A Sleepover and a Birthday

Happy New Year you guys. Here's hoping 2021 brings an end to this pandemic and a little more unity in this country! 

We did nothing for New Year's eve. Went to sleep before 11:00 with an alarm set at 11:55. Woke up, said Happy New Year to each other and promptly went back to sleep! Maybe next year we'll attend a huge party! (Probably not!)

Anyway, my son was not able to make it here from New Hampshire so we just had a small Christmas get together on the Monday following Christmas with Shauna and Brad and the kids. 

This past Saturday we had the boys sleep over to give Shauna and Brad a night to themselves. We were completely exhausted the next day but we had fun! 

We had fun playing with the selfie stick! 

We pretty much let them run themselves ragged the whole night until they finally sat down on the couch and crashed at about 10 o'clock! 

We pulled the mattress off of the bed in the spare room and put it on the floor in the family room. That way we didn't have to worry about them falling out of bed! I slept on the couch. 

They both woke up at about 1:47 am thinking it was morning! I managed to talk them into laying back down on the mattress with me and thankfully they both eventually fell back asleep! 

We had lots of fun but I took two naps on Sunday and fell asleep before 10 that night! 

Anyway today is Rich's 65th birthday (hello Medicare) and as always I asked what he wanted for his birthday dinner. This is what he requested.

 

A frozen Stouffers Lasagna and a Sanders Bumpy Cake. Both of which are delicious! Don't get me wrong, I am Italian and make a pretty mean lasagna, but he loves this one and it is his birthday! Besides, who am I to pass up a chance to have such a easy dinner! Plus you know..... bumpy cake! 

Had a appointment today at 11:00 to take my Equinox into the Chevy dealer because it's making a clunking noise at the rear drivers side tire. When I got there they told me that there were about 40 cars ahead of me and they couldn't guarantee they would be able to look at it today! When I told them I made an appointment two weeks ago their response was "yeah that's a problem with the computer because it's still first come first serve! " What??? Anyway, I didn't leave it and will just go back one morning first thing and leave it! So frustrating!

My allergies are awful right now! I am sneezing like crazy, my eyes are so itchy and I have a dry cough from sinus draining! It must be the damp snowy weather. It's wet but not cold enough to freeze everything. Mold is one of the things that bother me. 

Well that's it for now As always until the next time stay safe and well my friends!

Still Getting My Crafty On

 We went to a very small gathering on Christmas Eve and I needed to bring my usual Christmas Eve fare: Puppy Chow. In case you don't know what it is it's Crispix cereal coated with melted chocolate and peanut butter and covered with powdered sugar. 

The plastic Christmas bowl I usually use was so scratched up I decided it was time to say goodbye and find something else to use.

This glass bowl in a carrier used to be my grandmothers or my mom's or someone's. I took it from my dad's house when he moved out. 

I decided to decorate the carrier with some Christmas ribbon I bought at a garage sale over the summer so I got out my trusty hot glue gun.  On a side note: I have never used my glue gun without burning at least one finger! This time was no exception!

Anyway, I glued ribbon around the base, tied a bow and glued it on the front. 

The finished project and filled with Puppy Chow to take to our little gathering.

Everyone was impressed with my crafting skills!!!

I'll leave you with this picture. 

We're doing our Christmas with them on Monday this year. I always delay it a few days so the kids are not overwhelmed with presents all in one day! 

Until the next time stay safe and well my friends.

Earring Organizer

Being all done with Christmas shopping, wrapping and baking I am looking for things to occupy my time until Christmas. I was perusing Pinterest yesterday and came upon this:

 

All of my earrings are usually thrown into a drawer in my jewelry box and sometimes I have to dig around for several minutes to find both of the earrings I am looking for.  I thought this would be a good idea to organize them.

I just happened to have an old rack from a toaster oven we used to have. I normally just use it for cooling cookies after I bake them, but I only bake cookies once a year so I figured I could spare it.

I painted it white and hung it on the side of a shelving unit we have in the closet using those little 3M hooks and waalah! What do you think?

I like it! I need to find more projects like this that are quick, useful and cost nothing or next to nothing!

Until the next time stay safe and well, friends!

Favorite Ornaments

I LOVE buying Christmas ornaments! Every year I buy at least 2 or 3 because I can't resist! Most of them are just pretty ornaments that catch my eye but I do have a few that are very special to me! 

This ornament was made by my grandmother, my mom's mom. She had heart disease and could not do much in her later years so my mom bought these kits to make ornaments to give her something to do. I don't know what happened to most of them. This is the only one my mom saved. My grandmother died in 1974 so it's at least 46 years old. 

This one is in memory of my mom that someone gave me the first Christmas after she died. It has her name and dates engraved on the back. 

This little bear ornament is special to me because back in 1987 Rich bought me a new diamond wedding band for Christmas, my birthday in January and our 10th anniversary in March. It was hidden under the bears little cap. What a nice  surprise that was! 

This ornament was given to me by my friend Diane. We were best friends back in the day and we used to go to garage sales and rummage sales together all the time. She gave me this ornament shortly before she moved out of state. We eventually lost touch with each other but I'll never forget her!

This ornament is from my current and very best friend Marie. She gave it to me for my 60th birthday! 

Every year Shauna and I get together and make cookies and other Christmas treats. Every year she buys me a cookie baking themed ornament. These next 3 ornaments are a few that I received from her. 

Lastly, this little mailbox is nothing fancy but every year for the past 20 years I have put a little note inside just mentioning a few things that happened over the years. I've documented parents deaths, weddings and babies born.  It's something I hope will be very special to my kids after I'm gone. 

That's just some of my special ornaments. It's the ones that you can attach a memory to or received from a special person that are priceless! 

In other news, Shauna and I did our cookie baking marathon yesterday and Maxwell and Levi got to decorate their own! 

They were eating as many decorations as they were putting on the cookies! 

Even so, I think they're going to be professional cookie decorators! LOL!

Until the next time, stay safe and well my friends!

Christmas Porch

I can hardly believe Christmas is just one week away already. What's even harder to believe is that my shopping is done and everything is wrapped and ready! One more good thing about retirement!

I wanted to show you all this porch of a house in my town.

Every year for Christmas they put this full size reindeer pulling a sleigh on their porch! I just love it and look forward to seeing it every year. 

As a matter of fact, the whole street this house is on is filled with old houses with large porches that are beautifully decorated. I will try to get pictures to show you. It looks beautiful, especially at night!

I'll be back in a few days to show you some of my favorite ornaments!

Until then stay safe and well my friends! 

Bargains Galore

I am always looking on FB Marketplace to see what they have to offer. The other day I saw that someone was selling a child's play kitchen and a bunch of accessories. They were asking $45 for all of it. Someone else made them an offer of $35 and the seller accepted it. But the next day when I looked again it was still available. To make the story short I offered to take it for $35, they said ok and I picked it up a hour later. 

It came with a whole bag of pots and dishes and cups and fake food and utensils. I got it all cleaned and sterilized just in time for Maxwell and Levi to show up to play with it. 

All stored and ready for the next time! 

It also came with this little Keurig coffee maker that sounds just like the real one!

I went to an Estate Sale yesterday and got a bag of Clinique eye shadows that have never been used for $5. There were some lotions and a lipstick in the bag also but I threw them away. The lipstick looked used and I just didn't trust the lotions, but clearly the eyeshadows were not touched so that was a bargain for $5. 

That's all that's exciting in my world right now.  Christmas shopping is done and 90% wrapped. I'm waiting to hear when my son will be able to make it home for the holidays!  I still call it home for him even thought he considers New Hampshire his home now. :( Boo! 

I have to admit it's been a struggle to keep my spirits up right now. Christmas decorating helped a little but sometimes the days are long. I spend as much time as I can with the grandkids but I can't be bugging them all the time! 

I still have a lot of things I would like to do but getting the ambition to get going is another thing! 

We did have a glorious sunset the other day. This is the best picture I could get from our deck. 

I need to see that over Lake Michigan I think. Like my header picture! That would definitely soothe my soul! 

I also got my butt out of bed this morning and  did some cardio  and an online Pilates class after that! I guess that's something!

Until the next time stay safe and well my friends!

 

Better

In my previous post I mentioned that I didn't really care for the beads that I had down with the snowmen display. I was trying to figure out how to make it look like snow without using fake snow and making too much of a mess. 

I thought white tissue paper would work so I put it down and rearranged a little.  What do you think? 

Before:

After

Before:

After:

I like it much better! 

We did do some outside lights although not as much as last year. 

Just  lights around the top of the deck and our large bulbs on the ground in front of the house.

And a lone star over the porch light in the back. 

It was pretty cold while we were putting them up so we didn't want to be outside too long! We missed the opportunity to take advantage of the warmer weather we had before Thanksgiving!

Until the next time stay safe and well.