Year End Clearance!

Inventory Reduction!

SALE!

40-50% off ALL ITEMS!

You have no idea how I LOVE those words, even look forward to them. I look forward to seeing them in print and getting emails that contain them. They make my heart race. They make my mind start planning and plotting. They inspire me to fill virtual carts all over the internet.

This year though, those words taunt me. I should probably just ignore all the emails and store fronts. I should concentrate on using up the fabric and scrapbook supplies that I already have. I feel bad for the store owners. They are making an effort to bring in some much needed money, clear out their inventory for tax reasons and make room for new things to come. I understand that. I understand too that I can get some incredible deals on things I have long admired. It usually benefits both parties. I don't want my favorite stores to go out of business, whether online or brick & mortar. The thing is I just have to show some restraint this year. More than I have in past years. I am fortunate to have a stash of fabric that I can pull from to continue sewing and an abundance of scrapbooking supplies to use. Maybe I should spend more time at my sewing machine and my scrap table and less time on the computer being tempted.

I hope to make a big ol' dent in all my supplies before the next year end. I hope that this economy has turned around. I hope that our house has sold. I hope that all my favorite shops will be in business still and sending out those ads and emails and that their store fronts have those words I love so well.

Praise - I thank God for the abundance that He has showered upon me and my Prayer is that I would remember that. Day by day, moment by moment I need to be thankful for what I have. Prayers too for all the small businesses that are trying to make ends meet.

Some last minute gifts

Happy Day After Christmas! Some people refer to it as Boxing Day but I never really got that. My sister would call today Merry After Birth - but that's just wrong on so many levels. She is twisted that way. ;)

I did venture out this morning, not too early though - to WM where it was not crowded really and the cashier said that it was the busiest it had been all day. I got some lights for 50% off and a big red metal tray and a red metal 'tub' (also 50% off). I plan to plant bright yellow and orange flowers in it this spring/summer! Then I went to the LQS, where all fabric was 50% off. I think my college girl and I were the only ones in there. All I wanted was a yard of some beautiful red wool that I saw on Black Friday but didn't get. I looked at all the other fabric anyway but I resisted. For now. The sale DOES go until the 31st ;)

After reading this apron tutorial by JonaG, I decided to make a couple of her aprons for the gal that owns the gym that I go to and the gal that teaches classes there. A couple of fun gals and I wanted to give them a little something. I made them on the 23rd and we went in on Christmas Eve, on our way to the movie and set them on their desks.

I have some more aprons to sew and I should be working on them now, so I guess I will push myself away from the computer.

Praise - all the holiday travelers that I know arrived at their destinations safely and before Christmas. Prayers - for safety for all those dealing with the unusual weather. Many family and friends are getting snow instead of their usual rain.

Merry Christmas!

I do hope that everyone is enjoying a day with loved ones celebrating THE reason for this season.

It has been snowing here all day on top of the 2' of snow that we already had. Nice quiet day at home.

Looking forward to tomorrow and the LEFTOVERS!

Praise - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life - John 3:16

So we need a larger angel

but my son has always been partial to this one for some reason. I don't even care if there is an angel on top of the tree but he always wants this one up there. She looks so teeny up there and it all looks out of proportion.
At the peak the ceiling is 13.5', my son who is trimming the tree there is 6'5". I TOLD you the tree was big!

We are still enduring BITTERLY cold temperatures. Right now, at 11pm it is ONE degree. Today was beautiful though, sunny and blue skies, with a high of maybe 12. At least it wasn't windy. I went out in the shop to find a piece of fabric to use for curtains for my son's room. OH.MY. It was really cold out there! I was all bundled up but that didn't seem to help at all.

In our last house my huge stash of fabric was stored in the garage, which never froze or had moisture in it. I assumed the shop was going to be the same but the walls behind my boxes of fabric had ice on them (or a heavy frost) so when that melts....ugh. I am thinking I have to get that fabric OUT OF THERE! But where am I going to put it??? That is going to be my project this coming week I think. Make some room in here for it. It is going to be a complete hassle to find anything if it is in here. The closet goes way back in and the boxes are going to have to be stacked to the ceiling - so to find anything it will mean taking out all of the boxes because you and I both know whatever it is you want, it is always in the very last box. :) I am not thrilled about this and I didn't need a new project.

I finished another apron this morning and got it off in the mail for a after Christmas birthday. I made it out of that cute Alexander Henry Starling fabric that I got on Black Friday.

I haven't been getting much sleep lately so it is off to bed for me. No Sunday school tomorrow so we can sleep in a bit. Christmas caroling tomorrow night at the LifeCare center. We usually go carolling in a neighborhood and I am so glad that we have other plans. It is WAY to cold for that nonsense.

Praise - the college girls got home safely. What an ordeal that was. Prayers for my friend who is selling a house and has an interested party.

In case you don't have any

of your own snow to gaze upon;


Hubby took that picture on Monday. Wednesday we woke to snow and at 1 a.m. on Thursday it is STILL snowing. It really didn't amount to much on Wednesday as it was just a very fine snow. I think that is going to change overnight. Hubby will take some new pictures in the morning while he it out plowing.

I finished an apron for someone and got that off in the mail and I have another project (that I can't talk about) all finished too!! I am in the process of making another apron now. I am really just in the cutting out phase. I hope to have this in the mail by Saturday though (weather permitting). I love having my college girl home as she is a great model for the aprons. I did take a picture and will get that posted soon.

Oh yeah, we got the tree decorated finally! The real trees just don't' handle our heavy ornaments quite like the artificial trees do. We left quite a few ornaments OFF of the tree this year because of that.

Prayers - two young ladies from our church will be trying to get home from college on Thursday afternoon. One of them already had to be rescheduled due to the weather. Prayers that their flights are not cancelled, that they arrive safely and then the drive from the airport is safe as well. Prayers too for hubby as he is out plowing. It is soooo cold and plowing here is so different than the last house (drop offs into pond and creek and the main road with a bad curve right near our driveway). Praise - my son is FINISHED with his 3 college classes and he did really well in all three of them :D

We've got MUSIC!

Boy,oh boy that takes a lot of time too. I finally used playlist.com and added a player to this blog. Des at Quilt Taffy was the primary inspiration for me to do this. It wasn't hard to do at all but time consuming to find the songs. It is NOT on auto start so if you want some music (right now it is Christmas music) then just scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the play button.

That's it. No sewing news (although I did sew today) and no pictures. Hey you get music!

Prayers for my friend, PINK. She is having some issues with some individuals at work. Scary stuff. Praying for her safety.

Cancelled!

Yeah, they give us a winter storm warning and then they cancel it! Phooey! I was all stocked up for the long haul - food and fabric. Yes sir, the basic necessities.

This was taken yesterday about 3 in the afternoon. It started snowing at noon! It was piling up fast. The darkest tree right behind us is our Christmas tree.


It snowed for a long time, maybe until 10. But when we woke up this morning it had snowed some more over night. Hubby had to go out to plow. His first time at this new location. He said it is going to take some getting used to, more hills, more drop offs (into a creek or the pond) and he was still trying to figure out the best place to put all of the snow. He took a few pictures before he got to work on the plowing though.

This is looking up the creek. The rocks piled with snow look like marshmallows in hot chocolate. :)


So it looks like close to a foot of snow on the picnic table.

It looks so pretty out there. When hubby was finished plowing he and our son brought the tree in. It is BIG! It took some adjusting of the furniture and some pruning of the tree to make it fit. While I made a pot of potato soup and a pan of cornbread, hubby worked on the lights. Why are they always such a trial? Dinner done and the lights are on the tree. Maybe we will decorate it tomorrow after church. College girl is relaxing, my son is working on his last speech for his class on Tuesday and hubby is catching up on his email. We are going to watch a movie together later on. I am going to cut out some fabric for a project I can't reveal here just now. ;)

The last time I looked it was 15 degrees outside. It is supposed to get down to -2 tonight and the HIGH tomorrow is supposed to be 3. Yeah, you read that right, THREE degrees. Stay warm! That is what I will be doing.

Praise - we got SNOW!!! Praise that the young lady from church did not need surgery - yet. She has a baseball sized tumor though and is in a lot of pain. Prayers for her, for comfort and relief from the pain. Prayers that the tumor would shrink and surgery would not be necessary.

It isn't even winter yet

but today we got almost a foot of snow! It started at noon, right before I woke my college girl up. Then the two of us went downstairs to wake up my son. He was trying not to be excited that it was snowing. Boys. He couldn't fool us.

So the plan was to cut down our tree before the storm hit and well that didn't quite happen. The tree was covered in snow and it was quite the job getting it on top of the suburban. I finally stopped giving 'suggestions' and got back inside the vehicle. My hubby appreciated that I think.
Hubby wanted to bring the tree into the house so that the snow would melt off of it. Bad idea I said, how about the garage? Then mopping up all that water won't be such a big ordeal. The guys still think the tree is too big although I pointed out that THEY chose this tree after vetoing my pick (yes IT was too big). When we got home and put the tree in the garage (whew!) hubby came inside and measured the ceiling. I told him that our son measured it the other day, kind of, and figured the highest point was approximately 13 feet. Hubby measured it at 13.5 feet. He went to the garage to measure the tree. 14 feet. Not bad! We can make this work!

We did take some pictures out in the snow today but of course they aren't on the computer yet. Maybe tomorrow. It looks like we won't be going anywhere tomorrow anyway so I can surely get someone to download/upload, whatever it is called the pictures from the camera to the computer.

In the meantime two more treasures that I got at the LQS Black Friday sale;

The construction fabric is Michael Miller. It reminds me of when my son was little and played with his Tonka trucks (which I have saved, by the way). The first fabric that I picked up and actually had cut to go with this was green with a small white dot. It was okay but not WOW! When I was on my second or third turn through the store I saw this orange dot. Someone must have had it at the counter and it had been put back. It is also from Michael Miller. Doesn't it just say TRAFFIC CONE to you??

Today, while we were out and about, I had chicken breasts cooking in the crockpot. Five boneless, skinless, frozen chicken breast, one cup of chicken broth and one package of Taco Seasoning. Cook that on low for 6-8 hours (I had mine on high for 3/4 of that time and then low). You just take the breasts out and fork shred them. Chicken Tacos! It smelled so good when we came back in the house this afternoon and knowing that dinner was pretty much done, ya gotta love that! You can double this too and then freeze portions for an even quicker meal one day. I also made a cherry pie (from those cherries we picked this summer) for dessert. Youth group for my son was cancelled so we all watched some movies together.

Maybe tomorrow we will get the tree up in the living room and get that decorated! I mean come on, it IS almost Christmas!!

Praise - that my girl got home safely and before the storm hit. For the beautiful snow!
Prayers - for a young lady at church (my daughter's age) that is facing possible surgery tonight. She is undergoing tests now. Also for safety while out in the snow, especially for all those workers that have to be out there - plow truck drivers, police officers, mail carriers, utility workers and the likes.

Three days in a row!

Almost like the days when I started blogging! I should make it a goal to learn how to take the pictures off of the camera and put them on to the computer. Hubby has this whole 'system' though of how to categorize them. I am sure I would fall asleep during that lesson. Sometimes though I have something I want to post about but the pictures I want to use or not available. :S

So here is another peek at some of the lovely fabrics I got on Black Friday. I have admired the Farmer's Market fabrics but really wasn't sure what to do with them. At 50% off I figured I could find something. ;) Again, I wanted MORE of the prints from this line but I resisted. I listened to the voice in my head. Oh I argued with it, but in the end it won.

I had this magazine already and they have a CUTE apron made up in these fabrics. They are by designer Cindy Taylor Oates.

Actually it is a mother/daughter set of aprons. They did use the blue background big dahlia print in the magazine but the LQS only had the green. The clincher was that the LQS had a sample made up and hanging there. I got enough to make a mother/daughter set. No idea when I will make them or who it will be for but I am prepared.

I got a text from my daughter when she was at the train station and then a phone call from my friend that dropped her off. She said there were lots of college students boarding the train. So many parents waiting for their children to come home tonight or tomorrow or in the next day or so. So many children anxious to be home with their families for the holidays. It reminds me of the movie White Christmas when they are on the train. I LOVE THAT MOVIE! We will be watching it before Christmas. It is a tradition. We do fast forward through the 'Choreography' number - it is just strange. The kids and I laugh when Danny Kaye pretends to have twisted his ankle. We will also watch Miracle on 34th Street, The Santa Clause, Elf, A Charlie Brown Christmas and maybe It's a Wonderful Life. It is not a favorite of mine at all. I know. HORRORS! Can you believe I am even admitting that on the world wide web??? My kids tried to watch it years ago and thought there was too much talking. Maybe it is time to try it again. We will get some other Christmas movies from Netflix too. I like Polar Express and Christmas with the Kranks and a couple of the Home Alone movies. I have some older movies on reserve as well. What is YOUR favorite Christmas movie??

Prayers - continued prayers for Freda's Hive and all that is buzzing around there. Again prayers for safe travel for my college girl.

So I have some catching up to do

Just because I haven't posted in awhile doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Of course there is still unpacking but I am pretty tired of that. I have done a little bit of Christmas decorating and more needs to be done. I find that I am usually way behind in that department and then it seems it is time to take it all down. I think my reluctance to decorate for Christmas is because it means I have to put the fall stuff away and it still IS fall. Fall IS my favorite after all.

I made this tote and checkbook cover for a gal that missed getting the other one that I made for an online auction. This one is very similar, although not an exact copy. I have some aprons to make as well. When I have aprons and bags to make I get to shop for fabric!!!! Mmmmmm, I love shopping for fabric. Online or in person doesn't matter.

Speaking of fabric shopping the little LQS that is half a knitting store had a great Black Friday sale. If you were a key chain holder you could get in at 6 a.m. and shop until 8:30 a.m. and EVERYTHING was 40% off. Well you KNOW I am a key chain holder and I would get up that early to shop for fabric but not for plasma televisions or Nintendo games or bicycles. I mean I have priorities! Since I had no guests for Thanksgiving and college girl was not home I was free to get up and go (figuring the guys were going hunting anyway). Man it is dark at that hour! I pulled into the parking lot just at 6 and there were already quite a few cars parked out front. A clerk met me at the door and handed me a little slip of paper and said the sale was actually 50% off of everything!!! OH.MY. My heart began to race. I think THIS is an aerobic workout for me!! I kept saying to myself 'I have to be good, I can't spend too much, I must use restraint'.
There were lots of ladies there and ONE clerk cutting and the owner at the cash register, but it went much quicker than if I had been at JoAnn's and there were 4 cutters and 4 ladies on cash registers. Everyone in line was having a good time, talking, commenting on fabric choices etc. As soon as a fabric was cut a runner would take the bolt and get it back on the shelf. Over the next few days I will show you some of my treasures. This was one of my favorites. I had NEVER seen this print before, at that store or online. I have seen it since then though. Isn't that funny how that works?
This is from Alexander Henry and is called Starlings. It is so bright and cheery and makes me smile.


Here is a close up of one of the little birds. The paisleys and red swirls....mmmmmm.


My college girl is OFFICIALLY finished with her first quarter!! WOOO HOOOO!!! She will be getting on the train Thursday afternoon and will get home early Friday morning. I can hardly wait!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It SNOWED here yesterday afternoon. Not alot but enough to cover the ground and it is mostly still here. A mile down the road - no snow.

Praise - college girl has made it through the first quarter of college away from home! My son made it to town and back, driving his truck on wintry roads for the very first time.
Prayers - again, for safe travel for college girl to get home. Also, prayers for the household of Freda's Hive. I don't know specifics and I don't need to know them - God knows! Nanette you are in my prayers. I am also praying for Dong Yun Yoon, the man that lost his wife, two daughters and his mother-in-law when the jet crashed into his home. My heart breaks for him.

Happy DECEMBER!

Okay, so it is already the 9th and my first post this month. Time just slips away from me.

I have spent TOO much time trying to re-do my blog picture. It still doesn't fit. When I have it auto-fit it is too small. ARGH! I am done. So it hangs over a little. So do I! Heck, I hang over a lot.

We are HOPING for snow today! They have been forecasting snow since Saturday night and yet we have NO snow. COME ON!! It IS December afterall.

I will post again later on. I just wanted to say HI! I am still out here and I wanted to get a new wintry scene posted.

My college girl comes home this week!! WAHOOOOO!!! We are all soooo excited about that.

If you haven't been over to Freda's Hive what are you waiting for??? BIG Blogiversary Giveaway going on over there. www.fredashive.blogspot.com.

Prayers for SAFE train travels Thursday night. That is how my college girl will be coming home. I think that will be exciting for her. Prayers that my son would be diligent with his college classes that go a week after his sister arrives home (and is lounging around). Praise - our house is on the market and it has already been shown AND the guy was pretty excited about it! He needs to bring some others to look at it - so prayers for that.