Absolutely Delish!

Greetings!  I had the best of intentions of posting a Thanksgiving greeting here but truth be told I was busily preparing a feast for guests.  I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We were blessed to have both family and friends grace our home this year and it was truly and joyous occasion.

I look for beauty in everything and that includes the most simple objects.  Believe me this is simple... I keep my laundry soap in a decanter with a spout.  I found that the soap is too thick to properly drain out of the spout and decided since I have no troubles diluting my fabric softener that I would dilute my laundry soap and see if I had any problems with it's cleaning ability.  This is a picture of the bottle that I use to mix my soap with water and keep it on hand to refill my decanter.  I thought it was so unexpectedly beautiful as the color graduated and became almost white with miniature bubbles.

Yes this is a chocolate chip scone.  Made in my own kitchen.  Small task you ask?  Yes, it is both the most delicious scone I have eaten and very simple to make.  The big tada?  It has been on the "to do" list for longer than I care to admit...but the date I printed the recipe tells all and it was dated 06' well, obviously it was on the list a while :)  I usually purchase scones when I am back home visiting and they have skyrocketed recently and shrunk in size at the same time.  I decided tonight of all times I was going to make these as a treat for my adorable children after a stellar performance in their school Christmas musical.  I am eager for them to give me their opinion when they wake up.  My husband and I agree they are absolutely delicious. I really have no idea what took me so long to get around to making these.  We truly have missed out all this time.  I plan on making these to bring with us for visiting back home to share.   I have a feeling these will be a new family favorite!!!  Here is to tackling something on your "to do" list.

Brrrrrrr!

For some reason as I progress in years lol I find that I do not enjoy cold weather as much as I used to.  I enjoy seeing a beautiful snow...from indoors and once in a while like to get out in it but for the most part I am content to stay indoors.  I do not enjoy being out in the cold and this morning I woke to an even colder house than ever.  Sure enough when I looked out the back door this is what I saw.

No, not snow but a nice thick frost had settled in over night and wow it was cold.  The sun was just peeking over the roof tops and glistening on the frost.  It was beautiful, but cold!  I immediately thought about quilting and the projects that have been put on hold while we were remodeling.  The study is the last room that I need to reorganize and clean since our remodel and I hope to get that accomplished this evening.  Soon I will be happily sewing away and sharing my projects with you.

Until then, wishing you warmth!

Making a Change

Every store I shop in  uses plastic bags to hold my purchases for me to take home.  When I get home from a large shopping trip to stock up our supplies for a long time I can have several bags.  These bags below are from a recent such stocking up trip.

That is a lot of bags!  For our house we have only one trash receptacle that these bags would line and it would take me  more than a year to use these in that trash can.  I do use them for other uses like donations of food and clothing so they are very handy for those uses.  However, it still takes quite a while for us to use the bags we accumulate and often times we end up taking them to be recycled in a near by town.  I do not like using plastic bags at all.  I began receiving recyclable grocery bags here and there from different events and recently was given a very large amount.  I decided that tonight was the last time for a long time that I would use plastic store bags.  If I forgot them when I headed out the door I would turn around and go back for them.  I see in disgust the plastic bags floating around everywhere I go.  I see them floating in fields, on fence lines, in ponds and lake shores and it is horrible.  I am going to commit to using only  my recyclable bags for shopping keeping only a few plastic bags for transporting donations.  After returning home from my trip I decided to gather up all the bags I could find around the house.

I knew I had quite a few bags but was surprised at how many I could gather up.

I folded and placed all the bags into one to make it convenient and easy to bring along with me shopping.
I am really excited about doing my part in reducing plastic bag usage and hope as others do the same we will see a drastic reduction in the plastic store bags literally floating around our earth.  I am committed to making this change and encourage those of you that haven't to join me.

The more you know

Have you ever noticed that the more you know the more you realize you don't know?  I am a very curious person.  After discovering something new I am intrigued to delve deeper and learn more.  Sometimes it occupies my thoughts for a long time, sometimes forever and yet others after finishing my in depth studying I tuck away to use at some later date or never. 

When I am studying something in depth, I am truly amazed at all there is to know and how I have lived this long and not known about the things I discover!  My motto is to keep my eyes and ears open so that I can learn as much as possible.  There are so many interesting things to learn in our short life and places to see in this world, I can't wait until I make another exciting discovery.

Here is to always learning and keeping our eyes and ears open!

Happy Veterans Day

 

Happy Veterans Day!!!

  Thank you to everyone who has served, is currently serving and those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom in the United States.

We honor and thank you today.