My Christmas House

I feel very behind this Christmas.  I almost feel like I’m not enjoying the Christmas feeling as much this year.  I felt very Christmas-y before Thanksgiving already, which is really early for me, but now that it’s upon us, I feel like I’m missing something.  I think my grandmother’s passing has a lot to do with it.  I still feel a lot of sadness…

But with that aside, I did get my house all decorated.  It’s as complete as it’s ever going to be this year.  I wanted to share my decorations with you, even though these pictures are from last year.  The decorations are all in the same spots this year, but my house currently looks like a tornado hit it with shopping bags full of gifts, and one ornament tub that still needs to be packed away, so you get to view last year’s pictures of this year’s decorations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My grandmother made my stocking, probably about 5+ years ago, and I will cherish it always.  As I said, she never had much money to give big, expensive gifts, but I always cherished everything she ever gave me because it came with a lot of thought, and straight from her heart.  Last year’s gift from her was a set of dessert dishes because she noticed I didn’t have any at Thanksgiving, and even though they aren’t fine china or fancy, I love them and they are some of my favorite dishes.  She also gave me an ornament that she personalized for our first year in our new home.  I have to admit that I forgot about the ornament until I pulled it out this year, and it brought tears to my eyes.  It has an up front and center position on the tree this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The newest edition to the decorations this year.  Bought this angel at a recent craft show.

 

 

Forgive the setup of this post if everything looks out of place.  My blog writing program and Blogger don’t always match up and look the same.  This is the majority of the decorations.  We do put up a mini tree in the bedroom and hubby decorates his desk with lights and such, but I didn’t get pictures of them last year, and it’s probably not happening this year either.

We did get a brand new camera for ourselves.  Mine has been acting a little funny lately, and BJ’s put one my dad has been eyeing for a year now on a sale for the cheapest we’ve seen it from anywhere, so we decided to go for it and have a very good camera.  My dad finally got it too, so now we have identical cameras!  I haven’t really been able to give it a good testing yet, but I’m excited to, and I’m hoping to start to get some really good shots that I can turn into prints to sell in my Artfire shop.  That won’t happen until next year, but look for them hopefully by summer!

I’ll have my Favorite Kitty Pic Friday post up this week yet, but I don’t know about any others until New Year’s then.  It’s crunch time now to get all my last minute gifts purchased, handmade, wrapped, and baking done.  It will be a busy week and a half, since my Christmas won’t end on Saturday!  We’re have a get together with some friends on Tuesday next week, and then we’ll be heading to the in-laws for a night or two after that.

Hope you’re all staying warm and sane during this crazy Christmas week!

New design!

So, I finally picked, tested and applied a new design to my blog!  If you’re reading through Google Reader, as I tend to do, go check it out!  This one might not be permanent either, as I would really like to learn and figure out creating one from scratch on my own someday, but thanks to The Cutest Blog on the Block, I got this free background to pretty up my blog.  I always love seashore/seashell stuff, so that’s why I picked it.  It doesn’t quite look like it did in the sample they provided, which I really liked a lot, but some of it shows, enough to make it nicer than the kind of drab theme I had before.

I’ve had a pretty lazy weekend – but I haven’t been feeling my best, and even though today was much better than yesterday, I still need to call my doctor tomorrow.  I won’t go into it much more than that on here, so if you really need to know TMI, feel free to ask (but leave your e-mail address, because I won’t explain in comments on here either)!  I wanted to make these Caramel Apple Cookies this weekend, but that hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t now until I get in touch with the doctor tomorrow and figure that whole issue out.  I’m cutting down some of the calories though by making mine with the Splenda Brown Sugar Blend and regular granulated Splenda, as well as egg substitute, so when I do have them made and taste-tested, I will let you know how mine came out and will try to come up with the calorie counts.  Thanks Smashed Peas and Carrots for sharing this recipe – they made my mouth water and I can’t wait to try them!

So,  what do you think of the new design?  And how about those cookies??  If that isn’t a fall recipe to love…   :)