Happy Valentine's Day!

February 13th

It was a challenging day! The electricity went out around 11:00 AM and was out until 2:00 PM. A huge Douglas fir tree went down on Troutdale Road, about six blocks from our home. I drove by about 4:00 pm and they were still cleaning up the mess. Luckily, the tree did not hit the house, but it did destroy the fence, fell on the power lines and the tree ended up blocking the street.

The wind was blowing so very hard that the shingles on my studio cottage were blowing off! Our handyman Duane is going to come out tomorrow and see what he can do before the rains come back on Wednesday! The wind is still blowing tonight with sustained wind at 35 mph. Occasionally the house just shakes with the big gusts. We have had so much wind this winter.

This weekend, Jim and I are going to the Washington coast for a few days. I am so excited to join my Tasha Tudor friend Diane at her lovely home for the first meeting of the Pacific NW Tasha Tudor Museum Chapter group. We have been working on this for over a year. Diane is providing the tea and I am doing a craft project. This photo shows what I was doing today! Lots of goodies and treats are all ready for the gathering. I will show them in detail after our meeting. I don't want to show too much right now and spoil the fun. All the ladies are getting really excited. Dolls are invited and there will be a tiny Valentines too!

February 11th....Full Moon Tonight!

Full moon tonight! We have clear skies and it is bright out there. The moon has many wintery names this month...snow, ice, wind, sleet, rabbit, crow and storm to name a few. These graphics are just so cute and include the rabbit, cupid and the full moon.
It was a busy day today and I am ready to call it a day. We will be celebrating our 3 February birthdays tomorrow in the afternoon...Ava, Jimmy and Chris. It should be fun.

February 8th

Valentine's Day is coming! It was such a wet and chilly cold day. We had Otto over for most of the day. He was just so sweet and funny today.
My favorite saying today was...."Grandma Linda, I love you!" What a blessing. 

Happy 150th Birthday Laura Ingalls Wilder! Tea Time Tuesday # 140

My Tasha Tudor friend Linnie encouraged us to celebrate Laura Ingalls Wilder's 150th birthday today! As it is Tea with Tasha on Tuesdays, it was the perfect day to have some fun and brighten up this long winter. I don't need much encouragement to have a tea party! Thanks Linnie, this was really fun.

Happy Birthday Laura Ingalls Wilder! Thank you for all the wonderful books about your life's journey.

I decided to follow Laura's Ma's advise...."Ma liked everything on her table to be pretty". So this is a tribute to Laura today and a chance to use some of my pretty things.

I don't have a Laura doll, so this little miss with her bonnet and red and white outfit has to do! She was pretty happy joining in the fun. I made little cut out brown paper heart garland as Laura did in one of her stories.

I ordered this DVD about Laura's life and Jimmy and I are planning to watch it tonight. So many of us read the books and watched the TV series, but I would like to learn more about her life.

A few goodies to grace the table. The pressed glass lantern was our first anniversary gift to each other 40 plus years ago!

With my health issues, I have been doing  a lot of cooking from scratch. I wanted to make something from the Little House Cookbook. It's quite fun to read and study the recipes. I actually decided to make a gingerbread recipe that is not in the book but I found it on the internet.

Here's a copy of the recipe in Laura's handwriting. It's pretty much the one that I used. I did use butter instead of shortening and I used whole wheat pastry flour.

I have never made gingerbread from scratch, so it was a new adventure for me.

It was totally a different sequence of combining the ingredients. Adding baking soda to a cup of boiling water was an experience! If you make this recipe, use a Pyrex bowl with the baking soda. I actually had a bowl break on me.

Here it is ready for the oven...yummy. I did increase the spices from 1 t. to 1 1/2 t. after I read some of the reviews. Oh, it did smell so good when it was baking.

Here's the finished gingerbread. It was delicious and baked well. I did have one little piece...not diet food, but had to have a treat today.

Jimmy is such a good sport to join me for tea and he always supports my tea time adventures.

Of course, I had to have the paper doll book! I haven't cut out the dolls or clothes yet and I'm not sure I can use my scissors! I may just have to enjoy the book.

I had to add a few Valentine crafts to honor Laura and her life. The quilt in the photo above was made by Laura and her daughter. I'm sharing a few red and white crafts that are favorites of mine.

This is one of the hearts I made from the cutter quilt that I shared a few weeks ago.

I adore little pin keeps. This is a vintage bonnet pin keep that I have had for some time. It even has a little thimble inside.

I found the directions and pattern for making one. You can find it on Tipnut if you are interested.

I have never read the complete set of Little House on the Prairie, but I would like to go back and read them all.

I had a fun time with all of this today. I'd like to leave you with this quote. Have some fun and pick up the books again. 

February 6th

Just returned home from my dad's. After a busy day of shipping my Etsy, grocery shopping , working on Valentine projects, Jim and I decided to go over to his apartment tonight. We enjoyed dinner with him and I got his snowmen down and his Valentine's decor up! We had a good evening with him.
I am about ready for bed as I only had about four hours of sleep last night, so off to dreamland. 

Sunday Thoughts...February 5th

A rainy and lazy Sunday on this February winter day. Time to rest and ponder these thoughts.
I hope you are having a nice day and I pray your week ahead will be filled with God's blessings.
Believe!

February 4th

It's a quiet Saturday afternoon. The freezing rain continued through the night and began to melt this morning. It's now all gone! YEAH!
Our daughter Gina was here for a quick visit and had to return home this afternoon. I was hoping she could spend the night, but she has a class tomorrow and needs to be back home.
I am working on some Valentine projects and Jimmy is watching college basketball games. It's not too exciting around here, but I am so happy to have the ice gone and the temperatures warmer.

February 3rd

Happy Friday! We had another ice storm over night and we are still not done with it! I hope it washes away tonight as temps rise. The warmer south wind was supposed to arrive, but it changed it's course. The cold east wind is still blowing. We have burned so much wood this winter and are thankful everyday for the wood our friends brought to us this summer.
Our daughter Gina decided to drive down from Seattle today....not a real good call. She stopped along the way and worked on grading her class papers. Troutdale is the last to get out of this freezing rain, so she may stay at her sister's tonight. Their roads are much more clear than our's. Ah winter....

Welcome February

 Welcome February. The second month of the New Year is upon us already. Winter seems to be hanging on here in Oregon. We are expecting one more round of snow and ice starting tomorrow evening. This most likely may be our last fling with winter weather. The wind is blowing so hard again.

We have almost returned to good health. The cough lingers a bit, but we are feeling pretty good.
It was our day with Otto. I usually go over to his house and take the morning shift. He loves to play with Grandma Linda and I do mean PLAY!!!! We always start in his room in the morning before his daddy leaves for work. It's always cars or Monster Trucks and he has quite the imagination, which makes me happy. The pictures are a bit dark and a little blurry today. It's hard to catch him standing still sometimes.

Grandma Linda...play with me! That's his favorite saying. How can you refuse that expression?

He loves to line up his cars so the Monster Trucks can do their famous JUMP.

We had to load up the truck with A LOT of Hot Wheels. That took time to get the right ones on the right levels.

This is his Magic Track. The track snaps together and the car lights up as it goes around the track. He has to have the room dark with the lights off.

We did some art work, went on a monster hunt and then he packed up his little backpack and we went on an adventure, as he told me.  We did spend a little time on the computer paying Monster Truck games.

Papa Jimmy comes over around noon and we take him to McDonald's. There's a play structure inside and he can climb and jump and burn off some of that energy, especially when the weather is too cold to play outside. He sure is getting big, but he still likes to snuggle with Grandma and sit on my lap. He is a cutie pie.  Papa Jimmy gets him down for a nap, and stays with him until mommy comes home around 4 PM. Wednesdays are fun, but busy!

Just a happy note, my kidney doctor called me yesterday and my kidney levels have returned to normal. I was allergic to one of the meds and once they took me off of that, my kidneys started working again. I am so thankful.

Happy February! I am looking forward to a month of lots of fun. We have 3 birthdays and Valentine's Day. 

Cabin Fever...Winter of 2017

Cabin Fever...yep...it has settled in big time today. After my last post, it just dumped snow Tuesday night and into Wednesday. We had an epic snow storm here which resulted in the governor declaring a state emergency. Schools and businesses have been closed and the road are still difficult for driving anywhere. There is another wind advisory posted for tonight. The temps have been kept down in the 20's so we just can't get rid of this snow and ice.

These are pictures of the snow late Tuesday night. It just piled up at about an inch per hour .

The wind was blowing so it didn't pile up as easily...but most of Portland and the suburbs ended up with about 10-12 inches in that short time!!! Unreal.

Jim's car was getting buried and you can't see our driveway.

Here we have a shot at our cottages and the backyard Wednesday morning.

Wednesday is our day to babysit Otto. That sure didn't happen. His mommy sent a couple of great photos. He just LOVES to play with his cars and trucks....even in the snow!

He looks pretty happy playing in the snow. Mommy and daddy got to stay home the rest of the week.

The snow stopped falling and Jimmy got out to dig a path down to our cottages. He was trying to work on his items for the upcoming antique show, but things just we going against him and he actually has canceled. We are to get tons of rain after this cold spell and he just can't get his things over from storage and it's going to be a mess trying to set up on Thursday. I think he is relieved to just let this one go. The next show is the first of March and that really isn't that far away.

Here he is out front shoveling away.

This is my Mary Englebreit book that LaVonne sent me for Christmas...WINTER. it is very cute and runs from Christmas through St Patrick's Day.

I had to laugh at chapter 4...Cabin Fever! Oh yes, how true.

I have had a lot of time indoors. I decided to spend some time working on healthy dinner recipes.
We have had turkey meatloaf, yogurt chicken and turkey stroganoff. All were good. I have some recipes that I used in the past in this little book when I was on Weight Watchers. Now that I am on a low sodium diet, I have to eat differently. Some of the recipes were ok to keep, but others had to go. I will use it for new recipes now.

I did make Jimmy a small batch of blueberry muffins and some chocolate chip cookies. I only ate one cookie. I had time to bake too.

A couple years ago, I bought a cutter quilt. I used it to make Christmas stockings, runners and a tree skirt. I was sorting through a few things and found the rest of the quilt that I hadn't used. I decided it was time to cut it up and be done with it.

I was able to get many large hearts and some tiny ones for dolly cards. It was fun to work with some fabric.

I am not sure what I will do with them...I have a couple ideas I am working on. It's been fun to have some time to be creative again. Plus, I am feeling so much better and have more energy now.

My miniature show was cancelled today....another day inside. I started watching the Cranford series on cable. I have never seen the entire series. I also started working on some hexies. I like English paper piecing using the glue gun system. I had ordered these precut pieces and the papers, so got them all glued and ready for a few projects. There are 52 pieces. I also cut out and glued 14 more pieces in a different grouping of fabrics for another pin keep. I really love making these. These are 3/4" pieces.

We still have lots of snow and ice after 4 days. Jimmy took a little fall yesterday on his way to the mailbox. He is taking it easy today. Luckily, nothing was broken and he didn't hit his head.
The east wind is blowing so hard again tonight and we are under another wind advisory for the night.
You can imagine how much wood we have been using. I am so thankful for all the wood our good friends the Pietzold family gave us this fall.

I just hope it all ends soon. The weather man is keeping a close watch on things as we transition out of this Monday evening now. We may get more freezing rain. I am longing for spring.