Scrappy Hearts

30 Days of Gratitude: November 27th

  Grateful for Thanksgiving leftovers especially on the Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend. No conferences, report cards not due yet, all means that Christmas decorating will occur and I may even get in a nap!! So very grateful on this last Monday of November!

30 Days of Gratitude: November 19th

 Sundays and slow stitching make me happy. So very happy that Sunday is the one day I have off each week. I love a slow lazy Sunday. Not that this particular Sunday was that at all. Mark and I were busy getting ready for our guests on Thanksgiving when I came across these items already glued and ready to stitch. I am just learning to do English Paper Piecing and I was so upset that I couldn't find these honeycomb shapes for my first ever Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses block. It's amazing what you find when you clean! So grateful for that and life on this crazy Sunday!

Finally a Wrap

Saturday I spent most of the day taking the ornaments off the largest tree in the house. Standing just over 10 feet, that tree holds quite a few ornaments. A large number of those ornaments are Hallmark ornaments collected over the years and I have all the boxes. So I carefully take them down, one by one, and place them in the original wrapping, inside their original box. There are two large Sterlite boxes that are filled just like this one. This year I did notice that a couple of the ornaments are showing a bit of wear and tear but most of them are in great shape! The last tree to come down this year is the little one that sits on my dresser. I shared the story of that tree on my blog in 2014. This year I bought the frame for our ornament at Mt. Vernon during Mark’s special birthday trip. I had put off printing the photo because it seemed that it was going to be hard to find the “right” photo and difficult to get it to fit the tiny ornament which was only 1.5” x 1.25”. It had to get done before I put the tree away and really, it took barely 5 minutes to create.Beautiful! The photo was taken across the street from the World War II Memorial with the Washington Monument in the background. It is truly a perfect representation of our 2015! Here it is on the tree.Happy that the tree had all of its ornaments at least one night before I take it down. And really, even thought it makes me sad, it is time for Christmas to be put away. I have so much to do to really “flourish” this year that I had better get a move on!

 

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Finally the upstairs tree is ready to receive ornaments. It is the 8th of eight trees to be trimmed. The biggest problem this year was the lights. I just could not figure out how to get all of the lights on the tree to work. On Sunday, while watching football, I just added the old colored lights from Mark’s holiday stash and called it a day. Usually I am not a fan of colored lights, give me the twinkling white lights anytime, but there is something magical about seeing this tree at the top of the stairs that just makes me smile. As far as my decorating goes, there are just a few ornaments to hang on the two biggest trees and then we can call the house Christmas ready. I really enjoy having the house decorated!

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December has been unseasonably warm this year and the sunsets have been magnificent because of the warmth. When I noticed the sun setting with a beautiful color in the sky on Monday, I was so excited to capture a picture of it behind the flag. It really reminded me of the lantern that Father Christmas is holding. This flag is one of my favorite decorations. I love the soft colors and I love the Father Christmas image. It has brought me great joy to see it waving in the breeze when I arrive home from work each evening. I love the early setting sun and the coziness of a decorated home. 

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Around the house it is the little touches of Christmas that make me smile. So many of our decorations have a story related to them that I get all caught up in the remembering and I cannot help but smile. That’s just the way it is around here in December. Sunday brought lots of little moments of remembrance, lots of football and lots of laundry. The perfect Sunday as far as I’m concerned. So very excited for this holiday season filled with lots of creating, lots of gatherings and lots of everyday ordinary life. 

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Saturday’s story is one of relaxing like I have not relaxed in years. The house was quiet and we chose to stay home all day. We had plenty of food leftover from a week of cooking and the house was still clean as a result of having company over on Friday night. So, I put Christmas music on my computer and let it play all day. I proceeded to put most of the ornaments on the big tree in the livingroom and spent some time just hanging out on the couch enjoying the decorations. So happy that conferences are over and there are just a couple of full weeks left of school before the break. I love a relaxing day at home when the house is decorated and the smell of evergreens permeates the air.

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Friday evening and the story of the 4th is the gathering of friends for dinner and conversation. It was an entirely new mix of people, only seven of us, and I could not have asked for a more perfect evening. Everyone got along great. There was laughter and lots of empathy as life stories were shared. So much in common amongst these seven, it was really an amazing evening. I shouldn’t forget to mention that the food was great too! The tree didn’t get trimmed, but most of the food was eaten so I will consider it a win!

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December 3rd. The story of today is that the house always gets messier before the decorations are all up. Good thing there was a half day for students and a half day for conferences. That gave me plenty of time to run out to the Village Quilter during lunch, come back to school and get some work done and then head home to spend several hours getting Christmas set up in the house. Friday evening we are having just a couple of friends over for dinner and I promised myself that Christmas would be set up by then. So here I am, pushing the envelope to get it all done. Marlo seems unimpressed by the transformation that is taking place. This poor young man has never seen Christmas before, even though he is nearly 3 years old. I just hope he doesn’t take a liking to playing with ornaments!

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Grateful for Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and the whole gang. My dad was a cartoonist and was a huge Peanuts fan. As a family, we learned to appreciate everything about the Peanuts gang. Yesterday in school we were shown a Peanuts video about childhood cancers to begin our Pennies for Patients drive. Tonight because I am alone and I can get away with it, I am watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Don’t judge. I love the memories it brings back. Plenty of times we watched the Peanuts’ specials on CBS before Halloween and Thanksgiving. Grateful for the Peanuts gang and the memories of family and home that are invoked by revisiting them.