The weather outside is frightful...

Well, not frightful, exactly.  But we do have a cold snap in place.  Good soup weather.  In fact, after a long day, we had the end of the vegetable beef soup I fixed last week along with grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches.

The tree is finally up.

And, the pup's bed

is exactly where it was before we began today.  He walked around with a really worried look on his face all day long because I had moved it to an area just inside the front door.  I think he thought it might be going out with the next person to ring the doorbell.  He seemed very relieved to see it go back in place.

He's not to crazy about having the ceramic puppies and "Schultz" so close, but he finally relaxed....

Really relaxed.

Happy puppy again.  Exhausted by all the supervising he had to do today to be sure we didn't forget who rules the roost around here.

Mystery Solved

Update to the citrus tree discovery:

We have gotten about a dozen tangerines from our new tree and they are delicious!  From everything I have read, the first crop on a new tree is small and sometimes kind of sour.  Ours is a small crop at high branches on the tree, but they are flavorful.

To be honest, I have to say I am very glad the seeds turned out to be tangerines and not mango, papaya or some other citrus.

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The mystery citrus tree we have in the backyard is.....

a TANGERINE tree!

Too high to get a good picture but we can see that the fruit that is turning orange is also flattening out and taking the unique shape of a tangerine.

I am doing a happy dance as the tangerine is my favorite citrus fruit.

Just hoping the taste is good.....

Paper Flowers for the "Crafts" at Fun & Games & Crafts Day

It has been a long time since I made any paper flowers -- and even then it was with Kleenex tissues -- I think it was for our Junior-Senior Prom in 1963 or 1964.  Whatever one it was that we made what seemed like millions of white and pink carnations.  I think the theme was April in Paris or something.  Anyway, they transformed the gym, I do remember that.

Yesterday, I spent some time with my young friend, Holly, who showed me how to do the paper rose made with old book pages from books that were so old and damaged that they were headed to the recycle bin. Today, I played around with pink crepe paper and created the other rose.  I will be making templates for petals for other flowers and doing a dry run on dahlias, carnations and several other types between now and October 29 when we hold our fundraiser at the Heritage Museum.

I used to love to play Mexican Train dominoes on Fun & Games Day. But, two years ago, we realized that some of our loyal members were buying a ticket and not coming because they didn't play games of any description and had no interest in doing so.  So we added crafts to the fun.   They bring their needlework if they want -- or they join us at the craft tables for whatever we are doing.

This year we will be making flowers like the ones above that will be placed in florist foam in brightly colored buckets on the tables at our fashion show on March 14, 2015.  Our guests will be able to pull one to take home  as a table favor.

There will be several more crafts workshops before March so all our members have a chance to participate if they wish.  I love it when we can do crafts together with a purpose in mind.

That's part of the "fun" in "fun"draising!