Favorite Things Friday

Welcome to Favorite Things Friday.  I like to take Fridays to look around my house and appreciate the things I have.  I seem to spend a lot of time in I-wish-I-had and so Fridays I take a step back and go to I'm-so-glad-I-have.

Today I'm going to show you a few Christmas decorations that never made it into other posts but deserve notice.

First up,this Nativity from Chile.  My mom gave it to me.  She collects nativities and has maybe 100.  Probably more.  I put it in here, but you couldn't see the people when I took a picture with the top on.

On the other bookcase, we have this snow globe.  It's actually Shane's.  Recognize it?  It's the kid from A Christmas Story.  Somehow I'd never seen this movie until I met my husband.  It's his favorite Christmas movie.  If we're somewhere with cable on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, we try to catch part of the 24 marathon of it on TBS.

I bought this set of stocking hangers the first Christmas we were married.  (It's really a nice shiny silver color, not all smudgy-like.)  I love trains and love these but there are a couple problems.  1--They're too lightweight to really hold up stockings if there's anything in the stockings and 2--We don't have a mantle.  I know I've talked about our mantle before, because we do have one out in the shed in the back, it just doesn't fit around the fireplace insert.  We'll just call it a work in progress, ok?  So here they are at the end of the counter.  It's the first thing you see when you walk up to the kitchen from the den (along with the potato chip bag behind it, hehe) and I'll figure out some use for them.  Or I may not.  Who knows.

I know other people have talked about how they have a certain candle that smell like Christmas.  Here's mine.  Someone gave this to me a couple Christmases back.  It's from Hallmark and the scent is Cinnamon, but it smells more like Christmas than just cinnamon to me.  I just love it!

Now I'm ready for Christmas!  Well, almost ready.  I'm still waiting for Shane's gift to come in.  (Mine from him came in yesterday.  I'm DYING to find out what it is!!!!!)

Favorite Things Friday -- Christmas Ornaments

Welcome to Favorite Things Friday.  I like to take Fridays to look around my house and appreciate the things I have.  I seem to spend a lot of time in I-wish-I-had and so Fridays I take a step back and go to I'm-so-glad-I-have.

I could have gone CRAZY with today's topic, Christmas Ornaments.  But I will keep it short. 

Here's a little raspberry from my aunt.  She lives in NYC and brings me cool stuff.  She gave this to me two years ago for Christmas. 

This peacock was my grandmother's.  She always wanted us to hang it near the top of her tree, even though the rest of her tree always had a red and white theme.  Now I'm seeing peacocks and other birds on Christmas trees in all the cool magazines and blogs...can I just say that my grandmother started this trend?  Great.

My parents and my brother and his wife live in out of state, in different states.  We're sort of a spread-out family (to say the least).  Anyway, the last four Christmases all six of us have gotten together.  The first year everyone came to our house, then we went to Washington DC, then last year to Orlando to Disney World and this year they're all coming to our house again.  Anyway, I picked these Mickey Mouse Ears up last year while we were at Epcot.  I thought they were adorable!  I have another ornament that Courtney, my sister-in-law made for us from our Washington DC trip.  We'll have to come up with something to commemorate Christmas at our house this year.

What are your favorite Chrismtas ornaments?

Favorite Things Friday--Christmas Movies

Welcome to Favorite Things Friday.  I like to take Fridays to look around my house and appreciate the things I have.  I seem to spend a lot of time in I-wish-I-had and so Fridays I take a step back and go to I'm-so-glad-I-have.  Today I want to talk about Christmas movies.

There are a lot of Christmas movies.  A LOT.  Here are my two favorites:

A Charlie Brown Christmas--who DOESN'T like this?  Complete with dancing Snoopy, Sally's letter to Santa ("Did you have a nice summer?"), Lucy yelling at Schroeder because she doesn't recognize Jingles Bells except in its simplest form, Linus reciting the Christmas story from Luke, and of course, the little "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree.  Perfection.

Mickey's Christmas Carol--Ok, fine, the part where the Ghost of Christmas Future (Black Pete) throws Scrooge McDuck into his grave still scares me...but still, it's the best.  When I took British Literature my senior year of college I didn't even read A Christmas Carol like I was supposed to, I just remembered everything from Mickey's Christmas Carol.  Go here to see the wikipedia article on it (if you're a nerd like me it's pretty interesting.)

Little Women my only favortie book/movie combination.  I LOVE both!  It's not necessarily a Christmas movie, but the begining is set during Christmas, so I can get away with it.  I love watching this all by myself curled up on the couch.  I still cry at some point in the movie every time I watch it.

The best thing about these movies?  I have them all on VHS.  That means I have to rewind them and then fast forward through the previews at the beginning--I just love that!

What are you favorite Chrsimtas movies? 

Currently Reading

 I'm participating in this today at J. Kay's Book Blog:

 
To Kill a Mockingbird -- This is actually a reread.  I read it as a sophomore in high school and remember loving it.  Even though I've always loved to read, I've always hated reading for school.  I don't remember too much about the book, so I'm counting it as a new read.  I'm reading this at the store.

I'm also reading Remembered by Tamara Alexander.  It's the last of the Fountain Creek Chronicles trilogy.  It's one of those series where some characters overlap but the main characters change.  I loved the first book, Revealed.  It was predictable, but still original.  The second book was pretty good.  More predictable, less original.  And I've read the first few chapters of this third book but so far it hasn't really grabbed me yet.  And I'm not much on finishing books that don't grab me.  So we'll see how it goes.  I'm reading this at home.

I usually have book I'm reading at the store, one at home, and one in my car, but I'm not listening to a book in my car right now, I'm soaking in all the Christmas music!  I'm alternating between the all-Christmas music radio stations and Christmas cds (Point of Grace's Winter Wonderland for now).

And I'm not reading these, but my husband is.  Yes, that would be my 25 year old husband who teaches high school English, has an English degree from Mercer University and studied at Oxford University in England for a semester.  Him.  He's reading the Diary of  a Wimpy Kid books.  And he laughs like a little kid while he's reading it (which is actually pretty adorable, but don't tell him I said that!).

Want to know which books I just finished?  Look at the sidebar to the right and scroll down.

Favorite Things Friday III

Boy, Favorite Things Friday just snuck up on me this week!  Better late than never, right?

A lot of times on my blog I'll put up things I want or want to try, so I want Favorite Things Friday to focus on things in my home that I love.  If you'd like to do it, too, just let me know in the comments (even if you don't do it on Friday, that's ok.  We're not strict here...ha!)

Today I'm going to show you some ships.  I LOVE ships!  These all live in my kitchen.  I would have taken pictures of my kitchen to show you where they all were but, well, it was a little messy.

This is a painting I picked up in Chile when I was there in 2003.  I went for three weeks the summer after my freshman year of college to visit some family friends.  Found it in an antique shop and it was love at first sight.  It even came with this frame so I didn't do a thing to it.  I love the Chile flag on the back of the ship!

Here's another painting, this one I picked up in Ecuador in 2006.  I went with my Dad's church on a mission trip right after Christmas.  Bought it at the market in Quito.  Definitely want to get it framed in something I like someday.

My parents picked this one up somewhere, probably a thrift store.  It is gorgeous!  It's about a foot and a half tall.

What are some of your favorite things?

Favorite Things Friday II

As I was browsing my pictures for my second installment of Favorite Things Friday, I kept slowing down on the ones of my husband (probably because he's so easy on the eyes!).  Anyway, I decided to feature him since he's my ULTIMATE favorite!  And because it's my blog.

He's such a hard worker--here he is hard at work unpacking boxes for the bookstore!

But don't let him fool you--he knows how to have fun, too! 

Here he is chowing down on a funnel cake at the fair.

He is such an encourager, just like his dad was.  Here is the expression he used when I showed him my latest accomplishment.  What's that?  You think he looks like he's faking the enthusiasm?  Yes.  He was.  But he is happy for me when it really counts.  Good enough.

 Just because he fakes enthusiasm about my crafting doesn't mean he isn't happy when he goes to family reunions with me.  See how happy he looks here?

And SOMETIMES he brings me "just because" flowers.  He just loves me!

For more mush about Shane read this and this.

Who's YOUR favorite?

Favorite Things Friday

I've noticed themes on certain days on other blogs and thought I'd join in the fun.  I've decided to feature some of my favorite things from around my house every Friday.  Now, I realize I'm messing this up already by doing the first one on Saturday, but I had jury duty yesterday so just give me a break, ok?

So here goes my first ever Favorite Things Friday.

My newest bookend.  I started this as a copy of a project I saw on another blog (and for the life of me can't figure out where--someone help me!).  On the blog she used a really thick book and folded each page so it was a full circle around instead of a half circle like mine.  She added embellishments to make it look like a jack-o-lantern and I forget what else. Anyway, after I saw that I went rummaging through a box in the back and found a book with no cover that someone obviously couldn't get trade credit for here but didn't want back, either.  I rescued it from the library bin and got to folding.  It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would and it was kinda fun.  I knew I had about 587 black bookends like the one I used hanging around, but all I could find were brown. So I spray painted it black and glued the book to it.  That's it.  Easy-peasy.  I just love it!  (I've found about 10 black bookends since, ha!)

Here it is in it's new home (yes, a fuzzy, poor quality picture again):

Another favorite and fairly new item is this little pitcher.  I found it at Goodwill or Salvation Army a couple weeks back.  It was $1.21 I think (which sounds more like a Goodwill price).  Adorable!

Last but not least a couple pictures of the same clock.  I like how you can see the details of the wood in the black and white picture.  This clock was my grandfather's.  He collected old clocks and made them work again.  Mine doesn't work, but it probably could with some tinkering.  I have this huge picture frame that's rather ornate that I'm thinking of hanging around the clock.  It just seems lonely.  I may put it up on a trial basis and see what you think. 

What are some of your favorite things at your house?