Stay Calm

Good morning. I have to thank you all for the sweet comments on last week's post because I almost took it down. Later, I got to re-rethinking the post, wondering if I had been too edgy. I began to think that I had come across pretty whiny and negative and then I began reading your comments and felt better. I think ElizabethD at Simple Live in England said it best, a longing for the old days before commercialization of the holidays took over. I was beginning to feel better, so I left the post up. I love you for your understanding and allowing each other to go over the edge upon occasion. Not very often, every once in a while when needed. I didn't intend for it to be edgy, but as I rethought it, I was on the line.



We traveled to northeastern Colorado for the weekend, a quick trip over night trip to our friend's annual Christmas party. Sherry spends weeks getting her house ready and baking and cooking and always has the most wonderful party. We haven't gone for several years because I was always grading final essays at the end of the semester. It is also very hard for both us to get way with the horses and hens. I asked the neighbor to look in on the hens since it was so cold and she sent her little boys over who declared to her that the hens were fine, but hungry so they fed them and collected the 3 eggs, taking them home with them. She scolded them for taking the eggs, but they explained to her as I had told them before when they helped me, if they gathered the eggs they got to keep them. The boys are 8 and 6. Such cute little guys.

For little hostess/Christmas gifts I made Sherry and her husband these little apothecary jars. They are very simple to make and I am getting better. I buy the jars at thrift stores and wash them in ammonia so that they sparkle. I discovered that since the bottoms are not level I can glue the little times to a Kerr jar lid and then glue the lid tot the bottom of the jar and they stay in place and travel nicely. I need to take a better photo of the snow man. Daughter Jen has been making them out clay--the kind that needs to be baked. They are so cute. Sherry feeds the wild birds and enjoys watching them and Dave is the wheat farmer, so they each have their own little snow globe.







It is a two hour drive to Haxtun, so I took my crochet with me and made this little hat on the drive down for Lily. It was supposed to be for her mom, but it is a little small. I had the flower on hand. She loves pink. I have the pattern is you'd like it. I took it from Pinterest and took a photo of it on my iPhone so that I didn't have struggle with a printed paper copy in the car. It's is a very short, simple pattern so it all fit on one image.







While waiting for the curtain to go up for last performance of the season of the The Nutcracker, we enjoyed watching the auditorium fill and listening to the orchestra warm up . Lucy is our little ballerina. The performance was spectacular. The young dancers are so well trained and the professionals who come to dance with them are amazing. It was a bravo evening.
Today I am relaxing, as much as one can just before the Santa party. The invitations have gone out to the children and I am sure they will be on their best behavior for their special pre Christmas visit on Sunday. In the meantime I have laundry to do, floors to sweep, baking to begin and more shopping.

Thanks so much for visiting. I am way behind in my visits, so I will try to catch up this week during my quiet moments.

Stay calm and enjoy the season.

Linking with Normandy Life for Mosaic Monday.