Swaps and Art and Such

A friend of mine told me about all the swaps she was doing at a site called Swap Bot so naturally I had to check it out.....
And I signed up for three swaps. That is in addition to the two I am already doing with the ATC-ArtDolls swap. So my art studio is now a mess of paper, glue, embellishments and I am loving it.
I have been so wrapped up in making clothes for my dolls and doing dollhouse things I had forgotten how much I like doing these little art projects.
I will post pictures here after I am finished and of course after the recipients have seen the results.
So now to get the glue and glitter off my hands..... LOL .........

Anniversarys and Restaurants

We always know which anniversary we are celebrating when it comes. Just check on the number of the superbowl. The first one took place near our first anniversary.

We celebrated our 42nd anniversary three days late thanks to a small bout with flu.
We went out to dinner last night at one of the newer style restaurants, Bennigans. The kind that have a bar, a grill etc. They are all pretty much the same..... however at least this one had excellent food. Even if the beer was flat...........

But my real problem with these places is that they are so "cold" feeling. No tablecloths or even placemats. And the napkins are wrapped around the flatware with a little paper thing that is on so tight it is hard to get off and you end up tearing the napkin. What is it with that.... they save a bit of money I guess but they certainly charge enough to make up for it! The "niceties" of dining out seem to be gone. So while we enjoyed the food we were still disappointed. Now you may say... well the food was good so what was the problem........ We just felt a bit cheated in the whole "dining" experience. We must just be old fashioned but I don't see why we have to feel old fashioned because we like our dining out to be a bit of an experience.

Any comments on this would be welcome

Ice Storm 1998

(You can click on the pictures to see them in a
larger size)






Ten years ago this month, while we were living in Maine, a terrible ice storm came through. We ended up going without electricity for 9 days. Thanks to our sort of pioneer spirit we had a lovely wood boiler furnace and an antique gas and wood cookstove we had heat and could cook But no electricity meant our water pump didn't work and no tv, computer or lights. We had a lot of kerosene lamps so we could see at night and a portable radio let us be part of the world. Our phone lines came down but my husband could fix that.

It was an interesting experiment. We didn't have a terrible time but realized we like living in the modern world. We rejoiced when we could have our first shower and didn't have to melt ice to get water for the toilets.

We ate well because we had to quickly use up everything in the freezer... It was cold out but not enough to keep the food.

I am putting up some pictures of that ice storm. It was a beautiful scene......... but.......... a lot of work to get life back to normal.

This was not an experiment I wish to repeat.

Fun at the Farm Show

The Pennsylvania Farm Show is one event we like to attend every January. We go mostly to see the draft horses but enjoy many other things as well. The show is varied and there is really something for everyone to enjoy. The Farm Show is a full week of interesting events.
Our favorite thing at the show is the Draft Horse Hitch Competition. Those beautiful draft horses put on quite a show. The Percherons, Belgians and Clydesdales are beautiful, strong and proud horses. Here are a couple of pictures from the event.




Some of the teams are sitting here
awaiting judging


















Before we watched the horses we headed to the chicken displays to take some pictures for a friend of ours. There were some amazing looking chickens and roosters. Some of them are beautiful and quite photogenic. Here is a beauty of a rooster. I don't know the name of the type.















And a final surprise was this Miniature Country Store. I was not expecting to find any miniatures at the show but I was wrong. The detail is amazing I thought.

Oh and I can't forget the FOOD. Many of the various agricultural associations offer food in the food court. We both thought the mushroom items were outstanding.

Now we are looking forward to next year.

Snow can be beautiful

We woke up this morning to a lovely snow covered world. Now, I enjoy looking at snow, just don't like it to last too long. Today it was beautiful.
The sun is out and has started the melting process but I am enjoying it at the moment.
Here are a few shots I took earlier.
From the back porch:
The side of my garden shed:
I took a quick pic of the Atlas Cedar. It is quite pretty but I must knock the snow off soon before the branches get too heavy and break.

Happy New Year to all my friends and family.

My Christmas shopping is done, my cards are mailed and today I will be mailing out the last few packages!!!!!!!!!!! So I can relax a bit and start making plans for the new year.
I will be getting a doll called Bleuette for Christmas this year. The nice thing about this doll is that she is ideal for making clothes for. So I have been collecting up patterns and yesterday I went to JoAnn fabric store and bought a variety of fabric with several projects in mind.

Here is the picture of what I bought. I hope to be able to show what I made from each once they are done. But I can't start sewing until I get the doll...... I probably like the planning stage best of all anyway so that is a good thing.

If you are curious about Bleuette you can check out this link to learn about her. If not, well, you will have to wait until I picture her here.

I actually finished a miniature project

I have finally finished a project I started a couple of years ago. It is a scene of the exterior of a Southwestern style house. I had been collecting a lot of different pieces of pottery, most from Dusty Acres Trading Post. I had wanted to find a way to display them The actual box was started by a mini friend Peg while we attended a Miniature workshop. She gave it to me cause I knew what I wanted to do with it. And because she is a GREAT friend.
Inside the window frames is a picture of the inside of a SW style house. Unfortunately I could not get a good picture of it. There is a picture frame that goes with this but it looked better to show on line without the frame. The framed room box will hang on a wall.