De-cluttering

Today we put away all of the Christmas decorations, except for our nativity scene which will remain out through epiphany, and the tree went off to our local drop off point for recycling.  I stored everything in two storage bins and wrote on the lids exactly what was contained inside and ran them up to the attic.
Then I went to our bedroom and decided to sort our my closet, I simply went through everything in my closet and pitched anything that I have not worn in a very long time, this created quite a large pile of clothing to donate to the Goodwill along with a rarely worn pair of gym shoes.  I then sorted out one drawer in my dresser that needed a going through.  As I was sorting things out Dave came upstairs and was motivated to sort out his clothing, now he can fit everything into his chest of drawers, he threw out a lot of totally worn out items.  We loaded up the van, piled in the grandsons and headed off to run a few errands and make a donation to Goodwill.  It is freeing to clean things out, organize and eliminate no longer needed items.
 Next week I plan to sort out some storage bins in the attic.  Last spring I had a major sort out in the attic and we purged many, many things, I now would like to empty some of the storage bins.  Some contain outgrown clothing from our children, two of whom are now married and have their own homes, we will donate it since it was kept because it was in good shape.  Another bin contains the collection of stuffed animals, most are Emily's, I think she will want to keep her Build A Bear animals, but everything else can be donated. Another box contains junk, so I will decide what needs to be donated and what needs to be pitched.  I would also like to sort out the closets in my sewing room, they have become a dumping ground for items that we don't know what else to do with, again I think I will end up with a large donation pile.  Anyway this should get me well on my way to purging 365 items from our home for 2012!
What areas of your home do you need to sort out, de-clutter, and/or organize?

Two Fun Projects for a Winters Afternoon & a Thought for the New Year

A few months ago my mother gave me many yards of fleece, I have not yet decided what to do with it all, but had thought that it would be excellent to use to make hot water-bottle covers and super-hero capes for grandsons Henry and Patrick.  Not only did these items cost nothing to make, except for a little time with a pair of scissors, the water-bottle covers will be useful and the entertainment factor of the super-hero capes is very high!!

The boys in their splendid super-hero capes

Two warm fleecy hot water-bottle covers

On another note Ember at  http://kindredofthequietway.blogspot.com/2011/12/365.html  had a good thought for de-cluttering with the suggestion of getting rid of something each day for one year, with the thought that if you acquire something new you not only get rid of one thing for the day but you also get rid of something in place of the new item. With the goal of having 365 less things cluttering your home.  I started today, I cleaned out the drawers of the sideboard in the dining room, a haven for sticking things that I don't know what to do with, I then cleaned out the junk drawer in the kitchen, and the cabinet that contains some basic first aid items phone books and infrequently used glassware. I am not sure why I had three years of phone books, I decided to keep the most current one and pitched the others into the recycling bin.  After my efforts I had two plastic grocery bags of trash - why I housed this trash in the sideboard drawers for so many years I cannot imagine :).  Anyway, it is a chore that needed to be taken care of and now it is done!

What are your goals for the new year?

PS please vote in the poll at the top left of my blog - Thank YOU!

28 Years and Counting

Today is our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary!  

Our wedding day, December 27, 1983

And, twenty eight years later, :)

What a Wonderful Day

As Dave and I sat on the sofa yesterday evening recuperating with a glass of wine and an episode of Doc Martin on Netflix we agreed that we had enjoyed a wonderful Christmas day with our family.
The day started out early, literally at the very beginning of December 25, as we went to midnight mass at St. Peters to begin our celebration of Christmas day.
At eight in the morning  we ran over to our daughter and son-in-law's home to watch grandsons Henry and Patrick open their gifts. Let me tell you, little children really make day, they are so excited and so caught up in the moment and of course they are just so gosh darn cute!!
We headed back to our house so Dave could carve the ham while I finished some other meal prep. Then then we waited for our younger two, Ben and Emily, to emerge from their bedrooms, and our oldest son Matt and his wife Traci, and Brad, Amber and the boys to arrive.  By eleven everyone was assembled in the living room and a fun and crazy chaos took over as we opened gifts.  My sister Marika, husband Brian, and nieces Carly and Caitie arrived at one thirty and the feasting began.  After dinner, dessert, much snacking and glasses of wine, everyone staggered to the family room for a Chinese gift exchange!  The rest of the afternoon we chit-chatted and enjoyed each others company. By six everyone had gone home, our younger two left with their dates, and Dave and I put the house back together.  We really enjoyed our day, it was a wonderful Christmas and we feel truly blessed.  Some pictures for your enjoyment.

The Holy Family

Henry was up bright and early to see what Santa had brought him.

Patrick found his stocking to contain many interesting things!

The boys take a good look at their new toy box specially built for them by  Grandpa.

Emily, Ben, and Henry wait patiently for gift opening time.

Emily

Dave is thrilled with his grilling apron. Grill Master, The Man, The Myth, The Legend!

The joyful chaos of Christmas morning.

Brad and Henry try out the basketball hoop while tired Patrick has a cuddle with Mommy.

Mission accomplished - Patrick is taking a much needed nap!!

Marika and Brian model their loot from the Christmas Crackers.

Carly.

Caitie

Matt and Traci.

Dave and me.

Christmas Cookie Fun

Sugar cut out cookies - 6 dozen

Chocolate chocolate/mint chip cookies - 3 dozen

Peanut butter reindeer cookies - 6 dozen

Peanut blossoms - 3 dozen

Rice Krispie treats - 2 dozen

Chocolate covered pretzels - a lot

Fun had by all - PLENTY!!

Merry Christmas 

 The little guys!

 

This frosting looks interesting

Decorating cookies for Santa 

Cookies anyone? 

Good job Henry! 

 Wowsers, what bright cookies!

Do you like my Santa diaper? 

 Cookie Central

Reindeer cookies

Order your Traditional English Christmas Cake

I am currently taking orders for Traditional English Christmas Cakes. Enjoy throughout the Christmas season with a nice cup of tea, or a glass of sherry, the cakes contain raisins, sultanas, currants, almonds, and cherries and are made following a time tested recipe from England. Each 6" round cake weighs just over two pounds and can be ordered plain, or with the traditional finishing of marzipan and royal icing. Order yours today: Plain Cake $18, finished with marzipan and royal icing $25. To order email englishchristmascake@yahoo.com

Contemplation on "Tension", a Recipe, and Bits and Bobs

A Contemplation on "Tension"

As a knitter I have often struggled with getting the tension right while knitting, too loose and the end result is a shapeless garment, too tight and the end result is a skewed garment.  I struggle with "too loose" tension, after a google search I discovered that I held the yarn incorrectly, I have corrected this and am pleased with the results.

While walking the other day I was thinking about tension and how important it is in sewing and knitting, and realized that it is important in life too.  We have to have things in balance, too many activities, too many deadlines, too many obligations and we end up skewed, stressed out, and unpleasant to be around.  If we have no obligations we end up a shapeless mess, we are created to be productive, after all there is great satisfaction in a job well done, helping another, and feeling useful and necessary.  

When we have things in balance, time for God, time for our spouse, time for our children and grandchildren, time for work, time for rest, we find contentment.  I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3. 1-8.

A Recipe - Jumbo Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Yum, Yum, Yummy O!!

Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set to one side:

4 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp salt

Cream together:

1 lb of soft butter

2 cups of white sugar

2 cups of brown sugar

Add to the creamed butter/sugar mixture and stir well:

4 eggs

4 tsp vanilla

1 1/3 cups of peanut butter

Add the flour mixture and stir well.

Add 12 oz of chocolate chips and stir well.

Bake at 375 for 15 - 16 minutes. I bake 8 cookies at a time, I use an ice cream scoop to measure the dough, I would say the dough is an extremely rounded tablespoon size blob.

This recipe will make about 60 cookies, they freeze very well.

Bits and Bobs

Last Friday I made my annual Traditional English Christmas Cakes, each year I make one for us, one for my parents, and one for each of my sisters.  Traditional English Christmas Cake is a rich fruit cake, the recipe includes 2 lbs of dried fruit, cherries, almonds, and sherry, it is very rich and very enjoyable.  The cake is always made at least five or six weeks in advance, after baking it is stored in an airtight container, the cake is pierced in several places with a skewer and each week is fed a few tablespoons of sherry.  A week prior to Christmas the cake is covered in marzipan, then one week later the cake is covered in royal icing.  English wedding cake is traditionally this type of fruit cake, the top tier of the cake is saved in an air tight container and is enjoyed as a Christening Cake when the first baby arrives.  Fruit cake keeps amazingly well as long as it is kept in it's tin (airtight container).  This year I am advertising to make fruit cakes, I will be selling a six inch round fruit cake (no marzipan or icing) for $18, with marzipan and icing $25.  If you are interested in ordering a Traditional English Christmas Cake please email me or leave a comment and I will contact you to make arrangements.

Cake with marzipan and royal icing.

Grandson Pictures

King Henry busy with his play dough.  

His crown is Grandmas tea cozy.

Henry and Patrick model their new winter sweaters, they were made by my Mom, their Great Grandma!

A Busy Time of Year

Hello,
I haven't posted in quite some time!! It sure has been busy around here lately.  August was a birthday month, husband Dave and son Ben, celebrated their birthdays on the 8th, son-in-law Brad on the 14th, grandson Henry turned three on the 26th, and my Mom was exactly "three packets of candles" on the 27th. Between all the birthday parties we have all had enough cake and ice-cream for a while.

Daughter Emily started her senior year of high school three weeks ago, and started her first job as an hostess at Buffalo Wild Wings, she seems to be managing everything well.

The garden has kept us very busy, I have canned many tomatoes and will be canning more today.  I canned a half bushel of peaches and taught daughter Amber how to can peaches, I don't think she was very excited by the process but was pleased with her quarts of peaches. Our concord grapes are ready, I will be picking as many as I can today and plan to make grape jelly.  The first step in making grape jelly is to juice the grapes, I will start this process today, tomorrow I will have plenty of grape juice to make jelly with. We have also been enjoying cantaloupe and watermelon from the garden, yummy, they are so juicy and refreshing to eat on a hot day.

In early July we started a crock of sauerkraut. Dave and I picked about thirty-five cabbages and started the process of making sauerkraut. I shredded the cabbages and tossed the shreds in salt, after a bit Dave would take the shreds and pack them into the crock.  The packing part is hard work, the cabbage shreds just have to be packed, the salt begins to draw water out of the cabbage and eventually you have a brine covering the cabbage. Once the crock is full you add a little more brine, salt and water mix, tuck a cheese cloth over the cabbage and place a plate with a weight on top of that, then move the crock to a place where it will not be disturbed too much.  Fermentation takes about six weeks, it can be a bit smelly, so we put the crock in the basement, each day you must "skim the scum" a gray colored scum that forms on top of the brine.  We sit our crock in a galvanized laundry tub so any mess from the crock is contained.  Always make sure there is enough   brine to cover the shredded cabbage.  We were able to can the sauerkraut a few weeks ago and ended up with seventeen and half quarts - we tried some last week with a pork roast, it was very good.
Now you may be wondering what we are going to do with seventeen and half quarts of sauerkraut, well we will eat it over the next year, and will give a few quarts away.

Last night we took our pig in to be processed, the pig did not live at our property, some friends were raising a couple of pigs, Dave helped last night with the transportation of both pigs to the meat processor.  In about a week our pork, sausage, bacon, and hams will be ready for pick up. I know we will enjoy some of the pork with sauerkraut.

Our hens are doing well, we have seven, one died in the extremely hot weather we had in July, we are getting seven nice brown eggs each day and have a glut of eggs that I plan to start selling.  One of our favorite treats this time of year is egg salad with chopped tomatoes. We only eat this delicious egg salad this time of year because it is best made with garden ripe tomatoes.

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend, we planned to get a lot of painting done but the weather did not cooperate.  Last week we were able to prep and prime the hen house and Dave was able to put the first coat of fresh paint on it first thing Saturday morning, by noon it was too hot to paint and by mid-afternoon the temperature had  reached ninety-six degrees.  The hot weather made it ideal for power washing the pole barn, so Dave started in on that job and then popped down to our neighbor Nancy's house to put trim on her shed. Nancy then had us over for supper later in the evening.

While Dave was busy with outside chores I worked in the house, I had some sewing projects to finish, I made Henry a shirt on Friday, and started on Dave's shirt, on Saturday morning all I had to do was hen the shirt and do the button holes, well my machine has had button hole issues and this it would not make a button hole to save it's life.  I had recently had the machine serviced, when I got it back it worked better than it ever had and the button hole feature worked again, I made Patrick's shirt, then Henry's, although the button holes were looking a little less than desired, and of course the feature stopped working completely.  Boy was I frustrated!!  Dave said I could get a new machine, so after some internet research on Janomes, the only brand I wanted to buy, and a lengthy fact finding discussion with my mother, I arrived at Edwards Sewing Center. After a demo and learning that the Janome Magnolia 7330 had all of the features suggested by my Mom, I purchased the machine. I have never had a sewing machine like this, it is amazing, it sews beautifully, and is an absolute joy to use.  I finished Dave's shirt and shortened a pair of jeans for him and hemmed a dozen napkins. I then went to Jo Anne's and purchased fabric, battting, and interfacing to make a new raggy bag for fall.  My Mom made me a beautiful raggy bag this past spring, I receive compliments on it all the time, I have wanted to make one for some time, so chose fall colors for mine and the Janome performed splendidly.

On Sunday the high was sixty-six, a chilly north wind was blowing, and it was very cloudy, and we were cold! On Monday it was still very cool out, we got up early, I always do my heavy house cleaning and bread baking on Mondays so I started in on that and Dave headed out to put primer on the pole barn, he was able to get some painting done, then had to go to Lowe's to pick up five more gallons of primer.

Dave's Dad came over Monday afternoon and we had a nice visit and Amber, Brad, Henry, and Patrick stopped in, Ben was home for the day, Emily had to work, and Matt and Traci were at the lake. We made dinner for everyone, we decided to make beef ribs, we have never made them before, we followed a recipe but after two hours in the oven they were still too tough to eat, so we thawed some hamburger to make burgers, and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to put the ribs in the pressure cooker, which turned out to be a good decision, because thirty minutes in the cooker and the beef was tender as could be and falling off the bone.  So we ended up with rather a lot of meat, the plan B hamburgers, and the salvaged beef ribs, we also had spanish rice, macaroni and cheese, corn, banana pudding and pumpkin pie. The nice about preparing a large meal is that there are always enough leftovers for supper the next day, and the next day!

Anyway it has been busy lately, once the garden is finished and the pole barn is painted things will slow down  and we will have the winter to rest.  By February we will be anxious to start planning our garden for next year.

A nice day, and another recipe....

I was up at four this morning, took care of Dave saw him off to work and went back to bed until seven thirty. When I got up I headed out for my walk, I decided to do six miles today, the only other plans I had were to do some house cleaning, laundry, and sewing, then go to mass with my Franciscan brothers and sisters in the evening. Well as I walked I kept receiving text messages, a couple from my friend Cindy, a fellow Franciscan,  regarding our plans that evening, a couple from Emily letting me know what she was up to, she had spent the night at her friends house, a call from Matt telling me that he had had a call back from a job interview he went to on Monday and he had to go in for a second interview, and one from Amber asking if I wanted do something with her and the boys as she had the day off.  Well I walked for a bit, responded to the texts and thought about what Amber and I could do with the boys and decided that a day trip to Shipshewana would be fun.  I called Amber and she thought my idea was good and said she would be over in a bit, I told her to take her time I still had a couple of  miles to walk to get back home.
By ten thirty we were in Amber's van and heading north west on our way to Shipshewana. As Dave is working about twenty miles south of Shipshewana we decided to stop by the job site to say Hi.  Henry was very excited to see Grandpa climbing down a very tall ladder to come over to see him!  After our brief visit we continued on our journey.  By the time we arrived in Shipshewana it was noon, and I was feeling pretty hungry, we parked the van, popped Pat in the stroller and headed over to The Bread Box to get some lunch, I really enjoyed my chicken ceasar salad wrap while we sat outside on a covered, sunken, patio.  Once done with lunch we walked to the Davis Mercantile building, we went directly to the third floor to the candy store, then purchased tokens for the giant carousel.  Henry and Patrick really enjoyed the carousel!  We wandered around a few stores, purchased some adorable Cat in the Hat fabric, one print in yellow and the other in red, I will be making the boys a shirt each in the near future.  Our next stop was Yoder's General store, we looked around and then went into the grocery store section for an emergency BINKY purchase, Patrick was getting tired and we couldn't find his binky!!  As both boys were tired we decided to head home, both were asleep soon after we left and they stayed that way all the way home.
By four thirty I was off to Fort Wayne to pick up Cindy, we were heading to St. Joseph Catholic Church for evening mass.  Our Secular Franciscan Fraternity had scheduled the mass and it was said for the deceased members of our fraternity.  The mass was very nice, afterwards there was a dinner in the church basement, I guess each Wednesday evening they serve dinner, so we all got to hang out together while we ate dinner, it was good fellowship.
Matt was at our house when I returned home, great news, he was hired at Erie Haven, they have a fleet of cement trucks and do cement work, he starts on Monday and will being doing truck maintenance.   Tracy was at work so Matt stayed for dinner to celebrate his new job!  Dave cooked two t-bones on the grill, I cooked some yukon gold potatoes that I tossed with butter and parsley, made hollandaise sauce, and creamy cucumber salad, the guys then sat down and enjoyed their supper.  It is satisfying to make a meal that is enjoyed, and really satisfying when much of the food eaten we have produced, the steaks were from our steer, the potatoes and cucumber from our garden, and the eggs in the hollandaise sauce from our hens.  Following is a recipe for creamy cucumber salad, it is a favorite summer time treat that Dave really enjoys, it is very good served with baked potatoes.

Creamy Cucumber Salad

1/2 cup sour cream

1 T vinegar

1 t sugar

1/4 t dried dill

1/4 t salt

1 cucumber thinly sliced

1 small onion thinly sliced

Mix the first five ingredients together, then stir in the sliced cucumber and onion. 

That's it!

(you can substitute plain non-fat yogurt for the sour cream if desired)

Hot Summer Days and Chocolate Zucchini Bread Recipe

Henry the Farmer 

Patrick the Little Urchin!

We are in the middle of a heat wave, the temperatures have been in the mid to upper nineties since Saturday, and the humidity is very high, we are looking for a cool off hopefully by next Monday.  Today it is very overcast which has helped keep things cooler, but has done nothing to reduce the humidity.

I got up at four this morning with Dave, I made his coffee and a couple of sandwiches for his lunch, tidied the kitchen and got the laundry going.  Dave left for work at five, I showered, tidied our bedroom and headed out for a five mile walk.  When I returned I let the chickens out and Henry and Patrick arrived. After the boys ate breakfast, a nice bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and applesauce mixed in, we went outside to hang laundry and weed the strawberries.  It is nice to get the outdoor activities done early in the morning before it really heats up, or in the evening as it starts to cool, but lately it has still been ninety degrees at nine in the evening.  While I weeded strawberries the boys played, Henry really likes to play on Grandpa's tractor, and Patrick just likes to muddle around getting into this and that and always manages to get himself very dirty! 

The boys will be picked up later this afternoon and then I plan to get some sauerkraut going, I use a recipe that allows the cabbage to ferment in the canning jar for a few weeks prior to processing in a hot water canner.  In August we want to get a pig and take it in to be processed, I am looking forward to some pork and sauerkraut dinners this fall.  I also plan to make chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon, we did not plant any zucchini but we have been given some, so we will make good use of them.  If you have not had chocolate zucchini bread you really should try it, it is a delicious sweet bread, I enjoy a slice of it spread with raspberry jam - YUMMY.  Which reminds me, I need to get my raspberry jam made. I picked all of our black raspberries over the last couple of weeks, they are currently bagged and in the freezer, perhaps on Friday I will get the jam made.  It looks as if we will have a bumper crop of concord grapes in another month or so, so I know I will be busy making making many pots of grape jelly, it is a favorite in our house.

Well that is all for today, Patrick is evidently worn out from his outdoor adventure this morning, because he fell asleep on my lap as I was typing :)

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups of sugar (don't forget this, once I did and the bread was revolting :)
3 large eggs   (this reminds me one of our new laying hens started laying :)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup of nuts (optional)
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350, grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans.
2. Combine first six ingredients in large bowl.
3. Combine sugar and eggs, beat until blended, add oil and vanilla, beat until blended, add zucchini.  Add wet mixture to the dry ingredients in the first bowl, stir until just moistened, add chocolate chips and nuts.  Divide batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans.
4. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool on wire rack.

***Helpful Hint***

If you have lots of zucchini, grate it, a food processor will make this much easier, then bag up in 2 cup quantities and freeze, then whenever you want to make chocolate zucchini bread you will have the exact measure of grated zucchini ready in your freezer.

Late Evening Walks and the Wonders of Nature

As the weather has been warm and it does not get dark until almost ten at night, I often take my daily walk in the evening. Today was very warm, it was ninety degrees outside this afternoon, it was still ninety degrees at eight this evening when I left for my walk, if I had walked at three this afternoon it would have been miserably hot. I ended up walking six miles this evening so did not get back to the house until ten. I enjoy my walks, I have time to think, I pray, and I enjoy all of the sights and sounds of the ever changing country side. There are grasses along County Line Rd that are taller than I am, and I am 5'10", insects abound, I hear scurrying in the grasses and the occasional chipmunk rushes out in front of me, I see plenty of rabbits, a ground hog who lives by the creek, red wings who chatter and squawk at me, mourning doves with their beautiful mournful cry, an occasional possum, and gold finches darting in and out of the hedgerows and thistles. The corn has grown more than knee high, tiger lilies grow wild, fragrant dogwood roses grow wild in the hedgerow and are in full blossom. The many, many shades of green I see as I look across the rolling landscape of fields, trees, grass, hedges, all contrasting with the sky bring peace to my soul. This evening as I was close to home the fire flies were suddenly out in abundance, as I walked past an open area of very long grasses I felt as if I was in Aladdin's cave, the twinkling, winking lights of hundreds of fire flies was spectacularly beautiful. One afternoon recently I was walking with the grandsons, they were in the double stroller, as we came to the same open area with long grasses I saw something, we stopped and were blessed to see a very young fawn, it was no more than a foot tall, with white spots all over it's back, a sweet little face with very large ears that needed to be grown into. Henry was impressed with the fawn, we stared at it, it stared at us and then it started and ran off towards a wooded area, it was a truly a gift to see the fawn.

I enjoy my walks in the spring slowly everything turns green, the birds return, and then suddenly everything seems to go into overdrive, the rate of growth of some plants is truly amazing, by August things are looking a little shabby, a bit over the hill, and then the queen anne's lace blooms, followed in September by the golden rod and a beautiful purple wild flower, the days are pleasant the sky a clear beautiful blue, with October the weather is a little erratic the leaves change and look amazing and suddenly it is November, chilly, damp, and gloomy, everything is resting for a season and the threat of snow is ever present. Then winter arrives, snow falls, everything is quite, sounds travel in the crisp air and January can be bitterly cold and very sunny, by February the temperatures are warming up a bit, then March arrives with wind and rain and can't seem to make it's mind up if it is winter or spring, and then we are back to April and the whole wondrous cycle begins again. So why do I walk? It is good for me, physically and mentally, it keeps me grounded, and although I walk the same roads most days the sights and sound are always changing and occasionally I am blessed with a special gift to see.

Garage Sale Treasures

Last Friday morning Dave and I went "garage sale-ing" and boy did we find some good stuff. Dave left for work at five in the morning, he was back home by eight as they were unable to work due to a persistently steady light rain. It was too wet to garden and my daily chores were done we decided to head out to visit the garage sales. The first sale we went to had a ton of stuff, I got a purse for Emily and a really nice baby gate, I spent three dollars. As we drove away from this sale I realized that I had left our weekly local Courier, with all of the garage sale ads, at home. We called Amber to see if she still had her Courier, she did, so we stopped at the gas station picked up donuts for Henry and Patrick and popped over to their house, there we did a quick trade of donuts for the Courier.

Then we were off, we went to so many garage sales and we really found some good items, I picked up 6 sturdy wooden puzzles for the grandsons for a total of two dollars and twenty five cents. I purchased a box of cookbooks for five dollars, a glass serving bowl for fifty cents, a chicken cookie jar for three dollars, a wooden storage bench to keep the grandsons toys in for ten dollars, pants and snow pants for the boys, a lamp and doily, a table cloth, a yard of floral, backed, quilted fabric suitable for a bag, some games for the grandsons Memory, I Spy and puzzle cards, and a USA map place mat. I ended up spending just over thirty dollars.

By the time we returned home we were ready for lunch. After lunch the rain stopped, the sun came out and we were able to spend the afternoon working in the garden, I hoed the vegetable gardens and Dave mowed.

Garage Sale Treasures

The new toy bench modeled by Henry and Patrick!

My pretty lamp and doily.

The $2 Baby Gate!

Flowers in front of our home.