Willy Nilly Friday Five - The winter edition

 Closing out another year by joining Willy Nilly Friday Five hosted by Tom (The Backroads Traveller)

1.Winter berries covered in snow.

2. A lone leaf on the snow.

 3.  Snowy braches

4. Lighting the way to a New Year.

5.  Wise words from a squirrel:  Good-bye 2021

Thank you to everyone who stopped by in 2021 and left such wonderful comments.  I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

 

I'll see you (hopefully) tomorrow!  Stay safe.

I hate winter!

 

What a way to close out the year.  It's not looking good for the start of 2022 either.  

 

 

Book Review - The Santa Suit

 

Welcome! - Hope everyone who celebrated Christmas had a wonderful holiday.  For those who celebrate other holidays I wish you all the same wonderfulness.

So today I'm reviewing a book I received a (Free Copy) of for my honest review from, Net Galley.

I haven't read much this year but this one sounded like it would be fun and it was!

 

From (Amazon):  When newly-divorced Ivy Perkins buys an old farmhouse sight unseen, she is definitely looking for a change in her life. The Four Roses, as the farmhouse is called, is a labor of love—but Ivy didn't bargain on just how much labor. The previous family left so much furniture and so much junk, that it's a full-time job sorting through all of it.

At the top of a closet, Ivy finds an old Santa suit—beautifully made and decades old. In the pocket of a suit she finds a note written in a childish hand: it's from a little girl who has one Christmas wish, and that is for her father to return home from the war. This discovery sets Ivy off on a mission. Who wrote the note? Did the man ever come home? What mysteries did the Rose family hold?

Ivy's quest brings her into the community, at a time when all she wanted to do was be left alone and nurse her wounds. But the magic of Christmas makes miracles happen, and Ivy just might find more than she ever thought possible: a welcoming town, a family reunited, a mystery solved, and a second chance at love.

 My thoughts:  I really enjoyed this book a lot.  It was like reading a Hallmark movie.  The characters were fun and believable.  Plus there was a bit of a "mystery" to the story which made it even more enjoyable.

 

The main character, Ivy buys a house on-line after her divorce and moves to the small town it's located in.  The house is a bit of a "fixer-upper" and Ivy discovers that the previous owners have left behind a lot of the old furnishings and belongs saying that they weren't sentimental and that Ivy could get rid of whatever she didn't want.  She discovers an old Santa suit with a mysterious note from a young child in these belongings and sets off to discover the mystery of who the suit belonged to and who the little girl was that left the note for Santa.

 

Along the way she makes friends with different members of the small community including a handsome (and single) man who happens to be the realtor of her property.  Though she's not certain she's ready yet to be involved with anyone since her divorce has left her very cautious about relationships.

 

Without giving things away I'd say this is the type of book you would enjoy if you like, "RomCom" type novels and happy endings, which I do.

 

Thank you for stopping by. - Hope to review more books next year. 

A Few Fall Photos

 Yes,  I'm still alive and doing well.  Have had a couple of bouts of nasty colds with a bad cough but am finally feeling much better.

Hard to believe it's December already and that Christmas is now only 24 days away!

Today I want to share a few of the photos I took of the fall foliage this year.  I don't get out as often for some reason to take pictures but I hope to do better.

Virginia Creeper that grows up the side of the house around the corner from us every year.

A pretty yellow tree I spotted out on a walk.

 

 A lone maple leaf in our driveway after a rainy day.

 

 Red Japanese Maple from one of the neighbors yards.

 

 Grape Vines and Shadows.

 

 Red berries on a nice fall day.

 

Pretty red/orange leaves.  Not sure what kind of a tree this one is.

 

Hope you have enjoyed a little touch of fall as we now enter into the winter season things will certainly change.

Awww Mondays - Halloween Fun

                  

 

 

 

 

Welcome!  Lets have a little fun today and join in with Awww Mondays  with Sandee over on Comedy Plus.

 

Today I'm sharing a few Halloween Left Over photos since they were taken yesterday.

 

 Hubby took me out to show me this display in a yard that he saw because he knew I would enjoy seeing it and he was right.  

Also along the way we spotted this display:

 My daughter and her family decided to dress up as characters from, Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood, The Big Bad Wolf, The Huntsman and Grandma.

Finally just Little Red Riding Hood by herself.  This is my granddaughter, Joelle who we called, (Red) for a nickname.  She made a cute, Little Red Riding Hood.

 

 

 

Willy Nilly Friday Five - October 29, 2021 - Halloween Edition

 Goodness it's been almost 2 months since I've posted here.  Time just goes by so quickly and I seem to have so much going on that I just don't post here as often as I would like.

Thought I would have a little "fun" today with my post for,

WILLY NILLY FRIDAY FIVE

 

These are all Halloween decorations that have been edited to make them more fun:

 

1.

Our 3 Ginger Boys enjoying watching the leaves the other day.

2. 

                         Skeletons on my daughters porch.

 

3.  

                                              Caught in a web.

 4.

                                       Don't look now.

 

5.

                                                    BOO!

 

6.

                                          Mod Pumpkin

Feline Friday - September 10, 2021

 First off I want to thank everyone who sent us such comforting and kind words on the loss of our sweet, Captain Cuddle this past weekend. - It was so hard to let him go but the "humane" thing to do considering the condition he had and the grim outlook of him ever recovering from it.

So today I'm joining Sandee (Comedy Plus) for FELINE FRIDAY

 

 

It's been a day of cats around here for sure.

 

First this morning we found this kitty hanging around our house.  It was one we'd never seen before & seemed to be friendly.  We ended up catching him and putting him in a carrier then calling animal control.

 

Turns out that he was apparently a (feral cat) at one time and had been neutered and had his ear clipped and then released.  So we had no choice but to just let him out of the carrier and hope that he doesn't get hit by cars or beaten up by other cats.  

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Next up it's someone's "Gottcha Day" here.

 

Yes it's been 5 years (so hard to believe) since Caramel arrived and joined our family.

 

 

 

She was the tiniest little fur ball and oh so cute.

 

 

Now she's grown into a gorgeous and rather large fur baby.  We love her to pieces and hope to have many more years with her.

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 Next up.....

We would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family,

 This is Rowdy Rawhide (we will just call him Rowdy) but we like to give them middle names.  My daughter picked out the name, Rowdy and Mike use to watch the show Rawhide and the character that Clint Eastwood played was named, Rowdy Yates so we decided that Rawhide would be his middle name.

He is fitting right in with all the other cats now & I'll be sharing many more photos of him in the coming days.

 

 

Back to School 2021

 As is tradition around here I took Coleen's back to school shots this morning. - It's hard to believe she is a Junior in High School now.

Here is another tradition...Side by Side comparison from last year.

The first one was her joke outfit since it was "distance learning last year to start with.  Then she put on some regular clothes for the middle shot and finally the shot on the right is what she wore to school this morning.

Off to the bowling alley now for the first day of league.  Thanks for stopping by.

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge - An Unexpected and sad Day

 Yesterday - September 5, 2021 began pretty much like any other typical day. - The cats were fed in the morning and had spent a little time sleeping in the bedroom before they were let out shortly before noon.

That's when things went south in a hurry. - I happened to be walking by the bathroom when I noticed a couple of our cats in there and heard the horrible sound of one of them in distress.  I found our sweet, Captain Cuddles on the floor with what appeared to be really bad constipation pains. - I quickly called Mike in to help me and we noticed that he seemed in unbearable pain and could not stand up on his back legs. - Being that there are no, "on-call" Vets in town on the weekends we knew we had to do something to get him in to a Veterinarian as soon as possible.  We called a near by Clinic (about 17 miles away) that often will take emergency calls on weekends and after about an hour of waiting they finally got back to us and told us to bring him in right away.  The Vet did not sound very optimistic about the outcome after I described his symptoms.  But we hoped for the best and prepared for the worst.

Upon arrival she explained the he had something called,  Saddle Trombus  - The prognosis was not good and in the end we opted to, euthanize him as he was in tremendous pain and the likely hood that he could survive this was extremely slim.- So with heavy hearts & lots of tears we said our good-byes to our sweet, Captain Cuddles.

 

This was the first photo we took of him when we rescued him back in November of 2009. He had wandered into the neighborhood and was being mistreated by some kids when I brought him into the house.  We had decided to find his owners since he was wearing a collar until I noticed that he had fleas & ear mites both and figured they didn't deserve to have him if they weren't going to take care of him.

 

He was a gentle and loving cat so we named him, Cuddles, which quickly became, Captain Cuddles and we finally added on to that so that he became, Captain Cuddles, Defender of the Universe!

 

He was loved by everyone who came into the house because of his sweet and loving nature.  Here are shots of Mike & I with him.

 

 
 Coleen loved him as well. He went through a lot with her.  One time he came into the room and he was all wet.  I asked her what had happened and she said,  "I baptized him! "  I ask her where & she said, "In the toilet!"  Another time she cut his whiskers off, he got locked in her toy box, and she had a private ceremony (we weren't invited so no pictures) where she married him.

 

Here are shots of them together when both we much younger.

 

 He loved sleeping and was often either on the couch, in a window, on the desk in my office, on the bed etc...here are some of his strange sleeping positions.

 

 He got along with all the different cats over the years.  I tried to find pictures of him with all of them but couldn't find one with him and our newest cat (Gidget) but here are a few of him with the others.

 

 From L-R - Cuddles & Harley, Cuddles & Pepper, Cuddles and Callie-Jo, Cuddles and Spooky Boo.

 

Cuddles and Bandit asleep in Mike's Guitar Case

 Harley, Cuddles & Spooky Boo

 

Cuddles being stalked by a giant ant.

Cuddles enjoying a box of newspaper.

Side Profile

Asleep on the Wi-Fi box in my office.

 

Sleeping on the laundry basket.

                                                               DEFENDING THE UNIVERSE!

This is the last photo I ever took of him.  I had no idea he would be gone so soon after this photo was taken.

 

 Finally one of our favorite photos of his sweet face:

                               Nov. 2009 - September 2021.

We will so miss him.  He loved to run and jump up in my arms, try to escape out the back door, head bonk us, purr, and so much more.  You left us far to soon.

Rest in Peace Sweet Cuddles.

Nov. 2009 - September 2021.