What We Have Been Up To:

Hello.  Sorry that I have been away from here for so long.  Things have been pretty busy around here.  Ken's service was sad but wonderful, with around 400 people present and another 250 watching it online.  My sister Julie and her friends were remarkable.  

I printed out 413 photos through Costco and made three albums, one each for Julie and for Boon and Kaz, (Ken's boys.)  Sometimes, hard-copies are just better than the computer. 

A couple of days before we left to go to Brownsville for the service, Cary and I bought ourselves our Christmas present, a nice electric fireplace from Costco.  (I spotted it when I was picking up the pictures.)  We had been wanting one for a long time, and have enjoyed the ones in the 5th wheel, so we bit the bullet and went for it.  We are really enjoying it, but it trips the breaker, so we will need to plug it in on the other side of the room once we get a good extension cord.

All of us, including Dana and Johnny, 

like the fireplace very much.

One thing led to another to make room for it, and I have ended up doing a lot of cleaning and organizing lately.  The window ledge needs work, but I am letting that go until I start in on decorating for Christmas.

I am trying to un-clutter the walls, and I am getting there, but still have a lot to do.  See all the black picture frames on the entrance wall?  I had those all over the place.  Most of them are in the guest room now.  Making progress, a little at a time.

This is as much as I decorated for fall this year.  I bought these pumpkins and squash at the pumpkin patch with Jeri in October, and they have lasted a long time.

 

I brought in some of the lawn furniture and made a neat little sitting area between the kitchen and dining room.  I really like it.  Johnny sleeps on the love-seat sometimes.  I haven't caught him on the counter yet!

After I was done with the living room and dining room, I started in on the kitchen.  I took all of the pictures off of the fridge and made a collage for the hallway:

 

Then, I began cleaning ...

I rinse out the Febreze sprayers when they are empty, and fill them with 409 and Windex.  They work better and are more comfortable than the other spray bottles (at least I think so).

One thing that I have been really into lately is using canning jars inside of the fridge instead of Ziplocks.  I cannot believe how much longer the food stays fresh, plus the glass keeps the fridge colder.  I decided to keep clean jars on the windowsill to make things more efficient. 

Produce literally keeps for weeks using the canning jars.  I will never go back to the old way.  Plus, doing it this way prompts you to prep ahead of time so things will fit, and it is so much faster to cook when the prep is all done.

I have been sewing and crafting, will be showing you pictures of that stuff soon.  We are going to Eugene for Thanksgiving, so I think that I will be cooking our small turkey today.  

I hope that you guys are all doing well, and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving on Thursday!

Hugs,

Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.