Weekend wrap up...

I came home one evening last week and had all this by my door. 

The long package was a fall serving tray. I have a friend that I swap items with occasionally that we are going to get rid of with each other. She had dropped off this wonderful tray. 

And the bag was from her with this cute pumpkin and little candles. The candles actually work and the "flame" has a spooky face on them for Halloween.

And I was super excited when she included some of her famous tea cakes that she bakes. I was thrilled to get some of them from the recent batch.

The box was some free books I had gotten from Samaritan's Purse. I have had a couple of these before, but someone borrowed them before I got to read them and I told them to keep them. So I finally got around to ordering me some more. 

I also wanted to show you this recipe book I picked up at a thrift store. It has the recipe of what to put in the jar and then recipe cards printed out (3 copies of each recipe) that you can tie to the jar as a gift. It's really neat. 

Saturday on my way to work, I stopped by the Dollar General to look for a plastic tablecloth. I just wanted a cheap plastic one for a little work table I use in the kitchen. Since I have sunflowers on my curtains and fall is just around the corner. I decided on this one along with this new dish towel for fall. 

I love when I can use PIA (Pyrex in Action) for my meals. The sunflower casserole dishes is holding my homemade bacon gravy warm while I fry some eggs. It was all delicious. 

That was my lunch for Sunday because I was afraid I would not feel like cooking it for supper and I really wanted it bad. Then afterwards I made a Duncan Hines Swiss Chocolate cake with my homemade chocolate icing. It was out of this world. 

Seriously thinking about offering a dessert service for people who need cakes, cookies and simple desserts for gatherings and don't have time to make them. Just basic items, nothing elaborate and fancy. Hmmm, something to consider.

We are blessed to welcome The Wilmington Celebration Choir at our church today for morning worship. They are fabulous. This is a video of them at our church the last time we had them visit with us. If you are in the area, join us at Beech Springs Baptist in Kodak, TN. We would love to have you.

Fun Vintage Decor

I love Christmas decor and am always looking for new ideas. Check out some of these cute things that caught my eye on Pinterest.

Friday Foto Friends

I saw a wonderful sky yesterday with a unique cloud they call a cloud shelf. It was so amazing. As I watched the sky changing as I was driving to work, I knew I had to stop at Walmart parking lot and get pics for Friday Foto Friends. 

This one scared me. It looked like an alien ship was about to land.

As I left Walmart and headed toward Pigeon Forge, I would snap a pic anytime I got caught by a light. The sky changed every few minutes as the storm moved closer in.

Fifteen minutes after I left Walmart I was getting near work and look how black the sky was. This one scared me more than the first scary one did. See how dark the road got. This was at 10:30 in the morning.

Sure enough, soon after the black cloud the raindrops started falling, but not too hard or fast.

Of course, by the time I got in the parking lot it was raining hard and so windy that my umbrella wasn't much protection. So I did get a little wet. 

It left as fast as it came and it turned out to be a beautiful day. I worked until around dusk and as I stopped at Waffle House for some hash browns. I realized we had a beautiful sky at night as well. 

So I thought it was a perfect way to end my day by taking more pics for this post.

Ms. Debbie I HOPE you like the pics I got for this weeks Friday Foto Friends!

Gravy and biscuits..

I don't know about other parts of the world, but in the South we love our biscuits and gravy. And not just for breakfast. Ask just about any Southerner and they will say they love to have breakfast for supper (which for those of you who do not speak Southern, supper is dinner to more refined folks).

I occasionally will have a hankerin' for breakfast for supper. Sometimes I want bacon and sometimes I want sausage and sometimes I have been known to make both. 

And a breakfast supper is not complete without biscuits. I am not a homemade biscuit kind of gal though. I like Hungry Jack to do all the work and I just pop the can and place them in the oven.  Sometimes it is buttermilk flaky but mostly it is southern style. 

And if I am having biscuits for supper there had better be gravy. But here is where my West Virginia roots show through. We do sausage gravy don't get me wrong. But Mom made a lot of bacon gravy when I was little so that's my favorite. It is simply equal amounts of flour and bacon grease made into a rue, then add salt, pepper and milk and cook it down. It is one of the rare completed homemade items I know how to make and actually tastes delicious. This popped up in my Facebook from 2 years ago when I made it. And that's what started me craving breakfast for supper.

Of course, add in some fried eggs and a skillet of hash browns and you won't have just breakfast. You will have a heart attack on a plate. But oh, it is so good. 

What to do, what to do?

Yesterday I didn't have to be a work until 2:00 p.m. because I was on a different shift for that one day. On Monday, I was off work and I cleaned my house and caught up all my laundry. Even took some time to work on re-organizing some new craft supplies. I wasn't in the mood to watch TV and I had just finished my book and wasn't in a mood to start a new one. 

So I kept thinking "what to do, what to do?" And my mind wandering like it always does put the thought in my head "I wonder what size Christmas tree will go in my new place this year." Which let me to wonder where I am even going to put the Christmas tree? So I walked into the living room to take a look at the furniture layout and realized I wish I could somehow put it in front of my front window. 

So I slid some furniture out and rearranged it and wah-lah! I now can move a tea cart and a small shelf during the holidays and my tree has a perfect place to go. 

And I can't believe how much floor space it opened up.

I am so happy. Now I just have to get me a new tree. I sold the one I got last year because it was so huge. Time to start getting ideas and then scope out the Black Friday ads when Thanksgiving rolls around so I can get a good deal.

An update from Mom's house...

My mother is 86 years old now and still going strong. That's where my sister and I get our love of crafting and why we love having "stuff" decorating our houses. My sister was over at Mom's the other day and she sent me some pictures of some of the things Mom's been doing. Check out her two birdhouses she painted. She gets various wood item non-finished at A.C. Moore and makes them into decor for her home. I love the little birds she found to put in them.

She bought this lantern box and made this cute candle holder out of it. The picture with the five kids are my brother Andy's grandchildren. They are 5 of Mom's 17 great grandchildren.

One time when she was antiquing with my sister she found this vintage embroidered table scarf. She decided to redo the table centerpiece and this is the result. (Now you know why I always do a centerpiece on my table.)

She picked up this little tray at AC Moore and redid her coffee table decoration. I like how she has assorted containers on it.

But here latest hobby is the adult coloring books. She is very talented with it. Mom always loved coloring with her grandchildren and she is loving these new adult coloring books. I love this display. The beautiful Easter lilies with the framed coloring page is so pretty. We always had these on these flowers growing on the hillside when I was growing up.

And my favorite is her display of her artwork of colorings. She found one of the books that had bible verses on them. Isn't this adorable. 

I love when my sister sends me updates on what Mom has been doing.