December 4

Probably the most Christmasy thing I did today was to put out some Christmas decorations at our little cottage.  The sign above, for one.  I got out other signs and ornaments and put them here and there, even adding a vintage dish Christmas dish towel in the kitchen!

Meanwhile, Mr. T got the Christmas tree out of storage and put it in the loft window.  With the help of grandson Sam, he strung outdoor lights on the gable end -- colored icicle lights!

He has also baked two batches of cookies today and made a batch of fudge!

A surprising vintage find

 

Back while cleaning out the old homestead in 2020, there were many fun vintage finds that we uncovered.  Among them were boxes that evidently accompanied my mother when she left home to get married.  They held mementos and other things from her childhood, college years, and even her young adult years teaching school.

The oldest of these boxes contained many childhood treasures (even old school papers and report cards!) but one of the most precious things I found was a cardboard suitcase that seemed intended for doll clothes.  It is 1930s vintage and is labeled "Dolly Peggy and Her Hope Chest."

I just did a little research online and found this from Worthpoint: "A Dolly Peggy Hope Chest. 8"x3"x6". Made by Transogram Company Inc, NY.  The chest is made of cardboard with a metal handle and latch.  It is covered on all sides with pictures of Dolly Peggy traveling the world, taking a bath, buying new clothes, pictures of a train, plane and ocean liner.  Even has a picture of her little dog - Rags.  Inside fully lined in pink and cream paper with a moire pattern ... A bit timeworn, but a really neat doll accessory!"

As you can see, the one I found was "a bit timeworn", also.   I opened it up fully expecting to find doll clothes.  But what I found was actually even more precious to me.  Apparently I didn't take any photos of it, but that's okay.  It was a sort of crumpled up piece of fabric, which turned out to be a partially completed stamped cross stitch with this saying: "A Friendly House by the Side of the Road With a Friendly Welcome for You".  The skeins of embroidery floss were there with it.

It doesn't take a detective to know this was a project my mother had started as a child, but had never completed.  What intrigues me more is a snippet of a memory of something my mother had shared with me.  How, when she was a child, her father was very ill and spent time in Boston in the hospital.  Her mother was there with him, and various extended family members took up the slack at home: supervising the maple sugar operation, looking after the children, and so on.  One of those who helped care for the children was a teenage cousin, I believe.  My mother recalled how this girl -- I think her name may have been Rebekah -- taught her and her sisters to sew doll clothes and to embroider.  So I think it's not too much of a stretch to assume that this was the project my mother practiced those skills  on.

 Well, of course you know I had to finish that incomplete project.  The floss was still there, although I think it didn't include yellow, so I used some from my stash.

And I did finish it-- using the colors she had started with on areas that she had begun to stitch, then choosing from among the included floss (along with yellow to brighten it up) to stitch the remaining unstitched design.  And it languished for a bit until I thought of the exact right thing to do with it.

You see, I own a framed cross stitch from the same era -- stitched by my Great-Aunt Mabel and dated 1935.  It's very similar in design, which makes me guess the one by my mother is from the mid-1930s as well. As you can see, the saying is "How Dear to This Heart are the Scenes of My Childhood when Fond Recollection Presents Them to View."  I've had this for awhile.  It always hung in my grandmother's house, near her desk and the chair where she spent many hours talking on the phone.  When I acquired this heirloom -- which had always intrigued me, even before I learned to embroider -- I immediately hung it in our bedroom.

But then.  Along came our camp, and after it was made livable again, I decided to take Mabel's cross-stitch to hang on the freshly painted wall of the bedroom nook.  It looks wonderful there.

And so, upon giving it some thought, I realized that my mother's sampler should also be framed and hung on one of the other walls in that nook.  A good idea, but easier said than done.  At first, I thought maybe I would try to match the frame on Mabel's stitchery (or have my husband make one),  but quickly realized that would be nearly impossible -- and also that this wasn't about perfection.  Our camp is so full of quirky, whimsical old things that a little detail like frame color and style mattered not a whit.  

Then the problem began to be finding an affordable frame that would fit.  Walmart was no help.  I found some frames that I liked, but getting a large enough one was going to be expensive.  And they didn't have the colors I liked on the larger frames.  This cross-stitch piece doesn't look as big as it actually is.  I confidently purchased an 8x10 frame before realizing the design wasn't going to fit.

So we began to visit the thrift store on a regular basis to see if we could find a suitable frame, or even a piece of framed art.  Our favorite local thrift store has quite a fast turnover, so we felt we would eventually find just what we needed.

It took a few months, but one day Mr. T found a framed art piece that he thought was the right size.  He "measured" it by laying it down on the floor tiles, which he guessed to be about a foot square.  He was sure it would be right -- and it was!  We wasted no time purchasing it, removing the artwork, and using it to frame the needlework.  It fit perfectly and looks so good with the stitchery.

Although this one is blurry, you can see its place in the corner of the sleeping nook, and you can also see how the border is somewhat similar to the one on Mabel's stitchery above.

 This one is less blurry.  Even though our camp is in the woods on a dirt road, it truly is "by the side of the road" and we do offer a friendly welcome to those who can visit us there.

 After almost 90 years, this sweet sampler is just where it belongs.

First Friday in September

 

What a wonderful start to our day as we took time to build, and sit by, a morning campfire at our little cottage!  Nearly always, we have some sort of time constraint for getting back home after spending the night at the camp.  

But on Friday mornings, that's seldom the case, so typically we've been doing our grocery shopping around 8 am on Friday.  This week, we had done the shopping on Thursday.   And that evening as we sat by the fire, my hubby suggested that we ought to build a campfire in the morning, and enjoy our time with the Lord out there.  

Friday dawned clear, crisp, and beautiful.  That's not anything we take for granted these days!  There has been so much rain.

My hubby lost no time in building a fire.  Soon we were sitting beside it, devotional materials and mugs of hot coffee in hand.

What a beautiful way to start our Friday, as well as the month of September!

We decided that this will be our new tradition for Friday mornings throughout September and October, any Friday that the weather cooperates with us.  It's a much sweeter start to the day than grocery shopping (which we can easily fit in on a different day).  Wouldn't you agree?

A simple pleasure

 

 I'm taking one question from this week's Hodgepodge to answer.  No time to work on the entire list, so I chose the question 

What's your favorite simple pleasure?

Oh, there are so many simple pleasures I enjoy!  I could go on and on for quite awhile:  summer ice cream dates, autumn leaves, snowy winter days, the first spring blossoms, breezes wafting through screened windows, sharpening times with friends, time with grandchildren and their parents, time at the lakes and mountains of our state, sunrises and sunsets, campfires, picking strawberries and blueberries, walking an ocean beach -- and so many, many more.  

But the question was what's my favorite simple pleasure, so that narrowed it down quite a bit.  In her Hodgepodge post, Joyce noted that her morning coffee is that for her.  Sometimes she even looks forward to it the night before.

And I have to say that when I go to sleep at night (especially at our camp) I will be thinking of that first cup of coffee the next morning, as it will be accompanying my time in God's Word.

Oh, the simple joy of brewing a cup (or three) of coffee and sipping it as I read through God's Word in my Daily Walk Bible -- now my absolute favorite way to read through the whole Bible.

And then to work on my current Bible study.  As many know, I'm trying to finish up a study of Psalms 101-150.  I think I have eight more psalms to complete.  That's the study pictured at the top of the page.

I'm also working on a couple of Daily Grace studies, and so enjoying them, but they are taking a bit of a back seat while I finish up Psalms.  One is a discipleship study and the other is in Lamentations.

Then I continue sipping coffee while I have my prayer time.  This often takes me between 30 and 60 minutes, but it is a precious time of dealing with sin in my own life, praising God for who He is, and interceding for others.

I especially love it when I can have my coffee and quiet time at our little cottage.  It's particularly wonderful when we can have the big screened windows open and the sweet woodland breezes and birdsong are wafting in.

And it can be a cozy time at home too, especially in the dark, quiet early mornings when we turn on the pretty white lights in the living room.

Sometimes, if we have to travel for our volunteer jobs and must leave early in the morning, my hubby and I pray as we travel down the interstate.  He did this for years whenever he had a long commute to a logging job.

And speaking of travel, it's always a blessing to have my coffee and quiet time in any cabin or Airbnb where we might have traveled for a getaway.

If we happen to be at our favorite getaway cabin in the Great North Woods, there is nothing like coffee, Bible study and prayer down on the dock right next to Back Lake.

As I've gazed at all these photos of some of my well-loved simple pleasures, it has blessed me even more to remember that God's Word will last forever.  I may not always  have coffee, but I can always have God's Word -- especially if I have taken time to memorize part of it.

And that's why coffee and quiet time is my favorite simple pleasure.  What is yours?

Winter nights at our little camp

 In 2022, we spent at least one night every month at our little cottage in the woods -- except for January and February.  So for 2023, we set a goal to be able to stay at least one night during those winter months as well.  This is quite a challenge considering the fact that our camp is not winterized.  

All of the interior photos in this post were taken with my tablet in the main, living/dining room on an early morning in mid-January.  In the photo below,  directly below where the oar is hanging, the expanse of wood is one of the large shutters that cover the huge screened windows.  These shutters are held up by hooks to the rafters in warmer weather.  But during the off-season we enjoy looking at the art we have hung on some of them.  You can also see that we brought in our "Lakeview Lodge" sign 

for the winter and it is hanging from the rafters.

My hubby has insulated the walls in the living room and loft, but the walls in the other two rooms have no insulation (and it would be a difficult task to add any) and none of the floors are insulated.  

However, due to some warmer than usual temperatures in January, plenty of dry firewood, and some good old Yankee ingenuity on my husband's part, we were able to stay several nights last month. 

 The middle room (where the sleeping nook and bathroom are located) can be kept warm, since that's also where the wood stove is.  Enough heat filters into the kitchen from there so that we can prepare a quick meal or wash a few dishes. (At night, while we're sleeping, we curtain off the kitchen to keep the heat in the room where we are.). That would be Yankee ingenuity hack #1 -- there's no door between the two, so we put up a tension rod and at night we clip a quilt to the rod.

In the evenings before bed, though, we like to have the big living/dining area warm enough that we can eat supper and relax there.  We have a couple of electric heaters that we can use in there, but my hubby figured out something that works even better: Yankee ingenuity hack #2.  He took a fan --- just a plain, ordinary metal fan -- and placed it on top of the wood stove so that it blows warm air through the doorway into the big room.  It makes things so comfortable in there throughout the evening!  When we're ready for bed, we just unplug the fan and close the door to the big room.

My hubby figured out a different system for the Christmas candles this year.  He still doesn't have window sills made.  So rather than individual shelves under each window as he did last year, he made one long shelf beneath all four windows.  I really like it and wouldn't mind if his eventual window sills came out something like this.  You can glimpse a buffalo check throw in the photo below.  We have a cozy throw on every chair as well as the couch. 

I mentioned earlier that all the floors are uninsulated (though some of them will eventually be insulated, they are not at this time).  The floor in the large room is mostly covered by a woven vintage rug, so that helps a lot.  The floor in the bedroom/bathroom area, however, becomes downright chilly in the middle of the night.  Which brings me to Yankee ingenuity hack #3: We had a large, very thick "bath sheet" that I bought by mistake on clearance some years ago.  We just lay that down on the floor before bed on top of the throw rugs and it does the trick.  It's easily taken up in the morning.  We shake it out, fold it and stash it out of sight until the next time.  It's easily washed when needed.  

Below a couple more photos from the living/dining area:

Another of the large shutters with artwork displayed on it.  When the shutters are up, the framed pieces stay safely in place.

 

 For Christmas I had this simple runner on the table (it's actually still in place) with a sweet wintry candle holder atop it.

I mentioned in my Hodgepodge post how we plan for spontaneous winter evenings at the camp by being prepared.   The two basic things we need other than PJs and such are water and coffee.  We have a supply of K-cups at the camp.  We keep our camp Keurig (which would freeze internally if we left it there) in a box ready to transport, and another box containing our jug for drinking water.  My hubby watches the weather forecasts like a hawk, keeping an eye open for warm winter days (40s or above) and warmish nights.  When a likely night shows up, we just add water to the jug, grab the Keurig box and our duffel bag with clothing, toothbrushes, etc.  and are ready to go.

We also try to keep a good amount of dry firewood and kindling under cover on the camp porch, ready for starting a fire in the wood stove.  When it's possible, my hubby will go over to the camp in the afternoon of a night when we plan to stay, and start a fire to warm things up.  It gets very cold in there as one would expect of an unheated seasonal place.  If we can take the chill off first it really helps.

Oh, speaking of coffee, which I was a paragraph or two ago -- I almost forgot about Yankee ingenuity hack #4.  You might guess (and you'd be right) that kitchen cabinets in an unheated building would be very, very cold in winter.  And everything contained in them is also cold.  Probably even cold enough to break if hot liquid was poured into it.  So, the night before, we take two coffee mugs out of the cabinet and place them on a handy shelf not far from the wood stove.  By the time we're ready for coffee in the morning, our mugs are preheated and ready to use.

 We're hoping to stay over again either this week or next, as there are some warm days and nights in the forecast.  If we can stay even one night in February, we'll meet our goal to stay over at camp every month of the year!

December 8

 

 Well, let's see where things are with our Christmas preparations.  First of all, the Gooseberry Patch Christmas wallpaper above is on my desktop.  Love it!  I very much enjoy Gooseberry Patch art work and am so tickled to be able to have it on my computer.  If you would like to check out their wallpapers, go here: Gooseberry Patch free wallpapers.  They have them for all seasons, not just Christmas.  You are sure to find something fun that you want to use.

In the illustration above, I love that gorgeous metal loaf pan.  My grandmother used to have bakeware resembling that.  I love that this illustration pictures Christmas kitchen gifts!

I've been busy trying to scan and list more vintage Christmas cards at my Etsy shop (link in sidebar).  So many cards, so little time!  Below is one of my recent listings.  This one is especially sweet.

I got a few Christmas gifts ordered and most have already arrived.  I prefer to start wrapping after the tree is up so that I can just place the gifts under the tree and not have to keep them in some "way station" (like our bedroom) until later.

The photo below is from many years ago when we actually had a small narrow tree in our bedroom.  It sparked a memory.  Maybe you would like to read about it.  Go here: "How Beautiful!"

 
Today my hubby is out of town for the day and I'm really hoping to get some cleaning done in our bedroom, as well as perhaps bake a variety of Christmas cookies and write a few blog posts.  We will see!

Speaking of my hubby, he has continued to be busy making fudge and baking Christmas cookies.  He made some Special Holiday Fudge which our faraway daughter particularly enjoys.  So some of that will be winging its way to her soon.  It's a chocolate fudge with raisins and nuts in it.  Tastes a little bit like a Chunky candy bar.

 
He's been trying out the new cookie press from Amazon and is completely unimpressed with it.  In fact, I think we will be returning it.  It was a little sturdier than he hoped, but the ratchet system for pressing out the cookie dough is terribly weak and has nearly broken after just one use.

We kept an eye on the weather forecast for a week and finally, on Tuesday night, it was warm enough to spend the night at our little camp.  It was a very rainy night, but our daughter, son-in-law, and their youngest braved the trek through the woods to visit for awhile.  I do apologize for the dark and blurry tablet photo, but it gives you an idea of my hubby's temporary system for keeping electric window candles in place.  It's a big improvement over last year's method.

 We love the idea of lighting up the night at our cabin in the woods even when we aren't there, so we have window candles and upstairs tree on a timer.  We hope it shines out a little Christmas cheer to passers-by!

 
A few Christmas cards have arrived, so soon we will be taping those up in our hallway. The photo below is an older one (we no longer have wallpaper in the living room, having covered it with gorgeous wide pine boards) but you get the idea of how our card display usually looks.

 
No definitive word yet on when we'll be setting up the tree.

Okay, I am off to accomplish something rather than just talking about it!

Fall meet-up with friends #5 -- another breakfast and lunch at our little camp

 

It's a rare treat when we are able to get together with our good friends Syd and Cyndy from Vermont.  So when it happens, we like to spend most of a day together, usually beginning with breakfast.  Often it's at our home, but in summer and fall we love to entertain at our little cottage.  And thanks to a mild November, such was the case on Veterans Day.  Amazingly, this was the second meet-up with them this fall; they are the same friends mentioned in my October post about meet-up with friends #4!

I kept breakfast super-simple with breakfast sliders and with a Hash Brown Casserole, which I kept warm in a crockpot rather than baking it in the oven.   (The oven at the camp is tiny and only has one rack, so I could only bake one 13x9 dish.)   Cyndy is somewhat of a baked-apple specialist, so I had asked her to bring baked apples to add to the breakfast menu.  She surprised us with an unusual but scrumptious variation -- baked apples filled with bread pudding!  Of course we also had coffee with our breakfast.

The sliders were from Jamie at My Baking Addiction.  They were delicious!  I tweaked the recipe in a few ways.  I couldn't find Hawaiian rolls in the right size, so I bought Pepperidge Farm slider buns.  (They were still expensive -- $4.29 -- but not as expensive as the Hawaiian rolls would have been.)  I made homemade sausage patties instead of using purchased sausage.  And, I used American cheese for the cheese on the bottom roll layer and shredded cheddar for the top layer.  I really liked the cheddar, so another time I would likely use all cheddar cheese.   There will definitely be a next time! 

I imagine some readers might like to have the homemade sausage recipe.  I have posted it before, but it's been years.  So here it is:

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE PATTIES

1/4 cup water
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rubbed sage
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 lb. ground pork

In a bowl, stir together water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well. Shape meat mixture into eight 4” patties (or a larger amount of smaller ones). In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This is such a yummy recipe for homemade sausage! I often cut the amounts in half to make a smaller batch. This sausage is very lean and not at all greasy.  For these sliders, I used about 1 1/4 pounds of ground pork, which is what I had, and used half the amount of seasonings specified here.

We lingered over breakfast just enjoying the fellowship and wonderful food.  After the breakfast dishes were done,  we decided to take a walk at nearby Quincy Bog.  Syd took these photos with his phone.

There is just something about red berries after all of the other foliage is gone.  Love them.

We were fascinated by this large tree apparently growing out of a rock.

Such unusual moss growing vertically on this stump!

For lunch, we were joined by our daughter and three of the grandkids, who walked through the woods from their house next door.   Chili seemed like the perfect choice for a fall day, although the day turned out to be quite balmy. Once again I served  Easy Crockpot Chili.  And again I need to add a quick note that I tweak the recipe by cooking the spices and onion with the ground beef first.  It seems to add a very measurable depth of flavor to the chili.  (And the grandkids LOVE it!)   Even though this is a super simple recipe, I usually get many comments about how good it is.  I also use much less meat: a pound or less rather than the 3 pounds called for.  I often add an extra can of beans too -- usually kidney beans.  And I'd forgotten about this, but I usually cut down on the water and sometimes on that large quantity of tomato sauce as well.  It all depends on how many people I'm serving, the size pot I use, and whether or not I'm transporting it somewhere.  This time I used around 16 ounces of tomato sauce and no water, as we were transporting a very full crockpot over a bumpy dirt road.  (Once we got there, I transferred some of the chili to a saucepan and added some of the tomato sauce to each batch.)  So if you make this, feel free to tweak it too! 

Cyndy brought a pan of delicious cornbread and a jug of cider,  and we also had tortilla chips and a Baked Taco Dip.  I had seen this dip recipe on the Hodgepodge this week and decided to try it.  With teenage appetites present for lunch, I wasn't sure if the chili would stretch far enough without it.  (It certainly did, because two of the teenagers in question enjoyed leftover breakfast sliders and hash brown casserole.  After which I heard, "Amazing food, Grammy!")

For dessert, I had made two Turtle Pumpkin Pies.   This is apparently a Kraft recipe, but I found it in my Gooseberry Patch Big Book of Holiday Cooking (the link will take you to my review of the book).  In fact, it's one of the cover recipes!  I got this book at Thriftbooks for $5.99 a couple years ago.  It's always worth checking there for good deals on cookbooks.

 
I made homemade graham cracker crust (which the recipe I had specified doing).  Instead of cinnamon and nutmeg (which totaled 1 1/2 teaspoons) I substituted 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.  My pie slices came out looking just about exactly like the picture, which was surprising and encouraging!

 

(My family has teased me for years about trying out new recipes on company.  I'm notorious for doing that!  But this may be the first time I have tried three new recipes on one hospitality occasion.) 

Just one more photo, for fun.  Our dear friend is "Miss Cyndy" to our young granddaughter Arielle (as well as to many other children).  When she saw Ari's deer costume (purchased on clearance after Halloween) she decided a photo shoot was in order.  A little deer is bounding through the woods on a gray November afternoon!

What a delightful day it was!  So thankful for good friends as well as for family "just through the woods". 

Late October at our little camp

 
Yesterday was not a good afternoon to take photos at our camp, but I had brought the camera and so I snapped a few anyway.  Even though we are nearing the end of foliage season (just look at all the leaves on the ground!), the dirt road where our camp is located still has trees laden with a good amount of gold, orange, yellow, and russet leaves.  I've been saying that the road's name in this season (especially on a sunny day) should be changed to The Golden Road.  These leaves glow in overcast weather too, though, as you will see. 

Notice the smallish red tree approximately toward the middle of the photo above.

The photo above shows the edge of our camp's back yard and the road below.  I liked the color of the leaves in this photo.

This shows part of our neighbor's property across the street.  At the very edge of the photo at the far right, you see just a tiny corner of our lake view.

 

 

The sign above, woodburned by grandsons, gives a hint to our seasonal water view.  I know I've posted a photo of this sign on Instagram, but can't remember if I've put one here on the blog.

 

The older photo above, taken in springtime, shows a little more of our lake view.  This was taken before we owned the camp or had done anything with it.

 

 And the photo above, taken last winter, shows even more of the lake view.  The flat expanse you see in the foreground is the roof of a house, but the second rectangular expanse, with a mountain just above it, is Loon Lake.

I also keep forgetting to show a recent addition to our cottage, a simple guest book which I put together using a composition book, some scrapbooking paper and some washi tape.  It's something I wish I had thought of from the beginning, but I didn't.  I did manage to have the composition book there in time for our first overnight guests, though I didn't complete the cover until after they left.

Below, a little bit closer look at the scrapbook paper and washi tape I used.  It may not hold up perfectly, but that is absolutely fine.  We are not about perfection here!

We feel blessed that the temperatures have been warm enough to allow us to spend several nights this week at our camp.  I've been hoping to get a few photos of The Golden Road, too.  Maybe the leaves will last until the next time we get over there, but with all the rain we're getting, that is by no means a given.  And we do need the rain.