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.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We're starting early this year, beginning with the tree.  I had help from the little people who may not have many decorations on their tree because of the new kitten who is very rambunctious. She
 ( the kitten) has been taking flying leaps into their tree ( that only has lights on it so far). But my traditional white tree is up and looking lovely, if I say so myself.  Next to be gotten out are the nativity sets.

I'm off to do some baking to help warm up the kitchen. We've had frost two nights in a row now and although the sun has been shining it still feels cold. Tonight there's a church Christmas craft fair we're going to. We went last year and had a lot of fun so hopefully this year will also fun.   Hoping you're keeping nice and warm,
                                                                              Granny Marigold                                                                            

My Thanksgiving Cactus

Until today I thought I had two Christmas Cacti, one pale pink, almost white, and the other a deep pink, almost red colour. I googled Christmas Cactus and found to my surprise that the pale one is a Thanksgiving Cactus. The difference is in the shape of the "leaves" which are not real leaves but rather "stem segments" which on the Thanksgiving one have 2 to 4 saw-toothed projections and on the Christmas one the segments are rounded.

                                                     This is my Christmas Cactus.

                                     My Thanksgiving Cactus on a quilted table center.

 My Thanksgiving Cactus on the lovely table center cloth that I found just this morning at the thrift store. That's the great thing about thrift stores. You never know what you will find that makes you happy!

                                                 Happy Day,   Granny Marigold

Time to start decorating for Christmas

It may seem early to set up the Christmas tree, especially to those who haven't had Thanksgiving yet. But the Canadian Thanksgiving being in October, by the middle of November many of us are so ready to go on to Christmas. SO the tree has been hauled out from storage, new lights bought, (how come they work, then you store them for 10 months, take them out and half of them no longer work?) and we're ready to make a start.  I will post pictures once we're done.

Baking Day

I had a lovely walk this morning. It was cloudy but not at all chilly. A Great Blue Heron landed not thirty feet away from me and stood looking so regal. Saw the Hummingbird that has decided to spend the winter here   ( or maybe another one just like the first one I saw a few days ago).

   In the afternoon I had lots of help baking. The Little Mister stirred the cranberry scone mixture and ate the dried cranberries before adding them but asked me to bake him a scone with none in it. Which I did.  The Big Mister, otherwise known as Dear Husband, grated the carrots for the carrot/pineapple muffins.

 The Banana Loaf is for a friend who isn't well. You can see I used parchment paper on the bottom of the pan. I wasn't taking any chances of  the loaf  not coming out in one piece.
Here are  my "new" pot holders that I bought at the thrift store. I think they're crocheted ( can you tell I don't know much about the difference between crochet and knitting?) The one that looks pink is actually Christmas red and the other a lovely green. They are very thick and took a couple of days to dry on the drying rack.

Here you can see the cuttings I took from my scented Geranium ( Citronella) before I threw it on the compost. It had grown so huge it blocked a good part of the South window. I hope the cuttings will root.
Have a great weekend!     Granny M.

Scrapbooking

A rather wintery sun tried to shine through the clouds this morning. At one point during my walk I had to open my umbrella but not for long. By noon the clouds were gone and it's really fairly pleasant outside.

     It seemed a perfect day to do some scrapbooking. I started with my Thanksgiving pictures.

 For some strange reason my computer insists on putting these pics in sideways. Sorry about that. I hope you don't get a crick in your neck looking at them.

           I've "hidden" my journaling in the little card with the             pumpkin on it.

Now I'm going to sit down and start my new library book, a mystery by Louise Penny, called The Beautiful Mystery.  I hope I enjoy it because I've already requested 3 others by the same author.      Granny M.

Last of the Season

Sadly the season of garage sales is at its end. Yesterday there was exactly one and of course, I went. I found these treasures: 2 delightful teddy bears for my collection ( the larger one I have now dressed in a handmade ivory sweater obviously knitted for a premie. Sorry I forgot to take a pic. of that), a cute little rabbit ( it will no doubt appear in Spring as part of some vignette), a cinnamon candle in a jar, a full roll of wired ribbon, sparkly with autumn leaves on it, a small Santa which in a few weeks ( maybe less) you will see on display, and lastly a plastic pinwheel with maple leaves on it. That will be put out for July !st. So much fun for less than $6.00. So much fun for so cheap!! 

      Hope you are having an awesome day,      Granny Marigold

A Winged Visitor

There was no time to grab my camera when an Anna's Hummingbird made a quick visit to my hardy Fuchsias (Fuchsia Magellanica). It was definitely a male, with his flame red head and throat. In summer we have the Rufus Hummer but they migrate and apparently the Anna's often doesn't. The occasional one will spend its winter here which is the only season when I have seen any. According to one of my bird books the Anna's is hardy to temperatures into the teens ( Fahrenheit) and not greatly bothered by snow. Their average life span is 3 to 4 years. I'll be watching now for further sightings of this gorgeous little guy.
Happy Saturday!!

A busy afternoon

My DIL wanted to attend the Remembrance Day assembly at Little Miss' school so we had the little man for the afternoon. We did some shopping and he had great time. When school was over we picked up our DIL and grand daughter and came back home but the kids wanted to stay upstairs with me. The little miss wanted to get out the Christmas decorations for the Doll house and the little man wanted to help make chocolate chip cookies. Of course nothing is simple when baking with a four-year-old and in the end I found I had forgotten to add oil to the cookie recipe. Luckily I could still add it and the cookies didn't seem any worse for it. Now I am tuckered out. I should have no problem falling asleep tonight!

                                                The doll house is ready for Christmas!

                   It's very hard to see but the little man is carefully balancing a cookie on the spatula.

While the oven was on and the kitchen a bit of a mess I thought I might as well use a block of dates that had been in the pantry for some time and make a date square ( a favourite of my DH).  Does anyone call it Matrimonial Cake any more?

Well, this granny is calling it a day, so here's hoping you had a wonderful day too!

This and That

It's very quiet around here. Outside the rain is coming down relentlessly so no walk for me today. So I'm wondering what to write about. Maybe a tour of my livingroom would interest some. It is "organized clutter",full of things I find delightful.  Most of the furniture is antique; the sofa and chairs are from the 1930's . As you can see I didn't bother tidying up before I snapped the pics so you see it as it is. My Mary Englebreit book on the coffee table, open to the last page I read.

 The tall plants in the front window help to provide some privacy from the street. I used to have sheer curtains but even that cut the light too much on this the North side of the house.

 You may see Christmas items around-----they stay there all the year. Of course I have LOTS more I'll get out closer to Christmas but the room has touches of December all the time. In one of the display cupboards I have a sign that says " I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year round." Kind of sums up my way of thinking.

 In the dining room I changed my Autumn display on the sideboard to a much simpler one.

           The old Singer sewing machine that was my mother's is another spot for "pretties".

                                         And of course more teddy bears having tea!

                                                 I hope you've enjoyed the tour.