Just popping in quickly to tell you that I'm still around. Andee, Todd, and Madison got here around lunch time on Christmas Eve.
It made Christmas extra special for us. Lynn was on call and had to stay pretty close to home so we didn't get to see her and the other four grandchildren...on my side anyway. We plan to go see them after the holidays and deliver our gifts.
Andee was opening a gift from Todd, as was I. But I stopped unwrapping mine when I saw that in Andee's package was a pair of new Crocs. Oh, I bemoaned, Andee got new Crocs, and I love the color! I would love to have a pair just like those! Well, look what was in my package! Talk about being tickled! The feet on the left, wearing the really nice pajamas, belong to me. :)
It has been a fun Christmas for us all...animals included.
Andee, Todd, and Madison have gone home now but we are enjoying Poppy's daughter Windy, her husband Brian and our other two grandsons, Jacob and Luke. It has been four years since we have seen them, so this is really special.
It's funny, this morning we all sat around the table playing a new board game the boys got for Christmas. We finished the game, Windy won. We ate sandwiches for lunch. Windy mentioned they might like to ride to our little town to look around. Well, Poppy and I sat down in the living room. Next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes from a much needed nap and seeing Poppy sound asleep in his chair. The house was quiet. All four of them had gotten dressed and slipped out the front door leaving us asleep. Neither of us heard a thing. Guess they figured us old folks needed a break. :)
They should be back soon so. We are taking lots of pictures from their visit.
Thank you for the nice comments on last post. I had no idea so many of you still like fruit cake. Oh, and the fruit cake made with graham crackers and coconut and packed inside the empty cracker box...that is my very favorite!! I still have mama's recipe and will share it in my next post. Ya'll please come back.
Love,
Henny
I'm thinking I had better wish you all a merry Christmas right now...just in case! :) so, MERRY CHRISTMAS dear friends!
Andee, Todd, and Madison will be here early tomorrow to spend Christmas with us. I love having them home for Christmas and can hardly wait. When they leave on Saturday, then Poppy's daughter Windy, her husband Brian, and their boys Jacob and Luke will be arriving to stay five days with us. There just may not be another chance to get on the computer, for a while anyway.
and needing a Christmas picture to go with my post, let me show you the new little Polar Bear on the tree. Rarely do I buy a new ornament, but how could I leave the store without this little bear. Besides being cute, he was marked 70% off. He looks like a little Eli.
Sure, you have already seen our tree a dozen times but Christmas comes but once a year and I love the pretty packages and the Christmas tree and the lights. It will be a whole year before we can do this again!
and you all know how patiently sweet Eli has waited by the tree for Santa, but today he had to move just outside the living room window to the old cast iron bed on the back porch, where the air is cooler.
It may look like Christmas on the inside but I'm about to show you how it looks outside here on our teeny tiny make believe farm...
This was taken about thirty minutes ago. We have had rain, rain, and more rain...and even a couple of tornado warnings in the southeastern part of North Carolina.
and this pretty little pool of water is actually the walkway to our front steps. I had planned to mop the kitchen floor with a little clorox water late this afternoon...should I even bother?
:(
Wish I could take credit for baking this pretty fruit cake. But no, it came from Costco. Shelby got one for her family and one for us, when she was out shopping. Is there anybody out there, besides Shelby and me, who still loves fruit cake? I had not baked the first thing, not even one cookie until this morning when I made this pan of fudge.
Gosh, I could have at least put down a red checked cloth or something to make this look food look good. I'm headed back to the kitchen now to make something else. :)
Seriously, I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas. I appreciate your friendship so much! Thank you for looking at my blog.
Love,
Henny
As I washed and dried the apples for this little fruit bowl, I thought about the fruit that Santa Claus used to leave in our stockings when we were children.
When Shelby, Jackie, and I were young, we hung up one of Daddy's socks. We didn't have a red furry store bought stocking, but picked out the longest of Daddy's socks we could find in the drawer. Even picking out a sock to hang was exciting at Christmas time, and how funny Daddy's socks always looked, stretched out real long, bulging with fruit, and hanging from a nail.
On Christmas morning there would always be an apple or an orange stuffed down into the toe of the sock, then nuts and candies, then another apple or orange, more nuts and candy and a tangerine. This fruit that Santa brought was special and tasted better than fruit from the kitchen. It really did, didn't it?
This morning my new red butter dish jumped out of the refrigerator and broke into pieces!
Seriously, it is not meant for me to have a butter dish...and I was so proud of this one. Why Poppy and I had been without a butter dish for ages, then when Andee and I were out Christmas shopping about two weeks ago, I found this red one. All I did was open the refrigerator door!
It is always so exciting to see a new follower. Thank you so much! Getting late here and Poppy needs the computer. :) Be back soon.
Love,
Henny
Good gosh! Are these busy days or what? Guess I won't try to reply to each of your comments that are so special to me. You probably don't have time to be checking back to see anyhow. But Vic, just you wait and see how neatly the Christmas stuff is packed away and labeled this year! :)
New wheelbarrow is on my Christmas list this year. So is Donkey, or baby Alpaca. Oh my goodness! Have you seen a baby Alpaca? Believe me, I am not expecting either of these under the tree. I have a feeling two new shirts are wrapped and under the tree for me. Pretty darn sure about this feeling cause it was me who picked out the shirts, paid for them, and wrapped them. :)
The cheap bale of hay is for the hen house. New hay will freshen things up and make it warmer for the old hens and the rooster that no longer fly up on the roost at night.
How bout a stroll around the teeny tiny farm...
What's up there? Should we take cover?
what'd ya'll think you saw anyhow?
Looks okay from here.
Oh everything's fine.
Relax!
Back to hunting and searching boys.
Better get busy now. Hope you will come back. Thank you for visiting.
Love,
Henny
We are in the middle of a dark, gloomy, rainy afternoon...with a chance of thunderstorms. Guess that's the price we pay for this spring-like weather here in December.
This little artificial tree was collecting dust in the shop, so I brought it on to the back porch yesterday. It still needs something. Funny how I see all that's wrong once I post a picture on my blog. That plastic pot needs to go!
While plundering around it the shop I found another handful of special little ornaments.
another kitty cat for the tree
and the heavy little squirrel that I bought at Restoration Warehouse in Raleigh in the 1990's. That was back in my days as a secretary. There is no such thing as a secretary now, is there?
and the okra pod Santa. I think this came from a booth at the farmer's market.
This year when the tree comes down I'm going to put things away with some order...label the boxes and put my favorite ornaments together.
We went to town this morning. Poppy got a hair cut while I went to Walmart. We both went in CVS to copy a few old pictures. That CVS store always makes me think about Ziggy. Remember Ziggy? Ziggy and I are a lot alike. Two different times now I have walked up to those automatic doors in front of CVS and had to stop because the doors would not open for me. The first time this happened, I felt a little embarrassed. Looking around, I saw there were cars in the parking lot. I thought to myself, maybe the store closed suddenly because of an emergency, but then a lady walked up, walked past me to the doors, the doors opened and she walked in without even slowing down...I went on in behind her. Weeks later this same thing happened to me again. Wouldn't this have been a perfect Ziggy cartoon? The doors opened right up for Poppy and me today. It's just when I'm alone...it's embarrassing!
Not much of a post. Thank you if you're still here. Hope to be back soon.
Love,
Henny
Eli has asked Santa for a new bear for Christmas.
He scratched at the door this morning and when I opened it he walked in with this teddy bear.
Eli turns two next month. Do you ever outgrow your love of teddy bears?
Poppy told me on Sunday that he would go Christmas shopping with me on Monday....
I complain that we never do anything together anymore. Christmas shopping together used to be fun.
Our plan for Monday was to get up and out of the house early, beat the crowds and maybe get home in time for Poppy to hunt. That we did! But shopping and bringing home a trunk load of lovely wrapped gifts, that didn't happen. Oh, Poppy was patient enough...making suggestions, picking up things to show me, asking me, exactly what are you looking for, and who are you shopping for...that sort of thing.
We spent a grand total of 7.99 and brought home three small items that when Poppy asked, who are these for, I answered I don't know.
So Poppy went to work yesterday and I went Christmas shopping. We now have gifts to wrap and put under the tree, and as Mama would say, such as they are...except I forgot to buy wrapping paper. :(
Yesterday was productive. Shopping was fun. The Christmas cards are all written and in the mail, and on my way out of town, I stopped at the feed and seed store and hung two apron sets on the little rack in the window. Hopefully, these will sell before Christmas.
Better get busy, as I have a ton of work to do and Poppy is hunting again today. He will be in for lunch soon. I'll be around shortly to catch up with all the favorite posts I've missed. Don't the days simply fly!!
Love,
Henny
Maybe by Christmas I'll get it right. What needs to be changed here is the ribbon on the greenery. Next time I run to town I'll buy a spool of red ribbon and tie a bow. That would look better?
All this time I've been thinking it was the cedar that makes the best scent for the house, but after cutting these pine limbs, wow! it smelled like opening a bottle of Pinesol. A truck load needs to be hauled in here!
Same here. A red ribbon is what this pot of greenery needs. The idea of pine limbs came from Joyce at quiltednestantiques.blogspot.com. I love her decorating ideas.
I am trying my best to take it easy for a few days, hoping my back and leg pain will go away. Shuffling through these ankle deep leaves in the back yard, while the rake stands leaning against a tree is not easy.
This was yesterday while Eli was out in the back yard getting a little exercise, and while I sat on the bench wringing my hands and thinking about how I needed to be raking.
and looking up, waaay up into the tree tops I remembered when Poppy's Mother came to spend a weekend with us. When she arrived, her first comment about our place was, "I've never seen such tall old trees around a place". It's true. The trees are not the biggest but they surely are tall.
Really, look how these trees tower above the shed. Why, one of these tall trees could fall in the edge of the woods and still hit the house.
You may remember my post about the Hickory tree. Poppy says this tree would be a hundred feet tall.
This was around 7:00 am this morning. Fog along with a pink sky. Wonder what that means? Well, what a bunch of mixed stuff I've posted here...sort of tells you how my mind works lately. :)
Thank you for looking in. Hope to be back soon.
Love,
Henny
I put lights on our very own little Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
There is a sad story behind this little tree. Three or four years ago Poppy and I were plundering around and picking up old bricks at the land fill when I happened upon an old plastic planter which had growing in it, a half dead Hosta and a small tree that had taken root. Feeling sorry for the struggling little plants I brought them home. I potted the Hosta and it grew big and pretty. The little tree thrived too, in fact, I had to keep moving it to bigger pots. That was one of the trees I posted about that had grown big and the roots had grown through the pot and under the fence, into the teeny tiny garden.
This fall, the only way I could move this tree was to cut the roots off and then cut the pot away from the tree. I then closed my eyes and threw the little tree into the ditch. While out gathering cedar and holly for Christmas I noticed the dying little tree and felt sorry for it once again. I pulled it out of the ditch, brushed it off, stuck it into a pot, and packed dirt around it again. Now it has a special spot in our front yard. If by some chance this little tree sprouts leaves next spring, I will find a place to plant it.
Tonight is Thursday! That means Thursday night football! Poppy and Dumperoo are in front of the TV and that leaves computer free.
Gosh the days fly. I mean to post every day but stuff happens and the days simply get away from me. Last night I was busy sewing. I got all inspired to sew when Poppy came home from work and handed me three twenty dollar bills. Jimmy, from Burnett's little feed and seed store/license plate agency...where I hang my bonnets and aprons to sell, brought Poppy the money to bring home to me. Jimmy said I'm sold out...so I got busy last night.
I finished this Christmas apron...
and this beige and white set.
I went into town to buy groceries this morning and forgot to carry the aprons with me. That means another trip to town tomorrow. Oh well, I'll stop by the doctor's office and get my Pneumonia shot, and go to the post office and mail a package...never a dull moment. Maybe I can make a batch of chocolate oatmeal cookies to take to Jimmy. One of these days I will remember to take pictures of that little store to show you.
Well, as Elmer Fudd would say, I am getting "vewy vewy" sleepy. Thank you dear friends for stopping in. Hope to be back soon.
Love,
Henny
I meant to tell you...someone hacked my Daughter Lynn's, "a mother's journal" blog of seven years. All of her photos and posts are gone. She has started a new blog on Blogger this time. You can visit her by clicking on "a mother's journal" in my side bar and it will take you to her new blog. Thank you!
Andee drove down from Virginia yesterday and we spent the day together. So, I should have some pictures and a good post, but I don't. I enjoyed being with her and forgot all about taking pictures.
My Mother used to call and ask me to come spend the weekend with her. She would say, can't you just leave work Friday evening and drive down. I did occasionally, but after working in Raleigh all week, I felt like there was so much I needed to do here. There was the housework, the cooking, and yard work that needed to be done.
The years go by so fast. I would give anything to spend one of those weekends with mama again. All that work I thought was so important was not important at all.
Looks like I have about thirty minutes here. Poppy got home from work a little before three, threw on his hunting clothes and headed for the woods.
Then Eli needed his afternoon walk. He did pretty good posing here for a picture. It gets dark early now, so there is not much time left after our walk for anything but fixing supper.
Good gosh! Would you look at the leaves? Looks like these leaves will be around at Christmas. Somehow I've pulled a muscle in my lower back or thigh...I can't tell which, but at times I can hardly walk. It hurts to rake leaves!
The camera caught the white guinea just as it landed on the fence.
Hard to believe this part of the yard was raked clean just last week! :(
Eli licks his ice cream bowl clean. Poppy says, you won't have to wash Eli's bowl, just put it back in the cabinet. He is kidding.
Not much of a post so thank you if you are still here.
Hope tomorrow will be bright and sunny. Hope to be back soon.
Love,
Henny
For sure you've all heard quite enough about poor Jewel and her children, so I will just say this. All six are well and happy and seem to be adjusting to their new home. At the edge of dark, only one chick was without the courage to walk in amongst the older hens who had taken their places on the roost, so we went in together and found her siblings.
Why am I such a slow poke at getting things ready for Christmas! Here's a start but good grief, I've been fiddling around with cedar, wreaths, grapevines, and this little tree since Thanksgiving and finished nothing yet!
I worked on the tree a while yesterday before going out to rake leaves. It still needs something. Maybe I'll figure out what and get things right by December 24th anyway. Maybe a few icicles? I like icicles.
Those silver icicles remind me of the 1950's and Christmas. The excitement of putting up a big tree in the living room. Shelby being the oldest was always in charge. She put the electric lights on the tree first...those big gaudy lights that were orange, red, blue, and green. I definitely remember there being orange bulbs. Then Jackie and I helped hang the ornaments, but when it came time for the icicles...an argument always broke out between the three of us. Shelby insisted the icicles be pulled out of the box carefully and hung on the tree...Jackie, on the other hand, argued that you were supposed to throw the icicles by the handful...like snow falling...big wads of icicles! I, being the middle child and bashful and a Virgo :) sorta went both ways. I didn't much want to mess with Shelby and I really didn't like the wads. Why couldn't we throw just a few icicles and let them float down and catch on the limbs?
Do you have ornaments that you don't remember where they came from? I do. Like the four kitty ornaments. This kitty with the tea cup makes me think of Deb over at justcats.blogspot.com She has the sweetest blog!
I hung the stockings and Poppy's Santa hat on the mantel. Funny how you see things in a picture and think yuk! That purple looking box has got to go. New stockings would be nice too.
A few things tucked in amongst the Indians.
I do like the tall skinny Santas stood amongst the holly and the cute snowman. Lots of the Christmas ornaments were gifts from the girls at work...back when I still worked. Gosh that seems so long ago. Christmas time at the office was fun and exciting.
This old Santa from a thrift store rides in a sleigh pulled by two rocking horses. Some of my handiwork. :) The Santa is made from wood and kinda heavy.
Okay enough of my tacky work. I'll finish up soon and take new pictures. I've simply got to get my head out of the leaves and concentrate on Christmas.
Sweet Andee may come for a visit tomorrow!! Big smile here!!
Thank you for putting up with me still.
Love,
Henny
