Tag Archives: Antique Postcards

A Hodgepodge Happy New Year!

A Very Happy New Year to All! Welcome very soon to 2026!

This is my Happy New Year Post for Hodgepodgers. This post card was sent to Greg’s Great Great Aunt Emma. The card was sent from Chicago to Denver in 1906! It is a hundred year old Happy New Year greeting! The stamp was one cent. The written greeting is in Swedish.

Making room for the last Hodgepodge of 2025! Thank you, Joyce From This Side of the Pond.

1. Did you make resolutions or set goals for the year we’re waving goodbye? How did that work out for you? Will you set any goals for this new year, new season, or new month? Share one or two if you’d like to share. 

The only goal I set for 2025 was to read the Bible through alongside Everyday Gospel, A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of Life by Paul David Tripp. I found it to be a good combination and encouraging. One other highlight was using our Church History Study Bible with notes stretching back from the first and second centuries and reaching forward to the twentieth century. As the introduction states about the contributors in the notes, ‘these are theologians, pastors, poets, laity, all offering perspective on God’s Word’ to aid us in escaping the ‘tyranny of the present to see wisdom from the past’.

The Puritan John Owen (1616-1683) offers us this encouragement:

If you have any regard to the constancy of your faith, to the comfort of your life, the honor of God, or the salvation of your own soul, labor immediately to get your belief of the Word better founded. Read the Scripture constantly, study it seriously, search it diligently, hear it explained and applied by others, meditate on it yourself, and beg of God an understanding of it and a right faith in it. 

2. When did you have the most fun this year? 

This was the family Christmas card photo this year taken over Thanksgiving weekend.

Hands down the most fun always happened when we were together with family or dear friends! The joy, the belly laughs, the support, the one liners, and the love flowing made for memorable moments all through the year!

One of the belly laugh moments of 2025!

3. What’s a song or song lyric you’ll associate with 2025? Tell us why. 

Phil Wickham’s Hymn of Heaven because it is the hope that encourages me in my daily life. Songs of life that are filled with truth inspire me and cause me to worship God. This is important to me. Artists like The Getty’s,  Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, and others who sing what is true to the Bible are my favorites. I’m not a fan of imposters. It is my prayer that these and others stay true.

4. Best (or a favorite) bite of something delicious you tasted this year? 

I grew up on my dear mom’s blintzes but I’ve not made them for several years. This year I made them twice and they are so good to my taste buds and memories. I choose them for my best bite this year!

Before you ask…you can find the recipe for Nadia’s Blintzes here.

5. What do you want to do more of in the new year? Less of? 

I would like to read more good books this year. I would like to decrease my sugar intake this year.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Happy New Year to all my friends who stop by my blog. I appreciate each and every one of you! Wishing you a new year of peace and joy down in your hearts to stay…

Happy New Year with Butterscotch Brickle Bars

This is a recipe my mom made for her oldest granddaughter’s baby shower back in 1974.

Cookie Layer:

  • 1-1/2 Cups sifted all purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 Cup softened butter
  • 3/4 Cup firmly packed light brown sugar

Method:

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Grease a 13 X 9 inch pan lightly and dust lightly with flour.
  3. Sift together flour and salt.
  4. Cut in butter with pastry blender.
  5. Add sugar and mix well.
  6. Press dough evenly into the bottom of prepared pan.
  7. Bake for 15 minutes.
  8. Remove from oven and cool slightly.

While cookie layer is baking prepare butterscotch topping:
Butterscotch Topping:

  • 1- 6 ounce package of butterscotch chips
  • 1/4 cup light corn syrup
  • 2 Tablespoons shortening
  • 1 Tablespoon water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 Cups coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

Method:

  1. Combine all ingredients except nuts in a microwaveable bowl and heat at 30 second intervals on full power stirring well after each 30 second heating until smooth, (My mother didn’t have a microwave in 1974 and did this step on the stove top) (It took me 3 – 30 second intervals in the microwave) If you prefer you can do this step over a double boiler.
  2. Stir in nuts.
  3. Spoon mixture evenly over slightly cooled cookie layer.
  4. Bake an additional 8 minutes. Remover pan to a wire rack.
  5. Cool until slightly warm and then cut into 1-1/2 to 2 inch squares.
  6. Cool completely before serving.
  7. Makes 24-38 squares.

Happy New Year’s everyone!

Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
~Martin Luther

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving 2021

 

May God bless you with a peaceful gathering enjoying good food, friends and family! Count your blessings, name them one by one!!

Psalm 28:7 ~

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
and I will give thanks to him in song.

and in Russian…

Господь–крепость моя и щит мой; на Него уповало сердце мое, и Он помог мне, и возрадовалось сердце мое; и я прославлю Его песнью моею.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone…Gobble Gobble!

Homer Laughlin, The First Thanksgiving.

Valentine’s Day Antique Postcards

Dear’s Great Great Aunt Emma received these postcards over the years. The postmarks are from 1901 to 1909. She had quite a collection of postcards for every holiday and birthdays and from around the world.

We have some special things planned around Valentine’s Day. Baking cookies with grands tomorrow. We will be eating in not out on Friday. Are you doing anything special?

Ring in 2020!

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,…
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘In Memoriam’ A.H.H..(1833)

Happy 2020 everyone!

Numbers 6: 24-26

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

From Spurgeon:

What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, aye, and every drop of their fullness in Him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, You are the present portion of Your people, favor us this year with such a sense of Your preciousness that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in you. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

Santa…

… was NOT a hit this year for Addy. It was fun for me to be at her Santa photo shoot, though. She just wasn’t sure about the old guy in the red suit and beard.

She was just fine sitting all by herself far away from Santa.

Later in the day after her nap, Addy’s mommy and daddy brought her to Baba and Gramps so we could all enjoy dinner together. Addy likes to rewind and do all the things we did the time before she was over. So we go to the bedroom where we keep her toys and she gets the dolls she plays with here. She has also decided that it’s fun to put all the manger scene people and animals in a little owl bag. This time around she learned how to turn off and turn on the battery operated candles I have down on her level of reach. That kept her busy for quite a while. She doesn’t like it when it’s time to go home.

 

Today we visited a different church in Colville where the kids come up to the front of the church right before the sermon. This church had them recite a memory verse they’ve been working on and then they let each child say a prayer to God. The first young boy to pray said “Dear God, thanks for nothing.” I tried not to laugh. His mother in the front row looked mortified. The pastor took it in stride and held the mic in front of the next little one who thanked God for his mother, father, and dog. By this time the mortified mother got her son’s attention and he came down to the front row next to her and then they both exited the sanctuary. When all the little ones were done with their short prayers they were excused to go downstairs for Sunday School. Hope that little guy didn’t get into too much trouble.

A Day to Remember and Honor…

Thank you to all who have served our country and who lost their lives protecting us!

Blades of grass and pure white stones
Shelter those who’ve come and gone.
Just below the emerald sod
Are those who reached the arms of God.

Buried here with dignity
Endless rows for all to see,
Freedom’s seeds in sorrow sown,
‘Neath blades of grass and pure white stones.

Blades of grass and pure white stones
Cover those who left their homes
To rest in fields here, side by side,
Lest we forget their sacrifice.

Buried here with dignity
Endless rows for all to see,
Freedom’s seeds in sorrow sown,
‘Neath blades of grass and pure white stones.

It was written by Lowell Alexander, Orrin Hatch, and Philip Naish.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all our friends in the United States a very Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! I’ll be off the grid for a couple days so I’m posting this the day before the big day.

May God bless you with a peaceful gathering enjoying good food, friends and family! Count your blessings, name them one by one!!

Psalm 28:7 ~

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
and I will give thanks to him in song.

and in Russian…

Господь–крепость моя и щит мой; на Него уповало сердце мое, и Он помог мне, и возрадовалось сердце мое; и я прославлю Его песнью моею.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone…Gobble Gobble!

Out the Old, Ring in the New! Hello 2016!

1934948_10208452229131555_248701231534360309_n

Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New
~Alfred Tennyson 1850

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweet manners, purer laws.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

~

Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given;
While angels sing with tender mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
~Martin Luther

С новым годом!

Hoping that 2016 is a year with new things that draw us closer to each other and to our Lord! Happy New Year everyone!