Merry Christmas

 It has been a busy December. The busyness actually started in November ever since we returned from a trip to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with family.  

It seemed to speed by with appts. and Christmas gatherings and preparing for Christmas.  Well, here we are at the end of Christmas day.  

We started out the day at home but later in the morning joined family for breakfast and opening gifts. It took most of the morning to get through them with 8 of us.  In the afternoon we returned home to open a few from each other.  

Spent some time setting up my new puzzle easel and working on a puzzle to try it out. Love it.  The puzzle can stay setup or be enclosed and stored while working on it but needing to be out of sight for one reason or another. 

  Once we had a quick bite we decided to watch a Christmas movie.  I enjoyed the day immensely and I hope each of you had a day just as nice. 

Until next time!

Springtime musings

  Here we are in the last week of April.  Time flies by! 

  Like everyone else I have been attempting to get some spring cleaning done.  Made it through the house and working on the garage. Seems to be a bigger job than I thought but I am determined to get it done this year.

 I have a few quilting/ sewing projects I want to accomplish. Also going to work on some new quilts.  

I am learning a new craft in wool applique. A friend from MJF introduced me to it. Now to figure it out.  Fortunately, I went with a small project to start.  

With Spring also comes pollen and allergies.   The last two days have been rough with watery eyes and such.   Benadryl has been my close friend these days.  It is always expected at the change of the seasons so I am prepared.  

Also with this time of year come the critters and ticks. So far, we've had a snake in the basement and I've found a few ticks trying to have a meal of me.  Glad to have avoided that.   I have a shirt that says "life is better in the country", at this time I am not sure I agree with that.  

I hope everyone is enjoying some great weather this beautiful time of year.  Enjoying my lilacs!

Until next time....

  

Cleanup

  I decided today with there being too much snow and wet to go out and about, that I would tackle my craft/ sewing room.  It was a mess in there. I don't know how or why I let things get this way, but it happens.   It is where I store my crafts but also where I keep gifts, Christmas and birthday, so I think it just got away from me.   So today was the day for it.
 My daughter called and with the handy bluetooth and someone to keep me on track I accomplished more than I thought I would.   I cleaned out the things I knew I wasn't going to use and the projects I am no longer interested in starting or finishing.  I have a few of those ufo's. More than I care to admit actually.   I chose which I still wanted to work on and I am purposing to get them done this year. I still have some tweaking to do as I only went through the surface stuff. I will continue to dig deeper to see if I can downsize more and really get this area in shape.  I am an organizer but not so good at de-cluttering so I still plan to go through everything and decide on a specific purpose for it or get rid of it. 
 
I love to make quilts so there are a couple of those on my list to do this year.   I machine stitch my pieces but quilt the whole thing by hand and that takes me a long time.   Not sure how many I will actually get done.  My plan is to put together the pattern with the fabrics I will be using to make them and store it that way. Then I will decide what fabric I will keep in my stash and what I will part with.

The paper crafting is another area I need to work on but I need to have order so one thing at a time. 

I think this is a good plan and a good start to getting these projects done. 

Hope you all have a lovely day.
Until next time!

A woefully long time away

I am ashamed to see how long it has been since I have posted here.  I guess with the popularity of Facebook I have been lax in blogging. 
I will try better this year though I make no guarantees. 

  We just finished redoing our bathroom. When I get the new curtains hung maybe I will get my camera out to get some photos to share. It is a very small bathroom and to some the color may be dull, but we like it. 

 There are so many other things on our to do list. It has gotten incredibly long over time. I do hope that we will conquer some of the projects though.  Always seems to be something else to take up our time.

I do wish all of you a very happy, healthy new year!  Praying each of us will experience God's blessing throughout the year.

Until next time!

It has been way to long since I have written a post. Today I am sharing the link to my friend Mary Ann's blog. She is having a wonderful giveaway and I also thought you might enjoy reading her blog too!    You can find her www.ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com hope you enjoy it!

A Christmas giveaway - the Winner

And the winner is......NancyJo.  I had my granddaughter pick a number between 1-5 since there were 5 comments. She chose number 4.
I will get your book out to you tomorrow morning! Thanks for playing everyone and and I wish you all a most Merry and blessed Christmas!



I have a friend who wrote this great book called "Christmas in the Kennel ".  It is wonderful for children or anyone who loves animals.  I got a copy to have for my grandchildren.
 I thought it would be a great time to give a copy away. So if you are interested just leave  a comment here on my blog and you'll be entered.  What could be simpler than that?
You can find this book on Amazon. I just found out they lowered the price just  in time for gift giving.
I will only have this open until the 16th as I want to get it to the lucky winner in time for Christmas.
Thanks and Good luck!

Finished the Pantry organization.

Here are a few pictures of the end result of my organizing.

Sorry if they are a little blurry. Used my tablet instead of my camera.
Spent some time on Pinterest, a lot of time actually, to get some ideas on what would work best for me.
It feels so good to have everything sorted and clean and organized.  Always much happier when I can get a handle on clutter. It is an ongoing battle but hopefully this start will help me prevail.
Of course, once I get one room done it always prompts to pick another and start.  I feel like I had a productive day.
Going to go rest as I seem to be battling the start of something.  Always begins with a sore throat. So, I'm off to get some lemon and honey tea.