What's on My Kitchen Counter

Hello friends. Hope your holiday was wonderful.  Ours was fabulous with lots of Grandkid and family time.   Sharing a couple of my favorite pictures today. A sweet note to Santa from one of the grandsons - he misses his elf and he told Santa...melts my heart.  The milk is my ticket to Elizabeth's T-day gathering at her blog where we all raise a cup, glass, etc. each week. This next picture is exactly why a skeleton leaning against your Christmas tree is a bad idea.  The kids loved the tree, but I know people are wondering about us!  You can't tell it is a Harry Potter tree - just looks like a random skeleton - lol! We ate too much over the holiday, and now I am on a serious diet!  Here is some homemade veggie soup with avocado.  It was soooo good.  I ended up putting some in the blender and drinking it too.   Wishing you a lovely New Year.  We all deserve a fab 2022! Hugz,  Nancy

Hello friends! Shockingly, it is T-day and I have a short post.  Finally got the Christmas tree done and one package under it - I better get the others wrapped before anyone comes over! We lost three tubs of oraments again.  The last 3 of 5 years it has happened.  My kids use our storage areas as well so things get moved around.... I just hope they were not donated....  I had just about decided not to do a tree when one of my daughters suggeted a Harry Potter tree.  She went on Amazon and ordered plastic cauldrons, eyeglasses, feathers, owl, trains, and gold balls.  It was fairly reaonable.  I found a few more ornaments at Walgreens (strange but true) and used our Halloween skelly and a fairy my SIL sent us.  The end result is super fun even if a bit quirky.  I am a big Harry Potter fan so it works for me, and hubby even likes it (or says he does).  Some say it doesn't fit into Christmas, but they celebrated Christmas in the HP movies, a...

 Hello Friends. I love Valerie's theme at  **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY*:  When One Door Closes, Another One Opens.   Lots of ideas in my head but so little time!  I did manage to get a page done last weekend and now have a bit of time to post it.   It started out with pieces of a cookie dough sampler box that I die cut and painted with white gesso.  I kept the extra pieces so you could see how they started out.  I had thought about keeping the pink but decided against it.  This is after one layer of gesso.  Another layer of gesso and they re ready for the next step. Of course, I forgot to film the next step which was just a few layers of gouche paint.  Now on to my background which is white gesso thrugh a brick stencil .  I heated it up to expand it and add more texture. Of course, I forgot to get pictures of the painting of the background but it was just different colors of gouche paint until I gave up - literally!  I...

Life is so interesing and full of surprises if you are open to them. Take this picture for instance.  This is what I saw when I walked into the lobby of the Hotel Elyton in Birmingham for a teambuilding conference at work.  I looked at it and had a feelig of deja vu.  Then I got off the elevator to go to my room, and I got that feeling again. Turns out this was the old Colonial Bank in Birmingham building remodeled as a hotel.  I worked at Colonial's headquarters in Montgomery for 19 years.  I had a team in this Birmingham building for years, and I visited it 100s of times.  It brought back a lot of memories that I thought I lost after my big seizure in 2011.  Some good memories of lots of good people.  So sad that the bank went under after the real estate market crash in 2008/2009.  By the way, I think we may be headed for another crash - not as big as 2008/2009, but it is coming. This past weekend, our daughter told us she was going to go i...