March Goodbye

 

Tomorrow I'll change the Kevin Dobbs calendar page from March to April.

But these three things tucked into the wire cookbook basket beside the calendar will stay there for a while.

 

They're a reminder of the miracle of spring arriving again but also of two people very special to me on either side of our little granddaughter.

The unicorn card on the left was written to me many years ago by my dear mother, and the card on the right of Japanese cherry trees in bloom is a Christmas card that was once sent to my father from a Japanese business associate. 

Isn't it beautiful? 

I hope it is as lovely a Spring where you live as it is here in Tennessee this year. As RH and I were out driving yesterday I saw one flowering tree after another, each seeming to outdo the previous one. 

I'm going to take time to enjoy Spring and I hope each of you will too, to the upmost! 

February Goodbye

It's time to say goodbye to another month and to share this month's Kevin Dodds calendar page. I've enjoyed February's picture but after two months of horses, I'm ready for the unique homes Mr. Dodds does so beautifully. 

I'm more of a house lover instead of a horse lover. Our granddaughter Nora, on the other hand, is madly in love with horses. But then, aren't most little girls?

Speaking of granddaughters, here was my kitchen shelves decorated with our granddaughters' Valentines, and an old snapshot of my sweet mother in her kitchen.

The girls' Valentine to their PawPaw was a Star Wars, May the force be with you one! I should have put it here for a pic too.

Now the shelves are featuring an invitation to a very special birthday for one son and a beautiful picture another son took of Spaceship Earth at Epcot. 

I love changing around the kitchen shelves constantly.

RH just brought about an amazing change in our kitchen by taking care of a little project outside. He pruned back two huge hollies, one of which had totally blocked the smaller of the two kitchen windows.

We hated doing it because the birds love to nest in it and the bees love the flowers but it was driving me batty having a black hole at the end of my kitchen.

Here's a picture from Christmas showing the dark hole.

See what I mean? Sunshine at the large window and a few feet away a black hole. 

It has made such a difference! I know some people would have cut down the whole bush but I love having the cardinals nest in it and peek in the window at me. One red male pecks on the screen when it's past his dinnertime.

I'm mesmerized by having the sun shine on things in that end of the kitchen. I know this is a lot of kitchen pics but I took a ton of them and will try to do a kitchen post at the other blog soon so couldn't resist using some here.

Remember my beautiful pink amaryllis that was in the silver champagne bucket at my kitchen sink all through the holidays? I moved it and the beautiful grasses that grew up through the moss into our living room.

It will get moved outside when the night temperatures get up to at least 50 in spring. And now I'm searching for something else to put in the bucket by my sink.

Come the first week of March that pine cone pitcher and other winter things will be put away and tender spring green colors will come out. Winter lover that I am, I admit to being ready for that!

First we have another blast of winter heading our way--I should be ashamed of even calling it that when my blog friends from the north have really been having winter.

And I understand we have more rain heading our way after four days of glorious sunshine. 

More rain? Here's how high the pond got after our last week:

Very full and I was thankful we lived uphill not downhill from it.  And I was happy to stay inside and cocoon, which always includes cooking.

I had been craving real honest-to-goodness homemade rice pudding studded with raisins and made Ruth Reichl's rice pudding, recipe here.

But I used all the leftover egg whites to make a meringue for it after seeing this picture in an old rice pamphlet I've had a long time.

No cherries on top but it was delicious and I'm sure Ruth wouldn't mind I added the meringue. I'm sure she also wouldn't mind that I used a couple of tablespoons of Calvados brandy to macerate the raisins in overnight.

See that smile? That's the smile of a girl who would appreciate a little Calvados in the pudding, don't you think?

We turn the calendar page tomorrow and I'm almost giddy with the thought of it! 

Are you?

 

January Goodbye

I almost forgot about a January Goodbye post and will hurry to slip this one in before midnight.

Tomorrow I'll turn the first page of the 2019 Kevin Dodds calendar. It seems like only yesterday that I closed the 2018 calendar. 

As usual the beginning of a new month meant a few changes on my kitchen shelves, always something I enjoy doing, and the very last bloom of amaryllis 'Caprice' lasted a long time in a juice glass away from the sun in the big window.

All the Christmas decorations were packed away earlier than I had anticipated I would, the few in my bedroom being the last as they were cheerful at night before bed. Mainly only an old Waterford wreath and a German book of the Nativity.

One book that I've enjoyed every night before bed is this day book by one of my very favorite authors, Richardson Wright, editor of House & Garden from 1914 to 1950. 

I try to buy his old books as I can and I dearly love day books so this one has been such a pleasant surprise. As many of his books that I have that were written while he was with the magazine, it was only in this one, published after he retired, that I learned he was an Episcopalian lay preacher. There's been a little gem on almost every page.

RH has been busy working this month but managed to do a day of yard work last weekend on a mild day, transplanting a few small trees to better locations and digging up one of the two butterfly bushes in the back garden and moving it to a front bed for more room for both of them to spread.

He also hung the new coat rack above, a sweet bargain from our trip to Goodwill for under $5. When I spotted the Smith & Hawkin label on the back I knew it had to be quality. It gives him space for gloves and knitted hats in the cubbyholes.

He also found two half-price things at Costco in the January clearance and brought them home hoping I'd like them.

Would I like this green ceramic olive oil jar? Be still my heart!

This porcelain cookie jar not only had the best chocolate cookies in it, it's now a great jar for homemade treats!

I'm still using cranberries from my freezer, making three loaf cakes of Orange Cranberry bread from an old recipe in Romantic Homes magazine that was amazing, pictures forgotten, but twice making this simple apple-cranberry crumble with oat topping that was so very good! 

Our precious James Mason is doing better, we hope and pray. Time will tell. This last week has been devoted to him.

His little sister has gotten her share of attention too. This has been dachshund week, just can't keep our hands off them! 

I am afraid the sofa is now off limits to them, their stool taken away and the sofa forbidden even for BreeBree. Dachshunds backs are just not made for jumping, even though they like to fly like the birds.

I'm publishing this with no proof reading because they are both letting me know that it is time to go night night, so forgive any errors, please.

Goodnight to all, goodnight to January!

December Goodbye

It's not already here, surely. Time to say goodbye to December? And time to say goodbye to 2018? 

I rarely sit down to write a post without doing a rough draft and certainly not when I don't even have a clue of what to write. But it's late on Sunday night and this post needs to go up Monday morning December 31 so I'm going to put some pictures up and wing it, with hopefully a better story later on at Dewena's Window to go with more photos of our Christmas weekend 2018.

As usual on the last day of the month, I thank artist Kevin Dodds for his calendar pages that speak to my heart. I loved this year's so much that I ordered a new one that will go up in our kitchen January 1st.

The kitchen shelf next to my calendar changes almost every month, seasonal changes and little things that remind me of our granddaughters every day as I cook our meals.

The sweet photo on the left above is from last year when we got to see Nora play the Virgin Mary in her school play.

I know it's silly to talk about how she and her little sister have grown since last Christmas as children have a way of doing just that...but I truly can't believe how much they've grown. 

Someone is peeking through the tree branches!

These old pink camels keep watch over our girls' current Christmas photo.

And our younger granddaughter is now old enough to help put together and decorate my Viennese Sandwich Cookies. 

Help, nothing! This big girl calmly and carefully put the cookies together herself, dipped the edges in the melted chocolate and rolled them in sprinkles--all by herself, with her mom standing by just in case.

Next year she'll probably be taking over my kitchen, and oh boy do I need all the help I can get now!

I'm so thankful I had plenty of help this year as our sweet houseguests saved the day for me, pitching in while making every minute a joy for me as we got ready for family coming for a party Sunday afternoon.

I don't know what I would have done without their help! 

But the girls' parents did find time for some Christmas kisses. These aren't staged kisses by any means. I hope they won't mind me embarrassing them but these two remain a marriage made in heaven. 

Not all of our guests that afternoon were family. I spy a sweet blog friend sitting on the left end of the sofa who came all the way from North Carolina with her husband to meet us for the first time! And yes, the television is on during the party as well as Christmas music because football is on and RH loves football. And as hard as he works he deserves to have it on...muted, though. Pretty please.

Blog friend Doreen and I did get some time to talk seriously, just as we do in our emails. With our other pen pals Poppy and Tammy we four carry on some lallapaloosas of girl talk. If only the other two had been here too--some day!

I have a photo of Doreen's husband talking to my brother-in-law Fred but can't manage to convert it to jpg. That means a call for help and also I must first get permission  whether I can post the Fisherman's photo or not!

I did my Christmas shopping at the local antique mall and among other things, snapped up all nine vintage aprons I found there. Grandsons Alex and Luke modeled them for us, with help from their little cousin.

That little lace apron went to a daughter-in-law whose wedding to our son last fall on their farm included lace covered hay bales. 

My dachshund apron was a Christmas gift last year from a daughter-in-law, so every lady received a vintage one even with one saved for a daughter-in-law who couldn't be with us due to bronchitis.

I think the aprons were paired up with the right ladies, including those on our beautiful daughter Christy. Who are those young women with her? Only the loves of her sons' lives, that's who! 

My sister Teresa is talking to our granddaughter-in-law. The tiny tot in her mother's arms is our new great-granddaughter! Her big brother is running around somewhere, keeping his daddy busy probably. And that's our beautiful daughter-in-law Courtney in the cool outfit that Christy and I loved and two or our grandsons catching up with each other.

Zack and Bryan sample some snacks and aren't nearly as serious as they look here. 

Christmas Eve morning it was soon time to say goodbye to our granddaughters who had to return home with their parents to get back in time for candlelight Christmas service. Believe me, I stretched that getting ready to leave time as long as I could, watching two episodes of My Little Pony with our darling girls. But all too soon it was time for them to gather their gifts from aunts and uncles.

Christmas Eve night was a quiet one with just us and our daughter and son-in-law. Christy grilled burgers for us and cooked a prime rib roast for the next day. After supper we watched It's A Wonderful Life together.

On Christmas Day RH and I finished up some cooking and then we were off to Zack and Courtney's house, the farmhouse they bought from us two years ago.

I love this photo of RH and Courtney but didn't get one of Zack and Court together, both of them too busy hosting.

And this one of Christy and Bryan!

I have other photos for the Window post so hope to cover everyone then. It was a wonderful time together as we all feasted on turkey and prime rib and delicious sides and desserts galore.

It was the perfect ending to Christmas Day but RH and I were  tuckered out and were the first to leave. We went home and and put our feet up while the young set cleaned up. 

And so Christmas 2018 is over but there's still time for me to read the Christmas books I didn't have time for before Christmas. These below don't include a stack that I have managed to read.

I will continue to observe Christmas through the 12th Day of Christmas and you'll probably find me listening to Christmas music all through January. I'm not ready to dismantle Christmas yet. Not the Christmas trees inside or the one on the kitchen porch with its purple and pink lights that shine in the night and I enjoy while I'm cooking supper.

I'm hoping our neighbors will leave up their Christmas lights a while so I can enjoy them every time I look out my bedroom windows.

Even when the lights go out up and down the street and the trees come down and the last cookie is eaten, I pray that the joy of Christmas will stay with me and with you. 

A happy and healthy New Year to all! See you in 2019!


Note: Many of these pictures were taken by our son Defee--all of the good ones were! A thank you to him!