Busy Work......

 

 It isn't too pretty yet but the small glass blown ornaments are going on to the tree. I don't have a skirt down yet but I have a whole box full of them to put on the tree.  I put ten or more at a time as I pass by the tree. 

It is sort of a blur but it has the great color and lights. Nothing is really in focus but that is the magic of the season with multiple colors and sparkle. 

I worked outside to put up some lights but didn't get anything finished.  It was a good day to  carry up the hill the two reindeer.  I got them in position but cant find all the cords that I need to get them lighted. It isn't even December so I have time to get the jobs fonr. 

Thanks for stopping in today.

Faces......

 The stuffed animals cover the base of the teddy bear tree.  My wife has the tree up early this year.

It is filled up now. It does look better with lights at night but I haven't taken a shot of it in the evening.  It is a fun tree with some of the stuffed toys having a history from different friends and our now grown up kids collection. 

An ongoing project of mine is this child's sled.  I have two of these and they are a work in progress. I am planning to place one or two of them outside as a Christmas decoration. The paint job is really reviving them.  I think the rails are in good enough shape that I won't be painting them.  This one may have been mine when I was a kid but the larger one comes from my parents garage and I don't know where they obtained that.  Photos will follow when all is completed. 

We warmed up today and some snow did melt away.  There are patches of it left but most all is gone at 51°F.  I didn't have to wear a winter coat as I went for groceries this afternoon. 

Thanks for checking in today.

After previewing this a day later, I only had to make six corrections. If you read it yesterday you would have been challenged. That is what one gets when they are tired, in a hurry, and it is late in the day.

Tuesday's Today....

 Sunrise is cold as we reached 11°F.  It was too cold for me to turn off the lights until I had officially become dressed for the day.  It was nice to have it on all night as a beacon of Christmas to come. Yes I had intended to shut them off at night.

A cold morning meant the birds were picking through the snow to find seed. We are just above freezing now this afternoon. It is not thawing like gang busters but it is taking off some of the snow.  The snow is off the roofs and some of the grass is peeking through.

I have shared the history of this canna lily many times.  It didn't bloom during the drought. Now that it is no the pot and in the sunroom it starting to bud.  Actually it gets carried into the living room every evening as we don't heat the sunroom at night. I kept wishing for a bud and there it is as living proof. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday, Monday.....

 Soft sculptures fill the bin ready to be put on the teddy bear tree. It is early for us to put up trees but we have one tree standing upstairs and these guys will be place on it in the near future. 

The jingle bell looks a little bit distorted but it really isn't. They hang on the tree permanently attached to the tree year round.  The tree jingles as I carry it around the house. 

We woke up to 16°F. and we did not get above freezing. I wasn't expecting it but it is close to being winter.  We were outside a couple of times and the windchill is bad. It will be good to just stay inside. I took the garbage out this morning in my heaviest winter coat. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Snow and No Sun.....

 Our first snow happened over night. It is just the beginning of things to come. It was less than two inches in depth and it is melting some thid afternoon.

When one has company the serving dishes are dug out from storage.  I found this one that was used for white grapes.  The depressionware bowl is old coming from my mom's collection. I like seeing the starburst pattern that is in the bottom of the bowl. That company made all sorts of items, small bowls, goblets plates and each piece has that design in it. The sugar bowl in the background is one that we use to put spare silverware inside to be on the table in case another spoon might be needed. In the old days the spoon container was a way to have silverware ready for a meal. I remember seeing an old couple's farm table with which all of their daily silverware was standing handle side down ready for use.

I brought my birdhouse inside but haven't taken it downstairs for storage. It looks good there in the sunroom but I will get it downstairs soon. 

An evening of fun was had as the grandchilren put together the gingerbread house kits with all the adults help. The one grandson wanted to eat one and it was quite a task as the parts are dried out, hard gingerbread parts. I know he liked the hard froating regardless.

We are having a quiet Sunday afternoon. We are going this evening to visit a church to attend Christmas  musical presentations.  Different music will be performed.. We have a friend and her son singing a special part in the program. We will come home to get warmed up as it is cold out there.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Saturday's Stuff.....

 Our second grandchild has Lego shoes. They have all the colors of all of the legos.

The bottoms of the shoes have the designs of legos. I like the one lone green in the center of the shoe. I didn't know that they even made them but I wasn't surprised to see my one grandson had them.

As you can see that when the family visited the one guy built cities and vehicles for land and space. 

Our granddaughter also wanted me to take a photo of her shoes. They actually light up along the soles as she walks on them. She is four and a half and likes to dance around. 

 

The bottoms of her shoes are not so fancy but I had to take a shot of them just like I did of her brothers. 

We have snow coming down today.  It isn't going to be a large amount but it will be our first. The snow on the deck and roofs of houses will be a new thing to view. Neighbor kids are outside playing ball as they probably are tired of being inside with lots of relatives.  

We are not hurrying to get decorations up for a few days.  We had three days fo company and are now adjusting to the quiet life again.  We had such a great time and Thanksgiving dinner was good. We will be eating turkey for a while longer and also apple pie.  Thanks for stopping by today.

21°F. Morning.....

 It was so cold to be out on the deck to get this shot. The sun will come up over the neighbor's roof for the rest of winter. 

The city builder is Teddy and he works on it each day.  He used to have me sit there and work with him but now that he is seven years old he just works all on his own. He knows what he wants to create. The city stays up for a few months and then I will put it away. If I find a project to do and will need the table then I will box it al up for another year. 

 

 

We gifted our granddaughter a lego set based on the movie "Fozen" and she tackled the assembly in good fashion.  All three of them are into Legos but our old toys did seem to entertain them as they had not seen them for a year.  All of the family left this morning after lots of food, conversation, and playing with many things.  They will return to there Arlington Heights, Illinois home where they will start putting up their Christmas trees.  We will take a pause before we start on any trees.  It is time for us to rest for a while. Thanks for stopping by today.

Thanks....

 The next season starts. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving Day. We will wait a few days before we start putting up our trees.

It is gingerbread house time with some of the crew working hard to get things glued together with sticky frosting. 

We are having diner with our family from the Chicago area. Two adults and three kids make are house fuler and fun. The turkey is in the oven, the potatoes are pealed, relish tray ready, rolls are kready and the green bean cassorole is ready to be assembled.  We couldn't find our casserole dishes in our new home of seven years  but after much digging we did find two sets. We don't do dishes like that for just the two of us. 

It is great to have visiting family. Again, Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Wednesday Morn.....

 

The sun now rises but behind the neighbors house. Eventually it can be see up above the roof line. The clouds seem to be dancing in the sky.

 

 Our granddaughter loves her new lego toy. The girl is putting together a set from the movie Frozen. She has two older brothers that work with legos often so she just digs in and puts her own work together by herself. 

Grandson number two really loves dinosaurs. He has put his jeep together and is working on the trailer that is used to carry around the dinos. Older brother already had the legos that we bought him so he isn't building. We will have to exchange it for something else.

The house is full now with two more adults and the three kids. Waffles for all this morning with eggs and bacon.  We had a good spread and most everyone enjoyed them.  It is cold today but we have a clear day with sunshine. It makes it look warmer than it appears.  Thanks for stopping in today.

Thanksgiving Cactus....

 

Marbles...

 

The plane is the one thing that always effects my emotions. I got some toys from a couple who are now long gone. The had four sons with lots of military themed toys. They were my dad's age.They gave me freely given any of the toys that I wanted.  The plane makes me always think of the one son, George Horton, who was killed on Normandy Beach in 1944.  He is buried in one of the cemeteries in France. I can imagine the boys of that family swinging the plane in the air pretending to be pilots. The marbles have been collected for years as loose finds and old toy boxes. 

I have been cleaning up the lower level of our house getting ready for guests. The old walnut table polished up pretty nice with some furniture polish.  My Grandmother Brooks gave me the table back in 1965 as she was getting a new formica table. She was poor and that used formica table made her so happy to have a newer thing.  She knew I was into refinishing old furniture. As I was working on it I found the name of the town that it was sold.  Woodburn, Iowa was burned into one of the rails. She had told me that she had been given the table from a neighbor lady. Woodburn is a very old small town built along hills with a train that still goes through it today. 

This is one of the pieces that I refinished back when I was in high school. The scroll decoration is applied to the back piece on the top of the chest of four drawers, all made from oak. We got this at an auction in Murray, Iowa for six dollars and my mom turned to be and said if I wanted to learn how to refinish furniture. She never had but friends of my parents had many old pieces in their home and it was interesting to me to do the renewing of the piece.

It is a gray cool day today with a slight sprinkle happening this morning. We are now eleven inches of rain behind. The drought continues. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Fake or Real...

 I put it out there for the lights that are on it. The decorations that are permanently wired to the tree are there just for fun. It doesn't look too well decorated. It does look great at night.  The real trees could be making fun of the fake one if they could talk.

The final bloom, number 10, has finally opened. The whole group now looks like it is on the way to failure. It has been in bloom for along time. 

I did figure out how to move pictures on my new computer.  I can process all my photos on iPhoto and then transfer the batch to Google.  I had to learn how but it isn't no big deal now that I figured it out. I was alarmed that my blogger wouldn't let me pull photos from iPhoto. I could do it on  my old computer.  We have a gray day today. I guess the sun was out for a little while. We getting use to it being dark by five o'clock so being gray in the afternoon will make it an easier transition.  We are having a quiet day today. We are going out for salad and sandwiches for our evening meal.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Saturday

 My grandmother Brooks lived in a rundown farm house. It was heated with fuel oil and the running water was from a well outside the house. Our families would meet at her house for holidays.  She always made jellow in this glass bowl. I am still using the same bowl sixty years later.  My jello is sugar free and I add sugar free fruit to the jell.  With special family meetings she would slice up a banana or two and proudly place it on the dessert table. I do think of here every single time I make jello which is about every five days. My snack is jello. 

I am having translating problems with getting my photos to be in the right place for blogger to take them. I will be working on the problem. Thanks for stopping by today.   

AAAAAAAAAA cccccccchhhhhhh!!!!!! 

 I bought a new bird feeder that is stronger than the old one. I didn't look at the price and just bought it along with some expensive seed.  I had to drag this photo onto this blog as I still having problems with my iphoto and google photos not sharing.  I will work on that another day.  Tomorrow.....

Late Friday Night.....

 

Friday night's moon is a sliver of a form. It was a cold one to be out there and I had trouble getting a focus as it was lined up the the street light below. 

 

 

I have been getting the downstairs bedroom cleaned for company.  The deer are stored there all year so they got to come outside early. It might be fun to light them up over Thanksgiving if I find the time o do so.

A brass angel needs to be polished.  There is another one out there and must have been lost in the move. I bought them at the Iowa State Fair back in 1971 when the theme for the fair that year was "discover Mexico".  Little did we know back then that Mexico and other countries  today would illegally cross our border at the tune of eleven million in a two and a half years period of time all to the blessing of you know who.

I am blogging late again today but it is what it is. Thanks for checking in anyway, whenever you do check in.....

Thouroughly Thursday....

 Sunrise is looking good. We are going to be overcast all day but we will warm up a bit.  The wind is strong so a jacket helps take off the chill. 

Mac Book Air, 15 inch, M2, 2023.  I had worn out my keep board and this keyboard is a little bit larger. It is an adjustment but it is a good one. I really like it as it is a bigger screen than I had before. 

We have new construction going on in our neighborhood. There was a meadow down the hill south of the row of houses.  They built it in the last three years.  I thought they were done but there must have been one more free lot. The row of houses at the bottom of the hill is in our city but behind them is Saylorville, Iowa.  The house designs in that development have a quarter of a story high of basement above the ground and then they put two story houses on that foundation.  It makes them all looking like tall houses. They look like they are hovering over the houses in our city as they are common height two story homes.

  I wanted to let the birds eat off all the berries before I trimmed it down. This photo shows the evidence of where all the berries were attached.  They really had cleaned them of the bush. I took my bags of sticks to the recycle today. I am glad to get them gone. Some years I am stuck with a couple of those hanging around in the garage all winter. 

I met our new neighbor guy this morning.  The large moving truck was in front of their house and they have been busy for moat of the morning unloading it. The are moving here from Denver.  He liked the three car garage plus shop in the house and she liked all the windows with a side sunroom to grow plants. I do think they will miss seeing the mountains but I guess there is family in the state.  Greg told me his age for some reason and he is exactly the same age as me.  He is a woodworker so the shop will be good for him.  It is Thursday and I did get a lot of things done this morning. I did a lot of work getting t hings on the patio ready for winter weather.  That won't be so fun.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week....

Mowed my back yard today. I had leaves to mulch and the grass did need to be shorten. We seem to be green even though we are ten inches behind in rainfall. 

 

 I finally got done with the brush cutting job.  I had piles of sticks from my brush trimming and it all had to be cut into manageable lengths to go into these sacks.  I ended up with seven of these bags.  The next goal is get them recycled. 

The flowers are from the store as we have nothing left alive to bloom. This batch had one flower that I was not familiar with looking like smaller sunflowers. 

My wife had purchased a new computer a few months ago. She thought I should do the same as I had worn off the letters on my keyboard.  I got my new computer today and it has been time consuming to get everything transferred.  I am really happy with the larger keyboard and fifteen inch screen.  The new computer told me that I needed to emplty some of my hard drive which means I will be trashing things.  I have lots of duplicates and I will just work on it once in a while. The weather was warmer today again but the cold front is predicted for tomorrow. I will mow my front yard with lots of warm clothes.  We did have snow last year on this date but not this year.  

Thanks for stopping by today.