Chocolate Flavored Coffee Creamer

Chocolate Flavored Coffee Creamer

4 T. unsweetened cocoa
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup non-dairy creamer
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk

Mix together and keep in an air-tight container.

My New Christmas Wreath

Yesterday I visited the Old Time Pottery in Greenville, SC and bought my new wreath and some picks to decorate it with. I ended up with this for about $12. I think it looks nice. I will still add a ribbon before putting it up.


In a few years I will remove the picks, rinse off the wreath, let it dry and put some new stuff on it. You can hot glue or wire them on (which is what I did here).

Fall On My Front Porch

Now that the weather has moderated (it's not so hot and humid) I've been able to enjoy the porch again. I love to sit on my porch swing and read and enjoy my coffee or a glass of tea. I've got it fixed up for Fall!

Emergency Cabinet

There is an old cabinet that originally came from the plant that my father-in-law worked at (or so I'm told). My sister-in-law had it for a long time but she wanted to pass it on and we jumped on it. I put it in our wood panelled alcove. We use it to store our emergency supplies. These are things that we would want to pack to go if there was a natural disaster or something.




I'm trying to get everything in containers that would be easier to pick up and throw into the car. I've got most of it in containers but not all.



Here are the things I thought to put in our emergency supplies:

A change of clothes, underwear, shoes and socks
Flashlight and extra battery, headlamp and extra batteries
TV and radio and extra batteries
Canned vegetables, fruits, meats and soups, Jars of food like apple sauce and spaghetti sauce
Rice and instant grits (I'm a Southerner, what can I say?)
Can opener and matches
Paper goods - paper towels, toilet paper, paper plates, paper bowls, styrofoam cups, plastic utensils
A blanket
Cans of dog food for our dogs

If we have enough time, our plans would be to empty that cabinet, get our picnic cooler, the dogs and hit the road. If I have a little more time I would grab the laptop and external hard drives.

All this stuff is also stuff we would eat or use normally so once a year, I should cycle out and replace so that it doesn't get old.

Savannah On Sunday

Luke and Hannah brought Savannah over on Sunday afternoon and we got to visit and love on our little doll baby.

I Must Have Done Something Right!

We've been married 34 yrs and it's taken all this time for me to feel like Stan is finally to the point where if something happened to me, he could handle keeping the house. He can cook, clean the kitchen, vacuum, mop, dust, change the sheets, do the laundry, iron his clothes, run the dishwasher, clean the bathroom, grocery shop. I'm so proud of him knowing this. My Dad has never run the washing machine! One of Stan's brothers said that he has never bought groceries before!

As of now, Stan doesn't have to do the housework except to help me. I still consider the housework my primary responsibility. But it's so nice to know that if I get unable to do housework or if I die before him, he is able to keep his home and feed himself. I feel like a spouse is handicapped if they couldn't take care of their home. If we don't train our children, we have handicapped them for real life. They should know how to take care of basic things around the home. It's as important as learning how to read and write.

I knew he had arrived when he brought me a bouquet from the yard to go in my vase on the kitchen table. He's never done that before and I hadn't asked him to. He knows I like fresh flowers.


On my end, I still don't know how to change the oil in the car, change a tire, build a house, cut off the water, fix the hot water heater, etc. I'm handicapped! I would have to rely heavily on my brother-in-laws and nephews. But, at least, I could make them a cake for their help! :D

Corner Cabinets Of All Kinds

Every house has a corner and corner cabinets can make good use of those corners. I searched the Internet for photos of corner cabinets to give you an idea of the options out there. Kitchen corner cabinets now have many options that make them useful. In the house we built back in the early 1980's you didn't have any options and those corner areas deep in the back of the cabinet were pretty much inaccessible without doing strange contortions. But now, cabinet makers have come up with great corner ideas and I have included some of them.




If you have an older kitchen without the modern corner options then this is a good idea.
























My Aunt Ruth had an antique corner cabinet like this. I always loved it.



A lot of the older homes had these builtin corner cabinets in dining rooms. They ran from very simple ones to very ornate ones.











A cat bed or for the cat litter box.