Nancy’s Kitchen

What joy we had Christmas Eve as Sean & Amy, Julia, Andrew, and Jesse joined us for a home-made pizza supper and festivities afterwards!

Before supper, we all had fun putting together the “100 piece” Coca Cola jig-saw puzzle, which turned out as Sean had mathematically predicted to have only 99 pieces!! It was so great to have this time of working together with joy and enthusiasm.

Julia read the Christmas HIStory to us from The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, and Andy and Jesse moved the pieces of the wooden creche (manger scene) to show what happened. Sean helped Jesse, who turned 3 just a month ago. Andy knew exactly what to do!

Then we went into the sun room where the tree and gifts were. The children were great! This year, Richard began by giving a gift to Julia. After opening her gift, Julia found a gift under the tree and gave it to the person whose name was on the tag. This continued for a while, then we did it with two people giving and receiving at a time. Everyone had the “spotlight” to share their joy with each other, self-lessly giving and receiving in mutual joy. We all had a great time!!

We’re so happy to call each of you “Friend” and “Family”! May our Lord Jesus bless you immensely!!

I’m putting all my Christmas albums onto my iPod, and Richard & I are preparing the house for the Christmas season. Richard, of course, seems to get stuck with most of the work! Anyway, here are some photos of our “play room”, now transformed into my sunroom and temporarily, the Christmas room.

And the Mantle in the Living Room:

Today is “Gotcha Day” Celebration for Adelina Joy Ivy, our granddaughter. It was on this day one year ago that Jodi and Steve received their new daughter by adoption. What a precious young lady God has blessed our family with!

The painting of the west elevation (back side) of our house is complete! It is so beautiful, I know the photo doesn’t do it justice!! The south elevation will be done next. I am SO happy with the colors we chose and with the painters, too. They are doing an excellent job of removing the old aluminum siding, stripping the paint to bare wood (100+ yrs old), repairing and replacing bits of wood and trim, and then doing a superb job of painting! Our thanks to John and Trina, and of course to The Lord Jesus for making this all possible!

Here are a couple of “progress prints”…

We’re having the aluminum siding removed from our house, the wood siding stripped, and new paint applied. Here is the back porch area… we’re just beginning! (No, we’re not doing the work ourselves, we’re paying to have it done.) The work is beautiful!!

The last time I felt really organized was around 1986-88. I was homeschooling our two younger sons and I was ORGANIZED!! All my files, for running the household and for teaching, fit nicely in my Steelcase metal office desk. All my books were neatly on the bookshelves. Anything I needed, I could find! Then… Life happened!! And I haven’t been able to find anything since!!

Until TODAY. My husband has been after me for some time now to “clean” my desk area. I no longer have my Steelcase desk. He said he was absolutely NOT going to haul it upstairs when we moved into this c.1900 two-story house! So I now have a very nice, SMALL wooden desk and two filing cabinets and a couple of plastic drawer stands. Oh, yes… and a closet. AND papers all over everywhere!!

So TODAY, I sat down and started shredding papers. Yes, I checked both on the internet and with our accountant and established reasonable time periods for keeping files, beyond which I can get rid of most things… keeping those necessary files (the ones you’re supposed to keep forever, like income tax returns!). So I spent most of the day shredding and going through files, and preparing to shred some more. I guess I really don’t need the milk bills from 1999!!
By the end of next week I hope to have ALL my files checked through, culled, reorganized and refiled. Then I will make a Document Locator File with lists of all the important stuff telling where I can find what… whether it’s in the file cabinet, or in the closet, or in a safe deposit box at the bank, or under the mattress!!

Yes, I do feel like I have accomplished something today.

…next week, the bookshelves!!

Our friend and horticulturist, Susan Bond, revealed the identity of our Mystery Flower. It is a “Lenten Rose”, the botanical name is Helleborus orientalis. Thanks, Susan!! (Click the pic for an up-close look.)

These are all in our yard… well, the dogwood is actually in the neighbor’s yard, but right along our property line!

Tulips

Primroses

Pink Dogwood

Lady Banks Roses

Mystery Flowers came up this year in the little plot beside the garage. Usually I get gerbera daisies and primroses there, around the base of a small rose-of-sharon tree. Does anyone know what this flower is?

I’m trying to do some gardening this year. Our house sits on a double lot, which was totally beautifully landscaped when we moved in nearly five years ago. Today, the basics remain, but I have been a horrible gardener, so the weeds have taken over. A couple of Master Gardeners helped clean things up after Hurricane Isabel. Last year, three sisters earned some money from me by thoroughly weeding the Williamsburg-style garden.

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So far, I have replanted Strawberries, weeded one 8′x8′ square plot, put in a few tomato plants and lettuce plants. I’ve also planted onion and garlic sets and a row of okra seeds! YEA!

Next, I will weed the second 8′x8′ plot. I plan to plant carrots and radishes, along with watermelon & cantaloupe. Yum!

There is SO much to do, I’m sure I’ll keep busy all summer!!
Most of all, I’m looking forward to home-grown salads!