Citri-Solv Paper

View Through Frosty Window

And The Winner Is

And the winner is Patty. Thank you for leaving a comment.

Face Drawings by The Princess

This drawing was done by my grand daughter in September at age 3 years 1 month.

This drawing was done 3 months later at the beginning of December.

Give Away

Time is running short. The drawing for a give away is January 10 at 10 P.M. Eastern Time.
See the post dated December 26 for details.

Grampy's Gallery

This a photo of Grampy's Gallery. These are pictures that our granddaughter taped to the wall on Grampy's side of the bed. Some were a collaboration between her and Grammy. Some are her own creations.

Finished Scarves

These are the finished scarves that I knit for our two ex step granddaughters who are still a big part of our lives. We will see them to exchange gifts before the oldest one goes back to college
We met them when they were 3 and 7, they are now 14 and 18.

January Second Twenty Ten

As I sit on the sofa watching the snow gently fall, I am reminded that I wasn't supposed to be sitting here in this spot. I was supposed to be sitting on the sofa in my mother's living room 400 miles from here. I would have been doing the same thing, drinking coffee, skimming through a magazine that had been on the coffee table, and watching the snow fall. The difference is that I would have been sharing the moment with mother as we chatted about the latest happenings in our lives. Instead, it is me and Bailey, whom our granddaughter proclaims to be her dog, and Bailey's not talking. But as my husband verbalized yesterday while I was thinking it, we have to stop thinking about what could have been, and go forward.

As it turned out we had one of our best New Year's Days ever. I was out of bed by 6:30 which is sleeping in for me on a day off. At 7:00 I was at the grocery store to buy a pork roast to put in the slow cooker with sauerkraut for our traditional good luck dinner for the New Year. Does it work?????????? I don't know. I suppose I could imagine what things may have been like if we hadn't dined on pork and sauerkraut each New Year's Day. The menu was rounded out with steamed yellow beans, applesauce, baked potatoes (washed and rolled in kosher salt, yum), carrot sticks and raw yellow beans with dip, and apple pie (baked by our oldest daughter) for dessert. A rather monochromatic plate, but the green beans didn't look healthy. Our day was shared with our two daughters, our son in law, our 3 1/2 year old granddaughter, and my husband's brother. We had a tranquil afternoon spending time together and enjoying each other's company, a joy we wouldn't have known had we traveled those 400 miles.

One of the memorable moments of the afternoon was when, for a few seconds, we didn't know where our granddaughter had disappeared to. She likes to play hide and seek. We found her in our bedroom which is downstairs, neatly tucked under the covers holding one of my earrings. When we went into the bedroom, she flicked at the earring and very solemnly said, "I miss my Mommy". When her Mommy went into the bedroom, and said, "I'm right here." She said, "I miss my Daddy". Later in the afternoon she was referring to us a family of hippos. She colors our life like we never could have imagined.

It Wasn't Meant To Be

It Wasn't Meant To Be

We were planning a trip to Indiana, PA. to visit my mother who turned 80 in November, one of my two sisters, four of my six brothers, and several neices and nephews. We decided that we would go from Wednesday to Sunday so we could spend some time at home right after Christmas. My husband got a terrible cold and spent two days in bed, so we postponed leaving until Thursday and planned an early start for our 8 hour 400 mile trip. At 9:00 we were getting gas and a few flakes started to fall. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast, ya, I know, but we wanted to get on the road. By the time we got our breakfast sandwiches, and were pulling out onto the road,the snow was blowing and a truck almost slid into the side of us. We continued a few miles but didn't feel safe on the road, so we decided that the best thing to do was turn around, get home safely, and stay there.

Almost back home.

Watching the snow fall as I worked on a scarf I was knitting for

my ex step granddaughter, and watched Julia and Julia.

Feeling sorry for myself I had a coffee flavored beverage and snacked on graham bug bites.

East Coast Blizzard of 2009 December 19-20

The East Coast Blizzard 0f 2009

Here in Connecticut, we didn't quite get the blizzard that everyone else got on the East Coast, but we did get about 15 inches of snow. And it came on the week end so we don't have a snow day to make up at school.

Christmas Around the House

Christmas Around The House

I thought I would share some pictures of Christmas at our house.

Tired Dogs
Reflection Of The Tree
Except for the crooked top a perfect tree.
Candy Cane Soldier by Diane Little
Sly (a Charleen Kinser creation) Guarding the Stockings
North Pole Village
Santa Hats

When I was talking to our granddaughter on the phone and said, Ho, Ho, Ho,

she wanted to know if I was wearing

my Santa hat. Christmas was so very magical for her.

A Small Poinsettia For A Small House
Creating A Gingerbread House With Closest Beast (a Charleen Kinser creation)Looking On

Country Santa, an original creation.

Christmas Moose

This Year's Christmas Cards

Christmas Card

This is our Christmas card for this year, a collaboration between Grammy and granddaughter. This was a actually painted last year, but used for this year's card. We hope to make it a tradition.

Making Cookies 12 19 09

Making Christmas Cookies With Aunt

I have a private family blog for staying connected with family and posting family photos, and don't usually post family photos on my Melange. But this was such fun, I thought I would share these photos. Our granddaughter was having a sleep over and I had bought cookie dough to make cookies. When I asked her if wanted to bake cookies, she said, "No, my Daddy told me I can't bake cookies". Later whe was upstairs with Auntie, and Auntie said, "I want to bake to cookies" and the response she got was, "me too".

And so it started out with a, "Grampy, look, we're baking cookies!"

And ended up flour hand prints everywhere.

Snow Day December 9 2009

Castle For A Princess and A Give Away

Give Away

I created this blog on February 3, 2009 so that I could participate in my daughter's blog ( http://www.inspirationflirtation.blogspot.com ) challenges. She has since gotten busy with other things and hasn't posted recently. According to my blog count this will by my 100th post. As I have seen with other blogs this is cause for a celebration and a give away. It has been a while since my last post for a few reasons: I have been busy with the holidays; I have been spending as much time as possible with our granddaughter, I have a day job which because it is teaching also translates into a night job; but most of all I couldn't decide what to give away. I would like it have been something that I made, but if I wait for that to happen, it could be next year before I post again. So in the interest of of moving on, I decided to give away the book pictured below. It is Making Gifts With Rubber Stamps by Sandra McCall. And if you are not a rubber stamper, the ideas can be used with other media. I will do a drawing on January 10, 2010 for the book. I will put every one's name into a hat and have my husband draw the winning name. To be eligible please leave a comment on this post with your email. If you are the winner, I will contact you for a mailing address.

A Castle For A Princess

At a recent visit to Barnes and Noble I found a book on craft ideas for a princess.

I had put the book on the stairs to take it upstairs before my granddaughter could see it since I wanted to collect supplies so that I would have what we needed when she saw the book and wanted to make something. Well, she spied the book before it made it up the stairs, but luckily we had the supplies for the project she wanted to make, a castle for her 3 inch high set of princesses. And of course the princesses needed a prince which Grammy drew with a pencil and glued to a piece of a paper towel roll. Our princess wanted him left as he was, no need for coloring. This has provided countless minutes (we don't do anything for hours yet, although this comes close) of entertainment, as the princesses change clothes a few times, go to to ball, get married, and then do it all again.