See...They DO Grow Fast!

Just a few short pre-Christmas days ago I posted a picture of my son, nephew and niece. It was from about 1992 or thereabouts. Here they are today! Again, my Steve is in the middle. What a dang good-looking group!

My nephew Jake, son Steve, and niece Anna.

Christmas Eve candlelight supper at my sisters.

Here’s more of my family (and almost-like-family-friends!) – from our out-to-eat-breakfast. What fun!

My sister Sue and her husband Ken.

My nephew Jake and good friend Kim.

Good friend Dan (Kim's husband).

A hearty Ho-Ho-Ho and Happy Holidays to all!

Time DOES Fly

Christmas 2009. Hard to believe. The weather-people are talking about alot of snow - plenty of white stuff to make us nervous and create more worry about our children on the busy, holiday roads.

Three college kids heading to the family Christmas celebration. How can my son, my niece and my nephew all be that old already? Seems like just yesterday when then were young and carefree...

(My son - who is now 6'5" - is in the middle!)

May God keep them and all others safe during their holidays travels.

When It's Time to Sleep

I think I'm going through a midlife change/crisis. I never have trouble sleeping. Now I do.

Sure - for those that know me - they know I'm a sleeping machine. Heck - I'm so good at it, I can even do it with my eyes closed. (Ha!)

But lately, I can't get to sleep at night. I toss and turn and think of every issue, problem, worry and/or non-worry available to me. Tonight I'm having trouble again. I'll have to be up in a few short hours (5.5 teeny tiny hours to be exact) - and I'll be tired. But I can't get to sleep.

Maybe if I join my Charlotte on the couch, I'll be able to drift off into slumber. Yawn...see you in the morning...

Winter Wool

While dismantling some wool sweaters about a week ago, I ran across this tag in a sweater.

I cracked up. Who would have thought that someone felt it was important to mention to keep this particular sweater away from fire. Hmmm….don’t you think that is a pretty important rule for all of our sweaters…blouses…pants…blazers…socks…shoes…etc?

Thank goodness we don’t have to print the obvious on tags of everything. We’d need “keep out of oven” tags on our books and magazines, “keep away from dogs” tags on our ground beef packages, “keep only in arm pits” tags on our deodorant, “keep out of mouth” tags on yellow snow – well the crazy list would go on and on.

All I know is that if Santa’s suit is made of this wool, then he better be darn careful when heading down those chimneys!

Crap. It Snowed.

I know. I know. It’s my fault.

I should have gotten to all of my fall chores by now. But I was busy.

I was busy traveling, working, felting, stressing, worrying, sleeping, blogging, reading pages and pages of great blogs and other sites, eating, shopping, having mini-breakdowns – you know – normal stuff.

So when you live in Wisconsin and have a screened in front porch, there is a really good reason why you need to put up plastic in the fall to protect it from the winter weather. I know that. I just didn’t get it done in time.

Go ahead and giggle. I have to a little bit myself. But, yes, this is what happens when you don’t get your fall chores done properly and on time. This is how my porch looks right now. This is the mess I have to clean up. Tomorrow.

I didn’t have time today. I was busy. I was busy, working, felting, stressing, blogging…..ok fine. I was procrastinating.

Incredible ReSweaters!

While browsing the One of a Kind Show in Chicago last weekend (drooling and with my tongue hanging out!), I saw the most incredible resweaters made by a woman near Madison, Wisconsin.

I instantly fell in love with her creative and beautiful work. She must have had a fantastic show, because she had a sell-out weekend!

She sells her work on Etsy at Jill2Day. Don’t look today – because I understand she’s busy sewing and restocking her shop. But do keep your radar on her site because you’ll want to see what incredible work she does!

I’m Tickled Purple

I received an email note this morning from a fellow Etsy friend (http://www.etsy.com/shop/JulieBsJewels) that she featured my snowman pillow in a Treasury.

I’m not sure about other Etsy artists, but I find it to be such an honor when someone chooses one of my items – out of thousands – as something they like.

It’s a happy thing.

One of a Kind Scha-zzzam!

I just returned from Chicago. I had an opportunity to spend a short while at the 35th annual One of a Kind Show. All I can say is – Scha-zzzam!
There are so many incredibly talented artists there. I was nearly knocked over by a couple of the wool booths (of course). The altered clothing and other wool items took my breath away. What great stuff!

There was a special Etsy corner – and I was able to quickly introduce myself to an Etsy employee and thank them for the opportunity to present my wool goodies to others online.

The close of the art show visit (at 9:00 pm) made me want to drop everything, run home and create – but I still had two more nights to stay in the hotel and for some reason didn’t have any wool with me to occupy my fingers. So, instead I went to bed and tried to bring sleep to my up-since-six-and-working-a-conference-all-day exhausted body. About 35 minutes later – after much tossing and turning (of myself and the creative side of my brain), I was forced to get up, turn on the light and feverishly scribble down everything I could think of that was running through my mind. Not only did I get new ideas for things of my own – I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the internet and browse further the sites of some new artists I just met.

So now it’s Sunday evening, have retrieved (or maybe she would say rescued!) my girl, Charlotte, from the doggie boarding kennel, snuggled in back at home and anxious to work on new wool projects. I've got a happy girl and all is well.