Weekend Roundup “S”

1. Starts with “S.”
2. A Favorite.
3. Silver.

Starts with S…

Sisters and siblings with our dear old Pop in Southern California. He turns 95 on May 25th. Left to right, youngest to oldest, Lana, Ellen b., Vera and Kathy.

2. A favorite…

Spring in my yard.

3. Silver…

A table set with my sterling silver flatware and other silver touches.

And my parting shot…

Sailboats sailing on Lake Union in Seattle last summer.

Linking up with Tom The Backroads Traveller for Weekend Roundup.

Hope all of you enjoy Mother’s Day weekend and if your mom is still alive that you have the chance to honor her in some way.

A Busy Start…

…to September.

Spiders really have been busy. We are always amazed at what they accomplish overnight when we walk from the house to the garage brushing the new webs off our faces!

It seemed like the leaves changed their colors overnight, too. This is our Dogwood.

This is our Chinese Flame Tree.

These are the 3rd and 4th Jalapenos we’ve gotten off our little bush. It’s a new plant for us this summer.

Our lavender bushes still have a few blooms. I love working around them and enjoying their great scent.

Early September brings Dear’s birthday, too, which is a good reason to set a table for a celebration.

Decided on some nice bold colors for our dinner table. We had a great time at the table getting caught up with each other.

Dear and our SIL Andrew are very busy working on Josh and Laura’s remodel. Living without a kitchen is always an interesting challenge. Katie is busy interviewing for a job. I’m the support vehicle during these busy times for everyone else. Running errands, making dinner, and running that ever full dishwasher. I’m thinking about getting busy adding more daily exercise to my routine. Hopefully this week the thinking part will become reality in action!

Today Katie and I are going shopping to refresh her work wardrobe.

Have you been busy with changes in September?

Birds, Nests, Eggs!

It’s time for Cuisine Kathleen’s Let’s Dish challenge and her theme is Birds~ Nests~ Eggs.

We just had our Women’s Friendship Tea at our church this past Saturday and I happened to have a sweet bird on a nest in a cage as my centerpiece. So timely!

My guests…Susan, Shavonne, Laura, Wilma, Pat, Andra, Judy, Katy, and Katie.

There were a total of 36 tables at our Friendship Tea. It was organized so well with hand made food in our church kitchen. Many of the men and boys in our church volunteered to serve the tables and they poured our tea and made sure we had what we needed throughout the program. There were take home gifts for each of our guests and door prizes, too.

The theme this year was Snapshots: Behind every snapshot there is a story. I will have a few more posts showing the rest of the creative tables and the photo booth opportunities before and after the tea in our church lobby. Here’s a panorama photo of several of the tables in our worship center.

This was the first year since Dear and I have been attending Northshore Baptist Church that I was able to participate in the Friendship Tea. What a wonderful well run event it is.

Katie and my snapshot at one of the photo booth backdrops in the lobby. Stay tuned for many more snapshots from this event.

I’m looking forward to visiting all the posts linked at Kathleen’s Birds~Nests~Eggs challenge.

Thanksgiving Comes Early…

…and continues through November!

Dan and Jamie (upper right) drove from Eastern Washington to spend an early Thanksgiving with us. They arrived late on Friday night and we were thankful for their safe journeys. Saturday morning Dear and I met Jamie in our kitchen and knew that we liked her easy spirit. My sister Lana and her husband Steve joined us for our early Thanksgiving meal. They had just returned from the Dominican Republic where they were able to minister to the poorest of the poor. They shared their experience and we were thankful for their trip and life changing experience. We stood around the table joining our hands and Dear expressed our gratitude to God for all he has given us relationally and materially. Filled to the gills we cleaned up and Dear and I headed to bed while the rest enjoyed games around the table laughing heartily into the night. God is good to us and we are forever thankful to Him.

For those who are curious about such things, our Thanksgiving meal was very traditional. Turkey, stuffing, yams (with brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows), mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls. Being concerned about our lack of green on our plates my sister Lana contributed a lovely green soup which consisted of pureed sauteed in onion spinach, asparagus, broccoli, zucchini, and jalapeno. It was delicious and we were happy that the green requirement was met. Pumpkin and Razzleberry pie with whipped cream for dessert and some lovely beverages all along the way…

Ranch Hospitality…

When you have a wedding on a Ranch/Blueberry Farm you have to consider some extra comfort items you need to bring in…like generators to provide electricity, fancy honey buckets, and special lighting.

The drive up the coast beyond Santa Barbara was lovely with lots of views of the Pacific Ocean. The wedding venue was 16 miles beyond our first beach camping experience with our family back in 1984, Refugio State Beach.

Each table had a book by a favorite author of Caleb and Marie. Each guest found a library card on file at the guest book table to see what book and author they should look for to see where they were to be seated.

I was happy to see that our table was Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment. There were a few more Russians at our table!

Here’s the table where we found our library cards and were able to sign the guest book. They had photos of the parents and grandparents on their wedding days. Sweet!

There were a few tables that I would have been very comfortable at.

They had a special coloring book for the younger guests with crayons at the tables where they would be sitting.

Blueberry Jam for each family to take home to remember the special wedding at the Blueberry Farm.

Just in case you doubted whether or not we were on a working ranch here come the cows and the horses!

After the sun set and on our way out of the ranch we stopped on a section of the road to look up. The sky were amazing with a view of stars I haven’t been able to see in a very long time. Wish I could have gotten a photo of it.

I am happy to announce that we were able to get both our cars in the garage again. That means we have everything out of the garage and back in the house in it’s new or old spot. Such a good feeling. Dear still has touch up and baseboard work to do along with closet shelving and organizing.

What’s happening for you this weekend?

Christmas Casual

We’ve been enjoying Christmas Casual in our Kitchen/Dining area. I bought those fun button up napkin rings at Crate and Barrel and I think they go perfectly with the napkins Judy from My Front Porch gifted me with last Christmas. I have 2 of each napkin design.

Our meal out for our anniversary was nice but it’s one of those places that we won’t rush back to. I did try a couple things I’ve never had before and was not disappointed. I had never had Farro grains before and they were prepared nicely with salted beets and lemon. The dishes were small enough that we decided to also have dessert which was a panna cotta with hazelnuts.

I’m happy to report I got our Christmas letter done. Now to address and mail the cards…

We’ve gotten a few Christmas cards already. Since I took this photo there are a few more hanging. One new addition this year that we are enjoying are our remote controlled battery operated candles that I bought at Costco. It’s fun to light them all with one push of the button and knowing they don’t need to be watched as carefully as traditional candles.

Hope you are already experiencing Christmas blessings…

Halloween Tablescape Thursday…

Today is a fun day in blog world because Susan at Between Naps on the Porch hosts Tablescape Thursday. It’s a chance to set a table and share your ideas with others. It’s fun to see the creativity out there. Because Saturday is Halloween I decided to try to come up with a Halloween Scape.

I found 4 of these cute Pumpkin and Scarecrow Placemats at a thrift store last weekend. I paid $1.95 for all 4. I wanted to show you them before I covered them up with chargers and stuff. The spider dish candle holder was from Target clearance last year and I think I paid about 50 cents for it.

The white chargers with black jewel borders were from T.J. Maxx. The square pumpkin plates are paper from Target. The polka dot napkins and the Pewter forks, knives and spoons were from a thrift store, also.

I don’t have a lot of Halloween accessories but was happy to scrape up enough for a scape :0)

Have a safe and sane Halloween Weekend everyone…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Mosaic Monday ~

Head over to Mary’s at Little Red House and join Mosaic Monday. It’s fun to see all the different themes and photos put together into a mosaic/collage.

This mosaic is from photos taken of our dinner table on Saturday. My brother and SIL came over for the day and dinner so I had fun coming up with this table setting. I’ll be showing more for Tablescape Thursday.

Have a good week everyone!

Tablescape Thursday ~ Spring #1

Welcome to my first Spring Table Setting. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch is the hostess for this weekly event in bloggy world. Click on the Tablescape badge to see more tablescapes or to join in the fun.

Thanks for your visit. I’m looking forward to seeing Tables set for Spring and Easter over the next few weeks.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

St. Patty’s Appetizer Setting ~

Yippee! It’s time to set and see some tablesettings from around the Blogisphere. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch is our hostess for this weekly event. If you ever have a table setting you want to share you can join in, too. Click on the image above to get to Susan’s blog where you can see more tablescapes.

My tablescape today is actually an ottoman scape. It’s St. Patty’s Day appetizer setting for two. I got these great artichoke plates at Goodwill a couple weeks ago for 99 cents each!

We’re going a little Irish here so there’s some good Jameson Whiskey for the gentleman of the house and a nice Irish Guinness for the lady of the house.

I think I’ll have to play my Cd by the Chieftains while we enjoy our artichoke appetizers.

I will be making the traditional Corn Beef and Cabbage with potatoes next Tuesday but I wanted to share a little Irish with you for Tablescape Thursday. Enjoy…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Table Setting