Author Archives: ~~Rhonda

Living in a small southern Illinois town, I share my life with my husband Russell (married in 1977), five children (one still at home), and six cats (one indoors, the others outside).

I teach an online class called “The Christmas Notebook” which is about all things holiday prep. The many facets of celebrating Christmas comprises one of my favorite hobbies. Other favorite things include gardening, reading, cooking, and scrapbooking.

other things and sour cream sugar cookie dough

A quick post here…I’ve been pretty busy. This morning I painted the two closet doors for the hall in the addition. DH will have to turn them over this evening and I’ll give the other sides final coats in the morning. When he gets home from work tomorrow evening, he can install them. Yeah! It [...]

fabric for the guest room

Genny and I ran to the big city yesterday to look for fabric for the guest room. The walls and ceiling are blue and the hall walls are yellow with a blue ceiling. I’ll post the pics larger than usual, so you can see the prints well.

The large floral will be used for [...]

it’s snowing in the kitchen!

Sunday afternoon, DH found time to hang the snowflakes in the kitchen. It’s hard to get a picture that does justice to the kitchen ceiling after they are all up, but here are a couple of DH at work.

The ceiling is 12′ high, so the snowflakes hang on mirrored garlands of different lengths, the longest [...]

investigating

Last year, my sister Paula gave me two large deer, as well as two tall slim artificial trees. The trees will be used on the front porch. The deer have found a home in front of the fireplace. Niko and Buttercup were both very interested and immediately checked them out.

Genny and I decided the [...]

new sofa

The new sofa for the living room was delivered today.

We switched the office rug and the living room. The office rug looks great with the sofa. And the living room rug looks great in the office! Worked out well!
~~Rhonda

setting up the snow tree

The dining room has a snow theme. The snow tree is a slim 6.5′ tree and sits on an old round oak table in a corner of the room. This year, I put new lights on the tree. When we took the old lights off, I could tell they had been on a long time [...]

decorating progress

We have been very busy! Yesterday, my DIL Julie and my sister Genny decorated the nativity tree in the library.

The Three Kings’ Tree, also in the library, in the corner by the book shelves is done and looks great. It’s hard to spot the three king figurines in this picture, but I liked [...]

follow up on the peanut butter cup cookies

I made more peanut butter cup cookies today. My dear friend Carolyn had said the recipe reminded her of Moose Tracks ice cream. That made me think the cookies needed a big chunk of chocolate, so I decided to add a Hershey’s Kiss to each one.

I waited until the chocolate of the peanut butter cup [...]

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are easy to make. I do them every year for our open house. There are several people who always ask if I’m going to make them.
Use any peanut butter cookie recipe. Spoon small amounts (probably about 2 teaspoonfuls) into small 1 3/4″ muffin tins that have been sprayed with [...]

decorating the kitchen

My sister Genny and DD did a lot of the decorating in the kitchen this past weekend while I worked on other things. Brooke had helped me on Friday and we put up new garlands as the old ones were shedding terribly. I made each one long enough to fit each window so they will [...]