"O Christmas Tree"

Just a quick note today to post a couple of photos of our Christmas tree. In my last post, I wrote that we cut down a tree on our property and used the top of it for our Christmas tree. It has a huge gap on one side and no branches in the back so it looks like the tree was cut in half!

Here is what it looks like with decorations on it. This is the fullest side and the one we see most often...

And here is the gappy side. I actually like having that big old gap - it makes watering the tree really easy this year! No more crawling under the tree to water it! LOL!
The gifts are all wrapped, I've finished writing our Christmas letter (but they aren't ready to mail yet), and the packages were mailed yesterday. We still need to get the letters ready to go, put away all the wrapping supplies, and do some baking. And I'm wondering what else I need to do that I've forgotten! :-D

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Freshness guaranteed!

So, we decided to walk our property after church today to see if we might be able to find a tree suitable for use as a Christmas tree. We discovered that the ponds are partially frozen, but with the warmer weather today and tomorrow I bet the ice doesn't last long.
In a couple of different locations we found corn cobs. DH thinks that hunters put the corn out to attract the deer. We don't know if these are from this year or if they've been on here for a long time.
One of the trees down by the river has a large nest in the top - not sure what, if anything, lives there...
So, we found this tree which was growing too close to the hardwood tree and decided to see if the top of it would work as a Christmas tree...
DH decided that the chainsaw was the way to go...
Cutting down the tree (we think it's a blue spruce)...
TIMBER!!!!!
I can't believe that DH carried the tree by himself all the way up to the house! It was a heavy tree!
The tree was a bit sparse on one side so we put that side toward the door. The trunk is a bit crooked, so we had to tie it up to insure that it won't tip over.
There is a bit of a bare area on one side, but once we hang some of my longer ornaments in that space, it won't look so bad...
It does, however, look very funny from the side - it looks like half a tree!
Here is a shot of the river - I took 4 photos when we were down near the river, and stitched them together into a panoramic. Click on the photo to see it better...
And DH found another golf ball for DD while we were out looking for a tree!

So, we didn't have to buy a tree this year, we took down a tree that needed to come down so a nearby tree can grow, and the freshness of the tree is certainly guaranteed this year!

We have mirrors! And shelves!

It's been a long time coming, but we now have mirrors in our master bathroom! We had to special order the one for over my sink/vanity area, but it finally arrived. DH made frames for them to match the frames on the cabinet doors...

Here is DH's mirror - we'll have to put some artwork up on the blank wall...
DH also built me 2 more shelves in the utility closet across from the powder room. He installed 2 outlets so I can plug in phone/GPS chargers and my sweeper vac.
I managed to get a lot of my house decorating done. The goal was to get it done in time for the church women's dinner party that I hosted last night. I had everything done except for the tree, and it (for us) is still a tad too early to get the tree. I think we'll probably get the tree this weekend. Here is the fireplace with my new wreath over the mantel...
I hung greens around the border of the great room on the valance. I had to get up and down off the ladder every loop in order to move the ladder - it was a good thigh workout! In order to get the swags even, I laid out each section on the floor next to a tape measure and connected a wire ornament hanger to the greens every 3 feet. Then I just had to make sure the bottom of the swag hit the bottom of the valance and there was no need to measure where to hang each hook.
The Santa/Reindeer quilt and nativity are in the entryway...
Underneath the table I put all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, most of them belonging to our kids over the years (and some that even belong to DH and I when we were little).
The stairs were adorned with lights and more greenery...
We set up the tables for my dinner party on Sunday night and I set them and decorated them on Monday. I was expecting 15 guests (plus me) for the third year in a row. There must be something about the number 16 and our women's dinner - they are not the same exact women every year either. Interesting...
Here are the Santa napkins on the table settings - no one wanted to use the napkins for fear of ruining them!
And other place setting...
So, some of the next projects on the list are to find tiles for the backsplash of the beverage area, and to find floor tile for the floor at the bottom of the basement stairs (that we can see when we look down over the stair railing). Here is the beverage area that we want to tile...
I'm thinking I'd like to bring in some of the red color from the adjoining family room. Here is one with very narrow tiles (1/4") in shades of red...
This one has several colors in it which would pull in the colors of the cabinets, counter, and the red from the other room. It seems a little dark to me though, so I'm just not sure. I also have samples of smaller red squares in colors similar to the above tile. Maybe we can combine this tile with some of the red squares, or something...
And in the continuing saga of our hunter...He has never returned - his blind is still down in back of the house, collapsed from the wind. It's very strange...

My, how time flies!

My apologies for taking so long to update my blog. There hasn't been all that much going on with the house - at least that's my excuse! I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving day. We had some of DH's family down and had an enjoyable time.

I drove to Winchester, VA on Tuesday to pick up DD so that she could spend all her time in the car doing homework. It was the only way she could come home for Thanksgiving. She also did homework pretty much morning to night the whole time she was home, and also in the car on the way back (I didn't have to drive her back - she was able to catch a ride with a friend from OH).

We have been having a problem with water getting into the basement. While DH was up on a ladder outside my sewing studio, he spotted the problem. The flashing in this area is missing, or not done correctly. There is a gap between the gutter and the wall to the right and the water is missing the gutter and traveling down the brick wall into the basement.
You can see the white marks on the brick (to the left of the ladder shadow) where the water has been trickling down the bricks...
DH has made a lot of progress in sorting boxes and things in the basement. Here are all the games - we sure do have a lot! I've gotten rid of stacks of games the past few years at the church rummage sale. We used to go to garage sales and buy games for $1.00, which is the reason we have so many. I'll have to sort through these again and set aside some more for next year's sale. Our family was big into board games, but not so much anymore.
The holiday decorations and textbooks/papers are on shelves, but we either need to get rid of some, or get more shelves...
Here is the corner where the leftover paint is stored...
And here are the empty boxes and luggage...
Our kitchen/family room stools arrived today! I got them assembled (only 4 screws per stool) and I think they look nice there. They certainly are sturdy, not to mention heavy!
Here is a shot of the room where the stools are...
I spent a good part of today sorting through the items behind the French doors in the great room. I arranged the shelves and got all the plaster dust off the shelves from when DH when doing some electrical work inside the closet.
We were very surprised on this first day of deer hunting season that our hunter did not show up to hunt. We figured the hunter set the hunting blind up behind our house 3 weeks ago to stake out a spot for the first day of hunting season, but he was a no-show today. We'll see if he shows up tomorrow...

The changing views...

It's interesting to see how different the river looks depending on the day, or even the time of day, that you are looking at it. I took this photo yesterday and the river looks very white, but we sure can see a lot of the river without the leaves on the trees!
I took this photo today. The river looks much more blue - whether that is due to the adjacent snow on the ground or perhaps there was a bit of fog lying over the river yesterday, I don't know...
And here is our view of the river when the trees are fully leaved-out. You can barely see it! We're planning to thin out the trees down on the edge of the cliff so we can have a clearer view of the river year-round.
On Wednesday, I enjoyed a luncheon and program sponsored by the Oakmont Garden Club. I put a silent auction bid on this wreath and (with the help of a friend!) won it. I haven't decided where to put it yet. It could go over the mantel, or in the entry, or on the front door...
Last night I embroidered more Santa napkins for the women's dinner that I'm hosting in December. I also made up this quilted name banner for a friend who lives in a senior apartment building. If she wants people to know where she lives, she can put it on the outside of her door; otherwise, she can hang it inside her apartment. She is a huge Steelers fan, so I had to make it with Steelers colors. It will be a Christmas gift for her (so no one tell her, please!)...

The never-ending to-do list...

DH spent Saturday installing the gas logs in our fireplace. It's wonderful to flip a switch on the wall and have a fire in the fireplace. I have used it often since he finished installing it...

And the weather outside made it all the nicer to have a fire in the fireplace. We had snow flurries all day Saturday and Sunday, but fortunately only a bit of it stuck to the ground.
DH's other project for the weekend was to work on the broom closet. The builder only had one shelf in the closet and it doesn't hold much. DH will add a couple of more shelves for cleaning supplies, an outlet for plugging in chargers for phones, etc. (he actually installed it before I shot this photo), and an outlet to plug my Swiffer sweeper vac into to charge it.
While he was at the store to get a longer pipe to install the gas logs, he picked up a couple of thin sheets of metal to put in the bottom of my spice drawers to keep the magnetic tins from sliding around.
DD asked me to take some photos of her room and post them so her friends at college can see her room, so here they are. There are still a couple of piles of things laying around that didn't go back to college with her.
The dresser and closet side of the room and the all-important golf ball collection...
The desk area and entrance to her room...
The bookcase...
For those following the saga of the hunting blind that someone set up on our property, we still haven't seen any sign of the owner. The winds were strong on Saturday, so the blind collapsed but didn't blow away because it is staked into the ground. Gun season for deer hunting begins the Monday following Thanksgiving here in PA, so my guess is that he set up the blind early to stake out his territory. He'll be really surprised when he comes back to hunt and finds the Posted signs that we've hung up around our property!
A good part of this weekend was spent searching online for some stools for the bar in the kitchen/family room. I sent DH a long list of possibilities and he sent back a list of his 3 favorites. This one is the Tommy stool - I was a bit worried that the legs on this one would mar the wood floors and they were so narrow at the bottom it wasn't obvious that felt pads would work on the legs...
This one is the Hillsdale Cierra stool. Part of the problem with all the stools we looked at was the risk that the reds wouldn't coordinate with the red chairs that we already have in the room in front of the fireplace. They came in other colors, so the second dilemma was trying to decide on color.
We finally decided on this stool. It is the Hillsdale Venus stool and we bought 4 of them for the kitchen bar area. The online reviews were very good - very well made, sturdy, and comfortable...
I think this stool is really fun, but DH didn't care for it. Maybe I'll get it for my sewing studio. I'm planning to get a stool to sit on at my cutting table while I work on my scrapbooking. I need to get the counter-height cutting table in there first, then a 26" stool should work well.
I spent Saturday doing some cleaning and cutting shelf liner to fit the shelves and drawers in my kitchen. I didn't do all of the cupboards, but wanted to get the ones done that might get water or dirt on them. I mainly did the cupboards where I store my glassware and the drawers where I store my spices.

I also worked on a set of placemats that I'm making for our family room table. I finished one last week and yesterday I almost finished a second one. It may be a while before I get all 6 of them done! The embroidery takes 45 minutes to an hour per placemat and the handstitching around the embroidery takes about an hour per placemat. I hate handstitching, but it really adds to the details on the placemat. Photos to come later...