Getting Everything in Order........

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday Showing.......

Have a great day.  Thank  you for checking in on my post today.

Happy Saturday to You......

The nutcracker stands gaurd over the teddy bear tree.  The lighting isn't strong but the colored lights make a nice effect on the wall. I don't collect nutcrakers but I see that it would be an easy collection to start as they seem to sell a lot of different ones in the stores.

Our oldest son sent us a cd of Charlie Brown themed Christmas music.  I had it in my computer the past two days at school and I played it while the kids took test or did work.  Some of the kids recognized it right away from seeing the Charlie Brown Christmas specials every year on television.

We started playing Christmas music late this year.  It seems we are seeing the holiday coming way to quickly this year.  I know it is the same each year but our weather has kept us from really getting organized on the things we have to do.  I just finished reading letters from people that they had in their cards.  I usually write the Christmas letter and I am slow.  Maybe I am rebelling and trying to wait until the last minute.  We will see what happens. 

A very generous gift from out oldest son is this hand me down telephone.  He is trying to put us into the future.  We will move into it slowly but once we get it going we can skype with our grandson on the internet.  This means we can see AJ on the screen while we talk to him and he can see us too. 

I like the reflection of the Christmas tree in the cover of the I phone. It was a happy accident.  I don't plan that well when I take photos.

We are off this morning to visit and have a meal with my wife's friend in Des Moines. She is the one that had chem therapy this summer.  She seems to be doing better and has some surgery planned in the next month.  She wants KFC for lunch so we are taking her the meal.  She is serving dessert and coffee afterwards.  It should be a fun thing for us all.  Christmas gifts will be exchanged. 

We are very cold today compared to what we have been experiencing.  Colder than the cold that I was complaining about last week. We will warm up to just freezing.  I wish everyone to have a good weekend and thank you for stopping in today.

Friday's Finds......

A glass train that used to hold candy many years ago. I have been told that they were sold as gifts for kids with the candy to eat and the item to play with afterwards.  I have told the story before that I am up in an old attic with a very leaking roof.  Everything is just rotted and the floor is actually plaster ceiling and wooden beams.  The attic had been ransacked for year with antique people stealing as much as the could and stuff is strewn everywhere.  I look down and I have this glass train under my left foot. It was a great reward for a very sad adventure in an attic.

I am looking through the collection and I am missing the airplane.  It must be in my toy cabinet.  The car was my mom's that I remember seeing once in a while when it was brought up out of a big trunk every few years. I never thought I would ever own it.

The dog was given to us from my wife's cousin at the time the  Aunt's place was being closed down. The cousin said they named it after one of the President's black dog at the time. The phone in the background did have a wooden mouth piece but that didn't  remain with through all those years. They all have to be over 60 years old.

The reason the glass items are out and about is that I finally hung the shelving  piece that I had pulled from the garbage.  It hangs now above the built-in buffet in the dining room and the glass items were taken off of their shelf so the hammering vibration would not knock them down and break them.

I am doing two jobs today. I am working the middle school desk for a while then moving into 7th grade Literacy classes.  During free periods I will have to come back to the desk.  It is Friday and I am glad.  I had a day off in the middle of the week but now that it is closer to Christmas I need to be home.  We have things to buy tonight to ship tomorrow.  Cards have not been purchased nor a letter has not been created.  A couple of  full days would solve that problem.

We are very cold again today but warming up weather is promised for next week.  I am ready for warming already.  Thank you for stopping by today. 

Christmas Lights Warm.......

It is very cold outside now and the warmth of Christmas lights makes it feel better inside. Our wing back chair sits closer to the tree this year as it fit there better than anywhere else.  We move furniture around for the tree each year but the easiest fix was not to move couches and just place the blue chair right here.

Caboose has always been my favorite car on the train.  While watching trains go by at the crossing in Murray,  it was a pleasure to see the train to finally get pass and also to see the structure of the car.  The only way the guy in the back can see the train is to poke his head out a window or to go up into the crow's nest and look forward. There are small windows up there when they look forward but an opening is all they needed to see forward.  I wonder if in the old steam engine days if the guys at the engine would step up on the coal care and send hand signals back and forth with the guy in the caboose.

I am still dealing with the geraniums.  I had placed a lot of them in the basement.  I had to move two window boxes of them so I could cut a picture frame yesterday.  Some of them are dead and I am good with that. I should be able to get those containers stacked up and out of the way soon.  We had one of our harder freezes last night.  I have been putting rain barrel water into buckets and bringing them inside for flowers and fish tank.  The last one I  brought in had ice on the top of the water.

I believe I shared this on my other blog but I wanted to share my other caboose. I have a metal train somewhere that I believe still has its caboose with it but that train is buried in the storeroom.

I go in at 11:00 today to work so I have the morning to get a few things done.  I have not completely stopped framing things but the science teacher sneaked in four items for me to do.  I am doing them on my time table so I finished the second one yesterday.  I will do the last two after Christmas.  I am recycling older frames and using old glass to put them together.  The science guy likes the idea and likes that I don't charge so much for the frame job.  A painting that I might have had frame of mine was taken apart so I would be able to use the glass on a previous frame job last year, left an empty frame that I could recut to the proper size for him.

I wish everyone a happy day today.  Stay safe and thank you for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week.........

The final tree is up.  I reworked the stand on the bottom of the tree and it is fixed temporarily.  I like having the tree in the window for others to see.  I decided not to put ornaments on it so if it falls over eventually nothing gets to be broken.  I loaded down the tree with lots of lights, leftovers from different boxes of Christmas decorations. If we stand at a certain spot in the dining room there is a tunnel effect of reflecting trees.  The tree is reflected and the glass on the print hanging on the opposite wall shows two reflections.  At one time I can see the tree twice reflected in the window, once in the print, and then the actual tree itself.

The mantle is loaded down again.  We changed it a little when we added a wreath on the wall.  The wreath is centered on the wall but the photo makes it look lopsided.  The angels on the garland were purchase probably 20 years ago from the Younkers store downtown Des Moines.  That store burned down a couple of years ago,  It was aa old building with lots of history in the downtown area.  The lighted angels were an after Christmas sale item as most things in that store generally had high prices.

I have low light photos of my trains right now.  If we ever get a bright day I will take better photos of the train. We are definitely colder now and have winter skies.

I am glad I pulled off fixing the tree so it would stand again.  The table would have been bare and no trains would be put out.   We still have our winter village to be put out and we will do that when we get "around to it."

 Included in some of our Christmas cards were these two photos of our grandson.  I need to get them scanned and share them properly.  That should happen soon.  He has grown up fast with his three year birthday coming in February.

I could have worked today but I chose not to do so today.  It will be my only day off this week and I need that.  We have errands to run and things to buy.   I did a bus duty outside yesterday for a half hour and our windchill was very cold at the time.  I am still trying to warm up from that.  The wind was so strong and little ice crystals seem to be in the air.  I noticed last night while walking Barney that the ice crystals in the air were still there.

Thank you for stopping by today. 

Tuesday, Today.........

A feeding frenzy takes place everytime that I feed.  One of the reasons is that I don't feed them so often.  That is why they go crazy when they are fed.  I had been over feeding them and you can see the tank is clearing.  Algae eater is always on duty and I am keeping the green down with less extra food rotting in the water.

I shared earlier that the geranium liked the glass vase and it rooted quite quickly.  Now it has created new buds in the past week.

You already know that I will share the blooms when the start to open and after they are all opened.  I noticed that there is a small vase sitting to the left that may get its own stem of hardy geranium. It is like a science experiment that we would do in grade school, rooting carrot tops or sweet potato eyes.

A blurry little soldier hangs from the tree.  I can now say we have all the ornaments on all the trees.  The manger and all its extra are up with garland and angel lights.  I have one small tree that I managed to get the stand to work temporarily.  I am going to put it in the dining room window with lights on it.  No decorations will be added as if it falls over on me i won't lose any ornaments. I guess I could use my plastic ornaments on it. We will see.

I had plans not to work today but I ended up getting an associate job starting at 11:30.   I will get all the boxes cleared and all the other rubble put away that comes with decorating.  We have a few boxes with things in them that my wife and I both agree, we can leave them where they are in storage.  I will peak inside some of them to see if there is a "must be put up" thing in there, otherwise they won't be added this year. I hung three different wreaths the past two days and those are easy to deal with what nothing gets put on them.

I realize this morning why I am not keeping up with my photography.  When I get home from school the day is already dull and getting dark. Maybe I can catch a few things this morning while toting and stowing things.

I have new photos of the grandson but they are not   ready for showing.  It will happen soon as our baby is growing in to a sweet young man.  I am seeing the end of school work in these next few days and I will enjoy the time off.  It was a rough time at school these past days because of the loss of a student.  I don't know if the high school will ever really recover from it.  It certainly was not normal yesterday afternoon.  Combined with the loss and Christmas break coming the studens are a nervous mess.  I hope that things will be better for them.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I wish everyone well.  I know everyone is getting different kinds of weather today.  Ours will be same old thing with no moisture coming out of the sky but  dampness and cold.