Christmas Wrap up!

Took the tree down this past weekend and attended the last Christmas party of the season. Finally, the cookie crumbs have settled. Now that all the gifts have been opened, I can share pictures of several that I made.

Vintage clear glass buttons make this icicle sparkle!  The buttons are strung on light blue embroidery floss.

This hanging snowman’s hat is actually a rosy color. Made of cotton quilt batting, I sprayed stiffener on the back of it to give it a little more structure.

Here’s a close up:

The Victorian Santa was made for my son. He’s patiently waited years for me to make it for him. I presented him with the basic Santa on Christmas morning and let him go through my bins of trims to choose what Santa would hold. 

I love writing my stories, but creating these items reminded me how much I also enjoy the process and satisfaction of  creating with my hands. Looking forward to 2015, there will be time spent in my craft corner.

Available on Kindle, Nook and iBooks.

Have you signed up for my newsletter? Before writing INTO THE DEEP, I interviewed Jack ‘Preach’ Conroy. The January newsletter will have that interview. If you’d like to know a little more about the man, be sure and sign up here:

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Woodland Theme Fireplace Mantle – Christmas 2014

Imagine my surprise when I saw that I’d already posted a 2014 mantle–a YEAR ago–and no one called me on it. Does that mean I’m not the only one who’s confused about what year I’m in when one is drawing to a close and a new one is on the very near horizon?

Oh, good. I love being in the same boat with such nice people. For posterity – I corrected last year’s post.

This post is truly the mantle as it looks for Christmas 2014.

As usual, I shopped the house, the Christmas tubs and the craft bins to find what I needed. The ‘shopping trip’ included a foray through the gardening shelves in the basement to create this woodland scene. Squint, and the sparkly white garland kinda looks like snow!

The ‘fence’ is an old wood cow stanchion. It’s one of those pieces I love when I find a use for it, but want to get rid of the rest of the year. Thousands of these wood stanchions were burned when the government insisted commercial dairies use steel. I found this stanchion several years ago while yard sale hopping in the boonies of Rhode Island. There was no longer a family cow in the tiny barn so they were selling the stanchion. I snapped it up when ‘prim’ (primitive) was so popular.

 

As you can see, raccoon and bunny were allowed to come into the house proper. Regulars on the summer deck this will be their first Christmas celebration with the family. If they behave they may be invited back.

I couldn’t offend Mr. and Mrs. Mouse, so this year they left the Christmas bin and found a spot on the mantle. Don’t they look spiffy dressed in their Christmas outfits?  (My sister says I have a whole world in my head that no one knows about. Yes. Yes, I do!)

A tatty vintage cardinal looks on from the top fence rail…

… while a gorgeous male cardinal lands center stage in the wreath.

So there you have it. Christmas 2014 fireplace mantle.  I’m thinking it will be hard to say goodbye to.

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You won’t want to miss January’s edition. I’m sharing the interview I did with Jack ‘Preach’ Conroy before writing Book 2 of the SeaMount Series, INTO THE DEEP.  Here’s a sneak peek:
Q: What were you like in high school?
Jack: Justice was served with my fists. Everyone knew my father was the town drunk. I was the kid with the patched jeans.

Available on Kindle, Nook and iBooks.

Q: Who is your closest mundane friend?
Jack: I don’t have mundane friends.

Q: What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

Jack: A sunrise in a place I can’t reveal. I was glad to be alive to see the sun come up. It was beautiful and at the same time, a blessing from the Almighty.

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Out Of The Wilderness: Mothers, Daughters and Quilts

Bits and pieces of the author’s life are sprinkled in every book they write. Often the ‘story within the story’ continues even after the book is finished and in the hands of readers.

In Out Of The Wilderness (SeaMount Series, Book 1), the inspiration for Sophie’s Mariner’s Compass quilt is the Amish Mariner’s Compass quilt Old Roady bought for me in Lancaster, PA. In the novel, this quilt was a gift to Sophie from her mother.

Sophie’s home is also a piece of my life. It’s modeled after my sister’s house. I loved her home. Beautifully decorated and always so welcoming. When she and her husband sold it to follow God’s call into ministry, I was so sad. In my story, Sophie needed a house, I immediately though of my sister’s home.

I didn’t tell her what I had done. Her tearful surprise was just what I’d hoped for. (I love happy tears!)When she moved into this home, she was a widow (like Sophie). She raised two beautiful daughters here which made it easy for me to picture Sophie’s girls on the tire swing in the front yard and running through the house.

The threads of moms, daughters and quilts weave together continuing the story off the page. My sister’s eldest daughter just gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Fallyn Aurora. This is the adorable Owl Quilt (with a close up of the owl) my sister made for her first grandchild. The love that was fostered in that gray ranch house wraps around the next generation.

Perhaps sometime in the future, the story will come back to the page and Sophie will be a grandmother making a quilt for a tiny grand baby.

If you have read Out Of The Wilderness, which of Sophie’s three girls would make the best match for Davie?

Grateful for the Ordinary

The early morning song of a cardinal joyfully greeting a new day.

The soft patter of much needed rain. The drought has ended.

A tearful reminder that God is near and He cares for the grieving and the lonely.

The struggle to do something new.

The happiness that accompanies success.

The smile of a loved one.

Chocolate pudding with whipped cream.

Ordinary moments accumulate into days filled with more gifts than can be counted.

And sometimes we think the day was unremarkable.

There’s no such thing when blessings are acknowledged and gratitude expressed for the gifts – great and small – we have received.

Thanksgiving Traditions

My family celebrates Thanksgiving with a feast that has a traditional New England flavor. The menu includes root vegetables and thick skinned ‘winter’ squash that, in days of old, would have been stored in a cool root cellar.

Turkey with gravy
Bread stuffing
Mashed potato
Butternut squash
Creamed onions
Turnip
Cranberry sauce
Pickles
Rolls and butter

With family members marrying, moving away or returning home, the mix of people may not be the same every year. Occasionally the venue changes, and appetizers are now served before hand. But the main meal menu remains the same. It’s traditional. This is the holiday my family gathers for fellowship and feasting.

After the turkey, we feel like this:

A nice long walk is the cure.

If someone wants to gather greens for Christmas wreaths, we’ll walk in the forest crisscrossed with old stone walls and a tumbling stream.

Other years we’ll walk on the beach. The waves boom as they come ashore and the blustery wind tugs at our clothes. We’ll come home with bits of sea glass, pretty rocks, and sand in our pockets.

All the walking helps settle that large noontime dinner. So once we’re back indoors, it’s time for a turkey sandwich and pie. Actually, I just go for the pie! Half slices of several different kinds, because they are all favorites and I love homemade pie.

I love Thanksgiving.
Family, Fellowship and Food.
I have so much for which to be thankful.

Recipe: Bacon-Cheddar Cheese Ball

Though our Thanksgiving meal is the same traditional menu served when I was a child  celebrating at Grandma’s house, we’ve added appetizers to the celebration. The spread of cold finger-foods keeps the men and kids out from underfoot in the kitchen. Shrimp and cocktail sauce. Corn chips and salsa. Mixed nuts. Cheese ball and crackers. I know, Cholesterol Central. I try to undo a little of the damage with a hefty bowl of grapes.

Bacon-Cheddar Cheese Ball

2 packages (8 oz.) cream cheese – softened
1/2 pound cheddar cheese – shredded
1/2 cup green onions – chopped
6 slices of bacon – cooked and crumbled
1 clove garlic – minced
3 tablespoons pimento (roasted red pepper) – diced
3 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley – minced

Blend all ingredients. Form into a ball. Refrigerate overnight to allow flavors to blend. Serve with crackers.

Okay, so that’s the basics. Here’s a few other notes about the recipe:
1. The pre-bagged shredded cheese doesn’t mix in as well as block cheese shredded on a grater.
2. I use turkey bacon. I know. Why bother? For the same reason I serve the grapes.
3. The ball can be rolled in chopped pecans to make it look pretty. I don’t, because there are family members who can’t eat nuts.
4. If there are any leftovers, the flavor only gets better the day after Thanksgiving. I could prepare this earlier, but for some reason I resist the idea. I want it freshly made for THE day.

Easy and tasty. Enjoy!

Holiday Perfection Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

This is the time of year that I feel like a little kid all over again. I have so many sweet memories of Thanksgiving at Gramma Dinwoodie’s with all the aunts, uncles and cousins – the dining/living room so crowded with people and the extended table, you couldn’t move an inch. The family was loud, the food smelled wonderful and as a child, all I had to do was show up to the feast.

Several of us kids would have to duck beneath the table to get to the sofa on the other side in order to take our place. No one cared that we knocked elbows or could barely hear each other over the din. In the small house Grampa built using the lumber from another house he’d torn down, we celebrated our very own Norman Rockwell and Currier and Ives moments.

No, our table wasn’t beautifully set with matching crystal, silver or candles. An open flame in the middle of this crowd could spell disaster. And the turkey never made it to the table beautifully browned and decorated with parsley and kumquats. It was sliced in the kitchen, loaded on platters and set on the table for passing and fast self-service.

After the feast, when the table had been cleared, we would sit around the fruit bowl, each of us swathed in a turkey torpor, cracking mixed nuts or slicing through the tough skin of a pomegranate to suck on the juicy membrane around the seeds. We didn’t have an internet to tell us how to slice and eat a pomegranate without making a mess, but we had fun – mostly because it was the only day of the year we had a pomegranate at our disposal.

My Thanksgivings are still celebrated with family, but it’s not the huge gathering it once was. Now I’m one of the aunts and there aren’t as many little ones underfoot. But the love and the fun and the fellowship is still part of the celebration. There’s still no expensive crystal and the turkey continues to be carved in the kitchen, but I don’t have to climb beneath the table to find my place and there are lovely place cards at each setting and appetizers to enjoy.

So many happy memories, and all of them have melded with, and some how become attached to, the happiness depicted in Norman Rockwell’s painting and modern media’s idea of a perfect Thanksgiving. I see beautiful holiday pictures in home decorating magazines and immediately feel that warm rush of recognition. My real-life experience jumbles with the ideal depicted on the page to create a fantasy Thanksgiving that, though I may never fully live it, serves to enhance the homey, down-to-earth imperfect perfection of my real-life holiday which is truly a time of thanksgiving.

If you want to see bits of a  fantasy Thanksgiving mingled with the reality , hop over to my board at Pinterest and take a peek.

A Joyful Holiday Tradition

Photo Credit: http://www.visualphotos.com

This time of year the weekly trek to the supermarket is anything but mundane for me. Walking through the automatic doors to see the season’s first display of Clementine oranges is a sure sign that the Holiday Season has begun. Yes, I’ve already seen artificial Christmas trees, inflated Santas and gift items stacked high in other stores. But in the supermarket, where the shelf life for items is shorter, there is a special thrill when the meat section is rearranged to accommodate turkeys, the butter is on sale and the canned pumpkin is stacked on the end cap.

The Holidays truly are here. Preparations must begin in earnest.

I’m so thankful to have the means to buy what I need to make a bright holiday for my family. Not every one is so fortunate. So a part of my holiday tradition is to take some extra cash on this last shopping trip before the holiday so I can put a few extra items in my cart.

What do I do with those items?

For several years now, the local NBC station – Channel 10 – and Shaw’s Supermarkets have teamed up for a ‘A 10 Thanksgiving’. Shaw’s donates the turkeys and Channel 10 puts the word out that collection boxes are set up in the front of every store ready and waiting to receive donations for Thanksgiving dinner fixin’s. The Salvation Army distributes the food to those less fortunate.

Choosing stuffing, cranberry sauce, canned vegetables and biscuit mix from the bountiful display on the store shelves, gives me that special joy that comes from knowing I’ve made a difference for another family. How thankful I am that God has given me the privilege of blessing others out of the abundance He has so graciously showered upon me.

What holiday tradition do you observe that has special meaning to you?

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

A friend’s mother passed away this weekend. The local tradition is to take food to the grieving family so I baked a Sour Cream Coffee Cake. For years, this heavy moist cake has been my family’s traditional Christmas morning breakfast. The last two years, it has also become my go-to recipe when someone is in need of sympathy and comfort. This saves me from looking through recipes, trying to decide what to make, how much to make, and then shopping for ingredients. The process was too cumbersome. With this coffee cake, the only ingredient I have to run out for is the sour cream. All the dry ingredients are in my cupboard and the milk and eggs are in the fridge. When butter is on sale, I purchase extra and freeze it.

1 cup walnuts (optional – I don’t usually include them as some people can not have nuts)
1 & 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
sugar
3 cups flour
3/4 cup butter – softened
1/4 cup milk
1 & 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 & 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 oz. container sour cream
3 eggs
Mix walnuts (if desired), cinnamon and 3/4 cup of sugar and set aside.
Grease and flour a (angel food cake) tube pan.
In a large bowl with mixer on low speed, beat flour, butter, milk, baking powder, baking soda, sour cream, eggs and 1 & 1/4 cups of sugar till blended. Increase speed to medium. Beat 2 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spoon half the batter into the pan and sprinkle with half the cinnamon, sugar and nut mix.
Spread remaining batter and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon, sugar and nut mix.
Bake 60 minutes.

Don’t forget that 1 & 1/4 cup of sugar in the batter. (I did that once – never made that mistake again!)
This cake freezes well. I make it before Thanksgiving, pop it in the freezer then pull it out Christmas Eve to serve the next morning.
Enjoy!