Happy New Year!

                          
Happy New Year! I hope 2014 is a wonderful year for You!   I



                           


 I have started putting away Christmas 'stuff' and plan on slowly but surely getting it done by next week. I'm never in a hurry to take down the tree and leave it to the very last.  I began with the ledge in the dining room. My 6' son easily reached down the assorted Santas and Angels  and gave the ledge a wipe. Then I got out those 20 or more tea cups I had put away and washed and dried them. I was very surprised, as I sorted and tried to find the matching saucer for each cup, to find that a few of the "sets" I had bought this past year were not actually sets at all. The cup might say Royal Albert but the saucer, although looking quite a bit like the cup was definitely not the same. Oh well, I've put them up and no one will notice. But, this coming year, IF I buy any others I'll make sure to check to see that they match.      

         
Please leave a comment so I know you were here. I always appreciate any comments that are left!
                                                                 XX

Merry Christmas

I hope each one of you has a happy and blessed Christmas and a very healthy and happy New Year as well.

                                                        XX

Winter is here

Although winter doesn't officially arrive until tomorrow,  here in B.C. I think we'd all agree it arrived overnight. Here are some pictures:

                                                       The front yard

                                                           The back yard

                                                The bird bath is heaped high and snow 
                                  is still falling!!

                                                 

 

    My DIL  out with the kids having great fun. You can see the snow coming down! So pretty!

Please leave a comment so I'll know you were here.      Granny Marigold

Getting closer

Christmas is slowly but surely getting here. I'm ready and waiting. I rearranged my sideboard after visiting the thrift store yesterday and finding that Christmas items were half price. I added a number of Santas to my collection. Also a lovely Christmas patterned cream and sugar that I had admired on previous visits but didn't buy. At half price I had to get them.

On a totally different note..... I am not very interested in, or good at, making food in general and desserts in particular. Funny things happen to me. Just today I made a Boston cream pie ( cake) for my DH's birthday. All went well until I melted the chocolate for the top glaze and it "seized" as chocolate is known to do. I quickly got it spread ( after a fashion ) on the cake but it doesn;t drip down the sides like it's supposed to. Oh well. We'll enjoy it I'm sure but I sometimes wish I'd be able to have my food LOOK like the pictures in cookbooks or on my computer ( where I mostly look for ideas these days).

                                 The hapless baker,
                                           or should that be the hopeless baker,
                                                              Granny Marigold

Busy Saturday

First thing this morning I picked up a few groceries that I needed then stopped at the thrift store to drop off a box of donations and had a peek at what they had that I might like. I found some lovely blue ornaments and a couple of hand-made doilies, one in a blue/green and the other in a delicate pink. All the work that went into them and I paid a dollar!! When I came home I knew just where I wanted to put them.

Once I had done that I went to bring in the Orange log cookies and the centers for the peanut butter balls that were on the porch. Yes, it is as cold on the porch these days as in the freezer!!  I melted chocolate and the grandkids carefully dipped exactly half of each "log" in the chocolate. 
( Yeah, right!) Then they lined them up on a cookie sheet to harden. Next came the PB balls. We used forks to dip these and the kitchen had a fair amount of chocolate spread around by the time we were done.

I also baked a Butter tart square using a recipe from the Company's Coming cookbook as a guide. I used an 8X12 pan instead of 8X8 because I don't like a thick crust. I do like a lot of filling so increased that by almost double. I have a habit of fooling around with recipes ( then wondering why they don't turn out?)  Actually mostly they do turn out. A baker's dozen buns and my Saturday baking is done!

Now I'm planning to do some scrapbooking. I hope you are having a lovely productive Saturday too.
                                       Granny Marigold

Eye Candy

This morning my younger daughter and I went browsing in some very pretty shops with amazingly lovely displays that I thought I'd share with you.

These pics were taken at the first place we stopped at. I think it had the best displays! Apparently it is featured in the Christmas issue of Chatelaine magazine. 
                                           Granny M.

This and that

We're having wintery weather with cold winds and freezing temperatures. Not totally unknown for this time of year but rain is more what we usually get.  I have been feeling a little under the weather. Today I was resting and reading a cookbook ( I tend to read them as one would read a novel), and I came upon a recipe for low-fat scones. Now DH and I love our scones, and I'm always on the look-out for lower calorie recipes, so I made my way to the kitchen and mixed up a rather wet dough ( among other ingredients it called for a grated apple). I had a hard time patting it out and may have overworked the dough.  The scones are edible but not great. I think I'll stick to my old recipe. In fact, that is often how it is when I venture away from the tried-and-true. I'm not an adventurous food-maker. I do it because I like to eat and I like to know what I'm eating. Nevertheless, DH and I will eat the scones... split, toasted, and with lots of jam!
                                                                         Granny Marigold
                                  

December and 1st Sunday of Advent

December has arrived with chilling winds and a mix of sleet and rain for us today. Yesterday also marked the beginning of Advent so out came our old Advent wreath into which I stuck green candles ( none too straight I see).  It's hard to see the wreath on this runner.  Tomorrow I'll change it for a much nicer one made for me this past year by a dear friend.

 It's hard to find Advent calendars that don't have chocolate behind each door.  I found this one at the thrift store, still in the package, and it has a Bible verse behind each little door.  It has been stuck on the fridge door with mega magnets!!

 It's a challenge to take a picture against a window but I wanted to show how the rather tacky little ceramic houses looked after a coat of low-gloss white paint. There's a sprinkle of glitter on the roofs, which you can't see in the pic. They sit in my kitchen on something that I think is called batting.

I hope you are keeping warm and cozy in this wintery weather.  Please leave a message so I'll know you came by.           
                                           Granny Marigold

50 years

50 years ago a barely 18 year-old girl married her sweetheart and here we are now, having come through good times and not-so-good times.

Celebrating our golden anniversary today.   Granny Marigold

Tidying up

I wonder if every home has a spot where things just accumulate. Here, at our house, it's the telephone desk. Flyers that need looking through?  Just put them on the telephone desk. A stray glue stick?  A box of Christmas ornaments with no place to put them?   Any  item looking for a spot ends up there. Today I decided I'd tidy it up.  I started by moving all my recipes from the largish wooden box they have been in forever and putting them into a binder with inserts that are meant for 4X6 pics.  That is also the size of my recipe cards. I hope I'll like this system.  While I was at it I tidied up the bulletin board too.  I'm quite pleased with the results. Now if only it stays tidy!!  So here are my before and after pics.

                                          Granny Marigold

A Lovely Day

Today was such a lovely late November day.  The temperature was above freezing this morning, the first time this week. I had a pleasant walk around the lake. Lots of Common Merganzers on the water as well as the usual winter waterfowl such as Buffleheads, Scaup, Coots, and of course the Mallards and Canada Geese.
Did some shopping this afternoon taking the little mister with us as his mom was busy at school with the annual Book Fair.   Came home and decided to bake chocolate chip cookies before I put a crustless quiche in the oven for supper. Made 3 small jars of Apricot jam as well. Now I am ready to sit down and put my feet up and read.

Granny Marigold

Nativity sets

Except for putting out the nativity sets we're about done with decorating around here. This cardboard one I picked up at the thrift store a few years ago. It's old but in very good shape considering it has to be folded up into the box at the end of the season. All the tabs are still intact!

                                    Little miss set this one up under the Christmas tree.

       This wooden set was carved in the Holy land. Can you tell it was set up by a four-year-old?

 I can't remember what this black set was made of. I bought it many years ago at a shop called Thousand Villages which I believe helps struggling craftspeople from other lands.  Again, set up by little mister. He said the one wise man had a cold and had to stay far away from baby Jesus.

   This opaque glass nativity set didn't photograph well but since it is a favourite of mine I am including it.   
That's it for today.  It's been a busy one so it will be early to bed for me. Especially since I got up at SIX this morning because I thought the clock said SEVEN.   Without my glasses I can't really see the clock as well as I'd like.  You can bet I'll be double-checking the time before I get up from now on! 

                                       Granny Marigold

Random pictures of Christmas decorating

Some pictures of my house as it looks so far. The Christmas cushion below I have had for years but this year I stole an idea from Garden of Daisies who collects Christmas tree pins and displays them on a gorgeous hanging quilt. I had some Christmas pins so I pinned them on to the cushion and I like the effect.

                              I found another Jan Brett children's book for my collection!!

 This is the end wall of my sunroom where I have all my ceramic houses displayed all year round.

                                            

                                                          My Christmas Cactus

                The long shelf in the diningroom that usually has 16 cups and saucers displayed.

                       Even the teddy bears deserve their own Christmas      tree and presents.

     This is actually an extra tree skirt that I wanted to use somewhere ( I used to always put up two trees but now have not the room.) The "snow ball" and teddy bear on top hide the hole in the middle of the skirt.

And last of all my sideboard as it looks this week. Still have more to unpack so who knows how it will look next week.   

                      Enjoy the season,    Granny M.