Monday's Musings

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree....

Our tree is up and decorated. Thanks to our sweet daughter who hauled the boxes up from the storage room in the basement and put the tree up while I was fixing Thanksgiving dinner. 

Stormy is wondering if she can squeeze her plump self in between the branches to climb the tree this year.

Our Thanksgiving Day was very, very nice.  After spending the last several years in Branson eating turkey dinners bought at a grocery store, my family declared it to be the best Thanksgiving dinner they had eaten in a very long time.  Everything turned out yummy and the gravy, which is usually hit and miss with me, was excellent.  I made the salad dressing recipe that my sweet aunt always loved and I thought of her while making it.  Memories of my mother and grandmother, also excellent cooks, were there as I prepared the meal.  Our family is small now, but the love is huge between us and the memories of those loved ones who were once part of our lives are always with us.

We always start our morning on the weekends with a big breakfast.   Our favorite breakfast food is bacon and eggs with toast and some kind of fruit.  

Imagine my surprise when I cracked open an egg recently and a second tiny undeveloped egg popped out!  Of course, I had to grab the camera to record this rare sighting.  I've encountered double yolks several times, but this was a first!  Have you seen this before? 

In other news....

The work continues on The Project.  Slowly, but surely.  We have decided that being finished before Christmas is not going to happen.  There have been a few unexpected discoveries along the way which has created additional work.

The hardwood flooring in the long hallway had to be replaced after discovering the dogs the previous owners had must have been confined to that area.  You know what happens when dogs can't go outside when they need to!  We had tried bleaching and sanding, to no avail.  So, BG replaced all that area with new hardwood and also in the shorter hall where a grate that was no longer needed was taken out.  This was our first experience with hardwood flooring and he did a great job.  What did I do?  Well, I fetched the pieces, measured and marked them for him to saw and kept track of the nail set and hammer for him.  Oh, and picked up and cleaned up the mess. 

The house has an extra room that was enclosed on the upper deck but it doesn't have access to heat.  We weren't sure that the one heat vent in the room next to it would be enough to heat it so we had been looking for an additional heat source.  After researching online and reading reviews, I ordered the little electric stove shown here.  It arrived promptly and we plugged it in and found that it does a very good job heating the room.  The electric meter may be spinning but it will help keep the chill off until BG has time to wire for 220 baseboard electric heat.   It's a cute little stove and has a bulb that flickers giving the look of a real fire.  I have to give mention to Brenda of Cozy Little House for bringing my attention to this stove.  She ordered 2 of them for her home.  I love Brenda's decorating style and she is so helpful to many bloggers.

Another problem we have struggled with is the paint on the new front door.  On one of those warmer days, we painted the door black and that turned into one big mess!  I don't know if it was the roller or what, but there were all kinds of little fibers that made the paint job look like textured paint.  Not pretty!  So, we sanded and sanded and repainted.  Same thing happened.  We don't know what the problem is, but we will keep repainting until it looks right!  Only the weather will have to be warm, so it may have to wait a while.  

I'll be working on getting more Christmas things out this week, but I've already decided to cut back on the decor this year.  The front of the house will only see a wreath on the door this year. 
 


I'm hoping to get back to a more normal blogging routine, we'll see.  I haven't taken many photos lately, but I have a hair appointment to go to this morning so I'll take the Elph along and hope I can find something interesting to snap along the way.  Now, if you've made it this far in this wordy post, congratulations!  You deserve a box of chocolates!!  :-)  

Happy Monday to you!
xo Cheryl