FOR THANKSGIVING...MORE FALL DRIVE-BY'S

I absolutely love driving by looking at all the Fall decorations! I posted some a while back, but couldn't resist snapping some more photos, and thought I'd share them with you!.....
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Hope everyone has a great weekend! Patti

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.....

Well, this week I finally got out the scarecrows who had made it through last season intact! They still looked brand new! Better late than never. Hey, it's not Thanksgiving yet!

Got out the front door wreath, too. Don was on the roof putting up the Christmas lights, while I'm putting out scarecrows!

Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

ANNOUNCING WINNER, GOBBLE GOBBLE GIVEAWAY!

Thanks to everyone who entered my Gobble Gobble Giveaway! It was fun seeing what everyone is thankful for!

My Dad did the honor of drawing the name of the winner of Mr. Skinny Turkey! (He is a non-blogger and, therefore, totally impartial. My Dad---not Mr. Turkey----although Mr. Turkey probably doesn't do much blogging, either!)

Drumroll, please..........

And the winner is............Madame Zelda's Present, Past and Future! Congratulations, Angie, I'm so happy for you! Please email me with your mailing address and I will get Mr. Turkey shipped out to you immediately!

I told him where he will be going and he was so excited and said he is looking forward to meeting all your cute monkey friends! (If you have not yet visited Madame Zelda's blog, you have got to see her adorable sock monkey creations! They will put a smile on your face!)

LAST GERANIUM BLOSSOM & ALAMO-NORTH'S GIVEAWAY

Don't forget to sign up for my Gobble Gobble Giveaway!-----------------------------------------------

I can't believe it's already November and I still have a geranium bloom! It's in a pot & usually by this time, everything in my flower pots have passed on & I start looking for pansies & ornamental kale to replace them. A couple of weeks ago or so, when they said we were going to get a freeze that night, Don brought all our flower pots inside (up to that point, the geraniums had not bloomed in several weeks----I really thought it was the end for them, as far as blooming), but I got busy & forgot to take them back outside again for 3 days. I don't know if having them inside in a dark place (they were in my laundry room) might have "forced" them to bloom, like you do with bulb flowers? But anyway, all of a sudden, they had buds & the day I brought them back out into the sunlight, they bloomed! How cool is that!----------------------------------------------------

Have you got your name in for Nola's 100th post giveaway at the Alamo-North blog? With each post, she is adding something to her giveaway until she reaches her 100th post! What fun! Also check out her photos of the newest addition to her family---little Chili dog! He's adorable!

Gobble Gobble Giveaway!

I've got so much to be thankful for that I feel like celebrating! I decided when November rolled around, I'd have a Gobble Gobble giveaway!

I found this cutesy skinny turkey earlier this week in a local gift shop, Pack-n-Mail. (They are an official UPS stop in our small town, assist you in packaging things to mail, and have a huge selection of unique gift items!) Anyway, he's approx. 25-1/2 " tall & his pumpkin which says "Give Thanks" (well, it doesn't actually "say" it out loud; it's just written on it!---thought I better clarify that!) adds about another 1-1/2" to it. It comes with a stake that you slip through the hardware on the back. You can stake it directly into the ground or into a pot of flowers. I just have it propped up on something for the picture (I didn't want to get the new stake dirty).

All you have to do to get in the drawing for this turkey is leave a comment on THIS post & mention something you're thankful for. I think it will be fun! If you add a post on YOUR blog about my Gobble Gobble Giveaway and link back to my post, you'll get your name entered twice! But please let me know in your comment that you've done so.

Feel free to enter even if you don't have a blog----just include your email address on your comment or for more privacy, email me (there's a link to my email address on the sidebar of my blog) with your email address so if you're the lucky winner, I can contact you. Again, leaving your email address is for those of you who don't have a blog.

I'm having the contest go through the weekend, so that everyone hopefully gets a chance to enter. It ends Wed, 11/12/08, at 12:00 midnight Central. The winner will be announced Thurs., 11/13/08. I'll get Mr. Turkey mailed out right away to the winner so you can enjoy him for Thanksgiving!

As for me, I'm thankful for wonderful family and friends, including all you sweet blog friends; I'm thankful for your comments and for your wonderful blogs---I enjoy reading them so much, gaining ideas and inspirations from them! They brighten up my day! I'm thankful for my job, our home, and especially for our health, which is so easy to take for granted! Most of all, I'm thankful to God for being with us in every step of our lives, during the good times and the not-so-good times (and thankfully, the good times outweigh the other times!) and never letting us go.

What are you thankful for?

FALL DECORATING DRIVE-BY'S

Melissa at The Inspired Room is hosting a "Fall Porches on Parade" Drive-By Tour starting today! Check out her blog for links to everyone participating in the tour! I love FALL, so I can't wait to check them all out!

Below are my drive-by's from this past weekend and last weekend:

Have a great week! Patti

PERIWINKLES & KNOCK OUT ROSES

I saw so many gorgeous periwinkles and knock-out roses a couple of weeks ago in Waxahachie, TX that I just had to snap some photos.

FRAMED!

Found this gorgeous frame a couple of weeks ago at Cato's for only $9.99! It's really heavy & I think it looks much more expensive. Our last name starts with a "K", so I found a vintage postcard by artist Catherine Klein which features the letter K and reduced it on the computer to fit into the frame; I used some vintage-looking scrapbook paper for the background and....Voila!....some cool wall decor for our kitchen!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NOLA OF ALAMO-NORTH!

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday, dear NOLA!

Happy birthday to you!

In case you haven't guessed by now-----it's Nola's birthday! Click on over to her blog, Alamo-North, and wish her a happy birthday! If you haven't visited her blog yet, you're in for a treat! She is a wonderful writer and has some great stories to tell about life, family, and home! She loves plants & flowers and you can view photos of her beautiful garden! Among her wonderful collections are lamps. I love lamps, too! It must be in the genes....you see, Nola is my cousin.

Nola, I hope your birthday is as special as you! May all your birthday wishes come true!

HOME LIBRARY PARTY!!!

Have you heard? Jeannie at DreamerJean is having a party today! Specifically, a home library party! I found out about it from Nola at Alamo-North. What fun! We're browsing through everyone's home libraries and favorite spots to read! Check out her post for everyone else on the tour, and enjoy!......

Here's a little "table" I made from stacking up some encyclopedias my Mom was getting rid (the ones we had when we were kids. ) Just enough room to set a drink and possibly….a book!

Our comfy spot to read in the den! We won this chair years ago at an antique auction. It's called a "gentlemen's chair" because it's very low to the ground, and it's where the man would sit to put on or take off his boots.

Darling hubby enjoying a good book! What a sweetheart to pose for the tour! Thanks, Hon!

I love books--all kinds. I love to browse bookstores & Amazon.com. I read so much that I buy most of my books at discount prices from eBay & Half.com, where you can get new books at great prices, and the nearby Hastings in Waxahachie, TX, where you can get good buys on gently used books (they buy your books, too, and also sell new books). After reading, I pass most of them on to co-workers, friends, and family, but still seem to end up with lots I can't part with - the ones I might need for reference & the ones I want to read again. I'm fortunate to have a couple of bookshelves in my den and then my husband and I bought 5 bookcases at an auction a few years ago, which helped a lot! Three are in the master bedroom & two in the guest room. We also have a little vintage glass-enclosed "lawyers bookcase" we bought an an antique auction many years ago. (I'm blogging at home on my lunch break, as usual; check back later for more photos, as I've got to get back to work--smile!)

I wonder if anyone else remembers the ad which ran in a lot of decorating magazines a few years ago, which showed a room with all 4 walls entirely encased in built-in bookshelves completely full of books---the only piece of furniture being a bed in the very center of the room. I tore out that ad and kept it for a long time. That was my dream of the ideal bedroom! ----Just a bed surrounded by books! (I think the ad was for the bedding!)

Thanks for visiting, and be sure & check out all the blogs on Jeannie's tour!

Top 10 Favorite Fall Foods

(Photo taken recently at the Hallmark Cards & Gifts on Hwy. 77 in Waxahachie, TX---so many adorable Fall gift items!)

My 10 Favorite Fall Foods (in no particular order):

1. Winter Squash - I love acorn squash with lots of black pepper & melted butter and spaghetti squash topped with spaghetti sauce, of course!

2. Chili - I make a quick & easy chili, using ground chuck seasoned with chili powder, black pepper, garlic, chopped onion, canned chopped tomatoes, canned Ranch Style beans, and Tabasco sauce. It’s a quick & easy dinner! I also make it using ground turkey.

I make a mean White Chili (using chicken) – I’ll be posting the recipe, which I got from my sister-in-law in Lubbock.

3. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie and other pumpkin deserts!

4. Spice cake, spice bars, deserts with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg---the more cinnamon the better!

5. Baked apples – I’ve always loved applesauce and fresh apples, but was not a big fan of baked apples until several years ago when I found a yummy recipe from my old Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook (will post the recipe).

6. Hot Fall/Winter beverages, namely hot cocoa and hot apple cider with cinnamon.

7. Soups – I’m always looking for new soup recipes and I can’t wait to try Nola’s tomato soup from her Alamo-North blog! I've never tried Pumpkin Soup before (to make it or eat it) but there was a recipe that looked really good in the latest Better Homes & Garden magazine, which I'm going to try & will post if if it turns out good. Sounds good - it's got curry powder in it!

8. Stews and other comfort foods which I cook in my huge, trusty crockpot.

9. Chili dogs - I know, this one's a little weird, but I don't eat chili dogs during any other time of the year ----usually,---- but I have to have at least one chili dog during the Fall or Winter –turkey weiner, bun, and then the works, as far as toppings go, which for me means turkey chili, chopped onions, mustard, and grated cheddar cheese!

10. Popcorn balls & caramel apples (although I don’t eat these anymore ---I just can’t stand to eat anything that sticks to my teeth ---- I guess that’s from working the last several years at a dentist’s office! ) Instead, when I get a Fall craving for these, I’ll either get a bag of low-fat microwave popcorn or I’ll spread peanut butter on apple slices (one of my all-time favorite snacks!).

I’ll be pulling out my favorite Fall recipes and sharing them with you soon!

FALL NESTING / TOP 10 FALL LOVES / IKE

The Inspired Room's Fall Nesting tour has inspired the photos below. There's already over 150 links to different posts on Fall decorating!!! How fun is that! I usually don't put out pumpkins till the end of September (in this Texas heat, they can deteriorate before the end of the season), but I bought a bag of those little "mini" pumpkins today to start decorating inside......


Fresh flowers in shades of orange. We bought the Shirley Temple pitchers years ago. I love to use them for little vases. Notice the one on the left in lighter-colored glass with a lighter imprint of Ms. Temple. It's an original from the 1930's. The one on the right is a reproduction. It's made of darker blue glass with a very bright imprint of her. Someone said the originals were given away as a freebie for buying Bisquick biscuit mix. I didn't realize Bisquick has been around that long, but their website does indeed say that it hit the market in 1931! Sorry, I couldn't seem to get a photo without our new giant faucet (which I love) being in the way.

Raindrops on window from the rain we got today from Hurricane Ike.

Speaking of Fall... I’ve really missed everyone in Blogland for the past couple of weeks because I almost broke my arm when I fell (OK, that's a different kind of "Fall"), playing soccer at a family reunion over the Labor Day holiday weekend! I went to the ER, where they took x-rays & fortunately, it was just a severe contusion. They put it in a sling for a few days. This past week, the swelling in my fingers went down & I was finally able to type again! Yeah! I can’t wait to get “caught up” on reading everyone’s posts, not to mention doing some posting of my own!

The Top 10 Things I love about Fall:

1) Fall foods---cozy, comfort food. I will be posting my favorite Fall recipes, which I hope you’ll enjoy!

2) Doing some Fall Decorating.

3) Driving around looking at the yards & porches decorated for Fall & taking photos. (I love going down Harbin Street in Waxahachie. Another area that goes all out for Fall decorating is the area around SMU in Dallas where all the adorable cottage houses are.) If I can find all my old Fall yard photos, I’ll scan them in & share with you! (I need to put them all in a photo album anyway.)

4) The gorgeous colors of the season.

5) Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins (for decorating and eating). I use canned for eating, but I love picking out pumpkins to decorate with.

6) Scarecrows. (One year my Mom and I got together & made some really cool ones. I used Don’s old flannel shirt, a pair of my old jeans, and pillows for stuffing. We painted the faces. I decorated him with a straw hat, a large silk sunflower, some chili peppers, a black crow on his arm. He was so cute. On Halloween night, he got stolen. Now, I just get those cheap scarecrows from Walmart (and I bring them in on Halloween night), but unless it rains a lot, I can usually save them for the next year. I can usually get 2-3 years out of them. A couple of years ago, I was out in the yard, when a woman was out for a walk with her little girl and said they always have to walk by our house because her little girl loves to see our scarecrows! That compliment made me feel so good to know I made that little girl happy, and that sweet memory still gives me the energy to put out some Fall decorations every year. Sometimes I don’t get any put out indoors, but I always try to at least decorate outside!

7) Fall leaves, acorns, dried grapevines, wreaths, gourds, haystacks, & cornstalks.

8) The annual State Fair of Texas in Dallas. This year: Sept. 26 – Oct. 19, 2008. State Fair “musts” for me are: Big Tex; the quilts, collectibles, photography, & handmade items in the Creative Arts building; the auto show; the Midway; the science museum; & the famous corny dogs (you knew there had to be food in here somewhere). One of my favorite things was always the fashion show (the models sang & danced), but they no longer have it.

9) Vineyard Fair (originally Sale Street Fair) in Dallas. Even though it no longer exists, every year at this time many happy memories come to mind of this arts fair which used to be held every October in Dallas. They blocked off some streets near McKinney Ave. in Dallas (if memory serves, Routh Street was one of them). Artists displayed their goods for sale down the middle of the streets. There were paintings, handmade jewelry, crafts, etc. These streets were lined with antique shops, gift shops, and restaurants, so we browsed the artists’ booths but also had so much fun going through all the shops! There were a few really cute houses interspersed among the businesses, and the homeowners took this opportunity to have yard sales in front of their homes at this time. They always had some awesome antiques and vintage collectibles for sale. On Routh Street, the Sample House & Candle Shop always had their yard decorated so cute for Fall with pumpkins and scarecrows and they sold hotdogs and drinks in their yard (I don’t think they have a location there anymore). They were housed in a darling old house and each room had different types of gift items for sale, for instance one room was nothing but gift wraps (papers, ribbons, bows, gift bags, etc.). I always loved to see how the house itself was decorated inside. I remember one time, they used old vintage canes at the tops of the windows to hang their curtains from. I always got lots of cool decorating ideas. One year, one of the antique shops along Vineyard Fair was going out of business and had everything on sale (a really good sale!). We ended up getting a gorgeous antique bedroom suite there (bed, dresser, armoire). We still have it. The armoire houses our stereo in the den, the dresser is in our master bedroom and the bed is in the guest bedroom! We have such great memories of Vineyard Fair. I’m not sure that we ever heard why they stopped having it. Maybe it got hard to block off the streets for the weekend!

10) Thanksgiving – one of my favorite holidays. You know it would be one that involves food, right? Seriously, it’s a great time to count our blessings and give thanks.



Hurricane Ike
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My heart goes out to all who are experiencing loss, injury or damage due to Hurricane Ike. Thankfully, we only had high winds and rain today (north of Corsicana, TX).

The worst we had at our house was an overturned large fern on a stand near our front door. The wind must have really been swirling around in that corner.



Here’s the stand that fell over – the fern was on top. I was about to plant something in the bottom but there wasn’t anything in there at the time, so I guess it was top-heavy.



It fell onto an urn with various little plants in it, right onto the delicate begonias. Oh, well, no big deal. We feel very blessed. Our neighbor across the street had a small tree break off at the trunk. We ran some errands in town in the afternoon and didn’t see any damage, but the wind was really blowing.


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Goofus Glass---So ugly, it's cute

I think Goofus Glass is so ugly, it's cute! I've got a cute little bright yellow Goofus Glass vase sitting on my computer desk, as shown in my Saturday, 8/23/08 post titled "Where Bloggers Create" Tour. There was a comment asking what a goofus vase was and requesting a close-up, so here goes......


Goofus Glass can be pretty gaudy! It comes in really bright colors like red, gold, green, bronze, etc, and the paint starts flaking after a while because it was cold-painted (painted but not fired). In fact, someone currently has a listing on eBay of my little vase, only in the original colors (read on for more about my yellow paint probably not being original) and they said it looked like something from the Adams Family (ha! ha!).



The vases which I've seen that are like mine----only 5-1/4" tall, with a raised rosebud design--were usually painted a bright, funky shade of pink, with gold. I'm thinking that my bright yellow paint is not original because it's all on the inside of the vase and also because of the color (the red that is showing in the photos is actually something in the background showing through the vase where the color has flaked off). I bet the original paint was flaking off and someone scrubbed it all off and somehow painted the inside. What do you think? I'm not an expert or anything, so this is just a guess. I would love to get your opinion.



I started liking Goofus Glass years ago when I bought a large red & gold vase; later, I bought one of those antiques guides about Goofus Glass to read up on it, as I had never heard of it. I bought this cutie for a mere pittance at an antiques mall in Waxahachie a few years ago and it's been on my desk ever since.



A little history of Goofus Glass:

From what I've read, most Goofus Glass dates from the period of about ten to fifteen years around the turn of the last century, (1897 to around 1912) although it continued to be produced into the 1920s. It was made by several prominent American factories, especially Indiana Glass. It was made in large quantities and was cheap and affordable.

It was also given as premiums for buying things and was awarded as prizes at fairs and thus, was actually the first "carnival glass" prior to the iridescent glass referred to as Carnival Glass today!