It's a Wonderful Life

I smile when posts come through my Facebook feed saying, "Only 56 more days 'til Christmas' [or whatever the number may be].  Christmas is rapidly approaching and will be here before we know it.

I thoroughly enjoy watching the 1946 movie, It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas Season.  A couple years ago I purchased It's a Wonderful Life trivia game for our family to play on Christmas Eve.  I told everyone to be sure to watch the movie before coming.  It was loads of fun.

Recently the book came through my Facebook feed, 52 Little Lessons from It's a Wonderful Life.  It piqued my interest so I ordered it and it arrived yesterday.

The author said at the beginning of the book that a bank in the city where he lives has a requirement for all new employees going through orientation to watch a series of scenes from It's a Wonderful Life.  The bank president said the message in the film is the message he wants employees to come to work with every day: the idea that our actions make a difference in the community around us.

Each time the author watched the movie he'd jot down a teachable moment or lesson and before he knew it he had accumulated 52 nuggets of wisdom for every week of the year.

I thought it would be fun to go through the book and pick a lesson for everyone in our family to read on Christmas Eve.  

Just to give you an idea, Lesson 1 is about the opening scene in the film when two angels high in the heavens [represented by two pulsing stars] named Joseph and Franklin are discussing who might be sent down to earth to deal with a suicidal man named George Bailey.   Joseph suggests it's an angel named Clarence's turn, although he laments, "He's got the I.Q. of a rabbit."  "Yes," says Franklin, "but he's got the faith of a child - simple."  The lesson is, God Honors Our Childlike Faith."

Below is my collection of "It's a Wonderful Life" memorabilia that is quickly growing.

I gave the large brown cover book to my dad when he was still alive.  It's the 50th Anniversary Scrapbook.  When he passed away I asked my mom if I could have it.  Now it's 78 years since the film's release.

Since I'm a pushover for cookbooks, I ordered two It's a Wonderful Life cookbooks today.  One is written by Karolyn Grimes who played ZuZu Bailey in the movie.  The pics are screen shots from Amazon's website so I apologize the focus isn't sharper.

I'm hoping I can get a few good recipes from the books to make on Christmas Eve to coordinate with It's a Wonderful Life theme.

Are you starting to think about Christmas?

 

Pie Pumpkins and a Birthday

I roasted one of the pie pumpkins I bought at Blake's Cider Mill last week.  It was really quite easy... I cut it in half and scooped out the insides.  Then placed it cut side down on a parchment lined pan, rubbed it with oil [I used Olive Oil], pierced it in a few places with a knife and roasted it in a 350 preheated oven for about 50 minutes, or until it was soft when pierced.  When cooled, the pulp separates very easily from the skin and it's ready to be pureed in a blender.  My pumpkin yielded about 4 cups of puree, which is lighter in color than store-bought/commercially canned pumpkin puree.

~ Just out of the oven ~

I've been enjoying 1/4 cup of the puree every morning with my steel-cut oatmeal, drizzled with pure maple syrup.  Yum!

Today I made pumpkin scones.  The recipe was from Teatime's Tea & Scones cookbook.  The taste and texture was very good but they didn't rise very high even though they had 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder [that wasn't expired] and one large egg.  Nor did they turn a golden brown after baking even though I brushed the tops with cream.  I think I may have to experiment with another recipe, but I can assure you these will get eaten.  ;-)

I will roast the second pie pumpkin [sometimes called a sweet pumpkin] tomorrow.  There's so much you can do with pumpkin puree and it's so nutritional.  I made white chili last week [with ground chicken instead of beef] and added pumpkin puree to it and it was very good.

I have a recipe for a creamy pumpkin sauce that I pour over mostaccioli that's good too, and who can resist Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread?  Some years back I did a 'Fun in the Pumpkin Patch' themed tea where everything on the menu contained pumpkin.  Even the tea was pumpkin flavored.  The guests enjoyed it.

Yesterday was our son Steve's 55th Birthday.  The photo below was taken the day of his Baby Dedication.  We had no idea the plans God would have for his life, but we're so thankful He called Steve into full-time ministry and he was obedient to the call.  We are blessed to sit under his ministry every Sunday.  

Fast forward 55 years to yesterday [which has passed at lightening speed].  We discreetly took his picture while he was preaching.  Who knew that active, inquisitive, and sometimes mischievous little boy would grow up to be a preacher one day.  God knew, but we didn't.

After church we went to his favorite pizza place, called "Pizza Nostalgia", with his wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and the youth pastor. 

I wanted to have them for dinner at our house tonight, but he asked if I could bring it to his house this Thursday before Halloween trick or treating begins.  For the first time in 20 years he isn't hosting his neighborhood 'open garage party' with an assortment of Crispy Creme donuts, cider, hot chocolate, and coffee, but he will have the portable fire pit out front for warmth [if it's needed] and a big cauldron of full-size candy bars for the trick or treaters to choose from.  It'll be a fun evening.

Now I'm off to make myself a cup of Harney & Son's Pumpkin Spice Rooibos Tea.  It doesn't have caffeine, so it won't keep me awake tonight.

Blake's Orchard and Cider Mill

Today was a picture perfect day in southeastern Michigan with clear skies, 74 degrees and a gentle breeze.  We have enjoyed an amazing fall, and today was ideal for visiting Blake's Orchard and Cider Mill in Armada.  We normally go to Yates Cider Mill, but Blake's is much larger [a 120 acre farm] and they sell pumpkins in addition to apples.

Ever since watching Food Network's Nancy Fuller's Farmhouse Rules [also known as recipes], in season 1 episode 1, where she roasted fresh pie pumpkins, combined with my Facebook feed from Harry & David and their Pumpkin Butter used in a smoothie [which they refer to as pumpkin pie in a glass], I've wanted to purchase some pie pumpkins to roast.

Blake's was established in 1946 - the same year my hubby was born, so it was fitting to take his picture by the sign.  The grounds were beautifully decorated for fall.

It doesn't look like it was very busy in the photos, but it was actually quite busy.  The parking lot in the distance of the above photo shows it filled with cars.  A lot of the visitors were in 'fun land' which we didn't go into.

It's always fun seeing good friends unexpectedly, and we did just that today.  We attended church with Ron & Judy for many years until we transitioned to the church we now attend to support our son's ministry.

A lot of pumpkins - mostly for carving and decorating, but I did find some pie pumpkins to buy.

We came home with some cider and donuts, a carmel apple, two pie pumpkins and a jar of pumpkin butter - so I can sample it to see what it's supposed to taste like before making mine. It was a very enjoyable day, and now my cider mill fix for this year is done.  Will let you know how roasting my pie pumpkins turns out. 

Trip to Zeeland, MI

Last Wednesday [10/16] my hubby and I drove to Zeeland, MI to visit our youngest son and his family and to watch two sports games the grandchildren were playing in.  It was a beautiful day for traveling to the western side of the state and the color change was almost at its peak.  I tried to get some roadside pictures of the trees as we drove past them, but I wasn't fast enough to capture more than the one photo below.

Granddaughter Ellie was playing in her last volleyball game of the season.  She is in the 7th grade and wore jersey #7.   She's a good athlete like her parents and older sister and brother.

Since it was the last game of the season, the team posed for a picture after the game.  Ellie is second from left in the front row seated on the floor.

Ellie's almost as tall as me, but you don't have to be very tall to pass me up!

Thursday was Landon's football game.   He's a freshman at Holland Christian School.  Their team is called the Maroons.  Landon is the quarterback and wears jersey #10.  They won the game against their opponent 28 to 23.   He has one game left this season.

The game started in daylight and ended in darkness, which made the largest and brightest full moon of 2024 very visible.

On Friday morning, Jeremy gave Landon permission to miss his first two morning classes to go to breakfast with us at the Windmill Restaurant in Holland.  It's a cozy, well-known retro diner in the downtown area that patrons love.  When we arrived at 9:00 a.m. there was a line outside waiting for their turn to enter.

Samantha said everywhere Jeremy goes he sees someone he knows. In the above photo [standing at the right edge of the picture] he was pleasantly surprised to see a roommate from his days at Michigan State University. They hadn't had any contact since their 2002 graduation and were surprised that each of them are now living in the same area.

The Windmill is known for their large cinnamon rolls, so when we finished eating our breakfast orders, Jeremy ordered a cinnamon roll for us to share. I can only imagine how many calories are in one of those!!

We walked off a few calories afterwards by strolling down the center of town.  It was decorated beautifully for fall.

We stopped to have our picture taken by the "Joy of Music Statue".

After a great visit it was time to say goodbye and part ways for this trip.  Samantha gave me some tea to bring home that she purchased at a farmer's market blended by Grand Rapids Tea Company.  I've not heard of them before, but I'm anxious to try it.

Yesterday was a busy day at The Whitney with over 100 guests coming to Mansion Tea and over 300 people with reservations for a Sweetest Day dinner.

Did you have a nice Sweetest Day, if you celebrate it?  I did a quick research and discovered it dates back to 1922 when a dozen of Cleveland's candy companies banded together to make the day a little sweeter for some of the city's most vulnerable people.   They distributed more than 20,000 boxes of candy to newsboys, orphans, old folks, and the poor.

Sweetest Day is now almost synonymous with Valentine's Day with people giving flowers, love trinkets and candy to those they care about most.  It's predominantly celebrated in the Midwest.

One of the male servers at The Whitney told me yesterday that Sweetest Day is now primarily a holiday for men where women give gifts to their boyfriends and husbands to commemorate their love.  I never heard that before, but it sounded like a good idea so I stopped at the Hallmark store after work and bought a card, gift bag and tissue paper, then went to Kroger's and bought my hubby a bag full of assorted dark chocolate candies [his favorite].  It should satisfy his sweet tooth cravings for quite a while.

Have a great week!

One Thing Leads to Another

On October 2nd AT&T [our Internet provider] came to our house to switch us over to the new fiber optics technology.  My hubby was anticipating the switch to be a lot more involved than it was.  We have cable hook-ups throughout our house and he thought the technician would need to have access to them, so that meant moving a lot furniture.  Turns out the technician only had to go in my office and the basement - the rest of the work was done outside.  He said our old cable hook-ups are obsolete.

Moving furniture always exposes dust and cobwebs, and spurred me into doing some serious house cleaning.  I took down the custom sheer draperies in my bedroom and washed them and scheduled the carpet cleaner to come out and begin cleaning our carpeting.

He came yesterday morning, but what a job prepping for his arrival by emptying out most of the the contents in two rooms.

Everything got crammed into the spare bedroom.  Yikes!  Home projects are always worse before they're better!  

What a good feeling to have the carpeting in two rooms and hallway cleaned.  Late last night we set the bed back up in our bedroom and today we moved everything else back into the rooms.  Next will be cleaning the family room carpeting and couch.

I was so focused on the house project that I almost forgot yesterday was Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day until the absence of mail delivery jogged my memory.

If I knew about President Biden's official proclamation in 2021 recognizing Native American contributions [hence Indigenous Peoples Day], I forgot about it.  I was surprised to learn that 29 states and Washington, D.C. no longer celebrate Columbus Day and 216 cities have renamed it with Indigenous People's Day. 

More surprising was learning the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Park in the North End of Boston which overlooked the waterfront, was decapitated beyond repair as an act of vandalism in 2020.  I took the photo below when my hubby and I visited Boston in 2016.  I wonder if the park was renamed?

I read that at least 40 other monuments to Columbus in the U.S. have been removed in recent years.  What???  When I was in grade school [many moons ago] celebrating Columbus Day by honoring the explorer and his expedition to the Americas in 1492 was a big deal. Is he banished from today's history books???

I'm going to be 'politically incorrect' and hang on to my Fitz and Floyd Christopher Columbus teapot [Figures from History 1992] even though his legacy is controversial.  He made four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, and his journeys were the beginning of exploration and colonization of North and South America.

 

It's Harvest Festival Time

Every year our church holds a Harvest Festival that's open to the community as well as our parishioners.  Yesterday [October 12th] was the day and Mother Nature provided beautiful fall weather.  I couldn't attend because I had to work, but my hubby was a volunteer helper so I asked him to take lots of pictures for me.  He complied and took over 50 pictures but I'll only share a few.

There were all kinds of activities... hayrides, pumpkin painting, corn hole, a petting zoo, horseback riding, a bouncy house, a row of about 15 cars for trunk or treating, and lots of food - a chili cook-off competition, hot dogs, hamburgers, cider, donuts and more.  It was very well attended and a huge success. The fire department even showed up for the children to see the fire engine.

Our church sits on 23 acres of property so there was plenty of room for all the activities.

Granddaughter, Brooke, bought a lion costume for her cat, Gus, to coordinate with her Wizard of Oz theme.

Daughter-in-law, Sharon, and her mom with their Snoopy theme.

My sweet friend, Lori, and her husband Rick with their spider theme.

Rows of crock pots filled with chili for the cook-off contest.

Come and get it!

While all this fun was going on, I was at The Whitney serving our signature fall tea, "Apple Cinnamon" black tea to our guests at Mansion Tea.

How have you been celebrating fall?