All I want for Christmas is...

I don't usually make Christmas lists. Generally, I just wish I had enough money to go shopping and buy great things for everyone on MY LIST. That's what would really make me happy. But every year, someone is bound to ask what I want for Christmas, (and someone already has), so...Here is my Christmas wish list:

Because I have a carpeted floor in my kitchen now, I think one of these would be ideal. That way I wouldn't have to drag out the big ol' vacuum cleaner to pick up a few Cheerios or whatever else we happend to spill on the floor. After all, they vacuum up nuts and bolts on the infomercial, so they MUST be good! This should also work great on the wood floors I have in my office and in all of the upstairs rooms.

My husband is the AWANA commander at our church. Many a Wednesday afternoon, he has called me and asked if I would please make some kind of handout for the kids to bring home to their parents THAT night. Therefore, it would be really nice to upgrade from my old Print Shop 12 to the brand new Print Shop 23! It would also come in quite handy for creating my own greeting cards or party invitations etc. I could have lots of fun with this.

Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved the C. S. Lewis "Chronicles of Narnia" series. I've read almost all of the books at least once, and would really enjoy having DVD's of the two movies that are out so far, "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian" which comes out on DVD this coming Tuesday, Dec. 2. I'm also really looking forward to the next big-screen Narnia adventure, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". I can't wait!

Everyone that knows me well, also knows that I am a "VeggieTalian". What's a Veggietalian, you ask? Why, it's someone like me, who is trying to collect every VeggieTales DVD ever made. So far, I am only missing two of the "VeggieTales Classics"; "Larry Boy and the Fib from Outerspace and "LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed. I actually do have one copy of each of these movies, but they are part of a 3 disc Larry Boy set, so I would love to have the individual DVD's of these two movies to complete my VT Classics collection. And then I'll probably give my 3 disc set to someone else.

I am also missing "God Made You Special" and the brand new "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" Movie that just came out on DVD in October.

Oh and my copy of "A Snoodles Tale", (which really belongs to Molly), has seen better days and needs to be replaced. I don't think it will even play anymore.

So there you have it, that's about all I can think of right now, other than world peace and good health, happiness, wealth and prosperity for my family and our friends. How 'bout you? What do you want for Christmas?

P. S. I was just informed tonight that "Mama Mia" will be out on DVD on Dec. 16th. I went to that with "the girls" for Sarah's birthday. We had so much fun! I wouldn't mind owning that one either.

Thursday Thirteen ~ I Am Thankful...

1. T - For the Turkey and all the Trimmings on our Tables Today.
2. H - That my Hubby and I are not as Heavy and are much more Healthy these days.
3. A - Because I am Anxiously Awaiting the Arrival of Jessica and CJ.
4. N - For Nice November days above 70 degrees, (at the beginning of the month, when I started writing this).
5. K - For all of our Kids...even when they drive us Krazy.
6. S - For the Snowy Sign from God that told my dd not to re-enlist.
7. G - That we have 3 Gorgeous Grandsons, AJ, CJ, and HD.
8. I - For the Incredible Internet, that allows us all to keep In touch this way.
9. V - For my Very, Very good friends, (you know who you are) :)
10. I - That nothing is Impossible with God! Even If it seems so at times.
11. N - For New Neighbors ...and Not being too Near to them, Now that we moved.
12. G - That I am able to Get closer to God each and every day.
13. S - For every Soldier and Service person keeping our country Safe.

Wordless Wednesday # 14 ~ Hand-y Turkeys

All Comfy and Cozy

Ray and I have been busy creating a warmer and cozier home this past weekend. We bought some new curtains for the living room, which he hung for me. He finished up hanging the other curtains that were on his "honey-do" list from last weekend, and we put poly over all the windows on the main floor so far. That should help with some of the draftiness in this old house.

The back door simply needs replacing, you can see daylight around it. I'm going to have to talk to the landlord about that one. There's a lot of cold air coming in under the front door too, but it's such a pretty old door, that I wouldn't even want to replace that one. Hopefully, stuffing some insulation in between the doors will help.

Other than that, we haven't been doing anything exciting lately. That's a good thing sometimes. Very shortly, we will have a four year old running around the house, which should give me lots more "blog fodder". Well, I'm off to my bible study for "Frazzled Females". Have a great day!

WW #10 ~ The Stockings Were Hung From The Shelf With Care?

Week Whatever Weigh-In ~ In A HOLDING Pattern

Again. I guess maybe I've been practicing my maintenance lately for when I actually get to my goal weight. I have been kind of on a plateau for quite a while here. In fact, I haven't gone to WW for two weeks, but the scale was EXACTLY the same as last time. That means I am STILL .6 lbs away from the 40 lb. mark. I was really hopeful this time, because my home scale said I was exactly 40 lbs lighter, but their scales obviously don't weigh exactly the same as mine does. Oh well, I'll just keep plugging away at it. I'd really like to break that 40 lb mark before Thanksgiving week, so I'll try really hard this week and probably weigh in next Monday again.

Now that things have settled down around here, maybe I can be better about writing down everything I put in my mouth. That oughta help. And maybe I should just stay home all next weekend, that seems to be when I do the most damage to the scales.

New And Improved Farmhouse Virtual Tour ~ Now With Furniture!

For the past couple of weeks, I have been unpacking boxes, trying to find a place for everything, (so that everything can be in its place) and working on a "honey-do" list for my husband. I now have MOST everything the way I want it, and Ray has decided to take the day off from "work" and work on my list, he's about halfway through it now. Anyway, this is what the place looks like so far. A friend of mine says our old brick farmhouse reminds her of a gingerbread house, and this just happened to be hanging outside the backdoor when we moved in.

Mr. and Mrs. Gingerbread welcome you. Come on in, shoe removal is not necessary, but feel free to do so if you'd like. Just watch out for my 40 lb attack frog below the gingerbread couple.

Just inside the entryway, off the kitchen to the right is THE bathroom. I'm finally getting used to only having one again. All of my bathroom frogs hopped right in and made themselves at home. They seem to really dig their new "pad". And look, I even found a box of tissues with frogs on it!

And you see that door right there? That leads to the dungeon basement, of course. Doesn't everyone have a basement door in their bathroom?

Now, step back out of the bathroom, into my country apple kitchen: Quaint, don'tcha think?

One of the things on the "honey-do" list was to put this table together and get rid of the oval one I had in the kitchen before. Another was to tighten up our extremely wobbly chairs, so they wouldn't fall apart and land someone on the floor some day. He's got those two checked off, yeah!

That door leads to my laundry/exercise room. It's not quite "picture-ready" yet. But just to the right, there is a door to the dining room living room. Come on in. Now, turn around and look back toward that door, and this is what you'll see:

The kids and the grandkids were the first ones to move into this house. Well, at least their pictures anyway. That high shelf is supposed to be for plates or something I guess, but it works great to set our 7 kids on, and I didn't even have to try to get them all level that way. Everyone should try to raise "level-headed" children, right? So far, we have 3 grandsons. If we end up with more grandkids than will fit on that wall someday, I have one more empty wall I can use. See?

I had originally put the love seat in front of the front door, (which has a beautiful etched glass design in it), because we don't really use that door anyway, but the "feng shui" didn't feel right to me. Not that I'm into that sort of thing, it just didn't look good with the door blocked. At least this way, we will be able to get out of it easier in case of emergency. Try not to notice that the curtain rods are still sitting on the back of the love seat. They're on his list...he just hasn't gotten to them yet.

Notice that we now have "privacy" curtains up between the dining room livingroom and the livingroom bedroom. I wasn't going to hold my breath while I waited for Ray to build his temporary wall with a door in it instead of the curtains. Not that he doesn't have the technology...

You may have seen my bedroom pics before, but just in case you missed it, here's my side of the bedroom again... And one more time...

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His side. Yes, the buck stops here.

Now, next to that chair, there is a door. Step through it into my office. This was supposed to be the master bedroom...but it's a bit too small for our furniture...and um...there's no door on this room either. The top of our old entertainment center makes a great storage shelf for our karaoke equipment:

And the most interesting thing about this room is the curved wall, which if I look up from my computer, (which is just around the corner to the left in the above picture), this is what I see:

This picture doesn't even do it justice, the wall is really curved. In fact, if you look back at the "his" side of the bedroom pic, next to the dresser, you can see the angled corner on the other side of this strange wall. I'm not really sure what they were thinking when they built it that way, but it's one of the things that gives this old house its charm and character.

That pretty much does it for the main floor, now come on upstairs again. The first door on the right is the guest room. It's not real big, but it's cozy:

I was going to give the teddy bear toddler bed away, but I talked to CJ while we were moving and he said, "Grandma, are you going to bring the little bitty bed to your new house?" I asked him if he wanted me to, and he said yes. Now I'm glad I kept it, since they're going to be staying with us for awhile. Molly was big into "The Lion King" as a toddler. Can you tell?

The door to the left, is our "TV room". Molly's big into "Captain Jack Sparrow" these days, can you tell? Below, you'll see the bottom half of the same entertainment center from the office, upstairs. You can probably figure out why we couldn't use the top of it up here. Not without cutting one side of it off anyway. Don't ask me what the heck was on TV, I have no idea.

Now, here's my favorite part of this room. Again, I didn't know when I put all this here that my grandson was moving in. I just like to have a kid-friendly place for the grandkids (or any other little visitors that come to my house), to play.

Seeing as how Molly's room is not "picture-ready" yet either, I will end today's tour here. I hope you had fun on my new, improved virtual tour, and if you're a friend or relative that hasn't visited in person yet, feel free to come on over for real. Just call first, and I'll put the coffee on for you.