Sunday's Blessings

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this week I loved the ....

smell of :  pumpkin/spice bundt cakes

sound of :  crunching leaves underfoot

taste of :  garden potatoes

sight of :  the changing of the trees

feel of :  mittens on cool morning walks

things I am thankful for this week .....

-  a new reading group at the library...fun,fun!

-  the generosity of neighbors once again

-  my Rottweiler and kitties love for each other...so cute

Have a blessed Sunday and remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Saturday's Snaps

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Have a great weekend and remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Getting Some Stitching Done

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I have been working on this table runner which seems like forever but I am finally starting to make some progress on it.  Once the stitching part of it is done, I would then like to add some patchwork to the back and quilt the whole thing.  I think that would add quite a bit of character to the overall look ... but until then, I stitch away.

Hubby wanted to add another couple of coats of varnish to the old, front steps and deck.  It gets a lot of use and was badly banged up this past winter due to scraping off the ice that had accumulated after some ice storms.

The weather was sunny and pleasant so I grabbed my stitching, a bottle of water, sat and enjoyed a little time visiting with him while he worked and I stitched.  See those two black dots in the sky?  Those were two Canadian geese...they are starting to band together for their long flight south.  

Soon we will not be able to sit outside and soak up all the natural Vitamin D that Mother Nature so generously provides.  Soon the days will be dark and gloomy and the clouds heavy with snow.  Soon the winds will blow, the plow truck will need to be primed, gassed up and ready, scarves, mittens and snow pants will be dug out of the back of the closet.  Soon the the television will be permanently tuned to the weather channel so we can keep an eye and ear for storm updates.  Soon candles, the generator, extra blankets, and board games will be placed in Luke's bedroom for easy access in case a storm hits....but for now, just for now, I will enjoy visiting while sitting, stitching and watching my hubby pluck away at his chore list.  

Have a great weekend and remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Thrifty Thursday

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It's Thrifty Thursday once again!

First up.....a vintage quilt top!  All the hard work has been done for me.  Now I just need to add the batting and backing then get it quilted.  I haven't decided whether to do it by hand or have the quilt show long arm quilt it for me.  It fits a full size bed perfectly.  I love all the fabrics used.  Who could have given something like this up?!  Cost - $4.99

Next up, just in time for the season.  My nutcracker Halloween cat!  Isn't she just adorable?  

Cost - $1.99.  She will fit in just perfectly with my pumpkins.

Happy thrifting this weekend and remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Chicken Bombs

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Hubby is a big meat eater ... the red meat kind of meat.  Chicken and turkey ... eh, not too much so in order for me to coerce him into eating more chicken, I have to get inventive and/or find new recipes that I think he might like.  

I am constantly searching the web, blogs, Pinterest, and even old recipe books .... yes, actual books ... looking for something new and fresh.  

I ran across this recipe by Leslie the other day and it just looked delicious!  Noticing that Leslie included instructions for cooking them in the oven, I just had to try it last night.  

We are big pepper eaters and although the hot peppers are not to good for my father-in-law or my hubby due to ulcers, I love, love, love them!  Substituting sweet bell peppers for those two and keeping with the jalapeno peppers for me, I got to work creating this interesting dish.  

 sorry for the blurry pictures..the camera was just not cooperating!

Leslie makes the process look easy ... hah!  Now either I was doing something wrong or she is a master at creating flat chicken breasts.  Flattening those suckers was the hardest part.  Mine just didn't want to cooperate.  

The rest was fairly easy.  Cleaned and sliced the peppers, 

mixed the two cheeses,

add them to the flattened chicken breasts,

rolled them up....

                                    

carefully wrapped a couple of slicing of bacon

                         

and magically the bacon holds everything together nicely.  No toothpicks needed here!

Added the bbq sauce and cooked them in the oven for the allotted time.

The last 10 minutes or so I broiled them to crisp up the bacon.

The verdict?  A winner!  Both hubby and father-in-law loved them.  

The bacon probably helped.  LOL

Remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Tuesday's Tip

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Rings from pop cans and closet organization....what do the two have in common?

They open your pop and open up your closet by doubling your hanging space ....... now that's a cool idea!

Remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Neighbor Dave

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Neighbor Dave and his wife Liz live behind us.  Their back property borders a creek and on the other side of that creek is our back property line.  We call neighbor Dave, "ND".  Now ND is a long haul truck driver.  He runs the same route three times a week and each run is approximately 14 hours straight.  Since his run is mainly the overnight hours, he tends to have quite a bit of free time during the day each week.  They are not only great neighbors but great friends.

He stops by on his days off for morning coffee and likes to catch up on the gossip with my dear hubby.   The other day when the coffee and chatting was over, he invited hubby and I over to his place.  He had been having some problems with bears and needed hubby to give him a hand moving some feed.  ND and Liz feed deer year round ... except during hunting season as it is illegal to do so.  Neither of them hunt deer....they feed them for entertainment....and an expensive entertainment it is as the deer eat over 200 pounds of corn a week!

It was a beautiful sunny, fall morning so I grabbed my camera on the way out the door....I figured I might see something different that I would want to capture on film.  I love wandering around a new piece of land, you just never know what you might see!

Now their property was once an old farm.  

The barn and chicken coop has long been torn down but remnants remain...like the little milk house... and I had a grand time exploring while the men were busy.  

We have been there many times before but seeing the property through the lens was a different picture.

ND and Liz have a wonderful property.  Most of the trees were planted by them when they first purchased the land and their children were young.  

Towering pines, poplar, birch and even oak now are scattered throughout the fields along with wild plum, apple and crab-apple.

They have built themselves a wonderful property but best of all they built themselves a wonderful home.    

Remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Sunday's Blessings

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this week I loved the .....

smell of : autumn

sound of :  rain...it is so dry 

taste of : blueberry scones

sight of : a thunderstorm

feel of : cozy sweaters

things I am thankful for this week .....

-  cooler temperatures...perfect for baking

-  a new mailbox

-  new kitchen curtains

Have a blessed Sunday and remember to give your loved ones a hug!

Saturday's Snaps

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Enjoy your weekend and remember to give your loved ones a hug! 

Our Mail Lady is Happy!

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We have had our old mailbox for many, many years.  

We lost the door last winter....not good in Minnesota winters with snowplows screaming by, dumping salt and snow on the mail or when the hard rains fall at an angle soaking everything in it's wake.  Last February a friend from Seattle sent me a parcel for Valentine's Day....a Valentine themed fabric stash!....well we could not figure out why it wasn't being delivered but on one early morning walk I noticed a box in the snowbank.  There was the parcel!!!!  I told my dear hubby it was TIME to change it!  Every time the snowplow would pass by, the load of snow would knock the mailbox over and we would have to trudge out there and pick it back up.  

The great procrastinator that my hubby is, finally was persuaded by me...actually bullied.... into putting up the new mailbox before winter sets in again this year.

Next spring I am planning on building a planter to surround the base and add some nice flowers but for now, it will do.  

Notice the old mailbox was finally nailed to an engine hoist since the snowplow knocked it right off the base in the ground!  An ugly old thing isn't it?

Our mail lady was so surprised....she drives a jeep and sits higher than the average car...it was difficult for her to put the mail in the old mailbox.  She was beaming the first time she saw the new one!  We've gotta keep the mail lady happy.

Have a great day and remember to give your loved ones a hug!