Thankful…

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

I am thankful for so many things.  First and foremost, I am thankful for my children.  Before I had them, I didn’t know what I was missing.  They have brought me a plethora of emotions. From sadness to happiness, anger to pure joy.  They have so been worth including in my life and I don’t know what I would do without them.

I am thankful for my Husband.  We have been journeying through this life together for over 29 years, more than half my life!  It has never been dull for us and I love him very much!

I am thankful to have my Parents near to me and have them be healthy.  Over the last couple of years they have had a few health hiccups which has made me cherish them even more.

I am thankful for my best friend.  I went for many years with no friends, just my family and so she is very dear to me.  She is the little sister I always wanted and I am glad she came into my life.

All the things I am grateful for aren’t things at all.  They are the people in my life.  Things aren’t so important…they are just THINGS!  It’s the people in your life, the love you share that is so important.  Now, go love on someone!

Hullabaloo…

Okay, so I’m totally procrastinating here! I’m supposed to be arranging my dining room and chopping veggies in preparation for Thanksgiving tomorrow! Instead, I decided I want to make a blog post, something I haven’t really had the inclination to do for over a week!

Here’s what I have been up to:

First I am in the process of making a Gnome home for a corner shelf in my downstairs bathroom. The little rug is actually two sided with oak leaves on one side and holly leaves and berries on the other. I blanket stitched around it, then crocheted with embroidery floss to finish. I’ll show a better picture of it when I take pictures for the Christmas layout.

I also make a turkey for the “wall” that as soon as I put the eye on, I will hang in their area.

You too can make your own Gnomes and turkey! I got the patterns from Wee Folk Art. I did make the Gnome’s hats just a tad shorter and for the turkey, I printed him out at 1/4 the size of their pattern.

Back in August when Spartan and I went on our anniversary trip, one of the places we went was Shipshewana. There is a quilt store there called Lolly’s. It is an awesome quilt shop! While there I got my first jelly roll. It is all Moda material that Lolly’s custom rolled!

I have been trying to figure out what I was going to do with it…after all…I didn’t want to waste it, or worse yet hate the project when I got it done. When I saw that Kellie from Don’t Look Now was doing a quilt along with this lovely pattern, I knew just what I wanted to do! Instead of making a quilt, however, I am making a table topper for my dinning room. It is all hand appliqued at this point, so I’m not quite done with it. I have about 1/2 done. I had to take a break yesterday because my fingers just couldn’t take being poked anymore. I haven’t done “real” hand work in a few weeks, so my callus’s have gone away. There will be a pretty patchwork border on it when I get done with the hand work. It’s hard to get a good picture since there is so much gold in the material. Even the cream background is flecked with gold.

Last, but not least, for your visual enjoyment may I present my kitchen table topper. It’s made with a Mary Englebrite charm pack. The colorful star material in the bottom of the picture will be a scalloped border a la Vicki from Tozz’s Corner.

So now you know what I have been up to. Since I have posted the pictures and made it official (of sorts), I will have to finish everything so I can show more pictures!

Okay, I know, I know…enough procrastinating…back to work!

Contract...

I don't have any crafty finishes to share right now, so I thought I would share the conversation I had with Boy Genius at 6:00 this morning in the car on the way to drop him off for jazz band.

*cough* *cough*

"You okay?" I ask him
"Yeah." he says
"Left over from when you were sick last week?"
"Yeah."

*couple minute pause*

"I just worry." I say.

*couple minute pause*

"It was in the contract." I say matter of factly.

*couple minute pause*

"Huh?" he says with confusion in his voice.
"It was in the contract." I repeat.
"What contract?"
"The one I signed when I decided to have children." I respond as if it should be obvious what I am talking about.
"Ohh-kayyy..." he replies.
"Seriously. It was the #1 rule on the contract. #1 says I must worry about my kids." I respond as if he should know exactly what said contract says. "#2 says that I should embarrass my children in front of their friends or while they are on the phone." This is said conversationally, as if I am repeating the weather report. "#3 was that I should hug and kiss my kids all the time. The best part is if you do it in front of their friends, I am fulfilling both #2 and #3 at the same time."
"Wouldn't you always be fulfilling #2 if you are doing #3?" he asks me.
"No." I respond. "Unless you do it in front of their friends it doesn't fulfill the requirement for #2. I can hug and kiss on you in private and it won't embarrass you at all." With this, I take my eyes off the road and smile sweetly at Boy Genius.
"Ahh." He says, nodding his head as if this explains a lot.
"The sad thing is," I say "when I am fulfilling #3 with Gamer, I am not fulfilling #2 with him. He doesn't care." I say with pride in my voice, "I can always count on hugs from Gamer in front of his friends!"
"You'd definitely be embarrassing Runner." BG replies.
"True," I say "but I think I am also fulfilling #2 when I hug him in private. You are somewhere in between."

*couple minute pause*

"There, now you know about the secret contract I signed." I throw out
"Yup." He replies

He smiles.

I smile.

*more silence as I drive the rest of the way to the school*

I hug him as he gets out of the car, in full view of the other zero hour jazz band members at the school. "Have a good day!" I tell him as he swings the car door shut.

He smiles.

God I love that kid!

Happy Veteran's Day...

I want to extend my best wishes to all the veteran's out there. Since I have my very own live veteran living in my house, I thought I'd share some past pictures with you.

Before he was Spartan, my Husband was Military Man. Special Forces Military Man. 82nd Airborne, Red Beret Military Man. You may have seen my picture earlier this week of the uniform and beret I wore for Halloween this year. Now you can see it when it was active duty:

As with so many of our troops, they look like babies when they are active duty:
But not so much like this (Hubby is on the left):
Or like this:

I never wanted to know when he was jumping, it scared the hell out of me. I was always ready to greet him with a kiss, though when he came home.

Happy Veteran's Day to my favorite veteran. You are loved and cherished and we are thankful for all you did for us. Thank your favorite veteran...or any veteran today. Without them, we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms we have today!

Interesting Quotes...

I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience. - Mitch Hedberg

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter. - Marlene Dietrich

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. - Cecil B. DeMille

When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny? - George Carlin

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. - Albert Einstein

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain

If you would like to read more interesting quotes go here.

The Week from Hades...

That's what last week was, at least for Baby Girl. After she got back from trick-or-treating, she started coughing. Not a big deal, I figured. She does that sometimes because of allergies. I gave her some Benedryl and Spartan and I went off to our adult Halloween party.

I dressed in Spartan's old military outfit (he even let me use his "good" red beret...he was in special forces back then) and Spartan went as the Molinator. I don't think most people got it. He was supposed to be like the tooth fairy on steroids. I thought it was very humorous!

Here's me with "my girls." Me as special forces, A. as a TGIF waitress, B. as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and F. as a jellyfish.

We had a blast at the party. We had planned ahead of time to spend the night at A.'s house since it was a bit of a drive for us.

Next morning, I get a phone call from my Mom telling me that Baby Girls temp was at 103. Home we went. She did okay the rest of the day with just some meds. Monday...not so much. Baby Girl always runs higher temps than most people, even when she was teething she'd run 102, but, even so, when her temp gets to 105 I get a little stressed (read: panicky). Wednesday got her into the doctor...tested her for H1N1...results: negative. Thank goodness! After writing us a script for tamiflu, an antibiotic and a pill to stop her throwing up, the Doctor sent us for x-rays. Thursday, after being on the meds for about 18hrs, she felt great! I got the call telling me it was not pneumonia. Again, thank goodness! She was still running a temp, but it was manageable. Friday...she was all better and driving me crazy with being wound up! I think that when kids are sick they save up the energy they would have used and unleash it on their parents all at once! That's okay...that kind of obnoxiousness...I can live with!!