Morticia Would Be Proud

Jane at Smallbutcharming, suggested for this months 'Flowers in the house', that we might come up with something creepy, in keeping with the special day. So I said to self "What would Morticia Addams do?" Well, she would make an arrangement out of dead things..How easy was that, a vase full of spent badness!

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Thanks Jane!

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Have a Spooktacular day! (I couldn't pass it up) xo

Daddy's Day Off

It doesn't get much better than this... Saturday morning, Jack has Suckee Bear and Maggie gets the lap..All together on the couch.

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Wishing you all a weekend as heavenly as this! xo

Answer to 'What Is It"

Thanks for all of your helpful and funny guesses, this was so much fun! Abby from My Spotty Pony was the first to come up with it but Carrie at Cottage Cozy and Sherry from The Farm House also hit the nail on the head. It is ......A butter curler and won't I be an impressive hostess at my next large dinner party (what large dinner party?) ! This really was fun, now I'll be on the look out for our next challenge.


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Have a great day! xo

What Is It ?

When I saw this at the local thrift I just had to have it. Never mind that I have no idea what it is, it just looks handy and I figured that the Internet would tell me all about it.

No luck with that, so I thought I'd give you all a shot at it. Does it look familiar to anyone?

If you know please tell, but if not, a wild guess would be fun.

Even better, a story to go along with it would be interesting too.

Let's see what everyone comes up with.
The Mr. thinks it has something to do with cake decorating, I don't know so much about that.

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Have a good one! xo

Perfect $5 Gift

Can you think of someone who would love a subscription to Bon Appetit for Christmas? How about really surprising the teacher, boss, or perhaps your pastors wife. What other gift keeps on giving all year long for $5.00? Here's the link and the code number is 7371. At the end of the checkout you should see the savings. I will be adding on to my subscription for the second time which will put me in to 2013...Yea!

Here is another great deal, for Taste of Home, it is only $4.oo for one year (8 issues). Here's the link for this and the code number is 2981.

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Hope these might help with that Christmas list and be easy on the pocket book!

Have a great start to your week! xo

Choosing To See The Blue Sky

The older I get the more I am understanding all of those phrases we hear through out our lives, one comes to mind this very second as I think of those silly chickens of ours..."The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Not long ago, the landowners gave us permission to fence off all of the pasture from our back fence to the next pasture so our chickens would be safe and have a large area to scratch and do their chicken stuff. You guessed it, I'm sure, they want to go on the other side of that fence...same field, just on the other side of the fence, go figure.

Here is the phrase that we are living with right now, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" That's it....When we get a bad report of any kind in life, we have two choices. We can run from it or we can face it, and no matter which one we choose, it is still there. So, in our family we choose not only to face it, but charge at it...plow right through it and then continue on.

I have nothing new to report on Kami except that on Wednesday they will be doing a procedure to biopsy a node next to her heart and lung, a bit touchy so she will be in for 4 - 6 hrs. to keep an eye on her after the 20 min. procedure.

Many thanks for the special comments and all of the supportive and loving emails. I can't begin to tell you how much that means when your world falls apart and you can't see straight to even pick yourself up....My heart is full with your kindness.

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And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 .

Prayer Needed for Daughter

I didn't want to say anything until we knew something for sure. Kami was having some problems and Dr. ordered a chest x-ray, it came back abnormal and she went in for a CT scan with dye yesterday and just got word from an oncologist that he looked at the scan and it looks like Lymphoma but said it was the kind that is very treatable with good results. She goes to a thoracic surgeon and he will remove the node and they will also do another scan of the abdomen to see if any of those nodes are involved. By the end of the week we will have a full diagnosis.
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Prayer is needed, for healing and for strength and for sound minds to face this journey. I will keep you updated.
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If anyone has had any experience with this, I would like to hear about it.
Thank you!
xo

Vancouver Colors

A quick photo of these beautiful trees that I snapped while walking the dogs near our Vancouver house. I drove down Friday to help our son and his family move from Portland to Vancouver, very near to us...Yea!! Just checking in with you all, now off to take dinner over to the kids new place.

Hope your weekend was a good one!

xo

Keep It Warm

Yesterday, while making my usual rounds to the blogs, I came across a great idea from Joy over at Savvy City Farmer. She posted about what she called a Coffee Butler and encouraged us all to pick up one of the orphans from a thrift and save it from the dump...Yikes, that's a bad word around here. Anyway, I remembered my Mid-Century carafe that I had tucked away and pulled it out for my afternoon coffee.

It did a fabulous job of keeping it warm and no bitterness, which means less waste for me, as I will pour it out and start over with fresh.

I went on Etsy to see if they had any and was pleasantly surprised to find a vast amount and variety for some pretty good prices too. Here is the link if you want to look around.

This morning I made another pot after my shower and here it is, faithfully keeping my brew hot until I need another little pick-me-up, how fun is this?!

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Have a great day friends! xo

Gifts From Above

We are blessed, or cursed, depending on what day you might ask, to be in a breeding zone for some raptors here at the Little House. Today I am feeling blessed as I arrange these feathers collected by my guys (The Mr. and Jack the dog) on their walks through the fields and hillside on the property. We can recognize most of them coming from the red tailed hawk and believe some of the others are from the 'nasty' falcon, who will actually come down to the chicken yard, or sit right on our fence by the garage!

Just a little something to share with you on this Monday morning. Hope your week is staring out well, have a good one! xo

Outside Magazine $4 Year

Is there someone on your Christmas list, or perhaps a birthday coming up, that would enjoy this magazine? It isn't one that I would order for myself but thought there might be someone that can use this good deal from Slickdeals.net. Here is the link and the code number to enter is, 7312 after you get to the final amount it should be $4.00. It's easy to send as a gift, I ordered a subscription of Taste of Home for Miss E. across the street.
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Have a great weekend! xo

Treasure Box

Last week while on a thrifting jaunt, I came upon one of my favorite finds, an old recipe file. Whenever I see one of these, my first reaction is excitement but soon a bit of sadness creeps in when I think how someone didn't realize that in this discarded treasure box, were pieces of this cooks life, a diary of sorts. There is also history hidden on some of the news clippings as you can see here in the photo below.

I'm happy to find recipes from magazine pages and newspapers. Sometimes the dates are found on the bottom or top of the pages but other times I must put on my detective cap if the era of the box is to be found. This one had none of the above but on the back a recipe for Roquefort French dressing was an article with the photo of the soon to be released postage stamp in 1959, so I know that it is at least that old. I also try to find out about how long the person added to the box and so we look for the latest date, in this case it was necessary to dig a bit deeper. The food article above for the Shrimp Curry, was by Alyce Hazeltine and she wrote of a recent visit to Hawaii and the Governor's mansion where Mrs. John A. Burns, the first lady of Hawaii serves this curry. So after a quick search on Bing.com I found Gov. Burns served from 1962 - 1974. Not an exact date but close enough to get the era.

After all of the investigative work and delicious recipes gone through, I decided there was only one thing left to do.....choose one and give it a try. Molasses sugar cookies, they are good in any era!

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Have you come across any of these 'treasure boxes', perhaps one of your relatives?

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I have more baking to do today, I think it will have to be Pumpkin Bars with that declicous creme cheese frosting, I can taste it now!

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Have a great day! xo