Warmth

 Jen and Andy came by yesterday to bring us a Christmas gift from them and all the grands.

Jen read instructions and sometimes Andy listened but mostly he did his own thing...and irritated his wife. 

It is a patio heater...it runs off of propane.  After a little while it warms up nicely... enough to warm your hands and make you step back.  The flame is going up a glass tube.

Andy shoveled a path to the greenhouse/workshop for me also...it was on my list of things to do...in just a few minutes he was done.  It would have been at least two leaners for me...you know the amount of time you lean on the shovel handle to rest before you begin again..  

It was good to see them even if it was just outside on the patio. 

Far Side

Small Quilt

My Mom works on Christmas Gifts all year round.  She worked on this one after Christmas last year.

This is a small quilt perfect for a table or the top of a cleared off desk IF that ever happens!

Hand Bag

My Mom sews, she practically has a fabric shop at her house.  She sews just about every day.

She made me this lovely little bag.

It is just perfect for holding crochet projects that I carry around with me.

Wistful Wednesday: Christmas 1971

This photo was taken at my parents home at the farm in 1971.

Far Guy holding Snuffer our dog. The lady laughing is Far Guy’s Aunt Beryl…she was widowed in January of 1971 (Uncle Ron was just 52 years old when he died.) My Dad with a big grin on his face is handing Beryl a snow shovel with a poinsettia on it. My other baby brother ( age 11) and my sister (age 5) look on.  I believe that Aunt Beryl had complained about an old beat up snow shovel.

Far Guy is holding Snuffers muzzle to keep her from barking…she was a great watch dog!  She was just a few months old.  She was a $5 mutt part Scottie that Far Guy bought at a garage sale for my birthday. ( Snuffer lived a good long time and helped raise our girls to like animals.)

I believe that this photo was taken on Christmas Eve 1971.  Far Guy had a lot more hair back then…we were both college students at Moorhead State College now Minnesota State University Moorhead.

Red Headed Woodpecker

For some reason we don’t see the Red Headed Woodpecker…who remembers Woody the Woodpecker he had a red head too?

We have Pileated Woodpeckers, Red Bellied Woodpeckers, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and assorted Sapsuckers and the beautiful Common Flicker.

We are in the breeding range of the Red Headed Woodpecker but not the wintering over area.

Anyways…my Dad made me one for Christmas.  He was busy in his garage/shop…cutting sanding and painting.

Far Guy put it up on one of the poles of the wood/tractor shed this week.  As you can see we still have plenty of snow.

Ongoing Project: Sleigh Bells

Christmas gift from long ago…probably about 5 years.

 

It was a bunch of sleigh bells from Jen, Andy and the boys.   I put the bells in this wooden container and put them up on a shelf in the kitchen…twice a year when I would clean off that shelf I would think…I need to clean up those bells.

I started this project before Christmas.  I soaked them for a few days and then polished them…and polished…and polished.

Most of them still need their throats cleaned…but I could not stand the suspense of what one might look like? They were laying out on the counter drying.

Pretty…this one is a B/C bell ( Must be the place it was on the harness)

I am not sure how I will use these four bells…They are attached to the base with a screw.  Historically I can find no reference to bells mounted in this fashion.  So they are mystery bells.   They are all #3  petal bells. The creative part of my brain has a few ideas how to use them as Christmas ornaments….but I am not sure how they will look. 

For now, I will finish the cleaning…attach ribbons and put name tags on them and put them in a Christmas Tin to be opened before Christmas next year.

It was turdy below that old zero mark on the trusty old thermometer yesterday morning. 

Gifts from Kansas

It was really cold on Thursday morning…like –25 F or –31C eh!   The mailman delivered a package to our door along with the mail that included seven Christmas Cards!

I opened the package first! 

A box of Retro Shiny Brites and a book The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas.  “A colorful exploration of Depression-era Kansas and the meaning of friendship.”  I was hooked after the first few pages!   Thank you Kay you are ever so thoughtful! 

I took the ornaments upstairs, found some hangers and hung them on the in progress Shiny Brite tree!  These will be known as my Kay ornaments!

The tree upstairs will be done soon, I work on it for a few hours and then do something else.  So many people have given me ornaments it is like a trip down memory lane while I am decorating.

Circle of Life

Yesterday I sat down to mail out sympathy cards. One to a former customer, her husband died last week.  The other to my cousin in Nevada whose wife died from complications of MS.

Last evening I got phone calls from both of my brothers.  First my baby brother with news of his second grandchild’s birth.  Presley a little girl born in Maryland weighing 6 pounds and 13 ounces and is 20 inches long.  A few minutes later my other baby brother called..he had news of Teddy’s birth, his ninth grandchild weighing in at 10 pounds and 3 ounces. (Uffda..poor Megan) His tenth grand is due soon..and my niece was having labor pains..so all these babies could be born within days of each other.  I am very happy for my brothers..I recall the excitement of seeing my own precious grands right after they were born..there is nothing better!

Births and deaths..life goes on and stops for no man or woman.

Sometimes life is like a sweet storybook.

Years ago when I was in Grade School, we used to exchange gifts at Christmas.  The limit must have been 75 cents to a dollar.  I believe these Sweet Storybooks were 79 cents when they first came out..a perfect priced gift.  I never got one..but I always coveted them.  During our 4H gift exchange..it was the same story..I never ever got one. Just so you know I faked happiness towards my friends that got them.

Now I have my own..after many years..and no I am not going to open the candy..I am going to save it forever.  Sometimes it is enough just to look at the sweet little things in life:)

Sometimes you feel like a nut

Sometimes you don’t…sometimes you just feel stupid.  Such was the case last week…

Far Guy and I were ensconced on our respective couches watching a bit of TV..Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs to be exact. In the background there is a Nutcracker..cracking nuts.  I said right out loud in front of God and Far Guy and possibly even Chance.  “ I never knew that those nutcrackers guys actually cracked nuts.”  Far Guy began to laugh..”Whatya mean sweetheart..of course they crack nuts ..they are Nutcrackers.” 

I always thought nutcrackers were the things that sat in the bowl of nuts..you know they were silver and you put the nuts in-between… squeezed for all you were worth and then the shell flew all over..leaving you with some of the nuts meat.

I never knew that the soldiery looking guys in red, green or blue uniforms called Nutcrackers actually cracked nuts.  No one ever explained it to me before..I must have been sick that day when it was taught in school…my Mom or Dad never educated me.. I have never been to the famous ballet ..I have never watched it on TV either..how was I supposed to know?

Now to make it even worse..there is a Planters Peanut commercial where a Nutcracker assaults a peanut. That commercial would have helped me out years ago..now it just reminds me of my stupidity. If that wasn’t enough my oldest daughter when she heard of my lack of nutcracker education..just had to wrap one up for me…marked with the year 2010 so that I will forever remember when I discovered that Nutcrackers actually crack nuts.  

I wonder who told my children?  Did Far Guy tell them all about Nutcrackers one day when I was at work? 

Oh well, you are never too old to learn something.  Do you think that it is a bit strange that it took me 59 years to discover that a Nutcracker actually cracks nuts?  I wonder what else I have missed:)

Far Guys Christmas Gift

The phone rang at 7:30 yesterday morning. You can bet at that time of the morning it is the Mail Man in a package predicament. We have a huge mailbox, most packages will fit. Even though I had instructed Far Guy to say "Deliver it" ..he replied "I will pick it up."
Mailman 1: Far Side 0

Finally it is the gift that I wanted Far Guy to want. A deluxe DVD collection of The Red Green Show! In fact it is supposedly 311 episodes on 52 DVD's ..through my research I discovered that they only made 300 episodes..but there are ten specials that were also made. That still leaves one episode or special unaccounted for. Anyway it it at least 150 hours of Red Green.

Steve Smith stars as Red Green, he plays a handyman from Canada. The show ran on CBC in Canada and on PBS in the USA from 1991 to 2006. It is set up north at Possum Lodge, it is a sitcom/sketch comedy. Red Greens secret weapon is "Duct Tape" and his favorite saying is "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy! "Far Guy needed a little more humor in his life, something to perk up these cold snowy days in the winter. What is really scary..we know some people stuck back here in the boonies that could actually be relatives of Red Greens.

What did Far Guy say? He knew I ordered some kind of DVD's for him...the confirmation email from a DVD store was a dead give away..he could not figure it out..he had no idea what set of DVD's he could possibly want..but as it turned out he does want them! He said "Great idea, my slim, beautiful young wife with no grey hair." Well maybe not exactly but close:)