~ First White Christmas EVER! ~

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas Day one way or another. The highlight of the big day for me was that I had my very first white Christmas! Having been born and raised in Southern California and spent most of my life there, I'd never experienced falling snow until our move east! I never knew how much I would love winter and snow! We got just shy of 3 inches as our Christmas Day total and it's still snowing today! Here's a pic I just snapped out the back:
I also wanted to share with you the wonderful gifts I received from my friends. Look at what Karen made for me...a gorgeous bonnet in my favorite sage check fabric, a beautiful doll dressed in mustard calico, and a set of perfectly prim herb animals...what fun these will be to decorate with for spring and summer! She really spoiled me didn't she? Thank you Karen!
Pat made for me this fabulous stocking and she also sent me one of her husband Don's stunning ink well reproductions! Thank you Pat!
Kris sent me this amazing Santa head ornament that she made! Thank you Kris!
Linda made me some address labels with what else? yep a willow tree!...she knew I'd like that! Thank you Linda!
Kath sent me a lovely CD of Celtic music which I love, Thank you Kath!
Just look at this adorable gingerbread man that Loretta made for me! Isn't he just the cutest thing? Thank you Loretta!
These gifts mean so much to me because I don't receive gifts from my family...there's just the 5 of us...me, my husband, our 2 grown boys, and 1 daughter-in-law...none of them celebrate Christmas per se so it is just lonely ol' me trying to make things as festive as possible. I get them all gifts but I tell the kids not to get me anything because they struggle financially and I gave up years ago trying to get my husband to buy me something so I have come to enjoy the season leading up to Christmas more than the day itself, but I do enjoy receiving gifts! Thank you all so very much!!

I know alot of you are going to be experiencing blizzard conditions out there so please stay safe and warm!

~ It's Been A While! ~

Since my last post was about the tornado, I'll start with an update. We have since replaced the downed pear tree with a small oak tree and we've had the trim replaced as well as a whole new roof put on but oh whatta nightmare! The roofing crew made an absolute mess of our house! They walked all over my azaleas, broke a couple garden knick-knacks, and worst of all, while tearing off the old roof, they allowed the asphalt shingles to scratch and scrape the vinyl siding!! They've tried to clean the tar scrapes off but have only made it worse and we are now left with brown blotches and scrapes on every surface! The contractor's insurance company has been out and has made us a couple of unacceptable offers...one of which is to replace only the damaged pieces of siding...yeah right!...can you imagine what THAT would look like?...our siding is eight years old and would not match the brand new siding!...this weekend they are having someone else come out to try and clean the blotches with something else...I am not hopeful.

Now on to something MUCH more fun...Christmas decorating! I have FINALLY finished it and have just posted a bunch of pics to my Picture Trail so have a look when you've got a few minutes! I tried to keep it simpler this year...didn't even put up a big tree with all the ornaments...but with the boys grown and hubs couldn't care less, I'm the only one who gives a hoot if there's any kind of decor or not so I just did what I wanted to!
I have recently added my family's silhouettes to the wall in our family room...my mother always had these hanging in her home and I asked that her former husband send them to me so now I am able to enjoy them. I remember that she and I actually sat for ours to be done but my father had already passed away and his was done from a photograph.
If you visit my Picture Trail, there's a pic in the Christmas Decorating album that you'll see where I've placed them.

I have been changing what's in this bowl on the coffee table with each season and having fun with it! The bowl is one that I offer in my shoppe, it's the Large Rustic Chopping Bowl.

Well there's really no sense in my posting the pics here when they are all posted to Picture Trail, so head on over there if you wanna see the rest, there's like forty of 'em! LOL

That's all for now...Christmas is coming!...Merry Merry!

~ Very Bad Wednesday Afternoon and Evening ~

We had a tornado come through here @ 5:17 pm yesterday. The exterior of our house sustained damage to the roof and trim, it took down our front yard tree, and everything is a complete mess :(
me, my youngest son, and of course Katie the kitty were home when it happened and it happened very quickly...we are all ok, just shook up:
lots of trim needs to be replaced:
there's debris everywhere:
my main concern is for the roof...there are some missing shingles but a large portion of the shingles lifted up and then layed back down so they're no longer attached...you probably can't tell from the picture but in person it looks sorta ruffled:
we had a landscape contractor come out today to tell us if our tree could be saved and he said that there's just too much root damage :(

the next few pics are of the tornado damage just across the street...notice the large camper trailer overturned and of course the downed fence...on the house next to them the garage door is wadded up and the shutters askew...then on the house next to that a large section of the siding is missing:
closer look at the camper trailer mess:
closer look at the other 2 houses:
I know it could have been alot worse and I am thankful that no one was injured.

~ Braided Rug & Searching for Fall Foliage ~

Yesterday hubs and I went on a search for the colors of autumn. We do get the colors right here in central Virginia but not until the first part of November and I'm always anxious to see them so every year at this time we take a drive. I read online that the peak colors were occurring in the higher elevations here in Virginia so we decided to follow one of the fall foliage routes layed out by the Department of Forestry. It began way up in the north west area of the state which took us about 3 hours to get to, then we followed the route and while it was an area of our state that we hadn't yet traveled, and the route was indeed picturesque, there wasn't much color at all, pooey!
At least I got to see a bit of the Shenandoah River, I've always wanted to lay eyes on it for some reason, maybe because of the John Denver song, I don't know! but the route took us across the north fork and I had to get a picture so we stopped the car as soon as possible after crossing so I could walk back to snap a couple of pics. This is from one side of the road:
...and this is from the other side of the road:
...it's not like me at all to do anything risky or dangerous so for me to walk along a highway and even cross it on foot, you know I wanted pics of the river pretty bad! LOL There you see my little white SUV in the distance, I took that pic while walking back from the river crossing.
...this picture was taken right by where we stopped the car too, it's someone's driveway, must be nice!...just look at those manicured weeping willow trees that line their property!
So back on the road, we entered the town of Strasburg and shared a Subway sammich (we always say sammich! LOL) While eating our sammich, a really super LOUD siren started going off and it was an air raid siren like you hear in the war movies!! We were like, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!!!! No one around us was panicking but we couldn't believe what we were hearing and had to ask! Turns out that is the town's fire alarm! GOOD GRIEF! So after that bit of excitement, we started on our journey back in the direction of home. Once we got back to familiar territory, we just couldn't pass the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway without taking a quick jaunt on it and I'm so glad we did because we saw more color there than on our adventure! Every year at this time we usually just drive up and down the Blue Ridge for our fall foliage but wanted to do something different this year...figures!...the Blue Ridge is only an hour and a half away from our house and that's where the color was! It's still not peak just yet so I'm still feeling color deprived, LOL, but I did get a few pretty pictures.



Originally, we were planning a drive to New England to see their fall foliage but several folks who live up there were saying that the color may not be at its best this year due to the long, hot, dry summer we had here on the east coast and I did not want to waste my only opportunity to get up there if the colors were not at their best! It's like pulling teeth to get hubs to go on drives with me because he does so much driving in his contracting work and has trouble sitting for long periods of time. So we are shelving our New England drive until next year and he knows that, even though he's off the hook this year, it's going to happen at some point in time! LOL

One other thing I wanted to share with you today is some pics of my new braided rug that came on Friday! It's made from wool braided yarn and I got it at Capel Rugs here in Richmond, their rugs are made in North Carolina. The colors in this are sage, brown, black, beige, rusty barn red, and creme.
Katie sure misses the carpet and is glad to have the new rug!
I think it adds a much needed softness to the room.

Well that about does it for this time...have a great week!

~ Floor is Done! ~ Lots-O-Pics! ~

The wooden floor has been down a little over a week now and first let me say that I was totally unprepared for the amount of dust caused by removing 700plus square feet of carpet, good grief!!...hubs and I gave everything a good cleaning as we moved it all to make way for the floor and had to turn right around and clean everything again while putting it back!
I have updated my Picture Trail with all of the pics I've recently taken, but here are a few of them:

dining room:
family room:I purchased a 4x6 oval braided rug for under the coffee table but I'm still waiting for it
you see in this picture where my recently purchased primitive pie safe ended up standing
and the other new addition is this olde oak candlestand made by Don, Pat's husband (Olde Bittersweet Farm)...she is who made the make-do chair and they are having an update this week, be sure to check it out!

foyer:
the jury is still out on the slate...I saw a similar slate entry once in a house we looked at and have always wanted to do it but now that it's here, we are having second thoughts!...also, I want to add that the reason why it doesn't go all the way across is because there's a doorway on both sides of the entry but they are not directly straight across from one another so you can't draw a straight line from side to side if that makes sense

The green stepback got a makeover too!...hubs added doors to the top part, painted the whole thing black for me, painted the inside tan, then grubbied it up nicely with stain and I am thrilled with the results!...here are the before and afters:

BEFORE, green on the outside, yellow on the inside:AFTER, black and tan with added doors:
I've also posted all of my autumn decorating pictures to my Picture Trail so hop on over to have a look...have a great week!