I truly enjoy all things Lori Holt. She does the vintage, farm, homespun goodness that I gravitate towards. Before I retired I placed a reservation on her upcoming Farm Girl Quilt. Knowing I would have more time to quilt once I retired (not really true) but also a sort of retirement gift to myself. The goodies arrived this week.

I have a million quilts all ready to be sewn, but I have learned that sewing is only something one does when they are in the mood. Otherwise you make a lot of mistakes. See how cute and farm like this quilt is.

This quilt is very familiar to the quilt I made and sent to the county fair. Alas I did not win any ribbons (stiff competition) but I still like the quilt.

There will be similar blocks but the colors and overall it will be a different quilt. Besides one cannot have too many quilts.

So starting on January 26th I will start the quilt. I know there will be times I fall behind, but that is ok.

It helps to do a Quilt-a-long as I feel compelled to keep up. I would hate to have the quilt police knock on the door.

More to come later.

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I heard about The Jingle Ball last year but also very confused on how you roll out a whole stitching retreat online. But people raved how fun it was so I decided to take the plunge. This year the Jingle Ball was December 5th thru the 7th. The beauty of Covid is that it created new ways to meet people that was never an option before. So this is a new exciting way people can gather, stitch and learn. The cost to join the Jingle Ball was only $15 but if you signed up for a class it costs more and of course if you bought items at the shopping booth it costs even more. Bet your bottom dollar I spent a small fortune on patterns.

I decided to take one class with the kit. I went with Primrose Gardens stitching mesh bag.

I figured this would be a good introduction to the whole online retreat process. I am a huge fan of Primrose Gardens and their designs. Easy and so darn cute. The class/kit was expensive but it never hurts to have a good stitching project bag in my stash. All the ladies from Primrose cottage came to the retreat. It was their first jingle ball too. When you take a class you have 30 days to watch the classroom video. It is helpful if you want to rewatch a part of the lesson.

Yes I started the project bag, no I did not finish (yet). Stitching inside a bag is a bit more awkward than I thought. Sometimes my hands don’t work that good (arthritis) and it was not going well. I will finish, but not today.

Besides the classes there are stitching rooms you can join, entertainment videos to watch, speed dating, classes, meet and greets, and shopping. I was a little apprehensive about how you do speed dating but it was very easy.

The ladies I chatted with were very friendly and it was fun. I sure we would have been friends if we met in person. The furthest away was a lady from Australia. Most were in the States. The nice thing about the Jingle Ball is that it was open internationally and was 24 hours a day.

I did a lot of the meet and greets, tried the speed dating and watched most of the videos. I did enter a stitching room but it was not my cup of tea. It works great if you go with a friend so you can chat and share.

It was from Friday to Sunday with lots to do. I mostly watched and stitched during the meet and greets. So I got a lot of stitching done. One of my favorite sessions was a man who collected vintage LPs from the 1940-1950’s. His Christmas music was great. I asked him for the playlist so I can create a Spotify list. Love those old Christmas songs.

I excelled at shopping. Most of the booths had freebie patterns only available at the Jingle Ball. A nice gift from the teachers. Speaking of the teachers, there were 12 teachers from the different companies. As I mentioned I took a class from Primrose Cottage.

Steph from Lindy’s Stitches is the creator/hostess of the Jingle Ball. So many great companies like Primrose Garden, Hands on Design, Tiny Modernist, Teresa Kogut participated. I love these designers.

Every year they do an ornament book and the patterns are exclusive for a year. I was thrilled that the book was a PDF since I don’t need another book in my house. They also had last years book. Yes I added it to my cart.

There are many cute designs. The 2024 Santa from Teresa Kogut was just released and I have seen a lot of people do his jolly face. Each of the designers had a shop with exclusive jingle ball releases. I have seen a lot of people on Facebook asking where to get the patterns. Sorry you need to wait a year since you did not go to the ball.

Here are the patterns I got from Primrose Garden. I am hoping to start Winter Rules next.

The Winter Forest Ornaments was a 5 part mystery series that was exclusive to Jingle Ball. I finally got all 5 patterns (one a week). Tiny Modernist rolls out a lot of mystery multi part stitches. I never seem to know about it on time, so I was thrilled to grab this exclusive one from her shop.

Of course I bought from other designers.

Some I already have kitted up and ready to stitch others I am holding onto and will kit later.

Overall I really enjoyed the Jingle Ball and will probably do it again. They do have a harvest one and a spring one but I think the Christmas one is the big event. Maybe next year I can talk my sister into to joining.

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It is that time of year where I add to my Lenox collection. I have been collecting for several years so the options are getting less frequent. Lenox does retire pieces as they add new pieces to their collection. I happened to notice in my collection there was a set of plates (12) for each day of the twelve days of Christmas.

I completely forgot I had these plates. Looking forward to using them the next time I have a Christmas dinner party.

But onto what I bought this year. As I mentioned last year I have been focusing on the annual snowman figurines. So naturally I added the 2025 snowman to my collection. He is very cute.

I think he is a cute addition to the army of snowmen I have collected. They use the holly leaf design on his scarf that matches my plates. I can imagine a dinner table with all my snowmen down the center being cheerful and welcoming to all who eat at my table.

The other piece I bought was a small domed cover dish. I am thinking Brie or a cheeseball. Or perhaps some molded butter. It is not huge, but very cute.

Just when I think I was done, I got an alert from Amazon that this double dip bowl was on sale so I could not resist.

I have always enjoyed my Lenox pieces and have many Lenox Lynn Bywaters snowman figurines. I bought most of them many, many years ago. Of course back then I though $35 was expensive (or something close to that price, I guarantee that it was not even close to $100). LOL, now most of them are $150-$300. Oh that inflation. There is just something so cute about these figurines that my admiration for them has not waned even after decades of collecting.

Lets hope next year has a bunch of new goodies.

Thank you for checking out my blog and hope your holidays are special.

I tend to read fiction that is tied to the season I am in. Christmas, Halloween, Autumn, summer, you name it. Helps me enjoy the season. This started many years ago when I would buy a Christmas book and read it in December. It has morphed into every season. Do you do the same thing?

This year I had the intention to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but decided to read a Grady Hendrix book. I am a fan of Grady Hendrix after reading the Exorcism of my Best Friend. Amazon Prime has the movie, which I don’t recommend. The book is much better.

Here is a synopsis of the book.

Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.

One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor’s handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in. 

Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I love the Southern Women’s choice on how to rid their problem. Makes me wonder what if. A good read, you should check it out.

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As you know I love Halloween, so I like to do the front porch and walkway to look spooky or fun each year. This year I took a tumble and fell on my arm and head. My fault, I tripped over a water spigot when chasing a runaway pumpkin. Scabs are all healed and head is hard enough to sustain the injury. LOL. I must say I am getting a tad bit old for this stuff. But every year I get excited and want to display my Halloween stuff. Can’t blame this girl.

This years theme is my crypt and the spooky spiders that guard it. The spider web was a bit weak but those spiders have been in a box a long time, maybe they forgot how to make a good web.

Enjoy the video and thank you for checking out my blog.

When I saw the lineup for the autumn movies this year I actually complained to Hallmark. Believe it or not, they actually said they would pass on my concerns to production management. We will see. I told them that although I love a good Hallmark movie, watching wedding movies is a summer thing. I want haystacks and pumpkins. I want hot apple cider and a hayride. I want autumn leaves, not the Bahamas. Enough said. Onto the autumn Fall in Love movies for 2025.

All the Groomsmen movies (The Groomsmen First Look/The Groomsmen Second Chances/The Groomsmen Last Dance) were nice movies but not appropriate for autumn. I guess these three guys are a “thing” as they also seem to have Christmas movies out there. They must be popular with the viewing audience, but not really my interest. It was entertaining and the three guys had good chemistry. Giving these movie 3 pumpkins out of 5.

The next movie is Mystery Island: House Rules. I assume this is a series also. To be honest they should give it up. The acting was bad, the plot was weak, generally I did not like this one at all. We did not have a good start with this years line up. I give it 1 pumpkin out of 5.

The next movie, Adventures in Love & Birding was a cute movie. I liked the actors and thought the plot was good. I enjoyed the adventure of the birding contest and the conflict with the ex wife. I would give this a 4 out of 5 pumpkins.

This next movie was my favorite out of the group. I thought I would dislike it because it was about football but it was charming. Home Turf was about the school President having to share her home with the football team. Her peaceful quiet life is turned upside down. And the coach is a hottie, so that made it even more pleasant. This movie gets the coveted 5 out of 5 pumpkins.

The next movie seems to be a series also called The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose starring Jodie Sweetin. This was a nice little film but to be honest, I am not that thrilled with Jodie Sweetin as an actress. But more power to her. This movie overall was not bad, just not my favorite. This movie gets a 3 pumpkin out of 5.

The next movie is clearly a Halloween movie which thrilled me. Haul out the Halloween starred Lacey Chabert and Wes Brown. They team up again in their neighborhood embracing Halloween. There were a lot of neighborhood antics and chaos but it kept true to the Halloween theme. However I am only give it a 3 pumpkin out of 4.

The final movie is Haunted Harmony Mysteries – Buried at C. To be honest, I remember nothing about this film. I grew bored quickly with the movie. So by default they get 2 pumpkins out of 5.

I usually watch my Hallmark movies off my Friendly TV subscription since it has all the Hallmark Channels. However I noticed this year that it was limited and required you to go to the Hallmark+ streaming service. I do have the Hallmark+ service but find it generally does not have the new movies on it. Perhaps they are now driving people to the streaming service now but I was confused on where the movies are located. Part of the problem with having only streaming services is finding where things are located so it may be a user issue.

Thanks for hanging with me as I rated the Hallmark movies this year. Just be glad I don’t rate the Christmas movies as there is sooooo many.

Thank you for checking out my blog.

Educating myself about random things is just so me. I am known to “squirrel” random comments to learn about them. We were always doing that at work. Someone would say something interesting and I would drop everything and Google the heck out of it. Like a dog that sees a squirrel I am off and running.

I decided to watch the National Geographic documentary about witch trials. It was a six part series that covered various areas (and time periods) in Europe and in America.

Some of the most interesting things I learned was that most of the accusations were from children. If a child fell ill they would blame female elders for inflicting them with illness. Or they would blame neighbors especially if there was petty fights or jealously. Back in those days, most people believed in fairies and believe that their children were snatched and replaced with an “odd” replacement called a Changeling. So if a child acted strange, grew ravished with hunger, or grew ill the parents would think a witch interceded for a fairy. Also when failure of crops or bad weather occurred they would blame witches versus just a bad season.

Women were more likely to be accused versus men. Many believed that women were easily influenced by the dark forces. The women accused during the Salem witch trials were mostly poor, disadvantaged women on the edges of society. If they confessed, they were jailed. If they refused they were killed. Basically a no win situation. The young girls who accused people of being witches were at the trial and when the accused entered the room they would display fits and claim that the specters of the accused were torturing them. Eventually some of the elders felt that the young girls were lying and finally deemed that spectral evidence was denounced. Slowly the trials waned down and the accused were found not guilty. More than 200 people were accused, and 19 were hanged, one was pressed to death, and others died in jail. 

It was a dark period in our history. This is what happens when accusations, hysteria and belief in supernatural events run amuck. There is so much more to this story that I could go on forever about the politics and beliefs in this time period. To this day, this part of history is explored when tourists go to Salem to learn about the trials.

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Happy Halloween Readers! While waiting for the little ghouls and goblins to ring my doorbell, I took on a murder mystery from Cryptic Killers. The case I solved was called Murder of a Millionaire.

Poor Chloe Whittler, a recent lottery winner was killed in a park in Redmond UK. (Fictional of course)

I sorted thru the police file and read the documents. Let me tell you it was not that easy.

There was quite a lot of documents to sort and compare. The only thing I could not figure out was how to get the email open from the police department. But even with not figuring out the email I was able to guess the killer.

Well sort of. I had two suspects that had a strong motive and the disposition to kill, I took a guess with the first person and was wrong. But my second person was correct.

This was challenging but not impossible to solve. I was a bit thrown off with the military time and the train stations. The pictures from the surveillance cameras were really had to decipher but life (or should I say death) is not always easy.

I would definitely do another crime mystery game next year.

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I have had this idea on my bucket list since last year. Using Halloween cookie cutters and a bag or corn tortillas I made homemade tortilla chips.

This was super easy, but I would say cutting thru the tortillas was a bit of a struggle. I found if I wiggled the cutter a bit it would cut thru the tortilla better. Frying them up just took a few minutes, then sprinkling them with salt to get that yummy taste.

It was more work than necessary but at least I tried.

I used the following shapes, pumpkin, raven, bat, cat and pumpkin.

It was a nice little Halloween appetizer. You should try it just once.

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I have always enjoyed doing a jigsaw puzzle. It tends to be a Christmas tradition for me. Sitting and watching Christmas movies while connecting pieces together. For this year I wanted to do a Halloween themed puzzle. There are so many cute ones.

My first puzzle is from Galison by the artist Michael Storrings.

I like Michael Storrings artwork. It is cute and whimsical. I have several of his puzzles. This puzzle took me 2-1/2 days and was pretty easy to do.

Some pieces were tricky but mostly I could spot where a piece belonged. The cool thing about this puzzle is it Glows in the Dark.

I am a bit particular about my jigsaw puzzles. I do not like thin pieces that twist out of shape. I also like pieces that firmly connect. So this next one I did was a bit problematic.

It is from Professor Puzzle called their library collection. Each puzzle looks like a book and is taken from literature, They have Pride and Prejudice, the Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre to name a few. One side of the puzzle is the picture, the other side is a page from the book.

This puzzle only took an afternoon but one of the pieces got torn. It had odd shaped pieces that were flimsy. I like the concept of the literary themed puzzle but was not happy with the flimsy pieces. However it did not stop me from completing the puzzle pretty quick.

The brand of puzzle I prefer is Springbok and Buffalo and Ravensburger. I am sure there are plenty of good puzzles out there but I know these will be a good experience.

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