No Pictures Post

 Monday morning and we are in the midst of a powerful rain storm here in NH.  It's part of a larger storm hitting the Northeast. As I write Dan is out on a fire call - downed tree on wires with a chance of a fire. The call came in early and woke us up.  Not sure what time he'll be home.

My lights just flashed so now I wonder if power outage will hit us.

Yesterday was my 73rd birthday. No big celebration. Emily and family had me over for tea and cake. I had elected not to accompany Dan to a singing of the Messiah.  It was one where everyone got to sing! I don't sing like that.

Cookies were made this passed week and plates of them delivered to the neighbors with help from granddaughters. All but one of the neighbors were home to thank me.  I have to revise that. The neighbor across the street is not friendly at all but I did deliver her cookies.  She chose not to answer the door.  Now I have to admit she does work from home so maybe was on a call and couldn't come.  But even later there was no acknowledgement of cookies received.  The one who wasn't home called me the next day to thank me.

Saturday Dan and I went to a performance in Grafton,VT of a choral group and brass quintet.  It was lovely. Afterward we had dinner with the friends we went with at the Fullerton Inn in Chester, VT. We rarely eat that late but it was a delicious meal and conversation. We arrived home at 11 pm.

At the end of this week daughter Sarah and family will arrive to celebrate the holiday with us.  We are looking forward to that.

Let me sign off for the rest of the year but leave you with Christmas Wishes and New Year Joys.

A Fun Mess

 

Just spent the last hour making this mess.  But I had lots of fun

decorating all the cutout cookies I baked yesterday.  Above melted chocolate chips with some dipped in coconut.

The rest decorated with icing made of confectionary sugar and milk.  It was still a bit runny so I went for the stained glass look.

I've also made peanut butter cookies, molasses cookies, chocolate chews with pecans, and oatmeal almond chocolate cookies.  I have 6 cookies plates to make up for neighbors and the rest of these will be when family visits.

What cookies are you making this year?

Last Week

 

Last week started out with the kitchen totally emptied in preparation for the renovators who came on Tuesday. David and Johan were excellent.  It's amazing to have a contractor with great communication skills and David did!  We gave him a great review at the end of the project and even talked with him about how refreshing it was to have a contractor with the communication skills he had.  I think we embarrassed him some.

Here's the before photo.  Maple cabinets 30+ years old.  What you can't see is the water stains and the cupboard doors that have fallen apart. The bones were still good but needed refreshing.

Off came all the doors and drawer fronts removed from drawers.  They had to pull out the refrigerator (not shown), the stove and take down the microwave. They brought in two long tables to work from.  The space was quite crammed but they were glad for the space we had for them as sometimes they have to set up in garages or outside.

I had planned to be able to at least microwave while they were here but not an option.  We went to a local restaurant for the two nights for supper.

They were finished Thursday evening with the exception of two folding doors which were missing needed hardware to install.

That hardware arrived Monday the 11th and Johan came within two hours to complete those cabinets.

The finish is oak.

I put everything back Thursday night and Friday morning. I now have glass doors on the dishware cabinets.

Other cabinets are beaded board.

Here is one folding door for my pantry with new rotating shelves.

Here's the other folding door into this corner cabinet.  There were two doors before.

My mother and grandmother have been hung back up as have all my blue plate accents.  It feels like my kitchen now as we celebrate three years of owning this house this week.

Nice to have this project done.  Another one looms on the horizon in '24!

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Another highlight of last week was the first concert at the local school where granddaughters #1 & #2 attend.  The school hasn't had a full time music (choral and instrumental) instructor for years. The "band" made up of winds, brass, guitars, strings and who knows what else played Hot Cross Buns and Merrily We Roll Along.  It was like the scene from the end of The Music Man with lots of proud parents, grandparents and friends and lots of squeaks and missed beats from the "band".  Afterward all the grades got to participate in singing.

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Sunday Dan and I attended a production of "It's a Wonderful Life Radio Play". Four actors played all the parts and did sound effects.  We, the audience, were the there as an audience would be present for a radio program in the 40s.  There was even an applause sign that lit to tell us to applaud.  It was great!

Above is the stage before the play went live.

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What else?  Planning for family coming from Buffalo.

A gate for the littlest one

It will go here between the kitchen and the front room.

Decorations were completed though stockings need to be hung on the stairs.

 

This new week I need to start baking cookies.

What's on your agenda?

Gift Boxes from Cards

 So many folks commented on the boxes I pictures on my Monday post that I thought I do a quick share on how to make them.

All you need is a card (I used Christmas cards), tape, scissors, ruler and a scoring tool.  If you're a quilter you can use your cutting tool on a mat.

I have a paper cutter which has a scorer built into it.

Step one: cut the back and front of card apart at fold.  

Step two: trim one long and one short side of the back piece by 1/8 or less.  This will mean that the bottom of box will fit into the top.  If you take off too much as I did on my first try the bottom will be really loose.

Step three: score the front and back of the card at the depth you want the box to be.  Below you see score lines at 1 inch.

Step four: cut along the score lines at each corner to the depth of the perpendicular score line.

Step five: bring those cut sections in and tape to make the corners.

Here is the completed box front and

from back and side.

If you want a smaller box you will need to start with a smaller piece of the card.  Here are two boxes made from one card.

If you have batting you can cut some to fit into the box.

Let me know if you make some boxes or ask me any questions.

Have fun!

Another Week Gone By

 

Can you believe it's December already?  I can't but that doesn't slow down time unfortunately.

I've been busy.

Sunday

Garden Club had a tea where we each had to bring our own cup, a sweet to share, canned goods for the Food Pantry and a wrapped Yankee Gift Swap contribution.  We played it differently then I've played before.  The second person after seeing what the first person got, chose a gift, unwrapped it then decided whether to keep or take the gift opened by the first person.  I was #2 and here are my gifts:

a pin

and a lovely shallow painted bowl.

Fortunately no one who followed me decided they wanted what I had.  There were some exchanges but mostly people kept what they selected.  The gift I contributed was a snowman sculpture feeding the birds. It got swapped in the end because the first person got to swap after everyone else had finished. What they were swapping wasn't wanted by that person and someone else offered her the snowman in exchange.  It all worked out.

Gifts

I wrapped just about all the gifts I have purchased.  I'm in good shape for Christmas.

Kitchen Redo

The installer is due here on Tuesday and knowing that Sunday was a busy day, I spent Saturday clearing out cabinets, trying to be fairly organized where I stacked stuff.  Monday I will finish by moving out the contents of the last three drawers.

Cards

I printed the address labels for the Christmas cards and discovered that I hadn't made enough cards.  I needed 15 more so I got out the papers and made them.  I mailed all but 7 on Friday. These last ones require me to write a note inside.  I'll get to it this week. My desk is a mess again.

New Skill Learned

I attended a craft class on Tuesday night and learned how to turn cards into little boxes.  I will use these for some small jewelry items I have for stockings that didn't come with boxes.

It was a good productive week even if December started already!

A Message to Dog Owners from Their Dog

 

Friends' rug.  They own a dog of course.

Old Photograph

 

The old photograph came to us from the daughter of a former owner of this house. She had it in a closet but she knew the photograph belonged with us as the present owners of the house because it had been found in our attic years ago.

It was wrapped up loosely.

Here are some close ups.

Look at all those buttons and cinched waist.

Why is this one not looking at the camera? Is that a cameo at her neck? A wristwatch?

Dan thought the one on the left and the one standing were twins.  I said sisters which I think applied to four of them

This one is the mother.  She has on a wedding band and also a wrist watch.

A protective hand is on this daughter who is gripping the chair.  Her eyes don't look quite like the others and I wondered if she was sight impaired?

The photo was not taken in this house. More than likely in a studio but there is no writing anywhere on the front or back to identify these 5 women.  Dan scanned the photo and did a web search.  There are lots of similar photos but no one has ever put this one on the web identifying them.  Did they live in this house at some time? It would have been very crowded for them with only one bedroom then.

Then there is this cat at the bottom of the photo.  Ceramic or real?

The frame is interesting too.  At first I thought it was inlaid but it's carved with paint.  I don't know if it dates to the same time or not.  

As for dating the photo by the dress it's late 1800's to early 1900s but not past 1910 when dresses got looser and tight corsets were going out of style.  Is there a fashion history expert out there who can date these better?

Addendum: John of Stargoose in his comment below suggested that the studio name would be written on the back of the photo. Unfortunately the photo is glued to that mat board and to remove it would likely damage the photo.  His other comments are very helpful in dating and understanding this photo.

The Week That Was

 Rather than writing several posts I'm gathering my thoughts and writing one on what transpired in the week that just finished.

You've already read about our Thanksgiving meal.  If not see Older Posts below.

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A Gift

Tuesday Dan and I attended the local Aging in Place group for a discussion of downsizing.  We shared our experience with an online auction MaxSold.com in 2016 when we sold The Lodge and moved to an apartment in a retirement community.  Others shared their experiences hiring people to help sort or just going on their own to sort and give away with the goal of avoiding the landfill.

One of the participants has slowly tackled closets in her home. In one she came across a framed photograph someone gave to her thinking it had been left behind when her mother moved out of our house.  Yes, the house we presently own.  Her mother bought the house in 1970 and lived here for 11 years. After the meeting the woman went to her car for the photograph to give to us.  We learned a lot about the house from her: it had a coal stove in the front room, one bedroom, stairs to the attic space where the photo was found, and tin ceilings. The renovations to the house happened in the 1990s by the owner we purchased from.

Here's the photograph.  More on this later this week.

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The Tree and Decorating

As you saw earlier in November I had the tree up but not decorated. I got a chance to do it this week. I went with colored lights instead of white ones and a 58 foot strand did the trick. When the girls were young they would help with this but now it's my responsibility.  If I go first I doubt that Dan would even bother with a tree.

And in answer to John of The AC is On, in winter time the slider door is not used. Snow piles on the deck making it impassable.

More on the decorations another time.

But the rest of the decorating is not happening until the kitchen redo project is complete. The cabinet and door fronts and new oak veneer are to be installed the week of December 4th.  This means that everything has to come out.  I started the task this week.

I consolidated these shelves to make space to move items there.  But every level surface will eventually be used so no further Christmas decorations until the project is done.

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Christmas Shopping

Packages have been arriving as I finished most of the Christmas shopping this week.

I even put items in Christmas stockings so I know who gets what.  I still have a few of those items to find but it's one last thing to tackle as the last month of the year comes on Friday.

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I'll leave you with a photo of my desk which is a mess!

Batteries to fill candles for the windows, a magnet from Spain that needs gluing, a book to pass on to Emily or the free library, notes, receipts.  I didn't show the stack of Christmas cards to address and sign.

A busy time of year.