Ahhh...Romance

With Valentine's Day right around the corner from Christmas I decided to leave my white feather tree up in the dining room. It makes the room so much more festive. I left the antique silver beads on it from Christmas and plan on adding some handmade Valentine ornies.  

This weekend Mr OP and I decided to take a little romantic trip to the beach and look for a place to rent for vacation. While we were there we did a little antiquing since it wasn't perfect beach weather:)

That's when I spied, with my little eye this bit of romance. Isn't it beautiful? It's very heavy for it's size which is a little smaller than the palm of my hand. I love the detail on the top too. I wish that they would have had more, I see another collection in my future!

On the way back from the beach we stopped to see Flyboy and LBB. It seems like forever since we last saw them.


So what did you all do this past weekend?

Handmade Baby Card

Our niece had the baby on the 19th. We haven't seen him in person yet, but just look at that sweet face, I can't wait to meet him and kiss those cheeks.

 

Of course Auntie had to make him a special handmade card that's personalized. It's more of a keepsake that way. I love his initials and think that I would call him J. R. and not John because he's named after his grandfather and I think that everyone should have their own name or nickname. But they're calling him Little John which is also cute.

 

I just devoured (4) pieces of Hershey's Nuggets with almonds and just realized I hadn't checked to see if they were gluten free. Just checked the website, but couldn't find anything. Anyone out there know if they are gluten free? I love those suckers and would hate to ban them from my diet. It's not like I eat them constantly, but when a girl wants chocolate a girl wants chocolate. Am I right?

I guess that I'll have to ask Sue. She's been soo helpful with the whole gluten free thing. If you haven't met Sue yet then pop on over, she's got gluten free recipes, photography tips and is just fun. Tell her that I sent you!

Janaury Rudolph Day

Happy Rudolph Day everyone! It's the first one of the year and although some of you may not have all of your Christmas decorations down and put away from last year, it's time to start thinking and planning for this year. Remember doing a little planning, etc. every month will make it easier to enjoy this year's holiday. By the way, for those of you not familiar with Rudolph Day it's the 25th of each month.

 

I'm going to update my Christmas card list today. I'll need to update the addresses of those family and friends who have moved . This is a fairly easy thing to do on a Rudolph Day that falls during the work week. I'm also going to go back through our expenses and see how we did. I know that there's still money left in our Christmas cash stash so I know that we didn't go over budget.

 

I also made notes (things like gift ideas for next year, more lights on the tree, etc.) that need to be transferred to my Christmas Magic Notebook . The link in blue is to my Christmas Magic Notebook - it's the key to keeping me organized.

Wishing you my the joys of Christmas all through the year.

Bathroom Makover

I just remembered that I promised to show you the bathroom make over that Mr OP literally finished at 3pm Christmas Eve. It was the best Christmas present. The bathroom (only one that we have) had been in a state of makeover for over a year.

 

After ripping the wallpaper off the walls we discovered some water damage from the way that the tub was angled. It took awhile for Mr OP to figure out how to fix it without totally ripping everything out and starting from scratch. As this was supposed to be a quick makeover with the work being done mostly by me it went on Mr OP's to do list and took a back seat to other projects that were already in the works.

 

I love how it turned out, although the color was supposed to be grey - it looks almost blue at times. But I'm not complaining, no way I am so thankful that it's finished. See my new Bath and Body works stress relief body wash and bath salts? They were such a thoughtful gift from Flyboy and LBB for Christmas. I love my tubby time and the smell is wonderful. They even got me lotion to round out the sent - love it!

So do you like to soak in the tub?

Snowy Saturday

Yeah -we finally got a little snow. It seems like we were getting all of the yucky other things associated with winter - grey skies, cold temps & big oil bills but no snow. This is the perfect kind of snow too. 

 

It's a Saturday so that means we don't have to brave the roads and go out if we don't want to. It's also only about 3 inches and it's the light and fluffy kind so shoveling is a breeze (for Mr OP anyway).

 

I stayed up a little late last night and got almost all of my housework done knowing that today I could stay in and play in my studio all day if I want to. We'll probably head to the supermarket in a little while. It's not a must, I mean let's face it we have a ton of food and tp, but I like to make comfort food when it snows and I've got the Pioneer Woman's pot roast on my menu for tonight and I need the chuck roast to make that happen.

 

The top card is for my MIL she retired on the 12th - yeah for her! She's 70+ and we all think that it's about time. How many years till I can retire? Let's see...I don't see us winning the lottery any time soon... since we don't play so I'm thinking... 20yrs - UGH!

 

Don't get me wrong, I like my job it's just that it gets in the way of having fun (wink). The second card is a birthday card that I made for our niece Taylor, she'll be 18 on Monday. Happy Birthday sweet girl! This last card is just a thinking of you card for our Great Aunt Gladys. She's the last of my Gram's siblings and the sweetest lady you'd ever meet. She lives about 4.5hrs away so I send her cards about once a month (or at least try to).

 

Happiness, yep that's what I'll close with. Wishing you all happiness on this snowy Saturday!

Cleaning House

I subscribe to a lot of blogs that, over time, have become something I've lost interest in. I scan/read all my blogs in Google Reader then click-through to the ones that I am interested in reading or want to comment on.

Just this past weekend I decided it was time to clean house (at least where my blog reading was happening). It was really hard for me to unsubscribe or un-follow these blogs. I felt like I was hurting their feelings.  

 

It's not like that was the case, I'm sure that most won't even notice that I'm not there anymore. But it was hard for me to do none the less. That's how I am in real life too. It's hard for me to say no to telemarketers, friends and family who ask us to go somewhere when I really want to say no, things like that - I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

 

It's hard but I've started to say no to things that I'm too tired to do or when I  just want some down time. Sometimes when I say "I have something planned," it may be that my plan is to take a nap, craft, read, etc. That's a plan right? I realize that I can't agree to everything and make others happy if I'm not happy or if I'm too tired.

I ran out of my homemade laundry soap while the kids were home visiting for Christmas. And just now had a chance to make another batch. The recipe is on my original post here. It's easy to make and soo inexpensive but the best part is it does a great job on the laundry. This time I shredded the soap (I used Zote)  in my food processor - so much easier!

Not sure if anyone else got this message when they visited The Old Parsonage today. Vee brought it to my attention. I ran my url through a Malware detection site and it came back clean. So fingers crossed, the problem (whatever it was) is fixed.Thanks again Vee!


One last thing before I forget...what do you think about the large photos? I'm undecided, although I do like how the laundry soap looks in my Gram's yellow ware bowl.


I'm linking this post to How Sweet The Sound for some Pink Saturday fun and Hope in Every Season for Homemaking Weekend!

Heater woes...

Well this am brought the heater repair men - (3) trucks-full to be exact! We had to have the entire system replaced. I have to commend our company. They were here by 9am and we had heat and hot water by 5pm. Not too bad for a spur of the moment major purchase - gulp!

 

I had to take a vacation day which I really didn't mind doing because my fibromyalgia has been acting up with the weather changes again (at least that's what I'm attributing it to). I decided to make a pot of Wedding Soup for supper. It was so warm and good - warmed you right up for a little bit anyway.

 

I had to heat water on the stove top to wash the dishes...interesting. Not something that I'd want to have to do all the time, but it worked for today. I went through a couple pots of coffee too. Holding the cup was a hand warmer and the coffee...well besides loving the excuse to have some, it warmed my innards too.

Hope that you are all safe, warm and cozy tonight.

 

 

B is for Birthday Cards

Handmade of course! Today is my brother's birthday - Happy Birthday Chuckie (sorry I had to do it). Actually he goes by Chuck now, but he's been Chuckie, Chuck-a-luck, Charlie, Char-lay and Chunkie over the years (not all by me).

We have several birthdays this month and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our great nephew. He's supposed to make his appearance on the 20th let's see if he got the notice!

I'm sitting here with no heat! I've got on Mr OP's over-sized fleece flannel shirt, a sweat suit, wool socks, slippers and a blanket. We've been having problems with the monster in our basement for a few years now. Just last Monday the heater repair man was here because it sounded funny. He said that we really should get a new one and was getting us an estimate. Well I'm afraid to call them in the morning because now we really have to do something.

All right, what's up with blogger? This is the first time that I've ever had any problems with uploading photos. I had them all set to post in the middle - just like always but they are all willie nillie and I don't like it one bit. And then there are the two side-by-side! And my text is all over the place wrapping around photos and everything.

Any suggestions?

In the Studio

Even though there are still things that need to be tended to downstairs I decided to come up to the studio for a bit. It actually gave me some inspiration for a post. As I frantically finished the scrapbooks for the guys I didn't clean up as a I went along so the studio is somewhat neglected. My desktop is a complete mess. I'll need to sort and put things away before I begin any new projects.



I have a lot of cards to make for birthdays this month and thank yous that are overdue from Christmas so this has to be a priority tonight.



As I was snapping away I noticed that I have a lot of pink in here - no surprises there right? And no, I haven't been making Valentine's yet - this is just where the ones that didn't get finished in time for last year landed.



I liked how they looked so I kept them up all year. It adds romance to the "scary man" as all the kids refer to him. They all think he's creepy. I kinda like him, but wouldn't mind putting a piece of chalkboard into the frame either.



Mr OP turns 50 this year and doesn't want a big fuss made. So I'm thinking that 50 days before his big day that I'll start giving him small presents - 1each day.



When I say small I'm talking a box of raisinets, a fishing magnet, things that he likes but aren't a lot of money. Or anything 50 or 1962 related, so if you have any ideas I'd love to hear them. I just want to make the time leading up to the big day fun! I have a few ideas for the big day mulling around but no party - that's a definite NO.

I'm playing along with Beverly's Pink Saturday this week. With so much pink in this post how could I not. Enjoy your weekend sweet friends!

Still Christmas-ing?

Knowing that the garbage man was coming this morning I quickly took the ornies off the tree yesterday morning before heading to work. The tree was just starting to drop needles - not too bad since we cut it down and have had it in the house since Black Friday. Taking the lights off only took a few minutes last night and now she's sitting out at the street.


I would have loved to keep the tree up another week with just the lights on, but that would mean more mess to clean up. I swept up the needles last night, but the ornies and lights are sitting exactly where you see them below. I was just too tired to do anything else last night and this morning I sit here instead:)



Just so you don't think I'm a total slacker - I'm multi-tasking -I have a load of laundry in the washing machine this morning while I'm blogging. Our weather is changing today - it's getting colder and we're supposed to get a lot of rain tonight. This sends my fibromyalgia into a tizzy and I've learned not too push on days like these.

I haven't taken down the outside decorations yet. Have you?

Cookbooks for Christmas

Every year Mr OP gets me at least one new cookbook. He knows how I love to read them. This year's new books are fab! The Weight Watcher Cookbook is from Pam. I borrowed hers last year and it had a ton of great recipes in it, so she got me one. Thanks again Pam!

The Farm Chicks are terrific. Have you read their blog? I love how their cook book has snippets of stories interspersed with the wonderful recipes.


There's one about aprons that I love. I'm an apron gal myself, and when our nieces come over to bake or cook they wear them too. I bought Miss Puddin one a few years back for Christmas - I guess she was 13 then. She asked for a few family recipes, so I made her a mini recipe book and gave her an apron too. It was a great hit!



Mr OP usually gets me a new apron every year too, but this year we cut back on gift buying and I really don't "need" a new one. I have several that both of my grandmothers wore and they are extra special. My Nan actually had the "hostess" type of aprons too. You know those frilly ones that are like the good table cloths that you use on special occasions.


She'd wear them for card club or special dinners. I think that they are kinda sexy. I have to admit, that Mr OP chose this one on his own with no hints from me. I watched the Pioneer Woman's mini- series on the Food Network and loved her - Mr OP took notice and liked her recipes. He admitted to standing in the book store just looking around and thought it would be perfect. He was right. I'm making her Jalapeno Poppers for dinner tomorrow night. They sound yummy and I already have everything needed to make them except the jalapenos. Be sure to click on the link and visit her website and blog. She's a great writer and her recipes sound yummy.



She loves her family and her Marlboro Man and has a sense of humor -this is the last photo in the cookbook. Ree also shares a lot of great recipes on her website. Check them out - I know I plan on making a lot of new things this year and these cookbooks will be a great start. I have to continue to modify them to be gluten free but I'm not discouraged, I'm looking forward to it.

Enjoy your weekend!

Missing the laughter

The house seems too quiet this week. Last week seemed like one constant party here at The Old Parsonage. Our Texans (on the left) flew out at 5:30pm on New Year's Eve (Flyboy and LBB on the right). Mr OP and I dropped them off at the airport then did another quick trip to the market - the fridge was pretty bare by the time everyone left on Saturday. We opted for Chinese for supper that night - I was a little too pooped to cook.



But I wouldn't have had the week any other way. It was perfect! New Year's day was spent on the couch watching old movies with Mr OP. I caught up on the laundry and slow roasted pork and sauerkraut in the oven for supper. Eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition said to bring good luck.

Do you have any traditions that you do for New Year's to bring good luck?

Bling and a Permit

Wednesday came and went with a flurry. Our niece - Miss Puddin' passed her learner's permit. They stopped by to show it off. I remember taking photos of our guys when they got theirs. As a matter of fact I scrapbooked them.


I asked her when she was going to get behind the wheel. My brother answered that he hadn't even let her smell the keys yet. He did take her to the school parking lot on Friday, so she was thrilled.



With both our Bride's to Be together for the first time since the engagements there was a lot of talk about weddings. It was so much fun to hear about their ideas and to be asked for my opinions as well.



The girls have such different tastes, and our sons know them so well. Each ring was picked out by our guys without input from the girls and they chose perfectly. I remember getting engaged 1 month after my BIL and SIL got engaged. That was over 27 years ago on Christmas Eve.

Did I tell you how much I love these 2 girls? Yeah I think that I did.