Me Being Crafty

I am not accomplishing nearly what I had hoped in this little ramp-up to Christmas.  So, to offset that, I am taking a little of my precious double-and-triple booked time to post some past accomplishments.

I finally finished a couple of quilting projects for Christmas.
This one I started over two years ago:

Go ahead!  Click on it and zoom in!  It shows up much better.  I need to work on my photography skills.
I did these in a church quilting group with a half a dozen or so other women. Some of the fabrics we swapped, and some we didn't. On mine, I swapped some of the creams to get more variety, but I didn't swap many of the greens. The other women had a lot more going on in their greens, they were pretty busy, and I didn't like some of those busy fabrics. The problem was when the others were done and mine was next to them, theirs looked like decorated busy Christmas trees, and mine looked kind of plain. So, in a brilliant plan to make my life much more difficult, I decided I'd attach little magnets on mine, on the wrong side of the fabric, so we could use little metal things to decorate the tree. This slowed me down considerably, but I finally found something that would work, and found some sparkly things to use as decorations.  I just finished it up a couple months ago, that's the kind of schedule I'm running on. I'm pretty pleased with the result, though every now and again someone walks by and brushes it and all the little metal decorations skitter across the floor.
Here's some detail:

The next one was the project from a year ago. I noticed that it is the same size as the opening on my front door, so I hung mine there. Normally it is hung the other way, facing out and the sun isn't shining through it.  I should have taken the picture from the other side, but it's could out there!!!  I have some buttons to sew down his front, but that's farther down my to do list.

Okay.  Now I should get back to work.
I got my Christmas cards off, finally, but there is so much other stuff to do.  And I haven't even figured out what to do for the neighbor gifts!  I'm doomed to be up until 2:00 am every night between now and Christmas!!!  And we were going to cut back this year!  Ha ha ha!

Putting one over on the guy in the red suit

Santa is a sap.  He will have those elves of his make ANYTHING.


Not me.  I will NOT buy those horrible battery operated talking robot pet toys, but Santa, he is a complete push-over.  My girls know that anything you REALLY want, you ask Santa for, and that chubby old partially deaf guy with the thick white beard and REALLY DEEP POCKETS will find it for you.  The old guy hasn't let them down yet.


Yesterday Thing 1 asked me how many times we'll be seeing Santa this year.  Well, there's one this weekend at the church party, and we might see another one at the mall, why do you ask?


Because the tradition seems to be you can only ask Santa for one thing, and she has two items at the top of her list = two Santas.
Oh, clever girl!

Thing 1's cough has gotten worse but I've been sending her to school to cough and spread germs to all her class mates.  Because they only have two more days of school before the break, even if they're both half days, (?!? Why is the Thursday before Christmas break a half day?!?) and then after that I've got to ditch the kids to accomplish anything.

As I tucked Thing 2 in last night she decided she can't sleep with the vaporizer running in their room.  She decided that she needed something, preferably earmuffs, to muffle the sound.  I didn't find any earmuffs in my quick search of the available winter clothing but I did find a fleece scarf, which she agreed to let me tie around her head.  I forgot to mention that a month or two ago Thing 2 took to wearing sleeping masks.  She saw one at Old Navy and fell in love. I thought sleeping masks were something women only wore in movies and sitcoms, never in real life.  It seems kind of dramatic to me, but whatever.  It seems to work, she no longer calls me in the middle of the night complaining about nightmares, now she just calls me complaining she can't find her sleeping mask.  It's usually around her neck or forehead, but still it's less frequent or alarmed as the nightmare calls, so I'm cool with it.  She now has three, in case one gets lost.  Her favorite has huge exaggerated eyelashes painted on it.   So back to the scarf.  Last night she just had me tie the scarf around her eyes and ears and left off the sleeping mask.  I tied it in back so the knot would be out of the way because she sleeps on her side, and she looked like the sleeping bandit or someone who got just got really tired of swinging at the pinata.  Tonight she wanted the knot in front, and when I tied it over her eyes she pushed the knot up on her forehead so she could still wear the sleeping mask.  So she is wearing the fleece scarf tied in front on her forehead, and the sleeping mask underneath.  Rather than embarrass her by taking a picture of how she looked, I have taken it upon myself to make a digital recreation.

Except Thing 2 doesn't have the exceptionally pleased smile, of course.  She is quite serious.  But I couldn't find any towel wrap pictures looking serious, probably because no one can hold a straight face if someone points a camera at them when they're wearing one.
In any event, she looked awfully darn cute.  And almost regal.  Like she was wearing a towel crown.  It was sweet.

There are no merry gentlemen or women RESTING around my house

I have a new addendum to Murphy's law.

For all effort exerted to achieve a particular objective, an equal or greater negative force will arise to thwart that objective.

In my case the objective is getting to bed on time.  I stopped doing several things I wanted to do last night, pushed my Christmas list back on the burner, and got to bed close to midnight - earlier than usual for me.
Then the negative force arose at 1:30 a.m. in the form of Thing 1's cold escalating suddenly into an inability to easily breathe.

I find breathing rather necessary, and require it unequivocally from my children.  It's hard to argue with the "I can't breathe" problem, even at 1:30 in the morning when I had tried so hard to get to bed.

So I let Thing 1 stay home from school today.  I didn't get some of my errands run because I hate to leave her home alone any longer than absolutely necessary.  Unfortunately all my nagging didn't produce one nap from her, and left me even more exhausted than before.  Why is that?  Unless she can spontaneously eject a lung or a limb, she's going to school tomorrow.


I have sent out most of Hubby's corporate Christmas gifts today.  He wanted to send something cheesy (in a good way, as in dairy cheese) and summer sausagey this year.  I voted for the chocolate, like usual.  Sausage and cheese requires more planning and organization, and possibly even refrigeration.  The candy is an easy phone call away.  Already boxed and packed for shipment.  We went with the candy same as the past two years. We ordered 20 boxes.  I penned the hand written sentiment from Hubby (in my weird girlish scrawl, but that will have to do since he won't be back in the country until Saturday which is well past the required shipping date), then inserted the cards, addressed, sealed, and sent 15 boxes today and am waiting for addresses for 2 more.  I think 2 others have local destinations not requiring a trip to the post office.  That leaves one for me, as his secretary/bookkeeper/personal assistant I believe I deserve one.  I'll even write my own Christmas card.   
Sincere thanks for a job well done.  You're irreplaceable, you truly are.  And in lieu of a huge raise, WHAT?  You're not getting paid?  Hmmm... well then in addition to a 100%... no, a 400% raise, I'm giving you this lovely box of caramels, English toffee, fudge, and mint cookie malt balls.  Enjoy!!!

Guess who chose all their favorite things from the candy store to go into the boxes?!  That's right!  Which is why it is taking a profound act of will to keep me from running in and raiding what I have already determined to be my box.  But there is Hawaii, and swimsuits on the beach to think about, grumble grumble grumble.

There is so much left to be done before December 25th, and a little more than a week left to do it. The race to the Christmas finish line continues.

Happy New Year

The 12 days of Christmas seems ages ago.  But to wrap up the thought I started before I begin a new one, here they are. 

9 ladies dancing was a set of 4 paper dolls, pretty cool and retro-looking

Ten Lords a Leaping is a basket of 10 chocolate frogs

Eleven Pipers piping was a package of 8 musical crackers - apparently each one has a little whistle in it.

12 Drummers drumming was a set of 12 Christmas crackers - we haven't opened them yet,

and a copy of the Robert Sabuda pop-up book of the 12 days of christmas

- which if you don't already own you should stop reading right now, get in your car, and see if you can pick one up at an after Christmas sale.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.
I had started documenting what we were getting on this 12 days of Christmas with the intent of next year doing something similar.  But I've been daunted because I'm just not sure where I'd even begin to get some of this stuff. Not to mention, it's a ton of stuff!  and a pretty significant investment. This is not your typical neighbor gift...  I'm just more and more impressed with who did it for us.

I'm pretty sure I know who it was... but I'm unsure how to proceed.  Do I confront them or not?  I think they need to be thanked.

On the 19th we took the girls to the play of "The Christmas Story."  It was well done, we'd shown the girls the movie, so they were familiar enough with the story to not be baffled by it, and to enjoy it.  It was a good introduction to the theater for them.

We had walked to the theater, and as we were leaving Hubby and Thing 1 got a little ahead of us.  A man and his wife were walking out next to me and Thing 2.  He looks down at her, and says there's lots of snow out there on the field in front of the theater.  She doesn't say anything.
He asks if she likes snow.  She nods.
He asks if she knows that Christmas snow is magic.  She looks at him.
He assures her Christmas snow is different than regular snow.  Would she like him to show her?  

He reaches out to the snow in front if us and picks up a pinch.  He puts it on his flat palm in front of her, and asks her to blow on it.  He covers one open palm with the other, flat, and circles the one above the other.  He asks her to blow on it, between his hands.
He shows her a clear shiny marble on his palm.  She is open mouthed speechless.  He gives her the marble, and with a wave he and his wife walk away.

I'm not sure I even thanked him.  I was so stunned.   It was just so magical... she was so tickled.  She carried the marble around all day.
However, the rest of the day Thing 1 is upset that she doesn't have a magic marble.  So much so I break down and tell them it was a trick, a neat trick, but a trick, and I demonstrate it.  Thing 1 is mollified, but Thing 2 is unconvinced.  Because I keep using her same marble in the demonstrations of the trick she is convinced that the guy used real Christmas snow to magically produce her marble.  I'm just doing a trick.  He did REAL Christmas Magic.  Which is fine, it was Thing 1 I was trying to pacify anyway.

The girls got to open their one gift each on Christmas eve, which was of course matching Christmas pajamas.

Our Christmas was wonderful, the kids got everything they could want and more... our typical story of excess, mostly because we have so much fun getting them stuff we'd want.  We have to play with these toys too, you know.  And it's exciting to imagine their joy in opening it.  They usually deliver, being so delighted at everything.  Thing 1 wrote a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve, reminding him of our new puppy, and imploring him to bring the dog a stocking and something to put in it.  Santa complied, and wrote a return letter.  Thing 1 was thrilled.

Thing 2 got her looks-like-her American girl doll

Thing 2 didn't get any one big gift, but lots of other things.  This is the card she made for Hubby to go with the gift she picked out for him.

Hubby got his new coffee machine, a Nespresso that also foams the milk.  It was far from a surprise for him, in fact I had to return the coffee thing I had originally bought him because he found this one, gave me a printout of exactly what he wanted, and so off I went like a good little elf to Sur La Table where they had it in red.

Hubby has spent most of the past couple of days sipping his coffee or playing Mini Ninjas, a Wii game that Santa saw fit to give him.

Hubby is a fabulous gift buyer... my favorite gift this year was a sock monkey hat.  Looks like I'm wearing a big sock monkey on my head.

We had my folks, Hubby's sister and boyfriend, and Hubby's friend and girlfriend for dinner Christmas day.  It's the first time our front room was presentable in less than a week after the force of nature that is Christmas morning has struck.  Hubby excelled in the food department, it was a fabulous meal.

Hubby's friend has a long standing history of using the girls like twirling batons to entertain them and himself for a while. This is the sort of thing that you have to be careful about doing to them yourself or you'll spend several minutes every day refusing to do it.

We spent the next couple of days up with extended family, doing Christmas.  That's Thing 2, Niece 4, Thing 1, and Hubby.

 My big ace in the hole gift was a Sharper Image five day weather forecaster thing that I got on a coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  I bought three -  for hubby, for my dad, and for my brother-in-law whose name we had this year.  They were all a bust, my brother-in-law's and father's because it's not Mac compatible, and ours because it COMPLETELY DOESN'T WORK.  I spent most of a day trying to get it to work and it just refuses.  The kicker here is I can't find the receipts for them.

On the way home on Monday, Thing 2 came down with a fever.  She slept most of the day, which is not normal.  I can't remember what her fever was that night, but it was high.  We started the motrin/tylenol dosing routine.  The next day  her fever came down, she took a nap but was pretty normal, but at night her fever would skyrocket again, up to 105 range, but be down by the next day, except for some napping.  Looking back, I of course can see I should have taken her into the doctor, but for one reason or another I kept putting it off, expecting her to get better.   On the phone to my brother on Wednesday, he thought it sounded like swine flu, which he knows all about since it made the rounds at his house.  That scared me enough that I called the doctor and got through to the nurse.  She said if Thing 2 didn't make it through the night, bring her in the next day, New Year's Eve.

She didn't make it.  We have since found out our ear thermometer thing has to be wrong- but I nearly had a  heart attack when it registered 106.9.  It came down really quick, which I assumed meant the thermometer was probably screwy, and the doctor agreed. 

The doctor diagnosed Strep Throat, which was a relief... seeing as how Hubby's getting on a plane on Sunday, it would be bad to have him carrying the flu.  We started her on Amoxycillin, expecting everything to be hunky dory before we could say Bob's your Uncle, but still her fever popped up again last night.  Using the old fashioned mercury thermometer in her armpit and adding a degree, we got 105 at 5:00 am.  Sponging her and dosing her got it down a degree in just half an hour.   The doctor told us in 24 hours she wouldn't be contagious anymore.  Which has already passed, and she still has a fever.  I suppose a trip back to the doctor is probably in order, or the clinic, if they're not open tomorrow.