Holiday Life Promo

Well It Is Christmas...almost

 Well, it is Christmas...soon anyway.  My house is not decorated and the presents are not bought.  And the entire house is barely livable.  Additions from my parent's home, tearing apart my studio and repainting it and then the idea to install our old kitchen cabinets in the sewing corner of the studio and moving all the bookshelves...  It left a huge mess that I can not fix because of my spinal stenosis.  I need the family to help with that after Christmas.  And the sewing area is not accessible right now.  It makes me sad that I was not able to sew a project for everyone this year.  

It has been an insane autumn.  My parent's home was put on the market and sold.  We are so sad and miss all the fun times we had with my parents there.  Mama loved that house so much.  And Daddy loved his big garden and lovely flowers and landscaping.  I so wish we had sold our home and moved there...but the swimming pool at our home made that choice difficult to make in 2011.  Now that our daughters are grown and even their children are not in the pool more than a few times a year, I sure wish we had moved after Daddy died.  It is so expensive to have that pool with no one in it.  And my back pain makes it so hard to get in and out of it by ladders.  It is a lovely pool but surely needs steps.  One of my grandchildren is in university in Florida and is only home for about a month in the summer and the other four are in band and last year were only in three times.  It is about $700.00 for chemicals and water for opening and maintaining the pool.  I gave my outdoor table and chairs to City Mission and we only have a picnic table there now...not very comfy for extended lengths of time.  I remember the wonderful days that Lauren and I spent outside with a curtain made of beach towels to protect us from the afternoon sun.  We took our computers outside and had so much fun computing and snacking with a dip in the pool from time to time to cool down.  We had dinner outside every day except when it was raining.  I loved those times.  I wish I had spent more hours using the pool while I could.  Possibly my back pain would be less...

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Sweet Loveuary

 I am looking forward to Valentine's Day this year.  When I was young I hated Valentine's Day.  Back in those days no one said you MUST take a Valentine to every child in your class.  I was shy, studious, and teacher's pet so there would be less Valentine cards on my desk than most other kids.  I would be up half the night before worrying that there would be none...wishing I was sick the next day so I did not have to endure the counting of cards and comparing who got the most.  I never counted my cards or looked at them at school.  I sat slumped down at my desk, keeping my head down until the snack was served.  I could not wait for it to be over.  But this year I choose to forget all that.  I am going out to dinner with my family and enjoy a Hallmark Valentine movie at my lovely decorated home.  I have everything I want and more here with my beautiful family.  Thank you God for my sweet wonderful life!  And there will be plenty of beautiful Hallmark cards to read...and gifts to open!  Hope your Valentine's Day is sweet and filled with love!

A link to the Hallmark movie on February 14...

https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/love-romance-chocolate

All The Holidays!

I am struggling with wanting to work on my scrapbooks and wanting to get our home ready for Valentine's Day plus getting the crafts done for St. Patrick's Day!  I love holidays but it seems every year that I end up skipping either Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day for major decorating.  Not this year.  I want to be sure I am ready for it all!  I forgot to mention the first holiday for us is Groundhog's Day on February 2.  That is the anniversary of my parent's wedding.  We celebrate their anniversary with dinner for the whole family at one of their favorite restaurants and an anniversary cake at home after.  I will take photos of the event and post them!  My grandson's birthday is February 16 and we will have a celebration for that day for him.  He will be 15 this year.  My Daddy's birthday is March 12 and we will celebrate that with dinner and a cake too!  He is celebrating in Heaven with Mama and God, but we still remember their special days here.  We miss them so much.  And that wraps up holidays for us for February and March.  The day my Mama went to Heaven is March 25 and we usually try to go away that day-to Ohio or Hershey or another place she loved to travel to, depending on the day of the week it falls on.  I am not sure about this year, although it is a Friday.  But if we are home we will get together and go out to dinner.  If we go away it will probably be to Ohio and maybe not until Saturday.  Now that we have only teenagers it is harder to take them out of school for a trip.  They are studying college courses and have so much homework to keep up those Distinguished High Honors.  

I left up the big gorgeous tree in the dining room.  It was red for Christmas for the first time ever.  Now it has poinsettias removed and there are beautiful red hearts on mixed in with the red decorations.  It is lovely and will work beautifully with the red and pink decorations for Valentine's Day tea!  I love to use my Old Country Rose china.  It is the oldest china pattern contiguously manufactured in the world and is made by  Royal Albert.  I just love when the holidays coordinate with pink and rose and burgundy! All of which reminds me that I have not made my list for the Valentine tea I have planned for February 19.

I did put up another smaller tree in the kitchen.  The black tree goes with all the red and black farmhouse decorations we have.  It is cute beside the candy bar.  

Are you ready for the first holiday this year?  What things will you do to celebrate this Valentine's Day?  Do you have any special things you are crafting?  Will it be a "date night" or dinner with the family?  Do you have a special dessert planned?  All these ideas are running through my head at once...haha!  I know we will be going out to dinner with the family.  And as far as dessert goes, I have not chosen that yet.  But the house looks quite festive and ready for Valentine's Day.  I will post photos soon!