It’s time once again for some Friday fill-in fun, the perfect way to wrap up the week and kick off the weekend! 

From Ann of McGuffy’s Reader:

“The Friendly Fill-Ins are four fun and easy statements to complete. Ellen of 15andmeowing provides the first two statements and the final two are offered by myself. We try to make sure they will be fun to both answer and share. On Friday, the linky will be posted at or about 12:00 AM. Please come back, link up, and share your thoughts!”

And away we go! Here are this week’s statements with my fill-ins:

1. The oldest item in my home is… I’m going to venture to guess it’s my home itself, considering it was built in 1930.

Oh wait! Maybe it’s my antique Korean Apothecary Chest:

It was a gift from my former in-laws, they picked it up when they were traveling through Asia many years ago. One of these days I’d love to have an antique person give me some insight on it as a whole, I just think it’s a cool piece that looks great in my living room.

Vying for the ‘oldest’ are my collection of antique Composition Dolls – most are from the early 1900’s, and I have a few Shirley Temple ones, all need some restoration which is one of the (many) things I’ll be working on once my craft room is fully set up! So you’ll have to wait for pictures, they’re all still packed.

2. The oldest item in my refrigerator is… Is this a trick question? Heh! Let’s see…I’m pretty good at clearing out the fridge weekly to make sure nothing remains that might be outdated or go bad, so the oldest thing would be my half case of Vanilla Coke that’s been in my fridge since before my surgery back in November. I’m saving it to ‘reward’ myself when I reach my weight loss goal – and I’ve heard that I might no longer enjoy the taste of it after not having it for so long.

3. My family heritage is… Primarily Swedish, but we like to joke that our generation is ‘Heinz 57’. My great grandmother Kristina came over from Sweden when she was 16, lived in Ontario for a time where she met my Swedish great grandfather, Svensk Svensson there, fell in love and got married, then moved to Minnesota before moving to Washington State (and at some point, their last name was Americanized to ‘Swenson’).

My Grandpa Swenson married my grandmother who’s dad was English and mom was half Native American (from what I understand either my maternal great-great grandmother or maternal great-grandmother lived with the Winnebago Indians and married into the tribe). I like to joke that my Native American Heritage merged well with my Swedish Heritage, as I was blessed with good cheekbones and can tan easily, in spite of my blonde-hair freckle-faced Swedish mode.

Princess Nagger likes to lean towards the Swedish Heritage side, in spite of the now mix from me, and the half Jewish, half German heritage she gets from the hubby.

4. My favourite family tradition is… Oh, that one’s easy! I’d have to say Christmas – we always do family and friends gifts on Christmas Eve, then ‘Santa’ gifts on Christmas morning. It’s one of the Swedish Heritage traits passed down from my great-grandmother. Plus, it’s fun to have the kids all excited wearing their jammies while opening presents:

When we were kids, there was one year my dad decided we should try doing what their friends did, open one gift on Christmas Eve, and the rest on Christmas morning. Once was enough – we went back to our great-grandmother’s tradition from there on out, because it just didn’t ‘feel’ right. Celebrating on both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning makes Christmas last longer – if that makes sense.

Now it’s time to Celebrate the Small Things! I’m joining in this fun blog hop to join some awesome bloggy friends and meet new ones – click on the badge for more information and if you’d like to play along, too!

Celebrate blog hop

This week I’m celebrating making progress on unpacking! The boxes are diminishing, and my niece came for a visit over the weekend and took home all the emptied boxes since she has a move coming up, so it makes it even more celebratory that I don’t have stacks of empty boxes intermingled with the still-packed ones…heh! Also finally got the bed set up in the guest room so she’d have a place to sleep. Baby steps! It’s coming together!

In addition to that, I’ve been working on next month’s A-Z Challenge – I’ve never participated in that, in spite of the fact I’ve been blogging since 2008, so I guess my 13th year is as good a time to start as any, right? Come back on Monday and you’ll see my ‘great reveal’ for the theme I’ve chosen for the challenge. It’s going to be so much fun, I promise!

Oh oh oh! I almost forgot! I’m also celebrating the fact that a recipe I entered in a contest ended up being a finalist! I submitted a recipe “Kahlua Glazed Black Russian Boozy Cake” – so if you could pretty please take a minute to go vote for my recipe, I’d be forever in your debt!

The finalists have been posted on this website page: http://nancyberland.com/recipes/

The deadline for voting for the winner is Monday, April 3, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. Voting is limited to one vote per person, so tell all your friends and family to go to that page and vote! Please and thank you!

That’s a wrap! Hope you join in the fun! Check out the other Friendly Fill-Ins participants and join in if you feel the urge for some fun!

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Fridays are more fun with these blog hops:

Follow Who? Social Weekend HopCelebrate blog hop

 

14 Comments

  1. If you liked Vanilla Coke before you will when you celebrate. It’s my favorite and I can’t always find it here. When I do I buy a few cases so I won’t run out. I haven’t worked on A2Z yet. I do have a theme of sorts but haven’t really given time to think about posts. I’ve been doing is since 2011 and usually just wing it day by day.

    1. Yay! Another Vanilla Coke lover! 😉 I have no doubt I’ll sill like it when I can drink it again – just need to make sure I do so in moderation (unlike the hubby, who drinks sodas (but luckily hates vanilla, so mine are safe!) like a madman – but he has speedy metabolism that allows him to imbibe in whatever he wants and never gain an ounce! LOL!)

      I love that you’ve been doing A-Z since 2011 – and winging it day by day is probably what I’ll end up doing…sometimes my writing is more interesting when I’m winging it instead of planning ahead…heh!!!

  2. Thank you for participating in the fill-ins, great answers. That is wonderful that you know so much of your family history. Very nice apothecary chest and I look forward to seeing the Shirley Temple dolls when you fix them. Very cute photo of the kiddos. Have a great weekend!

    1. Thank you, Ellen! I’ll be sure to take pictures of the Shirley Temple dolls in the near future – I’ll need to do some ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots for sure. 😉 Hope you’re having a great weekend!

  3. I love that apothecary chest! It’s beautiful. (And it reminds me of that “Friends” episode!) Your kids are adorable! I voted for your recipe. Good luck!

    1. HA! I forgot about that “Friends” episode! Now I’m going to have to go back and see it…heh! It is such an interesting piece – I’m glad I got to keep it. 🙂 Thank you very much for voting for my recipe! 🙂

  4. I would love to see photos of your dolls! Your Christmas tradition sounds wonderful! I love that pic of your adorable kids. They look so happy! Congrats on your recipe! It sounds yummy!

    1. I will be sure to take pictures of my dolls, Annie! As soon as I figure out which box they’re stashed in…heh!! Thank you for the compliments! 🙂

  5. I don’t know if I ever had Vanilla Coke. I’ve been drinking Cherry Coke lately.

    What a cute Christmas picture!

    Have a great week!

  6. Oh my gosh…I love that Apothecary chest! Awesome! I know that Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan are rooted in Swedish history, as well as Finnish, Norwegian, Scandinavian, etc. It is obvious, even now. Many houses UP North have built-in saunas. Really. Hugs!

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