The one year anniversary

 

Tomorrow is our one year anniversary.

A few days ago my beloved turned

to me and said, it’s almost our first

anniversary….my mind roamed

frantically.  Was it a romantic

anniversary, the day we met, the

day we first dated, the day….

did I forget something?

 

One year ago we slept the last

night in our little condo, Boo

terrified by the lack of furniture

and the noise the bare echoing

walls made lurked under the blow up bed all night.

 

 

Little did he know what a adventure he was in for, sharing his life with two dogs on the farm, and then another move into a great big forever house with his very own territory to roam in.

 

 

His life has changed so much for the better, and so has ours. Dreams do come true, we know that, sometimes they change a little, well a lot along the way, but they are still the dreams that you dream. 

 

 

I am thankful that we were transplanted up here when we were.  My family has gone through a pretty stressful year, there’s been cancer, illnesses, laughs and love.

 

 

I would rather be here to share it with my family then down on the coast, aching to be with them.  Those five hours of driving have kept us too far away, and I don’t know how we would have dealt with it without being here.

 

 

Now we live where we only once dreamed of being…

It’s been a year in more ways than one.

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

A thousand shining moments

Waiting just to happen to you

 

Life is made up of a thousand shining

moments waiting to happen to you.

• Driving home from work
• Doing the grocery shopping
• Washing the laundry
• While you are on power hold
• Feeding the cat
• During the most mundane moments

Just imagine life and it’s shining moments waiting for you, lurking around that corner hiding behind a cloud. Are you going to see them?

Will you know that they are happening to you?

Will you be looking for them?

 

I know that I will, for sure. It’s the season of light, and those thousand shining moments will come and go quickly, but I am keeping my eyes open for them.

 

 

It may be the flash of smile from a customer service rep, the friendly wave of a car going past, the way the cat purrs as he rubs my leg, but it’s a shining moment.

It’s in giving to the food bank, dropping some change into a rattling can for the Salvation Army volunteer, it’s in baking cookies, and laughing with loved ones.

 

 

This is definitely the season for those thousand lights to shine.

 

 

The moments are going to be different for everyone, none of us will experience them the same.

But they are going to be awesome.

 

And I can’t wait for mine to happen to me.

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

 

Lyrics by Blue Rodeo

Christmas planters light up your porch

 

I’ll let you in on a little

secret, around here we

don’t decorate that much

until it’s closer to

Christmas and our tree

goes up on Christmas Eve. 

Just because we don’t put

up the tree until later

doesn’t mean that we

don’t have some bright

lights, and beautiful

branches welcoming friends

and lighting up the porch. 

Who wants to look outside at gloomy dark skies when you can see sparkling lights, and colorful branches instead. 

This Christmas planter is on my back porch, the lights come on early enough with a timer in the late afternoon so it’s sparkly and bright, and they are set to go off just as we close the drapes for the evening.

 

How to make a Christmas planter in 5 easy steps, one includes the cat supervising.

 

 

1. Gather your supplies, I used a galvanized bucket because clay would freeze here.  Branches, evergreens boughs, ribbons, pinecones, a plastic bag of sand, pruners.

2. Fill bag with damp sand that you stole from your husbands winter no slip supply, tie bag up, and put into container upside down.  Watch cat sniff bag of soil, he’s supervising.

3. Poke branches into soil, arrange to your hearts content, watch cat sniff branches. Add pinecones, or moss to hide top of bag, or you could put shorter branches around edge of container.

4. Step back, and rearrange branches again.  Add some ribbons in strategic places, watch cat play with ribbon, and knock over planter, start again.

5. Add a string of lights, and plug into timer, you will appreciate not having to go out in the cold to turn off the lights in the dark.  Enjoy.

 

5 Easy steps to making your own light and bright Christmas planters to light up your porch, cat sold separately.

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Frozen fog, and frigid toes

 

I love fog, and it was worth

it to have frigid toes this

morning as I scraped the

thin cover of ice off of the

windshield. What I don’t do

for this blog, right?

You don’t know from day to

day what kind of morning

weather you will wake up to

here, and since the garage is

full of branches for another

Christmas blogging project

I couldn’t park the truck in there.

Should I go, or should I stay?  How badly did I want to take those fog photos?  Pretty badly I think, cause I went.

 

 

I kept looking out the window at the fog, judging if I should go outside, or stay where it’s nice and warm….Warm is a relative term, it’s my version of freezing in here, but my husband isn’t cold, and can’t be convinced that the heat needs to be about 10 degrees warmer.  Do you have that problem, or are you a winter hottie?

 

 

Common sense won out, I needed the photos, so outside I went. It’s a brrr damp cold outside, because of the unusual amount of rain we have had.  Damp that seeps into your toes when all you are wearing is gardening clogs…

 

 

But I got them, and celebrated by making cake doughnuts this afternoon in my new cake doughnut pan, another Pinterest pin, that I loved.

 

 

Well worth it, and so easy to make.  It will be our little secret that the reason I bake so much is because it warms up the house…

 

 Freezing, Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Pinterest Picks–White Christmas clay ornaments

 

First, I have to say

this is my favourite

Pinterest Pick so far

and I was pretty

happy with the

lemon cookies, and

the lemon

rosemary

vanilla, house scent

so you know that

these really make my

heart sing.

Starry night, bright lights, Christmas is coming.

You have got to try making some yourself, Christmas is the perfect time to try a new craft.

I can see these clay ornaments as tags attached to gifts, hanging off a ribbon in a window, on wreaths, and of course on a tree.

It’s a starry night, and the ideas are flowing here.

I love the star garland that I made, and plan on hanging that across our fireplace mantel.  As you might have guessed, turquoise is a fav color of mine, so that’s why the ribbon is turquoise. Add in some bright sparkly lights, some greenery, and it’s magical.

They were very easy to make, roll and cut.  I used my dehydrator to dry them, it only took a few hours, and they didn’t curl or go brown.  The blogger talks about using a low oven temperature to dry hers in, and it worked fine.

I used a Christmas themed rubber stamp dusted with cornstarch to gently press into the dough before I cut the shape, that worked the best.  I have plans for making a garland of hearts for Valentines day, maybe something for birthdays, cut out letters…pumpkins for October…endless starry nights.

You can find the original blog post from Woodside Kitchen here. 

So here I am steadily working on my new website, hoping to remember from day to day what I learned in the “it should be simple to drag and drop” program, and dreaming up Christmas craft ideas so fast it seems my head is spinning.

I have lots to share with you in the coming weeks, and am looking forward to seeing what you have on your blogs.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

 

Small business Saturday: Art card sale at MBD

 

It’s small business

Saturday, and to join

in I would like to

offer a selection of my

art cards for the best

price of the year at

$2.50 each.  MBD

art cards are beautifully

printed on a heavy

card stock in a 5 x 7 inch

size, featuring original images

and including a crisp white

envelope, and clear cello pouch.

MBD cards make a nice Christmas gift for someone special.

 

 

They make a great Christmas gift, a little something for yourself to frame, or send as a hand written note.

 

These are the cards that are included in the sale, the images are the ones used in this blog post, the amounts are limited, so shop early for best selection.

702 Pink Roses, 703 Antique Asparagus Picker, 704 Birds Nest, 707 Antique Rose, 709 Oh Baby, 710 Old Wharf, 712 Watering cans, 714 Life, 715 Cherish, 717 Thinking of you, 719 Wedding Congratulations, 720 MBD Alzheimer’s card, 721 Pink Swirl Rose, 722 Happy Birthday Rose, 723 House Home Cat, 724 Snowdrops.

 

 

The cards listed above are available at the sale price of $2.50, [all other on website are $3.50 each] shipping costs not included in price of card.

 

 

If you are interested in ordering cards, please email me at muddybootdreams[at]gmail.com for more information.

 

 

For full size images of each card please go to  www.muddybootdreams.com.

 

 

Happy Saturday, Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Let’s talk about the weather

 

Now that some of us are

either in a turkey stupor

or anticipating being in

one soon, let’s talk about

the weather.  Do you

realize if we couldn’t talk

about the weather there would

be many stumped

conversations out there. 

 

It’s a prime subject

a easy one to break the

ice, so to speak, after all

if it’s raining cats and dogs, it’s good to point out the obvious, or is it? 

 

 

What would happen if we couldn’t mention the weather in a stalled conversation?  And what else would we talk about?

 

 

Downpours don’t happen every day, and rainbows aren’t hiding behind every silver lining of a cloud, but a hard rain’s gotta fall. 

 

 

After all those dog days don’t come every day, and it’s cold enough some days to freeze the ahem off of a witch’s ahem. 

 

 

I’m not a fan of pea soup, but I do love fog.  Do you feel like washing it down with a gully washer, or does that make you feel a little under the weather?

Did I miss any?

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

Being thankful, and shop local please

 

 

Holidays are so full of

expectations, and

thoughts of perfection, that

sometimes they just can’t

live up to the dream, and

the resulting crash can be

painful unless you learn to

let it be what it’s going to

be. 

It’s easy to get

carried away with

the plans, and

preparations so much that you lose sight of the real meaning behind the

seasons we celebrate. 

 

 

Finding something that you are thankful for, and a bit of gratitude can make it a great day.

Whatever this season to means to you, I wish you a day that you dream of, a wonderful time of joy, and peaceful surroundings.

 

 

I know that it sounds more like a Christmas wish, but for so many people this is the start of such a season of busyness, buying, and preparing that I thought I should just slip it in there.

So take a moment to reflect on what you have versus what you need, buy local whenever possible, and buying handmade does more good then you know.

 

 

If you are out there shopping, please make sure to give the sales representatives the biggest smile, and a thank you.  I’ve been there for so many years, working the holidays, missing the family dinners, tired and ran off of my feet. 

A smile,, and nice greeting from a customer goes a very long way to making a day more pleasurable, believe me.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving a day early….

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

And then my brain left the building

 

One of our favourite sayings is

“Elvis has left the building”, not

because we love Elvis, but it just

has such meaning and is multi

purpose. Now I am going to have

to learn to substitute “my brain

has left the building.”  It’s not

menopause, it’s just life, things

happen, life goes forward, and

my brain leaves the building

without warning. Brain farts,

seniors moments, flash drive

failure.

Loss of train of thought, as in it left the station without you, didn’t they mention it?

 

You can call it what you want, it’s annoying when you suddenly have this blank spot where just a moment ago there was a thought. Especially when you are cooking dinner, and suddenly the recipe in your head is turned upside down by the total lack of recall.  That usually only happens when I am cooking two different things, and forget to concentrate.

 

 

We end up with some pretty interesting dishes, coconut curry turkey burgers, and chilli bean, and yam spicy tortilla soup.  They were all pretty good tasting, although I don’t know if I would recommend cooking like this.

 

 

My husband says I like to cook exotic food, this is the guy who loves creamed corn, I just say my brain has left the building, and the ingredients went with it.

 

 

If it’s not menopause what is it?  Does your brain leave the building?

 

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams