Snowbound!

Need I say more. Even the dog has dug in. Can you see my car? I barely could. We had at least 14 inches. I am thinking it may have been more.

More Christmas Decorations

SO, I had so much fun last night decorating. I tried it on my own. Enjoy these few pics. More later.

Decorating for Christmas.....

So, I started to decorate for the holidays. A little bit late, but better than not at all. I felt really guilty about it when my son walked up and said, very pathetically, "So, I guess we aren't going to have a tree this year. Are we Mom?". Well, wouldn't you if he had batted his big ole brown eyes at you.

We started by clearing off a shelf. Then we found a few aprons that I had started making for family members, but didn't finish. Here is what we ended up with.
Ok, this one is before we cleaned off the entire shelf. See all the DVD cases there. Way too much junk on this shelf. I cleaned it up. What do you think? You should have see it before. The whole thing was loaded with tapes and DVD's. Here is a close up of the Santa grouping.



Well, have I impressed you with my decorating skills? Or rather my cleaning ability? For those of you who have been in my house and know how much JUNK I have.

Driving in a Winter Wonderland

So, I had to go pick up my daughter at Clay. In the snow! This is what it started out as.


Sorry about the black frame, my camera just recently started doing this before it warms up.

Yeah an by the time she got to clay it was deeper (this is Nicki by they way the daughter she had to pick up. I stole the computer while my mom is doing something. This picture is when we were on our way back from clay. tee hee i took a lot of these pictures.....Haha....including this one.


She did take a lot of pics. But they are so pretty. This is the kind of snow I like. Where it doesn't stick to the road,

but it lays on the trees so nicely! Here are a few pics of my trip to Clay an back.




These are of the hill that is my driveway. I can't believe that my little car made it up it.


And yes, it was still snowing when we got back. I don't think it has stopped all day.

I will have you know that White Christmas and Winter wonderland have been playing in my head all day long.


And when we reached our little blue house on the hill...


guess what was waiting on us? The puppy that adopted us. He just showed up at our house one day and decided he liked it and has been here every since .


His name is Kyou, (pronounced kee-ooh) Nicki likes anime and she named him. I would have preferred Rex, Killer, Rover...something I can understand. You know!

It's getting colder.....

Winter is just around the corner! I am in a sewing mood now. I made a new block. What do you think?


However, my scanner can't fit the whole thing in. You can see that half of it is missing.
I love these colors. I am hoping that my momma likes them too.

Listening to Christmas carols and Christmas songs in general. My new 2 favorites are Santa, Baby and Baby It's Cold Outside. I like the versions from the ELF soundtrack.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. It was the favorite of my sisters who have passed away also.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my other sister's house. She has her place looking really good. Hopefully she has a few new pics that she can post for all to see. HINT HINT TERRY JO!!!!

"My maiden aunt's mind is vicious!" ha ha!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

I Believe......Do you?!

So, I don’t know if you are aware, but I have been having some very difficult times here lately. They are mine to deal with and I won’t bore you with details. But I will tell you of the amazing two things that happened to me and my children over the weekend.

First of all, I felt lousy this weekend and my kids wanted to eat to Mickey Dees’ so I had my father in law take them to Smithers to eat. While they were there, an old man that was obviously homeless come in. Not only was he homeless, but not all there either. And he saw my kids with gran’ma and gran’pa and started talking to them. Now the in-laws were not happy about this. But my youngest, Scott, just chatted away. The old man ordered himself a thing of French fries and that was all. He told them that was all he had the money for. My son felt really sad about this. Considering our recent troubles, he wanted to help. The in-laws wouldn’t let him. But as they were getting ready to leave, Scott told his gran’pa to wait a minute. He turned around and went back inside and gave the extra coke they had ordered to the old man. Then gave him a hug and went back to car. I am doing something right I think. Although, to be honest, it is simply God working in my child's heart.

**My little angel in training.**

I felt really proud of my son for that generosity. It was all he had and he wanted to share it with someone who didn’t have as much as he did. (Wipe away a tear, I did.)

That was on Friday evening. I took the kids out again on Saturday evening to Bob Evans at Summersville. We sat down and ordered our meal. We talked and laughed and just had a really good dinner. I even relented on the sweets issue and got them a slice of pie to take home for dessert. We were all stuffed. When I flagged the waiter down to get the bill, he informed me that it had been taken care of. I was dumbfounded. WHAT?! Seriously, I am ready for the bill. What he gave me was this sentence. “A gentleman who was sitting behind you has already paid your bill. He said he didn’t know you but he just wanted to take care of it for you and he didn’t want you know who he was.” All he gave me was the bill for the desserts. $7.92. That is all it cost me to feed myself and the kids on Saturday evening at Bob Evans. It would have been around $50 or $60. And I just had to pay $7.92. All I could say was “Thank you Lord for your blessing.”

So, whoever he was, I thank him. And all of these angel stories that are circulating around, BELIEVE!!!! There are indeed angels unseen and they are working in our lives even though we cannot see them.

God Bless you all!

It's beginning the look alot like Christmas!

So I know Halloween isn't even here yet, and Thanksgiving is a whole month away. I am, however, thinking about Christmas. I love Christmas. The twinkling lights, all the greenery, the yard decorations, the happy spirit that can't be dimmed; I love Christmas. So I am asking opinions about how to decorate for it. My main problem area is my back porch/den/sewing room. Here are a few pictures of how it looks now.

As you can see, my hubby likes to hang is army uniform there. My lonley little nutcracker is guarding my oil lamps. My fruit plaques are not supposed to go there, but I have very little room right now.

We want to change the paneling in this room to drywall. I will have pics of that next month.

But for now, the room has very little light and not enough outlets. As you can see, I have a phone line strung across the sewing part of the room to hold my quilts and also put the phone on the other side of the room. Notice the homemade quilt hanging on the shelf???? My own creation.

So in this view, you see my sewing table. Right in the middle of this farthest wall is a window. It is a 3 ft x 4ft slider aluminum window. Lots of air flows through this portal. We are planning on replacing that with a vinyl insulated one. The whole room is only 10 ft wide. With 8ft ceilings. Actually, I don't think that they are even 8ft. Very low. Concrete floors are waiting for laminated hardwood.

You should remember that my father-in-law built this house all on his own. I refer to it as my crooked house. He had a few troubles in getting it square. He told me that is what happens when you are building all by yourself! But that is another story.

Now this is the view across from the fireplace. My fruit plaques should be here, but there is just no room!

So what do you think? How would you decorate this very unusual room for Christmas?

Mom! Look at my pumpkin.........

He did it all himself. He came and asked me if he could carve his pumpkin that gramma gave him and I said yes. Okay, I was quilting and lost in the pieceing as I tried to make sure the pieces continued the same pattern. Then I saw the knife!!!Then I had second thoughts as I saw the carving knife go out the back door with him. "NO RUNNING!" I yelled. I just had visions of a self inflicted stab wound. "Yes, Dr., he was running with the carving knife......No, I didn't see three blind mice, why do you ask?"


Sorry about that. Here is what he ended up with. He told me he made a baby jack-o-lantern. How do you know it's a baby? His answer........Because it has no teeth! Well, so it doesn't Do you think it will still scare the boogey monster away if it's a baby?

What do you think?

So, a friend of mine asked the question on facebook last night if anyone remembered those latchhook rug kits. Well, yeah. I was traumatized from my 7th grade home economics class that failed mine because of the colors being in the wrong order. Well, I will have you know Ms. Pam Boggs, that I now have excellent color cordination. And no, I do not believe you failing me on my latch hook kit was the cause! It is my new found (well, not so new) confidence in what I think looks good and years of training by my little sis, so there!!!!

I don't think that mine had a heart or a smiley face on it. But hey my memory is not what it used to be either.

After she asked that, it made me wonder if I had seen any kits anywhere around here. And the answer was, No I haven't seen any. Now, for Christmas this year, I had planned to get the kiddies a WII system and a few games. But you know I am in a nostalgic frame of mind and they just might end up with little craft kits and jigsaw puzzles. If nothing else, it will keep them from constantly saying that they are bored. And wouldn't those just make the perfect things to keep them occupied this winter when the power is out and they can't get on the interenet or watch TV.

Where we live, when the wind blows and the rain falls, the phone and the power have a tendency to disappear. My son says it is alot like camping, but in the house. Which is the best way to camp if you ask me. It reminds me of the episode of Andy Griffith where Opie said that "adventure sleeping was an ironing board on two chairs". Or was it Barney? Humm....not sure, but it was on there.

So how do you spend your "down" time? Puzzles, craft kits, quilts or reading? I must say that I enjoy them all. You never know what I will end up doing.

Love to all!

Haven't forgotten you!

So, I know it has been a while since I last posted, but I have issues. Mainly, kidney stone issues. I just haven't felt well for while now. The pain got the better of me on 9-04 and I ended up in the emergency room. They sent me home with a referral to a urologist, pain meds, anit-nausea meds and antibotics. So, the next day I called the urologist.....can't see me until the 21st! BUT I AM IN PAIN! I cried. Sorry, can't get you in until then.

So, I use the unwanted paid meds to get me through the week and half of torture my kidneys were putting me through. I have taken all the antibotics. I have only a few pain meds left. I went to see the urologist on the 21st and have had an appointment for something every day this week. The only day I don't have something is Thursday. I have a lithotripsy scheduled for 8:00 on Friday. Finally, some relief. Well, we will see, several folks have told me that I am going to feel as though I have been hit by a truck. I hope not, but it would have to be better than this.

So, Keep me in your prayers and I will keep you in mine.

More later!

Going to the Chapel!

Well, Nicki and I attended a wedding on Saturday, August 22nd. It was so beautiful. It was at the state capitol in Charleston. Such a georgous day for a wedding. While I was getting ready, my son told me I was beautiful and he wanted to take my picture. He always tells me I am beautiful, but I AM HIS MOMMY!

Now, anyone of you who know me really well, will understand that this almost never happens. I don't do pictures. I don't photograph well, never have! But here is one of the pics that my son took. Isn't he a good photographer?! I think he may have some talent.

Unplugged and Disconnected

My computer crashed. It wouldn't start up. It stayed on the black startup screen and wouldn't do anything else. It kept asking me which mode I wanted to start up in and I told it safe mode, but it wouldn't listen! Then it just died. NOTHING HAPPENED!

I had so much stuff on that computer! Pictures from the last six years. Preschool graduations, prom night, graduation night. Hubby coming hom from Iraq, twice. Copies of receipts for vehicle parts, (which hubby hasn't realized yet!) birth certificates, geneologies, spreadsheets, internet downloads (my games) all sorts of things that I have gotten used to over the years and now, there is nothing.

How important have these computers become that our lives are stored on them? Did the fellows who invented these things realize how much we would come to depend on them? Not only for storing informatin, but for entertainment and socalization. I don't think I could function normally if I didn't have some way to access the internet. I feel so disconnected.

This happened over the weekend and I am still trying to deal with it.

Fortunately, there is a fellow here at work that said he might me able to "mirror" my harddrive and see if he can recover all my stuff. He didn't guarantee all of it, he may not be able to even do it, but he is willing to try. Bless his little heart. So wish me the best as I struggle to recover my sanity, oops, I meant files!

So, there has to be at least one picture on here to lighten up the mood. These are the hands of my 15 year old. She has plaid tipped nails on. I must say, she has her own sense of style.

Garden Patch!

Well, I have officially harvested from my real garden. I got 2 heads of cabbage from it. Now, what the heck am I going to make from 2 heads of cabbage? Some one send me a recipe for canning cabbage. I like kraut. No one else in my family does, but I do. I will make kraut.

I have also gotten green onions and peppers and cucumbers. Here have a look-see:

Isn't that something? I feel like I have done something productive. I feel like a country girl! I raised a garden.....well ok, Kathy raised a garden. But I pulled out the weeds that almost over took it. She doesn't like to weed, it gets too hot. Boy does it! And the bugs, ugh. But I did it, so now I claim this garden

as my own little green garden patch. You can almost see my marigolds around it. The five remaining corn stalks that actually have ears of corn growing on them. See:

I am so proud of this endeavor. Everyone laughed at me when I said I was going to grow a garden. Well keep laughing. All that positive energy is making my garden grow and produce....well produce!

So, fresh from my garden to your computer screen, enjoy a few pics of the cantaloupe and the pepper and the tomatoes that funny shaped and whatever else I have growing there. Not sure about some of the plants.

ENJOY!