Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I am thankful for humor....I love to laugh....and THIS really got me laughing.

Seriously, what were they THINKING?

Toadstool ornaments...

I am hosting another handmade ornament swap.  This year's theme has to do with Woods/woodlands...so I thought toadstools would be perfect.

I love toadstools...and toadstool ornaments are so cute!  And fun to make.  They make me happy.

I made a zillion polyclay toadstools...some VERY tiny.

And I put them into some wreaths...

 I also made some bigger ones and put them into nests...

then I made some felt ones, just because....

Now I just have to decide which ones to use!  Or should I make some more???   Hmmmmm

How the system REALLY works....

crocheting cards...

I co-sponsor the crochet club at our local school.    Each year we teach the kids crochet basics before starting on projects.  Right now we are working on Christmas ornaments for a tree in our town square.   Each year, 50 trees are decorated by local establishments and it is first come, first serve.  I applied the first day they announced it was open and we got a tree!

Anyway, our students are all new to crochet so we had to keep things really simple.  We are making things with chain and single crochet.

One of the things we did was to do a simple crocheted edge on Christmas cards.  These are some I did with the back of the card because that part was going to be trashed.

So simple that even a brand new crocheter can do them.   Just single crochet and chain stitches.
 I'm using these as gift tags on the French Market Soup mix I give out each year.  

I'm going to do a post later showing the tree that our club decorated.  It should be pretty!

Thankful Thursday:Energy

Weird topic, right?  Energy?

I was one of THOSE KIDS that teachers hated because I never sat still.  Heck, I still don't sit still! The difference is that I am not running around the classroom with scissors making farting sounds with my arm or hand.  Yes, I was THAT kid.  And a GIRL, no less.  The shame of it all. 
I think back now and just crack myself up.  I mean it.  I bet my teachers hated me because not only did I run around the classroom, but I never shut up.  EVER.  (that part I did learn to rein in...amazing how quickly you shut up when someone calls you freckle face strawberry or chicken legs!) hahaha....oh my gosh.

Fast forward to last year when my energy came to a screeching halt.   I think it is because I'd been so sad for so long.  I just kind of got lost in all the sadness of losing loved ones...throw in losing beloved pets and a kid going to college....it was a lot and I guess I just shut down.

But then a couple weeks ago, I felt like DOING SOMETHING for the first time in a long time. As in, I ran around the house like a dervish and got tons of stuff done.  When I sat down I remembered thinking "There you are!"  I was back.  

Which got me thinking about how THANKFUL I am to have my energy level back.  
Then, that got me thinking about people with fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia.  They have awful problems with energy and that leads to depression.  So that got me thinking about depression.

It is such a vicious cycle...just awful and horrible stuff.  

I have always taken energy for granted but it is such a gift to have it, to be truly full of productive energy.  I don't want to ever feel like I felt again....ever.

I am so Thankful for energy.  I much prefer feeling like the energizer bunny than not......

Aw Shucks....

So, "all you" magazine featured my re-purposed wine cork canape knives in this month's edition.  

Who'd a thunk?  Not me...not in a zillion years.

They mailed me a copy as a thank you.  Here is the original post with  if you are interested....

A night out......

For our 20th anniversary, Dean and I went to see the Phantom of the Opera!  

Here we are, on our way into the theater.

The interior was amazing, so beautiful.  It was dark though so none of my photos really came out.

It was an amazing evening.....I am so glad we took Kaela with us....Matt, you missed it!

Thankful Thursday: Memories

I’m Thankful for memories.  (Especially FUNNY ones.)  

I've read that the strongest memories are attached to an emotion, scent or sound:
  
A favorite song, the sound of dog tags jingling on a collar.   The smell pumpkin bread in the fall.  
The fragrance of a baby product that pulls you back to when you used it on your own children.  
The smell of leather and hay when you walk into a stable.  

Not all memories are good, many are tough....but thankfully, our mind clouds over those memories we want to forget and year after year, slowly fades them.  Some memories can make us laugh like crazy.  To us, they are hysterical.  To someone else, it has no meaning.  Your memory is a very personal thing.  

With this year coming to a close, I look back on those precious to me that are now forever relegated to being "remembered."  I can't make new memories with them ever again.

My parents won't make new memories with me any longer.  Our 2 sweet dogs won't either. Even our son in some ways....  Now that he is in college, most of his memories from now on will not include us.  (Some I'm sure I don't WANT to know!)  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that to me, memories are really precious.  I can't tell you how hard I laugh when recalling how my sister Sheri and I went into a chocolate feeding frenzy one Thanksgiving!  Or when I saw my other sister Page whacking her dog with a dead chicken because he kept killing them.  (He never did THAT again!)  Or my brother who learned the hard way what happens when seagulls go into a feeding frenzy.   Then my kids.....Matt, at the ripe old age of 4, told a cashier she had "rat teeth" and Kaela had an unfortunate sneezing incident in a fast food bathroom while we were traveling.   OH.MY.GOSH.  

These are the things that I remember and cherish.  Good times.  I am so Thankful for the memories.  I hope and pray that I get to keep them for a long, long time......  

you know it's fall...

When you take leftover Frank's fingers for your lunch....and no one freaks out:

When you go to the store and buy 10 yards of quilt batting and when they ask you if you quilt, you say, "No, I make beds for the animal shelter..."  and then you come home and as you bring it into the house, it falls over:

 and before you can pick it up Suki climbs in and takes a two hour nap:

When you swap out your cozy for this one:

When you go buy a zillion bags of beans and such to make "French Market Soup" mix as gifts....and make a pot for your family because it is sooooo good:

When the Black Eyed Susan vine starts struggling, which is sad because you really love those cheerful blooms:

I love Fall...it is my favorite season!

Thankful Thursday:Doors

This year for my Thankful Thursday posts, I wanted to think about things we don't normally think about being thankful for.  
With that in mind, I chose doors for my first Thankful Thursday post this year.  

I was thinking about it the other day.   On the whole, a door just seems to be the part of a house that you walk through to get into the house or into to another room.  But a door represents more than that.

To me a door is:

Homecoming.  The smell of a familiar home when you walk through for the first time in a long time.

Artwork.  When you see a door painted a different color it just seems so much more beautiful.

Sanctuary.  When you've had a bad day or bad moment and you just need some privacy.

Welcoming.  When you've got new friends coming over for the first time, the first thing they see that tells them about what lays inside is your door.

Under appreciated.  A door represents home.  How many go without shelter each day?  How many have no place to go home to.

I didn't write safety because a door won't keep truly bad guys out anymore than a dog will.  
But it is a barrier of sorts and just in case someone bad is coming through one door, you can be hightailing it out another!

So today I am thankful to have a door to decorate each month.  I am thankful that I can put wreaths on it and change it up for the holidays.  I am thankful that even though it isn't a very pretty door, it is still on a house where I live with those I love...and that is a lot to be thankful for!

So here are some doors I love, makes me wonder what lies within...










I hope that one day in my forever home I will be able to have a unique and interesting door.....

Pumpkin carving contest!

Before I get to the carving, check out this cute glass I painted.   So easy....and Halloweeny. I painted a few for some co workers....

I needed a pretty wine glass for myself for Halloween wanted something a bit Gothic looking.  Lucky me found this one on Ebay.

Dean dubbed it "Goblet of Fire."   I love it.  

Armed with my new glass full of wine and my warty pumpkin, I was ready to WIN this year's Pumpkin carving contest!!!!

These two peeps didn't stand a chance!

Or did they?

Dean and I had gone to a local pumpkin patch and I carefully selected a few warty ones thinking they'd be amazing....WRONG.   

It was like trying to carve TITANIUM!  Even Dean was ready to just pitch it but I didn't want to wait so instead of freaking out, I quickly drank my wine, grabbed the drill and cored lots of holes in it instead.  (It just now occurred to me that swilling a large glass of wine before using power tools was probably NOT the best idea! )

The shell was so hard, it kept pulling the drill bits OUT of the drill!  In the end, I got it done but needed a serious shower.  The coring bits had thrown pumpkin flesh everywhere.  It was literally all over me. 

Here it is.  (I am happy to say that one guy walked up with his kids and said, Oh man, I love that, a Disco Ball!)   Made me laugh because that is what Dean called it.

Dean's...the pupils are actually pumpkin stems shoved in his head.

And Kaela's...what a show off.....(hee hee)

So, time for the voting to commence.  Which pumpkin do YOU vote for?  The winner gets bragging rights and dinner out.

Halloween eve...

I was dreading last night.    Neither of the kids were going to be home and Dean wasn't into it this year.  Boo hiss.....

So I went on about my way and decided not to let it get me down.   At school, several of us dressed up as nerds....

I think what made it so funny was that everyone did something different.  I was a nerdy librarian.  Took me 2 weeks to find those vintage cat eye glasses!

When I got home from work, it was off to the races.  At the last moment, Dean had requested my Frank's Fingers cookies....and I already planned on doing a creepy cheesecake dessert.

I mixed the 2 together and came up with this!  Pretty gross!  I think next year I'll make cookie eyeballs instead...skewered on a toothpick would be fun in this martini glass.

Then I took a cup of Frank's fingers to the front porch with me to snack on....the looks I got while eating them was priceless!

Another year as Witchie Poo...hmmm.  Maybe next year I'll do something different.

We had a TON of kids this year and everyone was out in costume.  The weather was cold and super windy...perfect for Trick or Treating.    Our spooky music scared a few kiddies (as well as my witch costume) but overall, it was actually a fun night.