I am thinking Spring!!!!!!!!!!

We have had the worst winter in a long time. We had snow flurries a couple of days this past week. They are talking about the Snow word for us again this coming week. I decided to start decorating for Easter to bring some Spring into the house.
Love, Marie

Enough Mush.........

Back in 1969, we had been married 7 1/2 years on Valentine's Day. My husband gave me this large envelope with my name on the front and signed from him.
Well, I opened up this beautiful card and there was two pages of all these sweet words. I remarked that there was enough mush to last for years. His reply to me was that if that was true, then he would never buy me another Valentine. Well, here it is 2010 and he has held true to his statement. Each year, I bring out this same beautiful Valentine with all that mush. Now, come this August 18, we will be married 49 years.





You open up the card and here is the first page.
Below are the two inside pages. Notice that he
never signed the inside of the card. I am so glad
that I saved this card because you cannot find
them this beautiful now. We have had great fun
every year as the card comes out again.

Valentines from the Past

The valentines spread out of the table belong to our daughter. She received them from her kindergarten mates in 1967. In the middle of them, you can see the little holder with a handle that she made to place them in. Our daughter was born in 1963. I had saved our son's also but have not been able to find them.











This is a collection of valentines from the mid 1920's. They are valentine's that my mother received when she was going to school. Mother was born in 1912 and these were cards from her classmates.

My after Christmas gift to me

My mother, who passed away two years ago this month, loved to grow amaryllis. Our son and daughter-in-law took me to Trader Joe's after Christmas and I saw they had their bulbs on sale. I just had to have me one. It has been a joy to watch it flower and there is another stalk that will probably have a couple more blooms.

Above is a picture of what our bulbs look like after being planted in the yard. After the flower has bloomed, we cut the foliage back. Then, when the temperatures are about 35 degrees, we plant them in the garden. They need to be fertilized every two weeks after flowering with a 5-10-5 fertilizer. In August stop watering and fertilizing and allow the bulb to dry out. We cover ours with mulch before the first frost and leave them that way until the next spring.
Love, Marie

Wedding Socks made by Great-Great Grandmother Angeline

These socks were knitted by my Great-Great Grandmother Angeline Snipes and were worn in her wedding August 7, 1855. These socks amaze me. I am going to post below a sock that I just finished this morning and it was knitted on a size 3 needle. The wedding socks above must have been done on a size one. My cousin said that she probably raised the cotton and she spun the cotton to make the thread. She did the heel flap, gusset, and the Kitchener stitch just like I do mine today. She even knitted her initials AS into the sock.
My sock is done with four size 3 needles. I used Red Heart - Heart & Sole with Aloe. I worked from the basic sock pattern in Learn To Knit Socks by Edie Eckman.
Love,
Marie

Our Vegetable Garden in December 2009

We are so proud of this garden. They were the most perfect small heads of cabbage. I steamed some to eat with fried cornbread and made slaw with others. The brocolli was so good and tender. We ate some of the brocolli and I froze the rest. We had never had these vegetables from our back yard before and I hope that it will not be the last.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I want to wish you and yours a great New Year!
Love,
Marie

Myspace Graphics, New Year Graphics at WishAFriend.com

Done except the Angel....

This is an Advent cross stitch that I did years ago. Each day you take one of the ornaments from the outside and place it on the tree. Even though it is just my husband and I here for Christmas, we still place this on the refrigerator each year and count down the days until Christmas day. It is all done now except for the angel that will go at the top of the tree tomorrow. I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year.
Love,
Marie

Gifts from other talented friends

I got this wonderful surprise from my friend, Celeste--we do watch bands together. She made this adorable snowman in a jar and placed white lights in it. It looks so sweet sitting on my kitchen counter with my other snowmen that can be seen in the post below. Thanks Celeste!
I love it.
These pretty little gift boxes were made by my friend, Naydine, my other watch band maker. Naydine used last years Christmas cards to make these neat little boxes and put a couple of pieces of candy inside. I think they are so neat. Thanks Naydine! My husband and I love them.

My Christmas Surprise....

We have these wonderful friends that we met through church. They have been such a blessing to us. All through the year, Pat has been bringing us meals to put in the freezer. These meals have been such a blessing. There are days that I am not able to prepare food for us and it is wonderful to go to the freezer and take out one of these meals and pop it into the oven or microwave. Gary, the husband, has helped with mowing the yard and other things that my husband needed. Yesterday, they came in the snow and brought us more meals for the freezer and one of Pat's works of art. She painted the snowman on the bottle and place a string of colored lights inside. I placed it on the kitchen counter beside my snowwoman cookie jar. Thank you Pat and Gary for your thoughtfulness!
Love,
Marie

Crochet Hats

It is our granddaughter, Allison's, 11th birthday and I crocheted her some hats plus the other things I mailed. I called to wish her happy birthday before school and she was already wearing one of her hats and a pair of leggings I sent. We were out eating with friends and I saw a girl about Allison's age wearing a hat like the purple one but it just had buttons on it instead of the flower. My friend went over to see if someone in the family made it but they had just bought it. Before we left, another lady stopped to admire her hat. I found a pattern on line for the rose one and the white one.

Give Away for Christmas- and the winner is...

I would love to give away six of my tatted snowflakes for you to use in your Christmas decorating. My tatting is not perfect but I enjoy doing it. If you love handmade items, just leave me a comment and I will draw a winner on November 21. I will notify you and you can then give me a mailing address. Tell your friends.

AAmber from Making a Home is the winner. If you have not visited her, I know you would enjoy her blog. Congratulations Amber and I hope that you will enjoy using them. My friend's granddaughter, Ryan, drew the number for me. Ryan is a first grader and she was delighted to choose who won.

Us "Girls" like to play.....

There are three of us "Girls" that went all the way through school together and then two of us went on to college together. We are not actually "girls", we are "Old Ladies". The younger of us three refers to us as "Old Ladies". Ha! Well, we started getting together to celebrate birthdays and have included our husbands. We decided the other week that we would play with beads and let the men have fun talking football, racing, guns, etc. We had lunch and then the men went into the living room and we gathered around the kitchen table and started playing. Below, I will show our creations.

Naydine did these. She is using the Snowmen watch faces with her snowmen.















These are creations by Celeste. She has done some more since this picture.












These are creations by Marie. We have purchased Christmas watch faces with snowmen, Christmas trees, and Santa's to make watches for Christmas.

Trip to Blue Ridge

My husband and I decided on the spur of the moment Monday morning to try to get the mountains all by ourselves. We knew that we would probably find wonderful people along the way to help us. Monday was such a beautiful, crisp Fall day here in NC. Our first sighting of the mountains was Pilot Mountain.

Then we arrived in Mt Airy the home of Andy Griffith. This is Barney's police car. They use this to take people on tours. We met a couple just coming back from a tour and they came over to the car to talk to us. They were from Canada and were on their honeymoon.






These are some more of the pictures that I took of Mayberry. Floyd's Barber Shop and Snappy Lunch are downtown on Main Street. I could not get any pictures as we rode down Main Street because their were so many tourist. When we were able to walk, we would always stop at Snappy Lunch for their famous pork chop sandwich. That sandwich is worth waiting in line for.

We stopped at a fast food place and got lunch
and had a picnic in the parking lot. We then started our drive up to the parkway. We stopped at our favorite food stand and bought mountain-grown cabbage, new pinto beans, and apples. Then onto the parkway.






These pictures do not really show what our eyes saw. The scenes were gorgeous!!!!!!! We had the most wonderful day, just the two of us. As we knew, we came across the most wonderful people that were willing to help us get out and into the car and places we wanted to go. We dared to undertake this trip and we are so glad we did. We are two blessed people even in our circumstances!

Tea Wrap

I did this crochet wrap using Vanna's Choice yarn by Lion Brand. I found the free pattern on the Lion Brand site. It is Pattern Number: 81085AD. The pattern called for a N crochet hook but it took a P hook for me to make the gauge.
We cooked on our grill last night with friends and while the men were cooking, I used Naydine for my model. Naydine and I were in school together from beginning to end. It was a beautiful day and evening here but this morning is a different story--cold and raining. We may have had our last meal on the screen porch this year.

More Knitting

Above are two different hats I knitted with the remaining thread from the baby blanket. I also did a 5-hour boy's sweater. I really like the way this thread works up.

Boy's Blanket

I made this crochet baby blanket using Bernat Baby Jacquards . The yarn color is Macaroon. I love this because it gets away from the usual pastels that you think about. I think it will be very practical. The pattern is the same as one in an earlier post.