Monday, November 30, 2020

T Stands For Tuesday & Toured a Cave

   Hi everyone,

  Tuesday brings us to T with our hostess Bluebeard and Elizabeth-find link in my side bar. Only requirement to join in is to share a drink related photo.

  My sister in law was at her lake house for a week or so, and her husband drove in Wednesday evening for the Thanksgiving weekend, he needed to get back to his vet clinic Monday morning.

  One day she wanted to know if I wanted to bum around with her. She doesn't like the country decor in her new lake house so she has been selling that off, and also changing up furniture pieces to make better use of their small space. One of the "big cities" near me that serves this area of the lake (an hour away) is Osage Beach-it really has everything-including all the chain stores, restaurants etc and 4 lane highways and traffic-ugh not for me unless I am the passenger haha.

   The one little shop that was really nice selling antiques had the perfect thing for our Elizabeth. Melanie took a photo for me with her smart phone This horse had me smiling when I saw it.


  That same day we also hiked a bit at Ha Ha Tonka State park so it was a busy day.

   Over the weekend I went with her and her family to visit Jacob's Cave in Versailles, Mo. Missouri is known for it's numerous caves, this one is the largest I believe. I enjoyed the tour, we had a fun guide, but this cave was not as pretty as Bridal Cave in Camdenton, Mo but it is easier to walk through.


This is me, this is a piece that had broken off and we passed it around to guess how heavy it was. I guessed 30 pounds and it was 34 so I was the closest.  I guessed 30 because now that I am older 25 pounds is my limit  We were in a very small group which was nice, but I decided to wear my mask


This piece has two faces in it



Melanie, my sister in law, loves to get people into all the photos-she insisted I get in this one 😀


This photo shows the person's signature and date (Jacob Craycraft in the 1800's)  that the cave was discovered. This cave is still in the same family


Missouri has a fault line for earthquakes, the tour guide talked allot about earthquake damage to this cave.

   We have been enjoying a gorgeous full moon over the weekend. I captured these photos with my little tree







 For my beverage reference I am sharing our Thanksgiving day wine again


and while working at the computer I am drinking a cup of green tea with lemon


   Since last week I am still hand stitching up the hexies-my goal right now is to complete one rosette a day.  This is what I completed so far.


Happy T everyone

Saturday, November 28, 2020

A Christmas Movie for Saturday & My Christmas Tree

  I know I know many of my readers are not into Hallmark movies but I did really enjoy this one. 

  This one came out in 2018



More information about the movie here

Preview


   I don't always put up a Christmas tree-it has always been just the two of us and Larry is Jewish so he is not into Christmas trees all that much, but he doesn't mind that I enjoy one.  A few years ago I did a big splurge for me and bought a Balsam Hill mini tree (on sale), it had lights on it already and is really a lovely tree. It was perfect near our wood stove in the living room.

    Here at the lake house there are very few electric outlets but there is one in a perfect place that I can use for my craft light near the couch and the same one is perfect for this little tree in front of the window. I tried different things to set it on, most were too tall tall so I am using one of the old cheese boxes I have my dyed wool in-perfect height.  

   When I do put up a tree I do it Thanksgiving weekend so I can enjoy it for a month and then I take it all down New Year's Day

   Here are a few photos, and my sister in law and her daughter and husband dropped by Friday to pick me up to visit a nearby cave (will share that for T) and came back for pie and Christmas shopped here on their devices since they have no internet at their own lake house. She snuck a couple of photos of me too.




The elf ornament to the far right has quite a story. Each of us three kids got one, my brother has my sister's. One Christmas as children when we went to Chicago the theme was these elves. One bakery we went to had smaller versions for ornaments so Mom bought us each one.


Quite a few years ago the little country store close to the woods house had unique Christmas things-Larry picked up several of these Santa fish ornaments. To the left is a very vintage santa claus my Mom had when we were kids



This was my late sister's favorite ornament so I kept it


My Mom collected angels, this crystal one is perfect for the topper 


    Happy Thanksgiving weekend to everyone

Friday, November 27, 2020

Thanksgiving Meal

  Happy Friday everyone,

      Will you be shopping til you drop this weekend or shopping til your fingers drop on the keyboard?

    Living so rural I shop more and more online-easy to compare prices with different stores and sites too. and I Love getting mail.😀

   This was the first Thanksgiving meal in several years that we didn't visit our friends in the huge log home.  Even without the covid lurking around we would have stayed home this year.

    I grilled a turkey tenderloin in my cast iron grill pan and it turned out soooo well. Very moist and delicious. I used olive oil all over it and sprinkled on Mrs. Dash garlic and herbs for the seasoning.

We had a cold but pretty sunny day at the lake


I usually serve healthy-so this meal was no different-steamed brussel sprouts, tossed salad, homemade cranberry chutney with blueberries this year, wild rice (that was gathered by native Americans in very northern Wisconsin-my friends pick it up for me), grilled turkey tenderloin


My husband loves olives-from the deli I have been picking up a very small container of mixed olives with feta cheese. I decided I can do that-and much less expensive. I left out the cheese but I added canned (in glass jars) mushrooms, hot-sweet peppers, couple different olives-layered and sprinkled in dried Italian spices and then filled the jar with olive oil


I baked a sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie with nut crusts-this one is the pumpkin


I added my Grandma's turkeys-these are really old


and brought out the good china and served this dry red wine (from Aldi) this is a really good tasting wine


And speaking of Outlander I have been seeing some really pretty dragon fly Outlander inspired jewelry in my groups so I took a look in Etsy. 
    I found this bracelet, fell in love with it and bought it. The artist is in Spain-she must be sending it very slow mail as she said it would take awhile to get to the States.



Larry's sister, her husband and daughter will be over mid day today for pie and perhaps we will tour a large cave in Missouri-Jacobs Cave.

Happy weekend everyone

Monday, November 23, 2020

T Stands for Tuesday Christmas Light Show & Quilting

 Good morning, It's early Monday morning right now-and wow the fog is thick over the lake. It's around 8:30 am now but an hour earlier we couldn't even see our dock and boat. So now the fog is beginning to lift a bit. 


    T Stands for Tuesday is upon us so you are most welcome to join us for T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-find link in my sidebar. Only requirement is to share a drink related photo.

   Larry's sister and daughter are here at their lake house for a week or so, her husband will drive in after work Wednesday. We haven't been to visit yet they are about 45 minutes drive away and they are in a spot we wouldn't want to be. For being a Chicago city girl they chose a super rural area-they have to maintain their own roads, there is a huge steep hill to drive down with a switchback to get to their home-and once the lake drops 10 feet they will have no lake water deep enough to fish or move a boat in. We are shaking our heads, and she is finding out about some major structure concerns with the home.  She wouldn't listen to any advice before buying, so we are just staying "out of it" It will be faster to visit them by boat so we will do that one day.

     His sister likes to drive all over-I don't like to drive anywhere haha  so I can see her and I may be doing some fun things together-exploring caves-Missouri has allot of them and there are a couple state parks near by as well. She already has a list 😀

   The town near us Laurie Mo has a Christmas drive through light show that I was curious about. Last year Larry was still recovering from his heart valve surgery so we didn't go.  So we all went last night. It was pretty cool and very few cars-a good thing as it was not set up very well on which way to drive around-a real mess actually but I was glad I got to see it.  His sister and daughter took photos with the cell phone.

  I am posting several photos so I have the photos smaller-just click on them for full size views.











There were allot of exhibits each one having a sponsor-I ended up with a headache though with lights all around the car against the blackness.  It was a pretty cool exhibit and am happy we got to see it.

   Friday I finished the second gift quilt early in the day so I could get it packed and mailed off to my friend. She is suppose to get it today (Monday) possibly Tuesday. I don't think she will visit this blog so will share a few photos.  I am really happy with the finish very cozy and warm, the fabrics are all quality quilt brushed or flannel cottons.  This one I needed to make and sew on a binding-and it went pretty well.

                        The binding



I guess I didn't get really good photos-I was in a rush to get this to the post office so it would arrive before Thanksgiving
      

The backing took me several days to get laid out correctly-there is a panel on both sides with the stars in the middle-and getting that to lay out even was a major challenge for some reason. 


Now on to my queen size quilt with some of these same fabrics for my quilt.

      I also grabbed my basket of civil war reproduction fabric hexagons to hand sew in the evenings-now that I have a new ott light that stands next to the couch. Some of you may remember this project. I started it a bit before we decided to move to the lake. I had put it aside also wondering if I was up to the task of this project-it is all hand sewing with silk thread for the top. Thinking it also needs to be hand quilted. I love these fabrics so am going to push forward as if I don't start soon my hands will not be up to the task.


This pattern was modified from an actual civil war era quilt that  found online. The design was off balance so a blog friend at the time that teaches and makes exceptional hexagon quilts helped me to design this pattern There will be Allot of two shades of browns to cut out and sew, but I think it will be a beautiful quilt.





  For my drink reference, I remembered that I had a bottle perfect for the season that had I bought a few years ago at the Aldi store. That store is now too far away to shop at. This was pretty good but very rich so I am glad that I had only purchased one bottle.



Are you ready for Thanksgiving? It will just be the two of us this year. The last several years we were invited over to a friends home.  I decided instead of roasting a whole turkey I would grill a butterball turkey breast tenderloin, along with a small ham-we love ham and beans for later in the week.  I will bake up a couple pies, make cranberry sauce from scratch-I always do- and a few veggie sides. We are still limiting our carbs so no starchy side dishes.

    Happy T Day and those of you living in the States Happy Thanksgiving

Saturday, November 21, 2020

A Movie for Saturday & Morning Visitors

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    Happy Saturday and weekend

I am sharing a Thanksgiving movie that I had seen years ago and I have seen that it is showing again on the tv This is a good family movie and in the end differences come together.

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving based on a story by Louisa May Alcott filmed in Canada and premiered on Hallmark in 2008  More here





     trailer



I found the film free to watch here

   There was also a sequel done: An Old Fashioned Christmas that I haven't seen yet


        Trailer:



Enjoy your Saturday

Surprise while writing this post I heard the male eagle singing to his mate



Update: and then there were three eagles