Kermit's New Year

https://www.facebook.com/muppets/videos/2669291373298000/

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Happy New Year!

It's a Process

Later this week we'll be picking up the last of our belongings in Post Falls. Let's hope that 'one thing' we've been missing will show up.

The Grands!

Look who Dale and I had the pleasure of spending time with this morning! It was gift delivery day.

Melody is already mastering the balance steps

Annie is crawling like a pro, can stand with support, and showed us her stepping skills with her walker.

Such a joy to spend time with Julie and Jeff's family and see their new home.

Today We Welcomed ...

the newest member of our household. She's so pretty and shiny!

This appliance joins our new washer and dryer, and refrigerator. The first two work well. The third ... grrr. Freezer still isn't fixed and won't be for another week. sigh

Sundown, Christmas Day

The clouds and light put on another beautiful display northwest of our back yard.



There is a school, soccer field and track right behind our home. That's what all that fencing is about.

Our next door neighbors have a pergola in their back yard. They have twinkle lights strung all across the overhead crossbeams. It's so pretty at night.

Cats, birds, and squirrels all scamper across the top of the fences that line the neighborhood. Watching them brings endless enjoyment.

From Our Home to Yours

Merry Christmas!

First Christmas in our new home in Eugene, Oregon

~  Dale and Margaret

Clear Blue & Snow

It's been raining for days, as one expects in an Oregon winter. We got a respite this afternoon ...

and were rewarded with this scene through our dining room window.

Who Gets the Next Makeover?

This guy!

I so love this snowman that my mother-in-law made for us. He's hung on our porch for years and years. He looked just right at our house in Post Falls. Now, in Eugene, he's due for a makeover to go along with our silver and blue color scheme

I started by removing his maroon scarf. then I painted both stars, changing them from gold to silver. I added a bit of glitter so they can glow at night. (I need to up my glitter game to learn how to keep it from getting splotchy).

I even painted the bell with a light coat of silver paint, just to tone down the brassiness.

Finally, I made a new scarf out of blue felt. I fringed the ends, just like the original scarf. Then I added some blue and silver snowflake charms to dress up the scarf a little more.

He's back in place now, guarding the front door and welcoming visitors.

I heard one of the neighbors whisper to him, "Did you get some 'work' done? You look so fresh and fabulous!"

Fashion Snoaux Pas

Guest Blogger Jodie Delsere

Don't'cha hate it when you show up to the party wearing the same thing?

Mom and I spent a giggle-filled day making these cute snowman ornaments for the family.

The project was billed online as being "for kids." Sure, I have tiny baby hands. But we most certainly didn't need to be kids to enjoy this!

We used paint pens and sharpies to give them each distinct facial expressions and personalities. Those personalities came into play when we started posing them for pictures. Before long they were at a snowman party... And one of them maybe had too much egg nog.

Are you okay there, little guy?!

It doesn't take much to entertain us.

--

Inspired by Easy Peasy and Fun on Pinterest

Turkey in the ...

Well, this happened today



Earlier in the week, Dale and I got a new refrigerator installed. It's stainless steel and pretty and doesn't have the weird odor like the one that came with the house. It's bright and shiny and the fridge works great.

Not so much the freezer. Sigh.

Jodie and Ken gave us a spare frozen turkey they received for free around Thanksgiving. It's been in the freezer, awaiting a proper celebration point to defrost it and cook it. Unfortunately, because the freezer isn't working, our turkey started to thaw.

I popped in a meat thermometer and found that it was still at a safe temperature -- if I cooked it right away. So that's what took up a lot of my day today.



Over the last several years, daughter Julie has been the main turkey cook at Thanksgiving, so I haven't prepped a bird in a while. Our new cupboards don't have all the spices that we had in Post Falls, so I had to make it up as I went along and use what was on hand.



The ovens, though, weren't cleaned before we moved in. So I removed some shelves from the double ovens when I put the turkey in. I gave the three shelves a good scrubbing and they're much better. One was so gross. It looked like a bbq grill with dried meat sticking to it. I don't know what it actually was, but it's gone now. I'll clean the main part of the oven before too long.

The turkey looked good as it came out of the oven. Dale carved it up and it tastes good, too.

After the turkey and oven shelf ordeal, I made eight dozen triple toll house cookies. They taste good too.

Let's just say that these days, I'm not used to being on my feet in the kitchen all that much. I'm pooped tonight.

I hope Jodie has a little extra room in her freezer to help us out. She's welcome to as much turkey as she wants, but I'm sure there will be much more to freeze and use later.

Sigh.

I want my freezer to work. We can't get it fixed until the day after Christmas. Happy holidays to us.

(maybe)

Oh. And this morning the offer on our Post Falls home fell through, so we're back to the drawing board to get it prepped to sell.

We're just rollin' with the punches here, folks!

Debate Construction

Dale and I took on a little job while watching tonight's Democratic presidential candidate debate. I think of it as a fun jigsaw puzzle ... with an allen wrench.

Ta-Da! We have a new shoe/coat rack for our laundry/mud room. The hooks will be a great place to drop off our coats. The hanging rack will make it easy to pull shirts out of the dryer and hang them up right away, and there's room for about six pairs of shoes. It seems we have two or three pairs hanging out in that room at any time.

We made fairly easy work of it and didn't make any errors along the way. (I was in charge of the instruction book -- and I like me dem 'strucktion books!)

All that remains is the remains. A little trash, a little recycling, very little work.

Fireside Noel

The second re-purposed craft made this week is my set of framed "NOEL" letters. They started out like this:




My goal was to transform them into our blue and silver color scheme.

I found a couple rolls of blue wrapping paper in my stash, one matte and one shiny. I removed the red/silver paper and replaced it with the shiny blue paper. So pretty. But as I worked, the "N" decided to fall off the glass. I used my heat gun to soften the old glue on the back of the wooden letter, then reattached the letter to the glass. I'm crazy pleased with the result:




I added my Noel to our fireplace hearth. It looks nice sitting beneath the wreath:




Next up? Finish decorating the tree.




It's a nice change to have a home where we don't need to worry about kids or pets knocking over floor decorations. It's also nice to have a spot of visual respite in the midst of the chaos of cardboard moving boxes.

Now if we only had a couch and love seat to sit on to admire the view! Patience. We'll eventually get them.

Fireside Wreath

It feels like getting things done around here takes longer than expected. The unpacking and finding places for our belongings continues apace. I wish I could go at a faster pace! I'm missing the creative aspects of my life ... making new things! Yesterday Dale suggested that I take a beat and allow myself time to get my creative juices going.

I guess I needed "permission." Not from Dale. From me!

So in the evening while Dale was at a work dinner, I played in my Studio a little. For Christmas, we're moving from a red and green color scheme to a blue and silver color scheme. So I used materials I had on hand to convert decorations I previously made into ones better suited to our new home.

Last year a took a sparkly wreath from Dollar Tree, added a red and green plaid bow made from this delightful wired ribbon and knotted with a piece of velvet. It was a simple and festive piece. Dale and I both really liked it.

To make the wreath fit the new color scheme, I changed out the bow. Replacing the bow was more of an ordeal than you'd think. I had some gorgeous sheer blue ribbon with silver snowflakes. But once I put it on the wreath, the bow "disappeared."

I tried a second time, doubling up the sheer ribbon with a silver ombre satin ribbon. That didn't work either.

Finally, I backed the original ribbon with some blue felt. I auditioned a few shades of blue until I found one that allowed the ribbon to sing. Combining the ribbon with the felt was tricky because most adhesives I tried showed through the sheer ribbon. I would have sewn them together, but my sewing machines are not set up yet. Finally, I decided to use double-stick tape only behind the silver snowflakes. The snowflakes covered the adhesive so it didn't show through very much.

I added a hook to the mantle and hung the wreath over the fireplace. Now the bow stands out and adds just the right sparkle.

High Clouds, Low Clouds

Soft evening

Redemption

Guest Blogger: My daughter Jodie Delsere


After yesterday's pizzelle debacle, I was eager to redeem myself as a cookie baker. Mom was eager to spend more time together. And Dad was eager to enjoy his favorite holiday treat.

So: it's oatmeal cookie day.



This time the only cookie complication was the unpredictable temperature variation in Mom's unfamiliar oven. But oatmeal cookies are pretty forgiving, so we got in a rhythm and ended the day several dozen cookies richer and with big smiles all around.

Next: Will we tackle Triple Toll House? Or will we conquer pizzelles once and for all? Either way, it's sure to be delicious.

Baking Up Some Fun

Jodie came by today to make Christmas cookies with me. We had ... a problem. The cookie dough was the wrong texture and didn't bake correctly. So we tossed the dough, cleaned up our workspace, and replaced that disappointment with something fun.

Jodie taught her dad and me to play Catch Phrase. We played it as a group -- not in teams and no competition. That's my kind of game. We had so much fun making our tired brains try to come up with good clues. It made for lots of laughs and camaraderie on this rainy day.

We're going to try baking cookies again tomorrow.

Shifting

Watching the clouds crawl across the sky is becoming a favorite pastime.

Click for larger image

Oohhhhhh!!! Christmas Tree!

Awww. This is much better.

It only took all day and a broken thumbnail to remove the dead lights and add the new LED lights.

Maybe we'll decorate it tomorrow.

Uh-Oh Christmas Tree

It appears our pre-lit Christmas tree limped into Eugene. After setting it up, we learned that most of the lights are out. Poor thing looks pathetic.

If all goes as we hope, that will be remedied tomorrow. We bought some band-aids for it tonight.

Combo Mombo

Tomorrow's task:
Combining office supplies from four rooms in the Post Falls house, to one room in the Eugene house.

When I put on fun music while doing it, I can dance the Combo Mombo.

A Christmas Welcome

With all the activities that come with moving, Dale and I have been too distracted to jump into the Christmas season. Until now. We live in a family-oriented neighborhood. Many of the houses are decorated to the nines with lights and Christmas scenes. So today I decided to join in the season in the most simple and minor of ways.

I started by sweeping the seed pods off the porch and cleaning all the bugs off the siding and out of the overhead light fixture. There were so many bugs in the fixture, and there was such a poor light bulb, that even with the porch light turned on, it was barely noticeable. Cleaning out the light fixture helped, but putting in a nice new LED bulb made a world of difference.

I then added two permanent hooks to either side of the door. I love to decorate for most holidays, and this will make changing out the decor simple.

This snowman may look familiar. My mother-in-law made him for us years ago. Even though we don't live in snow country anymore, my favorite buddy had to come with us. Since we have a new color scheme at this house, I may switch out his scarf and paint the stars silver instead of gold.

The new color scheme? Blues and silver. And lots of sparkle. I found this wreath at Big Lots which perfectly fits the bill.

I also found this doormat at Big Lots. It is full of glitter and sparkles so prettily in the evening light.



When I finished with these first steps, Dale came outside to admire his castle gate.

We'll likely add a lit tree to the porch. Dale plans to put up a few strands of lights, too. Jodie and I have begun to talk about getting together to bake some Christmas cookies.

So far, I'm still waiting on FedEx to deliver our new cookie sheets. It's a process.

I Lost My Streak

Oh, fudge nuggets.

I guess something had to give. My inability to maintain a routine through this move has taken a toll. After about 935 days in a row, I forgot to meditate yesterday.

I'm really not that surprised, even if I am disappointed. Over the last month I was lucky to get even three minutes in a row to stop and calm my mind. I'd been "calling it in" for days.

So, there's that.

I lost my streak.

:: sigh ::

Thankfully, meditation is not a competitive sport. Statistics don't much matter. Meditation is a practice that's easy to resume.

I'll simply sit.
Close my eyes.
And breathe.

Assembling My New Studio

Turning my room into a working Studio is going to take some time and ingenuity. The Studio in our Post Falls home was b-i-g. Maybe 12 feet by 18 feet. I had lots of room for a lot of stash for a lot of handcrafts. My new Studio is 10 feet by 10-1/2 feet, plus a large closet that's 6 feet by 2 feet. Now, this is still a good sized room, but I lost a LOT of square footage. Even with downsizing quite a bit, I still have stash in all these boxes that need to find a home.

Not only do I need to fit my handicrafts into the room, but also my photo studio equipment and my office! Since Dale now works from home, I can no longer share office space with him. Let's just say things are tight.

To be honest, we think that most of the alcove (shown above with the boxes) will also eventually become permanent storage for some of my stash. Most likely the photo equipment and maybe fabric. But figuring that out is an evolution or 10 away from this now.

Today Dale and I completed a good job. We installed the shelves in my closet. This gives me quite a bit of storage for craft supplies, plus some room on the side for tall items like an ironing board and bolts of fabric. I like standing back and looking at all that gorgeous space, ready to fill.

But turn around, and this is the current cluttered state of the rest of the Studio. I've got a big job ahead of me!

(no sound)

Still, the progress does feel good. I'll take what I can get.

The Fog Comes In On Little Cat Feet

Eugene, Oregon sits at the confluence of the Willamette River and the McKenzie River. Along with many streams and wetlands - and a copious amount of rain - the air holds a lot of moisture. Our home is on the edge of wetlands. Before moving here, I'd been in the area mostly during Spring and Summer. Now as we near Winter, some of the area's other colors are being revealed to me.

It's been very foggy this week. This morning's view from my bedroom window revealed these ghostly shapes just east of the wetlands.



Colors revealed at this time of year are subtle and grayed. Nature feels cozy in her heavy fog blanket. Unearthing delicate variations of tone is an unexpected pleasure.