Stay Warm & Safe & a Christmas Surprise

 Good morning Sunday,

    We are still spoiled here in the Ozarks area of Missouri with spring like weather, So I can not complain at all that we will be dipping down to the low teens F tonight and for the next few days. Quite a weather drop being in the 70's today to drop that low. We will be getting lots of wind with this as well.

    However, my friends on the east coast especially will be seeing a winter blast of cold with lots of snow and some areas ice. If you have a woodstove or fireplace hoping you have plenty of wood in case of loss of electric.  We have had arctic blizzards in the past at our woods house. One year no electric for 19 days-rural is always last.

  I did call the post office yesterday-not the local post office but their main toll free number. I appreciated the person I talked with that she took my concerns seriously. With no tracking on my Christmas postcards I asked if they could search out the post offices it went to in the beginning-perhaps a mail bag is stuffed somewhere.   Many years ago I sent out a book to someone they never received. At the woods house we had a very small post office with a career postmaster in charge. He did call around and they found it-under some ones sorting table.  My husband thinks I am crazy do be fretting over this-but these were vintage Christmas postcards I found that took time to write and stamp and I had added vintage post stamps on some of them for decoration.  Also so far none of my international friends received their cards and letters either-so am just not happy about this at all. Being seniors with no family this is the way I reach out during the Christmas season.

  Well enough complaining sigh

   I got a wonderful surprise package in the mail from one of my dear slow mail friends. I was going to save it to open on Christmas day to open then-but nope I opened it that day. Smiles   Such a fun and thoughtful gift, watercolor paper pads- large sizes which I have not worked on before, watercolor books-which I am loving, and a large stash of Kantha quilt pieces-I was not familiar with so looked them up on Etsy.  Oh and I almost forgot a small size pack of rice paper to paint on to.

   These were all hand stitched with large running stitches. I took one apart and there were three layers-all different fabrics. Was thinking of using these for my little slow stitch bags-which I am determined to get finished and mailed off this year. The three together are too thick-so am thinking of using one over another fabric of mine to slow stitch on to the bags. There is enough here to put together a pillow too.

  Here is a photo from Etsy  what a fun way to repurpose On Etsy you will find whole quilts and also many selling pieces of fabrics Are you familiar with these?  Beautiful fabrics-and the cut up pieces have endless possibilities.

  Thank you soooo much dear friend

    I made myself a batch of the white cut out cookies-but used all animal cutters since it was Christmas day when I made them.   I used the plant butter-in stick form-and instead of sugar used Swerve sweetener.  and of course my own gluten free blend flour. For the frosting I also used plant butter and Swerve confectionary sweetener. Wasn't sure if this frosting would harden but it did-happy about that.  I was very pleased with the results-I have mine in the freezer so I don't eat too many smiles

 I wanted to share a book I just finished last week-I usually don't read this author's books as for me they are pricey for a kindle version but this one was on sale-this was a book I could not put down-read almost the whole night during one reading session. The author writes a lot of war based books-I loved the characters in this one very much, just excellent story telling based before and during world war two. and the ending was just soo perfect-- and still on sale on amazon kindle 2.99

Please stay safe and warm dear Friends