Tag: holidays

Olio – 12/16/2019
Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Yesterday was spent in recovery from the long, cold, wet day on Saturday, but wasn’t totally idle. The craft display stuff was returned to the guest room closet where it is stored, the inventory checked, sorted, and put away this morning.
The pop up tent is still slightly open in the garage drying, but will be packed up soon and tucked away in the garage with the weights and cart. My next two events are spinning demonstrations in Colonial costume on December 20 for the local elementary fourth graders, and at Wilderness Road Regional Museum on January 6 for old Christmas and the burning of the greens. Neither of those events are vending events.

I have written about “the chair” and “the chair II.” At some point, once all of our furniture was moved to this house and the basement had been finished (several years after the house was completed), we did some rearranging. We had a leather couch and club chair that had been our living room furniture for years that moved with me. A Lazy Boy couch that is leather on the seats and back and synthetic leather on the low wear areas that stayed in the apartment in Virginia Beach until hubby retired and it moved with him and was added to the living room here initially. We had an oak futon that was in an office/guest room when we sold our home in Virginia Beach and it moved with me as a guest bed in my apartment in Blacksburg and later into the loft of the house. When the basement was finished we moved the Lazy Boy couch and the futon to the basement rec room leaving a huge hole in the living room, so we went to a local furniture store and bought a reclining loveseat to fill the hole. It didn’t match the color of the leather couch very well, so we decided to move the loveseat to the loft, and get another love seat, just like the first one but a better color match. One of the loveseat purchases generated a Father’s Day Sale coupon that resulted in the disposal of “the chair” and the purchase of “the chair II.”

“The chair II” was heavily used and the phony leather deteriorated pretty quickly. The loveseats which we thought had leather on the sitting surfaces were gently use, but once our daughter and her family moved in with us for a couple of years while they sold their Florida house, saved for the down payment for their local house, the living room loveseat started getting lots of use and it didn’t take long for us to discover that the leather sitting parts were not leather.

It was soon cracked and shedding pleather so I bought a stretchy cover to try to slow down the progress. The upstairs one was doing fine, but again, it received little use until “the chair II” was discarded. It only took about two weeks use for it to begin breaking down as well.

The living room one is going to be discarded and is currently sitting on the front porch to make way for the Christmas tree. After Christmas, a second rocking chair will be added to the living room. The cover will be put on the second one to try to get more use out if once the new chair is delivered mid week. It seems almost like fraud to sell furniture that wasn’t inexpensive junk (we thought) that can’t hold up to basic wear over a couple of years.

This morning, I had another check up at the hearing clinic to raise the functionality closer to 100% effectiveness on my hearing aid. While we were out and about, we drove to Joe’s Christmas Tree Farm, about 10 miles from home, hoping to get lucky like last year and find a precut reasonably sized tree right near the store, but not this year. We didn’t want a huge tree this year, nor did we want to spend a long time walking the farm in the rain. They had some 7 foot trees near the store and as we were the only customers at the time, the young man working the yard brought out his chain saw and cut down our tree for us, drilled it for the stand, tied it and put it on our car while we shopped inside and paid for the tree. The tree was small enough for me to handle once home and it is up and decorated.
This gave me the incentive to finish decorating with my Santa collection and the snow village. This weekend, eldest son and eldest grandson will arrive to spend two days with us. I will prepare Christmas dinner with all the fixings on Saturday for them and daughter and her family.

This is an impromptu Christmas decoration. This begonia has bloomed better since I brought it in for the winter than it did outdoors all summer.

And to close today’s post, “Esplain to me Lucy,” why does a box of raw sugar need vegan and gluten free labels on it. My science background tells me that sugar is a plant product, not a gluten bearing plant.
December 16, 2019
Gifts- 12/3/2019
A plan is finally in place and not too stressful, I hope. With lots of doctor’s appointments, PT, and hearing clinic appointments between us, we seem to be spending lots of time in waiting room which affords me knitting time. Yesterday, daughter needed help with a sick child so she could go to work, so more knitting time. During hubby’s TV time is even more knitting time. The amount of it though is causing some joint pain with the cold raw weather. I have taken to wearing lots of wool layers from skin out to keep warm.

Hubby needed a new chair as “the Chair II” had failed, and then his laptop crashed so we ordered a new chair and he ended up with a business grade refurbished computer from the computer repair shop. He will only get a stocking stuffed. Child #2 provided a few wishes and wants experiences for her kids rather than more toys. Doable. Child #3’s family is taken care of. Child #1’s family is partially taken care of, that one is still in progress.

This weekend begins 3 weekends of craft events and hopefully, folks will buy my goods as gifts for their families and I will go into the new year low on stock which will make my personal property tax lower next year.
Time to get back to knitting.
December 3, 2019
Holiday Thankfulness

We have just returned to our mountain farm from a few days with family elsewhere. We were fortunate enough to have a neighbor farm sit for us so we didn’t have to board the dogs, find someone to deal with the outdoor animals and worry about the house in our absence. This is the first time we have done it this way and it was such a relief to not have to worry about it all.

Our adventure took us away from here on Thursday morning to the coastal area of Virginia, though I have to admit, we never even drove down to the beach. I don’t miss it at all now that we are in the mountains. We spent 3 nights with my 91 year old Dad and my step-mom in their home in Norfolk, enjoying some quiet visiting time, a decorated house, and great meals. Saturday we spent all day with Son#2, our youngest and his family. Mountaingdad took grandson to see a previewing of Night in the Museum 3 on tickets that Son #2 and DIL had won on a radio contest. While they were off riding the light rail into Norfolk from the city line and in their movie, Son #2 gave me my first cheese making lesson. With his help and guidance, I successfully made my first pound of mozzarella cheese.

We used the cheese as a caprese salad as part of our lunch and it was delicious. We will see if I can make it again by myself at home. I am excited to have taken this step in being able to prepare another food we eat and will be able make it with local milk. If I master this one, I may move on to other cheeses.

Once grandson and Mountaingdad returned and we had lunch together, we celebrated our Christmas with their family. As they had made most of our gifts and as I had made some of theirs we opened each other’s gifts. Grandson immediately put on his Steelers hooded sweatshirt and wore it all day. We, as a family, walked over to their neighborhood park for him to launch his foam tipped rocket with the rubber band launcher then all met with Mountaingdad’s sister and her friend, plus my Dad and step-mom at a restaurant for a big family dinner together. After dinner, Son#2’s family with us went to a Winter Wonderland and Christmas decorated petting zoo to see the lights, the animated displays and the animals; goats, chickens, ducks, alpacas, llamas, a pot bellied pig and ponies.

Unfortunately, Santa had already left, but as we wandered out from our walking tour, we stopped by one of the many fire rings that they had set up for making S’mores and enjoyed the warmth on a chilly night.

This morning, after attending the lessons and carols Christmas service at the church I attended as a child and in which both we and our son were married, we returned across the state to our own bed in the mountains.

It was a wonderful way to spend a long weekend, having quality time with my Dad and with our youngest son and his family, spending time with the grandchildren that we see too infrequently. Now that our daughter is coming to live here and we know that our neighbor will farm sit if we all go away, perhaps we will be able to reestablish more contact with those grandchildren too.

Lovin’ life.

December 14, 2014
All Good Things Must End

The holidays are over and with it, the travel time. These past couple of months have been quite atypical for us. We travel little, other than my jaunts to Northern Virginia to babysit for a few days, we generally take a weeklong ski trip, boarding the pups and a week long visit to our daughter’s family with the dogs.

This fall we left on a two week adventure after boarding the pups. One week of that was a Bahamas cruise with our youngest son and his family, then spent an additional week with them in their home. The dogs like the boarding kennel we use, but were glad to be home.

That was followed with Thanksgiving at home with eldest son and his family visiting, then a week later, boarding the beasties again for our week long trip to Zihuatenajo Mexico.

Back home from that the second week of December in time to decorate and finish shopping for Christmas, we had a couple of weeks to recover.

Christmas brought eldest son and grandson back for a few days to celebrate together and Christmas noon, they left in my car headed north to home and we loaded up gifts, luggage, and dogs in Hubby’s SUV to drive south for 4 days with daughter’s family.

The visit was fun. The kids love the dogs, with our two plus their golden, it was a houseful of fur. Our pups stoically tolerate the 13 to 14 hours each way driving.

It has been great, but we are tired and ready to be home for the winter. My neighbor has gotten more of my eggs this fall than have we and the freezer is full of our produce we haven’t been home to eat.

All of this was on top of last February’s week trip skiing in Colorado, a 3 day ski trip in West Virginia, and the 3 day August trip for the family gathering. That has put us away from home in the past year for 42 days. We have exhausted our travel quota til our energy and budget recover.

December 30, 2013