Greetings

Oh. My. Goodness.

#1....

Right there at the top of the list......Me....Just call me "Blabber-Fingers."  This is a count of comments I've made this year on one of my favorite blogs. Kind of spooky in a way. Who would have thought blog comments are tracked.  Lurking is sounding better and better.

I commented on someone's blog just recently that I thought one of my goals for the coming year might be talking less.  Not sharing my opinions, stuff I'd read, or much of anything beyond a short comment on the weather ocassionally.  Maybe I'll just have to keep my typing fingers firmly in my pockets too.

On the other hand, maybe this will be the only time I'm ever #1 at anything. :)

Winter Wonderland

Pretty, but cold.  I'm not sure how much we got, but it looks like around 4-5".

Last night was just a perfect snowy night.  Not a breath of wind and the snow coming down was so powdery and glittery against the street lights.  And so quiet.  One of those nights where you just want to be out enjoying it.

Christmas At Our House--2012

Christmas past---another one for the books. After all the decorating, shopping, cleaning, cooking, it's over all too soon.  Today is my quiet day to get things put away, dishes washed, empty boxes & wrappings disposed of.  I was really glad to send DH off to work today......four days of him at home, hovering over my shoulder, questioning if I intended to do this or that...GEEZE!!!  :)

And here's some pictures of part of our day:

Just killing them to wait while I took a picture!

Filleting knife, camo

and a shop vac. DH got some pretty nice gifts.

And so did I.

Of course we ate well too. This year I didn't rock the boat and served the traditional turkey and fixings. Not a word of complaint when you give them what they expect.  :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with their family.

New Year's Day plans??

Do you have plans for New Year's Day?  If not, maybe you would like to join the QOV New Year's Day Sit 'n Sew.  Here's a link to Judy L's blog with the particulars.

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2012/12/23/qov-new-years-day-sit-and-sew/

Start the new year out right, doing something good for others. I think I will get busy cutting some strips later this week to be ready to join in on New Year's Day.

Merry Christmas, Blog Readers

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each of you kind enough to read my blog.

It's gettin' down to the wire now.  Did some cleaning, made fudge, canning deer & wrapping deer steaks. Tomorrow it's pies and rolls; some more cleaning. Somewhere in there the presents get wrapped.....I need a nap!!!

New BFF

Today I spent some quality time with this new friend.

My new Hoover carpet cleaner. Actually we spent time together yesterday too, since I had to put it together after FedEx left the big box on my porch.  Today it was time for the test drive. First, the spinning brushes wouldn't spin. What the heck?!!  Got that figured out with some tinkering.  Later I realized it wasn't sucking any dirty water into the return tank. More tinkering. Got that working and continued. Dumped, cleaned, and went back over the entire floor to suck out more water.

The carpet looks so much better and I didn't have to half-kill myself hauling a rental machine home from the store and back again.  I always hated doing that. It was always either still wet & drippy from the last use or dry and full of someone else's dirt that wound up in my car or scattered all over the newly vacuumed carpet before I'd get it all hooked up and ready to go.  Sometimes after all that it wouldn't work at all.

My new BFF and I will get along just fine.  Until it dies.  Putting it together and then tinkering to get a couple things working showed me that it isn't made of the most sturdy parts. PLASTIC!!!  Imagine that!

What did you do for fun today??

Here It All Sits

Five boxes and a couple bags of sorted out Christmas stuff on it's way to the Christmas thrift store.

I have to admit, I feel kind of Scrooge-like for getting rid of the biggest share of a life-time collection. But, I'm tired of all of it and someone else might as well enjoy it. I think when I put my Christmas stuff away this year it will all fit into 2, maybe three boxes, a big bag and the tree coffin.  There will be empty space on the storage shelves. Yahoo!!!

The view out my front door this morning

SNOW!!! (click to bigify :)  & really see the snow coming down)

It really came down there for a while, but most of it melted before the end of the day.

Looking For Some Christmas Spirit

When it's 67 degrees out and the outdoor scenery is all kind of brown & blah it's kind of hard to "think Christmas."

I did take myself Christmas shopping on Wednesday in O'Neill.  Now that there is a Shopko store there the shopping is a little better.  Thurs., Fri., & Sat. was their Grand Opening but everything was marked with the sale prices already on Wed., so I lucked out.  I have a pretty good handle on Christmas gifts now, with the things I ordered online.  Still a few things to get, of course.

I need to get started on some cleaning, but don't really want to think about that.

Today I started making room for the Christmas tree and a few other Christmas_y things.  I used to decorate the house to within an inch of it's life, but now I like a less cluttered, more simple look.  Is that an age thing??  I've been sorting through stuff and only bring up the stuff I want to use from the basement. Before I started bringing stuff up I had to take stuff down....empty jars, canners, car show trophies, etc.  Many trips up and down the stairs. (How come I'm not thin?)

My kitty was helping me. Here she is holding down the tree skirt and stand so they don't get away before the tree gets set up. She'll spend the season hanging out under the tree. She does it every year.

Maybe I'll feel more "Christmas_y" once the tree is decorated and the lights are turned on.  I'll set out a few of my Santas and call it good.

Once I've decorated like I want I think I'll take the rest of the stuff to Good Will or the thrift store or something.  My eventual goal is to have all my Christmas stuff in ONE good sized tub and the tree storage "casket."