Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Are you settling for something?
I'm very happy with my life, I can't think of anything that I'm simply settling for.

 2.  It wasn't that long ago almost every store in the US locked doors and turned out lights on Thanksgiving Day. This year many will be open all day Thursday, giving shoppers a jump start on 'Black Friday'. In your opinion is this a good thing or a not so good thing? Will you be shopping on Thanksgiving Day?

I feel sorry for all those who have to work on Thanksgiving. I don't think it's a good thing. I will not be part of the reason why someone else has to work on a holiday, I'll stay at home. If everyone would do the same no stores would have the reason for asking their employees to work instead of spending time with their family.

 3. Speaking of shopping... I saw a recent article on the twelve best shopping cities in the world. In order they are-

New York, Tokyo, London, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Vienna, Dubai, Madrid, Milan, and Seoul.

Ever shopped in any of the cities listed? In which city would you most like to pull out the plastic or cold hard cash?

I haven't been to any of those cities, but I would love to visit New York City someday.

 4.  When did you last dine by candlelight?

Several weeks ago the children decided they wanted to cook a meal for us and set the dining room table with our best dishes, and a nice arrangement of candles. It was by no means a five star meal, but I enjoyed it more than almost any other meal I've ever had.

 5. What do you have too much of?

Fluffiness.

 6. The Hunger Games...are you a fan?  Did you read the book(s)?  Will you/have you seen the movie?  Will you/have you seen Catching Fire?  No spoilers please!

I have not read the books or seen the movie, so I don't know if I would be a fan or not.

 7. Share your plans for Thanksgiving Day. The who, the where, the what...especially the what! As in what's for dinner?  If you're one of my International visitors, whose homeland doesn't celebrate American Thanksgiving (the whole world doesn't ya know!), then still tell us your plans for Thursday.

We will be at home alone. Don't feel sorry for us, we actually really enjoy spending holidays with just our family. We don't do turkey choosing to have a ham and this year also a rack of ribs. Several kinds of salad, sweet corn, dill bread, and regular homemade dinner rolls, potatoes, our traditional Thanksgiving pudding, several kinds of pie and some appetizers, and dips to enjoy later on.

 8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Snow and ice make today a perfect day to stay inside. Who knows, I might even get some extra treats made for tomorrow.

Love

This weekend I stumbled across a quote that made me stop and think.

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.

What great advice packed into one little quote! The world would be a much happier place if everyone practiced that.

I'll try to do my part today and speak only of things I love.

• Snow. I like that the ground has a cover of white and am eagerly looking forward to the snowstorm that is supposed to come this week.
• Sailor's weekly guitar lessons are paying off. I love listening to him play. He's getting quite good at it.
• Good books. I'm currently rereading the Amethyst Heart by Penelope Stokes. It's one of those books that I like reading every year or so.
• My family. I think that's pretty self explanatory. They're my favorite people in the world!
• Butter fried chicken breasts. No seasoning, no breading, just fried to a beautiful deep golden brown in real butter. Juicy, and delicious! A family favorite.
• Chocolate, especially milk chocolate. Need I say more?
• Rugs made by my Aunt Emma. They're simply the best, they last and last, and they don't slip and slide all over the floor.
• Cold water from our well.
• Words spoken by a toddler. Love Buddy's version of names for his siblings, and how he calls our dog, Gypsy, Dippy.
• Tide laundry detergent.
• Stationary, notebooks, and office supplies of all kinds. They make me happy!
• Pinecones. Don't ask me why I like them so well, I'm not sure I can explain.

That's only a small list of things I love. What would you add to it?

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What lesson has failure taught you?

It has taught me that sometimes I'm focused on the wrong things, that it's time to step back and re-evaluate. Failure isn't always a bad thing. Some of the best things that have ever happened to us is because of failure.
 

2. What decision are you glad you made?

Other than my faith and marrying LV. I have never once regretted our decision of leaving the Amish.

3. I've been a little bit surprised to see fully lit and decorated Christmas trees popping up for the past several weeks in friend's Instagram feeds. So tell the truth-is your tree up and decorated, and if so when did that happen? If not, when will you be decking the halls?

Our tree is not up and decorated yet. We usually wait until sometime after Thanksgiving. I have been listening to Christmas music and the girls have been in full blown Christmas spirit for quite a while already. They secured their very own scrawny little tree and put it in their room.

 

4. Solitaire-Poker-Rummy-Hearts-Go Fish-Old Maid...which game of cards would you most like to join? 

From the options here, I'd choose Solitaire. My favorite game of cards is Phase 10. LV and I have played that more times than I can count. I love it even though he wins way more often than I do. The children love Uno and Dutch Blitz so we play those quite often as well.
 

5. This question comes to you courtesy of a Facebook friend, who once upon a time had a blog...When you're feeling stressed do you snack a lot or are you more the 'can't eat' type?

That depends on the stress. Deadlines looming have a way of making me hungry, but if it's more of an upsetting type of stress I can't eat.
 

6.  Have you ever reviewed a product or service on line? Was your review favorable or less than favorable? 

I have reviewed products online. Mostly purchases from Amazon, but only if I could give a favorable review.
 

7. What was the best conversation you had yesterday? 

Trying to think. Probably at the supper table last evening when we were all discussing the happenings of our day.
 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I have been having some weird blogs pop up on my blog reader even though I never subscribed to them or even heard of them before.

I don't like it, don't like it at all!

Traditions

Traditions can be a good thing, they can also put a lot of unwanted pressure on you that had never been intended when ever the tradition had started.

Thankfully I'm at a place in my life where I'm okay with not following traditions unless they actually add something to our family.

I have been browsing Pinterest for ideas for special snacks and treats in hopes of reviving our family tradition of having a snack-tastic Christmas. It sort of fizzled out for a few years, but with eager helpers in the kitchen it feels like the year to celebrate like we used to. Several different pins that kept popping up had to do with the twelve days of Christmas and ideas what to do on each day. I'm contemplating whether or not it might be something to do this year. I had tried our own version of it for our first Christmas and we loved it, but children and added responsibilities they bring made that it never became a tradition.

The first time I heard of celebrating the twelve days of Christmas was as a teen one of my friends lived in the Amish community in Milverton, Ontario and there they all celebrate it quite properly. Beginning on the day after Christmas and continuing until January 6th they have a continual Christmas celebration of visiting friends, having special food for each of the days, including roast goose, mincemeat pie, fruitcake, poached pears, and what ever else was considered to be the proper food to eat each day.

It used to make me weary just thinking about having almost two whole weeks of not working. As far as I know they are the only Amish community to celebrate like that and I can't help but wonder how many of them wish they could quit the tradition.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Describe a typical Sunday from your childhood.

There were two distinctly different typical Sundays in my childhood, since the Amish only have church every other Sunday.

A typical church Sunday started with all of us getting up bright and early. Mom and I would prepare breakfast while Daddy and the boys went out to the barn to milk the cow and get our horse ready. After breakfast Daddy would be humming or singing the slow church tunes while Mom and I did the dishes. Once everyone was changed Daddy would go hitch the horse to the buggy while Mom inspected everyone to make sure we were all spotlessly clean.

The ride to church in the back of the buggy was good most times although there were times that we got irritated at each other for taking up too much leg room. The two back seats faced each other and required interlocking knees, and lots of patience with siblings.

Arriving at church Mom and I went inside while Daddy and the boys went out to the barn with the rest of the menfolk until it was time for services to start. Two or three slow church songs were sung (taking up to 20 minutes per song) next came the preaching of two sermons and a scripture reading, and then the 15 minute prayer where I tried to keep my knees from creaking. Another slow song and church was over and we could visit with our friends until it was time to go home.

Sundays we didn't have church were my favorite. During beautiful summer weather we would often go for a drive in our spring wagon, other times we had friends over, or we simply enjoyed reading, playing games, or writing letters. In-between Sunday's never seemed to last long enough.

2. How comfortable are you with uncertainty? Explain.

I think I'm fairly comfortable with it. Our future is uncertain, but knowing God holds the future I don't have to worry about what it holds.

3. What have you accomplished recently that might be described as crafty, as in 'arts and crafts' crafty?  If crafty doesn't work for you, how about handy? Or both?

Last evening I started making several hand towels for the kitchen. The ones I have now are in desperate need to be replaced and I'm finally getting it done.
 

4. Have you ever worked in a 'food place'? What did you take away from the experience?

I have never worked in a 'food place' other than my kitchen. I love how the kitchen seems to be the heart of the home and how so many memorable family times occur over good food and great conversation.

5. Cold turkey, talk turkey, what a turkey...in recent days, which turkey phrase or idiom best applies to you and why? Click on the word turkey if you need to read more about the meaning behind each phrase.

Probably talk turkey. I'll wait to say what it involved until some later day.

6. If you could have any one guest join your Thanksgiving dinner table, who would it be?

Nothing would make me happier than having my parents at my Thanksgiving table and have us all enjoying each other's company.

7. What is one thing you must accomplish today?

I have some bills I have to pay today. Blah!

And then later this afternoon we will be having friends over. Yay!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Seeing LV take time to play with Buddy even though he is in the middle of an interesting book never fails to warm my heart.

Living Life

Q. What have I been up to that an entire week has managed to pass since the last time I did a post?
A. Simply living life.

 

I've been trying to remember to take care of my 45 Day Fruitcake everyday. I'm on day 18 so I still have a way to go.

 

~~~~~

 

I've been reading to Buddy. A lot. He still enjoys some of his baby and toddler books, but his book of choice is Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. He'll bring it to me and sit and listen intently while I read it. He seems to think Fudge is hilarious.

 

 

~~~~~

We have been busy learning new things, for example, did you know that when a violet seed pod bursts, the seeds shoot through the air as far as sixteen feet?

We all found that to be fascinating.

~~~~~

 

Buddy loves animals. When ever he sees cows he will tug at my skirt and hurry me over to a window so I can see them too. Lately they've been camping out behind the house which made my trips to go see them quite frequent.

~~~~~

We have been having friends over, taking the children to their practices, the sewing machine has been humming away, at least as much as a treadle machine is able to hum. The kitchen has been the center of activity as we tried new recipes and did some fun experiments. We're planning a more homemade Christmas so all manner of crafty things seem to be appearing where ever I look.

Evenings have been times of reading books, playing board games, and doing puzzles.

While I was occupied with simply living and enjoying life, my poor little blog got just a tad neglected. I'll try to do better.

Young Men and Washing Machines

Monday morning arrives and carrying on with the tradition I was used to it means laundry day. I have tried washing a load everyday but find it aggravating and tiring, I would much rather have laundry only on one day even if it means there is a mountain of laundry that needs to be done, because then I can go about the rest of my week blissfully free of that chore.

This morning when I opened the washer I was greeted with dog hair. Sailor had decided to wash his dog's blanket and the result wasn't pretty for my washer. He helped me clean it up while I gave him a few tips on how to successfully wash the blanket next time with out gunking up the machine.

Growing up with five younger brothers there was more than one time the washing machine became interesting. Especially as they grew older and didn't always think things through.

The memory that comes to mind is of one young man, being hopelessly in love, wanting his black wool hat to look like new to impress his young maiden. While Mom's back was turned the hat made it's way into the washing machine, where much to his dismay instead of a beautiful black hat emerging from the soapy water, the water turned black and the hat turned into a soggy mess that resembled a blanket much more than a hat. He scooped it out of the water and was stuffing it into the furnace just as Mom came back.

He did get a new black hat, and somehow I never did find out if it impressed his young maiden. I'm guessing she was much more enthused seeing the person wearing the hat, than the hat itself

Winner

November is here and with it came dull gray and brown scenery, the perfect time of year to curl up somewhere cozy with a good book. There are so many good books out there and occasionally I like sharing some of my favorites from when I was growing up, which brings us to the reason of this post. Choosing the winner for The Language of my Heart, the true journal of a young Amish girl now in book form.

After consulting the random generator the winner is.....

Comment #9 Noelle the dreamer said .......

I think most of us have tried our hand at keeping a journal (a little like blogging) but I agree some are far more interesting than others! My Granny kept traveling journals and I am blessed to own those! Her schooling stopped at age 9 but she was multilingual and would have loved to become a playwriter!
'The Journal of Anne Frank' comes to mind as most teens have read it (at least overseas). Unforgetable!
Kindly add my name in the hat for 'The Language of my Heart' Mary Ann. Just the title has my imagination going!
God bless,

Congratulations! Please send me an email with your address and I will get the book mailed to you.