Lacey Dancer's Blog, page 24

Second Day of Vacation

Tuesday starts with drizzle and fog but no snow.  A morning show is scheduled and it was wonderful.  The evening show and buffet was in the same place but with a completely different staging.  The music was delighful and since the cameras were also rolling that night on the audience there was a lot of crowd participation.  Since Shirley and I were in the front row we got interact with the performers.  We even made them laugh too!

Morning show at the Majestic

More of the show. Lots of Christmas tunes and fun.

View from the motel parking lot. We were all watching the fog drape the mountains.

Vacation in the Smokey Mountains

Shirley and I left bright and early Monday morning, in the dark to travel to Madison to board the tour bus.  We hadn’t taken a bus tour before so we didn’t know what to expect.  The drive was fun, the tour guide also a friend an absolute delight and the stops along the way were frequent enough that we could stretch our legs.  The pictures below are of the sunset at our last stop and, of course, our bus.  We all were very happy to reach our hotel.  Thirteen hours of travel was enough for all of us.

Sunset over our bus.

Care Giving: Real Life Answers Has a First Date

It is always wonderful to stop in a library and hear the librarian say, ‘I was just talking about you. Tell me you finished your book on care giving.  I want to have you speak to a group I am putting together.’  I never get over the rush of excitement of being able to connect with my audience.  So I get to mark the book calendar for February 18th from 12 to 1pm.  See you at the Branford Library in Branford, Florida.

Found My Drapes

One of the things on Saturday’s shopping trip was to match the new fabric for the breakfast room chairs with new drapes.  Struck gold the first stop.  Here are pictures of before and after the change.  Biggest problem now is carving out time to cover the chairs.

 

Before the great change.The whole look was blending in to the walls.

Saturday Shopping

I don’t do Black Friday shopping anymore. Saturday is my day.  Parking is easy, crowds are not pushing and shoving.  The aisles aren’t jammed with carts and the bargains are great.  First stop was one of my favorite stores, Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Took a friend who had never been. Filled two carts and saved over $80 in coupons, not counting sales between us.  Since we almost completed our lists with this one stop, lunch was a celebration that ended with chocolate before we hit our final stop.  Saved about thirty there and got a gorgeous tote to haul part of our loot home.  Saturday might just be my favorite day to shop once a year.

Decorating Day

I love decorating for the holidays.  Yesterday was a lot of fun but I was really ready to sit down by the time I finished.  As promised here are the pictures of the ribbon, ornaments and Christmas glitter.  The first to be set up is always my Nativity.  As a child, it was always the first thing we did.  There was a bald shepherd with that flock.  I couldn’t find a bald one when I bought this scene but I still remember the excitement and awe of that little bald man and his sheep.

This scene came from Italy and I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.

 

The Christmas tree is always the second part of the fun and every year I try something new.  This time it was white ribbon instead of garlands and white roses and baby’s breath tucked in with white dipped pine cones.

 

I made many of the ornaments using as inspirations designs my aunt did when I was a child.

 

Finally, the Christmas village.  Decided I needed some contouring on the mountain and this is the result.  I think it needs more trees.

 

Snow, snow, snow.

Decorating not Shopping

When I was raising my children, I really loved shopping today.  The deals were great which meant I could spend a little and get a lot.  But more, in my area, it was madness but fun. One year, a store was so packed all of us could barely move in the toy department.  Rather than get mean with each other, those who were too far away to reach this or that toy just passed a request to his or her neighbor and it got passed along until a shopper close enough to reach the toy could send it overhead to the one who couldn’t reach it. The long check out wait was time for visiting and exchanging ads on bargains.  I would start at six on Black Friday and be home by ten, my van loaded to the roof and all my gifts wrapped.

Now that I no longer need that kind of bargain hunting, marathon shopping, I use Black Friday to take down Thanksgiving decorations and put up my Christmas things.  With Christmas music playing, orange juice in hand, the house is coming alive with the season.  You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the finished results.

Happy Thanksgiving

Girls and Their Curls

I couldn’t resist taking some shots of the girls in their winter coats.  My burros are really a donkey burro mix and have curly coats when cold weather approaches.  The cutie in the purple harness is Mystic and the one in the blue is Noelle, most often known as Baby (no kin to Baby Deere).  Neither could resist hamming it up for the camera.

Take me! My picture first!!!

Mama’s Work–Before and After

This is the best time of the year for nature’s helping hand in clearing the last of the pines for the big burn.  Autumn is stripping the trees of burnable foliage and Mama Deere, Baby, my helper David and I are doing the rest.  A couple of friends have volunteered days and weeks of trimming, clipping and hauling to get us this far. I am getting more excited about the conservation area that this small forest will soon be.  Deer, armadillo, hawk and turkeys are already here but we are hoping for an increase in the overall population.

Finishing up the clearing to get ready for the big burn. This is the BEFORE view.

This is the AFTER view of just one part of the ten acres of pine trees.