The Portable Pinewood

Happy New Year!

Happy New Years to friends and family!    

We had a wonderful Christmas with Jed, our younger son, spending over a week with us. During that time we drove to Michigan to see Kip, our older son, and his family. We're always grateful when we have good traveling since the trip from Door County to Holland, Michigan is about 10 hours.    

We returned home Thursday evening, in time to get ready for our annual New Years Eve party with friends. We have had a cheese fondue party every year since getting married and it's been so much fun to continue it in Door County with new friends we have made.

Today I started thinking about the lists I'd made of things to do after the holiday season. I can think of many projects to do for the home; I want to start working on things for our shop; I want to catch up with communication with friends that I'm so far behind on; and the list of things I want to do for myself just grows and grows. I am finally realizing that life is always a balancing act as I can never begin to get everything done that I want to do.

This morning while doing some inspirational reading I read some good ideas which I've been able to think about today:

• Begin each day by asking God to help you prioritize those items which need to be done.
• Do only the things that you really have time to do.
• You may have five things on the list, but only do only of them.  (I wanted to say, "What about   when you have 15 things on your list?")
• Try to accomplish only one thing at a time. (I know that I feel so peaceful on days that I'm able to do this.)
• If you start feeling pressured about getting something finished, ask yourself if it will matter 5 years from now if it gets done today or even gets done at all.

I am trying not to set too many goals this year, but the one goal I want to achieve is to be sharing more thoughts, recipes, and decorating ideas on my blog.    My cousin Nancy gave me this as a gift and has been doing all the computer work for me (for which I'm grateful). Now I have to tackle learning how to do it as I am not a computer person....I tend to resist all the new electronic gadgets.

If you have any thoughts to share regarding the New Year, please write to me.

Vicky

Thanksgiving at Pinewood

Today some friends want to come and help with anything they can, to finish things for our gallery, which we will have open on Saturday, and to bake cookies to share with friends on Saturday. This year we haven't advertised for a Gallery Open House but we're hoping a few friends will be stopping by. I was reading in one of Tasha Tudor's books this morning that one of the things she enjoyed was having people around to help her with projects. I agree. More about Tasha Tudor another time.

We'll be having our dinner at the large table in the gallery. Our Thanksgiving table will have a country theme: a black and red flannel table cloth, white dishes with antique goblets, and red cotton napkins that I made from an old table cloth from Charlie's Cafe in Minneapolis. For the centerpiece, I'm using some small fake green trees (as we live in the pines), two antique white turkeys, which we'll fill with greens, and of course, candles.

After dinner we're all going to work on different projects. The women are going to watch Tasha Tudor's video, Take Peace, and make her ginger Christmas cookies. Some are also going to make some snowmen of clay or try their hand at making paper Moravian Stars. It's become a tradition to work on some fun projects together after we eat. Pumpkin pie comes at the end!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!

Vicky