These are a few of my Friday Favorites. What have you been up to? how was your Christmas? Are you planning a big New Year’s Eve celebration?

Join me in a few days when my blogging gets back on track. Until then. Happy New Year!!!

Love your day your way!!!