Idaho Jan

This is Coeur d'Alene's Old Mission State Park . We stopped by there on our way the Coeu d'Alene Resort. It is the oldest standing building in all of Idaho. The confessional was locked up but where I was standing is where one would kneel and ask for forgiveness. Good thing Dale couldn't get into the priest's spot! There was NO heat in that little building and it was crazy cold. Made me appreciate where I worship and for modern conveniences (even though our chapel is quite chilly on some days).

The Before~ Lori helped me pick out some colors to update my living room. I really like turquoise and I thought maybe yellow would be another good accent color since my furniture is brown and I have tan walls. She came up with the great idea of using placemats and picked these out for me. The top left fabric is actually a napkin set. Napkins were $9.99 and placemats $3.99 each The After~ Walla! I recycled the innards from my old pillows so that didn't cost anything. The little round green one is actually a creation with some of my scraps. It was supposed to be a ball shape but ended up looking like a squashed pumpkin! I added a ribbon rose to decorate it up. The "W" was embroidered by a company here in Rexburg ($6.24). The pillows were easy to make-I just unpicked one edge, stuffed it with batting and stitched it up again. It has been nice to have time to sew since I've been off work for the last week with Spud Harvest. Cool days make for a good sewing time.

When my children were young, I read to them a book called Apple Pigs . about the wonderful apple tree that produced so many apples the family did not know what to do with them all. We don't have huge trees, but we were very surprised to see how many apples were on our two semi-dwarf trees this year! We picked about 6 bushels! They are hard and tart...great for eating or baking pies and cobblers. In our case, it is applesauce for our food storage. I swore I would never can applesauce alone again but here I am! That was about five years ago when I didn't have a "system" yet and I made a huge mess! It still is messy but this year Dale had to work and I was home for spud harvest so I was elected to start the all-day project. What really helped is using my Playtex gloves. I didn't have sticky hands to distract me all the time. It also helps to have a heavy duty large pressure cooker, a Victorio Strainer (don't try making applesauce without it!) and sufficient jars