Who do you belong to?

This is what’s its doing here today. April 14, 2013 and it’s a blizzard outside. Gross.

But, on the bright side, all my homework is done, the house is clean, the laundry is humming along and the kids are playing.

I puttered around the house after we got home from church and as I was putting away a cookbook, I came across one my mom and dad got us for Christmas. It’s a family cookbook put together by one of my dad’s cousins. And to my surprise, not only does it have some great recipes, but it’s also got some great family history incorporated in it.

Here’s the cover:



My great-grandma is Jannet (pronounced Janette) and she was my dad’s grandma.

Here’s a picture of her a little bit older (from a page in the cookbook):



These old picture crack me up. They look so stiff and stern (and maybe they were).

Every other page has a picture or story about the family and all of the recipes are “family” recipes. Each includes the author and who they belong to. (Don’t you love going to family reunions and being asked who you belong to?)

My grandpa died when I was 7, but my dad and my mom have told me all kinds of stories about him. I wish I would’ve gotten to know him as a grown up.



One of my favorite bits I came across was about scones. (Oh, how I love scones.)

“Scone: This is an old Scottish every-day recipe meant to be made on top of the stove as contrasted to the fancier Scottish and English scones made with eggs and cream and cooked in ovens. (Stoves with ovens would have been rare among he early highland crofters.) It is usually cooked in an iron skilling and served warm with butter and honey.
It has been said that in the olden days, a good Scottish Homemaker seeing visitors coming down the road could have a fresh scone mixed up and on the stone plus water on in the time it took her husband to meet the guests at the door, take their coats and invite them in for a cup of tea.”

I’m a sentimental person and this just tugged at me.

One more picture, cause all I see is my brother in my grandpa in this one. (My grandpa is in the plaid shirt and grandma is to his right with the awesome glasses.)



This was probably taken in the mid to late 1960s. When I asked my dad why he wasn’t there, he figured he’d reached the age where he was too cool to go to family reunions. Remember being that age?

If you’ve got old recipes or cookbooks, read them, pass them on to your kids. There’s nothing better than reading through your own history. Every little tidbit helps to understand where you come from and who you belong to.

hi.

No post since July. I know. I’m a horrible blogger. We’ve had a very busy house the last few months. And sometimes living life is more important than documenting life.
Anywho, here’s what’s been going on.
August
Peachy turned 2. RC started first grade. And I went back to school. At 36. What was I thinking? Oh, yeah. I was thinking maybe it was time to get a degree. So, I enrolled in an online degree program. So far, so good, but it doesn’t leave much free time after working full time and trying to keep things together at home. Sparky’s been great though. He knows just when I need encouragement and support.

I also did a little transformation on an old candle stick and table top. I decided to try my hand at making my own chalk paint. I’m not sure if I’d do it again. It’s ok, but not the exact look I was going for. Definitely good enough for now though! (And now, a few months later, I’m ready to repaint it something lighter and move it to a different spot.)



September
My SIL got married! Yay! RC was the ring bearer and Peachy was the flower girl. And I took the pictures. (Yikes! I was pretty nervous, but they turned out great.) It was a beautiful fall day and we had a wonderful time.


We also did a little DIY in late September. The main floor half bath was driving both Sparky and I ca-ra-zy. The closet and it’s door just weren’t working. We purged, painted and hung curtains. We’ve still got some accessorizing to do, but really love the way it turned out.


October
We decided it was time for a party. So we had an adult only costume party. It was a blast. Sparky and I were The Bundys. I had a lot of fun doing some spooky decorations.  Vivienne at The V Spot was my inspiration. She’s got great Halloween decorating ideas! No pictures of the party itself…needless to say some of the guests wouldn’t appreciate their pictures posted all over the interwebs.
I spray painted some branches from our yard black, spray painted a faux pumpkin white then used $1 Store spiders, bats and webs to finish it off. The raven is from Wal-Mart, the lantern is a left over from my SIL’s wedding, and the candelabra is from TJMaxx. The skull candle holder was a prize Sparky won for best costume at a Halloween party a couple of years back. He was a great Fred Flintstone. (Oh, and the mirror is a new addition over the buffet. We bought it from a friend of my SIL’s for pretty cheap and spray painted it white.)

I’ve been updating the Irish blessing I keep by the door for each season/occasion. It’s been fun seeing what’s out there. I do a Bing search and type it up in Microsoft Word. Then,  I use the same white frame and just swap out the blessing and mat (aka scrapbook paper).


November
Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. We hosted my parents and my SIL’s family. The day before I scrounged around the house to find some fall-ish, Thanksgiving-ish decorations. (I should’ve taken a picture of the table all set! It was really pretty. Sigh.) I ended up with burlap, fake leaves, and gourds.

Right before Thanksgiving, I broke out the craft paint and had the kids paint some pictures. I chose fall colors for them to use (green, red, yellow, orange and bronze) and let them go to town. Then, I punched a hole in them and used some twine to hang them up in the dining room. They definitely aren’t hung perfectly straight, but I like them! And RC was so proud to have them hung up.

And now, Christmas is only a few weeks away! AAAAAAA!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
And now it’s 2013! Yeah, I started this post a month ago and just got back to it.
Christmas was awesome. We had Sparky’s family here on Christmas Eve and then went to my sister’s on Christmas Day. Sparky’s sister from Florida was up and my brother and his fiancé came from Montana. Lots of laughs, lots of wine and lots of Farkle and cards. It was great.

I had a 2 week break from school and also took 2 weeks off of work. I was actually at home pretty much the whole time with my kids. From December 22 until January 2. Other than maternity leave, I think that’s the most I’ve been home with them. Gosh, that sounds horrible. And a couple of those days, my seester’s kids and my SIL’s youngest was here too. 6 kids 9 and under. 1 – 9 year old, 1 - 8 year old, 2 - 6 year olds, 2- 2 year olds. Yikes! I don’t know how SAHMs do it. I honestly don’t. They had so much fun though! All of them were asking when they’d get to see the others again.
After everyone left and the kids went back to school and daycare, I had 3 whole days to myself. 3 days! 2 of them are gone. And not much but laundry and workouts have been accomplished. Where does the day go? I have one day left. And I don’t really feel like doing anything. We’ll see how it goes. 
I hope everyone has a great 2013 and I’ll try to pop in every once in a while, but can’t make any promises. Applied Statistics and World Religion are in my near future. Oh, and I guess I better get back to work too.

Uff da

Obviously, the 31 days of posting wore me out. Good grief.

Since then, both my husband and I had birthdays, my mom and I went to France for a week, we celebrated Thanksgiving, and I've been to the penny sale.

I've been crazy busy and totally exhausted since November 1. And now we are in Christmas Craziness mode.

I do want to tell you all about France ($4.00 Bordeaux at the grocery store!!!) and the goodies I came home with as well as a couple of quick projects I've done for Christmas. Hopefully, I'll get to them soon(since I dropped the ball with the whole front porch thing.)

I had to clean and organize my craft room this afternoon. I couldn't take the chaos anymore. I can't think, much less created surrounded by crap.

Hopefully, that will get and keep me motivated through the holidays!

How crazy busy are the rest of you? Anything you wish you could get done by Christmas, but know it won't happen?

Where has the time gone? (And pretty flowers!)

How did it get to be the end December already? I had such good intentions of keeping you updated with the cool Christmas crafts and decorations I made. Only, I didn't make any. Sigh. Things just got away from me.

In the past, we made the trek from Colorado to North Dakota for Christmas. This meant, I had to have everything done and ready to go by December 20th or so. Our tree was always up the day after Thanksgiving, so we could enjoy it before we left.

This year, since we are back in North Dakota there didn't seem to be much of a rush. The tree didn't go up until the second week in December. I was still puttering around with decorations the week after that. And, by then there didn't seem much point in creating a bunch of cool, new Christmas decorations. Sigh.

Next year, maybe next year will be the year. We'll be in a new house and maybe I'll get up the motivation to do a bit more.

I did manage to get some fresh flowers in the house with some greens though! I love the look of white and green, so I went with some white flowers and Christmas-y greens.

I think they turned out pretty cute. I had a big arrangement on the table, then three small ones on side tables through out the house. The only things I bought were the flowers and greens. I bought two bunches of flowers and one bunch of greens at Sam's Club for $3.88 a piece. Everything else I had on hand.  So, I got four arrangements for around $12!

For the biggest arrangement, I used a quart mason jar, a plastic silver charger and some green and silver ornaments.

For the smaller arrangements, I used a pint jar and some green ribbon. 

Cutting the flowers and greens took the longest (and of course I had a 4-year old helper). 

They added such a nice touch to the house! My plan is to keep swapping out flowers and ribbon throughout the year. We'll see how it goes.

I do have a bunch of pictures of the house remodel as well. That's what coming up next! The transformation so far is just amazing! I'm super excited to get painting and super scared to get painting.

Have a safe and happy new year!