My CottageCore Home

 Have you ever heard this term?

I have and last night, at my gathering for mom's from our homeschool co-op, one sweet gal said, "I knew it! I knew your home would be magical. It's so CottageCore." I thanked her, her words made my heart sing.

"I like English Cottage style," I said. She commented that she did, too. It really was sweet of her to express those compliments to me. You can find kindreds everywhere, even between a woman closer to 60 than 50, and a woman in her 30's. I'm still smiling.

Of course, my little cottage was looking it's best last night. 

Here are some photos I took this morning.

CottageCore is really an idealized country life. People all over Instagram,  YouTube, and Pinterest show their CottageCore lives.

I smile. I'm finally in style, you know. Hip. Happening. (grin)

I have just lived by the adage of making your home warm and welcoming for your family. Make is cozy. I like ambient lighting, pillows, blankets to wrap up in, candles, my diffuser pumping out scent. I like English style secretaries, my great-grandmother's china hutch, Tiffany style lamps, with red of course, china, silver plate, tea cups. It all makes me happy.

And I love it when guests come over and are immediately comfortable and feel welcome.

Goals accomplished.

I'd love to hear about how you have decorated your home. Do you use family heirlooms? Modern? Farmhouse? Tell me in the comments!

Let's Chat

 

Tomorrow I am going to tea with my mom and my friends Katie, Jennifer, and Ruth. Katie was widowed in August, and it'll be good to be with her again. She's busy with her little boys, and her big kids. Ruth lives nearly four hours away (she is Jen's mil) and we always try to see her when she is visiting.

Here is a photo of the tea room we love to visit. This was a few years ago in the autumn. Can't wait to be together tomorrow.

I found this photo on the blog from many years ago. This was when we had the bedroom we're in now, but it was because our four daughter's shared the primary suite. We had a double bed in those days.

We are back in this room, because my parents are in the primary suite! Now, however, we have a king size bed! A California King, no less. 

If you are observant, you'll see the same Waverly pattern on the bed. We found it on Ebay earlier this year. This was a special set that Waverly did with Target years ago. I kept looking for it and finally found it! It was very reasonably priced too, and in perfect condition!

We are nearly to the end of October, and I'll be sad to see it go. It's my favorite month. We've had lovely, mild weather, but not too warm! We've had sunshine and grey skies. Last night we got a big thunderstorm! The rain was lovely coming down most of the evening.

Our friend Denny was here, I made Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice soup for dinner. It's a hit here. With it getting darker earlier, by the time we ate dinner at a little after 6:00pm, I had my candles on, the diffuser going. We have the light over the table on a dimmer switch so we can adjust the lighting. I hate eating with bright over head lighting.

It was cozy. 

We are starting to get good color here, and I am hoping that it will last through the weekend. Tim and I will be away Friday through Tuesday to celebrate my mother in law's 100th Birthday on Sunday! Bless her heart.

I want to show you two photos of the same tree taken three years ago.

This photo was taken on a Tuesday

This photo was taken on Thursday the same week!

Once the color gets going, it can go fast! I don't want to miss this beauty.

I won't be home on Friday to do my Good News Friday post, but I'll try to get it posted late on Thursday.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Weekend

 I'm enjoying these autumn weekends.

For our Friday Family Game Night, we decided to roast hotdogs over a fire, and to enjoy the beautiful autumn weather. It was very nice and relaxing.

On Saturday Tim had a job in the morning but in the afternoon we decided to take a spontaneous road trip to see the fall foliage a few hours away. It rained for a while, the area that was supposed to be peak foliage wasn't quite, but we found a lovely road to travel down, saw some cute little towns, and enjoyed time with mom and dad.

Mom took this photo.

Kyle had gone to the Adirondacks with Rachel for the day. She met up with a friend from school and enjoyed seeing Word of Life campus' changes since she graduated a few years ago. They had a good time, too.

Sunday was a good day in church. I was reminded that I am often impatient for God to work on my timetable. We need to trust him with those people and things we pray for!

We had pulled pork sandwiches here at home, with coleslaw and baked beans. We had cooked the pork loin all night in the crockpot and by the time we got home from church, it was tender and delicious.

Then I made some cappuccino muffins for some friends. Tim was going to return a trailer and some work equipment to our friends shop, which is on the same property as their house, and even though they weren't home, we left the muffins for them. You can find the recipe on this {post.}

We've had a mild autumn so far, and my zinnia and roses are loving it. The climbing rose next to the deck is full of roses right now, and I sent Kamryn out to cut some yesterday while I did dishes after lunch.

They are very sweet.

I hope you had a very good weekend. So much going on, I hope you are paying attention and praying. Then making your voice heard to your senators and representatives! They work for us. So do our governors, doctors, etc. 

Good News Friday

 

Let's all find a way to tell our government NO! We like our freedom, thank you very much! Take a stand, speak truth to others, help people wake up!

Did you see the big walk outs from General Electric? 

Southwest Airlines has now said they will not place unjabbed employees on unpaid leave. They saw how disrupted their flights were last week, when employees took their unused paid vacation time, and the holidays are upon us. They don't want a repeat of that during Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Have you seen this video?

Again, let me be clear. I support your right to be jabbed. This is the land of the free. I just also want American's to be free to say no to the jab. When a government starts threatening businesses to force them to demand that their employees are jabbed as a condition of their employment, we are in dangerous waters.

But look at this list of individuals and companies pushing back and having success.

Have you seen that the NIH has now admitted that they funded "gain of function" at the Wuhan Lab? I'm sure that Fauc* said that they didn't fund that, and that Senator Rand Paul, who is a doctor, didn't know what he was talking about and was lying.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. Will Fauc* be held in contempt for LYING UNDER OATH? Will the different scientists start turning on each other now? The truth always comes out eventually.

The big news from yesterday is Truth Social!  You can sign up {here}. DJT has begun a social media platform that will be similar to Twitter. There will also be Trump Plus which sounds like it will be a place for streaming movies, etc. Won't it be great to have a platform for information that is not censored?!

Did you see that it came out that factcheck.org, you know those fact checkers making sure people don't spread misinformation about cov*d and potential treatments, is funded by vaccine companies?!

I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up?

Merrick Garland, the US Attorney General, has been having family make money off of issues that the government is promoting. His son in law owns the company that produces the CRT materials. His wife works for a company that opposed audits. Corruption much?

For interesting reading look up Fauc*'s wife. 

The circle of corruption is tight among those families. It wouldn't take much to get the dominos falling.

Truth is on the move, friends. I can see it everyday. Let's keep our eyes open for it and share it with others! Let's all do our part! Be brave, be bold!

God allowed us to be here at this point in history for a reason!

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup (Miss Mustard Seed Recipe)

 

source

I saw this recipe on Marion's blog and thought it sounded great. I love a good creamy soup. (This photo is from her blog)

Here is the recipe and at the end I'll tell you what I did differently.

INGREDIENTS

  

• 3 T butter
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 3 chicken breasts
• salt & pepper
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 T chopped garlic
• 1 small vidalia onion, chopped
• 1 cup carrots (chopped or shredded)
• 2 ribs celery (chopped)
• 64 ounces unsalted chicken stock
• 2 boxes near east original wild rice (save 1 spice packet)
• 1 cup whole or 2 % milk
• 1 cup cream
• 1/4 cup flour
• splash of white wine (optional)
• salt & pepper to taste
• fresh chopped parsley for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

 

• Preheat dutch oven to medium-high heat with drizzle of olive oil and 2 T butter.
• Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry. Salt and pepper chicken. Brown in dutch oven on both sides, about 4-5 minutes per side until cooked through. Remove chicken and set aside.
• Add chopped onions, carrots, celery, thyme, garlic, and 1T butter to the dutch oven. Cook on medium heat until soft.
• Add two boxes of wild rice, one spice packet, and 31 ounces unsalted chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Once soup is boiling, turn heat to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes.
• Mix 1 cup milk and 1 cup cream with 1/4 cup flour to make a slurry. Set aside.
• After 20 minutes, remove lid and stir. The broth will be mostly absorbed into the rice. Add slurry of milk, cream, flour, and remaining 32 ounces of chicken broth. Stir and bring back to a boil over medium-high heat. Once soup reaches a boil, turn down to medium low heat until thickened. Add a splash of white wine for flavor (optional.) Shred chicken with a fork and stir into soup. Salt & pepper to taste. Top with fresh chopped parsley.

This soup is fantastic!

I did a few things differently but only because I used what I had.

1. I cooked it in a regular pan and not a dutch oven.

2. I used wild rice I bought at Aldi and the flavoring is in with the rice, and not in a separate packet. It was delicious.

3. I didn't use celery, or top with fresh parsley, because I didn't have any of either item.

4. I didn't give a splash of white wine for the same reason as above.

I did not miss the celery, parsley, or white wine. My family raved about this soup, and I will be making it again.

source

Knitting Season

 

Mom wanted to go to Costco yesterday, and I had a gift card for Hobby Lobby that I wanted to use, so she and I headed out in the afternoon.

They have all their autumn and Christmas things on sale, so I had a good look at those items. I really have paired down what I do for the holidays, and I didn't need anything. 

I looked at various other things, then headed for the yarn. It's knitting season for me. I love to have things to do with my hands while I watch something or listen to a podcast.

I'm addicted to their color and the feel of these velvety yarns. I also bought a new size of needle, and have determined that this winter, I'm going to get on youtube and learn to knit new stitches and maybe even how to do cables.

I really want to be able to knit sweaters for my grands, and I may try mittens this year. Kennedy is definitely getting a hat for her little, nearly bald head!

Do you knit or crochet? If so how did you learn? I learned to knit from a Klutz book, and have used the basic knit, purl ever since!

Weekend

 This weekend was all about our Fall Fest. Friday night though, Tim and I went to dinner with the realtors that sold my parents house. Tim does inspections for them during the year, and he always highly recommends them for buying or selling a house. They wanted to thank us for the referral and they said the sale for my parents house was so easy and smooth. Apparently that doesn't happen very often.

On Saturday, I went to the pumpkin wagon and bought four pumpkins for $6.00. Two pumpkins were $2 each and two were $1 each.

After church, and a lunch of fund raiser pretzel bread sandwiches (perfect for a busy afternoon) we set up tables on our driveway for hot and cold drinks and food. Kay made her excellent chili, we had hot dogs, and people brought something to share. We had cider we bought at our local produce stand. They make their own and we love it.

Tim and the guys (Kyle, Nate, and Wes) hung our outside lights on our patio area, and we had my fire ring and lots of seating on the patio.

Tim gave his famous hay rides, probably about 8 or 9 and mostly the same people. The last one of the day was in the dark with the nearly full moon shining brightly! They loved it! A few of the teen boys were howling at the moon and it set the farm dogs to barking! LOL!

I'm hoping my kids got some photos and will let me share them! 

The teens, who are a sibling group, stayed later, so did Kamryn and Klaire and they played hide and seek in the dark, and freeze tag. They all had fun and I had fun hanging out with them by the fire, talking and drinking hot mulled cider! One of the sisters, aged 19 said, "We should do this more often!" 

I agree!

It's a gift to offer hospitality, and to give love and receive it back. I'm thankful for the ability we have to host people on our property.

It was a chilly day, and a cold evening. The first real autumn weather day we've had. It was lovely in every way.

Now I have time to slow down a for a week or so. Then Tim and I head to Florida for his mom's 100th Birthday on October 31st! Amazing.

Did you all have a good weekend? Do you have good fall color where you are? We are starting to get good color here. It's a little later than most years, but not by much. Our drive to church was lovely yesterday.

Good News Friday

 Well Friends, here we are at another Good News Friday! 

There is a lot going on everyday, a lot of it is scary, but most of it, I believe, is leading us to a new awareness of how our country has been run for many years. We thought we were electing people who were on the side of the people but it always turned out that they weren't. We always wondered why conservatives gave in every. single. time. Now we know. They are all on the same team.

The term rino means Republican In Name Only, and it applies to so many in the senate and congress. We have to be very careful who we trust. I do believe though that a change is coming. With the people of  America awake, I believe that we will see a fundamental change in our politics. It's going to take a battle, not physically, but of the will. 

We've believed for too long, that we have no power. But the people are realizing we hold all the power! 

I was happy to see this!

There are NBA players, and others who have not gotten the jab, who are speaking out because of the right to medical freedom. Brandon Goodwin of the Atlanta Hawks, got the jab then struggled that week playing games. He went to the doctor and found out he has blood clots. You can read about it {here}.

Miss World Netherlands has pulled out of the beauty pageant final in December saying, "After I was crowned, we were told that if you want to go to Miss World you must be {jabbed}. So I thought about it carefully and considered taking the jab, but ...I don't feel good about it. This was simply the best choice for me. I think I would have regretted more if I had done something that I actually don't feel comfortable with."

Parents all over are still speaking out and realizing they have a say in their children's education.

Some parents have started small 'pod' schools. They've hired teachers who didn't want to be jabbed or deal with the masks, etc to teach their children in small schools! Genius! We need to change education from the way its been indoctrinating our kids and not really teaching them academics, to places that teach the truth. The US hasn't been perfect in all of her dealings around the world. It's okay to know that, but it's also not right to teach that we are the worst nation in the world. That simply is not true!

Airline employees are taking a stand, and we should be grateful! This administration wants to make it so that they only passengers who can fly have to be jabbed. That's what they want to be the next thing because American's are not complying. If the airline employees can break this mandate then they can't really apply it to passengers! So let's back the employees!

I can't find where I read it but I read that the person who owned the restaurants in one of the terminals at the Denver airport, had mandated that all of his employees get the jab, by like November 1st. (he owns 6 restaurants) All of the hostesses, servers, dishwashers, bussers, etc, walked out and wouldn't come to work. He did away with his mandate!

This admin uses words like "Federal Law" then walk them back when/if someone calls them on it. There is no law, no rules about companies having to have their employees jabbed. They just want you to think there is! They know they can't make Americans do anything like this, so they are trying to get the corporations to force it.

We found out this week that Bid*n called the airline CEOs and threatened to take contracts away from them if they didn't do it. Is this legal? 

Is anyone keeping track of all the illegal things this admin is doing?

What this shows me is that they are desperate. They know they cheated, they know we know they cheated and they are trying to keep us under control, like we had been until DJT woke us up!

Governor DeSantis has told all shipping companies that they are welcome at Florida ports! Texas and other states should do the same thing!

What is happening in this country isn't because of cov*d, it is a purposeful plan to bring America down. This is what they had planned if HRC had become president. O set the stage and HRC would have finished the plan. Elevate China, reduce the US to a third world country. They are working hard to try to accomplish this!

Research how many shipping ports in the US are owned by Chinese state run companies. (it's five) Research how many companies are owned by Chinese companies. {here}

Infiltration from within.

The light is shining on all of this unconstitutional and illegal behavior. The people are awake and standing up. 

Let's also be wise and prepare. We filled our propane tank about 6 weeks ago and we are set for the next year. Utilities are going to sky rocket, food costs are up, there are delays. Keep your gas tank filled on your cars. Keep an eye out on your neighbors, too.

Friends, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that I think the most important thing to take care of is your eternity. Our loving God gave his own son, so that we could be reconciled to God and become his children. He's a good father, a constant companion, the one who wants the best for me - including correction when needed! I hope you know him.

Isaiah 41:10 - 

'Fear not, for I am with you;

Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you,

Yes, I will help you,

I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'

Have a great weekend.