The Gathering of Friends my favorite cookbooks

I was so excited last weekend when DeWayne and I were invited over to some friends house for dinner, Mike and Debbie Jones are great friends of ours and we try to get together once in awhile. Some times we meet at a restaurant or at each others home. This time we went to their home.   Their home is beautiful, it looks like something out of a magazine. They don't have grandkids yet and their kids are all grown so their house is immaculate! Debbie and I have been friends for nearly 30 years and our tastes and interests are very much alike so we have fun inspiring each other.

Well was I surprised to find out when we got there that she was making dinner with her new volume #3 of
The Gathering of Friends cookbook.......I didn't even know it was out yet.

I'm the one who showed her my cookbooks (volume #1 and #2) and she fell in love with them.....she ordered hers and since then we have both given them for birthday gifts and wedding gifts......everyone loves these cookbooks!!!

Michelle Huckstable, the woman that wrote them is also and interior decorator and the photos in her books of beautiful rooms and beautiful tablescapes are very inspiring. She also has the same taste in decorating as me and Debbie do so we get tons of ideas for our homes from these cookbooks. (who would have ever thought you could get decorating ideas from a cookbook?)
Thanks Michelle!!!


I just ordered volume #3  of my favorite cookbooks of all time....:o)

I have quiet a collection of cookbooks and I love to cook, set a pretty table and have family gatherings.
I started doing dinner parties a few years ago for adult birthdays....I set the table with all the pretty stuff I have collected, tall stemmed cut glass water goblets, colorful place mats, cloth napkins, candles and my red toile dishes that I bought at TJ Maxx (love that store). My mother has even gotten in on the fun and picked up some nice pieces she has come across at yard sales.  SO FUN!!  I also do a nice table for Holidays. Its a great creative outlet for me. The birthday person gets to go through my "The Gathering of Friends" cookbooks and select their menu. With all the grandkids there are 10 of us so I set two tables, one for the adults and one for the kids. I think I have tried most of the recipes in volumes 1&2 and I can't wait to get #3.

So if you like to cook like cookbooks and pretty tablescapes go check out these cookbooks and buy one...... I bet you will love them too!  warning though you'll want to collect them all :o)


Blessings!
*Susan*

A winter project finished!!!

This is the book shelves and drawers we had built in for the office. It now functions beautifully for all Portia's books and things. The drawers a deep as you can see and give Portia plenty of storage.

When the girls came to live with us almost 6 years ago Dewayne and I were empty nesters.

We had this great big house all to ourselves. At that time we had two extra bedrooms and being self employed we turned one of the bedrooms into an office.

Having no way of knowing what was down the road for us we even had the closet in the bedroom taken out and had a cabinet company come and build in book shelves and file drawers. It worked out great for several years.......

After 5 years of sharing a bedroom though Portia, almost 11 now really wanted her own bedroom. The problem was that now we needed to move the office and turn that room back into a bedroom....That took some time, we moved the office down to the basement but we first had to be able to afford to finish the basement......hence almost 6 years later....Once we were able to move the office down stairs we had a new challenge though, NO CLOSET!!!.......What to do? We didn't want to tear out the bookshelves and drawers we spent so much money on so we left them and decided to get a wardrobe closet for Portia......

At first I was going to buy a new armior (spell?).....but I didn't have the money to go buy a new one so I looked on line for a used one and this is what I found.....It was a tv cabinet and it was all beat up. I got it for $150.00 ( a new one would have been $1,000 or more) then Dewayne took the shelves out of it and put in a clothing bar. I painted it and distressed it and this is how it turned out..........I am very happy with it and so is Portia......It works great for a closet plus it makes for a nice piece of furniture for her room. Also the book shelve and drawers work out very well for her too....she has tons of space!!! Best of all, she has her own room. If she could only get Paris to sleep in her own bed now.

This is what it looked like when we brought it home

This is what it looks like now after I painted it I used a palm sander to make it look distressed

lots of space for her shoes, now if she would get them from the laundry room and put them in the cabinet

plenty of room for hanging her clothes

going all out!

Even the bathroom got in on the act this year!

Decorating for Christmas

My mother made me this wonderful center piece

I don't usually get that into decorating for Christmas I would rather spend my money on presents. But for some reason this year I decided to have some fun. I bought a new 10' tree

(artifishal ) . Live trees just seem like such a waste to me even though I do understand why so many people have to have a real one. The girls really enjoy decorating for each season so I have been trying to be a little more festive. Here are some picture of the decorations around my house.