I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday week last week, and that the fun continues this week. Once Christmas arrived, things definitely slowed down here. It has been a welcome respite from all the hustle and bustle of the season. I’ve had time to slow down, work on a couple of ideas, enjoy the lights on the tree, and watch the birds. They have been busy this week eating all the seed they can stuff into their beaks. Here, the red bellied woodpecker shares the bounty with a bluebird and a nuthatch. Colder weather and several days of rain had them eating a lot.

Two downy woodpeckers came by for a meal. I think this is a mated pair.

Four bluebirds and a nuthatch have been visiting regularly. The bluebirds are still using the house at times, and I hope one of these pairs will choose it for nest building in the spring.

So many hungry birds are around and the temperatures are chilly at night, so I made them one of my homemade suet cakes. They ate one entirely in just a couple of days, so I made another one and My Sweet Babboo put it out for them. It didn’t take but a moment until a titmouse found it. I blend equal parts of rendered bacon grease and peanut butter, then add shelled sunflower seeds, grits and oatmeal until I have a mixture that holds together with lots of morsels. I don’t have a recipe for how much of each, I just mix until it looks right then I fill the cage suet feeder.

We have a cardinal pair that is coming by now too. The male often eats the fallen seeds on the ground. Sometimes he will pick out a choice morsel and feed it to her.

In the back yard, we have a missing gate on one end of the fencing. So we leave the other one open in case a bear comes through. Sometimes the deer will walk through grazing on the ivy that winds around the chain link fencing. This day, a mom and daughter were here.

Then they worked their way around to the meadow out front. This doe stood motionless for several minutes at the edge of the meadow. Usually there are four, two adult females and two little ones, but this day only one pair was here.

Then, a rare visitor! We have some white squirrels here, but few and far between in our county. Transylvania county to the west has a lot of them. But I’ve only seen one every couple of years on our property. Isn’t it a beauty! I wish it would stick around. I did throw a sandwich out to it, and the grey one with it, but I am not sure they got them.

Another box arrived this week, a lovely box of quilts and Safelight case sets from Chris L in Salem, Wisconsin. Thank you, Chris! I will collect quilts for Hurricane Helene victims through 2025. The next delivery will be to Gerton again, as they still have so many affected that are still having issues. Some have homes they cannot even get to because of bridges being out. More of the members of the church who did not make the Christmas service would love to be remembered. I am going to go through the huge stack of quilts I still have and find a few more to give away.

On the longarm frame, I finally got the last of the quilting done on the Quilt of Valor.

I made the binding, and sewed it to the top side by machine. It was taken to the den so I could work on the handwork while watching football games over the holiday week.

I have to show you the great mystery box I got from Sulky Threads and Stabilizers for Christmas. Fun projects, cute fat quarters of warm and toasty prints, stabilizers, lovely threads, snowflake buttons, embroidery needles and more goodies.

While I was playing with my new things, I loaded up the embroidery machine with purple thread to stitch out a winter snowman for a wall hanging I had planned. I have a lovely white tone on tone snowflake print for background and I got a bunch of new designs on Christmas day from a couple of different sites including a set of snowmen. But when it was done, I noticed a problem. It was Christmas themed, when I wanted just winter.

Well, pooh. Turns out two of the four are Christmas, and the third one is a design I don’t like. It has boots on the snowman and big piles of snow with it. So, this is the only one I want to use. It is sweet, but I wanted more than one embroidery for a bell pull style project.

Ah, well. Maybe I can figure out something by our Virtual Retreat Winter Edition coming Tuesday, January 7 beginning at 9:30 am Eastern Time, and running to about 3:00 pm. Come sew with us! You can work on whatever you like. You can sew, knit, crochet, stamp, paint, tidy your sewing space, or just come to chat. Also, you do not need to commit to the whole day, come and go as you can. Come for a little while, or all day, pop in and out as your schedule allows! Click HERE to register, just $5!

It is said you should do on New Year’s day the things you want to do all year long, so I am going to do some sewing on New Year’s day and relax. One thing I want to do this year is finish projects, so I will try to finish the binding on the Quilt of Valor tomorrow. I have more than half of the handwork done now. Spending time with people you care about is important, so I’ll be making some calls and texting with friends and family. Most years for me and My Sweet Babboo, this has been a quiet day with just each other, piddling with things that we like doing, some sports on TV and tasty food. We have a good luck lunch on New Year’s Day, and I am reposting the recipe so you can make sure you have the ingredients. It is like a Hoppin’ John, but I call it Jumpin’ John because it isn’t a side dish, it is a meal! It is made with blackeye peas for good luck and loaded with flavor from kielbasa and tomato sauce. See the recipe tutorial on This Post, and download the pdf – Jumpin’ John

Once again on New Year’s Eve, I want to remind you to put some money outside tonight for good luck. For those who have not heard of this, you hide some money outside on New Year’s Eve, (doesn’t matter how much) then bring the money into the house on New Year’s Day. It is supposed to bring good fortune in the door with it, so you have money coming in all year. No, I am not really superstitious, I just think it is fun to do. It is something my mother did, and we always talked about it on New Year’s Eve, reminding each other. I am not sure where she got it from, but I seem to remember something about it being a Scottish tradition. My mother passed away in 2009, and maintaining the tradition helps keeps her close.

For those who didn’t get their Christmas cards out, here’s my New Year’s cards post from 2021. This is a great idea for those too busy during Christmas to do any stamping. It has a little poem I made up you can use as a greeting inside.

Stashbusters final report for 2024 is coming on Friday. So gather your totals and let’s finish out the year with more out than in!

Happy New Year! How do you bring in the new year?