Christmas Catchup

I know, I know, it's been forever since my last post. I can't even blame it on the new computer, as it's been running fantastically for a while now. I guess I'll have to blame my over-all sense of laziness over the holiday. I feel like I've been doing only what must be done and letting the rest go - which includes housework. I can't tell you how many times DH has pulled through and done those dishes for me. He's definitely a keeper.

Speaking of keeping DH, check out what he did for me for part of my Christmas present this year:

For those of you that might not know what this is at first glance, it's a quilt hanger that he made for me with his own 2 hands! I have a similar, smaller one that I bought from a quilt bee friend a couple of years ago hanging in our bedroom, and he decided to make a larger version for the huge empty wall in our dining room. I think it's great!

Here you can see it with a few of my Jim Shore pieces on the shelf on top, and my third quilt top I made about 10 years ago and it's still waiting to be quilted hanging off the hanger.

I think it's looks great! Thanks honey :)

He also got me a bell jar to add to my collection - I've filled it with buttons and a few of the pincushions I've made over the years.

There were a few other gifts - a couple of DVDs and a huge frying pan I've been wanting for a while. It was a good Christmas in that regard :)

We had everyone over for dinner on New Year's Day - as that was the only time my brother could get here from North Carolina. That was a noisy day! I am really not used to having 13 people in the house - 4 of which are children. But, no mishaps and it was a really special day.

Unfortunately, Boots, the kitty I introduced you to last, got sick just before Christmas. She stopped eating on Friday night and stopped drinking water on Sunday. Monday morning I asked my DSis to bring her to the vet's office for me (an adventure in itself). The vet did some bloodwork and started pumping fluids into her. They kept her overnight and started her on antibiotics. We picked her up the next day with a diagnosis of very early stages of kidney disease. It seems odd that she would stop eating with that diagnosis, but whatever. We've had her on soft food since then (boy, feeding time is becoming a dance with the other animals), and she seems to be doing much better. However, we are still paying that vet bill....next week we'll finally have it paid off - whew!

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the craft show DH and I went to this Christmas! Our town puts together a craft show the first Saturday of December and we've never been to it. We've heard about it over the 8 years we've lived here, but never ventured out to it. Boy, what a mistake! They take over the local middle school (2 blocks from our house) and set up tables in the gym and all the hallways. We got there at 9:30 when they opened and spent 2 hours in there and I don't think we hit every table! And we weren't browsing slowly, either - DH can get impatient in crowded places, so I was doing my best to skim the tables quickly. We did get lucky, though.

I found 2 Jim Shore pieces for my collection - each under $10.00! We found a couple of stuffed animals for DNephew (which he loved!), gifts for DH's family and the best thing - a hand-turned pen made of deer antler! My brother absolutely loved it! It was right up his alley :)

Overall, a very successful holiday season was survived here. Always a relief in my book :)

How long has it been?

Wow - over a month! I didn't mean to stay away so long, but, well, you know how it goes.

I finally got my computer upstairs set up with wireless internet, so now I can surf and post anytime I want (no more waiting for DH to get off the computer downstairs). We're still working out the kinks up here, but we do have the basics.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week, not working on much of anything. Maybe I'm still recuperating from Thanksgiving. I know I'm about a week behind in getting my Christmas decorations up. I finally got the tree up Friday and decorated today. We usually have this all finished the day after Thanksgiving.

Well, this year, we hosted Thanksgiving here - we've hosted for the last 5 or 6 years I guess. Mom, sis, brother-in-law and nephew came over. It was small, but very nice. We had the usual turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet bread, homemade white bread, rolls, cranberry relish, Sis's green bean casserole, 7-layer salad, pink stuff (cottage cheese salad) and yams. All topped off with pumpkin pie and cherry cheesecake for dessert. It was wonderful. And the best part of the day? Sis wouldn't leave until all the dishes were washed! I think that was what I was most thankful for on Thanksgiving. Of course, having Mom in good health is a great blessing as well.

DH and I ventured out on Black Friday to attempt to get some deals at 2 area stores. We managed to snag the things we were hunting for, but whew! What an adventure! We were up by 3:30, and at the first store by 4:30. We picked up the one thing we wanted there - a wireless router - and were out the door by 5:15. Not too bad. We then crossed the street to stand in line at Menards with the other crazies, I mean shoppers. After watching many people cut in line, 3 right in front of us (and oh yeah, I went and spoke with them sharply. They will just have to live with the karma they are earning), we finally were able to enter the store. Talk about rude people! I had one little lady shoving me from behind when all I could see in front of me was a mass of people. I finally turned around and told her to stop shoving me, there was nowhere to go. She attempted to explain that she just HAD to get through, so I informed her there was "NOWHERE FOR YOU TO GO!" She finally backed off. Sheesh! But we were eventually victorious there, too, and were out of the store by 6:15. I do believe these were new records :)

We then went home and I went back to bed. DH proceeded to return the wireless router as it didn't work, thus losing the sale price (I made sure to inform him before I went back to bed that if it didn't work, he should hold onto it until they got more in stock and we would exchange it). Oh well...what can you do?

We got our first real snowstorm of the season this week. It came down so fast Thursday night that we woke up to 3 inches on the ground when we had grass the night before. When DH went out to clean off the car, about 10 minutes later he came back in announcing we weren't going to work that day. Yay! He said he couldn't clean off one side fast enough before the other side was covered again...no way was he going to try to navigate the roads when it was like that! So we had another long weekend this week and did I get anything done? Not really. I mean, I got the tree up, and some cleaning done, but nothing spectacular...nothing worthy of three days of free time. Oh well...

Oh! We did make it to the big craft show in our town yesterday. We were able to get gifts for about half of our family in one swoop! And, we found 2 Jim Shore figurines to add to my collection for a total of $10! It totally made my day :)

Well, that about gets you caught up for the last month or so...Sorry about no pictures this time, I'll work on that and see how the new computer likes them. Meanwhile, welcome to my 2nd follower! I can't see who you are just yet, but I see there are now 2 of you!

Erin walks away mumbling to herself about getting DH to get this computer up to par soon.