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An "almost" year in review....

December 2011 We're getting ready to bid the old year Goodbye... It's been a choice not to make very many posts this year. Every time I would sit down to write I'd say, "Who wants to read about that!!??" My mom used to tell me..... If you're my age, I'll bet you've heard that line before too. And what can I say? For us, 2011 was a pretty challenging year. It seemed like every time we had a "crisis" of one kind or another that resolved, another even larger "crisis" would rise up to take it's place. It was the first year for me that I've had to live with chronic pain from what I found out in November, was a labral tear in my hip area. Seems as I age, arthritis is setting in and the Doc recommended a hip replacement. I'm trying to fend that off for a while in hopes that maybe there will be a way to have relief without such drastic measures, but it means living daily with quite a bit of pain and the inabili

Bounty

A quick little garden update.... Our gardening year began with a harvest of sweet shelling peas, strawberries and Ollalieberries . We were getting so much berry fruit this year I finally decided I would have to freeze some along with eating it and giving a bunch away. We planted zucchini , yellow squash and pattypan squash in April and have been harvesting that for the last month and are about to pull whats left and plant a heavy crop of Roma tomatoes and basil. I'm hoping to be able to make and can spaghetti sauce for the upcoming year. And right now, we are having to pick apples daily to keep up with the fruit our little tree is giving us. So far, we are mostly drying it but I found a recipe online for apple pie filling that looks delish !! And the apples would make really good applesauce too, so I have some options. Hubby and I have already discussed moving some of our planting boxes to the yard and increasing how many we have. We have done a pretty good job supplementing what

A New Color

The finish on my " Craigslist Bed" is beautiful but kind of "cold" don't you think? It's a white finish with an almost silver blue marbling. I LOVE the "bones" of this bed frame, but I'm not entirely in love with the color. So I've been hunting for a new color to paint it and today... I think I found it! Oh yeah! This is more like it.... warm, inviting, rich... This is THE PERFECT color to paint the iron bed in my guest room! Antique Brush Gold. That warm hue on the cold iron.... DELICIOUS!

I've been a BUSY girl!

So busy in fact that I've been really, REALLY bad about posting here. Some things I've been doing... Sewing ... I've finished nearly 4 crib size quilts since January and I'm working on the 5 th now. (I'll share some pictures when I get them uploaded) Crafting with Paper ... A little (long overdue!) banner for my grand-daughter Hannah's room. Ribbon will be strung through the back, each "flag" will be joined together with a bow and it will be hung on the wall of her little nursery. Hopefully I'll be able to share a picture of that when I'm done. Baking ... Mostly experimenting with bread lately. I love the smell and aroma of fresh baked bread, don't you? Cracked Wheat Sourdough Yummy Pretzels! OK, I need to stop right her or my computer will need to be fixed from all the drooling I'm doing!! Gardening .... A full bed of zuchinni , yellow and pattypan squash and Shelling peas. We also had a bumper year of Ollallieberries , Strawberries

I LOVE Paris in the Fall.....

Wow, I just found THIS blog that is giving away round trip airfare from the continental USA to Paris and a week in the city of lights!!! Jordan, over at Oh Happy Day is offering the vacation of a lifetime! So you KNOW I'm going to be crossing my fingers and singing, "I love Paris in the Springtime. I Love Paris in the Fall.........What a treat it would be to win this contest!! Head on over today, follow her directions for entering and " Bon Chance"...(just practicing up on my French 'cause I'm planning on being the BIG winner!)

365 Days of Slow Cooking: Do you want my cookbook?

Helped a fellow blogger over the last few weeks with a contest she was conducting for her crockpot cookbook. It was so much FUN!! She set it up like a tournament and we did cookoffs and ratings on how well we liked the results. I made Zuppa Toscana, Chicken Lasagne, Coconut Thai Shrimp and Rice and my all time favorite, Chicken Cordon Bleu. My favorite ended up second and it was GOOD!! If you're looking for some super good recipes... head on over to Karen's website HER E and while you are there, sign up to win her cookbook.... I did!! 365 Days of Slow Cooking: Do you want my cookbook?

February.....

What I've been working on this past month.... Remember the little rag quilt project I was working on? Finished! With all the rain we've been having my garden beds are THRIVING! We are talking about adding more beds into our yard and planting even more garden veggies. My husband is a whiz with a saw and having home grown fresh produce will save us money at the store! My husband and I have been working on "being prepared". We've taken some steps around the house to organize camping equipment, work on our food storage, build up a emergency water supply and learn a few new skills. We each made 72 hour food packages for our cars and larger bags filled with first aid items, warm clothes and camping type equipment. Better to think ahead and be prepared than to have something happen and be fumbling around not knowing what to do. Wes and I are taking steps to get HAM licenses, hopefully our respective father's old numbers. Its a fun way to communicate with others and i

January....

The year has gotten off to a rather crazy start. But crazy makes the time go by faster right? My husband and I are putting the finishing touches on our little upstairs "apartment". We donated quite a few items, sold some of the larger things and threw out a lot of useless junk! Now we are debating whether to keep our ugly old TV / entertainment center or just get one of the smaller flatscreen ones that we could even hang on the wall for space purposes. I LIKE this! Looks clean and clutter free! It doesn't even NEED the candle holders or pictures on the wall. Looks like I'll need to downsize even MORE stuff! Our area of California has been unseasonably warm.... in the 70's! We took our scooters out to Lopez Lake and made some reservations to camp this upcoming weekend. Here is a map of the "Blue Jay" section.... we will be in Space 31. We are VERY excited to go on our first campout of the year and are already planning something in April as well. I've

Hello 2011!

Goodbye 2010 and HELLO 2011!! Almost 10 days into the New Year and what have I been working on? A little Digital Scrapbooking using THIS program..... Skyping with the Grandkids I don't always see daily..... This is Grandson, Anthony with his baby sister, Audrey...... Taking Ali Edwards class.... One Little Word over HERE ......... (There's still room in the class if you're interested too!) My One Little Word for the year is ROOTS. The genealogy has come out of the box and work has already started filling in the blanks. Plans to use Ancestry.com eventually to further the research. I've taken a really messy area in my house and transformed it into a really cute little sewing area and I've been sewing again. IT'S BEEN YEARS since I sat down to make anything and it feels really, REALLY good! There's just something about the smell of fresh laundered material being ironed! I found some pink fabric, just a small amount that matched and here is what I decided to