Dark and Blustery Nights

 The weather turned very cold this week. It was delivered on a biting wind. Combined with the dark evenings, there is no doubt that winter is on our doorstep. Lately, these things remind me of  childhood winters in the north. My mind relates the discomforts of cold and dark into comforting thoughts of our cozy little house and the safe feeling of a mother and father nearby. I do not recall ever thinking about the world beyond our snowy avenue and school. Life felt safe. After we were tucked into bed at night and the house became quiet, we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of water trickling through the radiators. The radiators made a gentle, "tick, tick, tick" sound as the metal heated and cooled. Although the wind was blowing against the windows and snow may have been falling, the warmth of our home and the sound of the radiators made helped us feel like safe and warm. Thoughts of waking to a blanket of snow in the morning made it even sweeter. Oh, the excitement of going to sleep with these happy thoughts! Even though the house was shut up tight, we could hear the snow. The "ssss" sound snow makes when it falls and the way it muffles all other sounds is palpable and so comforting.

Here we are now. The same dark and blustery nights have followed us into adulthood. But, we have no water heated radiators and rarely any snow. There is no mother or father nearby and we will definitely not have to go to school tomorrow : ) The world is now so much wider than my little Woodlawn Avenue and there are so many more people that I love and care about. Sleep does not come easy anymore. But, on these blustery nights, if I can't sleep because of the wind or because life is niggling at my brain, I will conjure up the memory of those ticking radiators and the muffled sound of the snow. Before I realize it, I have fallen blissfully asleep with the words, "Thank you Lord", on my lips.

 

Finishes and Beginnings- It's Time to Stitch and Hook!

 

I finished stitching and constructing the pin drum from last year's Jingle Bell Ball. It was an exclusive pattern for ball attendees. I thought the woodland scene was delightful so I stitched it up. The photo on the pattern makes the linen look like a pretty blue/periwinkle color. In reality, the called for linen is a drab gray. My friend and I were shocked when it arrived since it was nothing like the photo. Apparently a lot of other stitchers were surprised too as we have heard tell from shop owners. Anyway, I still think it is adorable. It was a lot of work, especially stitching all those single snowflakes. 

I have several stitched items that I am working on for holiday swaps, etc. So I will not post those until after they are given.

I needed to begin a rug project so I would have something to take to our monthly hooking group.  I decided to make Karen Kahle's "Compote with Camillias" pattern that a friend gave me. If I am lucky, I will hook this entirely from worms that I have saved. Pictured below is my planning process. Rug making can be messy and dusty. First I need to clean the room to make space to play with patterns and colors. Later on, after I make the rug, the room needs another major cleaning from wool dust, wool strips, and snippets everywhere. In between times, I need to clear and clean the room because it serves as a guest room when our granddaughter comes to stay. Hoping a pretty rug will make it all worth the effort.

 

Halloween

 

We had a fun Halloween with three of the four daughters and their families trick-or-treating in Fincastle with us. Our little town goes big on Halloween! The old Fincastle Baptist church is a residence now and the owners always have fun props for Halloween. This year, the bell tower was lit up in spooky colors. Sometimes there are ghosts or bats flying up there too and one year they had an antique hearse parked out front. 

The annual Halloween festivities always begin with everyone gathering in the courthouse square at 5:30pm. Each year, our town sheriff  dresses as Woody from "Toy Story". At 6:00pm he makes an announcement to officially begin the trick-or-treating. With his go-ahead, everyone pours down Main Street and then scatters throughout all the side streets. We made a point to stop at friend Karen's house and friend Eleanor's house. Unbeknownst to me, Steve went inside Eleanor's house inside to say hello to Eleanor's husband. Apparently he sat down and stayed a spell because at that point we lost him as the rest of us continued on our way trick-or-treating. 

As we walked along, a friend came up to us and told us about a very special house about a block away, at the top of the hill. They encouraged us to go up there because there was a scary maze, free light sticks, and full sized candy! Of course we had to see for ourselves! Sure enough the place was all rigged out. There was an animated monster rock and roll band, a scary maze, costumed monsters, and full sized boxes of candy. It was dark and very hard to tell the dummy monsters from the live ones. I got spooked twice and screamed in fright, much to my kids' delight.

 Somehow we all managed to find each other an hour later at St. Mark's church on the other side of town . No small feat considering Steve had no phone on him and it was pitch dark. St. Mark's always opens their fellowship hall with hot dogs, lemonade, and other snacks, all for free or donations. It is also a good place to warm up if the holiday turns out to be chilly.

Since Claire's family drove into town to spend the weekend with us and to come trick-or-treating we all headed back to our house. The three grand kids dumped their candy out onto the dining room table. They spent some time sorting and admiring all the candy. I caught Matthew before he emptied out his bag so I could weighed it. It weighed 4.8 pounds! I told them my childhood story of Halloween. I told them that knew every year I would get thirteen pieces of candy. They asked how I knew that. I told them I lived on a dead-end street out in the country. There were thirteen houses, which always meant thirteen pieces of candy. It was always great fun and I have happy memories of Halloween, the fallen leaves, the early darkness, and the chill in the air.

 

Weekend Fall Vibes

 It was a busy weekend with a good balance of work and fun. It began on Friday evening with a delicious corned beef and cabbage dinner at our house with Tim and Kay. Steve saw the corned beef briskets at Sam's Club and asked if we could make it. I questioned the timing as it wasn't St. Patrick's Day but he was convincing so we went ahead and bought it. It was delicious! Everyone enjoyed the meal. I expect it was so good because it is something we only eat once (or twice) a year. 

We woke up Saturday morning to a chilly thirty-four degrees! We had a work day at church planned. Boy were my fingers frozen in no time. Our tasks were to spread mulch and cut back some shrubs. As we got moving we warmed up quickly and began shedding layers of jackets. We were a team of seven people and had the work done in four hours. It always feels good to step back and gaze upon all that hard work.

 Back at home, I gathered up all the summer potted pants and dumped them into the lawn cart. I added all the dead marigolds from the raised beds as well. It was time to tidy up for winter now that the frost had come. The porch plants were still bright and cheery so it was hard to say goodbye to this part of summer. Out they went. This was no time for plant pity; things had to be done.

In the evening we went with Tess and Blake to the Fincastle Ghost Tour. This was put on by the Historic Fincastle Society. Our group walked around town with a host and made several stops where various characters told ghostly stories. One stop was at the Godwin Cemetery in the photo above. We stood below the national champion Honey Locust tree, deemed to be over two hundred years old. As the photo shows, it is growing right around a grave stone. It really is a stately, gorgeous tree. Fincastle is an old town with log cabins dating to the late 1700's. (Two of my friends live in them.) This evening's walk was a foretaste to the Halloween walk we will make next weekend. On Halloween night the town will be filled with trick-or-treaters and happy sounds echoing through the streets. Tonight, we shuffled through crisp fallen leaves and enjoyed the warm glow of lighted windows as we passed by homes.  

On Sunday evening, Tess and Blake invited all of us to their bungalow in town for Tess' twenty-ninth birthday. I can't believe our youngest is this age. Tess made rosette ribbons with fun titles on each for us to choose and wear. Steve chose "Queen" and I chose "Lovely". Others said, "Boss", "No. 1", etc. We ate yummy foods and then went outside for some wood burning. They recently had two large maples cut down with one being hollow. Tess counted the rings on the solid stump and counted ninety-two. The guys used the hollow logs as stoves for the smaller logs. It was fun to be outside and we all enjoyed the fire. We ended the evening with Tess' traditional birthday dessert, fruit pizza. For the first time ever, Steve helped me decorate the pizzas. My happiest times are when we are with our children. This was a perfect ending to the weekend. We look forward to gathering again at the end for the week for Halloween and trick-or-treating.

 

Open Studios, Botetourt, VA and Cake Pops

 

The weather was so pretty on Saturday that Steve and I decided it would be a fun day to go out for a drive. The annual Open Studios event gave us some good destinations. Each year in October, local artists open their studios for anyone to visit. We visited seven artists at three locations. 

Willie Simmons' family opened his wood shop to display and sell some of his prolific work. Mr. Simmons died suddenly in a motor cycle accident earlier this year. His sudden passing was a painful loss for his family and for the community. I purchased some Christmas gifts here. We also visited Ed Bordett's studio in town. His is a fun space to explore as it is in an old Oldsmobile dealership in the heart of Fincastle. The cavernous space has a tin tile ceiling, loads of antiques and all kinds of artist materials. Brett LaGue also displays his art there. I have always admired his Impressionist paintings and his wonderful colors. We bought a demure painting of azaleas from Mr. Lague. We went on to visit three other artists located on a farm with the beautiful view, above.

 

After we got home, I decided to take a broken chocolate cake out of the freezer and do something with it. I stashed it in there over the summer after it didn't turn out of the pan very well. It was too good tho throw out but too poor in shape to frost. I decided it was a good candidate for cake pops. I never made cake pops before. I figured that I did not have much to lose. To make them, you basically crumble up a cake, mix it with fluffy, homemade frosting, form it into balls and dip them in melted chocolate. In this case, I used white candy melts since the cake was chocolate. Voila! We ate them on Sunday when Tess and Blake came over for dinner. The crunchy candy coating with the moist cake interior make them delightful.

 

Stepping Into Fall

We left the summer vibe behind when we drove home from Holden Beach last weekend. Falling leaves and chilly temperatures greeted us upon or return to the mountains of western Virginia. It feels good to be in autumn. Our evening walks on the beach have been replaced by walks up our road. During our last walk, we came out of the wooded section and saw a beautiful rainbow over the Peaks of Otter. It was not raining but the sun was setting through some clouds which (I guess?)  is what formed the rainbow. We stopped and studied that rainbow for quite some time, enjoying all the colors and light, before we headed home.

 

Holden Beach, NC

 

This is our third year at Holden Beach in October with Kay, Tim, Sandi, and Dan. We have been lucky to have perfect weather all three years in a row. (You never can tell when booking a beach trip during hurricane season.) Days typically get into the low 80's and evenings and nights are cool.

Dan loves to fish. This year Steve asked him to bring an extra fishing pole so he could give it a try too. They caught a lot of little Croakers, as Dan called them. He showed me one so I could hear it croak. It sounded like a purring cat to me. All were released back into the water. Other fisherman up and down the shore caught similar fish. One neighboring fisherman caught a thirty seven inch Drum up near the pier. Anyway, while the guys fished, I sat in my beach chair or walked in the waves. The water was nice and warm. We recently invested in a Cool Cabana for our beach trips. We saw Chelsea's back in August when we went to the beach in Massachusetts. It provided nice shade when we needed a break from the sun.

There was a beautiful Harvest Moon during our vacation. I especially enjoyed our evening walks.

The sunset on our last evening walk.

 

 We always have a lot of fun with our friends. We get together almost every week at home so we are well acquainted with each others' idiosyncrasies. We all have a sense of humor and everyone likes to have fun. We also have our serious moments when we discuss our lives and when we pray together. As we get older, we do not take these friend trips for granted. They are precious and they have given us many cherished memories.

Who knows what they were discussing. It could have been anything from world politics to the Three Stooges.Whatever it was, the view was nice.