Happy Halloween !!!!

Well, Happy Halloween Blogland Neighborhood! Kitty is in her witch's costume and all set to go Trick or Treating. Now, I told her NOT to go to any scary looking places ..... we better follow her and see if she listens for a change ....




NO Kitty!!! Not that old burned out abandoned church!!




How about that house across the street? That looks OK.....



....YIKES !!! maybe not!!! it's empty and creepy and FOR SALE ...... and I think I just saw something moving up there in that turret window ..... LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!




.....I'm not so sure about this place either ..... nobody ever seems to come or go from there......



....uh, oh... now Kitty is in a snit and stormed off towards the woods ..... she said something about a nice old lady who lives in a house in the woods ....





....look! There she is ....








...we better take a closer look.....




.....Kitty seems to be hiding under her cape ... is she scared? or just shy? It's OK Kitty, that looks like a nice old lady .....






......look, Kitty, she's having a Halloween party out in her backyard ... and you're invited !!!



Well, I'm glad she's all set for the rest of the day because I've got to get busy packing!! I'm heading to The Big Apple , New York City, for the weekend!!!! YEP!! It's a Girl's Weekend !!! It's finally here! This is the weekend my sister, sister-in-law, Mom, and nieces organized as a "significant" birthday weekend celebration for me .... but let's remember that my birthday isn't for a couple of weeks yet, so I'm STILL NOT THAT age .....yet! So, anyhow, we girls (and this also includes my best pal, Bethy and her daughter), are taking over NYC for the weekend !!! I'll take lots of pictures , I promise! See you next week!!!

Happy Halloween!! (oh, could one of you check on Kitty later tonight because it just occured to me that Kitty just might be on the menu at that sweet old lady's Halloween party .......)

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Wild weather day!!!

What a wild weather day we had here in Pa today!!! You can't really tell from this picture, but we had SNOW!!! and WIND and RAIN and some THUNDER !!! We didn't have any accumulating snow here in Jim Thorpe, but a few miles away "out on the mountain" (which is part of Jim Thorpe School District) they had about 10 inches of snow!!! (that's an unofficial measurement from one of Evan's buddies) .... but anyhow, the driving conditions were so bad that the elementary schools were canceled for the day, and the high school kids were dismissed at 11:30 this morning. Pretty wild and bizarre weather for late October in these parts!

Speaking of bizarre .... I had a bizarre dream last night .... in my dream, look what I was giving out to the Trick or Treaters for Halloween....




.....an ear of Indian corn and an embroidery hoop...... let's not even try to analyze that one!!! I think I'm just starting to head down the same path as
this poor confused lady!

Let's see.... what else is on the agenda here tonight.....OH!!! I KNOW!!!LOOK!!!....




Be still my heart!!! It's "I LOVE LUCY" fabric from Quilting Treasures !!!Available this December!!! I already put this on my Christmas list!!!! I have visions of aprons and chef hats dancing in my head!!!









Well gang, I guess that's all that's new around here today..... so, I'm going to get the tv remote out of the microwave now and head to bed :)

Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

......and the Halloween Give Away Winners are........

Good Saturday evening Blogland Neighbor-hood!!! Sorry about the late Give Away Winner announce-ment .... we've had a bit of a rain delay .... just like they're having in Philly for the World Series game tonight..... it has been raining cats and dogs since early afternoon here ... some flooded streets, etc.(but nothing major, thank goodness).

Anyhow, without further adoo (I have no idea if that's how you spell "adoo".....)OK, without further adoo.... I employed the assistance of my two "cooperative" sons to pick out the two winning names ......



.....Matt was so engrossed in that video game he was playing that he didn't realize I put the fancy little witch hat on his head ........amazing.....



......so, when I finally got his attention, he picked a name out of the pumpkin ..... winner #1 (and I still don't think he realized that goofy hat is on his head....)



......and here we have Kid #2, Evan, picking out winner #2 from the pumpkin (he wasn't too thrilled about me telling him he had to put the fancy little witch hat on so I told him "well, your brother did.")

.....OK ..... the two winners of the Halloween Give Away are (drum roll please)....



....Debbie in Ohio, and Jan in Tn !!!!! YAY !!! Congrats Debbie and Jan!!!! Please email me with your addresses so I can mail out your loot in time for Halloween!!


Thanks, everyone , for playing and for your nice comments!!! Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Mr. Sweet (and sour) 16 !!!! (and some other exciting stuff)

Happy Friday evening Blogland Neighborhood! Well,today is my baby boy's 16th birthday!!! Yep..... 16 years ago today my now 6 ft tall baby boy , Evan, made his appearance (all I can say is thank goodness he wasn't 6 ft tall on this day 16 years ago .... OUCH!!)



He has always been a very sweet kid .... and still is a (mostly) sweet (although occasionally sour ..... you know, that moody teenage thing) kid! HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVAN!!! (and stop growing up SO FAST!!! it's aging me, your poor mother, at a depressing rate of speed!)

Let's see, we've had some other exciting things going on this week here at Moonbeams headquarters .... First of all, I won a give away that Pat Sloan had on her blog a few days ago!!!



.....and, here are the goodies I won!!! Pat's "Be Thankful" quilt pattern, her "Tweet Street" pattern, and some bits of pretty fabrics!!! THANKS PAT!!! (and speaking of give aways, you still have until tomorrow, Saturday the 25th to sign up for my Halloween Give Away!)

....Another exciting thing that came to my attention (and I apologize because,as usual, I'm a little late getting to this "party" .... takes me awhile to "get with the program"!) .... anyhow, it has come to my attention that one of our neighbors here in Blogland has , after much hard work and apprehension, launched her own online quilt pattern business!!! So, head on over to Nannie's Quilt Patch and pay her a visit! Yay Nan!!! Good for you!!!

....OK, and for the last of our exciting news here at Moonbeams Headquarters (and I'm almost afraid to mention this for fear it'll jinx it .... well, maybe if I just whisper it ....) .....one of my quilt designs was picked by Quiltmaker Magazine to be published in their Oct/Nov 2009 issue !!!! (OK, so that was a loud whisper!) I've entered pretty many quilt designs in their ongoing quilt design contest and have become very familiar with the rejection letter ..... so, believe me when I say this was a totally unexpected surprise!!!



....OK, so keep your fingers crossed that they don't change their minds or decide to stop publishing the magazine in the meantime!!!!

Well, time to go stare at the TV since that's about all I can manage on a Friday evening (while I pace the floor waiting for Matt and his girlfriend and other friends to get home from a haunted house thing they insisted on driving about 2 hours to get to .... there was a perfectly good one about an hour's drive away, but oh no, that one isn't scary enough .....hmmmmm..... I mean for Pete sake, they can go 5 minutes away and sit in room 210 or 310 at the hotel (i.e Mr. Moonbeams place of business ,The Inn at Jim Thorpe) because there are all sorts of ghost stories that come out of there !

Anyhow, don't forget, if you didn't sign up for my Halloween Give Away, you still can do it until tomorrow afternoon (that's Saturday Oct. 25th until 3:30 PM EST....but don't sign up on this post go back to that post and sign up.... otherwise the Give Away Dept here at Moonbeams Headquarters gets all confused.....)

Be back soon!
Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Frost on the pumpkin patch! AND.... a Halloween Giveaway!!

Good Monday morning Blogland Neighbors!! Well, it's a bit nippy here in Pa..... it was 31 degrees earlier this morning when I drove Evan to the bus stop .... and there was FROST, too!!!

Anyway .... I'm so glad you all enjoyed the Jim Thorpe Fall Foliage Festival post. This past weekend was another beautiful weekend for the Festival .... perfect weather again! There's still one more weekend for the Festival .... so if you're in the eastern Pa area, you should stop by!!

Now, you're probably thinking I totally forgot that I was going to do a Halloween Giveaway (as mentioned in the Fall Foliage Festival post .... remember I said I did some shopping in those cute Jim Thorpe shops for fun stuff for a giveaway and to "check back in a day or two"? .... well, that day or two stretched out to be almost a week.... OOPS!! sorry .... as usual, I got a bit sidetracked!)

OK, so here we go!!!! Here are the goodies!!!


hmmmmmmm, I guess it's kind of hard to tell what you're looking at in this picture (that's our crackerjack photography dept at work again here at MBIAJ.....) As usual, if you click on the picture it should make it bigger so you can see what's what!.....OR, wait, I know ..... let me make little groups of stuff to show you....

From The Country Cottage we have this Gooseberry Patch Harvest Kitchen Cookbook, a little pumpkin sachet, a little notepad with pumpkins on it, AND......
....this cute witchy plant poke (I guess it's a plant poke .... I'm not sure what else you would do with it since there's no way for it to stand up on it's own .... but I thought it was very cute!!)



Next, from "Homespun", is this little vintage looking Halloween pillow; next to that is a Halloween ornament (also with a vintage repro picture on it) and a vintage looking Halloween card (these two items are from "The Mauch Chunk General Emporium".)



......and what's Halloween without candy? really, I ask you!! So, from the Mauch Chunk 5&10 comes PEZ !!! (our goal here at MBIAJ is to find a PEZ appropriate for every occasion or holiday!); and in that little bag in the center are Gummy spiders from "Rainbow's End" (I don't think I got a picture of that shop .... I'll have to make sure I do and show it to you .... the inside is an old fashioned candy store with every kind of candy you could ever hope for!!! and they also make a dynamite grilled cheese sandwich to boot! .... OH! AND, they carry "I LOVE LUCY" mugs, signs, etc!!! and Betty Boop, too!)


......and FABRIC !! there has to be FABRIC!! ( 1/4 yard of each of those pretty autumn fabrics!) and GIANT black ric rac!! (1 yard!) I got this great stuff at my friend Kelly's quilt shop The Quiltery. Now, technically "The Quiltery" isn't in Jim Thorpe, BUT it's only a few miles out of town ..... you could practically spit to it!


Next, is a little pumpkin ornament that was made by yours truly! ....and....

last, are these fun spools of Halloween colored ribbons (those I got at Walmart .... loved the polka dots!!!)



Okee dokee! So, just leave a comment on this post for you to be entered to win .... I think maybe I'll pick 2 winners and divide up the loot between them. Let's see, since time is flying by and Halloween will be here before we know it, I think we'll have the drawing on Saturday (this Saturday Oct. 25th .... late afternoon or early evening .... I haven't figured that out yet .....anyway, if we do the drawing on Saturday I should be able to mail out the loot to the winners on Monday , so that they'll hopefully have it in time for Halloween on Friday ..... well, that's the plan, anyhow!).

Now leave a comment!!! Be back soon!......oh, wait!! one more picture from the Pumpkin Patch!!!!
















Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Fall Foliage Festival in Jim Thorpe, Pa

Hi everybody in Blogland! What gorgeous weather we've been having here in Pa !!! Today it was sunny and 77 degrees!! Kind of warm for mid October .... definately an Indian Summer Day!! ....and, as you can see, (and I know I mentioned this before) the leaves are also GORGEOUS !!! Whatever the perfect conditions are for tons of colorful leaves, I guess we're having them!

Anyhow, I did get a chance to walk over to the Jim Thorpe Fall Foliage Festival this past Sunday, and I took some ....well lots.... of pictures. So, get your beverage of choice , sit back , listen to the music, relax, and I'll take you on an Autumn tour of Jim Thope, Pa! (and, in case you missed the first zillion times I mentioned it, I LOVE autumn!!!! I just can't get enough of the weather and the colors!!)

OK..... here we go.....


.....first up is the new gazebo in the park by the train station (I think this is so pretty and old fashioned .... if I wasn't already married, I'd want my wedding pictures taken here!...hmmmmmm, maybe I'll have my birthday pictures taken here!....should I wear my birthday suit?) Anyhow, there were crafters and food vendors set up throughout the park, and a man and a woman in the gazebo with guitars and singing.



...and here's the train station (oops, that picture is kind of dark ...maybe if you click on it to make it bigger you can see it better, especially the round turret tower thing on the left side of the station). The fall foliage excursion trains run about every hour (I think).


...OK, now more pretty leaves .... because , did I mention how much I love autumn and pretty leaves ?!?!




....and here is Mr. Moonbeams place of business .... where he's the captain of the ship, the head honcho, the big cheese .... this is The Inn at Jim Thorpe ..... and, just for your Halloween pleasure, it's haunted to boot! (or so some of the guests and housekeepers claim!...if you go the the webpage and scroll to the bottom, you can click on "ghost stories" and read all about it!)

... now, across the street from The Inn is this shop,"Nature's Trail" , and next door to that is....


.....the Mauch Chunk 5 & 10 (Mauch Chunk is the original name of the town .... it was changed to "Jim Thorpe" in the 1950's)



.....OOOOooooooo!!!!Look!! More pretty leaves!!! because, like I said I LOVE autumn and pretty leaves!



....OK, continuing on down the street, next to the 5&10 is this shop, "The General Emporium" . There are 2 sides to this shop. On one side they have really neat vintage decorations for each holiday and antiques, etc,. On the other side it's Harry Potter's ville! All sorts of witch and sorcerer's hats (ala Harry Potter ) and much stuff about witchcraft ....very interesting.....

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....OK, farther down the street is this building "The Douglas House Shops". There are a bunch of shops in this building (which originally was a single familly home built around the time of the Civil War, I think .....anyhwo, it's HUGE!!! you should see the woodwork and the stairway inside!! ..... I like looking at it, but I would NOT want to dust it!)


....across the street from The Douglas House is this shop "The Dreisbach House" .... this place has tons of vintage clothing and HATS !! also vintage jewelry, and linens. Don't you just love those big droopy sunflowers?!?! This was also , at one time, a single family home .... and you should see the beautiful double stairway inside .... more amazing woodwork!! ....and original light fixtures! (if you click on the picture to make it bigger, you can see one of the lights in the window.)



......yep, you guessed it....MORE pretty leaves!


....OK, now we turned the corner and we're on Race Street. This is The Country Cottage , home of the blue ribbon pickle! (and lots of other fun stuff).


...a little further down on Race Street is St Mark's church .... also supposedly haunted!


......uh huh ... leaves........pretty



...OK, across from St Mark's is this fancy, shmancy restaurant "Moya". This is where Kid #1, the college boy Matt, works on Friday and Saturday nights as a runner and bus boy. So, if you go out to dinner there and see Matt, tell him what a handsome dude he is, and mention that it wouldn't hurt for him to clear the table at home once in awhile ! ( I guess he's waiting for us to give him a tip.....)



Next to "Moya" on Race Street is this very cute shop "Homespun". She has alot of very cute decorative nick nacks (on the "primitive" side), paintings (country landscapes, etc), quilted wall hangings and yummy smelling soy candles. Also, on the top 2 floors she has a GORGEOUSLY decorated daily/weekly rental apt.



.....another little sidetrip to see ..........MORE LEAVES!!! (did I mention I just can't get enough of this fall foliage? .... I did? .... oh..)



...OK, now this isn't a shop, it's a private home ... but I think it's really pretty and old fashioned ..... and it's for sale!!! Well, at least half of it is .... it's a double house .... I've been in both sides and I like the side that isn't for sale the best ... oh well, we're not in the market to buy a house anyhow ... but, the side I like has a HUGE open hearth fireplace (like in the pioneer days .... it's so big I can walk right into it .... they have the big black hanging cookpots hanging in it and everything! .... and stairways!!! a formal front stairway and a back stairway .... alot of the old houses seem to have the 2 stairways.... and another fireplace in the living room .... and upstairs in the bedrooms! and THE WOODWORK !!) Anyway, click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see it better.



.....OK, it's starting to get dark, so we better call it a day ....(oh, look, it's not too dark to still see the PRETTY LEAVES!!! )


Well, we here at "Moonbeams in a Jar" hope you've enjoyed yet another one of our virtual tour extravaganzas !!! AND, if you're in the area (that is eastern Pa/ Pocono area) don't forget The Fall Foliage Festival runs for the next 2 weekends here in Jim Thorpe.

So, stop by again soon because..... I didn't just walk around taking pictures on Sunday ....oh, no ..... I did some shopping in a few of those cute shops and I'm planning a HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY with the goodies!! So, check back in a day or 2 and I might actually be organized enough to show you the loot!

Be back soon!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)