Preparing for Christmas

 I'm sure I've posted about reading this book to M in past years but I just have to post about it again. Who knows how long he'll want me to read to him. He's 11 now and once they get to this age they seem to grow up too fast.  Doesn't he look cozy in his fuzzy onesie?

 

Middle son came up to help his children decorating the tree for me. This tree is in the sunroom. I also have one in the livingroom. This may be the last year I do 2 trees.  

 Yes, it's beginning to look Christmassy around here. I know many of you are waiting until after Thanksgiving to start on Christmas.  I think I'll  get out the raisins and glaceed fruit for the fruit cake and soak them in something alcoholic. I think there's some rum left from last year. No doubt soaking the fruit for a couple of days should improve the flavour.  Do you bake Christmas cake?  If so do you presoak the fruit?

Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful day.   GM

Susan Branch and Leaves

 

Do you enjoy Susan Branch's books and blog?  I noticed that her last two or three posts have been about Autumn and the beauty of leaves.  I've been noticing lately too what lovely colours our trees have turned.    I wish I could name each colour  and I happened to mention this to my eldest daughter. This is the 'chart' she created for me.  The colour names are almost as lovely as the leaves themselves. Take Alizarin Crimson..(that's the one in the upper right hand corner). Wikipedia tells me that it is a shade of red biased slightly more toward purple than orange. Then there's Burnt Orange, Burnt Sienna, and Yellow Ochre....

Back to Susan Branch. In her October 21 post she gives the recipe for Snippy Doodle coffeecake which sounds so fast and easy and tasty that I'm going to make it soon. After we finish the apple pie that we made for supper today.  DH helped ( in fact I think he did more than I did) and since it's not much more work to make a full recipe of pie dough, we now have 4 fine lumps of dough in the freezer for the next time we want pie. 

Time to stop rambling on here.  Thanks for coming by,  G.M.

Some Baking and Decorating

 We're not tired of eating apple crisp yet. I added cranberries this time and they add a nice colour.

The cookie tin needed filling so I baked Gingersnaps. They spread a lot.

 This batch of cheese biscuits was made in a hurry with no attempt made to cut them the same size.

Eldest daughter and her daughter ( GD Kate) were coming over and I wanted to have these ready.
 

While Kate cut her grandad's hair  ( she's an amazing hairdresser) my daughter put tiny Christmas lights on the dollhouse and covered them with fluffy batting (?) to give the impression of snow.  It was she who built the house years ago starting with a kit and changing it as she went along. Later she and my DH added the lean-to kitchen.

 Just 37 more days until Christmas and the dollhouse is ready. I better get myself organized although this year everything will be different.   Still, there will need to be sweets baked, cards sent, trees decorated...  

Thanks for coming by. Keep safe and well.

Granny Marigold

Monday Again

 

 It's Monday again.... a new week. One of the things I want to do today is try this product on my kitchen countertops. They are laminate, dark green, and not as nice any more, not as I'd like them to be. DH tried car polish on them but that didn't last long ( although it looked good for a few days). I have hopes that this stuff will do what it promises to do. It states that it will clean and polish wood surfaces and also laminate. We'll see how it does. We bought it at the hardware store.....

 ...where they had a big display of Christmas Cactus. White, pink, and even some that were more peach than pink.  I found one pot that has several plants in it and has both white and peach-coloured buds. I hope you can see that in the pictures.

I used to have Christmas Cactus but they got so huge and took up so much room that I got rid of them. I'm going to try to keep this one pruned so it stays a manageable size.  I know it's not hard to pinch them back I just need to remember to do that once this one has finished blooming. I may separate it into 2 individual pots at that time.

Have a wonderful week!!   Thanks for visiting.

GRANNY MARIGOLD

This and That

 It's a dreary,rainy day. Nothing interesting is happening unless you count grocery shopping as interesting.

I'm almost done with the box of apples that we bought. We sliced and froze a number of bags for winter and we've had apple crisp several times.

 

 I spotted this front window decorated for the season. Surprisingly, it's the home of an older couple, not a young family as you might think.  I suppose this year we need all the decorating and cheer we can get.

 I had almost forgotten my children's shoe collection that I had tucked away. Not the ones on the floor....those belong to the grands and are their current footwear. I know, I collect strange things.

I also collect pretty pot holders. I took out all the Christmas ones and spread them on the table to admire.  Most are quilted or crocheted.

I've put a winter scene in the tall lantern. Nearer to Christmas I'll exchange for a manger scene.

 That's a peek into what's happening here.  I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Thanks for coming by,  G.M.

A Finished Project

 This is how my front garden looked last Spring before we had a heavy downpour which flattened the Hydrangeas. They couldn't lift their rain-soaked heads back up so they looked pretty awful. Every time I looked at them I could have cried.  This seemed to happen every year so I was resigned to having them removed.

 

Here my sons are digging out the roots. DH took advantage of the help to take down the sections of fence and give them a coat of stain.

Youngest son helping DH putting the fence back....

 

 

 

This is what it looks like now. All that remains to be done is to choose plants next Spring and hopefully make the front yard look nice again.   The lattices will  have Clematis growing up them.
 

I think we finished just in time. Our forecast is for possible wet snow mixed with rain. Feels like Winter!!

Thanks for visiting today. Have a great week!!

GRANNY MARIGOLD

November

 

 

 We had very mild weather on the weekend and we took advantage of it to have youngest son cut down the very old, overgrown lilac which had begun to break apart. Better to cut it now and not wait for winter storms to do the job. The lilac hung over the playhouse and also the arbour that is covered with Boston Ivy.  Hopefully the stump left will let out and we'll have lilac blooms again in a year or two.

 The fine weather continued today and I walked under blue blue skies. Unfortunately the forecast is for days of heavy rain beginning overnight.  Normal November weather for us.

 Are you excited for this new month?  For you in the U.S. you have Thanksgiving to look forward to.  

Our Thanksgiving is weeks gone and my thoughts are leaning toward Christmas.

Whatever your week holds I hope it's pleasant.

 

Thanks for coming by,  

GRANNY MARIGOLD