A Little Something

Sometimes we give gifts to each other during the holidays at work.  Here is what I put together for my coworkers this year. Not much, just a little something. 

I went with a peppermint theme.

And included a few things that could provide
a pick-me-up on a long day.

I already had the bags and the ribbon.
I printed out the cards on my printer.

From the Files: Tree Bark

Today is a nice day with temperatures in the 40's and no rain - a good day for a walk in the woods. I find the woods beautiful this time of year with the varied silhouettes of the leafless trees. However, I never noticed much about actual details of the bark and branches until a few years ago. Below is a post I did a five years ago looking at the bark of trees in my yard. 

I better get going if I'm going to take advantage of the weather and do some bark examination. 

Until next time.

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A Second Look--January 21, 2015

When Aunt Martha was in college, she was studying to be a naturalist. One day I overheard her talking to a classmate about identifying trees in the winter and using the feel and look of their bark to help with that. My ears perked up because that was a new concept for me. I thought that all bark looked basically the same--gray/brown and rough. At least it did until I took a Second Look. And by golly, there were a lot of differences. However over the years, I still haven't paid much any attention to trees and their bark.  So decades later during these gray days, I thought it was time to take a Second Look at some of the trees in my yard.

Here are some trees and their bark that 

I saw this week  during a Second Look.

Dogwood

Holly

Oak

Juniper

Silver Maple

Pine

Theodore did the bark investigation with me and took some of the pictures.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas!
It's been a hard year for all, so I'm wishing
that for at least a little bit that your day today will 
feel as carefree as I did this day.

Terrariums

 or A Few Cat Proof Gifts

Lucy trying to climb a plant.

I have tried over the years to have house plants without success because of my cats. First, many common house plants are toxic to cats who seem to have this irresistible urge to chew on them. Not good. And I have found even if the plants won't hurt the cats, the cats will hurt the plants. Many a day I have found parts of our houseplants strewn about the house.

I tried planting cat grass just for them hoping they would get their plant fix from that and leave the other plants alone. Nope, they still bothered the other plants along with leaving dirt and grass here and there because they would pull the grass up by the roots. 

Then I started to put the plants into an extra bedroom keeping the door shut at all times. Well, almost always. Occasionally, the door would become unlatched and the cats would have their fun with the plants again.  The main issue with keeping the plants behind a closed door was the "out of sight, out of mind" problem. The plants became neglected and didn't always survive.

Now, enter the terrarium. My kids got me a large cookie jar with some plants a couple of years ago for Christmas, hopefully finding a way for me to have some live greenery indoors. And it has worked! The terrarium is out where I can see it and watch the plants grow. The plants have outgrown the container a couple of times, but I just cut them back and watched them grow again. That has been the only maintenance required. 

So this year in one of the name drawings when I got someone's name who has a cat and likes plants, I decided to make him a terrarium. Then I added a couple of more for my kids and a few just for the fun of it. Below are a few pictures although trying to get pictures through glass with moisture droplets on it wasn't the easiest, but you'll get the idea.

Here is part of my terrarium garden. They move around the living room to different places depending on whether Ward is using the room for exercise. The containers range from the cookie jars I mentioned to jars found in my parents attic to plastic pretzel containers.

This is the inside of one of the gifts. I dug up and planted volunteer begonias out of my yard. They have been growing nicely and had to be trimmed a bit. I added an additional plant that I purchased. The glass mushroom and bee were made by a friend of mine.

This is a terrarium that Theo made in middle school as part of a Boy Scout project. He has had it ever since.  All of the original plants have died except some moss/algae. I put some new plants in and cleaned it up a bit but was careful to leave the imprints of the ferns on the side of the jar that were part of the original planting and grew for many years. The coleus came from one of our outdoor planters and I used new growth that was starting at the base. I purchased the other plant.

This jar came from my parent's attic. We spray painted the lid because it was rusted, but otherwise it has worked well. This was another volunteer begonia that has out grown the container. I plan to replant it soon.

This is a volunteer fern that I dug up out of the yard. It is planted in a plastic jar that pretzels came in. It has been very happy in here and is quickly outgrowing the container. I'm still thinking about what to do next with it. 

This one is for Wally and is filled with more begonias from the yard. It's in another pretzel container that Wally actually gave to us. It was full of peanut butter pretzels from Costco.

And the one that started it all. It houses a combination of things I got out of my yard along with some purchased plants. It's hard to see from this angle, but there are some small, blue, glass birds among the plants that I got from my grandmother.

The Anticipation of Christmas

or Childhood Christmas Memories

Kris suggested in the comments a couple of days ago that maybe I could write about some childhood Christmas memories when I said that I was finding it hard to post every day. Below I'm rerunning a post about just that. This was written after a trip to my mother's house. She had passed away only a few months earlier and we were in the process of going through things. As many of you know, it was a bittersweet process.

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I am thankful for childhood 
Christmas memories.

Our Christmas socks hung on our steps
 since we didn't have a fireplace.

As we have been going through some of the Christmas decorations from my mother's house, I've been thinking about Christmastime when I was a child. Christmas was a magical then. The anticipation of Christmas was very exciting and the whole idea of Santa was so grand it was almost more than I could handle.

The excitement of the Christmas season began after Thanksgiving when the stores started to decorate and the Sears Wish Book came in the mail. I would study the catalog thinking about what I would ask Santa for. Santa was very busy so he didn't always make it to my town, but I would write him letters. When I did get to talk to him, I really did believe that his reindeer were parked behind the store as I was told, although I never saw them.

Each year, I watched the evening news on Christmas Eve because they would report a strange object on their
radar that looked like a sled being pulled by flying reindeer. I did this every year even long after I knew the truth about Santa because that blip on the radar still held its enchantment.

After watching the news and knowing that Santa was on his way, my sisters and I would start preparing for bed. We would take the toaster and bread and butter with us upstairs so we could have breakfast in the morning without going down to the kitchen. We were not allowed downstairs, where the tree was, until my aunt and uncle arrived. As soon as we caught the first glance of their car, we would rush downstairs to see what Santa had brought. He always left one unwrapped present for each of us.

Even though Christmas celebrations have changed over the years and my excitement has mellowed, I can still remember how I felt when I was six years old. And for that, I am thankful.

Christmas Disappointments

 or a Look into Christmases Past with Kris

Kris is a friend to many of us as she is frequent and interesting commenter on our blogs. Today she is my guest blogger sharing with us some of her Christmas presents from the past that didn't work out quite the way everyone had planned. Take it away, Kris.

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Christmas Disappointments

 

Hi, I'm Kris, one of June's long-term readers.  I had suggested to her that she could write about a disappointment she experienced at Christmas and somehow that evolved into my making a guest appearance on her blog. 

 

Childhood disappointment:  I was very young, probably around four years old, when I saw a toy on tv that I had to have.  She was called Tumblin' Tomboy and she was a beautiful blond doll who could do acrobatic somersaults.  I was fascinated and she went on my Christmas list.  On Christmas morning, amid the flurry of wrapping paper, I opened the pinnacle of gifts.  Yes, Tumblin' Tomboy was mine.  My parents added the batteries and she performed her first tumbles successfully.  I was ecstatic.  The second time, however, things didn't go so well.  By the third attempt at a tumble, she clearly wasn't performing like she did on tv.  No matter what my dad (who could fix almost anything, or so it seemed to me) did, she remained without any tumbles.  I don't remember what ultimately happened to her but my Christmas dreams suffered from technical difficulties.

     

My mom's disappointment:  I was probably around 8 or 9 when I decided that I really wanted a Lite-Brite for Christmas.  On my list it went.  I didn't really think much more about it until one day when I came home from school.  On our mailbox was a box, and not just any box.  No, this was a giant-sized box that said "Lite-Brite" on it.  I brought it, as well as the rest of the mail, into the house, grinning from ear to ear.  "Look what was on the mailbox, mom!" I called.  "What?????  I can't believe the mailman left it there.  Well, you're not getting it until Christmas".  While I know my mom was disappointed that the surprise was spoiled, it didn't ruin the pleasure for me.  In fact, I still have it, and my daughter and I have had fun with it in the recent past. 

     

Averted disappointment:  In my teen years, I was poking around in my mom's closet, looking for cleaning rags, when I uncovered a purse.  This was a leather purse that I hadn't seen my mother using.  I suddenly realized that the purse was meant for me for Christmas.  I quickly covered it up, and although it was inadvertent, I felt guilty for discovering it.  I knew how disappointed my mother would be if she knew I found a gift, so I never told her about my discovery.  I received a nice purse and my mom was pleased to give it to me.  Sometimes silence is the best response. 

 

The first two stories have made it into family lore.  What seems disappointing at the time can seem funny in later years.  Have you had any disappointments during the holiday season?  Please join me in sharing your memories.  Thanks for reading and thank you, June, for the opportunity to write. 

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That was fun, Kris, and you've given me an idea for another post about how my mother kept us from finding out what we were getting for Christmas. Thanks for sharing and you're welcome here anytime. 

Sigh

 Whose idea was it to post every day? I think I've hit the Christmas and posting wall. COVID concerns have jumbled all of our potential plans and everything is up in the air. I can adjust to most things except uncertainty. That's where I struggle.

So I'm in a Christmas funk. I am no longer interested in gifts, baking, carols, holiday movies, etc. However, life goes on and I'm going through the motions. You know, the fake it until you make it. 

Yesterday, Ward and I went to Wally's apartment to help him hang some Christmas lights. We also took him a small tree. It was good to see him even if it was a short visit. We sang Christmas carols all of the way there during which I discovered that I don't know the words to all of them as well as I thought I did. However, I'm pretty good at making them up as I go along (which drives Miss Landers crazy. Good thing she wasn't there to hear me).

Saturday night, I decided that we should watch a Christmas movie and chose Miracle on 34th Street which we found on Amazon Prime. However, I spent much of the movie confused. Something didn't seem entirely right. The actors, while familiar, didn't look quite like I remembered. However, the story was right on. After a little Googling, I figured out that we were watching a 1955 version of a TV adaption of the movie. Then it all made sense why Grandpa Horton was playing the love interest. (Grandpa Horton was a long-time character from the soap, Days of Our Lives. He was played by MacDonald Carey.")

Since that show only lasted 40 minutes, we decided to watch another Christmas movie. We chose one randomly from the list and watched a very bad, but heartwarming movie about a widowed dad with a young daughter who wants a happy dad for Christmas. Enter spoiled rich girl who becomes a better person until there is strife because of some lies. But, of course, there was a happy ending. Last night I watched the Sound of Music which was also a story about the softening of a widower's heart by an unlikely love interest, but it was 100 times better than the one the night before. And I got all of the words to those songs right as I sang along. Maybe because I was singing along instead of by myself. :)

Don't ask me why we haven't done it before, but this past weekend we finally did some Zoom calls with relatives. While both Ward and I both have had plenty of virtual meetings for work, we have remained old school with phone calls and emails (and even some snail mail) for our personal communications. However, we finally joined the rest of the world and enjoyed seeing some faces to go with our conversations.

More baking is on the schedule for today, as well as, putting some last minute touches on a few gifts. 

So I will continue faking it until I make it which may be after I totally wake up. Have I mentioned before that I'm not a morning person?

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, December 20, 2020

 I am thankful for playful cats.

I have two elderly cats--littermates who are over 17 years old. They are definitely showing their age and spend most of their days sleeping with occasional howling for us to sit down so they can sleep in our laps.  We occasionally get them new toys which they promptly ignore. However, they surprised us this week and showed a bit of themselves from their younger days. 

Annie was enjoying her morning snooze in a sunbeam as usual.

However, the next minute she was on a stand playing with the peppermints which she dumped out.  Cats do not like peppermint, so that was a surprise. But a fun one to see her take an interest in more than sleeping.

Later that day, she helped Theo with his laundry. Annie has always loved laundry, especially dirty laundry, but she hasn't "helped" us with it for a long time--until today. 

The next day, Annie was taking her morning snooze in the another sunbeam. 

But a little later she was trying to look innocent as she hovered around another basket with peppermints.

And soon she had them all on the floor.

Right where she wanted them for a little fun.

Later, she found a new place to hang out under the Christmas tree. Over the years, we have had various cats who have enjoyed sleeping under the Christmas tree, but not Annie -- until this year. 

Not to be outdone, her brother Leo has been a bit mischievous recently, also (but I don't have any pictures). One morning, he left his sunbeam and was batting around garland. Soon thereafter, we were surprised to see him on the counter eating turnip leaves. He can barely do stairs, so we're not sure how he made it up onto the counter. 

These small examples of kitty play have been very fun for us to watch.  We consider it part of the magic of Christmas and for that we are thankful.

Boxes and such

The walk to Ward's shop has been slippery since the snow
and ice storm we had last Wednesday.

 

Ward has been interested in woodworking for years, but had spent more time reading about it than doing it. That is until recently. Teleworking has added extra hours to his day which has given him more time to spend in his shop. Much of that has been spent setting things up, but recently, he has been able to actually make some things. Most of these are Christmas gifts and I'm going to show you a few of them. As in most many things, I think they are prettier in person than they are in the pictures.

This is a pencil box made from poplar he recycled from a pallet.

This is a dresser top box made from maple and sapele.
The sepele is a fun because depending on the light,
 it forms different patterns.

This is a puzzle box made of oak. There are four different slides
that have to be done before you can get inside.

Inside the puzzle box, he is hiding M&Ms and a gift card.
Now that's fancy, but perhaps cruel, wrapping. 

These are drop spot trays--one for each son.

This is a wooden puzzle that he is making for his co-workers.

Can you tell that Ward likes puzzles?
He's good at all kinds of them.

Note: Few if any people from our families read this blog, so I'm safe in revealing things before Christmas.

Simple Crafting

 or How to Overthink a Craft

The finished product.

A couple of months ago, I heard about a children's memory game made out of wood that I thought I might want to try. The game set was made of round disks cut from a branch and then stamped with pictures to form a matching game. It seemed just about my skill level, especially if I could get help from Ward. I thought I would make a couple of sets for gifts and maybe one for the library.

And then my mind kicked into high gear thinking about the actual construction. First consideration was safety. The pieces needed to be larger than choke size and be made of a non-toxic wood and finish. Luckily Ward knew a lot about finishes, but we still spent a fair amount of time shopping for what we thought would be best. Next, I considered using natural cut wood from a branch, but worried that as it dried over time, it would crack. So we went with a 2" pine dowel. We experimented with thicknesses--thick enough to not break and easy for little fingers to pick up. But not too thick. Then came the hard part--getting pictures on the pieces. I tried stamping, markers, stenciling, ink transfers, painting, stickers along with gluing, decoupaging, and various finishes.

 However, even with all of those methods, I was not happy for various reasons including look, durability, water resistance, etc. In the middle of the experiment, we changed from a pine to a hardwood dowel because the wood grain pattern of the pine competed too much with the pictures. 

A few of the prototypes

Finally, I came upon a workable solution. I used clear address labels which I printed letters onto and then put on the finished disk.  That was covered with another coat of finish. But, of course, it wasn't quite that simple. The hardwood (poplar) didn't finish well, so we switched back to the pine.

Then it was onto making a bag to hold the pieces. What should have been a simple, straight seam project turned into hours of frustration with the sewing machine which was having all kinds of adjustment problems. I was able to get something workable, but the machine needs some serious attention before I use it again. 

The finalized pieces.

So despite all of that, when it's all said and done, I'm happy. It was nice working on a project with Ward and I think the children I'm giving these to can have fun (and learn) from them. It should have been so easy, however that would have been only if I hadn't thought so much about it. Oh, well. Onto the next project.

Until next time when I'll show you some things Ward's been working on.

Note: Fitting in perfectly with the theme of aggravation, Blogger is frustrating me with its formatting and spacing. I gave up on those for today so the post may look a little strange.

Animal crackers

 

Although our tree has been decorated for a couple of weeks now, I put the final touches on it today when I added four boxes of animal crackers. We will have them as treats on Christmas morning. It's much harder than it used to be to find animal crackers in boxes with a handle but Ward eventually found some yesterday.

Below is a previous post that talks about the first time I made the animal cracker-Christmas correlation. And I'm glad I did. 

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Animal Crackers for Christmas

or Now that makes sense.

I ran into a friend the other day while shopping. She was buying Barnum Animal Crackers and I was trying NOT to buy some Doritos. She told me that every year at Christmas, she buys a box of animal crackers for her kids since the crackers originally started as Christmas ornaments. Wow. I had never heard that. I guess that explains the string on the box.

Very curious, I went home (with a bag of Doritos) to see if this story were a piece of lore or truth. Here's what I found out. Animal crackers have a long history starting in England before the colonies were formed. After importing them for several years, they were eventually  produced here. There were various companies involved that eventually merged together to form the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco). In 1902 they started to call them Barnum's Animals from Barnum and Bailey's Circus. That was the same year they had the idea of marketing them at Christmas with a colorful box and string to hang on a Christmas tree. I'm not sure how long the this campaign kept up, but the box, largely unchanged, with it's string is still around over 100 years later.

Guess what Santa is going to bring Ward, Wally, and Theodore for Christmas this year? It will be hanging on the tree waiting for them Christmas morning. A new tradition has begun.

Want to read more?

http://collectibles.about.com/od/advertisingstuff/a/blTFbarnums.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cracker

http://www.foodreference.com/html/artanimalcrack.html

Carolers

Saturday night we were visited by a group of delightful carolers. They were a group of elementary school girls who were all members of GAC--Girls Animal Club. The girls explained that they formed this club because they all love animals and hope to get a pet one day. As part of their mission, they were collecting money for an animal charity if you wanted to donate. They all wore masks, socially distanced, and were very polite. After the group finished singing, they handed us a holiday card they had made. The littlest one (6 or 7) then mentioned that the next-door neighbor had given them all ring pops, but the older ones quickly quieted her.  We didn't have any treats for them, but did donate to their cause. 

Their visit made the evening for Ward and me and many others in the neighborhood. There are some parents out there who are doing something right and we feel lucky to be living among them.

See you tomorrow.

Note: I don't have pictures of the carolers in our neighborhood, so I've linked above to other singing kids that I also enjoyed .

Darkness and Squirrels

Darkness

This morning's sunrise. If you look closely, you can see birds flying past.

We all know that this can be a depressing time of year for many people with darkness falling before it feels like the day should be over. I am one of those people sometimes. But I like the darkness, too. Darkness makes me slow down. Darkness lets me sleep longer. Darkness lets me see more sunrises. And stars. So am I looking forward to longer days? Absolutely. But am I enjoying the beauty of the darkness? I'm trying.

Squirrels

Our old feeders. 

During the light of day, the squirrels have been providing their own kind of entertainment. We had bird feeders set up so that we could see them from our kitchen window. We tried different places, but that seemed to be the best. However, in that spot, the squirrels got to the feeder easily and thus ensued the battle to keep them from eating all of the food. We didn't mind feeding them, but when they were on the feeders, the birds did not come. After various attempts at deterring them using baffles, loud noises, and peppered food, we invested in new squirrel-proof feeders. We've had "squirrel-proof" feeders before that the pesky acrobats have been able to defeat, so a lot of research went into the our latest purchase. So far, the squirrels have not been able to get to the food. But, boy, did they try and that's been fun to watch. However, they have finally given up. Now, maybe they'll visit my neighbor more who puts out food just for them. Hopefully, we will be able to build the bird population that visits us with the squirrels finding their food elsewhere. 

Our new feeders.

In other squirrel news, last Saturday we had a mild day and I used it to do some yard cleanup that I hadn't gotten to earlier. And what did I find? A green tomato buried in the day lily patch. It was about the size of a baseball with a bite taken out of one side and perfectly preserved. I left it where it was, so if the squirrel remembers, he can have a green treat this winter.

Until next time...

 (which according to plan should be tomorrow.)

The Mantle

I'm not sure if I've lost my mind, but I've decided that I'm going to do a post everyday from now until Christmas. It's not like I have extra time on my hands, but this morning it seemed like a fun challenge because, as you know, daily posting is not something I am usually coordinated enough to do.

Today, I'm going to take you on a trip down memory lane with the decorations on my mantle. They all have a story, of course. So sit back and pretend to be mildly interested as I regale you with the accounts of where I got some of them. 

This tapestry was my mother's. She got it from a young woman, Melissa, from our hometown who lived in Thailand for several years doing missionary work. During Melissa's stay, my mother sent her many care packages and letters. My mother was good about that sort of thing. Over the years, she sent out hundreds of care packages to college kids, people in nursing homes, etc.  

(Packing tip that I learned from my mother. Cookies travel well in an empty Pringles can.)

This was made by a close family friend.  She and her husband are renaissance people and can do just about anything they set their mind to. At the time she made this, one of their endeavors was making rustic furniture.

These needlework trees were made by my aunt. They were especially appreciated because they were made after she started to have problems with dementia. 

This Christmas tree was made by Wally when he was four years old. As you can see, it's a pine cone that's been spray painted green, glued into a wooden spool. Most of the "branches" had sequins glued on them for the decorations. There are only a few of those left at this point.

When I was in college I lived in a trailer park. Next door was a lovely couple who watched out for me. One Christmas, they gave this tree, that the wife had made, so I could have some decorations. I have seen these ceramic trees in the stores recently marketed as vintage trees. It's true. Everything old is new again.

This is the Christmas stocking that I grew up with. There were four of them just alike for me and my sisters.  We didn't have a fireplace, so in the beginning they were hung on a window sill. Later they moved to the steps' railing where the made an appearance every Christmas until my mother entered the nursing home. They were always hung from oldest to youngest, but to avoid confusion, my grandmother embroidered our names on the top of them.  (You may notice, I carefully cropped that part out.) I hung this one along with my other one and have told Santa I'd like both of them filled. :)

This tree and its ornaments belonged to my grandmother. She died when I was nine after living with us for several years, but I remember seeing it in her house. Technically, this is not mine, but is supposed to be rotated among me and my sisters. They deferred to me this year.

And in other news, the passing showers we were supposed to have this morning 
turned into almost an inch of rain followed by snow. 
No real accumulation. That is coming Wed.