Halloween Memories from the Adirondack Mountains

I am sitting here in our humble little home, on top of a hill watching the wind blow leaves threw the air furiously. There is a damp coldness in the air, but if one were to stumble upon our humble little abode, they would see warm inviting smoke coming from our chimney. Inside they would fine a quaint but simple home, with the scent of sandalwood in the air from the flickering candles burning. Our cats curled up in their bed by the wood stove sound asleep. What we have isn't much in the eyes of many, but to us it is "Home Sweet Home".

It takes me back to the small town of Speculator NY, where I grew up. This time of year, we would be getting so excited about Halloween coming up. My mother and father worked very hard to give us what they could, but we never had store bought costumes. My mother would take the time and do her very best to make what ever costume we wanted. We did the ever loving hobo, the clown, and one year I will never forget was when I was a box of popcorn. My brother and sister thought they were to old at the time to dress up, to them it was childish. For me, I was still a child and this year I would be going to the school for the Halloween costume contest! I could not wait. My mother went to our local grocery store and asked for a box. she search until she found one that would sit just right on my shoulders. She then covered it with red and white crape paper and hand cut letters out that spelled out "buttered popcorn". Those were glued to the front and back of the box, For the top, my father spread glue all around the top and the hole that was cut for my head to go through. My mother popped popcorn and poured it over the glue. When dried, it looked just like a real box of popcorn. We all piled into the car, yes, my parents made my brother and sister go to watch. My Grandma Orr came up from Wells to watch as well. I proudly marched around in the circle to show off my costume to the judges. When we were done, the winners were announced. When the "Most Original" winner was announced, my name was called out. This is the very first thing I can ever remember winning, so it is a special memory for me. Oh, there were the kids that had the beautiful store bought princess costumes and the fairy's all sparkling, but it was the originality and hard work of my parents that won for me that day. I was so proud, and to this day, when I think of it, I tear up thinking about how much our parents have always loved us and done their best to make us happy. Especially my mother, you see she was born on Halloween, so she gave up many birthday celebrations so that we could have a happy Halloween. Thank you Mom, that is why we try to make her birthday special every year now, to give back just a little of the love she gave to us.

My parents also grew up in Speculator and Wells NY, so there were many family members living very close. I had a ton of cousins that I went to school with and played with. They were always very special to me, and to this day they mean the word to me. They are the true sense of the word "Family". When one of us is hurting, we all hurt. That is how close we are. Getting back to when we were young, I remember on more than one occasion, my mother and Aunt Mary driving us all around to houses to go trick or treating. It was not only cold, but a few years we also had snow on the ground already!! There were always our favorite houses to go to. One house gave out peanut butter cups.... then there was the one that gave out coins!! Back then, a lot of people made home made goodies, which we all loved. You didn't have to worry about needles or razor blades being in these delectable treats. We would get candied apples and chocolate chip cookies, but my all time personal favorite would be the fabulous rice krispie treats made by a lady down the street. I remember her name was Helen, and she was the sweetest lady. She always made these treats with chocolate on top.... YUM..... I can still remember how wonderful they were. 

Now that I am growing older, I seem to be looking out the window, watching the seasons change, Thinking back to the fun times of being a child. I wish the children today could know of these wonderful times. We were not rich with money, but we were so rich with love and family. I wish I could turn back the hands of time just long enough to go back and thank the older people in our small town, that made these memories so special for me. It is these memories and feeling of being so loved that has made me the person I am today. I still am not rich with money. My husband and I live a very humble simple life. What we do have is a home that is warm and cozy, not fancy but there is love and warmth and the love of the Lord. Does anyone really need much more than that??

Thank you for taking the time to read about my trip down memory lane. May God Bless you and may you look back and think of wonderful times spent with family and friends that you considered family when you were young, bringing some of those feelings into our life today. 

 

Beauty taken for granted.

Today I was going through some disks looking for certain photos. I have hundreds of photos since photography is also one of my many hobbies. I love to take photos of nature, everything from landscapes, to butterflies and even mushrooms!! Growing up in the Adirondacks, I have always taken the beauty that surrounds me for granted. It was nothing for me to run up a mountain behind our house and play in a stream that flowed down from the top of the mountain. I would pick beautiful wild flowers and never gave it a second thought. Now that I am in my 40's, I really see the beauty that surrounds me. Even the smell of the air after a spring rain or the smell of warm earth after a summer thunder storm. So many people come here for vacations in the summer, and it wasn't until I started looking through the view finder of my camera that I realized how lucky I am to have had this around me my whole life.Something as simple as two Adirondack style chairs sitting by the Hudson river, just looks so beautiful and relaxing to me.
Maybe it is the fact that the world is in such chaos
now, that the simple things of life seems so endearing to me. I even find that looking up to the top of the evergreen trees in my yard, seeing all those tiny pine cones hovering over my head with the clear bright blue of the sky as the back drop, seems so much more vivid to me now.
My husband, who grew up in Westchester County, actually opened my eyes to the beauty around us every day. He has often remarked that I was so lucky to have this every day growing up. He came to the Thurman area as a child for family vacations. He loved it so much and knew he was meant to live here. He moved here back in the late 70's and since we have been together, I have been able to see things from a completely different way. We love to take walks, especially in the fall, when the mountains are a blaze of color. The crackle of the leaves under our feet, the smell of the crisp air and a slight chill that makes you want to snuggle around a camp fire and listen to the night sounds and the crackle of the fire.
I found a short video that I had put together from one of our walks a couple years back. I am putting it on here so you can see the beauty that I see. This was past peak leaf season, but the colors where still beautiful and the Hudson River rushing by on it's way south. I hope you enjoy this short video, and if possible, come to the Adirondacks and experience it for yourself. We truly need to stop and enjoy the gorgeous surroundings around us, it helps make the everyday trials of life seem a little easier to bare.

A New Year Begins....

My mother, Marjorie, with her father Lee Orr

As this new year begins, my mind is whirling back to the days of my family, before I was even born. My cousin and I have always loved family genealogy. We have followed our family roots back to Scotland as far back as the 1600's. it amazes me when I think of everything my ancestors went through in their lives. the hard times just to put food on the table. I love to hear the stories from my Mom about what it was like when she was young. My father would talk for hours about when he was young, I truly miss those stories from him. I am

Glove factor my grand mother worked at.

 thankful that he told me, so they can now become part of my memories. I am lucky enough to have many photos from my mothers side of the family. My grandparents all kept family photos and they were passed down through the generations. I have scanned a lot of them so that there would always be digital copies and they would never be lost. The photo to the top left is my grand-father Orr and my mother, Marjorie when she was young. Back then the old homestead, which still stands today and my Uncle still lives there, was a farm. My mother would tell of having to help her grand-father, my great grand-father Robert, butcher the chickens. She was very young when this was done, but being the oldest, it was her job to help. As she grew older, she would have to do a weeks worth of baking in a cabin up on the back hill. It was a one room cabin with a wood cook stove in it. She would have to do all the baking up there in the summer, so the main house didn't get over heated. She would bake breads and pies enough for a week. She also had to help cook the meals as well as attend school. She had three younger brothers that she had to help take care of as well. My grand mother would work full time in a glove factory to feed the family. At the time, my grand father was in a TB clinic. He would be there for eleven years. This would make for tough times, but they survived. My mother learned many skills that I watched her do even through out my life time. 

Ray Brook Hospital where my grand father spent many years.

I think my favorite story is that of my mother and my Uncle Donny. Uncle Donny was always and is still to this day a little devil. My mother was cleaning the house, and my Uncle was supposed to be taking care of the barn animals. Well he thought it would be funny to bring the cow into the house. Which of course he did. Right up the front steps and into the living room. My mother started yelling and running after them both with the broom and ended up putting the broom handle right through the glass on the door. To this day, my mother still gets mad when she thinks about that..lol. Although life was a lot harder back then, they didn't have all the modern conviences we have today, life seemed better. Families were closer and stayed close to each other. Communities gathered to help anyone that needed help. My parents have stayed friends with a lot of the same people they went to school with. My mother still talks to two of her best friends from high school. People in gerneral were different back then. My family have always been country folks, which I am very proud to come from. I have always lived in the Adirondacks, which is something else I am proud of. My ancestors worked hard to get what they needed. Struggling from places like Scotland, Germany and Sweden. I even have a lot of Mohawk Indian running through my veins. I am proud to be who I am and proud to be able to look back at my ancesters and still today see a lot of family resemblance from generations long ago. So as I look to a new year ahead, it is the years of history that I cherish most, because they made me what I am today. I try each day to be as honest and helpful to my family and friends as I can. After a very tragic year last year, I make it a point to tell  my family I love them every day. When we all meet again in heaven, I just know it will be one heck of a family reunion!!! I will be honored to meet my ancestors and I look forward to thanking them for all that they did to give me the life I have had. The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful family. Cherish each day with your family, tell them you love them and embrace the past, take time to learn about your ancestors. 

God Bless you all and I wish nothing but happiness for you and your families. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my little cabin. I have enjoyed a quiet day at home with my husband and our fur baby kitties, Pheeber and Bear Bear. Dinner is done, kitchen cleaned up and I am now sitting cozy in my chair. I spent last night at my brothers house. It is a sad Christmas for us, since loosing my nephew in October. He was my brothers only child. It is so hard to try to have a smile on your face and try to be happy, when you know that everyone's hearts are breaking. We know he was there in spirit, but of course it was not the same. The holidays have not been the same since my Dad passed away almost 6 years ago. Now we have two empty chairs, and it is twice as hard. I do have my memories, which no one can take. I know that as long as I keep them alive in my heart, then they will live on forever. I also know, that one day we will all be together again. Somehow, the warm loving feeling I used to feel this time of year is gone. Now,  I  go through the motions of things that one is supposed to do, but it has no meaning any longer. For me, it is simple the Lord's birthday. The need for presents and tons of food, have very little meaning to me now. I feel, that each day that I can wake, and still have the family I have left with me and my husband, then I know that day will be ok. It has become a day by day life for me now. I don't want to bring everyone down on what is supposed to be a joyous occasion. I just long for the happy, full on anticipation feeling I used to have. I know as we get older, holidays can actually make us blue. My memory takes me back to the time when we were young children.......

We would always go to my grandmothers house for Christmas. All of my Aunts and Uncles and cousins would be there. It was loud circus, but always fun. Everyone would bring a dish, we would all eat until we could not move. Then it was time for us to all gather around the Christmas tree. The children all sitting in front waiting for our gifts. Of course, once we were all done, everything had to loaded in the car, and we would head back home. Once there, we were told that we could not play with our new toys, as it was time to go to bed, otherwise, Santa would not come. Of course, now we realize, that was simple a way for our parents to have time to relax and to get all of the presents under the tree. We would wake in the morning, usually way to early. We would tip toe in to see if my parents were awake, we would be met with the "go back to bed, it is to early" line. We would then sneak in and see the tree all a glow and presents pile under the tree. Finally, after much pleading, my parents would get up, and my father would have to fix his cup of coffee and drag it out. We would be so excited and we would be yelling, "Hurry up Daddy!". We would finally get to open our gifts. We each got one, but we had watch each other open the gift one at a time. They were usually hand made gifts that my parents had made. They were wonderful and better to us than anything our parents could have bought from the store. We would then get another gift, and continue until we had opened them all. I always felt so close to my family on Christmas day. Now that I am grown, I feel that closeness every day. As we have been loosing family members from year to year, I cling to these memories even more.

I am not only wishing you all a Merry Christmas, but also wishing you happy memories. Hold on to them, cherish them. Love and cherish family. You never know when you wake in the morning, if someone you love will be gone before night falls. So be sure to tell them every day, how much you love them. Do things for your friends, just for the sake of helping them, expecting nothing in return except the good feeling of knowing that you helped them.

I wish you all Blessings for this up coming year. God Bless and be well.

Lotion Making for Gift Giving

As Christmas quickly approaches, I have been working on other gifts. I have done a small batch of lotion, so I thought I would make a video while I made it. This will show you how simply lotions can be made. I use an unscented lotion base, which I then scent with what ever skin safe fragrance oil I wish. You must make sure it is skin safe oil!!! Usually, if you can use it for soap making, you can use it for lotions. You can also color to your lotions with cosmetic grade coloring, but I usually leave it the natural white. The lotion I made for this video is a goat milk & honey lotion. This is very thick. It is more like a body butter. For this reason, I put it is tubs instead of the normal squeeze bottle that lotions come in. 

 Once it is in the containers, I create pretty labels to go on them and add a ribbon around the top. My friends and family love these lotions and they really are very simple to make. Everyone will appreciate the time you took to make something special just for them.

Christmas Approaches

I can hardly believe Christmas is only a couple weeks away. I have started my baking and I have done what decorating I am going to do. It amazes me how much I have changed over the years. 20 years ago, I would have started decorating the day after Thanksgiving. There wouldn't be a place in my home that didn't have some kind of Christmas decoration in it. Now at the age of 46, I find I am decorating less. My husband and I are getting older, my nieces and nephews have all grown up and no longer come over as much. This year is an especially sad one, having lost my nephew Billy just two months ago today.

I have rallied as much Christmas spirit as I can and put up some decorations. It is simple but very pretty to look at. My home is small and very rustic and country, just the way I like it. Perhaps a little more rustic than I like, but never the less it is home.

We have two new additions to our home, our 7 month old kittens. They are hardly kittens any longer, but they are what makes me smile every morning. They are so funny to watch, they love to check out all of the new stuff Mom is putting out..lol..

As I was putting up my little memorial tree, adding yet one more special ornament for my nephew, I was taken back to the days of when I was a child. We never had a lot of money, but my Mom would get us construction paper and make us glue out of flour and water. My brother and sister and I would sit all afternoon and make paper chains for the tree. We would have them hanging everywhere by the time Dad got home. Mom would make popcorn and we would string that for the tree as well. Of course more of it was eaten than strung..lol.. I was very little then so Mom had to help me because I was to young to use a needle. My brother never did much to help with this chore...he was the one eating it!!

I remember going to my grandmother's house every Christmas eve. All of my Aunts and Uncles and cousins would be there. Uncle George would get the slide projector out and show slides, most of which we had seen many times. I think he did it just to tease us children, and make us wait to open gifts We would then open our gifts and Gram always had goodies to eat. This year, I will be spending time at my cousin's house over in Piseco NY. It will be a lot like the old days, only now we are the adults. I am looking forward to this family gathering. It will bring back so many memories as well as make many new ones.

The photos in tonight's blog are of my humble decorations in my home. It will soon be time for my husband and I to take our yearly ride around to look at everyone's houses all a glow with the colors of Christmas, a tradition we started many years ago.

Christmas means more than presents to me now. I know the first gift ever given on Christmas was a child, a child from God. This is what Christmas is to me, celebrating that gift and appreciating the blessings God has given me. So to all of you I wish a joyous Christmas season and many happy blessings. Love each other and be kind to strangers. Thank the Lord for each day that you awake to spend another day with your loved ones, you never know when these days will come to an end. God Bless.

Handmade Christmas...

Good afternoon everyone. Today I have been spending time back in my soap making room. I have MANY interests and hobbies. Soap making is one one of them, but today I made up some sachet beads. I will put them in decorative jars and give them as Christmas gifts this year. These are actually very easy to make and not that expensive, because you can get so many gifts from one batch. I made two batches today, I made a spruce/evergreen scent and I did a wild berry scent. I decided it would be easier to show you how it is done, so I did a video while I was making the second batch. Let me apologize in advance for the poor camera angles...it is hard to video and stir..lol..

I get all of my supplies online, as I have very limited resources in the area I live. Most of my supplies come from www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com , they are wonderful and have a large variety of everything. If you are lucky enough to have supply outlets in your area, then great!!!

I actually had a soap making business for two years, I did very well, I had a lot of repeat customers. I created custom scents and products. It is because I had to have 90% of my supplies shipped in plus the ever growing cost of insurance, that I decided to shut down last year. I just could not make a profit when I was dumping all of my money into shipping and insurance. Some of you might remember me, my business name was Adirondack Suds and Scents.

I decided that it might be fun to show you how fun and easy it can be to create wonderful gifts, that your friends and family will love. It brings a little bit of that old fashioned feeling of giving from the heart back to Christmas. I hope you enjoy the video, and please watch for more in the next few days. I will be showing you how I do my lotions next!!!