A Happy New Year wish to all!

I just wanted to stop by and wish all of my friends and family a very Happy New Year!

Rick and I are watching reruns of the Barrett-Jackson's Scottsdale, Arizona Auto Auction from last January. It is one of our favorite things to watch. We watched most of it live last year, but it is still fun to watch. We make our wish list each year of the cars that we would by if we had more money (perhaps, if we won the lottery it would be more than a wish list)! Rick's top cars are always Mustangs in some form or another. He had a Boss Mustang and a Mach 1 when he was just out of high school. He also had a Dodge Coranet (sorry if I spelled this wrong) RT. Long before he and I ever knew each other. Rick is 12 years older than I am, so I love to tease him about me starting kindergarten the year he graduated from high school! My wish list is not so grand. I love anything VW. Can't wait to see this year's auction in about 2 weeks.

And we are also watching the Utah Jazz game. Rick has never been known to stay on one channel. He hates commercials, though I do get to watch the Progressive commercials-I love Flo and the Free Credit Report Commercials-I love those guys too. We spend a LOT of time avoiding commercials. Oh, and I am tatting angels for my mom. She gives them to people, which makes me happy. I have 9, almost 10 done; I plan to make her 18.

We will most likely be in bed early tonight. I do have a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge and I am going to serve it in antique champagne glasses. They are wonderful. They are etched glass with real gold rims. If I ever get my computer back, I will post a photo of them. I was lucky to find a service for 8. I told Rick tonight that I will serve champagne in them, because why should you have something so lovely without using them.

I do really hope that the new year brings the best to everyone!
Donnelly

Hi!

Well, I was going to share my photos of Christmas and a photo of Pepper's neck. But the screen on my laptop went completely black while Rick was trying to log onto Facebook. So, I am having to borrow my daughter's laptop and my photos are trapped on my computer.

We have had nothing but problems this week with my laptop and my blackberry. Computer problems started on Saturday with a flickering screen. We took it into Aaron's on Monday. Their tech guy ran a diagnostic on it and said that we needed to restore it to factory settings. So I spent the better part of Monday and yesterday burning all of my photos onto discs. Then reloading them all back onto the silly thing. I had to reload my Creative Memories Storybook Creator, my Itunes, my Picassa, my camera software, printer software. It is a rather scary thing to do! But I managed to get it done. Then, Rick starts to login to Facebook and the screen goes blank. He has promised he will take it back to Aaron's tomorrow on his way to work, so we can find out what the deal is this time.

If you have never been to Aaron's before, I would highly recommend it. Their policy is to cover the products they sell for 60 days past your last payment. They replaced the charger cord on Monday as it was a bit damaged, and we have had the computer over a year. I got it for Christmas a year ago. I just hope they have a loaner if mine has to go away for awhile.

Before Christmas, my Blackberry had issues when the rest of the Blackberry world did. I have been unable to access the internet from it outside our house for the past 2 weeks. Very frustrating. Especially with what we pay to have internet access on it through our phone plan! Today, however, the internet came back. It is slower than Christmas, mind you, but at least I can get on!

Christmas was wonderful for our family. We had 4 of our 5 children here this year. Our oldest daughter, Christy and her family moved to the Phoenix area the day after Thanksgiving, and they were able to come. So we had my mother-in-law, Rick and I, Christy and her husband, Brent. Our granddaughter, Sophie. Jake and his wife, Becky. Our grandson, Jackson. Brady and his wife, Kylie. Hannah. My mom and dad and our niece, Devin. The only people missing were Cassie and her fiance, Chris and our oldest grandson, Isaak. Cass and Chris live in Anchorage, Alaska, and Isaak had to spend Christmas Eve with his dad.

For the last 10 years, Christy has hosted Christmas Eve at her house. This year it fell to me. I was so nervous that it wouldn't meet expectations. The most important thing I feel I gained from this experience is a greater appreciation for Christy. I never knew what went into preparing for this night. Wow!

I was going to make homemade gifts for my girls and my mom for Christmas, but I ran out of time. So, now I can just finish what I started without stress and give a just because gift. I am so relieved that I went with a "No Stress" plan for this year. The only time I freaked out this whole time was when Hannah was passing out gifts at the speed of sound, and I couldn't keep up with the frenzy.

I do have to admit that the photos I have of Christmas Eve were not taken by me. I didn't have time. I was so in the moment. I am so grateful to my daughter, Christy and my daughter-in-law, Kylie. Kylie took it upon herself to be the "Memory Keeper" this Christmas and I am so grateful!

My Christmas presents included a Joann's gift card from my mom, a handmade ornament and calender from Jake and Becky, a AMM/Heidi Swapp scrapbook tote from Christy and Sophie, a brown drip pottery bread plate and vintage Shiney-Brite ornaments from Brady and Kylie and my puppy's life from Rick.

Monday, we took Pepper back to the vet. Dr. Morgan was so pleased with how he looked. We got to have his tube taken out and it is healing very nicely. It is amazing to see exactly what happened, now that everything is scabbed over. He really had to fight for his life. There are so many scabbed over bite marks and punctures. And Pepper and I have come to quite an understanding. He has chosen me to be his champion. He picks me before he picks anyone else.

We got a nice amount of snow today. About 2 to 3 inches. It sure is beautiful. It was warm today, so it melted quite abit. Now the roads are like a sheet of ice. We are suppposed to have snow/rain on Saturday. That should be interesting, to say the least.

We are spending a quite New Year's Eve at home this year. We will be watching a lot of football I am sure. I don't mind that at all.

Hope everyone has an awesome New Year.
Donnelly

Pepper's home!

Pepper, our Chihuahua/Corgi cross, got to come home from the Vet's today after his terrifying ordeal yesterday. I would post a photo, but I feel I need to spare you the image, so instead here is one from a couple of months ago. He has a drainage shunt in his neck to remove the edema. He is not out of the woods yet, but the Vet felt he could come home. He has a follow up appointment on Monday, but Dr. Morgan told us to bring him in before then, if we felt like he wasn't doing well. He is currently snuggled up in multiple layers of towels on Rick's lap and hasn't been much interested in leaving that spot. When Rick gets up he passes him to either Hannah or myself, both of us are greeted with growling until Rick takes him back.

Rick has gone out and walked the backyard fence multiple times to see if he could find out where he got out. I am going out with him in the morning to see if I can spot it, I would have tonight but we are having a small snow storm with high winds which means it is COLD outside and that means I am not going out there tonight!

Hope your weather is better than ours!

Have a great day!

Donnelly

A New Vintage find!

Rick and I have been out and about the last two days working on our Christmas shopping. We had NONE of it done the day before yesterday and now it is all done.

On Saturday, we stopped at the thrift stores on our way home. When Rick and I thrift, we shop different areas of the stores we are in. I am happily hunting for vintage ornaments, when I hear him call my name. I follow his voice to where he is and he says pick what you would like. I love this man! I picked up the following items:

A Pfaltzgraff gravy boat. Now I have 2 of these. So now at family dinners, both ends of the table will have a gravy boat!

Then I got 2 Pfaltzgraff butter dishes. One is larger than the other one; but unless you are really looking you wouldn't notice it. Once again, I will have one for each end of our table at family gatherings. I was happy with these things, but Rick insisted I pick up this next one!

A Pfaltzgraff coffee pot with four coffee cups. I have tons of different styles of mugs, but none like these. I have 3 teapots in different styles, but this is my first coffee pot. These things are my Christmas present and I couldn't be happier!

I don't know what it is about this Brown Drip pottery, but I love it. I have quite an extensive collection that includes plates, mugs, salad plates, a wine carafe, salt and pepper shakers, sugar bowls and creamers, tea pots, large serving plates, large bowls, small bowls, a water pitcher, 2 milk pitchers and much, much more. I have pieces from Pfaltzgraff, McCoy and Hull as well as a few pieces from Canada and a few that are marked California on the bottom.

On a much sadder note our Chihuahua/Corgi cross, Pepper, got out of our backyard today and tangled with a much larger dog. We had to leave him at the vet's as he has a fairly serious gash in his neck with a semi-crushed larynx and a bruised lung. The vet opened up the larynx to clean out the damaged tissue. The vet seems to think that we will be able to take him home tomorrow afternoon, if he will eat wet dog food. Poor Hannah found him, as we were in town finishing our Christmas shopping. I would have done anything to save either one of them from this!

This little guy and I have a love/hate relationship. He definitely thinks he is the pack , aka "family" leader; which doesn't go over well with me. He also marks everything as his territory. There are days neither one of us like each other very much at all. When he is good, he is such a sweet little thing. When he is naughty, he is funny! And I love him. My family and friends would probably fall over if they knew I would sorely miss him if he were gone.

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy holidays filled with the things and people you love!

Donnelly

more vintage ornament pictures!

Here are a few of the ways I am displaying more of my vintage ornaments this year.

This is my large thrifted milk glass fruit bowl (or maybe, it is called a compote?). It sets on my great-grandma Stuhlberg's White treadle sewing machine that I bought at my grandma Elsie's (her daughter) estate sale when I was 19. This makes me happy! It now sits on my kitchen table. My small vintage silver tinsel tree now sits on my sewing machine.

Here is a close-up of my little elf. She stays out all year long. She makes me smile!

The sewing machine belonged to the same great-grandma that gave my dad this ornament when he was a little boy.
My next display is an idea that I am sure I got from someone like Martha Stuart. About 10 years ago, my mom bought herself and my youngest sister and me vintage Pepsi crates. For the first 4 or 5 years I had it, it displayed homemade bars of soap and wash clothes in my bathroom. Then it was in storage for a few years until I saw this idea. Now it hangs in my living room at Christmastime . The original idea called for mini teacup hooks screwed into the wood, but both Rick and I tried to put them in and the fact that it is missing them should tell you how successful that idea was!
Last year, Rick bought me 2 metal ornament trees at one of our local thrift stores. I came home one day and found them. I didn't even know that I wanted them until they were sitting on my kitchen table. This one started out in the bedroom, and now resides with the second one in my craft room. I don't have a photo of them in my craft room, but will take one maybe tomorrow.

The blue angel is a vintage Christmas ornament that also stays out all year. He makes me happy, too!

Hopefully, I will be back tomorrow to share the two ornament trees in my craft room as well as my Nativity set and some of my other favorite Christmas decorations. Hannah banana needs the computer to work on her Serious Interpretation for Advanced speech.

Have a great day.

Donnelly

My family thinks I am crazy, seriously!

One of the major reasons is my obsession with vintage Christmas ornaments. Every time I go to a thrift store or a yard sale, I have to check to see if there are any vintage ornaments. I have been known to purchase an entire bag or box, just to rescue one ornament. It is a sickness, really! I have enough vintage ornaments to decorate several trees. I think I am up to 9 large plastic totes full, maybe more.

Here are a few of my favorites:

I have one that my great-grandmother brought with her from Germany when her family immigrated to America. She gave it to my dad when he was a little boy. He gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago when my parents stopped decorating a tree for Christmas. It is all banged up and missing some of it's beads, but I have always loved it.

I have a clip-on cockateil that my mom's friend, Helga, gave me along with a entire box of Shiney-Brites that her Husband gave her for Christmas the year they were married. Coincidentally, Helga is from Germany too.

This little guy came with my husband when we got married. I don't know how old he is. But he has stood guard over our trees for the last 19 years; so if he isn't vintage yet, he will soon be!

Last, I would like to share the gold foil star that I made when I was 5. I am going to date myself and let you know that it has been on Christmas trees for the last 37 years. It was on my childhood trees each year. My mom gave it to me the year Rick and I got married and it has been at the top of our tree each year since then.

In the next day or so, I hope to share some of my other vintage ornaments and how I have displayed them, as well as some of my other Christmas decorations.

Hope the Christmas season is wonderful for you!

Have a great day!
Donnelly