Monthly Archives: October 2019

Autumn Daze

 

We are smack dab in the middle of Autumn.  It seemed we were living in forever Summer with the temperatures rising to the eighties into October, but, finally, it’s beginning to feel like the season.

We attended the funeral of our son-in-law’s mother.   Nothing makes you think of your own mortality more than a funeral of a peer.   She was only one year older than me and had a lot of living to do, but it was not to be.   The funeral was nice as funerals go. Her sister gave a wonderful tribute to her and had us all laughing at things that had happened to her sister.  She got out of bed once and her robe sash brushed her foot and she thought it was a mouse and she proceeded to run into the wall and knock herself out.  Her husband said, after he knew she was okay, if it was alright for him to laugh.    Her eight grandchildren were the pallbearers.

Our two youngest were at the end.   She would have loved to have seen them all together.  She will be missed.

So today we left church and got a bite to eat and took a tour of our own through a town just north of us that has decorated itself for Halloween.  This town has some really beautiful older homes also.

Can you see the witch and her “bubbling” cauldron?

What’s this on the roof?

A fisherman spending a beautiful Autumn day

I was loving the color many of the houses were painted. No white or taupe houses here.

We loved this gate and fencing.

I just liked the barn quilt on this house.

Several skeletons sitting on a lounge.  Why not?

Not sure what these two are supposed to be.

This house has a real spider problem!

This skeleton is waving at passers-by from a front room window.

Most Indiana towns have a court house and this one was very majestic.

It was so fun to see all the decorated houses and  then we

came back to our house that has a few decorations of its own.

 

We have wooden jack-o-lanterns that David made years ago. We had driven through the finger lake area in New York and saw some in a store that were kind of pricey and David said he could make some and he did.  I don’t have a picture of them here, but you can kind of see them on the porch.  We also have orange lights strung in the front of the porch.   Everything looks so dry in this picture. We finally had a day of rain and it looks better now.

We’ve been to another soccer game and the boys have their tournament this Saturday.

Hope the skies will be as beautiful as they were at this game.

Do you decorate for the season?  I find the seasons are changing so quickly now, it’s hard to keep up, but I try.   Here are some of my seasonal quilts I ‘ve made.

I think this is a Country Threads pattern that they sold years ago.

I made this when we had a fabric store.

I made this quilt as  copy of an old doll quilt I’ve had since I was a little girl.

I just completed this quilt this week. It was a doozy to make with over eighty small pieces in each block. I made a smaller version than the pattern called for and will use it as a throw on a couch or chair.  I really love this quilt and would like to make it in Spring colors.

I just ordered another quilt book. I need it like I need a hole in the head, but there was a couple of quilts in it I would like to make. I ordered it from Country Threads which you can find on Mary Etherington’s  Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog.

I hope you are enjoying the cooler Fall weather. I see that some parts of our country are getting lots of snow.  We won’t be far behind.   Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning the Refrigerator

Cleaning the refrigerator is on my top five list of things I hate to do.  This is them in order…

1. Cook  I hate to cook.  I hate all aspects of cooking from the picking of ingredients, to choosing a recipe, to cooking the food and then, there  is the cleanup.  My mother was the best cook in the world, but I know she didn’t love doing it.  I learned a lot from her  mostly from watching her as she bustled around the kitchen.  I was in charge of cleaning up most often. Especially after my older sister married. The cleanup was left to me. I’d rather wash and dry dishes than cook.   I took Foods in 4-H and my remembrance of it was me in the kitchen crying and my mother yelling at me from the other room that I could do it.   I baked so many yellow cakes one Summer, my brothers would moan when another one appeared at the table for dessert. Now baking I don’t mind so much.  I will gladly bake a cake at the drop of a hat, but fix a meal, ugh, no. Don’t confuse cooking with baking. They are very different and charm the senses in very different ways.

2. Clean the refrigerator.  This is a chore best done when no one is around so no one will hear any curse words, but it is nice to have  a husband to know how to put it all back together again after you have disassembled it.  I wasn’t planning to clean the refrigerator today, but I watched  Hoarders on tv this morning and after I washed some eggs and was arranging them in the refrigerator, I realized something sticky and red had been spilt on just about every shelf and on the walls.  Some of the refrigerators on Hoarders are pretty nasty. I’m not here to judge, but rotten food and expired food is not what I want in my refrigerator. Anyway, I washed one shelf, realized the next shelf needed cleaning and before I was all through, I had every shelf out of my refrigerator and had washed just about everything. There was a bit way in the back I couldn’t reach, but thankfully, David did that when he got home.  Now it’s all clean for another year or two.  Just kidding.  I had scrubbed my kitchen floor this morning and had to reclean it and that’s another reason.

3.  Attend Funerals  I have attended quite a lot of funerals in my life. I’ve buried grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, a brother, a nephew, and friends.  My son-in-law’s mother passed away this week after a long illness.  She was such a wonderful lady, loved by everyone who knew her.  She’s just a year older than me and makes me think how near I am to death’s door. I’m at the stage of my life now that I know more dead people than living ones.   I always want to go to funerals out of respect, but I am a very horrible comforter.  People usually end up comforting me.  This will not be an easy funeral to attend. What ones are?

4. Dust.  My house has to get pretty dusty for me to dust. My rule is, dust before company and rest the rest of the time. Enough said about that.

5.  Go to parties.  I am not a party animal although once I get to one I enjoy myself usually.  I always feel like people are trying too hard to have a good time and I’d rather be home reading a book.  But that’s just me.  Some people are just gregarious.  I’m not.  I’m the one sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else and that is all I’d rather do.

I know there are other things I don’t like to do, but these are my top five.   I’m pretty easily entertained and don’t expect much from people.  I love gardening, taking care of my chickens, playing with my dogs, traveling, reading, quilting, knitting and painting(not pictures, walls.)   I love to visit with family and friends which we don’t get to do often.  I don’t consider going to funerals as visiting even though I will see several people I don’t see often.

Do you have a list of things you just hate to do, but have to be done? We all have to do things we don’t like and I’m glad there are only five on my list. I think I’m pretty fortunate in that way.  Bye.