House Updates

While I was in Independence on Friday last, I stopped in 3 or 4 antique stores, which had their welcome mats out since it was Black Friday.  On Wednesday, I had emptied out some boxes of kitchen utensils stored in our laundry room... we have a steel pantry and some steel shelves in there since kitchen cabinets are almost non-existent.  Some of these utensils were things I used at the first Calamity Acres, and I have missed seeing them. However, when I put them in our drawers in the kitchen, they became so full they were hard to close.  Anticipating the comments, I decided to look for something that could hold some of the larger ones on the counter we have.  (miniscule). 

I was greeted by very nice people in the antique stores, and one lady was nice enough to take me downstairs and show me some crocks and pitchers she thought would work.  The cheapest was nearly 20.00 for a very plain brown pitcher.  I resolved at that point to come home and go through our storage sheds and try to find some things I already had here, that have been packed away. 

However, as I drove down the main thoroughfare to I70, I saw a big store on my right that read "Super Thrift" and the car magically turned in. 

I spent 8.00, and here were my finds.  Please forgive the bad pictures. 

This is a cookie jar with no lid, perfect for the utensils and a cute design.

Notice awesome granite countertop... NOT!

$2.98

One blue-framed Christmas picture... 2.98

And...

One Christmas picture (exact same picture, we'll see who notices) in a very nice red frame for 1.98.  The elf is from when my kids were small, I always tried to put him somewhere for Christmas.

We don't have all the decorating done, we must wait for daylight on Saturday and Sunday, when we can see in the storage buildings. However, we have a tree up... last year's was on our porch, because of the kittens... but my prim tree will be decorated, and last weekend I got a new small tree.  It is on a table... and as I told Keith, as I get older, the trees are getting smaller.

It's not finished yet.  Those are Homer buckets in front of it, they are gifts for the menfolk, Keith's sons-in-law, my sons, and his dad.  They have "guy stuff" in them, and I think Keith's idea of putting them in Homer buckets from Home Depot was GENIUS!

Keith did chores tonight, as I was a little late... and told me that Aztec's eye looks very much better.  I'll have a chance to see it in the early morning.

Here is what the bird feeder looked like this morning:

There are four blue jays and a cardinal in this picture... minutes later there were 8 blue jays.  I am feeding a mix of gamebird feed, mixed birdseed (cheap blend from TSC, 9.99 for 35 pounds) and a black oil sunflower (on sale last weekend 19.99 for 50 pounds) plus some half peanuts I mix in.  We keep open water in the bird bath you see on the ground. We also have a nyjer seed feeder, and a suet feeder, both very popular. 

Keith was going to burn all the saplings which Chris has been cutting, but with a family party on the 17th, we are now going to haul them down to the brush pile in the pasture for the wildings to use, and do a general garden cleanup next weekend, as this is expected to be very rainy.

We had snow on the ground, albeit light, this time last year!