New Year's Eve ~ December 31, 2015

Amazing, but true ~ Welcome 2016!

Just relaxing here at home. ~ smile ~

Dean and I are beyond the point of enjoying
crowds and chaos!

Tomorrow we'll wake up to the New Year, and I'll try to remember for at least the next month
that I no longer am writing 2015!

~ ♥ ~

In the meantime........

An Invitation to Life

"I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love [is put into action]. It doesn't come in an envelope. It's ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It's the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day." ~ Bob Goff

I absolutely love this quote for it's 
frank and simple truth!

~ ♥ ~
Our outdoor birds bring me joy all year round, but especially during the winter months. Just knowing that they're perched waiting in the trees and bushes nearby for their daily treats is all the incentive I need to brave the cold and fill their feeders!

©KMC 2015

Cinnamon Sugar Walnuts

This year, my neighbor and I exchanged kitchen "treat" gifts with one another.  

While she gushed over my plate of molasses cookies and toffee bars, I have to say that her cute, simply decorated jar of cinnamon sugar walnuts, were insanely more delicious than my cookies, not to mention addicting. I've eaten nearly the entire jar myself! 

Realizing that the jar is almost empty makes me very disappointed. So, I've decided it's a recipe I must have. ☺ After all, there are worse things a person could snack on, right? (Walnuts are actually prostate and breast cancer reducers, and promote heart and brain health, among a few other positive benefits recent studies have revealed. Now, that makes them worth snacking on!

Christmas ~ Here and Gone Before I Knew It


Christmas was a flurry of activities, that came and went in the blink of an eye! Every year, after Christmas, I think of how hectic and crazy things were, and determine to make things better the next time around. It never happens! Yet every year, I make this same promise to myself.... I imagine one of these years, I'll actually follow through! Maybe....

Thinking About Christmas

Just sitting and relaxing this evening, thinking about Christmas. 


and


Just what is Christmas?

Sprucing Up The Bathroom

It's amazing what a couple coats of paint and some decorative upgrades can do to make a room look 100% better. It may not be perfect, but it'll still be better!
This is what our bathroom looked like when we first moved in a year ago this past July ~ very bland, complete with a bright white toilet seat on a dark maroon toilet, and a way beyond dirty tub with an equally disgustingly dirty set of sliding shower doors. At least this picture was taken after a thorough cleaning and floor mopping!
Fortunately, we were able to get a gently used, "new" replacement for our tub and wall surround, and got rid of any sort of shower doors! While the dark maroon toilet and sink are not at all what I would have picked, they're in great condition, so I'm making do with their color and worked that fact into my paint choice for the walls.
Over the last year, I've been able to put together items toward my bathroom theme, which is a kind of an Antique Rose best I can figure. Not everything matches perfectly, but most everything is quite similar....



This theme, together with the sink and toilet color, played the biggest part in why I chose Pink Whisper for the paint color on our walls.

O Christmas Tree

Last weekend Charlie and I set up our Christmas tree. Every year I think that maybe I should have gotten a bigger, fuller or taller one, but then, as we gently put all the branches in place and fluff them up, the tree takes shape and I change my mind, again. Then I think of how hard it would be to get rid of the first tree Dean and I bought for the first Christmas we ever shared as a family. So I lovingly begin to set out decorations to hang on it's beautiful branches. This year, my folks were also here to share the moment ~ and that makes it special, too. They were there that first Christmas when we brought this very same tree home, and decorated it with the children. I like when moments and memories carry on. ☺

Here is Charlie placing the branches on the "trunk". 


Becca and I decided on a bird theme this year. She and her boyfriend got me started by surprising me with a few ornaments they bought me as a gift. Here they are.....

Simplicity is Good

More and more lately I find myself longing for simplicity. I'll even go so far as to say I long for it in every facet of my life.

 
But I think simplicity suggests a negative connotation, and the condition of lack or insufficiency to many people. I suppose I may have thought that at one time myself.

Yet, I've begun to realize that simplicity actually allows one to have more than enough on many levels. Having moved several times in the last decade has really driven home the benefits of simplicity to me. 


Rain, Rain, Go Away

Here it is, December 3rd, and miraculously we have no snow. A thing for which I'm thankful!

But a dreary, cold, rainy day such as we had today (and yesterday, and the day before),
does bring one's spirits low, despite the rejoicing of having no snow!

Thick, gray clouds rolled through all day long.

Raindrops gathered on the windows.
 

It was a perfect morning to enjoy our cozy fire!

 For a while, not a bird or a critter dared creep out... Until this little Sparrow decided to pop out from his shelter under our front deck.

 Then, one by one, others ventured out from their hiding spots, too.

Tis Tuesday Evening

....and all through the house, 

every precious fur baby is sleeping, 

Melissa

Joanna

Romeo

Checkers

Ziva

except for one who wishes she could find a mouse!
 But this tantalizing feather toy
will just have to do!

Jessica



 ~ ♥ ~