Is your snow cap on?

I am still hoping for snow.  Please, please Mother Nature.......

Dibba, Dibba, Dibba, Dibba, Dum.

I am getting ready for Christmas and New Year's Eve.  My living room is filled with boxes.  Some of them to be mailed out and some filled with Christmas decorations.  There are gift wrapped packages here and there because I don't have my tree yet.   I have walked many miles and searched for the perfect Christmas tree for 2015 and I think I have one picked out.

As you can see in this photo of the last of my petunias, we did have some snow at Thanksgiving, but it's melted and it has been raining for days.  I need everyone to put on their snow hats and wish for snow for sledding.



Mixed in with the Christmas preparations, I have been re-making the songbooks for our sing-a-long on New Year's Eve.  

 I am ready to type up the index and get the copies made.  No more, "I don't have page 71", during the sing-a-long.



The wine carboys have been moved to the bay window and are wrapped in their blankies.

I have also bottled my Plum Liqueur, which is actually called Slivovitz.



On Sunday Ann, Ellie and I went to the cafe to listen to Beth and Bruce.  It was great to see Julie and also Tim and Risa, Carolyn and Larry and a lot of other friends and neighbors.

                             

 A little wine always helps. 

It was a bit difficult to get a good photo because of the lighting.  The music was wonderful, as always.

Beth and Bruce played and sang some beautiful songs.

I got a great shot of the rose on our table when I was trying to take a photo with the flash.

I hope everyone has been rehearsing The House of the Rising Sun and If I Were A Rich Man.  It's almost time.....

"All day long I'd biddy, biddy bum......."

It's pie baking, turkey roasting time......

.....which means that the morning after you have set your oven to clean, you do not want to see this when you open the oven door.

Oh no!  

The Kalispell Burkharts were here on the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving and since the oven element wouldn't arrive until Monday, I baked the turkey in a roaster. It actually turned out really moist and tender.   There was no time to bake the pies though, so for the first time ever, we had bakery pies for our dessert.  I think if you put enough ice cream or whipped cream on top of a piece of pie, it really doesn't matter whether it was homemade or not.

Fed Ex delivered the oven element yesterday and today Retired Mountain Man is going to get it installed. I am so fortunate that he is one of those "Guy - guys".  You know, the kind that can take a Q-tip and a pocket knife and go out into the wilderness and build you a shopping mall.

 Let the pie baking begin!  

A DIY person I am so not......

On Wednesday night the big wind storm hit.  It blew some of our metal roofing loose on the northeast corner of the house.  The winds were so strong that it was a pretty horrifying sound to say the least.  The loose metal roofing banging around in with every wind gust.

We were without electricity for 30 hours and Retired Mountain Man and I had gone to bed the following night and had given up hope of having power restored when we saw the lights from an Avista truck reflecting on the walls of the bedroom.  We knew they were checking to see if our fuses were still in place, which they were.  About 20 minutes later our electricity was restored.

All of this was happening as we were discussing whether to buy a portable generator to keep our freezers, refrigerator and the fan to our wood furnace going in a power outage.  I think we have decided to make a purchase.

Fortunately for us, our good friend Tim was scheduled to come by to install our two new toilets and he agreed that he would help us put the roofing back in place.  He did a great job of getting it all screwed back down and also worked the entire length of the roof and screwed down the rest of it.  It's not going to come loose in the next storm.

While he and RMM were working on that project, I was laying down the new tile in the basement bathroom.  It took me all day, but it's finally done.  Hooray!  One more project off of my list.

I'm glad we bought the quality tile even though it was more difficult to work with it should last a long time.  Jon says it looks perfect!

And here it is!

Today is my day to can the salsa for 2015.  I have 36 pint jars in the dishwasher and I am getting ready to put together the salsa.    Photos later.  It's going to be a busy day.