Thimbleanna

Mummy

Oh dear. After my New Year’s post I had such great intentions of picking things back up on the blog. I’d planned to spend the month of January doing catch up posts to re-cap fun projects and events fun and not-so-fun from 2023. And then January disappeared. As did February and March. Most days I’m just baffled as to where the time goes.

It’s been very busy here this winter and we’ve been working a lot on the house. As soon as the holidays were over, we dove right in – moving furniture, painting rooms, cleaning closets, changing flooring and cleaning out a storage unit. Most of the hard work is done, but there are still closets and bins of papers and things to go through. There was a little knitting and sewing, but in general, working on the house has been better to keep me occupied. Just like these sentences that I keep typing, I didn’t want to get to the point.

Which is this.  In November, we lost our darling Mummy.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

I’ve hardly been able to even say it.  I love this cute picture of her — I’m not sure the rest of the family likes it as much, but I think it’s just so … her. Sweet, pretty and funny.  I don’t even know where to start.  Her absence has left such a hole in our hearts.  She (along with BigDaddy) was the center of our little extended family.  They were the glue that held us all together.  We were SO lucky – we had many years of fun – birthdays, trips, holidays and just happy everyday memories.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

Wasn’t she a cute little girl?  This is one of the only pictures we have of her when she was young.  She had asthma when she was a little girl, so, it’s not surprising that she didn’t speak fondly of her childhood. But, luckily for us, she met Dad when she was young, and she grew up to be the happy, fun mother that we remember.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

And she, along with BigDaddy, gave MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I the happiest of childhoods. The two of them together were a great team. I never remember them arguing when I was a child — that seems impossible, but it was true.  She was the most even tempered person I’ve ever met. I never remember her yelling. Family was everything to Mummy and it showed in everything she did for us.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

She adored her grandchildren, and more recently, her three little great-granddaughters. I loved watching her face light up when they came to visit. And even though there were a lot of day-to-day things she couldn’t remember, she never forgot how to be fun.  Oh, how she would tease those little girls — and they didn’t always like it LOL.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

I always thought Dad was the funny one of the two of them, but she definitely held her own.  After she passed away, a friend of the boys’ told us a story from just a few years ago:  “My favorite memory was when we were at her house and she was telling me that the only difference between her and Jessica Simpson was her face.  She said her face showed age, but her body was just as good as Jessica Simpson’s.  She proceeded to go into the kitchen, grab a grocery bag, cut eye holes in it, write “Jessica Simpson’ on the bag, put it over her head, and walked back into the room.  She said ‘See … same thing!'”  Classic Mummy!

I feel like these pictures just don’t do her justice.  They definitely don’t reflect how I remember her.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

And, I haven’t even discussed everything else about her — she was so smart (more than one of her friends told me she was the smartest person they knew), she was an amazing cook, a loyal friend, and her quilting skills deserve a post of their own.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

When BigDaddy left us, I posted this picture of the two of them. I took it on their 60th anniversary. There were serious, more beautiful pictures taken on that day, but this one is, by far, my favorite. It’s. Just. Them.

Thimbleanna: Mummy

Oh, how I wish they were still here.

We’ll miss and love them forever.

XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2024!

Happy New Year!!! This year’s New Year’s greeting brought to you by Simba, super cat of TheSecondChild.

Thimbleanna: Simba

Can. You. Believe. It? 2024. I just can’t. I’m in a fog. Where on earth did this year go? The older I get, the faster time flies and the less I accomplish. I hope you’ve had a nice beginning to your year. I always have grand plans to un-Christmasify the house on New Year’s Day, but instead I puttered around and made our traditional standing rib roast dinner with the boys’ twice baked potato, 7-layer salad and homemade dinner roll favorites. An easy dinner, but I manage to take most of the day messing around with it. I like to set a nice table too — china and the works. No one cares but me. They’d be just as happy to eat it on paper plates. Ho Hum.

Anyway, according to old blog tradition, it’s time to look back on the past year. You might be wondering what year? Since I didn’t post all year. There were still happenings here, and I’m posting the traditional grid for the sake of the record:

Thimbleanna: 2023

The year was mostly good, but peppered with the sad. And then the really sad. Which, maybe I can talk about soon. I’m definitely planning a few posts just to document the makes — mostly because I use the blog as a record, in case I want to look at pattern or yarn or whatever that I used for a project. I’ve seen a few posts on instagram where people say they didn’t get much done, but they managed to survive. I finished a few more quilts than normal, but I feel like my biggest accomplishment was surviving — it was a tougher year than most, and I’m glad it’s in the rear view mirror now.

So, on to the New Year. A blank slate. So full of hope, but boy, a new year makes me nervous. More than anything else this year, I’m hoping for time. Time to just slow down and enjoy the good things in life. I hope you will find what you are hoping for too — HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
XOXO,
Anna

Gingerbread Houses 2023

Our annual Gingerbread Houses were made on December 23rd this year. MyDadLovesMeBestSister’s family were all absent this year, as they went to be with CuteNiece2 and her husband for Christmas, since they couldn’t come home this year. (And they have some very exciting news — a new baby in June of 2024, making MyDadLovesMeBestSister a Grandma!) I was sad that half of the family was missing, but we had a grand time anyway — the girls were all so cute — they’re all old enough now to really enjoy the decorating and they were a lot of fun. With three little girls, we decided to make a team for each girl:

Team One:  TheFirstChild, TheSecondChild and FinallyAGirl (now 7 years old).  Their theme was Santa’s Workshop. The boys joked that this team was the only team where one of the little girls actually got to participate. Har Har. But, this is definitely the house where the little girl did most of the work. According to TheSecondChild all the creative ideas came from FinallyAGirl. She loves our little gingerbread competitions and I was SO proud of her this year! She directed the TheSecondChild to do the repetitious little details, like placing “shingles”. (We think TheFirstChild (father to FinallyAGirl) was there for moral support or something LOL.) FinallyAGirl spent a lot of time making all the little details. She wanted to put elves making toys inside the house, but the boys convinced her that it would be hard to see the elves, so she made a little shed on one side of the house where the elf could work. Then, for the front of the house, she made a little Santa checking his list, Mrs. Claus carrying presents on the sidewalk (which I think had fallen over by the time I took pictures), and a reindeer who slipped on the ice. Her little details were perfect — I especially loved the blue ice under the reindeer. Well Done FinallyAGirl!!!

Thimbleanna: Holidays

Team Two:  SweetiePie and HurrayAThirdGirl (just turned 4 years old).  Team Two made The Grinch’s Cave (named by HurrayAThirdGirl). They made a beautiful little brick house with vanilla wafer shingles and a beautiful colorful back wall. HurrayAThirdGirl was so cute making the pretty green tree for the front lawn — all those lucious green sprinkles.  And, notice the Grinch standing in the front door.

Thimbleanna: Holidays

Team Three:  TheManoftheHouse, Me, and FinallyAnotherGirl (now 5 years old). FinallyAnotherGirl loves the monkey bars at school, so we decided to do a school playground.  TheManoftheHouse made all our ladders for us, and FinallyAnotherGirl worked very hard on all the playground details. She made a hopscotch to the side of the house and a four-square court in the front yard (which, sadly doesn’t appear to be in the pictures), and a big blue slide off the top of the house. Then, she placed children climbing the roof to get in line for the slide. She was very proud to place her purple self at the monkey bars in front of the house.

Thimbleanna: Holidays

Voting was really hard this year because I wanted all of the girls to win — they all did such great jobs — they were so patient and worked really hard.  But, we always vote, and the winners this year were SweetiePie and HurrayAThirdGirl — Yay!

Thimbleanna: Holidays

Now for between week — hope you’re relaxing and reviewing and getting ready for another year ahead.  The years fly by!
XOXO,
Anna

Merry Christmas 2023!

Poor, sad little blog. It’s been almost a year since I have posted — the shock and horror! It was a busy year — mostly good, but some not, and I’m hoping to catch up in the next few weeks — mostly just to document the things and projects that I want to remember.

But more on that later. For now, I just wanted to pop in for my traditional Christmas Eve post. Here are this year’s cookies. I do like looking back to see what cookies I baked each year — even if they mostly are the same cookies every year.

Thimbleanna: Cookies

The usuals are here – sugar cookies using the Jenny cookies recipe from her book, Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter Cookies, shortbread, peanut brittle (hopefully, I’ll put that recipe in my recipe section before too long so I can find it next year ;-D), and salted caramels. Sadly, I didn’t make my absolute Christmas number one cookie, Angel Slices, because we are a small group this year and I’m the only one who would eat them. And, I definitely don’t need a whole pan of Angel Slices to myself. I tried a new recipe from Sally’s Bake Blog this year, her Iced Gingerbread Oatmeal Cookies, and they are really good — it’s a recipe I’m sure I’ll make again.

The girls came over yesterday to help make sugar cookies. We had lots of fun and they did a great job. I gave them a little pep talk before we began, explaining that they were all old enough now to take a little time and not just throw sprinkles around. I’m happy to say they all took the job seriously and made some fun cookies. I love watching them being so creative, even if it does make a big mess LOL.

Thimbleanna: 2022

I hope your holiday traditions are all right on track – I’m amazed it’s Christmas Eve already — time, as always is flying. Merry, Merry Christmas — see you soon with gingerbread house news!

XOXO,
Anna

Happy New Year 2023!!!

Happy, Happy New Year!!! Paul Kitty has returned to wish you a Happy New Year!

Thimbleanna: PaulKitty

I’m a little late with my annual New Year’s greeting, as we got out of Polar-Vortex-Dodge and spent the holidays in warm, balmy Florida with TheSecondChild. It was heavenly! It was a little chilly (in the 50’s) for Christmas, but that was when it was below 0 degrees fahrenheit in the northern plains, so we happily suffered LOL. By the time we left to return home, winter crowds were blissfully sunbathing in 80+ degree weather. It was my first taste ever of a bit of winter in Florida, and while I wouldn’t want it full-time (I do love me some winter and snow), it was a really nice change of pace.

In grand old blog tradition, it’s time to look back on the past year.

Thimbleanna: 2022

It was another good year here in ThimbleannaLand but boy, my posting here on the blog was less than stellar.  A quick look at my Instagram page, shows a few (mostly smaller) projects that I never posted here.  Which is a little sad, as the blog offers a lot more opportunity to keep track of project details for future reference.  Lax posting aside, the year was a good mix of travel, family and crafty bits.  I’m happy to say that there was more family time than ever gets recorded, I probably should work on that a little.  It’s so fun to look back and see what we were doing “way back when”.  I think I did a little more quilting this year than in years past — definitely more piecing than I’ve recorded.  And more sewing for the girls (I spy one up there that still needs to be posted), but less knitting overall.  And there wasn’t much travel, but the West Highland Way hike in Scotland was spectacular, so that more than made up for the longer stretches at home.  Aside from Scotland, there were several trips to Florida to help TheSecondChild get settled, and in the process, I discovered an obsession with iguanas LOL.  Because they are Every.Where down there!

So, now to look forward!  Are you a goal setter?  New Year’s resolutions?  I’m not much of either anymore — I just hope to have lots of time to quilt and sew, knit and travel — and, of course, spend time with the babies (big and small).  Wishing you all much of the same — or whatever it is that your heart is dreaming.  HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
XOXO,
Anna