Living on One Income

It is hard to believe in this day and age that it can be done, but it has been.  By many people.  How do we do it?  And  why would we want to?

Ever since I could remember I had worked.  When I was 11 I got my first job, a paper route.  I helped my parents clean and paint the apartments we managed after we moved and I could no longer have a paper route. I babysat the neighbor's kids and I helped teach tae kwon do classes.  When I was 16 I got a job at the local Holiday station store.  I worked my way through college working 32 hour work weeks and some quarters I carried 18-20 credits when a full load was 12-16.  I have always worked hard and enjoyed having money to buy things I wanted, why would I want to change the way I lived?

As soon as I graduated from college I found out I was pregnant and went full time where I had worked my way through college.  When my son was born, I only got to spend 6 weeks at home with him.  It broke my heart.  Between all of the hours he worked and never being able to spend much time together as a family, it really started to get to me.  He stayed with his grandparents while I worked, so it was somewhat of a comfort to me that he was cared for my people who loved him so I soldiered on in my full time career.

When he was almost 2 I had to take over paying for the care of my son while I was at work because   his grandparents weren't available any more.  Between having an educational background and the discount I would get on child care I decided there would be nothing better than working at a day care.  I was even the teacher in his room and I got paid to spend the day with him.  What could be better than working with your kids???

I proceeded to have another child and would have probably been content to stay there but for the fact that I wasn't appreciated and my son was going to be starting kindergarten in the next town over in a few months.  I didn't get the pay raise I was expecting so I decided to stop paying all that money to drive where I wasn't appreciated when I would earn a whole weeks' worth of income in 2 days using my teaching license to sub.  So I put in my notice and quit my full time job.

At first I started finding ways to save money since teachers don't work during the summer.  I mean, I had already made my daughter's solid baby foods, finding new ways to save money was intriguing.  Growing our own veggies, making bread, sewing clothes, it was an adventure every day.  The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.

The more ways I found to save, the more I started to wonder if I could really afford to stay at home with my kids.  I mean, as a stay at home mom the kids would always have someone who could come to watch their concerts, volunteer for their field trips, attend all of their sporting events, there was no end to the amount of time a SAHM could spend with her children.

We quit buying expensive Christmas gifts, we started making gifts for others instead of buying them, didn't spend large amounts of money sending kids to camp, less eating out, stock up on bargains to save future money,...   Yes, we made some major sacrifices, but I really don't think that we missed out on much.

I keep coming back to the  same questions.  Do we need all of the latest clothing styles?  Will my kids suffer if they can't go to art camp?  Are name brands and impressing people worth the extra effort and the time away from family?  The more I think about it, the less I think I am really giving up.  After all, if people just like us for what we wear then they are not worth knowing if you ask me.

The more I think about it, the more I think working outside the home costs a family.  As a working mom, you need nice work clothes, you are tired from working all day so you buy a bunch of convenience foods and dinners out that a SAHM doesn't need to buy, you feel guilty for not having time to spend with your children so many compensate with material possessions which really teaches kids the wrong message.

As an added bonus cutting out the dinners out and prepackaged foods has done so much for our health saving us trips to the doctors too.  Now I just can, freeze, and dehydrate all my own stuff.  After all, I only use recognizable ingredients that I know how to pronounce and it's still fast and easy for those busy nights.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Not Just Ground Hog Day

Leaving the Hospital

       To me, February 2 is not just Ground Hog Day, it is also my dad's birthday.  Today will mark the seventh birthday we have celebrated since he left us here on earth.  It makes me more than a little bit nostalgic on this brisk winter day, so I thought I might share some stories and information with you.

      He was born on February 2, 1942 to Marlow Carl Nelson and Selma "Sally" Othelia (Nelson) Nelson (That was kind of a running joke in the family too, but more on that some other time...) in a rural MN town like many others of the day at a hospital in Tyler, MN. He may have been one of the first in his family to have gotten that priveledge because as far as I know both of his parents were born on a rural farm outside of Balaton, MN.

My dad and his Mom

       He was the oldest of 4 siblings, 2 brothers and a sister.  The youngest brother died as an infant in 1951, I guess I'm not sure if he was still born or what exactly happened, Dad really never was much of an open book and didn't discuss these matters openly at all.  I do know he was buried in the Trinity Lutheran cemetery where my dad's paternal grandfather was buried though, and that they took the only picture of him that I've got which is a picture of him in his casket.  How incredibly sad.

Confirmation

       Church was always very important in the family too.   He grew up with the same church family that many of his ancestors had, Sillerud Lutheran Church in Skandia I believe.  This is the same church that his mom went to as a little girl. It is a Swedish Church out in the country that even I have fond memories of.  I remember when I was little they lived on a farm not far from the church.  Many events happened at the family church including his baptism, his confirmation, and his wedding to my mom.  It is where my grandpa and his second wife celebrated their 25th anniversary,  many Christmas celebrations were spent together here,  as well as the sad events of funerals and burials.  Judging by the many pictures I have of it, it doesn't appear that the decor has ever changed either.  That's a Swede for you though, always practical...  Why fix it if it's not broken, eh?

Watching a Parade with
Extended Family

       My dad was a total family man.  He wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.  I imagine as a kid they must have spent a lot of time together, unlike this day and age where the computers and tvs take away way too much family fun time.  Looking back through his pictures there are a lot of the family doing stuff together such as sledding (I wonder if any of the pictures of them as kids were taken at Garvin Park where Dad and Grandpa took me as a kid?), fishing, camping, parades, family vacations, trips to the beach, picnics, and playing cards to name a few.  We did many of those activities when I was a kid too actually...  Even when the rest of us later on protested as much as we could, we still traveled on the major holidays to see everyone.  I mean, we had lives and wanted to do our own thing but you just couldn't stop him.  We even got a mini Christmas tree to put in the car as a joke one year...

He Loved to Fish

Camping

1956 Blue Ribbon Lamb

        He was very involved in activities as well.  In 1956 he was awarded  a blue ribbon for his lamb by the 4H club.  His mother was a group leader of some sort which I only know because she signed a submission of a photo project that my dad submitted as the group leader.  I imagine that they must have done many activities like this in order to spend more time together as a family.  I am not exactly sure when he joined any of them, but I do know that he was also in both band and football as evidenced by 2 other pictures I dug up.  Sometimes it makes me wonder why he didn't talk more about these experiences with me.  I do believe I saw somewhere that he played the tuba.

Dad in his Band Uniform,
College(?)

High School Graduation 

       He graduated from Balaton High School in 1960.  He chose to go to a nearby Christian college in Sioux Falls, SD to stay near to his family.  He has shared some college prank stories a few times.  Every time they came to play SCSU, my dad made sure to attend every game the Augustana Vikings played up there later in life.  He graduated from college in 1964.  I think he was a rather ordinary student judging by his report card grades.

College Senior Picture

 Christmas 1961

       While he was in college, his mother died November 28, 1962.  I bet they were glad that they took the Christmas picture that year.  It seems that must have been their last family picture.  I guess I'm not 100% sure what she died of, another thing my dad never really talked about.  He sold Collier Encyclopedias for a time, following in his salesman father's footsteps. He graduated with a B.S. degree, but before finding a job he made a trip to Europe.  I have the many slides he took from there and I would love to go there sometime as well.  Upon his return, he got a job teaching high school math which he did until after he met and married my mom.

Mom and Dad's Wedding

1976

Salesmen in Sioux City

       Theirs was a whirl wind romance.  Dad met her when he was attending re-certification classes for his teaching license up at Bemidji State University.  He noticed that there was a class reunion for the class that graduated the same year that he did, so he decided to crash it.  That is where he met my mom.  She tried as hard as she could to get rid of him, but he wouldn't leave her alone until he agreed to go out with her.  When she was getting ready to hop a plane and fly to CA for a nanny job, he talked her into marrying him even though they didn't know each other very well.  Shortly after getting married my dad decided that he would leave the teaching profession and become a salesman which made us move quite a bit actually.

       We made our home in several places throughout the years never staying longer than 5 years in any place until we moved to the Monticello area.

Trip to FL

      All of that moving didn't keep us from seeing his family every chance we got.  Even when money was tight, we still traveled to see them.  We went all over the place and have pictures of us by all hinds on monuments and people's houses.

1990

       We even got to take a family vacation with our grandparents when I was in the first grade.  I thought it was great that we got out of school all that time!  Since our (step) grandma was a school (as well as a principal previously) teacher, she helped us with our lessons.

Easter 1992

       I don't actually remember much from the trips we took when I was little, but I know we sure travelled lots of places to see lots of people!  By the time I was really old enough to remember much we stuck to MN and only visited mom and dad's brothers and sisters or their parents when we drove any great distances.  Usually we just stuck close to home and had movie nights or went to some friends' house to play cards or a board game of some sort.

       He still liked to fish and hunt, but only took us fishing a handful of times.  I wish I had learned more from him while he was still around.  We also had a garden for a couple of years when I was little though I was never taught how to tend it.

       He was active in many different groups throughout the years including Gideons, Jaycees, and our church choir to name a few that I recall most prominently.  I remember at least one year that all 4 of us were in the choir.  Or was it only 3 of us?  Hmm...

       So many, many memories.  I will stop rambling and boring you for now.  I miss you Dad.  Happy Birthday!

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

I Think our Ancestors Had it Right

The more I have gone through in recent years, the more it has gotten me to thinking about the way we run our lives in modern society. Every thought that I have always seems to lead me back to the same conclusion, ancient folks had it right. Why are we losing so much of their knowledge and skill?

They had no mortgages. Their homes with their own two hands or carved them out of the earth. Who wouldn't like to have that 30% of our income to spend on something else?

They worked for themselves. There weren't huge corporations out there driving them to work 60 hours per week and forcing them to move place to place. Whatever they did, they did because they chose to and for the benefit of themselves, their family, or their neighbors. They had time to help each other.

They knew their neighbors. It is very easy with our hectic lives filled with modern day conveniences not to have ever talked to our neighbors. I am guilty as charged. Living on a 2 acre plot of land out in the country I have never had the need to go to the neighbors and they have never come here. People used to depend on their neighbors and help each other out. There were communities that stood strong together. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't feel that same sense of community where I live. No one will stand up and speak out against someone being treated poorly, no one will lend a helping hand, no one cares what happens to anyone else. So many people are wrapped up in their own little world worrying about their own little worries and nothing else matters.

They didn't need power to entertain themselves. They were creative and used their many talents to occupy their free time. Those extra talents probably earned them a little extra income too. We waste so much time glued to the television watching non sense, seeing ads that don't speak the truth. Our young are being brought up to think there is always going to be someone or something there to tell us the answers. There isn't!

They thought for themselves. As I said before, we watch so much TV that many people lack the mental skill to figure anything out for themselves. When is the last time you added something up without a calculator? Be honest now... They could figure out the exact angle they needed to hit an animal with a rock in order to take it down. They couldn't wait for someone else to tell them, if they did their dinner would be running the other direction.

They bartered for goods and services. Come on, we all know that money isn't everything. If they didn't have the money to pay their doctor bill they didn't set up accounts and pay on a monthly basis $40 per month until the bill was paid off. They fixed his toilet for him or gave him a chicken or some eggs.

They heated their own homes. Many relied on fire, but some discovered the power of the earth's internal heating and cooling systems and sun's heat. They didn't pay large heating and cooling bills to giant electric and gas corporations.

They saved up for the hard times. Who hasn't had a tough go of it in the last few years? I know we have had several times where we have struggled. Unfortunately circumstances didn't allow us to save extra cash to pay for higher medical insurance bills and such. It used to be that when times were plentiful they dried extra beans and meat and stored it up for when the food wasn't so plentiful. What could be more practical than that?

They helped each other. In times past, they helped people who needed help. They didn't ask how much their home was worth, how much they had in their 401K account, tell them to go apply for assistance else where, or anything of the sort. They didn't say that they made $300 more than the income level that they can help you at and close the door in their face. They saw a need and they helped, plain and simple.

I think I'd like to go back to simpler times and live a few of the lessons people from the not so distant past could teach so many of us today.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Fire Sale Update

I know some people out there may be interested in the house I just wrote my last post about. Some may have been following my story since I met them at the HGTV home selling message boards, I met some really great people there. Here's the latest as well as some information for people who may be going through this process and want to find out some more info. Please feel free to ask me any questions you have. We underwent this process in MN so it may be different in other areas of the country.

As you may be aware, our old house in BL was sold at a fire sale last year. As owners, we are never made aware of this information about the sale, so I only found this out the other day.

We were given a six month redemption period after the fire sale before it was finalized so my mom continued to live there until last November or so.

We were made aware of the fact that we could contest the transfer of title out of our name being sent official papers with the time of the "trial" and everything. This happened in June this year. It may have been interesting to go, but it was a long way away and my nerves are still really raw about all of the effort we put into that house and trying to sell it. It was best to make a clean break, so I didn't go. I wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

If I could have saved them the attorney fees and just handed the house over to the bank, I would have. Apparently MN has a law that says you can not do a "deed in lieu of foreclosure" on a home you are not living in. We tried every possible route that the bank suggested but apparently nothing but foreclosure worked for us in MN. It really was too bad since we had no interest in holding onto the house.

The house was listed in the court papers as being sold for $125,550 on 7/18/08 so I guess someone must have bid on it then. That is a far distance from the $230,000 we were told we could sell it for when we first contemplated the possibility of moving over three years ago!

At the end we had it listed for $124,900 (dropped from the original listing price of 197,000) but in all we only had two offers in total. Crazy for such a wonderful home on a corner lot so close to the lake. With our main competition being foreclosures and new construction we really had an uphill battle to try to win.

I tried negotiating with the first person who made an offer before we really knew that the housing market was in a virtual free fall. This right after we signed up with our second realtor. I am sure she would have sold it if she had been our original listing agent, if we didn't have a messy renter who refused to show the house or do the agreed on lawn care, and if the floor in the family room hadn't gotten so badly damaged. I would have owed more than the first possible buyer offered in September of 06 and thought I needed to take out a loan to cover the rest of the money I would have owed the banks and realtors. She wasn't willing to up her price and ended up walking. I really don't think she would have sat still for a short sale anyway since she was in the process of getting a divorce.

Our second offer got held up on a bank negotiation deal since we held both a first and second mortgage. After waiting forever those buyers also walked. I have found myself wondering if the final purchasers are those second people or not. I guess maybe I'll never know. I suppose it really doesn't matter. I am out from under that burden and I am not going to look back!

We were notified of the outcome of the court proceedings by mail. They sent a list of all transactions on our house including all of the times we refinanced, when we bought the house, second mortgages, fire sale, and other filings. It is now completely final and I could not be happier to be able to move on free and clear.

I hope the new owners enjoy that house as much as we did, it really was our dream when we lived there. Who knew my dream house would change so much when we moved here? I used to only want to live in town and have lots of kids for my kids to play with and be close to shopping. Now none of those things are even on the radar of my dream home. If our relatives and friends lived closer I'd have to say that the house we live in now would be my dream home.

I am also glad that living through that ordeal didn't end up breaking up a third marriage as it did the marriages of the first two pairs of owners. The neighbors shared the divorce house story with us after we moved in. The second couple only lived there for a year! I'm sure it very well could have broken us up if we had let the stress of the last few years overcome us. We've gone through a lot of loss, pain, and difficulties over the last three years.

Now we are a better, closer family than ever and I feel ready to conquer the health battle that lies ahead.... I hope! God help us.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

If Only...

June 4, 2006 It was a tough day. The day my mom found my dad had passed away. It was so unlike him to miss church she decided to go over for a visit. They had been divorced since before my daughter was born in 2001, but they weren't bitter enemies or anything. I think they got along better after the divorce than before it. I know that dad regretted getting divorced every day. I know he wished he haded actually gotten the papers this time, he told me that many times. So many fights included the threats from both of them about divorce. If only he hadn't gotten those papers they'd still be together.

I know mom has her regrets too. I have heard her say it, if we hadn't gotten divorced I would have been there...
He wasn't living alone though, his brother, my uncle was living with him at the time. Unfortunately he was away and wasn't there to find him either. Why did he choose to be away? If only he would have been there, he could have called 911 and saved him.

Dad had just had surgery in February or March that year. He had a valve replaced in his heart. He was really weird after the surgery, seemed so out of it. He had needed the surgery though, but I wish I would have seen how much care he really needed. I think if he had health insurance in place after the surgery they would have placed him in a program until he was further recovered but they assumed I had the capacity to care for my dad along with the help of my mom and uncle. Little did they know... If only I had asked them to try to place him in that program.

He stayed with me for a after the surgery but I was under so much stress I couldn't stand it. Mom was living there with us and it was totally strange to have a divorced couple living together under your roof. Which one do you kick out? I was watching mom's friend's boyfriend's grand kids too. I never could say no to helping others you know... Mom couldn't care for him in my house while my family and I took vacation to get away from it all, it would just be too strange. The church set it up to bring him meals and check on him while I was gone. He seemed to be doing so well when I got back he decided to stay in his own house. If only I hadn't been under so much stress and he was still living with me.


Dad liked to spend time with his grand kids. He was trying to help my son learn to ride his bike. He took them to sporting events (like this Twins game), swimming, fishing,... if only he were here to still do that with his grand kids. He wasn't here long enough!


This was what his grave site looked like last summer after I visited him. He's been gone three years already? Where did the time go? If only I had the money to buy him a proper headstone...

Next week I'll be researching his side of the family tree some more. If only I had taken the time to attend some of those family reunions, I'd know his relatives a little better!

I better stop thinking about my regrets and start living in the moment! We are going to MIL's house this weekend to help her with some home repairs done and hopefully get some quality visiting time in with her and grandpa. Life's too short for regrets. I think I need to tattoo that on my forehead!

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Farm Town... Now with Flowers!

Does anyone else use Facebook? I found this great little application on it about a month ago called Farm Town. One of my cousins from the Chicago area introduced me to it once we became friends. I have been SO addicted to this new little game lately, it's just crazy. You'd think I'd have better things to do with my time, but it's just neat interacting with my friends and planting stuff. My kids even like to use it, though Peanut is too young to have an account all her own.

What does it do? Well, it started out where the animals are just decorative (though sometime soon we'll be able to milk the cows and collect chicken eggs, etc), you plant crops that can be ready in 4 hours to 4 days, if you don't harvest them in a timely manner they will go to waste, you can give your friends free gifts of trees or animals (flowers now too), and you can tend your neighbor's farms by watering their stuff, pulling weeds, or raking leaves. I have just recently discovered that you get more money for your crops if you hire others to harvest them (again, thanks to my fore mentioned cousin) and have been goofing off in the chat room (aka marketplace) whenever I'm not remodeling the farm since that discovery.

We discuss all of the possibilities (like the fact that we should be able to go to the beauty shop so we don't all look like clones) there and I try to get my character to do the hokey pokey and stuff just to see if any one's paying attention. Most of the time they don't. Either that, or they ignore me because I'm SO dang crazy???

When I got up this morning I had no idea that there were some changes that had been made to the game. Since I started playing flowers would be available in two weeks. They FINALLY were this morning, I got 6 of them as gifts today. (Thanks everyone!) Son was SO excited when he noticed all of the changes he just couldn't help but shout out all of the new animals and accessories that he saw while I was painting the last two walls of the kitchen.

I've been saving up for a greenhouse on the game, so I had a stash of money to splurge on a bunch of new toys. It'll be a while until I'm a high enough level to buy the greenhouse anyway, I have 3 levels to go still. I bought a grill, water pump, gated fences, and a doghouse so far and was planning on adding some rivers and bridges once I got everything satisfactorily rearranged.

I was on it remodeling my farm for the 6th time until I got booted off. Seems to happen more often than I like but I guess not so bad that I wouldn't want to go back. Now I can't even log back on. Hope the glitch doesn't last too long, I have flowers that need to be watered and pumpkins to harvest. They were 98% ready. Plus, my farm is in total disarray and I don't like it that way.

Does anyone else play Farm Town or use Facebook? I think I like Facebook better than Myspace.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Protecting Our Hard Work (and Other Updates)

Wow, the last month has been a whirl of craziness. Between plant parades to protect the tender plants from cold temps (should I REALLY need to be doing this in June?), ancestry research, my new Farm Town on Facebook addiction, working on a deck, weeding, prepping a new garden area, watering new plants to get them established, looking for free sources of mulch, building a birthday gift for Cheesehead, sports taxiing, class trips, plays, concerts, and school picnics, not to mention having company three out of four weekends I've barely had time to breathe.

I think I need a vacation and summer hasn't even started yet. Here are a few of the highlights.

I have been meaning to tell you about a lovely guest we've got living in the back yard for a while now.

Mother robin picked a very smart place to build her nest. She has chosen a variety of materials for her nest and chose a well sheltered, protected place to raise her family. It is high up and far out of reach of predators and protected from wind and rain too. The only thing she really has to put up with is us. She seems to be fairly tolerate of Cheesehead and I as long as we all just sit quietly and watch each other. I was sitting 20-30 feet from her. I've never gotten so near a wild bird while she's sitting in her nest. She's not so fond of movement or noise so does not stay in her nest when we do either of those things. She is very good at scolding us too. Her favorite perches to scold us from include the kids' swing set or a tall nearby pine tree. She has some new babies in the nest I know now as I saw her feeding them earlier. We decided to let her have the back yard to herself for a while so we don't endanger the health of her babies.

Well, as much to herself as I can anyway. I have to keep an eye on my garden!

The endless plant parade of covering and uncovering plants has continued into June. Some of the plants are not happy with this occurence.

Those plants include the tomato plants in the front yard. They seem to like warmer weather than we've had lately. I guess I need to drink more milk!


The tomatoes in the back yard seem to be much happier. It has stayed cool enough that I have kept the milk containers on them still. Gallon milk jugs with the bottom cut off work great. The semi-transparency allows sunlight and warmth in and the small hole in the top allows water in and extra hot air out. I think they've been in place for about 3 weeks? Look how much bigger this one is than the one in my front yard! I cover them all with blankets, tarps, or towels when it's supposed to get down around freezing. Don't want the poor things to get frostbite now, do we?

It's trying to escape out of the top of the jug. You should have seen the look of surprise on Cheesehead's face when I took him on the garden tour. He was a bit miffed about all of the garbage I had sitting in the garden until he saw the results.

We had a few other people to bring on the garden tour too.

"Grandpa" used to love to garden. He's going to be 91 soon and has trouble bending down and isn't as agile as he used to be. He just moved in with MIL and BIL and he's really enjoying it there. I just HAD to show him my garden.

He was feeling upset living at the nursing home for the last several years, but stayed because he and his wife were both there. She passed away several weeks ago and they had him on 24 hour watch. They were afraid he'd run away after his second wife died.

Remember how I was talking about MIL's helping someone as well as herself? He's been happily living with them now for a couple of weeks and they're getting along well. MIL seems happier now that she's got some one to fuss over again too. She's been out of sorts since FIL died almost 2 years ago. I don't remember seeing "grandpa" happier in a long time either. He told us many good stories and enjoyed our house in the woods while they visited for Cheesehead's birthday.

I showed "grandpa" the ancestry work I've been doing too. He was fascinated and wondered how in the world I got all of his relatives' names. I printed him a copy of his grandson's five year chart to take home with him. (His looked woefully pitiful) Hopefully someday I'll be able to get a bit farther back for them too, but it will take more time and a bit more information gathering.

Looks like I've got another busy summer ahead of me. Sorry if it seems I'm slighting anyone by not visiting much, it's not that I don't want to catch up and chat with you. Sometimes it feels like I'm meeting myself coming and going. I miss our chats and silliness. I'm sure I'll manage to fit some of that into the rest of my schedule sometime....

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Please Read My Other Blog

I don't usually plug my other blog, but I really think I need to today. In it I write about spiritual matters that may make some of my readers a bit uncomfortable.

This weekend we found out some information that concerns us all greatly. I wrote a story about it on my other blog. If you're prone to praying and don't get turned off by spirituality I request that you pop over and read it and pray for my eldest niece and nephew.

The blog is called I Cannot Live on Bread Alone. (Just check my profile if you can't find it in my sidebar blogs.)

I appreciate any additional prayers they can get. Their court date is supposed to be this Thursday. I forgot to mention this on my other blog, but my sister is acting as her own lawyer and can't afford to physically go to MN to attend court so will do it over the phone. She needs a whole lot of help! Thanks.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Founder of a Town

Cheesehead's mom had a copy of the Peshtigo Times sitting in her things. Recently, she showed it to us because of my incessant chatter about the ancestry research I'm working on I'm sure. It had some great facts that helped me to identify some older census records for a few of those family members. It even referenced some names of Joseph Wagner's parents who were as yet unknown to me. The information from Germany/Prussia will be harder to track down, but there is a county in WI which I hope to visit some time soon.

Even more interesting though was the stories of lives long past that it told and the story of a small town in Wisconsin. Wagner, WI is a small town in Marinette county. Apparently it was founded by Cheesehead's great great grandpa and grandma according to the article. Currently the population is around 800 or so.

I've never been there, but I have a feeling that some of the nearby cemetaries would help me tremendously with missing dates for some of the ancestors I am missing information for. I had hoped to be able to find some more information on the town to share with you, but I seem to have trouble finding obsure small towns on the internet. I suppose my luck would be better if I could riffle through some local papers or books. For now I'll just have to share some of my searching tips instead.

If you don't research your ancestors, you have no idea how many people are out there who share the same or similar names and birth years. It's even crazier when you add in the common last names that many of our ancestors share. Add that to a common first name and that will help you pull up hundreds of thousands of records to sift through.

In order to gain more success, I have researched some of the ancestors with less common names. For example MIL has some relatives that are Millers. Miller is an extremely common name. I was able to find some of her dad's family records by researching his sister's name (Emmerate) and connecting the rest of the family members to that name. This strategy brings up far fewer records to sift through.

I haven't had the same luck with my husband's dad's family though. Hopefully one day soon I'll have the time to make the drive over there and see this area that mnay of his distant relatives probably still live near. At least now when I find some records indicating that some Wagners live in Marinette county, I know that it merits a closer look.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Happy Anniversary

Today is our anniversary, the day I married my best friend and soul mate. It's been 13 years since Cheesehead and I got married. Where in the world did the time go? Do you have that problem too? The time just gets away from me and there's no stopping it. I can't for the life of me remember why in the world we wanted to get married in March though. Brr. It's freezing just like it was my wedding day. Both the day before and the day after were nice days for March, sunny and calm winds, but the 2nd? Not so. It seems like it was only yesterday....

The wind whipped around like crazy and I wasn't sure the 50+ (I counted them later) bobby pins that held my hair in place would be enough to withstand the perilous weather conditions. Thankfully Cheesehead forced me to get my hair done professionally that day so my hairstyle was perfectly cemented in place with probably a full bottle of extra strength hairspray. Two of my bridesmaids were going to go to the salon together the morning before our wedding. Apparently he gave them the money it would cost for me to get my hair done too, so they made appointments for all three of us. I didn't know it at the time, I thought they were being sweet and helping me out since I was cutting every possible corner with the costs for our wedding.

That's just one of the great things about Cheesehead. He's kind, thoughtful, and unselfish. He puts others before himself and always tries to be polite (which also hurts his health in my opinion). He's the best friend I have. I don't know what I would do or who I would be without him and his unending support behind me.

It's like we're two halves of the same person. When he thinks of something, I usually think of the same thing. He'll ask me were I want to eat and we usually both have the same restaurant in mind. It seems like he can read my mind. When I'm too tired to clean up after dinner, he'll offer to clean up even though he just worked all day.

He helps me remember not only the dreamy sides of my creativity that I get so hung up on, but also the reality side. When I am certain that I will have a bountiful, weed-free garden brimming with perfect, ripe veggies he's there to reel me in. If I think I am able to take care of a 20x30 garden my first year back in the garden circuit he's here to gently remind me that it will be much more work than I remember. When I forget the children will probably refuse to help me after the first few days of gardening, he's right there to pull me back to planet earth.

I wish I could just take the day off and spend it with him, but he has to go to some meetings in Eau Claire and stay overnight tonight. If he had some time off I might think about trying to go with him but the meetings go long into the night and start bright and early the next morning.

Honey, I love you more today than ever. Know that even though we can't be together you'll be on my mind all day.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Happy Birthday Grandma

Days like these help my mind wander back through time. Today would have been my maternal grandmother's birthday. She died in December of 1982 when I was a mere 8 years old, but she still had a great impact on my life.

I briefly considered not doing a post today since I've been so busy lately, but as I worked in my craft room moving some books to my book shelves down there I found this book.



I had completely forgotten that my mom had even given it to me. My grandma got it in November of 1980, just over two years before her death. I treasure it even more because it has her name written inside the cover in her own hand writing. It has information about any kind of needlework a person could want to do. I wasn't even aware that this grandma did anything like this since I never saw her working on it. Maybe she was trying to teach herself like I did and was too embarrassed to do it in front of anyone. I'll have to ask my mom if she knows of anything that she made.

We have other similarities as well. She loved to garden. Every time I ever went to her house when she was alive her gardens were full of flowers and vegetables. I remember her gardens being quite large, though my perception may have been skewed since I was so young. She never taught me anything about gardening as far as I remember, but I do think her love of gardening helped me establish a love for it too. Someday I hope to have successful vegetable gardens like hers. I did buy some seeds yesterday since they were on sale. I don't think it's quite time for most of them to be started yet.

She lived out in the country in a lovely wooded setting. Every spring trilliums filled her woods near her house. No matter where you looked there were these dainty white flowers poking their heads out of the shadows. That's part of the reason why I keep having to stop myself from buying any when I look at catalogs. Each time I see trilliums I think of her home in Bemidji. I wish I could afford to buy some, but I will hold off until we get our edible plants bought before I try to stretch my budget for these lovely luxuries.

She taught fourth grade when she wasn't taking time off from work to care for her children. I went to school to be a teacher too, though I have yet to get a full time job. Right now my children's childhood is more important to me than having loads of money. Besides, if I had a full time job I wouldn't have time to crochet or grow elaborate gardens.

Don't forget the Sci-fi movies. I remember she took me to E.T. when it was out in the theatres. She enjoyed those types of movies and the smurfs too. Do you remember the smurfs? She was very fun-loving and I loved spending time with her. Sometimes I feel I was robbed not being able to have her as I continued to grow up, but I guess that happens to many people.

I hope I can make her proud one day.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Why Did We Move to Rhinelander?

I loved living near my family and long time friends. It never occurred to me to want to move from the area that I call my hometown. Sure, we moved three miles away from there, but that's nothing nowadays and I felt content for quite a while. We finally had our dream home, lush gardens, great schools for our kids, a wonderful and extremely supportive church home, lots of friends and family living near us, a nice job. What more could we want?

Sure, the usual things weighed on me, but everyone has problems. Finances, kids teasing my son, and I wasn't feeling well and was often too tired to do much of anything. The doctors said that happens as you age and didn't feel that there was really anything wrong with me. There wasn't really anything that I could do about any of those problems though. We were generally pretty happy, so why rock the boat?

Shortly before my father died this small voice inside of me grew louder and more insistent. I guess it had been there before but I never listened to it. I thought it was greed driving me to ask my husband to look for a promotion. We always lived beyond our means so getting a promotion wouldn't make things any easier anyway, right?

One day, I started listening to it. I prayed that God would show us the direction that we should take. I talked to my husband about it. We gave it a lot of prayerful consideration. Son would be moving to a new school this year, his good friends would be sent to the school across town and the kids that lived in our neighborhood and teased him so much that he never wanted to play outside would be going to his school. Peanut would be starting kindergarten. Dad was making plans to move to Ohio to live near my sister who was studying to be a nurse.

We called several different real tors over to look at our house. We didn't want to make the move if all of the elements didn't fit. They all commented that our house was immaculate, it wouldn't be a problem to sell, and we could get $230,000 for it. That was more than enough to pay off the mortgage we owed and pay a good down payment on a new home. It was the perfect time to move.

We both agreed. Cheeshead decided to start actively looking for a good place to move our family. As the openings showed up, I researched the areas, the schools, and costs of living for each of the openings. Cheesehead put in for the towns we were interested in. I prayed that God would give us a great new town to call home.

One day a job in Rhinelander showed up. I had heard of it since it's not far from where my husband's dad grew up. Some of FIL's family still lives within 45 minutes of our house. We really were never very close to any of them since they don't venture far from home. I barely even knew many of them, but it would be a great opportunity to get to know them better.

He got an interview at the store in Rhinelander. It isn't any further from his parent's house than we already lived, so they volunteered to watch the kids while we checked the area out.

The town was a relaxed pace, not much traffic, and the people we met were extremely friendly which was a plus coming from the bustling suburbs of the Twin Cities. There were a few stores and restaurants, but not so many that I'd be tempted to go shopping as an almost daily hobby and overindulge in eating out which had become bad habit for us. We drove by the YMCA and saw many nice little schools neatly tucked into neighborhoods. That was nice compared to the sprawling schools in the area we came from. Lovely historic homes lined the streets. It seemed like there was a church on just about every corner of town that we drove by. It really was a perfect fit for us, God had helped us to find the perfect town to raise our family in.

The night before the interview, we stopped in to see the store. We wandered the aisles checking things out. We checked the distance from the hotel to the store so he wouldn't be late the next day. As we wandered the aisles he saw the store manager and introduced himself. We chatted for a while with him before heading off.

There was one other person who interviewed for the job after my husband's interview. He felt pretty confident about it, but we had to wait for the results. The other candidate hadn't interviewed yet. We shouldn't count our chickens before they're hatched.

I just wrote this story on my "new" blog and decided to share it here with you too. So far, so good. We love it in our new home even more than we did our old home.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

To Winterize or Not

Many of you may know that the house in MN that we tried to sell for over two years has been foreclosed on. According to the original communication that we got from the bank we had 6 months from the sheriff's sale to redeem it. That landed us on December 16. I have been trying to contact the bank for a couple of weeks since I haven't heard from them in a while. I have sat on hold for over 1/2 an hour a couple of times onlyto get cut off. If I try to call other departments of the bank I get endlessly tranferred around until I get so frustrated that I just hang up.

My mom moved out last weekend so I no longer hasve someone else to pay the utilities. I can't afford to throw away money, but the utility companies won't take the bills out of my name until the bank contacts them. The realtor wants us to keep the utilites on so if someone buys it they'll be on for inspections. Why should I pay for something hat isn't even mine anymore? We had two showings this week too, but I don't think I could even choose to accept any offers made at this point.

Since the bank is too busy to care what's going on my neighbor says we should just winterize it and turn all utilities off. I'm so frastrated at this point I can't even stand it. What's a people pleasing perspn like me supposed to do?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

I Don't Think I'll be able to Join DAR

Many of my cyber friends have told me that they are members of the DAR. In case you don't study ancestry that means Daughters of the American Revolution. It took them much research to find their family members who were involved in the Revolution, but it seems I may never have the chance to trace my roots back that far. At least in America. SIGH!

I have been doing a lot of work lately on my ancestry. It's been made even more interesting working with my cousins on tracing the Wolf family connections. We have made many great discoveries and I have found back to when most of my relatives came to America.

It seems that most of my Great Great Grandparents are the ones who came over from their homeland. All of them from my dad's side came from Sweden, which makes me 50% Swedish. They came between 1880 and 1900 for the most part. It's funny though with so much Swede in me I was never raised with traditional Swedish celebrations, foods, or crafts. Maybe it was because my parents weren't interested in holding on to their roots or something, I don't know. I find myself wanting to learn more about the countries that my ancestors came from.

My mom's side is a whole different story though. My grandma's parents came over from Finland around the 1880-1900 era too. My grandma is 100% Finnish which makes me 25% Fin. Now I need to search for those lines in Finland, I imagine it won't be an easy task since I can't utter a word of Finnish. My grandpa's side has lived in America for a very long time though apparently so it's hard to pin the country of their origin. A distant relative has traced the line all the way back to England. I haven't been able to solidify all of their findings yet, but I'm working on it! They seem to be my only hope in finding any relatives who were in the revolutionary war. There were many military people in my family in recent years so I'm sure I will continue finding a strong military connection as I work back through time.

Many of my grandpa's relatives made their homes in Guilford County North Carolina in the early to mid 1800's before eventually making a path to MN from there living in several state in between times. It's hard to find them all though since the main last name I'm looking for is Bowman. I never knew that Bowman was such a common name! When I was growing up the only Bowmans I ever knew were my cousins. Who knew? That puzzle will take some time, but it will be an interesting hunt. I am hoping to at least discover if any of them fought in the civil war. I'm sure some of them may have, but at this point it's hard to know for sure one way or another.

I'm not exactly sure why, but the plantations and the civil war era fascinates me. Gone with the Wind is one of my favorite movies and Scarlet O'Hara won my affections even though she was manipulative and oh so naughty.

I never used to be too into history when I was growing up, but now it seems that I just can't get enough. Is that just something that we need to grow older to appreciate?

My Great Great Grandpa Wolf

I wanted to share the face of my great great grandpa Wolf with Linda. She and her friends have helped my 2 cousins and I to find more information on our family than I ever dares to dream of finding.



Isreal came over from Sweden with two of his brothers in 1883. The two of the brothers changed their names upon arrival in America. Apparently WOlf sounded a bit wild to them or something.

They worked at the Sing Sing prison together in New York until they could afford to travel to MN where they began farming. Isreal and John came to the Balaton, MN area and raised their family near each other. We have found their names together in each census record that we have found. We are still researching why the third brother moved to a different area of MN.

Since Linda sent me that great piece of information we may have discovered many other family members who may have later followed the three brothers to MN. This puzzle has been so much fun for us to put together! We have pictures of the families that attended a family reunion in 1952 but we only seem to be able to identify the people from our line so far. We are working together to discover some more of our more distant relatives so we can name the unknown faces and share them with their descendants. It's so neat to see pictures of people that you may not have even known exsist, isn't it?

This is the picture of Isreal Wolf and his wife Dorothea (Larson) and their children. (Isreal is the man with the mustache and his wife is to his right) I don't want to label anyone wrongly, but I think Amanda (Grandpa's mom) is the second from our right in the back row. Isreal died in 1930, long before I was born so I was never given the chance to get to know him. My grandpa told me some stories about the family when I was younger, but I didn't pay enough attention to recall all of the details. Luckily my grandpa was insightful enough to write articles about them that my cousins and I have also recently discovered. Thank God! My prayers were answered and Grandpa is answering some of those questions I never got the chance to ask him though he has been gone for over 5 years now.

I am thinking about taking an ancestry vacation with my family at the end of next summer to do some more research. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up with my cousins too. I'm looking for museums and cemetaries for now and I'm hoping to be able to read through some of the newspaper archives. We will find the places my ancestors used to live and hopefully find their final resting places too. Cheesehead thinks this sounds like the most enjoyable vacation I've planned so far. Who would have known?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

How to Ruin Christmas

Many people have been turning their attention to Christmas posts lately. I thought of a few tips to share with you while browsing through other's posts.

1. You cat lovers out there may appreicate this one. Do you remember a few days ago how I posted about our home made Christmas tree? All of the ornaments were spread all over the tree.

Don't plan on all of your decorations staying where you placed them. Some well meaning soul may want to help with a little redecoration.

Apparently Speedy doesn't like the silk poinsettas to stay on the tree. I can't blame her confusion, most people don't put flowers on a tree. None of the other ornaments seem to belong on the tree either. Anything with a hook she has figured out how to remove if I didn't wrap the fake tree's branch around it. She even figured out how to get some of those off the tree. Notice the northward migration all ornaments have made to keep out of her reach?

Tree skirts aren't meant to lay on the ground either, they must be there to cover her up. You may not be able to see her, but she's sitting under the tree on the lower right hand side of your screen. If she needs a blanket I wonder why she has fur....

2. Don't expect perfection.

Believe it or not this little duck started out it's life intending to be a snowman er... person? Plans changed when the "carrot" wouldn't stay glued shut to conceal the pin holding it in place. A beak was born and our snowperson became a snow duck instead. The wings were actually scraps from a felt snowflake in the next tip!

3. Don't give home made gifts to people who don't appreciate them.

Of course I still need to add the strings to these ornaments to make them ready to hang on the tree, but that's okay. I will put one of these into each of those stockings I made in my last post. Again I come to the dillemma of which one goes to which child.

4. Don't expect everyone to spend Christmas day with you. I mean it's not about the day really, is it? We don't know the exact day that Jesus was born on, what we're celebrating is his gift of hope to the world, not the fact that it's December 25th.

One of my friends once accused the Christians of lying to get the pagans on deck with the celebration of Christmas. Whatever, I'm not going to pretend to know all of the facts. It's not about the day, it's about sharing love, charity, kindness, and appreciation. We can not be every place on one day, it's just too stressful. Know that your loved ones are thinking of you and show your consideration for their feelings when you make you Christmas plans.

Be flexible, communicate, and work together. Christmas isn't supposed to be about creating hard feeling for unrealistic expectations or spending lots of money. Christmas is what we make it to be. Be joyful and share the love this Christmas and every day.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Felt Christmas Stockings

I had checked out a book from the library about traditional Swedish Christmas crafts. There were some great felt stockings in there that inspired my creations. While I'm not so sure that they would fit into the traditional category I think they are cute anyway.



Okay, so pale blue is hardly considered a Christmas color I had large quanities of it left over from my Sunday school teaching days. I made one for each niece and each nephew. I think I will also make one for each of my kids as they were quite impressed with these. The ones in the book were more ornate, but I didn't think kids would fully appreciate the intricacy of those crafts anyway.



I looked at some various stockings and free handed two different patterns so they wouldn't all look exactly the same.

After securing the pattern to two layers of felt with straight pins I cut the stockings out.

Rummaging through my craft supplies left me with many treasures to use as decorations. Beautiful buttons, felt cut outs from previous projects, beads, and sequins jumped out of their boxes and begged me to use them for loving Christmas gifts.

My sister has complained in the past about my "home-made junk" that I have given them in the past, but would these count? Who wouldn't want coordinated stockings for their kids? Am I asking for trouble in giving these as gifts? I didn't tell her that we are exchanging gifts this year as I don't expect her to give us gifts in return for these, would I be insulting if I just sent these without saying anything? Opinions please!

Now comes the question of which one should I give to who? I have a 16 year old nephew and 13 year old niece (who are really too old for stockings but I wouldn't want to leave them out), 9 and 7 year old nephews, and of course the baby niece. Do you think the ones with the sequins for the girls or....?

I have also made more felt ornaments to put into these stockings (and plenty of candy) before I mail them, but I'll save those pictures for another day.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Linda, You're the BEST!

A couple of my cousins and I have been working on finding our roots in Sweden. I just sent them an email before I pop over to ancestry to enter my new nuggets of informations, but I had to stop and share my excitement with all of you. Linda's friends found me some great information about my great (great?) grandpa Isreal Wolf.

I wanted to express my profuse gratitude to you! I don't think I could get a better gift this year.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Memories of Grandpa

My grandpa was a very caring, kind-hearted person who was always willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. He helped us several times when we didn't know what we could do to get out of a bind. He bought a house for us to live in when we lived in Brainerd, he bought a mobile home for my sister to live in and he gave each of us grandchildren a car. I will never forget his generous heart or his kind blue eyes. I couldn't help but notice that he and my dad shared the same eyes.

Education was extremely important to grandpa. He graduated from high school in 1936. He was very proud of my dad who was the first person in his family to graduate from college.

When I was young he lived in an old farm house outside of Balaton, MN. I seem to remember it being a pea green color, but I'm not completely sure about that. An old school house stood right past their barbed wire fence, last time I drove by I got the impression that the school house was on the brink of collapse. I remember it being rather near to his long time church home of Sillerud Lutheran church. I am sure they may have briefly joined a different church during the few years he and his family lived in Minneapolis, but that's the only church he ever took us to. We drove by it sometimes when we drove from his home in the city to church although there were a couple of different ways to get to church.

While he was extremely generous, he could be a bit judgemental. It seemed difficult for me to truly get to know him, somehow it seemed that he liked to keep us at arm's length.

He often talked about his family and the past, but it was hard to get into who he was or to find out his dreams, hopes, and aspirations. I find this to be extremely sad. I have discovered many things about him since he passed away that I never even knew about when he was alive. It would have been wonderful if I could have asked him about these findings when he was still alive.

We have discovered that he was somewhat of a family historian of his generation. He wrote many articles and information in a variety of sources. I found some of them in my dad's stuff shortly after his passing. It makes me wish and wonder what else I may have discovered if our family had been more open about this stuff. Maybe it just never occured to us to talk about it, but I wish I could have had the time or interest in finding out more when I had the chance.

He liked to take us fishing, sledding, and games with us, mostly cards but we played other games too. He introduced me to rummikub, racko, and pachisi. These are games I have also taught to my children. One time I caught a big fish that wasn't even in season. It seemed quite out of character for the man I knew but he dove in after it trying to catch it as it got away.

He lived a very frugal life and was able to save up quite a bit of money for having such limited means. I don't remember if he actually had a working farm when we visited him in my early childhood as I don't recall ever being allowed out in the barns. I know they had animals when my dad was younger since my dad had a blue ribbon lamb and he was in 4 H in the days you had to be a farmer to be in it.

I only knew him as a Raleigh salesman for his profession, his vans always had a large Raleigh sticker on the side of it. He drove a van for many years because he needed a large vehicle to pull his camper for the yearly winter trips down south. When I was older and my grandpa lived in the town of Balaton across the street from his sister Orla I remember walking through his basement several times. It always smelled so wonderful, a mixture of spices and the old musty basement smell. I know it doesn't really sound that appealing, but I enjoyed the smells of his basement. My mom used to laugh about them rinsing out and reusing plastic bags, but I thought it was a great way to help save our environment and money so I do it too.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Our Home Made Christmas

Well, okay. So we didn't make the tree, but we made most of the other stuff. As a family tradition the kids and I enjoy making some new ornaments for our tree every year. It is also a big budget saver for those who crave a different look for their trees often but don't have the money to buy it.

Usually we put store bought stuff on our tree, but Peanut and I decided that this year we were only going to put only home made ornaments on the tree. The lights, wooden bead garland, and tinsel garland were all bought, but we didn't have time to string popcorn or anything. That, and the cats would have probably eaten any garlands I thought of to put up anyway.

What did we make? Take a look!



We even added some embellishments to a plain, inexpensive tree skirt that I got on an after Christmas clearance one year. I plan on adding a few more, but the fake tree's legs were so ugly to look at I had to put an incomplete project out to cover them up. I may add something fancy around the edges too if I find something interesting in my craft stash.



Felt is an inexpensive medium to work with. We like to buy the 20 cent per sheet rainbow felt. Many of the pieces I have were also purchased on a clearance sale. You can get quite a few decent sized ornamnets from one sheet. It is also very versatile. I have used glitter glue, fabric paint, beads, sequins, rick rack, bows, and felt cut outs to decorate it.



I made some of these felt ornaments for kids I was teaching in past years. I made the reindeer and the felt tree for my toddlers (those were the years my kids were in my toddler room). The yellow stars were gifts to my Sunday School class when my son was in first grade. I had a few extras because some of the children never showed up for Sunday School, but I didn't want to run out of them so I made one for each child on my list.



Peanut and I really enjoy this activity and we make several ornaments every year. My son makes at least one usually. Other ornaments we have made were made include those that we made with beads and pipe cleaners, white foam colored with magic markers which was hot glued to string, loose poinsettas (which I purchased for next to nothing) that I hot glued to ornament hooks, wooden clothespins that make a reindeer (or angels), empty glass balls that we filled with loose flower parts which were sold to me along with the poinsetta heads, and hand painted ceramic ornaments.



The kids used to paint an ornament for each of their grandparents every year until we couldn't find them at the store anymore. They cost 33 cents each and our parents just loved them. One year I stocked up on a bunch of my favorites to give as gifts. I was going to give the trees I painted to my sister for a Christmas gift one year, but she complained about the gifts I gave her every year. She told me that she didn't want any of my homemade junk, so I kept them for us instead. Don't they look wonderful on my tree? We have a dozen of them.

What do you make for Christmas?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy