someone had a birthday

It's true.  I am no longer 28 or 29 for that matter.  Actually, you can add a few more years onto that number as well.  But not a lot.  Buddy and Dad made me a cake.  I got lovely gifts and Sunshine drew me a fabulous picture on her white board.  I feel loved.

 

in which something unexpected made us work more

We got new gutters.  Finally.  I am so happy about that!  This means that whenever it rains, whomever is standing at our front door won't be getting a shower.  Dad and I went to hook up the new gutters to the drainpipes and found that when had a clog.  So we tried to blast the clog out.  Nothing happened.  So we tried to dig the clog out.  Nothing happened.  So we started cutting out sections of the pipe little by little.  Twenty-two feet later we found the end of the clog.  I ran to the store before it closed and bought new piping and parts and Dad and I finished fixing the pipes and buried them.  We had something else in mind to do, but that's okay.  This was something that had to be done as well.  I'm just so grateful that we didn't have a clog that ran to the street!

 

in which I made something for the wall

My sweet wonderful husband got me a terrific gift for my birthday this year.  A Silhouette Cameo!  I love playing with it.  I made several gifts using it.  I also made this for our wall.  I love Nativities and so this was hanging above some of my collection.  Maybe next year I will remember to take a picture of those for you to see.

 

in which I bake and cook for two days straight

One of the reasons I love Christmas time is because of all the yummy goodies that get passed around.  This year was better than some others.  My visiting teachers brought me a container filled with things that were so delicious I really didn't want to share, but because I love my family, I shared anyway.  Friends brought over chex mixes, toffee, other plates of cookies and goodies.  It was all so good, and it just made me love my friends even more.

 

Since we had time this year, we used some of that to make delicious goodies for our friends.  That had us in the kitchen, A LOT.  What did we make?  Good question.  I will be more than happy to tell you.

1. Peanut butter fudge

2. Black Licorice caramels

3. Rice Crispy treats

4. Pumpkin Bread

5. Candy covered cookies

6. Candy covered pretzels

7. Candy

8. Candied popcorn

I think that was everything.  Although, we also made Amish caramels with sea salt as well.  It was really good.  We delivered quite a few bins of goodies to friends in the area.  It is always fun to see peoples faces when you deliver something unexpected.

 

in which you get an extreme close up

Here is our apple tree.  When I took the picture, there just happened to be lots of low-lying fog about, which is why the picture towards the top is blurry.  My tree isn't blurry in real life.  And if you don't believe me, I'll show you a close up.

 

 Here you go.  A closer look of those lovely apples.  Aren't they tasty looking?  Still blurry, you say?  Okay, time for another close up.

 Here you go.  Non-blurry apples.  And you can see proof of the moisture right there.  Wow.  Those look good enough to eat!

 Hey!  Look what I found on the apple tree!  It's a dew covered spider web.  Can't see it good enough?  Well, just scroll right on down.

 Here you go!  I love taking pictures with Macro.  I'm still accepting donations for a DSLR so I can take even better pictures.  But for now, enjoy the pretty spiderweb that did NOT have a spider in it (of which I am so grateful).

Feeling odd, which is why this post was odd.  But then again, odd isn't all that bad, it's just odd.  And I like extreme close ups now and then.