Overnight

A quiet snow fell last night.  I never tire of looking at it in the morning.  That evergreen tree has picture perfect snow on it. 

Out the dining room window.  The pond is frozen and snow covered except for the little strip that you can see.  Yesterday, across the field someone was running their 4-wheeler all day long and pulling up to 4 kids at a time.  It was fun to watch them having so much fun. 

This morning before everyone got up I took the time to make sure all my links were working on the left side of my blog.  That is all my blogs that I follow.  Many of the addresses had changed.  It's all back in shape now.  Check that off my list. 

A little quilt

In our homemade family Christmas my gift to my sister is this little quilt.  The log cabin blocks were made by my Mother in what was going to be a quilt for my sister.  She had only 6 completed and many strips of fabric cut.  I sewed them together and drew on the pattern and embroidered it. 

Here it is with the batting and backing and pinned together all ready to quilt.

The backing fabric is pretty cute.  Just right with the primary colors.
I will show it to you when it is all done. 

Book Review-Angelina by Andrew Morton

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and it has taken me this long to decide what to write about it.  Andrew Morton is a well known author, he has produced many books about celebrities and I feel he was just reporting what he found in his investigating, but she is just a bazaar person and even though she has many adopted and biological children that may tame the bazaar personality but it doesn't remove it. Just recently I heard that Angelina and Brad Pitt and the children were going to go to the place-not even worth looking up the correct name for it- to ride out the "end of the world".  ~Still Bazaar!~ 

She came from a majorly dysfunctional family that mother Marcheline Bertrand practically ignored Angelina for a year in a white room with a series of baby sitters because she was depressed that husband Jon Voight had an affair and she kicked him out. They had an older son who stayed in another apartment with her but had Angelina in an upper floor apartment.  Finally she pulled herself out of that and was a very permissive parent.  She let Angelina's boyfriend move into the apartment and live with them when Angelina was 14 years old. 

Angelina was a heroin addict at a young age, which she has seemed to kick.  She is a sexy, lovely to look at actress with an early openly kinky sex life.  She had a problem about getting these men interested in her or adopting the children and then leaving on some trip to a far away area.  It's like she got them, then she doesn't want to deal with them. 

In the later chapters of the book she and Brand Pitt do socially conscious contributions to many good causes.  They travel together and the kids come with them.  But I was tuned into the Oscars either last year or the year before and she presented.  She walked up to the microphone, stood there with her hands on her hips and one leg to the side.  Her long skirt slit very high and had a very non-classy attitude to be presenting a prestigious award. 
I thought....Yea....no......not impressed.  I felt the the same way after reading the book too. 

By the way, I didn't pay $18.89 for the book, got it at the dollar store which was just the right price to pay.



 

Not for Human Consumption

The theme of our family Christmas exchange this year was "A Homemade Christmas". We drew names last year and made something for the person that we drew.  Lots and lots of clever ideas came out of it, and I thought it was great fun to see what people came up with.  There were fleece blankets and plates with saying written all over them.  Homemade cookies and candies and I will share our items in later posts. 

One of our family things that we made was bird seed ornaments for the trees outside, to feed the birds.  I found this idea on "of course" Pinterest. 

RECIPE

4 cups birdseed any type
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup water
3 Tablespoons corn syrup

Mix everything up really well and then press the mixture into open ended cookie cutters.  The toothpicks that are pictured are to make holes in the mixture to put pipe cleaners in so that they can hang from the trees.

Let them dry overnight and keep turning over so that the ornaments can dry on both sides.  When they are dry simply pop out of the cookie cutter and attach the pipe cleaner. 

We had our mixture in a large mixing bowl and must have walked away from it.  My husband Tom asked what that mixture was in the bowl, it tastes terrible!

I said "you didn't eat that did you"?  "Well I tasted it" he said. 
I just shook my head and sighed.
Before the day was done, we made him some Christmas treats.
I heard him grumbling about...make something for the BIRDS....but not a Christmas treat in the HOUSE! growl...growl..growl.