A few quick pictures

Thank you to all who gave suggestions for doing up our porch for the holidays. The Housewalk is one week from today and other than a few heres and theres, I think I am ready.

Our porch has a door at both ends. This is the door used almost exclusively. This will be the door the housewalk participants will enter through. I've always liked the look of trees flanking the door. Usually the trees are in an urn of some sort. Well, I'm not an urn sort of gal so we country'd it up a bit and used old milk cans instead.

This is the door at the other end of the porch where the walk will end. I added some fresh greens to the crock with the sticks since this picture was taken the other night.

Mister Snowman is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. I bought him at a craft fair a number of years ago and haven't tired of him yet.

I also added fresh greens inside this steel wheeled wagon today.


I'll post some inside pics in the next day or two.

The Quiltmakers Gift

The Quilt Maker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau

A friend from our church small group loaned me this book that her daughter received. She thought I would enjoy it and enjoy it I did!

What a beautifully illustrated children's book. It has a great story about kindness and giving to others.

This would make a wonderful Christmas gift especially for a quilters granddaughter. Unfortunately, my granddaughter is a little young for it yet.

And no, I'm not getting a commission on this, I just love a good children's book when I see one.


The illustrations are gorgeous.

Amazon carries for a little over $12.

They also have a nice website, Quiltmakers Gift you can check out.

Are you who you think you are???

Did you ever wonder if you weren't who you thought you were?

that maybe you didn't have the grit you used to?

or that your tolerance was diminishing from what it used to be?

I've had a few of those moments in the last 24 hours.

Last Thursday I had a dental procedure done (see previous post). I was doing pretty well, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had envisioned. Oh sure, I felt like someone had smacked me in the face but I guess I expected to feel like someone had smacked me even harder yet. So all in all not too bad.

Yesterday pain took on a whole new meaning!
I was taking 4 Advil every 3-4 hours and it was barely taking the edge off of it. By last night, I was about beside myself. So this morning, I call the oral surgeon and ask the question if this is what's it's supposed to be like? First they wanted me to take something stronger which they gave me a prescription for but I never filled. My disclaimer on that is, the stuff usually makes me really sick to my stomach. That particular side effect with stitches in my mouth? It wouldn't have been pretty. Enough said.
Then the nurse goes down the road of it's normal to feel this way 5 days out. That just didn't quite add up for me either when I hadn't had too much trouble up til this point.

After pressing a bit, they agreed I should come in this afternoon for my post-op instead of tomorrow. Off we go to the doctor to find out I have dry socket! Now I know that's not a good thing or anything to be happy about but there is some satisfaction in knowing it was "real pain" and I'm not being a weenie afterall!

So good news, I am ME! and I had "real pain" not baby pain! It sure is nice to know I haven't gotten soft in my old age, or at least not yet!

Hopefully with the stuff he gave me and a little time, I will be good as new and back at it soon.

I have Christmas decorating pictures to take and show you all but just haven't felt like it these last few days.
By the weekend I will snap and post, I promise!

My new best friends

What you see here are my new best friends.

Hopefully those of you who are my "old best friends" won't feel too slighted.

I'm sure these new friends are only temporary but very welcome in my home, heck even my bedroom at the moment.




I "won" the prize and had 3 wisdom teeth and had a spot on the inside of my cheek removed this morning.

Now do you understand why I have these new best friends?


(Sorry for having to turn your head to look at the picture. Blogger is playing tricks on me again and turning the darn thing after I upload it! :{ )

Made me think...

I received the message below in an email. It sure hit home with me. Why is it I cry out to God more easily when things aren't going so well but sometimes forget about offering thanks to Him for blessings received.
I do thank my Lord often. In fact, there are many times I am absolutely overwhelmed in thankfulness and gratefulness to Him. However, my follow-up on specific requests is sometimes lacking.

WHAT HAPPENS IN HEAVEN
This is one of the nicest e-mails I have seen and is so true:

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, 'This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.'

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, 'This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them. 'I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. 'This is the Acknowledgment Section,' my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed.'How is it that there is no work going on here?' I asked.

'So sad,' the angel sighed. 'After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments.'

'How does one acknowledge God's blessings?' I asked.

'Simple,' the angel answered.

Just simply say, 'Thank you, Lord.''

Christmas stuff!

Could someone please tell me that eventually this pile of Christmas crap, oops, I meant decorative treasures will eventually make my house all pretty and festive cuz right now, I'm not feeling it!

When we went to the holiday showcase Sunday, I was starting to get excited about decorating but after hauling it all out of the attic tonight, I'm just plain tired!

Holiday house showcase

Tami, a friend of ours was wonderful and blessed Dan & I with a set of tickets to a Holiday Showcase house that benefited the Children's Home & Aid society in Rockford today.

How this works is different designers, home interior shops and florists come into the house and each take a room or an area and decorate it for Christmas.

I would think for the homeowner, the worst part about this whole house tour thing would be tomorrow the designers come and take everything away again. How depressing would that be? Your house is all decked out for Christmas and then poof! it's all gone again. It's like a fairytale dream with a nightmare ending.

Some of the rooms were way over the top, the kind where it's blatantly obvious a designer did it. But then there were some very nice touches as well. Someone was stationed in each room to tell about the room and the designers that did it. It was really interesting and I'm glad we went. It was just a little more high society than these two hicks from the sticks are used to. :)

Here are a few pictures of what I particularly enjoyed. Or should I say what I liked before I got busted for taking pictures. I did ask first, really I did which is so unlike me. I was told at the entrance that it was fine but when we were halfway through the tour, I was told it was a big no-no. Ooops!

I really like this rusty snowman with the goofy grin. He's just plain fun!

This was probably my favorite thing. Maybe because it looked like something I could or would do myself. However, notice the price tags hanging on everything. Something about that kind of screamed tacky to me, but hey what do I know?

I liked these tall skinny trees too. The bathroom was black and white so they really stood out.

This I thought was kind of neat. I sometimes get in a rut where I think everything should kind of match so the mix of the evergreen tree with the glass trees was unique and fun to see.

The greens hanging above the bed was a nice touch. It's hard to see but there were little star ornamnets hanging from them as well.

This pic is a little crooked as it's when the woman stationed in that room was reaching for my camera.

Hope you're having a great Sunday!

SUNRISE

Our sunrise this morning was beautiful.

It was really windy but 64 degrees. Warm enough to go outside barefoot in my bathrobe to take pictures. Now doesn't that paint a visual for you???

This morning could be the warmest we see for awhile now, possibly months :(.

The temperature is supposed to drop throughout the day with highs in the forties and snow showers for the next few days.

just starting..

peeking through....aren't the colors gorgeous?

Ahh, there she is!

Whatcha workin' on Wednesday

I'm pretty excited. I'm actually able to post something for "Whatcha workin on Wednesday." After 100 posts, I think this is the first time I've hit it right. Of course, it's only Tuesday night but by the time most of you read this it will be Wednesday so that counts right?


I've been busy this last week.

I finished up a wall hanging that I've had in process for almost two years. It started out as a table runner with the trees end ot end but I never liked it, so Saturday I ripped it apart and made it into a wall hanging instead and now I love it! It's ready to be quilted.

This square table topper I put together last night from a Moda Cranberry Wishes charm pack. I've never purchased a charm pack before but loved the colors in this one. So I could see all the fabrics, I kept it simple and just did a random patchwork. Another one ready to be quilted.

And a quick and easy project. Our family grew again this year with a new grandson so it was time to make another stocking to add to the hooks for baby "O".

What are you passionate about?

Passion

~any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate

~a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music

~feelings or actions that compels


Our message at church this weekend centered around "Points of Passion" which referred to the missions and outreach activities our church supports. During the message the question was posed "what are you passionate about?"

The question challenged me and got me thinking, which I imagine was the point, what am I passionate about? what activities? what causes? who am I passionate about ?

Other than my family and quilting and motorcycling :)...

I am passionate about children or women who have been abused. I don't know what to say or how to handle those situations but it tears my heart out.

I am passionate about unfairness and injustice. I know life isn't fair, but there are times, it's just flat out not right. That's when my soapbox comes out and feelings that compel takes over and turn into action.

I am passionate about serving others whether it be through short-term missions, church activities or in my daily job.

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What are you passionate about? I'd love to hear from you.

If you're interested in this weekends message from Pastor Keith, Crossroads lead pastor, click on this link , and click watch messages.

I just checked and this weekends message wasn't loaded up yet tonight, but should be very soon. Last weeks by Augustine Mpemba from Tanzania was great too.

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who sent decorating ideas my way.

A few that stand out are

a memory tree -- I may use that idea inside

a small tree in the wheelbarrow

and the one that stands out the most is to play music outside as guests arrive. I would have never thought of it but do enjoy it when a shop has music playing that carries on to the street in front of it.



I'll post pictures when everything is done. I hope to start work on it next weekend. It's early but it sure beats freezing my fingers off in a few weeks.



And now the winner is....

Suzanne from At Home with the Farmers Wife!

Congratulations Suzanne. Drop me an email with your mailing address and I'll send everything your way.