Changes, Changes, Changes

Wow, where does time go??? I can't believe I haven't been here since November. Things have been spinning out of control. Since November there have been a lot of changes in my life!

It appears that my husband and I are now officially in Alabama, at least temporarily! Since the first of the year my husband has only been in Michigan for 4 days and I have been there about 12. I've been there longer only because my new grand-daughter was born two weeks ago and I went home for a week to welcome her to the world. He stayed behind to work. Yes, work. He's now working in Alabama and I also have a job here. And I do mean a job!!!! It is nothing but work. Last week I worked 5 days and four of them were 10-12 hour days! Not bad for a part-time, one day a week job, huh?

I have not been getting much sewing done, either. I did manage to complete a diaper bag for Mailey (my new grand-daughter) but that's all. Since I've been back here we have had house guests for all but 4 days and then I was working, so no time for sewing. I finally got 1 month's worth of laundry done today. My washer kept spewing water onto the floor so I was busy wiping the floor most of the day. That's one way to get the floor cleaned I guess. I went yesterday to buy groceries for the first time and about 3 weeks. That was a budget cruncher for sure!!

Our house in Michigan is just sitting there now, holding our stuff and costing us money, lots of money. Know anybody who would like to buy a nice house on a lake? I can make you a deal that you can't refuse :0)

Since my last posting I have lost my 15 year old kitty. She passed away just before Thanksgiving. I'm getting so I really hate Thanksgiving. Two years ago I had to have my dog put to sleep the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, just 1 week after I had a cat walk away from the house and not return. This year my favorite kitty of all time passed away exactly 1 week before Thanksgiving. I have since acquired a 7 year old kitty that I adopted rather than have her end up at the shelter. And before I acquired her I had committed to a friend that I would take one of her kittens that her adopted cat had. Now, I have two kitties and all they do is fight! The old one just wants to be bossy and lay around all the time and the little one just wants to play all the time. Kitt is the grumpy, bossy old lady and Snapple is the playful little one. Both of them are just beautiful!! As soon as I have some time I will post some pictures.

It's finally starting to warm up a little bit...maybe we'll get some spring afterall. Last night my husband and I was sitting on the pier and we saw several turtles swimming in the water, so there's hope yet!

Sew Much To Do...Sew Little Time

This is the new bag that I made for Ginelle...

This one is for Marlin...

And this one is for Cari. I hope that they all enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them for them.

Man, here it is the middle of November and I'm soooooo far behind again I don't know where to start!!! :0) Two babies on the way, Christmas just around the corner, and I'm 850 email messages behind!! I need to get off the computer and get into my sewing room. I made a list of things I need to do before Christmas and it looks like I'm not going to be able to sleep again until after the first of the year. Then I need to start painting a mural in my new GD's bedroom. One of the babies is due any day now and I haven't even made anything for it yet. I say "it" because the baby was too shy during it's ultrasound to reveal if it's a boy or a girl. I just got back from a one month stay in Alabama and I completed 3 new bags while I was there. One, I gave to a friend there and the other I brought home because I have to mail them to my nieces (very late graduation gifts). Postage is so high these days, I'm wondering why I didn't just send them a card with a check.

I left some of my sewing supplies behind when I came home so now it's going to be a challenge to get started again here. One of the items I left behind was my 6"x24" ruler for rotary cutting. Bummer...I use that ALL the time! Maybe I'll just take my 40% off Joann's coupon and buy another one. You really can't have too many! :0)

Well, back to my emails so I can feel better about starting on my sewing tomorrow...early! I've got to get something done. I've been home an entire week and haven't even walked into my sewing room yet, other than to drop some items down that need to be put away.

Still here...

Well, it's been awhile but I'm still here. I mean here, in Michigan! Still waiting to get to Alabama. Maybe, for some unknow reason, it's not meant to be. Time will tell.

Trials & Tribulations

Well, here it is the first of June and it's still not warm here in Michigan. It's only in the 60's here today! I'm getting more and more ready to move to Alabama! I'm staying pretty close to home this week due to oral surgery this past Monday (2 days ago). I awoke this morning with my face so swollen that I have a black eye and can see my cheek when I look straight ahead...not good. After applying ice for about an hour and taking some ibuprofen I can see a little better. Fortunately, there's not a lot of pain (unless I try to eat) so that's a good thing. Geesh, some people will do anything to lose a couple of pounds!!!

I decided I might as well take this down time to post some pictures of my crafts and stuff.

Here are a couple of Sassy Bags that I made this month. The first one is for me and the other one is the one that I made for Mom for her birthday last month. I think I like Mom's better but there's nothing wrong with mine either!

These are pictures of the Miranda Bag that I made for myself last month. I love it but sometimes it's just a little too big to carry for a purse. It works wonderfully though for a day bag when I'm going to be away from the house for the entire day. You just never know what you are going to need for the day so you can carry it all!

I got invited to a 50th BD party for a friend the end of last month so this is what I gave him as a gift. I put all this stuff together to tease him about his "old age" and then wrote a letter to him using the names of all this stuff. It was a real hit and I got commissioned to make a couple more for some twins that will be turning 50 in October. Sounds like a challenge, but I think I'm up for it. I won't make any money on them but it gets my name out there.

Following are some of the previous candy arrangements that I have made for gifts for various occasions. The pictures are not so good because I am not a photographer and I didn't have a really good camera, but they give some kind of an idea.

My son's BD arrangement from a few years ago. (Blurry but visible - somewhat).

Friend's daughter's graduation. The base is a box made from candy bars and the roses are tissue paper folded around money. The candies have computer made labels with some of them including a picture of the graduate.

My nephew's graduation the same year. The base is a can of nuts that I made a new label for on the computer. For this one I never received a "thank you" either verbal or otherwise. KIDS!!!

This one was for a neighbor boy's graduation the same year. Again, a can of nuts for the base.

These are so much fun to make and they all come out a little bit different. They are, however, quite time intensive and not really inexpensive to put together!

This is a picture of a wooden bowl that I painted for decoration several years ago for fall adornment.

This is an old bar stool that I had laying around the house not being used so I painted a picture of "Big Red" (a lighthouse/pier in a nearby town) on it to put in my home in Alabama. (I really don't like the way that the grass is painted, but by the time I got to that I was tired of painting this picture. It was pretty detail oriented)

Here's the other one in the set. This one is actually painted nicer (I think) but doesn't have the nostalgia attached to it that the other one does. Both of these are now sitting in my kitchen in Alabama.

Following are some pictures of the mural that I painted on my grandson's wall before he was born (2 years ago). Again, the pictures are a little blurry, but you can still see the basic image. (This was my first/only mural and I loved every minute of it)! I would love to do another one.

This is one of my favorite shots.

I just love this scene. The bee is another

one of my favorite things but I couldn't get a close-up of it with my camera. It always was blurry or washed out.

Well, that's about all for now. It's time to put ice on my face again and take some ibuprofen. My eyes are starting to swell shut again.

Lazy Saturday Morning

Lots of links in my mail today...

(Tons of Scrapping Freebies) -http://malinascrapsmaniac.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-02-20T18%3A53%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=20

How's this for a cute tag?

Here's another cute one.

Too cute!
Gotta love those dalmatians!!!! So sweet!

This is where I wish I was right now...

Well, that's if for now. I'm feeling a little better today (had a bug the last few days) so I've got some things to do. Might be back later...might not. Who knows!

Spring Has Sprung

FINALLY.....Spring has finally arrived in Michigan! And not a day too soon!


For the past week it has been beautiful...mid 70's, sunshiney, wonderful. Today, however, it is rainy, but that's OK. We need a little rain now and then so we can appreciate the sunshine a little more. Also, the plants like it :0).


I'm going to try to add some links here that I want to save and return to. Some are blogs that I enjoy and some are just links that I would like to return to at some time for whatever reason.


Here goes:

(Great Blog - Cheap Christmas ideas and printables) http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2515606834337283022


(Family Fun Link - Crafts & Decorating Tips & Ideas, Printables) - http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/kids-rooms/feature/bedroom-makeover/bedroom-makeover.html?campaign=NLC-NL_Crafts&link=Jump2Link3


(Rag Quilt Table Topper Tutorial) - http://ftp.gotfabric.com/projects/0803ragrunner.php


(Got Fabric Projects) - http://ftp.gotfabric.com/projects/


(Great Crafts Site) - http://whipup.net/ (Great site but sometimes freezes computer)


(Scrapping & Jewelry videos) - http://www.tvweekly.com/main.php

(Fabric Flower Tutorial) - http://thefarmchicks.com/FarmChickStylePin.html

(Quilt Patterns) - http://www.andoverfabrics.com/QuiltDesigns/QuiltDesigns.asp


That's all for now, hopefully saving things this way will help to save some space on my hard drive. Instead of making individual files for separate links and saving them on my hard drive and then transferring to disc or removable drives I can just save them here and hopefully be able to find them again.

I say "hopefully" because I started another blog before and when I tried to get back to it to edit and add pages, the rules had been changed and I was unable to access my own blog!! Hope that doesn't happen again!

February Folly

Well, here it is the end of February and we're still buried under snow, snow and more snow! It's supposed to get really cold out again tonight. Right now it's 18 degrees F and it's supposed to get even colder.

Here's what my driveway looked like last week...

This is about all the snow that I care to see for the rest of my life!! I've HAD it!! Hopefully, this time next year I will be in Alabama. I'm thinking that if I leave here right after Christmas next year and stay down there until about the 1st of March (or longer) I won't have to look at a sight like this again (except in pictures on Christmas cards)!

Karl had surgery on his foot earlier this week so we laid pretty low for a couple of day. He's getting around good now though, so it's back to normal, other than he's here every day instead of going to work...cramps my style a little bit but not too bad. We have things coming up next week so we can't go to Alabama (dr. appt, wedding) and the following week we have a dr. appt and our daughter's birthday so we may not be able to go then either. However, I could postpone my dr. appt and we could celebrate our daughter's BD early then head down. We could stay there indefinitely after that...at least until Karl needs to return to work. By then it will probably be srping here though too so it won't be so pressing. Spring is good...I love spring!! Especially after a winter like this last one. Did I tell you that we broke a record for snow fall this winter? Yeah, we have NEVER had this much snow before! My back and shoulders can vouch for the truth in that statement!

Monday Again!

Well, here it is Monday again. I spent Saturday at my only grandson's 2nd birthday party. Since I'm new at this Grandma thing, of course, I forgot my camera. I have only two pictures that my niece was nice enough to send me and they're really not very good pictures. I'll add them anyway because they're the only ones that I have of the occasion at this point.

The girl on the left is my new DIL (9/1/07) and the girl on the right is my daughter. She's the mom to my cutest little grandson.

I just found the best blog and I would like to fashion mine after it but, of course, I don't have any pictures of my crafts. Maybe eventually I'll be able to get up to the speed this one is at but it's going to take some time. Anyway, here's the link: http://happybirdscraftinghaven.blogspot.com/search/label/Cheap%20and%20Thoughtful%20Christmas%20Ideas

I find lots of good blog sites that I really should keep in a file somewhere so I can find them again when I want to revisit.

Since I didn't do much today, I really don't have much to write about. I still have alot to do before the day is done though so I guess I better get crackin'.

OK, Let's try this again!!

This is my second attempt at this. I started a blog a few months ago but somehow I lost it!!!!?!?! I hadn't posted to it for quite some time and when I went back to it now to post...GONE! It had a picture of me and everything! Maybe that's why it's gone! Someone decided there wasn't anybody who would be able to tolerate a site like that so they just deleted it!! LOL

Well, anyway, here we are in a new year and hopefully, it will be better than the last one. The year 2007 was not a good year for me. It started out in January with the death of my father and didn't improve much after that but now...a new year. It's bound to be better!

Hopefully, this year, I will be able to find a job! Michigan employment prospects are not very good right now. If all else fails, I'll go to Alabama. I have some loose ends to tie up here and I can head down that way. Maybe, there's work there.

What you are seeing here are pictures of my retirement home in Alabama. My husband and I "built" it about two years ago on the Elk River at the mouth of the Tennessee River. We are looking forward to moving there on a permanent basis as soon as my husband can retire (about 1 more year). I say "built" because it is a Jim Walter home that was located on Route 72 in Huntsville and we basically disassembled it and moved it about 45 miles west to place it on our lot on the river. Since then, every time we go down there we do a little more work on it. It's almost finished now. We just have a little bit of finishing work to do and possibly when we get down there full time, we can worry about some landscaping.

This is the view of the pier from our back yard, looking toward the river. We still need to build a boathouse...but that, too, can wait until we are down there full-time. We are planning a trip there tomorrow night when my husband gets off work (11:00pm) and we will stay for the next week. Right now, I think, it's warmer in Michigan than it is there, but I'm sure we'll have a good time anyway. I've got curtains to make and painting to do so it will be warm enough inside to do that.

This is where I live most of the time (for now):

This is how it looks in the summer time. Not too, shabby as far as weather goes.

This is what it looks like in the winter time. YUCK!!! Cold and icy and snowy. It looks pretty, but let me tell you, sunshine looks pretty AND feels nice!