As We Close Out 2025!

 poodlegirls  cooking, Daily Happenings, Life at home, Nature, Uncategorized  December 29, 2025 1 Minute

Only a few more days left this year!  Seems like it just started.  Did I get everything done I had hoped too?  No, but then that is a given.   I don’t bother with making lists of what I want to get accomplished.   Lists rarely work for me unless they are short term ones!

December is always a hard month for me having lost both on my parents.  Mom 23 years ago and Dad 10 years ago. Galen is good at getting our tree up and decorated.  We only put out a few other things.  Christmas table runners and table cloths.  The house looked like Christmas.

My parents are buried at Indiantowngap National Cemetery.   We donate to Wreaths of America. Have one placed on their headstone plus donate for several others.  This is the 1st year they didn’t have enough wreaths! That is sad. Did get a picture of Dad’s.

We had friends over for Christmas dinner and then again the Saturday after Christmas. Didn’t want to waste a halfway cleaned up house!  They wouldn’t have cared if it hadn’t been tho!

We did have a nice surprise on Christmas day.  Got a message from a neighbor. A flock of White Pelicans landed on our small lake!  They were still there when Galen went down with his camera. He said it was a flock of 16 or more.

No sewing this month. Not even dog bandanas!  Did manage a little more purging of fabrics, but still more to do.  My design wall hasn’t changed.  Maybe January!!!!!

There are several New Year day quilt alongs. Just maybe I will participate.  Dinner is planned for that day- pork, saurkraurt and mashed potatoes!  Hard leaving the PA Dutch roots behind!

Hope everyone has a safe ending to 2025 and a very Happy New Year. 

 

First Week of December

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving Day.  Galen worked on some outdoor decorations.

Front entry

Thinking back to past Thanksgivings; in 1988 we spent Thanksgiving week getting ready to move to Taiwan.  Galen accepted a transfer with 3M.  Supposed to be 3 to 5 years.  In 1998 we were packing out of our home in Taiwan to move to Texas!  Yes, our 3 to 5 turned into 10!  1n 1993 he took a regional job with 3M.  A lot more traveling involved. 3 of our 4 transfers were in November! Now our Thanksgivings are a lot less frantic!!

Galen’s camera is now working again.  Somehow when he had taken the camera in earlier the settings got changed. We went out one morning to Granger.

Love the lake

Osprey

We are finally getting cooler temperatures; much cooler!  Had to turn on the heat and put the heavier quilt on our bed.  Lady’s coat is available if needed.  Sunny and cool is good, but cloudy and cool- the house feels damp. We even have a few nights forecasted in the 30’s but not freezing. The birds are quite active at our feeders. Especially the finches.  The Downey Woodpecker is in every day too.

With the cooler weather now it’s good soup weather.  Some of my canned ham and bean soup last night.  I think sometime this week we will have some PA. Dutch chicken pot pie.  Haven’t made it for a little while.  Good comfort meal!

Still making bandanas.  A few more Mickey Mouse Christmas ones for Lady’s groomer and started on some for after the holidays,

102 made in November!

With all the bandanas being made I have a very full container of cut off corners.  I need to sort through, organize by the 3 sizes and start thinking of a project! Have a few ideas, see what I end up making.

Cut offs from bandanas.

We hope to get our tree up this week.  That means I need to finish getting my sewing stuff out of the living room.  It’s been a place to sort, toss and organize!

That about takes care of things here.  Busy getting ready for Christmas and getting things done inside and outside the house!

 poodlegirls  cooking, Daily Happenings, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Our Girls, Travels, Uncategorized Leave a comment  December 1, 2025 1 Minute

 

Thanksgiving Week

Turkey is defrosting and menu is planned. Just us so keeping it fairly simple!

I have a very unhappy husband-camera problems. This is not good when he has a trip to the valley planned in December! We were out on Saturday. Nice clear day. Things were flying, lots of hawks. Good picture of the Burrowing owl before he flew etc. Came home, downloaded his pictures- black and white! The only thing he can figure is when he had the camera looked at earlier in the week something happened to the settings.

Phoebe

Earlier in November we had Barttlet out to see what trimming we needed to have done on our trees. This past Thursday the trees were trimmed. I need to find the pictures from when we moved here almost 27 years ago. It’s hard to imagine how much we have had cut off or Mother Nature helped by doing her own pruning!

Lady had her 10th birthday this past Saturday.  Of course we celebrated by getting her a birthday cake.

And yes more dog bandanas were sewn. Birthday ones and Christmas ones in various sizes

The birthday ones for Lady

Christmas

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving

 poodlegirls

 

A Day Late and No Change on the Wall!

I took last week off from blogging.   Stayed busy doing what I don’t know! Did make more dog bandanas.  Lisa was here from California.  Sent back more Fall. Thanksgiving and Christmas ones back with her. Now I am working on Christmas ones for the shop here. These are a few of the Christmas ones.

I did meet my friend Osie. Gave her 3 small tumbler quilt tops for her to quilt.  Also several boxes of fabric for Linus. These tumblers had been waiting to escape their bin and get into something usable

I also picked up my sewing machine that was in for cleaning.  Happy to have it back again.

We did get out one morning. Not much flying but we did get to see the Burrowing Owl.  Galen got one picture then the owl turned his head and was well camouflaged in the grasses!

It was time to dehydrated more chicken strips for Lady’s bedtime snacks. 8 bags now vacuumed  and ready for her.  Hard to believe she will be 10 on the 22nd, Saturday.  Galen  picked up a birthday cake for her at Tailwaggins Dog Bakery.

Lady’s dehydrated chicken

That pretty much does it for me. Till next time.

 poodlegirls  cooking, Daily Happenings, Donation Quilting, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Our Girls, Quilting, Scrap Quilts, Travels

 

Design Wall Monday

 poodlegirls  Daily Happenings, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Quilting, Travels, Uncategorized, Wildflowers  November 3, 2025 2 Minutes

Last week was a good week. I managed to finish more bandanas and started more! I want to get a few more made before mailing them. I ended up making 87 for the month of October!

Mostly small and extra small

This stack of blocks kept telling me to start getting them on the design wall. I made these maybe 2 years ago using Donna Jordan’s free pattern called Mirage.  The pattern and a video is on their website, Jordan Fabrics.  I only have a few up.  Was tired and trying to get block positions correct was taking to much concentration! It’s a start.

We made several trips out to Granger.  First one last Monday.  Not too much flying.  There is a big cattle ranch out there also. The previous Monday the cowboys had their horses in  their trailers along the road.  They had either finished up checking on the herds or hadn’t gone out yet.  This time 2 of them along with 1 of their cattle dogs were heading out.  The other dogs in the trailer weren’t happy at being left behind! Usually when we see them they are way out in another field.

Tuesday evening Galen was walking back to the house and saw 20 to 30 Monarchs on our Mistflower bushes.  I am really upset with myself,  I didn’t think to switch the phone camera to video!  They were busy working the flowers and not sitting for long. All week there were postings on Facebook about the Monarchs migrating through the central Texas hill country. We still have a few here but nothing like earlier in the week.

We took another drive to Granger this morning. It was a much better trip for pictures. The Redtail Hawks were out; the Harier Hawks are returning for the winter.  The bonus of the day, the Burrowing Owls are back. They start showing up about now.  Although one has taken up residence near Corpus Christie for several months. Galen was able to get close to the little guy for pictures.

We also spent some time going through boxes and asking the question why do I have this?  Fewer boxes now. Still have more to go through but it’s a beginning.

The weather has been nice.  Haven’t had our AC on for a week. A definite plus!!!

Plans for this week, more of the same.  More bandanas made, get the blocks on the design wall and keep going through boxes! Galen will be away for a few days late in the week.  Won’t have to plan meals.  Just me and Lady and she reminds me when it’s mealtime!!