{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ Dec. 9, 2012

Have I really been AWOL since November 11??  Has it really been a month minus two days since I last posted anything?? Shame on me!

Let's just call it all {happy} this week.

Have you heard of "Stir-up Sunday"?  It's traditionally the last Sunday of the church year~ the Sunday before Advent~ in which English housewives stir up their Christmas puddings, a delicacy which normally has to sit for several weeks before being cooked for Christmas dinner.  There's a double meaning in "stir up":  In Anglican churches, the collect of the day is

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 

Hearing "stir up" on a Sunday morning at the end of November, women would be reminded that it was time to think about their Christmas puddings.  In Lutheran churches, the last few weeks' collects have begun with "stir up," so if we Lutheran women didn't notice it on Stir-up Sunday, we'd still be reminded in time for Christmas, though we might be scrambling a bit. :-)

I knew I would be busy on Stir-up Sunday, so I availed myself of Stir-up Saturday and mixed up my husband's favorite Christmas treat, fruitcake.  Not exactly a pudding, I know, but, like pudding, fruitcake needs to ripen for a few weeks as well, so . . .  Here are a couple pictures of this year's fruitcake~

 

 

This is a heavy, dense, not too sweet cake made all the heavier by the addition of half a bottle of rum or whiskey.  It's now well wrapped and sitting on my pantry shelves, awaiting Christmas Day.

 

 

 

There is a little gingerbread thing going on on my miniscule kitchen windowsill~

 

 



The ornaments were made by my grandmother, who departed this world a few years ago.  Remember when making things from felt was all the rage?  In the '70's I think it was . . . The little gingerbread bag was made by the director of the preschool where I taught about 20 years ago.  It's still as good as new!

Join Leila for some more {phfr} fun!

 

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ Nov. 11, 2012 (Master Bedroom Edition)

Given its small size, it seems a bit ambitious to call our room the "master bedroom," but since it is where the master and mistress of the house sleep, I guess it qualifies.  So I am joining Like Mother, Like Daughter's {phfr} master bedroom challenge.

Well, technically, I'm not.  I did not do a thing this week to make our room a better place, but I haven't yet shown it to you since we painted, and I will give you a peep at an upcoming improvement.

{Pretty}

Here's what you see as you enter~

The walls used to be the color of cardboard.  Very dull and depressing.  I know that color, teamed with black and white, is all the rage, but I'd never get out of bed if I woke up to that.  We like more color, so Man of the House and I chose this blue to match a shade in the quilt.  It's a shade darker than I thought it would be, but it is a very pretty color.  Much better!

I made that quilt, by the way, the only one I've done.  Here you can see it in our old house and read a little about the process of making it.  My mother embroidered the pillows.  They look great with the quilt!  I'm still contemplating what to do on the wall above the headboard.  I'm thinking maybe a decal, similar to this one. 

Here's what you see on the other side of the room~

I am not in love with the dresser, though we've had it for twenty-five years, and it was not new then.  I laugh about it now because that's exactly the style of furniture that is in all the stores now.  Only ours is not in retro style.  It is actually the real thing!

{Happy}

This rocking chair . . .

. . . sits wedged into a corner, leaving barely enough space between it and the bed for us to get through, but there it remains anyway.  It's an old chair~close to two hundred years old, we think~and could use a coat of paint.  Man of the House's grandfather used to sleep in it while he was on call as a volunteer fireman many years ago.  It's a very comfy chair!  The afghan was made by my grandmother, and the pillow by my mother.  (You met her last week. :) )  That little corner contains a lot of family history!

{Funny}

We love the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A.A. Milne.  Our family conversation would be greatly impoverished without all the Pooh quotes laced throughout ("Tut! Tut! It looks like rain." "I must see Owl's sponge!  Oh, Owl, Owl, that isn't a sponge. It's a spudge!" "It's a useful pot to put things in." "'He's going round and round.' 'And why not? I like going round and round.'" "I'm a bear of little brain.")  When Girl of the House was small, her room was decorated with a Classic Pooh motif, and these are her bookends, only right now they are in our room because she doesn't want anything to happen to them in her . . . er. . .  shall we say, less than pristine room?

 

 

They are, of course, from the story where Pooh eats so much at Rabbit's house that he can't get out through the hole and gets stuck.  Notice the left side:

 



 

 

 (I apologize for the darkness of these photots.  It's an exceedingly dark corner for pictures!)

{Real}

We bought this iron headboard and footboard at an antique shop.  All they needed was a quick scrub and a spray of white paint.  It did not take me long to do it last August, but alas, they have been in our garage ever since.  They are waiting patiently for Man of the House to have time to attach them to our bed.  He's a little busy to spend time thinking about beds other than falling into one at the end of a long day.  The bed and I can wait. :)

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ Nov. 4, 2012

We have had a very busy and very fun time at our house the past couple weeks.  Girl Out of the House and That Boy were here visiting with their very adorable baby.  I was in grandma heaven!  Naturally, all of my pictures this week will be about their visit.

{Pretty}

 

So many pretty things!  Here's just a sample~

Sweet Pea, of course.

Girl Out of the House bought these flowers!

 

 

Sweet Pea with her Grandpa

 

Girl Out of the House is lovely too!

 

 

{Happy}

 

Sweet Pea was very happy (and fascinated!) when Girl of the House practiced her viola~

 

 

 

 

She loved to swing with her daddy!

 



 

  

{Funny}

 

Sweet Pea's hair is in an awkward, Harry Potter-esque stage . . .

 

 

 

 

And she's not sure what to think about peaches! 





 

 

 

 

At the zoo~

 

{Real}

 

My mother was able to visit too and meet her first great-grandchild. 

 

 

 

Four generations~

 

 

Join Like Mother, Like Daughter for more fun!

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ October 14, 2012

I didn't take many pictures this week, so I'm going back to the archives for most of them.  {Real} is from a baking failure this week. :(

{Pretty}

Aren't my little pumpkins pretty?  Here are a couple growing on the vine in August.  Now my little pumpkins are scattered around the house, bringing the beautiful autumn indoors.

{Happy}

Just a few things from the archives that make me happy~

 

 

 

 

 

{Funny}

 

Sweet Pea's preferred method of taking a bath is to lie down in the water and kick and wiggle the dirt away!

 

 

 

 





{Real}

 

When one is doubling a recipe, one should also remember to double the flour or the muffins will turn out like this

 

 

 

instead of this this

 



 

 

Thankfully, I realized what I had done and was able to save the second batch!

 

 

 

Join Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {phfr} fun!

 

 

From My Commonplace Book

"Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely expressed for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies."~ C.S. Lewis

"One of the strangest disparities of history lies between the sense of abundance felt by older, simpler societies and the sense of scarcity felt by the ostensibly richer societies of today."~ Richard Weaver

"The world is a stage, and most of us are desperately unrehearsed."~ Oscar Wilde

The drowsy stillness of the afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G.K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin."~ P.G. Wodehouse

"We are needy creatures, and our greatest need is for home~ the place where we are, where we find protetion and love.  We achieve this home through representations of our own belonging, not alone but in conjunction with others.  All our attempts to make our surroundings look right~ through decorating, arranging, creating~ are attempts to extend a welcome to ourselves and to those whom we love."~ Roger Scruton

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not."~ Thomas Huxley

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ Sept. 30, 2012

LOTS of {happy} this week!

{Happy}

We had a solid frost late last week that sealed the doom of our garden.  By the end of the day, everything had died.  So man of the house pulled everything out of five of the beds and harvested anything that was worth saving.  Later in the week, I cleared out the tomato bed.  The only thing left to do is cut back the strawberry plants and mulch them.  Overall, we were very pleased with our gardening efforts this year, but we are just a little bit {happy} that it's over for now.  It was a lot of work keeping up with it and then preserving our produce but so worth it!

Man of the House loves his truck!

 

 

Girl of the House is studying biology this year, which is greatly enhanced with a mircroscope.  I put out some feelers to buy, rent, or borrow a microscope, but guess what!  We were given a microscope by another homeschooling family!  Here is Girl 2 looking at microscopic creepy crawlies and being very {happy} about it!

 

 

 

 

Not very long after I took this picture, the UPS man~that harbinger of good things to come~ left a package on our porch.  Our new sewing machine had arrived!  Girl Out of the House had previously laid claim to her sewing machine, which was given to her after all, so Girl 2 and I had no alternative but to buy a new one.  Wasn't that just too bad? ;-) 

 

 

 

 

Girl 2 had it up and running that afternoon and has spent most of her weekend quilting.  That makes us all {happy}!  (I wonder when I'll get my turn? lol)

 

 

{Real}

 

The sum total of our sweet potato harvest~

 

 

 

 

Join Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {phfr}!







{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ Sept. 23, 2012

I'm coming in just under the wire for {phfr} this week!

{Pretty}

A full rainbow yesterday~

As pretty as they are, rainbows aren't there just for us to admire.  They are a reminder to us of God's promises.  From Genesis 9:

 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:  I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.  When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”  God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
 

{Happy}

Friday was the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  In honor of the day, we partook of second breakfast. Yum!

My sister told me I have too much time on my hands, but I told her that it's just that I am sure to make time for things that are really important, like second breakfast.  You can read a longer post about our celebration here.

{Real}

After years of hinting, encouraging, and finally urging from my husband and years of hemming and hawing from me, I am finally signed up for his beginning Greek class.  We are two weeks into it and the words are beginning to look like words, though I still feel like a kindergartner learning to read.  Being a student again will be good for me as a teacher~ it's always beneficial to be reminded what it's like to be on the other end of the textbook!

{Funny}

Girl of the House, who is also taking Greek, is amused that we are in the same class and studying together.  She can't get used to me being a student.  Neither can I quite.

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for me {phfr} entries!