T Stands for Christmas Cards & Homemade Tamales

  Hoping this finds all of you that lost power during the arctic snow storm -  now having your electric back on. That is so difficult with frigid temperatures and no fireplace or woodstove for some heat. I do miss not having a working woodstove here at the lake house-and I would also be able to cook on it because this one has a flat top too.

  I wanted to share my lovely handmade Christmas cards and also a few others.

  This is the glass sliding door from the kitchen area into my computer slash weaving slash storage room-which gives me a lovely spot to tape up the cards. These are the cards that were not handmade.

This one below is the pretty card from Bleubeard and Elizabeth

and inside-cool stamps E and kitties

I love these vintage postcards, especially the wolf card-thanks much, I think there was one more item in the envelope too-I had already added these items to my mixed media folders before I took the photo.

Another favorite on this glass door was from my friend that meets me at the woods house to pack up Larry's scope repair shop Sorry about the flash this was the best photo of the bunch.

and this one is from my friend Cathy-sheep dressed up for winter. I love sheep and so does she-so this one had me smiling  Cathy hooks allot of rugs with wool strips-something my Mom had done when I was a little kid.

 I had a couple handmade cards and a very awesome fold out card which I had never seen before.

Isn't this first one adorable?? This card is from Rain in Canada

Perhaps some of you  may remember Agnes-or Aggie in Paris France? We reconnected again on google chat-she found me. Always loved her art. This is the inside of her card it is all folded-sorry I don't remember the name of this technique but is from Japan. Sadly she had something inside the card that didn't make it, or the large gnome sticker on the back of the envelope didn't make it through the mail, which was disappointing

This is the fold out card-isn't it too awesome?  From my slow mail friend Mary thank you

  All of these cards are sitting on the mantel with my gnomes and pottery pieces.

This beautiful card is from Carola-so pretty I love it with the cardinals and the flower. thank you so much.

And this lovely card came in the day before the storm hit here at the lake, so I was able to get it out of the mailbox beforehand. From May at Salty Pumpkin. This is so pretty with sparkles too.

May also included a few beautiful Christmas tags-thank you so much May

  I want to thank those of you that wanted to share handmade Christmas cards with me this year-something I enjoy doing for the holidays.

    Christmas Day was our first warmer day since the arctic blast came through. We made it to around 20 degrees F. Yesterday I grabbed my snow shovel and worked on getting the steps cleared and a little bit of the steep hill. It was really too cold for me to be working outdoors but knowing that Monday was a mail holiday, I needed to get my mail out of the box from a few days and also mail something. Since it was very cold outdoors, I ended up doing a little shoveling on the lower part of the hill and then just walked between the concrete wall and my car-carefully got myself up and down. Middle of this week coming up, we will have a warm up.

  Because of the storm I haven't been able to get the peanut brittles made for our friends, so they didn't visit either for the other goodies I made for them and it also wasn't safe to be on the wintry roads either. Hoping I can do that tomorrow (Monday).

 Larry is still having some issues from the operation-slow healing. We see the doctor on the 30th-and thankfully all the ice and snow should be gone by then as it is an hour drive or more each way.

  I did made us homemade tamales for Christmas eve and roasted cornish hens for Christmas day. Since my post is so long already I will detail the tamales later in the week-perhaps for Rain's Dinner Date These tamales were really delicious and I made the filling different this time.

For my drink share this week I have been drinking lots of decaf teas and coffee all week but haven't gotten another photo of those, but I also have in the frig this bottle of yummy eggnog that I will pour me a shot of later on tonight. I took this photo looking into my frig-haha to the right is a big pitcher of ice tea.

   I only need a shot of this-so delicious- it has allot of alcohol in it. This is my favorite brand for an egg nog with alcohol in it.

Happy T and new week everyone

Monday afternoon update:  I am very excited as I just got notice that the handblown glass dip pen from Germany is arriving tomorrow (Tuesday) I will need to be more careful with this one.

  As Iris had mentioned that she would probably break one of these glass pens-the one I have now from Japan just snapped in half when I was taking off the plastic protector for the point sigh-I taped it together so I could still use it for balance. I did get allot of writing accomplished so far-all the Christmas cards and all the postcards I am sending out, and also a few slow mail letters too. It still is working fine being taped together but still. 

I have kept it stored in this nice box along with that thick plastic ptotector- I think I will write a note to the company I bought this from-perhaps a weak point in the stem