Freezing rain and a crackling fire

What a difference a day makes!  It is absolutely terrible outside today.  

High winds and freezing rain beating against the windows....

The windows on the front of our house are totally covered in a even layer 

of pebbly ice.  It's days like this that remind me that we do live on a large rock

in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.....and it is January after-all.

Nothing to do but get hubby to light a nice fire in the fireplace 

and brew up a big mug of peppermint tea!!

(Notice that awesome mug-----quickly became my new "all time favorite", 

from our precious little granddaughter for Christmas.) 

Cheers

:)

Snow Globe Day

It has been snowing all day.  It's lovely though....no wind. 
I went outside and took a walk around the yard. It looks just like a snow globe ...

Cheers

:)

Best wishes to you all for 2017!!

Happy 

New 

Year!

Seasons Greetings!

                            

Christmas Memories

It's amazing how things trigger certain memories.  I find that my biggest trigger is definitely smells.  Some of my most treasured memories of Christmas flood back to me when I smell a spicy fruitcake being baked.

Yesterday, for the first time in about five years, I made a boiled raisin cake.  That was one of my mom's favorites and she baked them often, not only at Christmas.

This Christmas will mark the four year anniversary since we lost our mother, on December 27.  I didn't make cakes that Christmas, or any Christmas since, but yesterday I was overwhelmed with the urge to pull out mom's old cookbooks and do some "Christmas baking".

Her cookbooks were all well-used and she loved to clip recipes from newspapers and magazines, and tape them inside the covers of all of her cookbooks, wherever she could find space!

 

I mixed up the Cherry Cake recipe, and baked it in two 6 inch round pans.........

and the famous Boiled Raisin Cake........

I then performed the ultimate "no-no" in mom's books, and cut it as soon as it cooled.  Mom always made her cakes weeks before Christmas and let them age in beautiful old tins, wrapped in waxed paper.  I just couldn't wait.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas!!!

CHEERS

:)