Fall is definitely here!

We had a quiet Thanksgiving.  For the first time ever (I believe) we went out to eat for Thanksgiving dinner; our little family enjoying their own celebrations at their own homes.  We went to the Hilltop north of Spencer and it was a set menu with the choice of four entrees.  I absolutely ate too much!  Wow!  But it was good good good, and the only meal I had that day, for sure.

However!  I did bake a pumpkin pie earlier in the week so we ate on that for several days ...  

This is why I say 'fall is definitely here' ... the farmer across the road, between us and the river, finally combined his beans.  It was just a couple weeks ago and this picture really shows how quickly the leaves have left the trees because in this pix there are still some leaves on, but now the trees are virtually bare!  I closed up the house that day because the wind was bring the dust up into our woods.  The dust looked like mist creeping up the hill through the woods!

Well, here's one of the fun things I tried recently -- making some Goodwill vases look like old mercury glass.  What a fun experiment!  I got the idea from Pintrest, of course.  Very few things I do are original ideas!  Here's a couple pictures of the finished product, one during the day and one taken at night with some little candles in them.  This whole project cost only about $10.  Now I want to try to find some hurricane lamps at Goodwill and use the same technique ...  I saw recently on Pintrest where someone painted little metal hot wheels cars like this and turned them into Christmas tree ornaments!  Cool!

 
Another project (not so fun) has been stripping the paint off this old teacher's chair I bought at an antique shop recently.  I've stripped the hardest part I think -- the bottom half.  Now I only have to do the seat and back.  I think it's going to look good; it's a pretty sound oak chair and Wendell's tightened it up for me before I started.  Now, if I ever find a day with the temp over 50 and NOT raining, I'll finish.  Then Neil can make it look like new again!  Yea!  (I'm still looking for just the right lamp to go on the desk that this chair is for!)

We decided not to decorate our big tree this year.  So I just put out some assorted Christmas decor, plus my little Charlie Brown tree on the desk, and it looks pretty good.  Used that garland Teresa Kinman gave me made from wool snippets from rug hooking (which I added onto btw) and it looks so cute!  Maybe I'll put a pix on here of it soon ...  Gotta start Christmas shopping this week!  For some reason I just haven't "felt like Christmas".  Whatever that is.  But yesterday I started feeling different after the first Sunday of Advent service at church.  Emma & Joe lite the first advent candle and gave a very moving presentation!  I went away feeling hopeful.  

Went to see mom last week and she's feeling somewhat better.  It has been a difficult year for her.  And for Wendell.  And we're praying for a better 2015!  But for now, I'm just living one day at a time.