Here is another view of the all the things I made for this gift. I have some chocolate to include but I took this picture before I got it. Today I plan to wrap it and pack everything in my mailing box. It will out out in the post tomorrow

I thought the button was made of Bakelite but it is not. I just Googled to find a test for Bakelite. The button failed the test. It also failed the test for celluloid; its does look a little like some of the celluloid buttons that I saw. I guess it is made of common garden variety plastic. That means the button is not as old as I thought. It probably dates from the late 40's and more likely the 50's. The design just does not look like something that would have come out of the 60's with the exception of the first year or two.

It is lightly snowing right now. Unless the temperature drops significantly and the snow falls more heavily, it will not last through the day. The weather this November has been extremely mild. I guess it is averaging out with the horrible, cold, snowy weather in October.

I have pictures to show you. I have completed the things I want to make for this gift and am ready to show you the last items. The little winders are finished. I decided that they would look better with paper on both sides. For the second side, I used paper with a letters and envelopes theme. Since the paper is from Italy, the letters are in Italian and the addresses and cancellation marks are also Italian.

Take a look at the close up of the button. It is a little hard to see the detail. I just love this button. I got it and several others at an estate sale. I have no idea how old it is but I would guess that it dates from the 30's or maybe the 20's. They were quite dirty but with a little soap and water look spectacular.

And Here It Is . . . .

My major respon- sibility today is the pie. You have been able to follow the process from the time we picked the pumpkins. This is the final result. Well, maybe not the final result because we have yet to cut and eat it.

Besides the pie, I also have the responsibility of preparing the cranberries. Our son is preparing the rest of the meal.

As I prepare this posting, I am sipping a mockmosa, orange juice with ginger ale. It seems very festive.

I am reminding myself of everything for which I am grateful; at the top of the list are my family and friends.

Do you remember the picture of the snow- capped pumpkins that I posted five weeks ago? Yesterday I baked two of them and here they are just out of the oven. I am using them to make our Thanks- giving pie.

Have you noticed that canned pumpkin and Eggo waffles are flying off the grocery store shelves and leaving empty places? There is a reason for both. Two Eggo waffle plants have been shut down. I am not absolutely certain about one; at least one is in Georgia where the flooding occurred. I believe that the plant was flooded out. The freezer shelves may not be restored until sometime in 2010.

Likewise with the pumpkin. Nestle holds Libby's label and says their primary pumpkin growing area near Peoria, Illinois is experiencing crop failure. In addition, Libby's does not have a backup stock this year. The price of Libby's pumpkin is significantly higher than other brands which has increased sales of the other brands. Libby's produces significantly more pumpkin than the other brands. When the Libby's pumpkin is off the shelves, that is it for us. We have to hope for a good crop next year and that the reserve can be built up.

So if you want to insure that you can bake pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cake for Christmas in the US, get some extra pumpkin right now. I really do not know how this affects supplies outside of the US or even if there is as great a market for pumpkin.

That being said, I hope that the US residents have a good Thanksgiving holiday. We are gathering together and have made our grocery purchases. We will be having a fresh, not frozen turkey. It is cold enough today for it to safely rest on the porch. There is so much for which we are grateful including you, our friends. For those readers who are not US residents, it is always a good idea to take a couple moments for gratitude.

It is Monday morning and we still have an internet connec- tion.

This is a set of project bags with co-ordinating fabric covered box and winders. They go with the metal box I lined. I need to do a little remedial work on the winders and make at least one more item and everything will be done for this exchange.

The paper lining the box and lid is the blue and white floral print that I picked up Friday.

Here are Alma's directions to make the winders.
Although I have already given you a link to Alma's directions to cover and line the boxes, I will give it to you again just in case you decided not to look when I first posted but want to look now. Click on this link and scroll down to the entry for 26 October for the beginning of the directions.

Just a little note. As mentioned in the past, we have connectivity problems which are only going to become worse with time. We have decided to transfer to a different ISP. The new ISP will not connect us until our present ISP disconnects us. As far as we can tell, according to the people we talked with, in order to have our present ISP disconnect us, the only way we will know we are disconnected is when we cannot access the internet. We have not been informed of a scheduled time to be disconnected and we will not be informed when we are about to be disconnected or have been disconnected.

According to our new-to-be ISP, we must call them as soon as we know we are disconnected and they will come out to connect us to their service.

Up to this point, everything sounds rather simple. We understand that although we have told our current ISP the day we want to be connected, tomorrow, it may take several days to complete the disconnect and new connection. Depending upon when the disconnect is effective, it may take a day or two for the new ISP to actually come out to connect us to their service; we have to take into consideration the fact that this is a short holiday week with Thanksgiving. Everyone on both sides says they are working to achieve our satisfaction but it sounds tenuous at best. We are getting a little tired of hearing, "We are concerned about you and are doing everything to make your experience a satisfying one." sigh

Although our current ISP knows we want it to disconnect tomorrow and our new ISP knows we want it to connect tomorrow, in reality that may not happen. It probably will not happen in a smooth, seamless process. Please, oh please keep your fingers crossed that it will be as efficient and seamless as possible.

Our present ISP is giving us a credit for the inconvenience it has caused us in the past and in the transition to our new ISP. The credit will enable us to keep our current e-mail addresses without charge for six months. During that time, we can decide how we want to handle our e-mail. Once this ISP changeover is complete, we should look no different to you. To us, it should be a vast improvement in that we should have a much faster internet connection.

I honestly do not know where the time goes. Last Monday, Roger and I together made ham loaf to put into the freezer to have for easy to prepare meals. Friday we discovered that our sons do not like ham loaf. Sigh
It would have been nice if they had told us when we brought home the ham and pork to make it.

Friday Roger and I made banana bread together. We already knew that our sons are not particularly fond of it but we made it anyway because we like it. I made the first loaf with Roger watching closely and giving a little help when asked. Actually I was showing him how to bake from a recipe. The second loaf, he made with just a little help from me. The banana breads both turned out well.

We both thought that it would be a good idea for Roger to learn how to make banana bread because he likes to buy "day old" bananas at the grocery store. Actually, they pack the bananas that are for one reason or another unattractive to customers in large plastic bags. They load the bags of bananas into a grocery cart and offer them to customers at a very low price. When we bring a bag home, Roger sorts out the ones he will eat and then suggests that I make banana bread. More recently he has suggested that we could make banana bread together. We did and it worked well. I think that he will be making more banana bread by himself.

We also like cinnamon bread, a yeast bread. Roger has occasionally asked me to make cinnamon bread but recently suggested that we could make it together. I think this togetherness project might work.

Yesterday I finished making all of the project bags that I intended to make. They are primarily for gifts. As I finish making the rest of the components of each gift, I will take pictures to show you. I have a few more items to go. Friday I picked up the lovely blue and white floral paper that was out of stock; I wanted it to line the inside of a fabric covered box. In the afternoon, I finished the box. I still need to practice my techniques but the box does look reasonably well.