Dec25

A nice Christmas eve

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Kenny, Tori and Sean on Christmas eve

Part of my brother Ken’s finished kitchen/family room. He put the stone work around the gas fireplace himself. That’s a flat screen tv over the fireplace. They had two trees, the other real one is in the next photo.
Tori and me wearing our paper crowns from our Christmas crackers-an English tradition. I happen to find some in a dollar store.
Tori and a Belle doll I gave her.

Brian’s aunt has left us a message on the answering machine and she sounded a little disoriented. She told us that Brian’s other aunt, Berenice passed away on Saturday. She had dementia and had gone down to 50 some pounds. She died at home with everyone around her. She was a dear woman who smiled with her eyes and always made you feel at home in her beautiful Victorian home. Her son and husband were Brian’s teachers where he went to high school. Aunt Sue said she looked at peace at the end. Her funeral is Thursday and Brian and Sean will be pallbearers.

We went to a lovely (but warm) midnight mass service in Delaware last night. The music was wonderful and I couldn’t keep my eyes off an urn on the altar with white, olive green and deep pink colors. Branches that stuck out of the top were white.

We got to sleep about 2 am and I slept better! : )

Dec24

Please help yourself

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Lots of hard work-Butter crisco chocolate chips, white chocolate chip fruit (dried cranberries and apricots) cookies, Russian teacakes, Rum Raisin Cheesecake bars, Deluxe Lemon bars, Microwave peanut brittle, date meringue cookies and chocolate nut fudge. Opps-forgot the 7 layer cookies!

We’re off to my brother’s house in a few hours. I don’t know what to wear, but it’s going to be a casual get-together with good food. I made Ken his requested Apple Cake with Rum sauce. I also have to bring a Caesar salad (I cooked some shrimp to toss in).

I’m surviving on pure adrenline as I haven’t gotten to sleep until 3 am or later the last few nights. I keep thinking what I have to do in my head all night. Sometimes it would be so great to have people who live here who like to cook-ha! They’re talking about midnight mass too. I’d probably be awake already!

Have a lovely Christmas eve!

Watch for new photos here.

Dec23

Photo Hunt-Lines

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PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

My cat seems to be the purrfect subject matter for Photo Hunt lately. My son Sean took this of Cosmo’s pretty striped/lined tail. Brian took the one of Cosmo last week in the Santa hat. It’s this or the curtain. If I see anything better, I’ll post it-but enjoy the hairy lines. : )

Dec22

Gifties

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I guess it’s safe to post these as three of the five (as far as I know) have received them. These were for my pals over at tribe.net. Six of us are pretty close and in the last few months we have been sending mail art to each other. I decided not to do paper for the ornament exchange and do what I do best-cross stitching! I used my sewing machine to finish them off. With the stuffing I added some blue spruce pine needles that smell like citrus. They really like them which makes me smile. I was working on them when I was getting over my tummy bug, so that helped me recover.


Dec21

Wrapping marathon

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That’s all I’ve been doing. I wrap for all one person, and move on to the next. I want my niece and nephew to have their own special paper too. I’m almost finished-I have a few of my nephew’s gifts to wrap and my father-in-law’s. Brian and Sean only have to wrap gifts for me (and Sean for his dad and grandparents). Then I stick bows on the packages or use pretty ribbons to finish them up. I don’t do bows until the last minute as they like to pop off, so I have to use tape to hold them on. Plus who likes a squooshed up bow?
Here are a few things I thought you’d like to see:

I’ve been trying to finish this little bear ornament since high school! It only needed a few stitches and assembly, which I did yesterday. I redid the mouth and metallic stripes on the drum. And I added the fringe to the scarf. Those are my initials from 1976! I did learn how to make cording too. : )

This is a gift for my mom. My brother Dave had uploaded a bunch of slides from the 1950s he found, and this was one of them. That’s Ruth and Alan-Christmas 1954 (we think). So besides Christmas, why the photo in a frame? I took a few of their good china (what was left of it is just little chipped cake plates) and smashed them up to make mosaic pieces. So although the dishes are pretty much gone, here is a sample of the grape pattern with even the maker in a chard of the china-one the bottom there. Let me tell you, it was hard to break up! The grout should dry a bit lighter. This is a my favorite photo of them. My ‘pop pop’ died when I was 6 weeks old-a long time ago!

Dec19

Young Frankenstein gone

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I meant to add this to my blog last week. I wanted to say how sorry I was to hear of the passing of Peter Boyle-the dad from ‘Everyone Loves Raymond’. Patricia Heaton, who played his daughter-in-law, was on Conan last night and she had just attended his funeral that day. Peter was from Norristown, PA, about an hour from here. I heard he was interested in becoming a priest at one time. As he got older, he reminded me of my Uncle Don in looks and mannerisms. My favorite role of his-Frankenstein and his dance number ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’.

Dec19

Playing with the Rebel

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Our new camera was on the front door step this morning! We hope it wasn’t there all night, but I think it arrived first thing. It’s like an old-fashioned camera, but it’s digital. I was putting the battery and CF card in place (we have to use a CF card we have already-silly me thought the company forgot to send it). I did take some photos, but we don’t have the software on the computer yet. I have to figure out why it works ‘some of the time’ on the auto and all of the time on ‘P’, meaning, it shows the image on the LED screen on the back.
I’m really bushed from baking yesterday. I may get out in the kitchen sooner or later. I know what I’m making for dinner though. It was from Martha Stewart’s Food magazine-cauliflower and pasta. I just happen to buy a big head of it the other day.
I may tidy up the boxes of Christmas things I pulled out over a week ago. I didn’t get all the ornaments I like on the tree-like Mister Winking gold moon, but I think I better wrap gifts soon!
Watch for some photos soon!

Dec18

Camera phone capture

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There’s actually a lot more going on here, but I had my little camera phone and that’s it. Sean also took a photo with his phone and if it’s better, I’ll switch. This was a few days before I got sick and I just got around to sending it to myself tonight. It’s not my house, but a house in the next town. I made chocolate chips and 7 layer cookies this afternoon. I am not use to an efficient oven and I had to watch the cookies better than I had in the past (I had a system where I would turn the cookie sheet around so they would evenly brown-no worry now). My first batch ran a bit, so the next batch had more flour in it. Did I say it was close to 70 degrees outside today-it’s the 18th of Dec!! So my kitchen was very, very warm. It’s great having a dual oven. Tomorrow or the next day I have about 3 more kinds lined up to do.

My cooking duties for Christmas eve aren’t too bad-Caesar Salad and Apple cake with rum icing (as requested by my brother). Now that one seemed too dense when I made it, so I’ll have to watch the batter this time. I may add a little shrimp to the salad and I’m looking for a nice dressing recipe.