Thankful Thursday

I really appreciated the idea of taking one day of the week and concentrating on just the good. Credit goes to "today I asked for a god" for giving me the idea.

So this week I am thankful for -
- Belly dance class and a teacher that finally made playing zills make sense to me
- friends I run into at the fabric store
- having a nephew to borrow for trick or treating
- my husband having tomorrow off
- finding half the cabinets for our remodel for $60
- finally finding Pagan blogs that deal w/ homesteading, homemaking, head covering, etc.
- cookies (everyone should be thankful for cookies)

The Dreaded Christmas List

The advantage of having a (for the most part) anonymous blog is that I can put up things like my chistmas gift list and don't have to worry about a relative reading it.

Honey - Don't you wish. Sorry honey I know you read my blog.

MY SIDE
Mom - ?, homemade jam
Dad - ?, Worst Case Senario Book
Sister - ?, homemade jam
BIL - ?
Nephew - excercise video game
Brother - ?
future SIL - matching mother and daughter aprons
future niece - refurbished used Doll House
name present A - Pretty apron out of blue and white fabric (got at the thrift store) and red trim
name present J - ? movies ?
G & M - homemade apron & cookies

HONEY'S SIDE
MIL - ?, homemade apron
L BIL - books
K SIL - cool photo spinny thing (thrift store)
M BIL - ?
J SIL - homemade bath salts
Aunt and Uncle - homemade jam and cookies

FRIENDS
M & S - homemade cookies, bath salts
C & J - homemade cookies, bath salts

Ok... I'm a little bummed. I'd hoped to have a better handle on my Christmas list by now but I see a lot of ?s up there. I'm trying to do everything homemade or repurposed. All the non-homemade things on the list so far are things I picked up used and spruced up. Wish me luck. I'll post pics of the homemade stuff as I finish them.

My Boys

Honey and Baby. They were just too cute. Baby has been pretty stressed lately with all the commotion related to the renovation on the apartment (not to mention it's getting pretty cold here and he is most definitely a hot weather dog) so we are making sure to spend cuddle time with him as often as we can.

Donut Sprinkles Fabric

This evening, after a long day of working on the house that I will probably write about tomorrow when my brain is working a little better, I went to one of my happy places. .... Oh no! you think. Drugs? Alcohol? ... Fabric Store!!! I had a 50% off coupon burning a hole in my purse and I wasn't afraid to use it! Despite the impulse shopping disaster waiting to happen this could have been I actually had a legitimate use for the coupon and was very glad to have it. I've been trying to use up some of my fabric stock and it just so happened that I have some really great Christmas apron fabric just waiting for backing and bias tape (I make my own) to become wonderful homemade Christmas presents. I got a nice dark green to back the aprons (I hate thin aprons they don't do the job) and make the bias tape out of. I'm looking forward to making the aprons and hopefully sending them out a little early so they get some use during the Christmas season. I'm always a little sad when I get a wonderful Christmas themed gift on Christmas morning and have to wait until next year to really use it.

My other reason for going to the fabric store was to find a contrasting fabric for some fun and playful fabric I picked up at the thrift store a while ago and really want to work with but have had a terrible time finding an accent fabric to go with it. The fabric is really playful and I like to refer to it as my "stripey candy fabric." Fortunately, I ran into a friend at the fabric store and she acted as my second opinion and helped me pick out some "donut sprinkle fabric" to go with my "stripey candy fabric." I'll put a picture of my finished project up once I get to it. I'm suddenly very hungry.

Check out the Giveaway at ecoMILF (Mother Into Living Fair)

ecoMILF is giveing away a Sigg water bottle with a great story behind it. Check it out. Enter the drawing.

http://www.ecomilf.com.au/ecoMILF/ecoMILF_blog/Entries/2009/9/25_neverever,_chocolate_confessions_and_a_give-away%21.html#

Getting Off My Lazy Butt

I've been a little lax the last couple weeks about my excercise. It's been cold and rainy so I didn't really want to go out walking but today I decided that I'm going to end up sitting on my a$$ all winter if I use cold as an excuse. I walked down to the store to pick up some veggies and stopped by the library to get some reading material. Fate decided to reward me for walking and both of the books I wanted (but didn't dare hope to find) were sitting on the new arrivals shelf waiting for me. I love these authors and reread their books almost every year but I'm too cheap to buy them in hardback so I get them at the library and read them. Then I have the leisure to find them at a used bookstore for adding them to my home library.

Birthday Party Wrap Up

Well, just because a birthday party is absolutely wonderful and went off with minimal issues doesn't mean it didn't take a lot of work and require a recovery period after :P

My nephew's birthday was last week and we went a little overboard (I blame the grandma) for the party. It was awesome. A Circus theme was chosen so we had face painting (my long suffering and good sport of a husband), a clown making balloon animals (me), bean bag toss, a petting zoo (two goats and two little pigs), a little race car track, a jumping jupiter, and a bunch of games. If most families tried to pull this kind of party off it would take quite a bit of money but we did it for hardly any. The most expensive part of the party was probably the Jumping Jupiter and that only cost $100 to rent for the weekend because we could rent if from the base recreation dept. Every member of the family was able to contribute something whether it was cooking, crafting, making a bean bag game out of scrap wood and paint, or getting some friends to lend their animals to the cause. I love my big crazy family especially when we're being crazy in a good way.

Me in all my clowny glory. We were talking about the costume and realized that Mom made it more than 20 years ago. It's been worn by almost every member of our family at one time or another and been everywhere from a VBS in Barrow, AK to a children's cancer ward in Romania.

A bad shot of the wonderful bean bag toss game Mom made out of a piece of scrap wood.

My sister being a good sport about all the random flower balloons her son wanted her to wear that we eventually just made into a hat to free up her hands.

My hubby painting a "pink sports car" on my (hopeful) future niece.

My nephew and his Grandpa playing in the jumping jupiter.

The duck pond.

Mom makes the best birthday cakes.