For the past 4 years I've been getting our Christmas wreaths from a woman named Cindy Kruse. She spends all year long collecting various fir trees, holly, antlers, pheasant feathers and all other manner of things. She creates the most artistic and long lasting wreaths ever!

This year we went to Lakeside Elementary School's annual winter Christmas fund raiser. She always has a display area and Becky and I bought our wreaths there from her.

In the past she's been kind enough to remake my wreath with the Santa decoration that I've saved from the first year I bought her wreath.

I got a new one this year. I think it's just as cute!

Karen told us about the Carriage House that she, Derek, Michael and Suzy went to see last Friday and got Lee and I very excited about it. So we stopped by on Thursday, but no one was home. We called and the son called us back and set an appointment to see it today.

It belonged to Virginia Wood who was an actress in the 60's and 70's. She bought the house 20 years ago and lived there until she died about 9 months ago. Now her son is selling the house.


We were interested as it might be a good investment. I guess the stock market dropping 40% might have some benefits.


The house is around 4,000 sq feet according to the For Sale flyer. It has 2½ bathrooms. One of them is really pink (the ½ bath is purple) and three bedrooms. I don't think Kagan would like the color scheme of the house.

The main bedroom is on the front of the house and has the turret room set up as a make up room. It was pretty cool. Again, I don't think Kagan would like the pink color scheme. It definitely showed a feminine hand in the decorating.


There are closets and cubby's and a lot of interesting under the eve spaces.


It also had a great many beautiful built ins on the main level of the house and a lot of beautiful wood work that we don't see too much now-a-days.

The stair case although not as grand as the Conrad Mansion is still really impressive.

Lee liked the main living room the best. It was a very comfortable room. You can see the library behind Jim. For an old house, they did a good job electrifying it. There were a lot of lights in the rooms. So it wasn't gloomy at all (even though it was typical cloudy Kalispell day).

Jim was telling us the Historical Society was interested in buying the house and he had shown it 29 times since June. (We were number 29) He's gotten some offers but nothing that was going to sell the house. Lee says he doesn't want to have to update it and it does need some updating for modern living so we'll see... I don't think we'll probably buy it or at least if we make an offer it won't be something the sons are going to be too thrilled about.

Carole Keller the fearless head of our women's ministry got a bunch of our Aletheia fellowship women together for a nice afternoon of gabbing (and eating calories that we didn't really need) at Vivian's restaurant.

Hey, but what's the Christmas holidays all about if you don't gain that extra 10 pound of insulation.
Besides, it's cold outside. And we need a New Years resolution to work on - or guilt if you're really such a goody too-shoe - where did that phrase ever come from.

Vivian's sets a really nice table and although I gorged myself at lunch, I still managed to scarf down 2 little petite sandwiches. The best part was the little treats that came afterwards. She makes some really great home made tarts, short breads and other tasty treats that I don't even know the name of.

Viva Christmas!

So my grand plan was to create these really cool aprons to send to Chrissie and Nicole for their first Thanksgiving extravaganza cooking experience. Becky and I went to Joanne fabrics because:
1) They sent me a coupon luring me there with a whopping 40% off and other misc smaller coupons saying they'll take $5, $10, $15 off merchandise.
2) I had this bright idea....

Well after aimless wandering around all the aisles we came upon a display with pre-made aprons. Yes! I am all over not having to cut out the aprons, sew them and hope they come out right.

Then we came upon some cool iron ons "MISO Cool" (with a chinese to got box under it) and "MISO Cute". It WAS too cute. So there was my 10 minute project.

I got it home and of course it took me a couple of days to get at it. When I tried I almost burned the apron as I heated and ironed and heated and iron. The first effort did get scorched and the iron on transfer didn't iron on! ARGHH!!!

Ergo - it's just cookies and recipe cards and now I have to air express it to Haiwaii!

No good deed goes unpunished.

I just discovered this extremely talented artist! You can find his flicker account here.

Of course I think his camera robots set is the coolest!

I wish I was that talented! Then I wouldn't have any junk lying around my house ... or maybe there would be more.

Testing how this works.

I've been working, working, working in the garden. It's a never ending chore.

Part 2. Clearing out the rocks that were put in - oh maybe 30 years ago! Never use that in landscaping if you're not going to religiously blow/rack/feverishly clean up the debris that even supposedly maintenance-free plants produce. (Maintenance free plants is an oxymoron!)

I did manage to replant one area right by the front door. They look a little thin right now but I'm going to be putting in some more spring flowering plants soon.

Here are a couple of my fav pics.

I hope there will be great rewards next spring!