This Week

I woke up early today (for a Saturday morning) and thought I'd pop in here while the house was still quiet and share some of the happenings from this week.

After some beautiful clear skies, the clouds rolled in Thursday evening.  The pictures don't do the colors justice.  Imagine them ten times more intense.  A few minutes after I took this, the heavens opened and dumped almost an inch of rain and hail in less than an hour.

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When Emily from Charming the Birds from the trees shares these little vignettes of what she's eating and reading, I always think they look so enticing.  So here is my lunch one day this past week:  homemade hamburger barley soup and bread~ one slice with butter and one with jam~ it's so good I indulged in two pieces!~ and A Nantucket Christmas by Leslie Linsley, an older library book from 2004 but which is nevertheless full of beautiful pictures of lovely interiors.

It's got me thinking about and planning for Christmas.  It will be here before I know it and I'm determined to get ahead this year!

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Dave and I got home from Kansas last weekend to find that Hannah had deep cleaned the sewing/laundry room, which included organizing the fabric so that it actually fit in the cupboards and washing and ironing the curtains!  The finishing touch was these sweet pink and white geraniums.  What an amazing daughter!

More Reasons to Love the Midwest

Look at that!  Beautiful!  Breathtaking!

Dave and I were in Kansas over the weekend promoting Wittenberg Door and building support at a sister church.  I had never been farther west in Kansas than Lawrence, but our trip took us well west of center.  Far from being boring, as I had always heard Kansas was, the scenery was gorgeous!  The huge sky and wide open spaces!  The ripening fields of corn and sorghum!  The colors!  The distant vistas!  Sigh.

I guess I'm just a midwestern girl at heart.

Hygge

Have you heard of hygge?  I first read about it this time last year.  I loved the idea and started a Pinterest board for inspiration.  Here's what the BBC says about it:

"The Danish word, pronounced "hoo-ga", is usually translated into English as "cosiness". But it's much more than that, say its aficionados - an entire attitude to life that helps Denmark to vie with Switzerland and Iceland to be the world's happiest country."

In reality, our family has practiced hygge for years without knowing there was a term for it.  I think of it as highlighting what is best about each season and making the most of it in our homes and lives.

Something about autumn magnifies my desire for hygge.  It must be the falling temperatures, lengthening darkness, and need for coziness.  Today, it manifested itself in my trying a new recipe to munch during our family movie night:  pretzel bites with cheese sauce.

Oh. My. Goodness.

The pretzel bites were awesome and they weren't even hard to make.  I didn't use the cheese sauce included with the recipe but instead used my old standby~ white sauce with cheese melted into it with a little garlic.

Dave pointed out how hygge-ish it all looked, so I snapped a quick picture.

Homemade pretzels and cheese sauce, a bottle of Sam Adams (for him, not for me or Hannah), and X-Files (which we interrupted to watch the presidential debate).  Good times!

This Week

Whatever happened to my good intentions to post more than once a week??  Here it is Sunday again, and I've not blogged since last Sunday!  I will keep trying . . .

This past week Dave and I took my mother-in-law to two doctor appointments.  With her increasing dementia, having both of us along is very helpful.  It takes one to drive and park the car and the other to point her in the right direction and make sure she doesn't ditch her walker and oxygen. She is happy, cheerful, and despite what I just said, cooperative, all of which are great blessings for us all.  She reminds me of Martha Washington and her resolution always to be cheerful no matter what the circumstances.

Autumn is really here now with cooler temperatures, less sunlight, and my nesting instincts kicking in.  Do you feel that too?  That as soon as it begins to get chilly, suddenly you need to cook, clean, and light candles?  I don't know why I'm drawn to home and homemaking more than ever during this time of year, but I am.  It's time to think about and plan for soups and stews, jackets and flannel sheets, warm socks and sweaters.  How about you?

We took our granddaughters to Lloyd's Pumpkin Patch yesterday and had a wonderful time.  It was our first time to visit and we were so impressed!  Admission was very reasonable and there were so many fun things for the children to do.  Arane wasn't too sure it sounded like something she wanted to do, but when it came time to go, she didn't want to leave.  Here are some highlights~

Riding the barrel train

Inside the hay bale house and entering the maze

Arane loves to climb!  Thankfully, there were lots of things there for her to climb on.

The corn box (like a sand box, except filled with
corn instead of sand) was a big hit with both girls.

This goat stayed there the whole time we were visiting.

Watching the ducks

Arane climbing up to the slide

Verity in the pumpkin patch

Gathering eggs

At the entrance

Plus so much more!  The weather was perfect, too.  I think we made some happy memories yesterday!