The Cozy Season Has Begun!

 Hello dear friends!  Hope this post find you all safe and sound!  The very mild autumn has turned into the beginnings of winter.  We even had a bit of snow today.  It won't stick because the ground is still too warm, but there's hope. 

Look at this!

After years, perhaps even decades, I've finally managed to get some bittersweet to grow along my fence!  Nothing says autumn like bittersweet.  A long, long time ago, I used to frequent an antique shop that was set in an old grayed barn.  Outside they had a split rail fence with bittersweet tumbling all over it.  I thought it was the most beautiful sight on earth.  Ever since then, I've been on the quest to get the vine to grow in our yard.  Sweet success finally.  It was worth the effort.  I was afraid to cut any, but Ran convinced me to cut a small bouquet for atop our newly made mantle. 

This is the sum total of my Thanksgiving decorating. Used to be that I loved decorating for each holiday, but now that I am old, it is too much of a bother to go up in the attic and poke around. Our attic roof is low and you have to squat like a baseball catcher to move around up there.  Oh the agony on my knees!  Catchers have my respect.  I'd be praying that the game wouldn't go into extra innings if I had to stand in that positions for any length of time.  I used to laugh at my mother for being so Scrroge-like about decorating for the holidays and now I'm the same way, perhaps even worse.

Does Anyone Think Like I Do?

What a month November has been for bargains!  The other day we received the newsletter from our Mennonite store.  Butter was $1.99 a pound!  So Ran and I scooted right down there before it was sold out.  Surely everyone would be taking advantage of such a sale?  As soon as I got in the store, I hurried over to the butter, expecting to beat off a crowd with a stick.  I was the only one looking at butter. Although the store was crowded, nary a cart had a package of butter in it.  Anyway, I bought ten pounds.  That, along with the deal I got previously for @2.37/lb. will keep me in butter for a year.  "Wow!  You must plan on baking a lot." someone said to me.  When I tried to explain to them that I buy it when the price is low and freeze it, so that I won't have to buy it at four dollars later, they looked at me like I was crazy.  Perhaps I am.  But I'm about the only person these days that isn't bemoaning the price of groceries.

It was also that time of year for my Amish grocer to sell cheese for $2.20 a pound.  Bought ten pounds of that.  And Meijers had turkey for forty-nine cents a pound.  Which I purchased and canned up.  So for less than fifty dollars I have ten pounds of butter, ten pounds of cheese and eight lovely jars of turkey in my pantry.  Oh!  And a couple jars of turkey broth. While we were in the area, we stopped in at a thrift store and I found a Bob Timberlake silk and cashmere sweater for fifty cents, so throw that onto the bargain heap. Ha!  

Tools of the Trade

If you have read any of my posts, you know we live in a very small house, under a thousand square feet.  All of the appliances and furniture in our home is apartment-sized.  Fortunately our refrigerator has a slightly larger freezer than most apartment-sized  ones.  We keep all our garden produce that cannot be canned,such as; cauliflower broccoli, berries (we don't like them canned), etc.  That is what that freezer is for.  We have a secondary freezer that is approximately  three feet tall by twenty inches wide that we keep bargains like the butter and cheese.  It is also where we store any fish Ran catches. He's's been catching daily this past week, thank heavens! If Ran catches a pike, I will can it. It tastes like the finest albacore tuna, but any other fish just tastes too strong when canned. That is all that we freeze.  I always say do not freeze any more than you are  willing to lose.  Too many times, we've had power outages that have lasted for days and we've had to throw out everything in the freezer.  Better to be safe than sorry.

Another good tool for self-sufficiency is a vacuum sealer machine.  We found a high-end one with enough rolls of the bags to last us years at an estate sale for $30. Estate sales are a great place to find such things.  Vacuum sealing the cheese and freezing it keeps it just as fresh as the day we froze it and keeps it from getting that rubbery texture.  And they really minimize your freezer space when you have limited space.

You don't have to look like a bum, just because you buy your clothes second-hand.  Most sweater just need a good hand wash in the sink, blocking and a good depilling with one of those sweater shavers.  The look better than new when finished.  This  holds true of any sweaters that you've owned for a while, also.  You don't need to own a lof of clothes, you just need to take proper care of what you do own.  Most people these days don't even own an iron.  How much better clothes look with a good pressing. 

 Back in the dark ages when I was girl, it was part of our Saturday evening ritual in preparation for church to get out my dad's suit and our woolen coats and give them a good pressing with a pressing cloth, and polish our shoes  (lighter fluid took the scuffs off of white shoes) and  shave off any pills on our sweaters.We used a single-blade razor back then.  How many times I shaved too close and had to darn the hole I made.  I became very well tutored on darning holes. Ha! A final brush down with the lint brush as we went out the door and a stern warning to my father not to pet, let alone pick up, any dog until after church, lest he ruin the hours of pressing and brushing.  Keeping up appearances was important back then.  It was a family effort. I kind of miss it.

Speaking of Riuals

One of my monthly "rituals" is to take out all my journal and diary-type books on the first of the month, such as  the Gladys Tabor chronicles, the country diaries,  etc, and read the corresponding monthly chapter.  I also go back and read all my posts for that month.  Evidently, although I write each year that the weather is strange, it is exactly as the preceding year. Ha!

Crafting

Well, I finished my vest to match my teddy bear's sweater.  Several times I tried to take a picture of it, but the pictures just came out weird, so I gave up.  November is the month I start working on Christmas gifts.  It is hard to believe the end of the year is quickly approaching.  Right now is that strange part of the year for me. I don't want to wish away time, but I am tired of the "pleasant" weather and want to start burrowing in.  Summer this year just lasted too long.  

But we can be thankful, wherever we are in life. Every day I pray that God's will be done, and although some days it isn't clear to me just what His will is, I put my trust in Him.  I guess, one of the gifts of being old is that I've become a sort of spectator to life.  I have seen, as I'm sure you have also, many highs and lows in life, but each day we are here on earth is blessing.  Some times it may take years to discover what that blessing is, but trust me, better yet, trust Him, it is!

Hugs

Jane