A Blessed Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to write a little about the blessings of my 2009 Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful day! Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work, but wouldn't be Thanksgiving without that. Over the last few years, our Thanksgivings have rather gone through some transformations. Once the birdies fly the nest, things get interesting, don't they? Two years ago, our youngest daughter was married 4 days before Thanksgiving, so she was away on her honeymoon, so we traveled to our oldest daughter's house for Thanksgiving after having a early Thanksgiving with my husbands side of the family the day before so we could have dinner with his sister, who came from Houston to attend the wedding. Last year, we had some sickness go through the family, so the holidays were yet again a little different. We went to my nephew's house for Thanksgiving Day, and we ended up having Thanksgiving over a week late with our immediate family!
This year,we had such a wonderful day, all my kids, their spouse/spouse to be and my little JR (where he is, is where I am going for the holidays!). What I love, is how we all get along so well- the kids, the inlaws, all JR's grandparents! We had a blast. The families have gotten so big, that we will not ever get to be with everyone, but we have all split off to enjoy our own Thanksgivings! We occasionally do early celebrations to "get everyone in"! Why limit the holdiday to just a day, right?
There is always so much to be thankful for faith, family, friends, a home, food, our jobs, our health. Hope everyone had a wonderful day!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him Above Ye Heavenly Host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

An Advent Tablescape!

I decided to celebrate Advent with my new tablescape. I put some Christmas wreath around my advent candles.



I like to celebrate the anticipation of the Lord's coming! Candles are one of the best ways!
I played around with the lighting and the settings on my camera- happy with how the pictures turned out.
The little angel reminds me of my grandson!! The face is a deadringer!
I bunched up the tablerunner- liked the effect. The little egg shape in the advent wreath is a miniature manger scene.

I had taken all the pics, when I thought- I am going to add a little more color- added the flowered china salad plates The cool napkin rings were given to me by my sister!This is the last pic of the tablescape! I think it is my fav so far (aren't they all?)
Check out www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com for more great tablescapes!

Food, food and more food!!

Let me tell ya- it is nice having a full, and I do mean FULL freezer. How many people live in this house? Well, now I have enough for a small army. Why do I have so much food even though there are only 3 of us here now? About 3 or 4 years ago, I began a slow journey of trying to eat better. (Always had an interest in natural, organic food but-- I am really a junk food junkie at heart). Anyways, I got involved in several co-ops and it just so happens that chicken, beef and turkey co-ops were in the last few days. (Who would have thought that making your own bread would lead to all this?) We never know when an order is going in, so I buy as much as I can. ((Just one turkey for Thanksgiving). So, I bought 30 lbs of natural chicken breast, 5 whole chickens and at the last minute we got a deal on whole roasters $1.05 a lb!! I got 8 more). The beef order (grass fed fairly local) I had originally passed up, but someone backed out of the order and I took their part 1/4 of a small cow- about $4.00 a lb. So, I am stocked! It is nice to know I don't have to worry about food for awhile- just electricity!! Now, I am going to concentrate on stocking up on other things- I just think it is a good idea to get the best price on things that you use constantly. Another challenge- I have to really, really get better at menu planning and not being lazy about cooking!! I sometimes just get so tired of cooking and cleaning up (no dishwasher) but hubby has been helping me a little more- love the no dishes in the sink action, and let's face it- nothing is better than waking up to a clean kitchen- so that keeps me going and really- it doesn't take that long when you think about it. After picking up my turkey at my friend, Chris' house (she is the super duper co-op queen! Thanks, for all the hard work, Chris!) I stopped at Publix for my husband and decided to go ahead and get my Thanksgiving stuff. I really don't feel like spending any more money on food for a looonnngg time!

It's Turkey Time- Tablescape Thursday!

Hi All!

Another fun time doing my tablescape for Thanksgiving. I kept some stuff from last week and added my beloved Turkeys! I still have artwork that my son made in kindergarten (he is 21 now!).Anyway, it was a lot of fun since I won't be home for Thanksgiving. I don't know about you- but keeping a tablescape up, just makes my whole house seem decorated and even hubby likes it and best of all, like I have said before- NO JUNK stashed on the table. Hope you have fun looking! Be sure and check out Between Naps on the Porch for more great tablescapes.
(Also, if you watch Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee on the Food Network, she does a Tablescape every show- so much fun- and her recipes are good too!)
Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!! We do have so much to be thankful for. Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow...

Dawn
My signature "fake" table runner (I may never buy another table runner!)

This little guy is an hors deouvres holder with little holes for the toothpicks on his feathers
Don't you love candles? I bought some new ones at JoAnn's 1/2 price- I am also a freak for salt and pepper shakers- I have at least 4 sets on this table! I love my little turkey candleholders too!
I got these cute little pear plates at "the Tree" - you know where. The green plates were my grandma's. I have never used them!
I couldn't give up the pumpkins totally yet
If you enlarge the pictures a bit you can see the center piece is a turkey flower basket.Got the gravy boat ready too!

After taking all the other pictures, I decided to move the tapers- to spread out the candles a bit

My 4th Entry for Tablescape Thursday!

It was a lot of fun redoing my Tablescape for this week. You see, I wasn't done with the pumpkins (love 'em) so I just changed it up a bit from last week. (Some of the pumpkins were done with me though!) Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking as much as I enjoy doing this- I feel like I have company coming whenever I do a tablescape, so it is a lot of fun. (BTW, my daughter was over last week and said oh, I love it! (last week's) and she is quite the little holiday decorator, so I was happy!)


Never enough candles!

A new addition- cool white bowl of pumpkins-
and my grandma's candy dish with some little pumpkins
I used cream colored dinner plates with a clear one set on top of the leaf (I am such a copycat!)



and my cute little JoAnn's 70% off pumpkin teapot! I love it!


Have a good week and check out Between Naps on the Porch's blog for more Tablescapes!

A Titanic Moment

First a little background, before today's post- Last year, on November 13, 2008, my daughter was scheduled to have my grandson via C-section. So, on November 12 (and a few days prior) we were running errands, going for Ultra Sounds and what not. One of the errands was to pick up a co-op order from my friend who lives just a mile or so away. I was headed to her house as I was calling her. No answer, so I turned around to go back to the house- we were going to wait for my friend to call and then get some lunch (as I recall!) Well, as I pulled into my driveway, my friend calls- very pregnant daughter says- I am going to run in and use the bathroom, I said ok, I will wait for you. Told my friend I would pick up my stuff in a few minutes. Then I thought- I better go and use the bathroom too. So I ran in very quickly and we went back out to the car. "I guess we left our purses in the house"- then a sickening feeling came over me- I knew I hadn't taken my purse in the house- I left the car running and everything. Our purses were stolen! My poor daughter just broke down and cried hysterically. Her camera, her diabetes kit, her wallet (our purses were Coaches -Ebay splurge and outlet splurge!) I had just cashed a $100 check for my son, my wallet, a disposable camera, a Coach zipper purse, rosary beads, make-up- you name it- our lives were in our purses. We called the cops and they performed their CSI duties (sounds more exciting saying CSI- they fingerprinted and that was about it.) The next day we were overjoyed at the birth of my little grandson of course, but we never got our purses back or anything...until...
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009 (almost a year later) we were taking little grandson to get his first haircut at the Mall (my friend is a hairdresser in the JC Penney's salon). While I was waiting for my daughter to pay- I listened to my voice mail from a call marked "Private" that had just come in. My jaw dropped to the floor! It was a Deputy Sheriff saying he had some of my property that I had previously reported stolen. Yep, they found the purses. I called him back and he said that the purses were ruined they had been submerged, but to come and get them if I wanted to. If I wanted to? Well, curiosity was about to kill me- of course I wanted to get them. The next day, I went down to the Property and Evidence Section of the Pinellas County System. Gave the lady my claim number and then she handed me my driver's license and my insurance card. That was it! I said, well where are the purses? Apparently, they hadn't been "released" so she called the deputy and he released them since there was no way there could have been any prints for evidence. They were in one of those big evidence bags and they were not pretty. Not pretty at all. The first thing I noticed was this ribbon my daughter had tied on the front of hers in memory of her little neighbor who had died of cancer a few months before. It was kinda eerie looking at those once beautiful purses. What was left? What was in them? I couldn't wait to get those nasty, mildewy, snail ridden purses home to investigate. (They were pretty bad, so I didn't want to, well, I wanted to, open them in the car, but thought I would wait until I got home and could properly delve into the ruined bags ie: with some rubber gloves on!) Got home, got the gloves on- took my scissors to cut open that huge evidence bag. (ok, I don't get the chance to use the word evidence that much!) Here is where it got weird- I felt like the little old lady- the 101 year old Titanic survivor- from the 1997 movie. (For those of you who haven't seen the movie 20 times like I have- the star in the movie, survived- and 80 some years later was contacted to view things that were taken from the cabin that she was in). Digging through the stuff was like taking apart a time capsule from our past. Oh, there is my wallet- and a spider crawled out of the rosary box- the rosary rusted and broken. Wow,the thief left me .07! Most of my stuff was in DD's purse- her camera was there, her diabetes kit and she had some gift cards- the Babies R Us one had $9.80 on it. Her wallet had seen better days. Her purse was full of dirt and leaves. Oh, did I tell you they found it in a ditch, or I guess we are assuming it was a ditch- could have been woods, but a lady a few miles away from here- I guess called the sheriff''s- they made it sound like it was near her house somewhere. I decided that I was going to clean up the wallet- I washed it out- used some Clorox Anywhere spray and some Odo Ban and hung it on my clothesline for a few days- believe it or not, I recommissioned it- it is in my purse now- resurrected- visiting my "now". Let's face it, a lot happened in this past year! The last time we saw these purses and their content, our precious JR wasn't even born yet and now it seems like he has always been with us. Our purses are now like relics- oh, I forgot- there was also a Confession prayer card with a picture of our Lord on it. I really, really hope that whoever stole these purses needed the money in a very desperate way. I had a feeling we would get them back, but...

Thrifty finds!

I went to the Salvation Army yesterday- it was one that I don't get to too often, so I had to on my way home from a family lunch. I found 4 Christmas glasses .39 each some stemware for .59 each, a white pitcher, a milk glass type fruit dish, and a silver soap dish! Go me! And today I had Bath and Body Works coupon, so I picked up a couple stocking stuffers and then I took my 2 JoAnn coupons and got a sweet little white pumpkin teapot for 70% off and a sewing mag for 40% off and a cutting mat for my scrapbooking table. I didn't do bad. I can't be spending too much with my daughter's wedding coming up!! (More blogging on that later, I am sure)

Pumpkins, Pilgrims and Leaves- oh, my!

I really like pumpkins so I decided to do a pumpkin tablescape- I threw in a few pilgrims that I have as well. Above is a leaf plate with candle- the candlering is from Big Lots. Below is a pumpkin that I made a topper for.

I just love the taper candles- I don't burn them very often though. The napkins (from thrift store) in the (Dollar Store) glasses with the (Dollar Store) napkin rings look better in person.

Again, I used a fake tablerunner- just folded up some fabric- works great!
It wouldn't be Thanksgivig without the Publix Pilgrim people.



I think next time I will use flatware, but through the week it gets kinda knocked around!
I have to learn how to link to a post the right way, but visit www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com for more great Tablescapes. I am doing mine a bit early this week because I have family in town and wasn't sure when I would be able to do it. Have a great week.