GOODIES!

First I received a lovely "Harvest" quilt block from Irene in England. It will go nicely with the others that I have received from the other swap participants. I really enjoy doing these swaps; a little something special in the mailbox beside the bills.

After dinner I decided to go ahead and bake the butter cookies that I had mixed up a few days ago. this was the first time I've ever had any success with a rolled cookie recipe. I was so happy with the results. I started to fill a tin to take into work and realized the cookies were not going to fill the tin alone so I pulled out the candy melts and pretzels and went to work on making dipped pretzels to add to the tin to fill it up.

I'm sure these will be well received by my co-workers. And tomorrow is truck processing day so the entire replenishment team will be there to enjoy them. The day shift may not get any.

It was another busy day at the store; I even ended up on a register for about an hour as they didn't have a second cashier scheduled until 11. They need to have the second and/or third in by 10 from now until Christmas; but I'm keeping my mouth shut as I want NO PART of a Management position EVER again.

Me as a little girl at Christmas time.

And to end this post I've added a photo of myself at about 3 years old. Christmas really is for children and family togetherness.

WOOHOO! WINTER!

OK.. it feels more like Winter than Fall this evening. It's 45*F and the wind chill is making it feel 39*F at 5 PM EST - here in South Carolina. It's actually warmer in my hometown in Upstate New York - and the cloud cover looks like it could start snowing at any moment.

I haven't put up any decorations yet and probably won't for at least another week; but I have my thinking cap on for what I would like to do. I want to do a bit more this year as we have a lot to be Thankful for and I think Greg and Rachel would enjoy the decorations as well. This is their 2nd Christmas dating.

Shoppers are piling into the stores daily; where I work we have a backed up line by 10 AM and we open at 9 AM - it's really crazy. I'm so glad I'm out of there by 10:30. My gifts will be handcrafted except for a few small things for Scott and Greg. On my side of the family we will have gifts for my parents and the younger children and on Scott's side we will have gifts for the members that we have the most contact with - adults. Funny how that seems to work out.  Of course the items I make will be functional and useful with perhaps a little glitz added in along the way.

No photo's today - just wanted to pop in and leave a short message to let you all know we haven't fallen off the edge of the planet. Take care - stay warm!

Creating Day Sunday

Yesterday I made 3 more cards so I have just one more left to make. Of course I may make more  before Christmas if the urge stikes.

Cookie Tray I'm taking into work today.

I also started baking goodies to have here at home as well as to take into work. I mixed up some Butter Cookies and the dough for those is in the fridge as it has to be well chilled before you roll them out to cut into shapes. I'll be baking those once I get off work this morning. I also made a double batch of Fluffo Brownies and a batch of Oatmeal Krinkles.

Today I am also planning to make some Chocolate Dipped Pretzels; they were a HUGE hit last year.

Then it will be sew, sew and more sewing so perhaps I will have some "peeks" of things I am working on as well.

Scott just served up an amazing breakfast so I better go eat. I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Handcrafted cards

Yesterday I worked on making the cards that I will be mailing out to friends and family. I have 4 more to make today and then I will switch back to gift making and perhaps a little baking. Here are the cards I made yesterday; sorry if they are a bit blurry.

What Scott Captured yesterday

As you could see in the previous post Scott also had a camera and took a few photos that I thought I might share with you all today...

Me with our dogs.

Thanksgiving 2011

The best part of Thanksgiving Day besides the food was Scott and my walk along the river with the dogs before the meal. It was just so refreshing to mind body and spirit.

The old locks

Train on one of the trestles

Watching the bees work

Carolina Blue Sky

Scott with Bernadette and Amelia

Sun light on a Sycamore

A Gift for me?.....

NO THANKS! Nicholas brought us a present this morning but I wouldn't let him in until he had taken care of it. The muffled MEOW gave him away. Cats are so funny sometimes.

After work today I will be stopping by my Mother-in-laws to pick up some canned cherries to make a couple cherry pies for tomorrow. And yesterday my boss asked when I was going to bring in my "FAMOUS COOKIE" tray(s) so perhaps I will be baking over the weekend as well as this afternoon so I can take a bunch of cookies in like I did last year; here is what I did last year.

Well its pouring rain so I better allow extra travel time as who knows what will happen along the way. I hope everyone has a GREAT day!

Looking for canvas....

First let me explain a little something... I AM A "FABRICHOLIC"! Somewhere in these tubs I have some cotton canvas and I am determined to find it as my dear husband wants to make a pressing board for me as a Christmas gift. So I've pulled all these tubs out of the corner so that I can go through them and find said canvas.
BUT WAIT....  the above picture isn't ALL of the tubs....

There.. now that is all of the fabric "in" tubs... we won't talk about the fabric that's actually IN my sewing room. Keep in mind that this is a 6+ year accumulation from working at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I know that I really MUST get to using this up and have no need or reason to buy anymore in my life time. These tubs are mostly apparel and upholstery fabrics the quilting fabrics live in my sewing room and they are actually getting used.

Perhaps today as I am going through these I will decide to purge the fabric that I come across that makes me say... "WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING WOMAN?" I'm sure I could find someone to take them off my hands... Thank God for Freecycle! But I may not do that just yet as I do want to sew some time today and that could take days to accomplish.

I better get started!

Ready to Mail~!

Mary Lou's Fall/Thanksgiving block

Carrolyn's Floral Block

I completed the remaining two blocks today and will be taking them to the Post Office in just a little while.

Tomorrow will be a gift sewing day and I will only be able to give little hints on here so as not to ruin any surprises.

I can hardly believe that I have just one more day home to sew... I'll have to make the most of it.

Scott and I cooked a delicious dinner together tonight... pork roast with whole cloves inserted, sprinkled with black pepper and thyme and then 1/2 cup white grape juice poured over the top and then slow roasted. Scott made some delicious seasoned collard greens that were simply wonderful and we had fresh steamed corn on the cob. I love when we cook together as the meal always turns out better than when one of us cooks alone. Must be the added love in it.

Scott has been trying to fix a computer for a co-worker this weekend and it's really given him a workout. I was sneaky and took this picture of him trying to get the front facing off the thing a few minutes ago. He says that one of the main problems it has is that it needs more memory so he has a call into a friend that sell's sticks of memory and with any luck he will get Linux installed. 

A couple days ago I was in Jo-Ann Fabrics getting some stiff interfacing for some of the gifts that I will be making and I found a wonderful book that I just had to have... it helped that I had a 50% off coupon too so it only cost me HALF. I love that!

This book has some WONDERFUL gift ideas... bath cap, unique potholders, totes and bags and all sorts of other fun stuff AND it comes with full-size patterns! If you are looking for a gift resource I can definitely recommend this book.

I guess I better get over to the Post Office; I'm hoping the machine is working tonight or I'll end up having to go back tomorrow and I am trying to avoid THAT line again this week.

FINALLY!

I was finally able to get set up in the dining room today and managed to get a little sewing done. Not as much as I wanted to but tomorrow is another day.

I made the block mentioned in the previous post but I'm not 100% satisfied with it and plan to make Diane another block in the future. This one just gave me fits and the colors weren't varied enough so you can hardly see all the points AND it turned out too small. I'm sending it on to her anyway in the hopes she will be able to use it in another sampler quilt.

Then I moved on to a "Fall" block for Mary Lou and this one is coming together much better. All I have left to do is sew the components together and then it can go into her envelope. Once hers is done I will have just one left to make for Carrolyn and she requested a floral theme. I have the fabric all ready chosen from my stash and a pattern for the block so I can just make it up in the morning. I will be so glad to have these completed so that I can move on to Christmas gifts. 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I know I am!

Stir- fry and Shopping my stash...

Night before last I made a quick beef stir fry and some steamed rice for dinner using a small round steak cut into narrow strips. My God that meat was chewy! Oh well it nurished our bodies and didn't cost a whole lot but a lesson relearned - simmer the meat longer before adding it to the vegeatbles. It looked pretty...

and tasted fine but was a lot of work chewing it up.

Yesterday I had planned to do a ton of sewing but it turned into a laundry mountain tackling day and errands. But TODAY we are staying close to home and I'm sewing! Scott brought a co-workers computer home with him to work on so he will be occupied with that while i am sewing. I did "shop" my stash and found a few more pieces for Phoenix and Dougie's quilts.

Tub of flannel prints

I was able to find a few more with green in them for Phoenix's quilt...

I have decided against using the Pooh bit since it has pink on it.

The first thing I'm going to try to tackle is a complex quilt block for one of the quilt block swaps I'm behind on...

I've been putting this one off as I don't have labeled Civil War reproductions in my stash so I'm going with what I can find in my stash that closely looks like these prints and hopefully it will look close enough to be satisfactory. I'm hoping the block will just turn out "so stunning" that the actual fabrics won't matter as much... finger's crossed.

So much to do... I better get started!

Continual Drama

If it's not this...

It's an ambulance toting the 30 something Mother off to the hospital. This time I believe it's over the dog issue that they have going on with the lady across the street from me. OH! How I want to be on our 10 acres so bad. DRAMA DRAMA! I'm so thankful I'm living a much calmer life.

Which brings to mind.... I'M OFF FOR THE NEXT FOUR DAYS!!!! YIPPY SKIPPY! I can sew all I want and start wrapping gifts for Christmas. Perhaps I will actually decorate with a larger tree this year. HO HO HO......

Envelopes waiting...

I've got to get three more quilt blocks made so that I can make a trip to the Post Office to get them all mailed out. I'm so late with these I hope the gals will understand. I'm taking a 4 day weekend this weekend and plan to get a lot of sewing done over those four days. I have decided to stop adding things to Carrolyn's beautiful block so that I can get it on to the next person. Of course that means Diane will be getting two at once since mine is sitting in the top fat envelope on my sewing table. Once I get her a Civil War block made it will be ready to mail. I'm trying to save as much as I can on postage by combining swaps.

Here is what I did to Carrolyn's Crazy Quilt block...

 And a close up of the corner I added items...

I was thinking of adding some more to either side of the heart and roses but just couldn't come up with anything so I'm sending it on as it is.

I am SO looking forward to this long weekend and then next week I'm only scheduled to work 3 days - that is fine by me - more time to sew and craft. I may actually get something handmade done for everyone this year for Christmas.

"Reflecting Good Vibrations" with Blessing The Elements

Blessing the Elements has a weekly feature that I'm joining again this week. Sort of a "Blast from the past"...

Cat...Chilli both begin with "C"

Mr Tesla on the Kitchen floor

Someone was waiting in the sunshine for me to arrive home from work. I was a bit late; doesn't he look a little miffed? To make matters worse I wouldn't dole out snacks until Nicholas came back home and he didn't come home until Scott came home after 5... the poor thing was just going to "STARVE".

I worked over 2 hours today because the system viciously added another two pages of "Negative on Hands" to this weeks totals AFTER I had finished the 4 pages and was entering them in when I noticed the skus weren't matching... UGH! Hopefully that will not happen again anytime soon. With those taking so long I wasn't able to accomplish anything on the other Inventory task that has been"given" to me - they are trying to make it sound like a "gift". I truly don't mind but I find it amusing how they word things sometimes.

After I came home and ate lunch I decided to brave the grocery and got that out of the way for this week. And I just put a pot of chili over to simmer for our dinner. We will have corn bread with it that Scott made last night instead of the rice we usually have with chili.

UGH! I've been up since 3 AM with no nap... I'm going to be out before my head ever reaches the pillow. Tomorrow I will be posting some crafting news.... I hope; depends on how the rat race goes tomorrow.

Another Day on the Land

 WOO HOO! Half of the front field done! Perhaps next weekend we will go back up and tackle the other half. We had a beautiful sunset to watch on our way home too.