Happy New Year and some Christmas things......

Happy New Year!!! I can't believe that the new year is already upon us and I never did a Christmas post!! Well, here are a few of the things that I was busy with at Christmas-time. I made this little birdhouse (above) and plan to do two more, for a birdhouse village, for next year. It was fun to do. I need some kind of tall box to put them in, so I can create their own little space, with trees, snow, etc.... I already have both the trees and the "snow"...now, I just need some kind of box.

Here is the shoulder bag that I made for Hannah, for Christmas. It has coordinated fabric inside, but I realize now that I didn't get a picture of that.

These are Frosty Brownies..... they're chocolate-minty, inside and out! I told my youngest son and my husband that I wanted to try them out, before I made them for New Year's Eve. When we each had one, I said that I wasn't sure if I'd make them the same way and my son said, "I wouldn't." So, there you go. He prefers regular chocolate brownies to mint ones. Me, too. But, I did like the look of the "frostiness" on top. So, with the regular ones, I frosted them and still put the little candies on them. That was better.

I also made some Chocolate Crinkles that were fabulous!! But, I didn't remember them until 11:30 New Year's Eve, so just kept them for later. They are scrumptious and, if I'm remembering correctly, they're dairy-free. :)

Here's our Christmas tree, Christmas morning, just before we started opening gifts. It was a very nice morning. We went out to Wayne's dad's for dinner, and that was very nice, too.

And, now, a new year is upon us. How did that happen so quickly? Each year truly does go faster than the last. It's really about perception, though. As you go through life, and start feeling your mortality, time seems to go more quickly. What's that line from Bonnie Raitt's, Nick of Time? "Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste." So true.

I need to have some Sweet Dreams and go to bed....it was a l-o-o-o-ng night last night!

Happy New Year and sweet dreams to all of you!

~ Teri

My first Victorian Coronet

Greetings! Boy, is it a blustery day here!! Quite windy and, although I haven't seen any rain, it looks like it could just dump on us at any moment. The wind has been howling, though! This will certainly put a damper on the last of the beautiful leaves that are hanging to the trees. :

Anyway, I've been crafting. I'm working on some Christmassy blocks right now... almost done; photo will come later. But, first, this is a Victorian Coronet that I made a week or so ago. I've been wanting to make them for a year or so, but hadn't gotten to it. So, I was getting together with a few friends, for one of their birthdays, a week or so ago, and two days before we were meeting, I decided to make one of these for her birthday! I figured if I had a short dead-line, that would make me do it and get it done. One of the ladies at the local quilt shop used to say that I worked better under pressure... because I'd come in for fabric for dresses for my girls, like two days before Thanksgiving and say I had to make them for Thanksgiving! :) (I always got them finished!) :) Plus, since her birthday is so close to "Christmas decorating time", I thought a Christmassy thing would be nice. I bought this beautiful box at Jo-Ann's, (which I wish I would've taken a picture of!) for her to store it in.

It was really fun to put together! A little overwhelming, at first, but that seems to be how I am with every project I do. I get my supplies out and then I think, "How will I *ever* decide which paper to use??" ... as in the main paper for the cone. But, I bought that paper, with that in mind, and it was still the best choice, at the time. :) So, I went with it. I decided to add Yo-yo's... only buttons were in my original plan. I learned some things by doing this first one. But, the only thing I really wished I'd done was to put little eggs in the nest. I didn't have any. :( I do now.

Hmmmm.... I might just do a tutorial on it... I did take pictures as I went along.

Well, enjoy the weather, wherever you are!!

~ Teri

The gang of jack-o-lanterns!

Happy Halloween, a couple days late!

Here are the kids, carving their jack-o-lanterns! Well, the one in the red isn't mine, but we've known her for most of her life! It was such a gorgeous day and it continued into the evening. The moon shone brightly as we walked around... it didn't even get cold! Cool, but not cold. :) We walked as long as the littlest of kids could take it. When we were close to our house, again, one of the moms says to her 3.5 year old, "We're almost back to the Patty's house" and he says, "Thank you!"

It was fun. One of our friends brought some mulled wine over with her, so we had that to come back to.

Here are my kids, plus two that aren't mine. All the blonde kids are mine. :) Little pirate, monkey, big pirate.

Ack! Where'd the picture of the finished jack-0-lanterns go?? I hate when that happens!! I'll add it, by itself.

The time has changed.... it's 7:42 and I'm ready for bed! I do like the Fall and "going inward" stuff... but, I don't like how it happens just all of a sudden! Feeling like going to bed at not-even-8:00?? Geez... that just makes me feel old!!

Well, I hope you're all enjoying this beautiful season and are staying healthy! Take your vitamins, people!!!

Enjoy the day... or night.....

~ Teri

Boo!

Fall is definitely here. I always look so forward to the leaves changing... and love them while they're in their Fall glory..... and, then, all too often, we get a storm.... it gets windy and Poof! They're all gone. Just like that.

I still have Maples, though, that are just now starting to change! They'll be my last chance for photos. :)

This tree is downtown, in historic McMinnville. It looks so beautiful down there right now! My only complaint... if I had a complaint, which I don't, really... is all the overhead wiring! You go to take a picture of some lovely group of trees and there are all these wires going across them! Ugh! Photoshop would take care of that, probably, wouldn't it? Well, some day I'll have that. Not today.

Here's a little something that I put together for the dining room table.

And, Halloween is right around the corner!!! I mean, that corner is only four days long now! I'm *so* not ready for Halloween.... and probably will not have a costume because of that, but so be it. We've had sickness in this house for a week and a half. I need to make our front porch look not-so-scary. No, you don't understand.... our porch looks scary in the real sense, not in the Halloween goblin and ghoul type way.

Blackberry vines went crazy while I was busy working on the garden, in the backyard, over the summer! You turn your head for five minutes and those little buggers run amok! "Amok", now there's a word. And, here I thought that "awry" was my favorite word. Today it might be "amok". Did I spell that correctly? It's starting to look funny now. Ah, I just looked it up. It can be spelled like I spelled it... or "amuck". Oh, my. It also says this:

(among members of certain Southeast Asian cultures)..a psychic disturbance characterized by depression, followed by a manic urge to murder. Wow. I didn't realize that word was so intense. Well, I'd still say the blackberries have run amok.... they'd like to take over the world!!

Enjoy the day!

~ Teri

Reuniting with old friends!

So, here I am, first singing a duet at the Spring Concert, in May of 1976, and then at my 8th grade graduation, June 10, 1976. I've recently reconnected with some of these people; people that I played music with and many of us are still playing, and doing music professionally, which is really great to see! We owe a lot to the man in the first picture, Gary Fredrick(s?), who was our guitar instructor. He did so much more for us than simply teach us how to play the guitar!! He put together different groups, a "Mariachi Group", which I was in, and a rock-band, which my friends were in and some of them backed us up, too. But, the cool thing was that he booked us to play in public places!! We started out going to nursing homes, that kind of thing... then, we were doing a bank opening/ribbon-cutting ceremony, then we started playing in pizza parlors! He took all the sound gear and set it up, ran it, etc..... I *so* appreciate all the work he did for us *now*!! It was such a great experience for 12/13 year olds!! We never got paid.... I don't think it occurred to any of us to be paid! We were just having fun and I'm sure the pizza parlor enjoyed having us there, for free! :) We did bring some people in for them and we benefitted in so many other ways! The Chorus teacher, Mr. Orlando, was equally wonderful. Those were easily the best years of my school career, which is what all these other people have said, too. That's partly because it was a small school, but also because of these two great men and their love for music. They've both left the planet, so to speak, unfortunately. But, I'm sure they touched many more kids' lives than just ours, over the years. I'm so thankful for both of them. I'm sure they're both smiling down upon all of us right now. Rest in Peace, you two.

Pillow-Talk

Here are the pillows that I made yesterday! Three of these had old, funky coverings on them. I just cut off the old coverings and used the inside forms. I thought of adding piping, but I really wanted to get them done and I knew that I'd be sabotaging my efforts if I did anything besides simple, simple, simple!! Usually, I would make it an envelope opening or add a zipper, but, again, I wanted them Done. So, I made them so the coverings can't come off, without scissors. :) I don't think the insides would stand up to machine washing, but I figured the fabric was on sale.... if I really need to wash them, I can open up the opening and take the forms out. I did hand-sew the opening together; that took longer than all the rest of it!

This couch is so deep and cushionless on the back of it, that you need to have these pillows there to even sit on it. When I sit on this couch, which is rarely, I feel like Ruth Buzzy in that skit that she used to do on "Laugh-In", where she sat in that huge rocking chair, to make her look like a little girl. If I sat straight up on this couch, my legs would stick straight out, in mid-air. So, anyway, the pillows are a necessity for this couch!


But, they do go nicely with the blue couch, too. So, yay...something in this living room goes together!



And, these, having nothing to do with the living room, are on the dining room table. Probably the last of the flowers from my own garden for this year. These sunflowers are, believe it or not, Mammoths, that I got planted late. Poor, little, sad, stunted things. I was going to make a Sunflower House, which I threaten to do every year! At least I got further with it this year... I have hope for next year! So, anyway, these sunnies got about four feet tall and, much to my surprise, they actually bloomed! But, by the time they bloomed, the sun had moved further south....well, okay, we tilted so that it seems the sun moved further south.... and these little sunshiny faces followed the sun. Which is away from the garden. No one but the bunny, Jack, could enjoy them. So, I figured they'd be better off and would probably enjoy a longer life, in a vase, in the house.

Happy Autumn! Enjoy the day!

~ Teri



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