October Thanksliving - part 2

Today I am thankful for food and family, home and health, and time to enjoy my life.




The harvest is gathered in and today we celebrated Thanksgiving with our families.




The freezer is filled up, the shelves are loaded and we are ready for winter! I am so thankful for the abundance and variety of food that we are blessed with and I am reminded that there are other mothers around the world who aren't able to feed their children every meal.

Thank you Lord for providing food for us to eat. Help me to share the abundance of all that we have.





A sign of some of the cooking that went on here today :))



One of my favourite pictures of the day!!

October Thanksliving - part 1

We have so much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving weekend so I'm going to dedicate the next few posts to making lists of some of my blessings.

For friends -




For family -




For parents -




For these two (who are far away today) -




For this little family -




For these two -




For this newly expanded family -




For her -




For him -



For her -



For peace in our land -




Stay tuned for more!

30 Days of Autumn

Day 18



I think this is such an inviting bench - we could sit and have a wonderful visit here!

Creating

So I finished week 1 assignments in the Design Your Life class while week 2 was already waiting in the online classroom! I am so happy with my creations! All sketches and assignments are from Cathy Zielske - the SB guru who's teaching the class.

#1



Part 1 of the assignment was to create a symmetrically balanced design that had equal weight on either side of the line of symmetry. Using an enlarged picture was also a requirement and I was happy to use my new favourite picture!!

#2




Then we stepped it up and in Part 2 of the assignment created a 2 page symmetrical layout. These pictures are some of the autumn ones I've been taking lately. (This picture looks wonky because I had to prop the pages so I could photograph them.)

#3

PHOTO REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION (Congrats to Heather!)

This was the Real Life Color challenge - use blue, brown, orange and yellow. Cathy's suggestion was to use a letter format for journalling so I wrote this for Silas. I think this is my favourite of the three - and also the one that I had to work hardest on to find the right combination of papers. Thanks to Heather for the beautiful picture of her son!

30 Days of Autumn

Day 17



Fenceline - again thanks to Bob. I'm so glad we took lots of pictures the last few weeks as the big wind from the last 2 days has pretty much stripped the leaves from the trees. And the forecast for tomorrow? Flurries!!!! I'm not ready for that!

A Fun Challenge

An interesting challenge by Mary at Owlhaven is to go to your computer picture file and post the picture you find in 6th place in the 6th file.



This is what I found!! It was taken in Luis Eduardo Meghalles in Brazil on February 27th of this year as we boarded our tour bus after touring the coffee cooperative and headed off for lunch. It brings back wonderful memories of new friends and great times shared on a warm winter day :)) And it's a reminder to get back in touch with some friends from that trip.

I think this challenge originally came from Sara at A Shower of Roses.
Please accept the invitation to share what you find in your files!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Book Club and our discussion on The Thirteenth Tale was great last night. We had a full house, great snacks by Kim, and an interesting discussion about the book and the writing of it. I love these gatherings!

2. Once again Morning Glory is hosting Alphabet Soup.



These "D" things make me happy!

Darrin - our only son. He is 31 now and we still love to spend time with him. We are so proud of him and are delighted that he will marry Kelsey in March of next year.

Diamonds - my birthstone and one of the few gemstones that I actually have in some jewellery.

Donuts - a big treat that I'm trying to avoid! I especially like maple walnut ones from Tim Horton's or the ones from the local bakery that's near the school :))

Daffodils - such a cherry and bright sign of spring. I love places like Victoria where they grown in profusion under the trees.

Dad - mine has been a role model, advocate, mentor and guide my whole life through. I am blessed that he is active, relatively healthy and interested in so many things, including his grandchildren and now great-grandchildren.

Dill pickles - so good with so many things!

Driving - we both love to explore and take roads less travelled.

3. Better Homes and Gardens magazine has some lovely yet simple fall decorating ideas. I love the little flowers in the gourds - so going to try that for Sunday!

4. I stopped in at IKEA today and found some great stuff for Christmas gifts! Gotta love their prices too!

5. I read some picture books to the grade 3 class I was subbing in today and I was reminded again of how much I love books and sharing them with kids.

6. Most of my outside flower pots are empty and put away now. I kept the pony grass in two of them and think they might look good with some pumpkins and leaves. I'm all about decorating this week :))

7. I got all the groceries I need for Thanksgiving weekend today. Now it's the preparing part to do on Friday and Saturday.

8. Anybody watching Dancing With The Stars these days? Costumes and dancing are WOW!!

9. This week's featured blogger is Jen McGuire - cardmaker and stamper extraordinaire! Visiting her blog will make you smile, I guarantee it.

10. Off to play with some scrapbook layouts tonight :))

30 Days of Autumn

Day 16



I am having such fun documenting this season! There are literally pictures waiting to be snapped everywhere :))

Simple Daybook #12

For Today... October 6, 2008

Outside my Window... another beautiful Indian summer day - clear skies, bright sunshine, still lots of colored leaves on the trees

I am thinking... about all the things I want to finish before Sunday!

I am thankful for... being a child of God and leaning on Him for direction, wisdom and love

From the kitchen... slim pickins today!

I am wearing... jeans, a favourite brightly striped sweater and brown running shoes

I am reading... Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

I am hoping... that the weather holds so we can finish combining the last of our late barley this week

I am hearing... piano music by David Nevue

I am creating... two layouts for assignment #1 in Design My Life - I'll show you when they are done :))

Around the house and yard ... emptied the plant pots today, cut the grass close to the house, dusting and windows that need washing - and still flies coming into the house

One of my favorite things... pumpkin pie with whipped cream

A few plans for the rest of the week....book club tonight - we're discussing The Thirteenth Tale, subbing in grade three tomorrow, farm accounting (still!), babysitting Meadow and preparations for Thanksgiving dinner

Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you. . . .



Thanks to Bob for taking the picture when I was at work one day last week :))

Be sure to visit The Simple Woman and check out the rest of the participants.

Before Lunch

This is what Saturday morning in A Week In My Life looks like!



"Sun - Sun - time to wake up - Helayna wants to play park."




A little pre-breakfast snack.




It was a chilly morning.




A little riding before breakfast




Breakfast of pancakes with whipped cream and raspberries.




Reading a few stories.



This is just how Grampa does it when he's on the computer.




Drawing pictures for Mommy and Daddy



Trying all the cords and connections on some piece of video technology - she was very occupied!




How in the world does this thing work?? And when we figured it out, she had to find Grampa to 'squirt' because she remembered doing it at the beach this summer!



She was in her glory out at the shop where Bob was working.




"Helayna helping Gammpa" - in her own words.




Two heads are better than one when it comes to fixing something!




Heading out to ride again.




And all because this sweet little one is staying with us as part of her very first sleepover!

30 Days of Autumn

Day 15 - Halfway!



The colors of the flowers and the water in the birdbath made me smile when I spotted this on one of my walk's at the lake.

New Project

This week, the amazing Ali Edwards is creating a project called A Week In My Life to document her life with words and pictures. She has an open invitation to join in and I love the whole idea, so I've been trying to capture the moments of every day this week. Eventually these will find their way (magically - all by themselves - not!) into an album or book as a reminder of this time. I love the whole idea and I'd like to share today's photos with you.



Breakfast while checking emails and blogs.




Listening to first audio presentation in the online class I'm taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking. It was full of information, encouragement and ideas.




Sneak peek of assignment #1 at Design Your Life with Cathy Zielske. You can still sign up to join us - we'd love to have you :))




The view from my kitchen window.



Started filling in a brand new day planner today - I could not resist the beautiful orange colour :))




Putting away clean dishes.




Late in the afternoon we went for a drive to take some pictures but we were just a little too late and the light was flat already. I did manage to get one shot that looks okay. I think we'll try again with early morning light tomorrow.




A lone fisherman canoeing at Battle Lake.




Roasted Pork Loin and Country Salad, courtesy of the Eco Cafe', tonight.



And it was local talent night at the cafe' so we heard some very good coffeehouse music.

There were a few questions about my 30 Days of Autumn pictures. Some of the later ones (the truck and the swing) were taken at Pigeon Lake, a beautiful spot just 3 miles from our house. I've been taking walks there and my camera is my constant companion. Thanks for asking!

30 Days of Autumn

Day 14



The last harbinger of summer