🍂🍁🍂Almost Thanksgiving 🍂🍁🍂

It’s almost Thanksgiving, which also means it’s almost time for Alex and his family to arrive! We cannot wait to see all of them, but especially our sweet little Baby J. We’re all excited, but Mandy, Piper and I, the three of us, are REALLY excited. I don’t think Baby J will be touching the ground much this week. We received some wonderful pictures yesterday from them at a wedding this last weekend. Baby J. had on a sweater that I had made for Miss Piper when she was a baby. Then our nieces baby wore it and now it’s been passed on to Baby J along with several others. I would say that they are getting a lot of wear out of that sweater and it still looks new in the pictures. That sure does this Grandma‘s heart good.

How are you all doing with your Thanksgiving plans if you’re here in the US? We had very cold, windy weather all last week but so far this week is turning out beautiful, with highs in the 40s and bright blue skies. I hope it continues.

I finished Mom’s socks yesterday and I only have one Christmas gift yet to make. I may actually finish everything on time. I did get all of the gifts wrapped for Piper’s advent stocking, but I forgot to take a photo of it. Actually, I’ve got almost all of the gifts wrapped. Just the socks below and the other gift I need to make and I have everything done. My cards are even ready to mail! I did not want anything to distract from our time over the next week with two of our kids and their families here with us. Unfortunately Jamie and the kids won’t be able to make the drive back here for the holiday and they will be very missed.

Mom’s socks.

Since I finished Mom’s socks, I started a pair of Christmas socks for myself. I have never had Christmas socks before and I may actually have them done and ready to wear on Christmas Day! We’ll see. No pressure. They’re just plain vanilla socks and I’m going to let the yarn do the work on these. I have them in my holiday project bag. I just love it!

I thought I would share a bit of  our new home with you. Christmas decorating is going to be done over the weekend, so I’ll have pictures with the decorations up for you next time. The photo below is the library it was such a warm day today that they didn’t have the fireplace on, but normally it’s flickering away very cheerfully.

These are all of the hardback books, but on the second floor there’s ANOTHER library with all of the paperbacks. In that room are commercial size washers for quilts and sleeping bags, etc. Things that are too big for the regular size washers that are in each apartment. The commercial washers are also free to use. They have ironing boards set up in the same room and comfortable chairs to sit on if you want to sit and read while your laundry is being done.

This pretty room is right inside the front door though, and is almost always occupied. They have several daily newspapers delivered which are set out in the library.

Below you’ll see the 32 seat movie theater. They also show local sports games when they are televised. Nebraska University football, NU volleyball and the Creighton basketball team are shown and there’s always a crowd for those games. We also have movies here and sometimes they’re even the first run movies that are at the theaters. I forgot to take a photo, but there’s a popcorn machine that always has fresh popcorn made for whoever wants it. There’s also candy that you can purchase on the honor system. it’s basically just like a regular movie theater.

This is the community room where we held our Thanksgiving dinner last Friday. I attended a caregivers training course for Alzheimer’s/dementia family members her this morning. I learned a lot at that class and I’m hoping it will help me in dealing with Mom as time goes on. This is also the room that we meet in to crochet sleeping mats out of plastic bags for the Open Door Mission. Ladies also meet in here to play mah-jongg. We also do crafts here and on Wednesday we’ll be making Christmas wreaths. This room is almost always hopping with activity.

This is the pub. There’s a happy hour several times a week here, along with a poker game every night and Mexican train dominoes too. There’s a table in the corner that always has a puzzle on it for anyone who wants to work on. There is a collection of several hundred puzzles to choose from or you can bring your own.

I didn’t get a photo of the billiards room. They have an ongoing billiards tournament between several of the men. I think Dennis may be interested in joining that sometime.

Yesterday was our Thanksgiving dinner at church. Oh my goodness, it was wonderful! There really is nothing like a church potluck for good food. Instead of turkey, we had ham and it was delicious. Life has been full of eating during the last week! Tomorrow morning we’re going to drop Zoey off early to play with Lizzie while Mandy works. We’re taking Mom to get her hair cut. We have a few other errands to do and the puppies always love to play together whenever they have the opportunity.

We have signed up to take a bus tour of the Christmas lights around Omaha on December 11. There will be a hot chocolate bar included, along with various forms of alcohol to add to your hot chocolate.  That’s not really something we’re interested in, but the hot chocolate sure does sound good!

Dennis will be picking up his brother at the airport tomorrow evening. He’ll be here for a week for both Thanksgiving and his youngest son’s wedding. Then, on Wednesday evening, we’ll be taking another trip to the airport to pick up our kids! I’m certainly looking forward to this week.

I hope you all have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving holiday if you celebrate it. If you don’t celebrate the holiday, I hope you have a wonderful weekend too.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

Winter is Coming

Good morning everyone. Although it’s busy around here, it’s becoming normal busy with appointments and fun things here at the building. We have been getting involved with various things. Tomorrow they’re having a Thanksgiving day feast that the management is cooking for all of the residents. It is also to honor all of  the veterans who live here. After the lunch we need to be at Piper’s school by 2:00 for a Veterans Day program there.

I have been getting involved with some of the craft groups. Last week we made the fall door hangers that I showed in my last post. It’s now hanging on mom‘s door and she really seems to like it. In the picture below you see a mat for the homeless. A group of about 10 to 15 ladies get together weekly and cut plastic bags into strips and roll the strips into balls. Then they are crocheted into a 3x6 foot mat for sleeping. This keeps people off of the damp ground when sleeping outside. Crocheting with plastic grocery bags is hard on the hands, so I just do a little bit every day.

Yesterday we got together and made these 3-D Christmas cards. After putting them together, we put some sort of craft moss in various colors wherever we wanted it. You can see here that I put some on the trees and the clothes.

This shows the 3-D a little better. It was a lot of fun. Next week is Christmas wreaths and at the end of the month will be another 3-D card with a shaker bubble on it! I’m really enjoying the fellowship with people her. Everyone is so friendly and BUSY. I’m sure there are some people that just pretty much stay in their apartment so I never see them, but the people that we’ve met are always on the go.

Dennis and I went to watch a matinee the other day in the movie theater. They also have Bible studies, exercise classes and cooking classes galore. None of those have been held at a time when we were able to attend though. They have things planned throughout December for Christmas. Christmas light tours, going to the symphony, etc. There is a big group going down to Branson, MO at the end of November to take in some concerts and the Christmas decorations there. It can get very expensive if you took part in everything. Our life is busy enough without doing everything that they offer here! There are some people though, that you seem to see at everything.

This is a sweater that I’m making for Piper for Christmas. It’s the wonderful wallaby and I have just finished fusing the pouch to the body of the sweater. She requested this color because it’s Aunt T’s favorite color. (Alex’s wife). She just loves her new aunt and her wonderful British accent. 😍 I am using Hobby Lobby “I love this yarn” and it feels so good to work with the yarn  after crocheting with plastic bags. I have used this with other “wonderful wallaby” sweaters for Piper and Mandy and it seems to be very hard wearing and very easy care.

 I have finished the heel flap and turn and I’m now beginning the gusset on Mom’s Christmas socks. These are my take-a-long project for when I’m in the car or at appointments, so they’re not progressing very quickly.

The house closed yesterday! Hallelujah! It is a relief because housing prices are dropping quickly here. Ours decreased $7000 in less than a week. If we had had to put it back on the market for any reason we would’ve lost a whole lot of money. I’m so glad we sold now and didn’t wait until spring as we had originally planned. God is good and everything went very smoothly. Now, we can rest in our apartment for the foreseeable future. If a condo becomes available at the place we’re very interested in, we might change our minds. But hopefully it will be at a lower price than we would have paid now because of market shifts.

I hope you are all doing well. Thanksgiving is coming quickly and with it our London family. I cannot wait to get my hands on little baby “J”. They are staying with Brad and Mandy and Piper. It’s so close that it will be almost like them being here with us. We plan on spending most of the time there visiting with them all.

Yesterday was 76°F. Today the high is supposed to be 34°F. That is a huge temperature swing. Lows are predicted to be in the low teens for the next week. I think winter could be here to stay. Spokane had 6 inches of snow earlier in the week. I know other parts of the country north of us have already seen their first significant snowfall while we’ve been running around in sundresses and flip-flops. Meanwhile, our friends in Florida are dealing with another hurricane today. My prayers are with you all, especially Cindy from the “delighted hands” blog. We just spoke with Dennis’s brother who lives in Miami, and he said that the sun is shining there right now and there’s a very light breeze! Weather is crazy!

Take care and may God bless each of you today as you go about your daily living. He is always there to help you and to guide you through any decisions or obstacles you face. My prayer is that each of you would know Him in a very personal way.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

Slowly, but surely.

Slowly but surely, we are getting settled in the new apartment. Yesterday I even went down for a craft day and made Mom a fall door hanger. I made it pretty colorful so she would be sure to recognize it as her door. On Tuesday I joined a group of ladies in the community room who are crocheting mats for the homeless. Out of about 15 ladies only three of us know how to crochet. The others fold and cut the bags and tie them into strips and then roll them into balls. To say they were thrilled to have someone else who knew how to crochet would be an understatement. We have been welcomed everywhere we go here. I really think we’re going to love it. Here are a few more photos of a little bit more organization in our new home.

Dennis was able to repair the other table and make it even stronger than when it was new. He cut and stained boards to match exactly and then reinforced the area that had broken. But, it was still way too big. We sold it and bought this one the very same day. I found it on Facebook marketplace for $75 less than we got for our old table, so that was a win. It fits in the area perfectly and has an 24 inch leaf in case we need to make it bigger.

Look at the beautiful detailing on the chairs, and I like how the table isn’t perfectly round because of the little scallop design on all four sides. The people we bought it from said they had had this table for 30 years! It certainly doesn’t look like it. There’s not a scratch on! It even matches the hutch very well. It was meant to be!

The kitchen is still a bit cluttered because it’s smaller than our old one, but it is workable and having cooked in camper kitchens for years, there is plenty of room to work. It’s just the storage area where there is a problem.

We were able to cram the freezer back here in the corner and I’m using the upper part of it for storage as well as the refrigerator top. It works. And yes, if I suck in my breath I can even get into those cabinets in the back. They hold our overflow food storage. Since there are no walls big enough for my magnet board, I’m putting them on the freezer. I love to see the places we’ve visited and remember the people and places we’ve seen. I don’t want to leave the magnets all put away in storage.

I still have to make sense of the things on top of the tall dresser but the rest of the room is coming together. It’s a very large bedroom with plenty of space.

There is even a nice reading area next to the closet. I love these chairs and really didn’t want to get rid of them and they work perfectly here. We don’t normally have the closet door open but I wanted to give you perspective of where this was in the room.

This is one of my favorite little areas. It’s the hallway leading to the bedrooms. I just haven’t thought of a way to cover up the circuit box. It sticks out from the wall about half an inch, so it’s not as easy as just hanging a photo over it. Everything looks a bit crooked because of the angle I have to take the photo from to get everything in it. They are hanging on the wall straight. I promise.

A few people have told me this looks cluttered. But I really don’t know what we could get rid of. We needed the bookcase space and the fireplace actually puts out heat. Zoey‘s bed and toy basket are also there and this is the only room I get enough light in for my plants. At least I hope there is enough light! It’s a cozy, comfortable room and we are really enjoying it.

The balcony doors. You can just see a bit of Dennis’s chair on the lower right.

This is the door hanger I made for Mom yesterday. It’s extra colorful so she can remember her door.  I put a clothes pin on it so they can attach the notes that they leave most days on the residents doors.

I finished this toddler sweater late last night. Obviously it has not been washed or blocked yet. It’s for baby J’s cousin in London. I just need to get buttons for the sweater and the two little girl sweaters that I made.

I do like how the color pooled. No big clumps of one color. I think it will be a good sweater for a little boy.

These socks will be for Mom for Christmas. Plain vanilla socks. Look at the great price I got the yarn for during Hobby Lobby’s clearance sale!

Zoey went over and played with Lizzie yesterday while we took mom out for breakfast and ran a few errands. She was exhausted at the end of the day. Dennis took her back over there this morning to play while we go sign the papers for the house closing. The buyers won’t sign until next week so we’re still keeping our fingers crossed that all goes well.

Last Saturday Brad, their neighbor and Piper and their neighbors daughter, who is Piper’s friend, went to a Fly-in  in Hastings, Nebraska. They had lunch there at the airport with a big group of other people and then flew back home to Omaha.

I think the girls had a good time! Don’t you love Piper’s headset? She even has her own logbook.

It’s nice to have Brad back home and working here now. They are able to do more things as a family. I think he’s getting to fly more often too.

I hope all is going well for you all and I will try to keep up with blogs and blogging. I think we’re getting settled in here now, with just a few little things to do, so it should be a bit easier to blog.

Blessings,

Betsy