Uhhh Ohhh

How many days ago was it that I said I was going to pack Christmas up and put it away for a while? Hmmm... Something went wrong with that game plan somewhere along the way. The tree is still standing in the living room and the stockings are still hung. I guess you could say I got side tracked.

I don't remember right now what got in the way of me doing that on Wednesday or for that matter... on Thursday. I do recall yesterday though. Friday is Seth Day, which means that the whole day is devoted to little Mr. Seth until he gets a bit bigger and can join in with what we are doing.

Today is Saturday all ready. There is still snow on the ground for a little while anyway. We are supposed to get temperatures in the high 50's and rain, which should take care of the snow.

(Jo note: What month is it? January? Temps in the high 50's? Hmmmm... Can any one say 'Global Warming'?)

The big OSU ~vs~ LSU game is going to be on Monday and I want everything that needs immediate attention to be taken care of by then. In other words, I want no distractions. So I guess today is the day that this Domestic Goddess will buckle down and get Christmas packed up, do some dusting and mopping and search out photos for the wonderful frames I got for Christmas. Heck I might even start on a new knitting project.

By the way, I have to be honest with you here, Domestic Goddess I am not. In fact, there are signs posted all through the house that say "Free The Dust Bunnies". I hope you all have a relaxing weekend and take time to stop and enjoy the loved ones in your lives.

Old Barns and People

Once more I received an e-mail that I found to be thought provoking and contained a message that we can all learn something from. With that said, I pass it on to you.

~Enjoy~

A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted to buy the old barn that sits out by the highway. I told him right off he was crazy. He was a city type, you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale. I told him he had a funny idea of beauty.

Sure, it was a handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. The summer sun's beat down on that old barn ' til all the paint's gone, and the wood has turned silver gray. Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet, that fellow called it beautiful.

That set me to thinking. I walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country home he's building down the road. He said you couldn't get paint that beautiful. Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood.

It came to me then. We're a lot like that, you and I. Only it's on the inside that the beauty grows with us. Sure we turn silver, gray too ... and lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full of sap. But the Good Lord knows what He's doing. And as the years pas s He's busy using the hard weather of our lives, the dry spells and the stormy seasons to do a job of beautifying our souls that nothing else can produce. And to think how often folks holler because they want life easy!

They took the old barn down today and hauled it away to beautify a rich man's house. And I reckon someday you and I'll be hauled off to Heaven to take on whatever chores the Good Lord has for us on the Great Sky Ranch.

And I suspect we'll be more beautiful then for the seasons we've been through here ...
and just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father's house.

May there be peace within you today.

It's A Mystery To Me.........

We have welcomed in another New Year with hopes and dreams for a better year ahead than what we just left behind. It also means another year older for our Britt.


Our little Emo Kid told me that she had a really nice birthday. The first part of the day she spent shopping with her mom and her beau Gerad. They ventured through one of her favorite stores, Hot Topics and found some good buys. To be honest, I think if they had just found a park bench and sat all day in one place, as long as she was with the two people she was with, she would have had a really nice birthday. The second part of the day they joined us at Chris and Melody's for great food (those two should open a restaurant) and birthday cake.


For the first time in years she actually mentioned to me that there was something she would like for her birthday. I can't even remember how long ago it has been that she has done that. Britt is one of those children that is happy with anything you give her. We were watching the TV last week and a commercial came on for the Tickle Me Elmo. She told me they have a Tickle Me Cookie Monster and said she thought it was the neatest thing she had seen for a long time because instead of a little wimpy giggle coming out, you get that deep rough Cookie Monster laugh. With that she added she would really like to have one of those. We found a couple of them. Shopping after Christmas can be rough if you are looking for something specific and not doing random shopping. Of the couple we found one just laid there and did nothing when you tickled it. Poor thing's battery was completely spent from all of the Christmas samplers. Fortunately the other was still in good working order so it found its way home with us and into B'day wrapping paper for Britt.


I had also started knitting a pair of gauntlets for Britt. It has been a while since I have done any knitting so I was refreshing my memory as I went along. My needle craft of choice for a while now has been counted cross stitch and crocheting. Britt had picked out the pattern and the yarn for this project. The pattern called for little beads, which our Emo Kid preferred not to have, so I adjusted the pattern for that (Not a difficult task) and yarn has a sparkle thread that runs through it (Very nice look to it). This pattern calls for you to knit in the round and to do it with 4 double pointed needles. Whoa Katie...... bar the door! This is turning out to be a whole new experience for me (have never knitted in the round before let alone use four double pointed needles to do it). There are 80 rounds of knitting to one gauntlet. I have to admit that I was doing great and had caught on to this four needle knitting in the round procedure. I was all the way up to round 75 when I emptied needle #4 of stitches and moved it forward to fill it up with stitches again and ended up pulling the wrong needle forward and in the process dropped all of the stitches it was holding....... Ooops. That is when I remembered how unforgiving knitting can be of mistakes. If I had dropped a stitched or two I could have fixed that, but I dropped 24 of them which told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to go back to square one and start all over again.


Start over it was...... The second time doing this was even easier it seemed. I didn't even have to keep checking on the instructions, I had them pretty well memorized (Jo note: How difficult is it to remember Knit 3 Purl 2 heheheh). The first part of last week we went to pick up a load of firewood so I took my knitting along thinking I could get it finished up and the other gauntlet perhaps started and finished by Britt's B'Day. I laid everything down on the center console in the truck at one point and when I picked it up again the 4th needle was gone. I looked everywhere in that truck for it and it was no place to be found. The door to my side of the truck was not opened until we returned home, so it had to be in that truck someplace......... When we got home I even took the flashlight and checked all the dark places the needle could be hiding........ Still no needle. I have decided that we have Gremlins in that truck or Borrowers. After a couple of days we ended up leaving the mountain and making a trip to the big city to purchase another package of double pointed knitting needles so I could complete my project.

The good news is I was able to complete one of the gauntlets which we photographed ( Thanks to my model, T-Bear) and printed out for Britt with the promise that she would get them when Gauntlet # 2 is completed.

My plans for the rest of the day today includes packing Christmas away until the end of the year. I do so enjoy the soft glow of the lights from the Christmas tree and have dragged my feet a bit about taking it down. My agenda for today includes doing just that though to avoid having it still up come Valentines Day or Easter.

Wordless Wednesday

Welcoming In 2008

We had a wonderful evening yesterday waiting to welcome in the New Year. Miss T-Bear is an excellent companion when it comes to staying awake through the magic hour. I on the other hand took little snoozes here and there up until midnight. G'pa was typing like mad on the computer. We set him up with his very own blog account yesterday and I can tell you that he will prove to be a dedicated blogger. He was busy writing up advanced blogs, planning ahead and organizing things for his blog. His blog is J.D.'s Soapbox so be sure to stop in and welcome him to the neighborhood. He loves to debate so if you see something on his blog that you either agree with or not, be sure to leave a comment.

It was a treat to have T-Bear here on the mountain with us last night. She is such a sweet little tenderhearted child. It is so difficult for me to watch these girls growing up. They are so quickly turning into young ladies and no longer my little girls. It doesn't seem that long ago they were playing dress up and putting on skits for us. (Jo note: Skits that they wrote themselves, I might add. Between the three of them, there was never any lack of imagination.) The glass that contained T-Bears bubbly last night was a treasure of a find from three summers ago when the girls and I took a weekend afternoon to check out some promising Yard Sales. They spent the weekend toasting each other with smoothies from their new gold etched crystal goblets. Oh and I forgot to mention the gold and diamond jewelry they found on the jewelry tables at the yard sales. The jewels just dripped from their ears, necks and wrists.

T-Bear had mentioned that she didn't understand why people feel the need to drink alcohol when they celebrate. So we joined her with non-alcoholic bubbly stuff last night. By midnight G'pa had spilled his glass of the good stuff on the floor and I was mopping it up. T-Bear and I decided that in the future G'pa won't be allowed any more of the non-alcoholic bubbly, we will give him the 'Real Deal' thinking it will be better to have a sleepy G'pa than a messy one. It was indeed a wonderful evening.

We have a busy day ahead of us. I have a pot of Black eyed peas cooking on the stove to take to Chris and Melody's later today. After T-Bear wakes up we will get started on Britt's birthday cake and I will pop a pan of corn bread in the oven to carry to the celebration as well.

Being 1/4 Cherokee, I try to learn as much as possible about my heritage and the ways of my ancestors and try to pass these things on to my children and grandchildren. Today I start a new journey down that path of learning. I found a book on Amazon last year titled: "365 Days of Walking The Red Road" by Terri Jean. It is the Native American path to leading a Spiritual Life Every Day. I hope that the end result will be a better me than I started the year as being.

HAPPY NEW YEAR All !