The Divine Miss Em has parted ways with her shocking pink cast. She recovers well. She took a long bath today. She complains of “feeling weird” but I’m sure that will ebb in a few days. For now she lies at repose, watching Dragon Tails and waiting for slumber.

We also did some crafty things today

Be forewarned, one of these may be for you. :o)

You all, I should have my Christmas stuff up by now. Or started. But I can’t get there. The spirit isn’t moving me yet this year and I hate that. Come on, spirit! I made foam marshmallow people for you!

I am down to my last skein of red of my HP scarf. It’s going to ROCK!

It’s offical. Starting yesterday the Christmas Holiday Season begins at our house. This is my favorite time of the year.

Hands down.

Bar none.

The best.

Starting after Thanksgiving, we begin to decorate. A little at a time culminating in our Christmas tree which will go up in a few weeks. We didn’t do any shopping yesterday, but I did wrap some gifts we had purchased already….

They’re tucked away in the closet awaiting our tree. I’m so excited to have wrapped gifts on November 26th.

I put up some garland n the entertainment center, but I don’t like it. It’s too dangley. I will try to repurpose what I already have here and use the new stuff elsewhere. No pictures. It looks icky.

We also have snow. Probabl an inch (or more, but less than two). It will be gone tomorrow when it warms up and the rains come, but for now it feels good to h ave it there. A preview of what’s to come.

Today, I’m going to bake a couple of batches of cookies to toss into the freezer for Christmas and we’ll head to Joann’s to pick up a couple small canvases for a project (yes, holiday related, but not completely) that I’m planning.

I’m so excited that this time of year is here. :o)

I know it’s probably cliche by now, but I am Thankful…

–for my husband. My companion. My very best friend.
–my sweet little girl. Trying and funny. Beautiful and wild.
–my family. Crazy and otherwise.
–my mother’s health. Tenuous, but so much better than I had hoped for nearly a year ago. I know this journey is difficult on she and my father, but I hope they don’t lose sight of their own blessings. When they found Mom’s tumor, I feared for her life. We’ve been given the gift of a whole year I feared we wouldn’t, so it is a blessing and not even in disguise
–my health. I’ve been so worried and panicked over the last couple of months about my health. It turns out, I’m fine. Nothing that taking better care of myself won’t cure, so that’s what I’m doing.
–the fact that the windows have always been opened ever time we’ve needed it.

I’ll be going through my Christmas boxes and planning where my decor will go.

My husband will be standing on something rickety hanging lights form the eaves.

My daughter will be drunk with excitement at the Chrsitmas pretties coming out again.

Before then, I will clean.

Since Saturday I have
-Purged old set of Christmas stoneware to a new home
-Washed service for 8 plus serving pieces for use this holiday season
-cleaned off my counters and table. Clutter free all the way
-Scrubbed out the fridge until it shines, including getting rid of the colony of aged food who were considering a revolt
-Seriously scrubbed the kitchen floor, includinf vacuuming under the cabinets to get all the little extra crumbs sweeping always misses
-Cleaned the windows, inside and out
-Clean the lgiht hanging over the dining room table (Yuck!)
-Cleared and wiped off the laundry room appliances
-Cleaned the random socks out from in between the applicances (yuck!)
-Washed about a gazillion loads of laundry with probably two or three more to go
-Washed the throws I use in the living room
-steam cleaned my throw rub
-seriously scrubbed the living room floor
-Moved all of my doo dads off of the mantle, entertaiment center, book case and ice box and dusted
-Moved ice box and book case and speakers and removed several VERY large dust bunnies. Of the gross size
-totally scrubbed the living room floor including scrubbing the baseboards
-cleaned the patio door (sparkle, sparkle).
-Fabreezed the chairs and futon (no more dog smell)
-claned all of the fixtures in the powder room
-Scrubbed that sucker by hand
-cleared out the hall way
-organized the mess in the hall closet
-vacuummed and steamed clean the hallway.

This leaves me with the big bathroom and the master bedroom by the time Eric is home tomorrow.

Plus two pies and cranberry sauce.

I don’t enjoy cleaning, but I Do enjoy a cleaned space. Really a lot. Enough that you would think it would motivate me to clean, but, alas, it doesn’t.

• Order Chrsitmas Pajamas (Santa brins them to emily’s stocking the night of December 23 so she has lovely new jammmies to wear on Christmas Eve)
• Make and mail Christmas Cards by 12/15 (cards made, awaiting postage and mailing)
• Create to buy list (in progress)
• Shop
• Wrap gifts upon purchase
• Make gingerbread house
• Wrap Emily’s Christmas books for extra holiday reading fun
• Pre-bake Holiday cookies on fridays
• Make december menu and write out shopping lists
• PLan and order craft supplies for Emily
• Hang Outdoor lights (this weekend?)
• Sort Holiday decor
• Put up minor holiday items weekend after Thanksgiving
• Wash China DONE!
• Take holiday portraits of Emily
• PURchase items to donate to Toys for Tots

  I won’t list out my holiday cleaning list which I will be undertaking in the next week or so. It’s big, but, IMO, important. Everything will be cleaned to sparkling and purged so we can bring in the new.

  My to-buy list is about 1/2 done.

  My idea is to have all my work done by the Sunday prior to Christmas, giving me the entire week to bask in the holiday, something I’m very bad at.

I made my Christmas Cards today. :o)

This marks the the third year I have made card for Christmas, In 2003 I came in with half of my cards handmade and this and last year have made all 45 we send out. Every year I wonder what people think of getting them as I have never had any feedback.

I often wonder if people think I’m being cheap.

I’m not being cheap. I make cards becuase I like to, but I still wonder.

So, for shits and giggles I went out to Current to price 45 Christmas cards that I liked. It came to $28 dollars.

Here’s what it cost to handmake my cards (excluding photo processing and postage, which I would have paid for anyhow)

50-blank white cards with envelopes=6.99
Cranberry ink pad=1.99
Stampendous Season’s Greetings Stamp=3.49
3.5 rolls of ribbons=3.50
Permie Hermie=5.50
Misc. Embellishments=7.50
(what I mean by this is I used a partial bottle of Prima flowers, some christmas eyelet charms and 50 brads)

Total?=28.97

Exactly what it would have cost me to send out reasonabley nice Christmas cards from elsewhere.

And, I choose to do the labor, so I won’t charge you for that. The process took about four and a half hours to complete. I picked a fairly simple design for that very reason. Last year I got too complicated and it turned out to not be fun.

My point? PLEASE don’t think your crafty friends have “cheaped” out on you when they send you a handmade card? Please?

In Knitting Knews :O)

I am working on my HP scarf. We go to the movie on Sunday. I am half way done. It knits fast, but I keep getting distracted.

In Holiday News:
I made up my master cleaning list and master Christmas to-do list today. Obviously,w e can mark off the Christmas cards. I’ll post that in the next day or two as I refine it. :o)

I haven’t been blogging much.

That’s okay though.

I’ve been working on some Christmassy things. No pictures yet. I tired to make another prototype tonight, but got too complicated and it didn’t work out well. I’ll go back to that tomorrow and will hopefully have some pictures to share.

Started work on the Christmas cards too. For those of you on my list (and those of you who aren’t) this is what you’ll see on your Christmas cards this year..

One of the best things I have done over the past few years if work on my photography skills. I’m actually able to capture my girl. SHe’s comfortable in front of my camera as long as I’m reasonable with her. She would look lovely in the professional photos we had taken prior to this, but never comfortable. She’s shy. THose picture showed the shy girl. My pictures show the real girl.

I’m so glad of that. WHen she’s grown, I’ll have lovely pictures of the girl she really was.

Not the girl she allowed a stranger to see.

since I’ve updated. At least for me.

We had a busy weekend in IL tying up more loose ends (no pun intended) for our move in January.

Let’s break things down a bit.

Scrapbooking
I’m totally about my paper these days. I can’t seem to get interested in any of my other tasks. I ebb and flow with my crafts. I haven’t knitted in a while, but I know that time will come back again. I’m just really feeling inspired.

I would like to point you to Becky Fleck’s fantastic sketches. I’ve been getting so much down with the help of these. They’re more my speed than Becky Higgins work. I’ve gotten so much done (and I feel a little better about my progress when I’m using sketches as opposed to scraplift after scraplift after scraplift).

Knitting
I finally cast on for the second Falling Leaves sock. I got nearly through the toe. I love the sock I made so far and can’t wait to get through the other one.

I wanted to work on knitting up a harry potter scarf to wear to the movie next week, but I couldn’t find any yarn (not even acrylic!) that would work at Michaels. I haven’t given up the idea of it YET, but it’s getting there as the scarf is, like, eight feet long or something.

Sewing
As soon as I repair Emily’s nightie and doll stroller, I’m packing it away for a month or so. I have some lovely red flannel that I may opt to use to make a Christmas nightie for Emily. We’ll see.

Christmas

It’s less than two months away, but I’m not even close.

Went to the doc. today about my panic attacks. He wasn’t comfy. prescribing anything because of the TTC thing. That’s okay. He suggested vigorous exercise, so I’m going to give that a try. Hopefully things have settled down enough here that it won’t be much of an issue.

Some f*cker has been spamming my comments again., I hate that shit.

Eric got his job offer yesterday. We’ve accepted and our package is on it’s way. It’s not quite the raise, initially that we hoped for, but it IS a raise and a great opportunity. Eric called tonight and touched base with my Dad. I just couldn’t do it. I’m even panicking on the Ativan right now, but after that phone call and knowing that this day was the worst that I had been dreading and now it’s over…I feel better. In fact, I physcially felt a weight lift off of my shoulder. I’ll keep the drugs close at hand, but hopefully my need for them will wane for a while.

So, here’s my lunch box

I used it tonight.

Inside this little gem is about 8 recipes I use frequently but never can quite remeber how to make (how hot to cook it, how much to add, etc) so I put them on cards and loaded them into the lunch box. The final page of this strip is adhered to the box itself and i’m hoping with the ample layers of mod podge, it will hold up to kitchen use. I used it to make Risotto tonight. :o)

I am the mother of a beautiful child.

and she’s so gaudy!

It’s one of her bestest qualities.