HomeAbout MeMy EtsyTutorialsContact Me

Sunday, December 29, 2013

So Much Going On This Christmas Time ..

Hello my dear friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this year ~ mine was for sure very busy and a little crazy too.

With so much going on in our house and garden (I will tell you more about it at a later date) just before Christmas, I had very little time to be creative to the point of not being able to have a proper creative thought develop really. I did have chores that needed doing around the house though so that is what I worked on. I decided to stain my new dining room furniture just a few days before Christmas and take the old stuff away, not even knowing if my new table would be ready to use ... silly thing to do but I was lucky ... everything dried in time.

Unfortunately my younger daughter Caylagh was sick with the flu almost the entire week before Christmas and of course I picked up a little dose of it too and was unwell for two days but the bad one was when my older daughter Ashleigh had food poisoning from a beverage she had bought on the morning of Christmas Eve. I was so glad she was staying with us because the poor thing was so sick and I spent Christmas Eve running around the house between taking care of her, wrapping the last presents and cooking Christmas dinner but luckily she recovered somewhat for Christmas Day which was quiet and very nice and now she is well again.

I don't know if I have ever told you about our Christmas tradition that we have.
We actually have our big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve ~ we started this over 13 years ago whilst still being in the army because it worked the best for us this way and it meant that Christmas Day is free for opening presents and fun. Every Christmas Day the girls open all their presents in the morning but one ~ that is their treasure hunt gift. Every Christmas Day after in the evening when everything is quiet and calm we have a treasure hunt which is where the girls are given the first clue and then they have to solve clues to find the next one and so on until the find their final gift. It is so much fun to them and for us to watch and believe it or not but my girls are 13 and 23 and they still love it!
 
We were also very lucky this year to have a white Christmas with soft fluffy flakes gently falling from the sky on both Christmas Eve and Day. Many other families in Ontario unfortunately weren't so lucky. A large ice storm hit Ontario just before Christmas Eve which just passed us by and over one hundred thousand people spent their Christmas in the dark and without heat. It had started in our town too and at 6 am everything was covered in a thick layer of ice but then it got slightly warmer outside when the sun rose so it didn't last very long.


 
Everything looked so enchanting covered with ice but ...


... shortly later the ice melted into drops of water that ...

 
... were clinging onto everything ...

 
... it could and again looking so beautiful!
 

We also had a new visitor to our backyard which I only noticed because of our cat Iris making such a racket and cackling like mad and looking out of our dining room window. At first I didn't see what all the fuss was about but when I looked up ...


... I saw, what I think is a Kestrel, resting in our neighbours tree ...
such an amazing sight!

The next day the snow came back and gave every thing a fresh dusting just in time for Christmas.





And of course I could not share this post without a new picture of one of the little furry critters that visit us every day now.


As of lately we have about 6 squirrels in our tree all at once waiting for me to feed them.
 
Now that things have calmed down again I have started to work on a new nest design. Will it turn out or not? ... I will have to wait and see until I am done with it.
 
I think I told you about my two music boxes that I made before Christmas but didn't get
 a chance to share them with you yet. I finally managed to take some good photos and next week I will be sharing both of them with all you lovely bloggers here on Todolwen. I am also thinking of another few more new creations and I am hopping to be able to make them soon so do keep stopping by from time to time and see what I have been up too.
 
It is always so nice when you visit me here at Todolwen ... thank you for doing so every time because without you my blog wouldn't be and I am hoping many more of my old followers will find me soon again.
 
I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.
 
Have a peaceful and creative day,
yours,
 
Karen  B.
 
 

4 comments:

  1. Oh what a story about your christmas, Karen!
    Couldn't it be a little bit easier for you?
    Your pictures are so wonderful and I love to see your squirrels!

    Greetings from Germany
    Ines♥

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks to Karen at Desert Cottage I just found you again and I am so thank ful. Now I can catch up on what I have missed. and I have dearly missed you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just love reading your blog and seeing your creations. They truly inspire me! By the way, I am a former raptor rehabilitator and you have an immature Cooper's Hawk in your true. Probably looking for an easy dinner (small bird or rodent) since you feed your backyard critters so well. Keep creating...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Karen, you have a wonderful artistic eye to capture the photos that you have shared with us here. Glad all are feeling better in your home, and looking forward to a creative year. Thank you for all you share with us. Blessings and smiles, Emilou :-)

    ReplyDelete