Yesterday was a lot of fun with family and lots of turkey! Joe and his mother in law and of course Miss Jacey came for dinner and James was home. It's been so nice having him here, I miss him so much when he is off at college. He is having a great time though so I will not begrudge him this time in his life. He loves college and he is doing well. We are eating on our new "table." We were given a full size pool table. Problem is, where do you put it? Our dining room table was not big enough for the family to sit 11 people without using a card table too. Putting the two problems together, Mary came up with a solution. The table is a large piece of plywood with molding edging it. Then pieces of wood were glued and nailed to the bottom to hold the top in place so that there would be no shifting of the table top. Mary stained the top using a walnut /polyurethane one step stain. We may follow that with a poy resin top to give it a harder surface. Works well and we all fit! 
I've been doing a bit of canning this year. This is a work in progress for me and I'm learning as I go along. We've made applesauce, apple butter, and canned pears. I will probably do some more apples over the next couple of weeks while the price of apples is down! Next year I hope to put a lot more up. I froze fresh tomatoes and squash. We also processed our own pumpkin and we've been using it for pumpkin bread and oatmeal bread in the mornings. The apple butter is so easy that I could do much more of that and it is in constant demand around here. 
We painted! No more primer white (actually I still have my bedroom to go but the rest of the house is done) We painted most of the walls a color called Hopsack and then accented with a color called Soul Chocolate. It's such a yummy color! This picture shows both colors really well. I love that picture of Ron and his brother and sister on the dark wall. It just pops out. The Hopsack is a light tan color and goes well with most other colors. Mary painted a wall in her room Posh Red - it looks really good with the Hopsack. I will be painting my room soon I hope. It's hard when Ron works in the room and weekends are at a premium. We will probably have to wait until after Christmas. I will be doing one of my walls (maybe two) a deep gray/green. 
Happy Thanksgiving! The count-down for Christmas is on.
