A New Years wish from Muddy Boot Dreams

 

 

Here’s a New Years wish from me, Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams to you.  And you may recognize this from last year, but the sentiment still remains true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Someone should send Mother Nature a memo.

 

Dear Mother Nature,

No, we are not whining or anything, we just want to bring this to your attention.

Since we feel there are many errors in the amount, and frequency of snow that you have so... ahem, graciously dumped on us lately.

I mean 3 times before winter even started? And we do realize that winter here now, but more snow? 

Again?  And where was it at Christmas?

Not to mention what all of our Blogger friends are suffering through in other parts of the world.  Record snowfalls, overloaded airline systems?

So Mother Nature, please check and see if there is a glitch somewhere, a switch to turn off.  A note to drop into a mailbox to correct this situation.

After all, if we don’t say something, who will.

Sincerely,

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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I would have shown you them but…

 

 

 

I love to bake, but am not that thrilled about eating it, so it’s a win-win situation when I get to bake something and give it away.

Like these Chocolate Orange Shortbread cookies that I created.

They were a hit, a real hit, and I would have shown you them but...

Well, most of them were gone in a flash.

So please use your imagination and come along with me for a moment.

Grated orange peel in the shortbread, and the most luxurious chocolaty orange piece of “warm from the oven” chocolate nestled in the center of the cookie.

Biting into the melting in your mouth shortbread, with gooey chocolate threads spanning the space between the cookie and your mouth.

So to each and every person that received some of these cookies, “I’m sorry there weren’t any more left to give you extra.”  But I hope that you enjoyed them.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Most wonderful day of the year..

Today, it’s Canadian Boxing Day, and for some it’s the day to get up early [4 am] and shop till you drop.

If you work retail, and have this day off, like I do, it’s simply the most wonderful day of the year.  [Next to Christmas].

With the Christmas rush winding down, a kinder gentler day is dawning for us today.

For the first time we can actually relax, and enjoy ourselves, take a deep breath, and say “it’s almost over.”

If you have never, or you don’t work retail, then please, be kinder then normally to the service staff, they completely deserve it.  They have been above board in pushing themselves to give you a wonderful shopping experience this year.  Working long hours, being on their feet all day long, and striving to be polite in every instance.

And for those of you who have to work this retail shopping day, my heart goes out to you, and I hope that soon, you too have a “most wonderful day of the year.”

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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Wishing all a very Merry Christmas

 

 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, and I will see you sometime next week

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

You know you are getting older when….

 

You know you are getting older when…

All the toys from your childhood are now classified as antiques.

That’s my younger sister, and my favourite dollhouse from our childhood.

Funny thing is, she still has the lamp in the corner.  It’s been redone, and is quite stunning.  Now if we only knew what a treasure that dollhouse would turn out to be.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

 

Life’s too short to eat cheap chocolate, and other random thoughts.

Life is short, so don’t waste your calories on cheap chocolate.

Words to live by.

I purchased one of those “sound machines” the other day, it can play a selection of soothing sounds, from ocean surf, to rain on the roof, and even birdsong. It’s supposed to calm everyone down before we go to sleep.

Bootsie is totally fascinated with the possibility that little birds may be living in that small device.  He stares at it for ages, waiting to see some movement. The twittering is calming him, but he still expects to see feathers fly from this machine. 

That makes it completely worth the price I paid for it.

And I bought some really, really good chocolate the other day, made locally they were doing a food demo where I work.  It tastes like chocolate, and the fillings are delish.

Again, totally worth it.

My garden, as it looks right now, my huge mess.  But did you realize it’s better not to deadhead in the fall, besides leaving some food for the birds, you give perennials more winter protection.

Watching the birds as they flit from branch to branch, gathering seeds, munching on berries makes any mess in the garden totally worth it.

So cherish what you have in front of you, and don’t waste your calories on cheap chocolate.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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All that glitters…is probably sticking to my fingers

 

It started innocently enough, browsing some blogs, looking at the lovely glittery ornaments that they claimed were easy to make.  Just brush on Modge Podge, and sprinkle with glitter.

Voila, done, a perfect sparkly Christmas ready for your photo shoot.

And then one day in the dollar store, I came across these sparkly gems, and the auburn colored sequins.

They had me at sparkly. So nicely packaged, and in my color scheme, I was seduced. 

Hook, line, and paintbrush.

I purchased some cheap ball shaped ornaments, and started to brush on the glue.  Only problem was, it stuck...to everything.  My beautiful antique desk, the paper, the paintbrush, [well it was kind of a long phone conversation, I forgot about it], it seemed that it stuck to everything but the glitter.

There was glitter on my face, on the cat, on the kitchen floor two rooms away. Glitter on my socks, on the table, and on the camera lens.

And just when I would get one half of the ball covered in sticky glue, and sprinkled glitter,

down would

                      fall

                                     the ball.

Onto the carpet.  Where it spread it’s glittery gluey joy everywhere.

 

Did I give up?  No.  I persevered, I don’t know why.  There were so many more projects waiting for me to get to.

But the lure of the glitter was glossy and shiny.

Each night I would do another small segment, glue, spread, and glitter.  Then drop it, and clean up the mess.

Over and over, until finally...

I went out and bought some preglittered balls, and all was well.

I will leave the glitter to those without sticky fingers.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

 

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Bird’s nest gift tags

 

I adore birds nest’s, and am always on the lookout for them.  We even had one that came in our cut Christmas tree last year.

I search them out when I am walking, and while driving, during winter they are easy to see perched in the bare branches.  There is something inspiring in the fact that such a small creature can create a structure so substantial, and with only a beak.

This bird’s nest stamp is also a favourite of mine, along with the color turquoise.  It seems to be a perfect pairing with it’s chocolate brown ink, and ribbon.

The tiny sparkles in the eggs add a bit of Christmas [or anytime of year] glitz.

I have created a set of gift tags, this one is going to a friend who is equally enamoured of the nest, and the color turquoise.

 

And they come in pink also.

Let me know what you think.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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And the winner is…

Thanks to everyone who entered in the CSN draw for the $75.00 gift certificate.  I loved reading what you would choose should you be the lucky winner.

It looks like everyone had a great time choosing items, either for themselves, or for others.

So many choices, so little time...

Now with great fanfare we announce the winner of the gift certificate to be

Zuzu

Congrats to Zuzu for winning this wonderful giveaway of a gift certificate worth $75.00 from CSN.

 

This was my first sponsored giveaway, and it was great fun. 

You never know, maybe in the future there will be more.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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Christmas giveaway–got plans?

         CSN Give away of a $75.00 Gift Certificate

Got plans for Christmas? 

Are you going to be packing up for a visit?  The people at CSN online stores, have offered to give away a $75.00 gift certificate to one of my lucky readers.

You might end up choosing some spanking new luggage from Delsey Luggage, www.Luggage.com/

Or maybe you are staying home, and need some extra pots and pans, or a rolling pin, cookie sheets or Le Creuset cookware, the choices are amazing.

With over 200 online stores to choose from you can find some pretty stunning products at CSN’s online stores.

They even carry gardening supplies, gloves, tools, hats...check them out.

Seriously, they even ship to us Canadians!  One of my concerns was the border taxes, but there are sites that ship from Canada listed also.  Just drop me a email muddybootdreams [at] gmail.com and I will send you those sites.

They are offering a $75.00 gift certificate to some lucky blogger [does not include shipping costs]. 

To get your chance to win, just leave a comment on my blog telling me what CSN item you would like to get if you won.

It’s that simple.

I will draw a random name on Monday December 14th, at 7:00 pm and let you know who won.  Good Luck!

This is a easy peasy giveaway from CSN, and I wish you all luck.

For someone this is going to be a very Merry Christmas.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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Is it really you?

 

 

After a few days things with this new computer are beginning to settle in.  But it is amazing how many passwords we rely on the computer to remember.  I know it’s probably not the best thing to let it do that, but after the 150th consecutive password...well you get the picture.

And each time the program asks in a rather polite way, “is it really you?”  Well, who else would it be?

I still have lots to do, and one of the problems is how to down load the enormous amount of photos, working that one out will take some time.

Doing this short post is a test to see if the new version of Windows live writer is working, and to say I have something rather exciting coming up soon.

So keep tuned, and I will let you know as soon as the details are finalized.

For now I am going back to populating my bare cupboards of this new PC.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Vroom vroom......

Here I am writing on the Blogger platform, something I never thought I would have to do again, after finding out about Windows Live Writer, and having to use my laptop to do it.

We finally gave in after much stall....in...g,   and   freezing, and just general bad behaviour and purchased a new PC.

And no matter what the teckies tell you, it does take a little time to set things up.

All of my 20,000 photos are living on the external hard drive, and they might be there for a little while.

 

It also might have been a good idea to keep track of all of the passwords before starting the set up. 

So here I am, I cannot access my blog through Windows Live Writer, but I guess that's a small price to pay for the new Vroom Vroom!

Because...

Wow, is that PC fast.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

All the leaves are gone

 

It happened so fast this year, first it got cold, then the leaves started to change, and a huge windstorm brushed them away.  I never even really got a chance to show you the leaves of my ginkgo tree.

They stay green, and suddenly change to golden yellow, and in a flash they shower down to the ground.  Well worth watching day by day, because if you miss a day, it’s gone.

Over, kaput!

And all the leaves are gone until the next spring.

 

Kind of reminds me of that Mama’s and Papa’s song...all the leaves are gone, and the skies are grey.  I love that song.

Looking forward to spring, yes, that’s me.

But there is still beauty in the bare branches, especially when the sun shines on them in the afternoon.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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There’s JOY in this color

Color has always been extremely important to me, it affects the way I feel about many things, and especially since the time I came back from camp to find my entire bedroom decor redone red.  I like red, in small doses, but red curtains, and a red bedspread, and red patterned wallpaper? I know my Mom meant well, and it was the 70’s... still I did appreciate having something different.

And let’s say that it went really well with the canary yellow kitchen we had then.

Now it’s a new world, and a new century.

Where we have lovely choices like this muted turquoise for Christmas, yes it’s non traditional, but it’s so pretty.  Having limited space, and lacking a coffee table, I made use of this rather odd cutout in the wall between our kitchen, and our living room.  I love the way the chocolate bounces off of the robins egg blue. Ohhhh I love this color.

It makes my heart sing.

 

But to be honest, I don’t know if I would be brave enough to have a house painted this color.  The owner who is a wonderful interesting person, said that in Montreal many houses are painted this bright and cheerful tone.

I just know that this color brings me JOY when it’s in small doses.

And I adore those black wooden letters.

So what’s your favorite Christmas color combo?

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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