Merry Christmas

Joy, My Wish for You, (and Spam)

I made these ornaments as a young, new bride in 1982. I had just learned to cross-stitch and was looking for inexpensive ornaments for our first tree. We still use them, along with many of the hand crafted ornaments from that first year. Ours is a sentimental tree, not much in the way of glitz and glamor, but very meaningful to us.



Hard to believe I've been using these since 1982!

Is anyone else seeing an increase in spam over the last few weeks? I've never been bothered by it too much since I began my blog, but that has definitely changed. Thankfully it is all on older posts and I have the comment moderation on posts over ten days old. This way I catch the spam but you don't have to be bothered with the nuisance of word verification.

I am also receiving quite a few requests to plug businesses or other business blogs. I consider that a nuisance too. Are any of you getting more of that, and if so how do you respond? It definitely adds to the stress of blogging, not knowing what is legitimate or not. I have been just ignoring those because I don't want to use my blog for advertising. Any comments or suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.

Met Monday- Hurricane Globes

Here is another project I did today. I've seen this on several blogs recently and I just happened to have everything here already. For some reason I have several glass hurricane globes and I have had these glass candlesticks for so many years that I can't even remember not having them.



This was a very quick, easy and fun project to do! I found the center of the globe and marked it with a tiny dot using a permanent marker. I then glued the candlestick to the globe using Gorilla glue. As you can see in the pictures above, my faithful assistant is checking to make sure things were done correctly, or either she was just sniffing the glue!




Here is the finished project! It looks so much nicer adding the little bit of height to the globes. Now I need to find a home for these beauties! I love candles!

I'm also linking this second project to Met Monday, at Susan's Between Naps on the Porch

Blue, Blue Christmas

It is a somewhat blue Christmas for me this year since we are not able to go home to Alabama for the holidays. I'll miss seeing my family and I'll miss the 80 degree temperatures they will be having. That would certainly be a nice change from the ice and bitter cold we have been experiencing here in Indiana.

I sat at the table this morning drinking a second cup of coffee before heading to work and had the wonderful pleasure of seeing two very loud and brave blue jays make trip after trip to the patio to collect all of the peanuts I left for them.

Last winter I fed them acorns from my mom and dad's large oak trees. I was so looking forward to collecting even more this year.



They are such greedy little things! I'll have to ration the peanuts and just put a few out each morning, otherwise they would "eat me out of house and home".

Hopefully they will return each morning to collect their peanuts. If I'm home I'll be sitting there waiting with the camera to catch their antics.

This is one blue Christmas I don't mind having!

Yummy Ginger Cookies

I baked these yesterday for the first time. They were so easy to do and made beautiful, uniform and delicious cookies. Perfect for those cookie swaps or gifts. The house smelled so yummy too!

Yummy Soft Ginger Cookies

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• pinch of all-spice
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water or orange juice
  
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup white sugar reserved for rolling dough.
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water, (or juice) and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the reserved sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly. (The dough is easier to handle if it is refrigerated for a while before rolling.)
   
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

Early this morning I received a call from my neighbor/friend letting me know that I had a great opportunity for pictures in case I hadn't looked outside yet. I was just getting up and had not yet looked out. She was right.



I hate winter, but this is the one thing that happens occasionally here that I wouldn't miss for the world. It is magnificent!



It is called by several names, hoarfrost, white rime ice, rime fog are a few of the names, but basically it's just frozen fog. When this happens it covers everything with sparkling ice crystals.



It is quite beautiful on the grasses.





When the sun comes out the frost glitters and sparkles like diamond dust.


If you all remember, I'm from the south where we rarely got snow, so the first time I saw frozen fog I was beside myself. It was as if God opened the heavens and sprinkled everything with opalescent glitter.





It was even on the single strand of a spiders web.




Lilly loves the snow.









It is absolutely breathtaking to me each time I witness this winter phenomenon. It is now what I think about when I hear the song, Walking in a Winter Wonderland. In fact I was singing that song as I drove around this morning basking in this stunning beauty of God's breath on His creation.

Job 37:10 By the breath of God frost is given:
and the broad waters become frozen.