Christmas Eve Morn....

As I sit here waiting for my hair dye to cover my gray on this morning of Christmas Eve, I can think of so many things to be grateful for. Safety of my three soldiers (daughter, son, hubby), healthy kids, a roof, a good life all around.

I recently re-read "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom" by Slavomir Rawicz. It's a fascinating story about 7 men who are wrongfully imprisoned in a Siberia and escape to freedom. These men spent a year enduring things no man should be able to. Although I've never had to walk across the Gobi desert w/o food or water, the story placed a new perspective on the issues I've struggled with this past year. And perhaps it's the season, but I began to see it almost as the story of Christ's struggles to save our souls...I'm far from being a religious nutball, I have my beliefs and try to live a life in
Christ, but this was only after I'd fallen, wrongfully imprisoned myself so to speak, and escaped with nothing but sheer will power and a renewed faith in Our Lord.
 Last night my dear friend posted a reminder of this holiday season (unfortunately it was after I nearly bashed my head against the wall trying to figure out gifts for my 4 teenage daughters)- The Story of Christmas as found in Luke 2:1-38, "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed..." 
You should read it, it's a good story.

Happy Birthday Mum

A picture of my mum and pop taken in the early 1960's...My pop was a dashing US Air Force soldier and my mum a fresh faced British nursing student....

Oh my broken Sherman...

As some may know I have sort of an on-going love affair with my dog Sherman. He's more muppet than dog and apparently he and I aren't quite the circus performers I'd envisioned. I took a beginning agility class with Sherman and he loved it so much that my dear hubby built a course in the backyard...On a walk three weeks ago, he and I were walking a wooden beam, Sherman jumped/fell off catching his paw between the wood and metal rails, twisting it. for the last three weeks we've been to our vet and two specialists and my poor baby has torn ligaments and had surgery to fuse the wrist joint. He's in a cast, of course this means carrying the guy out to do his business, which means he's sucking up all the household attention. Of course, last night, the night before Thanksgiving, I took him out at midnight to do what he needed to do and he walked out of the cast! Oh my! Off to the vet at midnight to get it back on (seemed the swelling went way down and it just slid off! Thank goodness my dear hubby has a cool head about him, managed to get the dog in the back of the car with me in tow and drive us to the vet ER about 30 min away! They agreed to give us some sedatives ("For us or the dog?" my husband asked) and we got home by 2am in time to get some sleep before we were off to the relatives for the holiday dinner! All's well that ends well!

Hallo-WHAT?!?!?

Oh me oh my! Where has the time gone? It's been over a month and I've gotten caught up in Christmas and kind of bypassed Halloween much to the consternation of my kiddos...ah well, my little guys got creative and came up with some rather good ideas; Guapo grabbed an old wig and a dress and went as a granny to school (let's hope he doesn't pursue this too much longer) as he wasn't allowed a cape at school (some wizard outfit he'd cooked up), I think there was a Rubik's cube, an eskimo princess-thing and perhaps a girly bug or two...Of course the main thing was the candy which they got plenty of and which I convinced them that the garbage troll needed much more than they! Oy Vay! In the beginning of October the hubby and I flew to Denver, CO to celebrate my pop's (father-in-law) hundred millionth reunion of his PBY buddies from as far back as 1940! There was a surprise visit from one of the men who served as one of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, a group that consisted of all black fighter pilots during WWII. An amazing part of history that few ever got recognition for...kay I digress--I was also able to visit the DAM, no not a nickname for my hubby, the art museum! Wow! 7 floors of art from around the world! Eye opening to be sure...Since it's officially fall, I'm at work on making sure every bed in the house has a quilt on it! that should keep this old lady busy for a few days or so...

Catch-up

Spent the majority of the last nine days attempting to catch-up on projects, although anyone who knows me realizes this just means I get one waiting project finished and, much like a raccoon and shiny objects, find two new ones that catch my eye and must be tried.  So, while I did begin the quilt for my daughter's boyfriend, I only got the quilt top finished, attempted to pick out a backing and found some adorable fabric in my stash that was a perfect fit for the summer nightie tutorial in  One Yard Wonders. Made three, two for myself and shortened a third one into a babydoll top and paired it with bloomers (http://www.colettepatterns.com/blog/colette-patterns-news/free-pattern-to-download-the-madeleine-mini-bloomers) for the above mentioned child. Finished some bowrettes for a birthday gift and found a cute tuorial for a crocheted purse for a tiny cousin.  And to top it off I had to go to the fabric store for cooordinating fabric for the bloomers which resulted in...more fabric, more ideas.  Ah well, that's how my finishing usually goes.

September's arrived!

Summer's coming to an end, kids back in school (everyone survived the first week) and my hubby had a week's worth of vacation spent primarily catching up on his schoolwork (working on his MBA) and working on the honey-do list! I've finally finished up what I call the Ma & Pa quilt along with one for my niece and the beginning of another scrappy quilt.  I have managed to (almost) keep my promise to myself, not to buy more fabric, until I use half of my stash but it is oh-so-difficult.  Hopefully finishing up the quilts for the kids will eat up a significant portion of it and cross one more project off my eight foot long to-do list!

My Latest Obsession

I love it when I stumble across an amazing pattern while on a search for something totally opposite. While looking for the perfect hippo pattern I found this little guy complete with

FREE PATTERN!!! 

 http://freeamigurumipatterns.blogspot.com/   

  Of course, I had to make it! It took a little time (the pattern's in Japanese) but there is an explanation around the 7th comment down. So while I've still yet to find the hippo pattern I like, I have friends all over searching (this is not because they're so devoted to me, it's to help me move forward with my life!) and meanwhile, I've made four of these with no sign of stopping!