Time to Put It All Away

I always get a little sad when it's time to put the Christmas decorations away. I enjoy seeing all the twinkling lights and ornaments and decorations. But, now it's time to clear it all off and start a new year.


I'm excited to see what the coming year will hold. I know there are some "gloom-and-doom" forecasters out there, but I am believing for a year of blessing and prosperity. I'm believing for our best year ever!


Our daughter prepared a special dinner for her fiance on Saturday. It was his birthday. The cake was great!

(It's almost gone now!)

Have a great day.

~Elaine~

Interloper

For our other daughter I made a bag similar to the one I made for my Mom. As she was preparing to put her things into it, her cat, L.B. decided he should check it out for suitability. He decided it would do. I love this cat, even though he is a menace! He and his siblings were born in our chicken house. Our neighbor's cat decided that would be a good place, and there she had them. We kept this one with the neighbor's blessing and he has become an integral member of our family. And he's a great hunter. If he can't find anything else to stalk, we become his target.

Pets are such an important part of our lives. I pity those who don't know the pleasure of furry love.

Have a great day!

~Elaine~

Purple Lover

This is a little notepad holder I made for our older daughter for Christmas. Purple is her "Signature Color", so purple is what I use for her. I crocheted a handbag for her of purple with the above fabric as a lining. Then made this and a small wallet out of the lining fabric, so she is coordinated. I'll post a photo of the handbag later. Somehow I missed documenting it. Oh, wait, I remember now. Said daughter came back while I was in the midst of taking pictures before Christmas and I had to hurriedly put everything away!

I'm off to buy dog food now. Have a great day!

~Elaine~

Supporting Art

A young friend of mine gave me a really great handpainted picture shortly before Christmas. Since she is a very young artist and also since I would like her to continue making art, I made this little artist's case for her. I included in it colored pencils, a pen, a small stencil and a composition book. I had this fabric already and it seemed like a good choice. She liked it anyway, and that was the main thing. What do you think?

And A Good Time Was Had By All

We have Christmas at our house on Christmas Eve. We've never done the "Santa" thing. So, last night we all gathered here and opened gifts, visited and had bowls of homemade vegetable soup and cornbread. We also ate lots of chocolate. Life is good!

Hope you and yours have had a wonderful Christmas, and that you've remembered that Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. It is His birth we commemorate each year, and thank God, He was willing to leave the heavenly splendor that some day we might join Him there!

~Elaine~

The world is so full

of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

It's a beautiful day, though COLD for Houston. It's 35 degrees right now. Brrrrrrr!

Lots to do, so must get started. Hope you have a great day!
~Elaine~

Focus

Have you ever noticed that when you focus on the "Big Picture", sometimes you just feel overwhelmed? Sometimes it's better, I think, to focus on something smaller, something that's good.

There are so many beautiful and dear things in this old world. A beautiful flower, birds singing in the yard, my dog sleeping peacefully, Mary's cat prowling around looking for something to kill - all these things make me smile, and a merry heart doeth good like a medicine!

Have a great day!

~Elaine~

Love my crockpot

This is all it takes to make a crockpot full of delicious vegetable/beef soup. The package on the left is cooked ground beef (lean and rinsed before freezing). Kroger has a frozen Recipe Beginnings "Vegetable Soup Mix". It has everything in it you need. I add a teaspoon of the Beef Base, which is a concentrated bouillon-type product, plus a couple cans of diced tomatoes and a couple tomato cans of water. Dump it all into the crockpot, turn it on and you're out the door.

Then when you come back home, there is a delicious odor of soup in the air and you get to sit down to a delicious bowl of this:

YUM! On a chilly day like today, there's just nothing better.

~Elaine~

Ready to hit the post office

Finally! All gift wrapped, boxed and ready to mail tomorrow. Hurrah!

Now, I just hope everyone likes what I've made for them. (I'm not showing the goodies I baked. :)

Also, I want to thank SewMamaSew for the lovely gift tags

(free for download from their site http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=300 ).

Also, thank you for all the kind emails about my blog. XOXOXO!

~Elaine~

Getting Closer - Christmas, that is

This is what Christmas looks like in Houston right about now, but we're supposed to cool off a little tonight. Hurrah!

I finished this bag for my Mom. Turned out pretty well. I love that Mary Engelbreit fabric, just makes you happy to look at it.

I also made this notepad/pen holder for her.

This is the front. How cool is this? Mom is a retired schoolteacher!

Oh, I've still got a lot to get done and then get it all off in the mail. Hurry. Hurry!

Hope you're having a good time with your Christmas preparations.

~Elaine~

Last night was our granddaughter's Christmas concert. She was "First Chair" in her section. The music was beautiful and what fun it was to have most of our little family there for the concert and supper out afterward!

There's shopping to be done today, so time for me to get at it.
~Elaine~

Another beautiful day

Bruno is sure there is something in that flower bed that he needs to catch. He watches it constantly.

There are still butterbeans on the vines on the fence. Picked them and Ru shelled them. We had them for lunch. Yum....

And this little heart-shaped potato is one of the ones we had baked for lunch.

Dodged the bullet

Wow! It is so good to see the sun and no damage to the few things still growing in our yard. Yes, that's a fig. There are still a few of them on the small tree next to the chicken yard. How awesome is it to be able to go out and pick a fresh fig from your very own tree in December! I love it.

We had a freeze forecast for last night, but it didn't get quite that cold, thank God. We still have some peppers in the garden and the tomato vines have blooms and small tomatoes. There's still hope for an extended harvest from them. It will be warmer today, and I have lots of baking still to do.

Working on Christmas

I was up very late last night (actually it was this morning), working on a new Christmas gift. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, and I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?

I shopped today and bought some gifts, too. Good day!

Hallelujah!

Well, we finally had sunshine after a week of clouds, cold and rain. We needed the rain, and I was thankful for the cold while I had the oven going full-tilt for Thanksgiving dinner. But oh, it was so good to see clear blue skies again!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. Our family was all together and in harmony. Always a good thing.

God is good!

After the post last night, this morning I saw this movie: http://www.the-race-movie.com/ and it totally reinforces everything I said! Just don't quit.

~Elaine~

Forgiven

The question is not whether or not you will fall, but what you will do after you fall. We all make mistakes - some serious, some not so serious. But we ALL make them. We all fall. However, falling doesn't mean we're through. It just means we have to get back up and go on. We can't be defeated if we don't quit.

Personally, I don't intend to quit. I know I've made more mistakes than anyone has a right to expect forgiveness for. But I do expect and have received forgiveness. Jesus paid the price for my sins, and when I confess my sins He is faithful and just to forgive them and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Glory to God!

Chickens

Anyone who thinks chickens are cute and cuddly doesn't know chickens. I like chickens. My husband humors me in this, but doesn't understand this fetish of mine at all.

I think the thing I like most about them is that they are so industrious. Chickens are always doing something. The trick is to have them do something you want them to do. For instance, I want them to make compost from all the hay, leaves, vegetable parings (and let's face it -chicken poop) in their yard. I also want them to make eggs. We like fresh eggs. What they would prefer to do, however, is to get into one of my vegetable gardens and tear it up, or a flower bed - that would work nicely for them as well. And lately I also have to disabuse them of the notion that they can hatch any of their eggs. There is no rooster out there. Those eggs will not hatch. But now and again they will hide a clutch of eggs from me for a few days in the vain hope that they will indeed hatch. Not happening.

Reprieve!

There I was - ready to go in and work for my daughter for the next (conceivably) months (?), and tonight she decided that she wanted her job after all! Hallelujah! So I am off the hook. Not that I mind working, or that I wouldn't enjoy seeing my son every day. Just that I'm happy she is working tomorrow and I'm not.

I made this little afghan for my niece's baby which is expected next month. My precious Grandmother taught me to crochet many years ago. Maybe one day I'll get as good at it as she was.

This is me

First of all, you have to know that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. Everything else, I'm trying to figure out as I go.

My husband is my best friend and the love of my life. Our children, daughter-in-law and granddaughter are special blessings from the Lord. I am so proud of all of them!

Bruno is my dog. He's my companion and protector.