Celebrating Fall

One hundred ninety-six miles later and we were home again where I found this beautiful card from Kari waiting for me. It's so gorgeous and the photo doesn't quite do it justice. Thank you so much, Kari! I simply love it. Imagine it perched in my header because that's where it is between the posies and the pumpkin.

This is going to be such a photo rich post that I will try not to make it text rich as well. Here's the basic story...John felt that the foliage would be better north of here so we struck off for Rangeley via

's hometown. You'll see the theater where he got his start and a picture of the Municipal Office. (No, I don't know him, but I know a number of people who do. It's a two degrees of separation thing.)

A detour high on a ridge provided some of my favorite pics of the day of wagons and mums and pumpkins. We stopped to pick up Italians at Jack's and then went to Sandy River for a picnic. We climbed through the forest to find the old swimming hole where I used to allow my children to jump thirty feet for a dip...ackkkk!

The foliage was much better north of here and, because of construction on Rt.4, we were able to enjoy it even more. We hadn't realized that Rt.4 is a dead end at a boat marina on Rangelely Lake, but we found our way again past Suzanne's vegetable stand over Height of Land and then made our way home. Basically, we traveled in a big circle. The day ended with ice cream, as all perfect days do, and the local Farmer's Market.

We had a fun day! Thanks for looking at my pictures. You may click on any to enlarge. Since Blogger is really smoking after all this uploading, I may not post for a few days, but I'll be around to visit you soon.

ETA on August 17, 2016: This is the first selfie we took and perhaps the only selfie. And, for the record, I had no idea it was called a "selfie" way back in 2008. I didn't like this photo much then, but it has grown on me since. We took so few photos together...less than a dozen.

Blogroll Fun

Say, I don't know what's going on with my blogroll, but I love it! I didn't do anything different to it since I first set it up the new way a few days ago (except for changing the font colors) and now, as of yesterday, I have these wonderful little pictures. It has been quite distracting sometimes, I confess, but what's not to love about being enticed by such lovelies?





l–r Penny, Lovella, Teresa, Miss Mari-Nanci


I have been highly distracted since visiting Melissa's 20 Things to Treasure in Autumn, too. Oh my! The beautiful blogs out there. They go on and on forever! I've just reached my own name on the list and hope to get to all who participate. Speaking of which, dear ones, Melissa says that anyone can keep right on signing up. So do it if you're at all interested. I think that I've found something new on every single list.

We're off today for a leaf peeping tour and a #14 from said list. Hopefully, I'll have some good pictures to share before week's end.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Final Blooms of Summer

This is a blatant rip-off of a photo that was posted at Turkey Feathers called September Days. I loved that photo so much that I tried to emulate it in some small way.

Busy Tuesday, you have a great one.

Twenty Little Things to Treasure in Autumn

Melissa has been sponsoring 20 Little Things to Treasure in Autumn at The Inspired Room. Though I'm late to the party, it's been fun to pull some thoughts together.

1. Autumn colors — the crimsons, yellows, and oranges that fade to russets, golds, and coppers
2. Fresh, crisp air
3. The scent of burning leaves and woodsmoke
4. Cozy bedding — quilts and fleece blankets and sheets
5. My favorite flannel nighty
6. The opening of the tree canopy revealing views lost for months
7. Long walks through fallen leaves — swish, swish, swish
8. Apples, pumpkins, and the gathering of harvest foods
9. Reading beneath a throw while curled up on the sofa
10. The slant of light that enters the house from a sun now lower in the sky
11. ***Hot drinks sipped by candle glow in the longer evening
12. Baking the first apple pie and the first pumpkin pie
13. Fryeburg Fair Day
14. An autumn picnic
15. A hayride to the top of Hall's Hill where we can view the foliage and the White Mountains while the harvest moon rises
16. Mums, glorious mums
17. Farmer Whiting's Market
18. Christmas Fairs
19. The little ones on their way to school chattering like squirrels
20. The honking of Canada geese on their way to warmer climes

Source 

Source 

***

Pumpkin Spice Mocha

Ingredients per cup:
* 2/3 cup coffee
* 1/3 cup cream or half and half
* 1 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 TBS Splenda or sugar
* 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
* Whipped cream for top, if desired

Brew coffee and add remaining ingredients. May need to reheat in the microwave for desired temperature. Garnish with whipped cream, if desired.

Have a wonderful Monday and don't forget to visit Melissa!

Give Me Jesus

In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, give me Jesus...

So many have experienced the storms of life this past week, both figuratively and literally. Brin of My Messy, Thrilling Life posted this powerful video of Hurricane Ike images. It was made by her uncle. "Give Me Jesus," sung by Fernando Ortega, is playing in the background. Perhaps the song is based on Philippians 3:8 where it says "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

It's good to know that things don't remain bleak forever.

Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
~Psalm 30:5


Source

My prayer for all the victims of the storms has been that the Lord will restore what has been taken away.

Have a blessed Sunday and a blessed beginning to a brand new week.

("Give Me Jesus" has been added to my playlist just for the weekend. ETA: Nope, longer!)

(Comments are off.)

1939 Saturday Evening Post

Visiting Nan yesterday afternoon, I noticed this old magazine and, after chuckling my way through it, requested permission to borrow it so that my readers might have a few chuckles, too. Nan's parting words, "Okay, but I want it back!" Not surprising since she's been saving it since she was thirty years old. She's too cute.




Here's the back cover...


Now doesn't that just sound appetizing filling one's tummy up with a bunch of air?




Hmmm, oatmeal never did that for me!



Isn't this ad for Cornflakes bright and cheery?



A fairly straightforward approach in advertising. Ha!



Hmmm, a bread diet never did that for me!



Eat all the hot dogs you want?!!! Oh boy!



Right, just what I've always wanted to do.



Ominous and disturbing...




I want this fridge! I'm not kidding! I love it!


I've saved the best one for last. This one had me laughing so much that my grandmother was worried about me. Maybe I was just tired.


Socially acceptable? Hahahahahahaha...


Have a great Friday and thank you for not reminding me that yesterday was Thursday when I told ya'll to have a good Wednesday. I love Bloggers!

Tagged

I have been tagged by both Nanatrish and A Woman Who Is to share 6 small/unspectacular quirks about myself and to tag 6 others. If you're reading today and would like to play along, please consider yourself tagged. Then please let me know so that I can visit and read your responses!

Okay then, here are mine:

1. This doesn't strike me as particularly quirky, but my groom finds it unusual. I usually pick up dropped items with my toes.

2. I refuse to mow my lawn in neat, tidy rows. There's always some sort of undulating pattern going on.

3. My hair is looking mighty unusual these days.

4. Clothes are not kept in closets around here. They are hung up in the laundry room. The laundry room is also used as a dressing room of sorts.

5. Apparently, I've given up television as I haven't watched more than an hour or two in four months.

6. We drive a mile and a quarter to the cemetery to walk a mile and a quarter and then we drive back.

7. We have been known to drive into an ice cream shop while still holding the cone from the last ice cream shop a few miles up the road.

8. I've fed my groom slop/goop almost every day since we married.

9. I'm partial to flip-flops as footwear. I wear them right through the year. (See item #1.)

10. Rosemary (the plant) gets many caresses from me every day.

11. I'm worried about the tree across the street falling on a pedestrian or on my roof, but I won't call the town about it.

12. Variety is very important to me in meals and decorating. (Don't look at item #8.)

There! That's six for Nana Trish and six for A Woman Who Is. Thanks, Gals, for tagging me. :D

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



Now I'm off to make those Apple Bars from Mennonite Girls Can Cook (and how!).

Have a great Wednesday, Everyone!

Take Two of Raspberry Clafouti and Molasses Crisps

Goodness, what is Blogger doing to my pictures? I mean, it was bad enough when we were eating the goods, but they must be fantastic to have Blogger eating the mere images. ;>

Anyway, here's yet another photo and I'll toss in the Molasses Crisps recipe for good measure even though no one has asked. :D



Molasses Crisps

Ingredients:

* 1 cup butter
* 1½ cup sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 egg yolk
* ¾ tsp salt
* 2 cups flour
* 1 to 2 tsp powdered ginger based on preference
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1/3 cup molasses

Method:

Cream butter (room temp) and sugar for 2 minutes and no longer. Add 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, and salt.

Whisk together flour, powdered ginger, and 1 tsp baking powder. Add alternately to creamed mixture with molasses.

Roll into balls and roll in coarse sanding sugar (regular also works).

Bake at 350° for 12 minutes. (Do not overbake as these are a crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside cookie.) Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing to racks.

For those of you who are even thinking about clafouti, don't hesitate. It's so quick and easy to make and the results are wonderful.

Clafouti and Crisps

It's chilly in the evenings lately. Heck, it's chilly in the daytime. But we are tough. We are strong. We don't need warmth. We don't need oil...yet.

Course we like warmth. I do anyway. So when I refuse to turn the furnace on, I often resort to turning the oven on instead. This means that one has to bake things...several things.

Tonight was no exception...raspberry clafouti and molasses crisps...hmmmm, what lovely aromas. What delicious flavors. That raspberry clafouti is exceptional and I can prove it. (You can find out information about the recipe right here.)

In this photo the clafouti is pretty much intact...

(Photo removed)

Here not so much...

(Photo removed)

Not so many molasses crisps left either. Sigh. This autumnal eating must be curbed stat. (If anyone is interested, I'll add the Molasses Crisps recipe later.)

Have a great Wednesday!

Echoes of Designing for Your Life

Well golly gee, I told Kari and Kijsa that there was no way that I could play with the big gals by participating in their Designing for Your Life post. I mean, really, play with the grown-ups who know how to pull a room together with style and class? But today, I want to play. I soooooo want to play and I'm going to play and that's all there is to it! (See the levels of humiliation that I am willing to go through for visitors?)

Okay, some time ago now, I concluded that my style is "New England" through and through. Plus I live on the edge of a small forest as you have by now seen and heard and I mean "on the edge." Plus the new space has some peculiar angles that were necessary for the correct pitch of the roof and to accomodate the request for higher ceilings. We were tired of that closed in feeling that, while cozy enough, can make one feel claustrophobic.

My daughter told me that I needed trees for that high awkward spot so I requested trees.



They arrived with all their foliage, which sent me into a flurry of leaf plucking making my backyard look as if Hurricane Ike had been through. I learned a lot about maple leaves and beech leaves while plucking them last night, but I'll save that for another time.



And here the trees are in their new home. (ETA: This is really a work in progress. My hope is to hang photos of family members there. Then, perhaps, it won't look quite so much as if the chair is wearing antlers. :D)



Ruthann of Warm Pie, Happy Home had a great tip about using coffee grounds (new) in candles, which I have used and like, but I also had need of covering up the wire stem of these fake posies so I used her idea there, too.



Hmmm, how about up close?



(Yup, all you discerning readers, I changed the photo for a better look.)

Then, after the window washing of yesterday, I placed my tired Rosemary there on an inverted bowl for height and just placed a fall garland around it.



Sometimes the simplest things make me happy. This little screen door decoration for a few dollars from the Christmas Tree Shop makes me happy. I grin every time that I get to take it out and display it. People seem to enjoy it and I get a lot of comments on it including one from my father who rarely notices such things.



Visit Kari and Kijsa and perhaps, after seeing my humble efforts, you'll feel like playing, too. I hope so!

Window Washing and Traction

This morning, after a blueberry pancake breakfast, we (I) decided that the bay window needed to be washed. John says that "we" decided this having a week of spare time to devote to it. Wry grin.

Can I just say that Pella windows stink? They may look beautiful, but they are so poorly designed that the average housewife would n.e.v.e.r. be able to operate them to clean them herself. So, if you are considering new windows, may I suggest Harvey ones? I love my Harvey windows!



Back to the Pella bay — see all those microfiber cleaning cloths? See the toolbox? Why would one need a toolbox to clean windows? Exactly! One should not need a toolbox to clean a window, Pella People!

So the morning begun so beautifully with devotions and blueberry pancakes has become funked up with the blue air of my fussing and fuming. Gentle groom is discouraged, but not utterly downcast. That would be moi.

Yup, it's enough to give one a pain in the neck. If I need traction, though, I know where to find some. John's interfacet injections didn't work so the doctor suggested traction twice a day. So far that seems to have worked the best.

Oh, for those who worried when John's picture was removed from below the Schmoopy Playlist...John hated that picture. He always complained that it looked as if he were sleeping. Sigh. I loved seeing it. It's okay, though. I've found another that I like pretty well.



;D

Hope that you are having a far better start to your week than I!

Is There Any Seed Left in the Barn?

Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit. "'From this day on I will bless you.'" ~Haggai 2:19

Last week, Kari and Kijsa shared the verse from Hosea 10:12 about plowing the fallow ground. I've thought and prayed about that all week. I believe that many of us need to look for those areas where God has gifted us, yet we've allowed those gifts to lie in unplowed fields. Let's not leave all our seed in the barn!

A blessed Sunday to you and yours...

Photo Source

(Comments are off.)

Reclaimed Splasher

Still decluttering and cleaning these days. Warm Pie, Happy Home is my inspiration. If you've not visited Ruthann lately, do so for some wonderful tips. Course, you might want to take along a drool cloth. ;>

Thought I'd toss in my most recent rescue of an old splasher full of holes and badly stained. Now the nice embroidery has been sewed along the edge of a new K-mart Martha Stewart collection tea towel. I'm going to be doing more and more of these rescues. There's no sense in having wonderful treasures that can not be used.



Enjoy your Saturday!

Waterside Cottages

For those of you who asked, the topic of "Followers" is discussed at Blogger right ---> here. I guess that I agree with Lovella's comment on yesterday's post. To me, it's redundant if one has a blogroll. I'll have to take a wait and see approach. If any of you are using this feature, please tell more about it that I may better decide. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it?

Recently, I learned that Barbara Jacksier, who has a beautiful blog and who is also a writer and editor, has been told that the publishing of her new book Waterside Cottages could be postponed because of the current economic climate. Barbara has asked for a vote at her blog and help in getting the word out. Please visit and offer your support. If you've never visited, you'll be charmed by her beautiful photographs.

I'm offering a photo of a "waterside cottage" today myself...just in way of support for Barbara. (Wonder if she includes any Maine cottages...hmmmm.)



Source

If you follow the link, you'll find many other delights as well. Oh to live the way that the out-of-staters do on our coast... :D

Yesterday had to be spent off the computer most of the day because of thunderstorms. And just when I was getting caught up with all of your blogs so nicely! I hope to do far better today.

Enjoy your Wednesday, Dear Ones.

Edited to Add: Those connectivity issues of a few days ago reared up again. My modem is officially kaput. I will catch up, yet again, as soon as I am back online. Until then, behave yourselves! ;>

Card Making with Pressed Flowers

Followers? I have three? And here I thought that I had hundreds, nay, thousands. Hahahahaha. I know, I know, Get a grip, Vee. You know, I have prided myself on knowing what's going on, but I have obviously missed something important. (Howdy, Followers! I'll check this out more carefully some fine day.)

Awhile ago, you may remember my receiving pressed flowers...oodles and oodles... from BumbleVee. My grandmother was fearful of trying this one and so was I, but it really went very well. I spent a very pleasant evening sitting at the dining room table creating a few cards using this wonderful glue:



The beautiful card with the delicate lavender colored flowers is BumbleVee's creation. I try not to compare design with hers for obvious reasons. Her creation is so artful and delicate. But I had a lot of fun and now she tells me that she's doing flower pounding. My interests are wide and varied and, as you can see, I'm giving the pounding some serious thought.



For more information on pressing flowers, check this site.

Have a great Tuesday!

My Thoughts on Sarah Palin

I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.

But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion — I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people. ~Sarah Palin

When John McCain nominated Sarah Palin as his running mate, I had only barely heard of her and that basically via talk radio programs. Still I felt a level of excitement that I had not yet experienced in this campaign. Don't get me wrong, I'd have voted for McCain because I am a Conservative, dyed-in-the-wool Conservative, make-no-apology Conservative, but, as you know, McCain is a Moderate and he just doesn't agree with me on a lot of issues. Sarah Palin does.

Source

For the life of me, I don't understand what all the bickering is about within the ranks. Here is a pro-life woman who has demonstrated her belief in that stance with her own recent pregnancy and now with a teen-aged daughter's. What is all the hoopla about? I tell you this for certain, a lot of us were teen mothers; a lot of our own mothers/grandmothers were teen mothers; and a lot of our daughters have had teen pregnancies. It's neither the end of the world nor an unforgivable sin. Five children? So? Nancy Pelosi has five children and I've not heard anyone take potshots at her for that.

I admire the spunk of a woman who sends the media her own little news flash..."I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion."

As for "the church" and "the churched" I'd like to add that it's time for us to show the love of Christ, to stop sniping, and to stop the name-calling. No wonder people call us hypocrites. What's that they say about us? "The Church" is the only army that kills its wounded...

Times Are Tough

Tough times. Seems as if so many are going through them right now. If it's not the weather — hurricanes or bitter early cold...the country (whichever one yours happens to be)...fears about a cold winter and the price of oil and gasoline...the high cost of food...sickness...concerns for parents...concerns for children...concerns for the mentally ill...concerns for the elderly...concern...concern...concern...

Who shall rescue us from these worries?

The Lord and only He. For, when we invite Him in to our lives and hearts (even though it's a big mess there), He will lead us through even when we can't see the path.

Let's be very honest here, we don't have the answers to any of the issues of life. We want to be in control, but we don't have enough information to be in control. We want to think of ourselves as being strong and able to do everything. I don't know about you, but I can not and I'm pretty sure that neither can you. We were never made to be "in control." We were created to lean. There is no scripture that says "God helps those who help themselves."

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 NIV

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 NIV


Source (allowed to stand)

(Comments have been turned off...Have a great Sunday!)

Home Again

Though I've visited my home daily, I am truly home again having wakened in my own bed this morning in my treehouse bedroom.

I'll be taking a few days to pull things together around here. A month away and just blitzing in and out hasn't been enough to keep my home properly...laundry to the ceiling, dishes piled under the sink, a cat and flowers that need attention not to mention a groom, errr broom. And on top of all that, a call must be made to Fairpoint because the computer has "connectivity" issues.

Catch you all later...

Hurricane Gustav Prayer

A little prayer...

Shelter those who are in harm's way in the palm of your mighty hand, Father, and protect their homes and communities from the storm.