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It’s 6pm on a Friday, its dark outside, and I’m still at work, waiting for the worlds longest report to print. It is so large that I’ll need two reams of paper to finish it and must always make sure there is a fresh toner cartridge on hand, just in case. So, since I’ve nothing better to do at this precise moment I thought I’d introduce you to Tilly. My kind step-sister-in-law was kind enough to send me a photo of her today; Tilly is the rag doll I finished up Christmas morning. I think she’s just too darn cute! I am especially fond of her hair which is made from the best ‘hair yarn’ I’ve ever found. It has a little kink to it, and is multi colored—perfect for hair. I’ll be making more of these some day, she was a pleasure to make, and really fun to give!
As for the bear, well no photo’s of him yet. But, I am planning a lion along the same lines for a tiny cousin of mine. His nursery is ‘safari’ themed, and the idea of a ‘lion skin’ security blanket just cracks me up.
I expect that’s it for me until next year. I’m working all weekend, partying Sunday night and sewing on Monday. I wish you all the very best life has to offer in the New Year!
Annie, knowing I’m odder than most, tagged me with the “Six Weird Things About Me” meme. So first, the rules:
Each player of this game starts with the weird things about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.
And now, weird things:
1. I break meme rules, and email rules, and chain letter rules....
I like answering meme’s but I generally don’t forward them on, or invite specific people to participate. You won’t be finding a comment on your blog asking you to play along with this one, I’ll just give a general invitation to all who are interested. I also don’t return those well wishing emails that tell you to forward them to all your friends and back to the person that sent them. I’m not scared to break a chain letter and I rarely forward anything. It has to be really, really funny (interesting, etc) for me to send it on.
2. I love cold General Tso’s Chicken for breakfast.
3. I have my own set of ‘internet’ rules. I don’t expect anyone else to follow them, they apply only to myself. They include things like: always replying to comments, posting about swap item as soon as I receive them, and avoiding digging too deeply into topics like work and family relationships.
4. I like to cook, and I am good at tweaking a recipe, but I would never say I’m a good cook. People who cook well are inventive, and creative ... I’m just good at following directions. I feel the same way about my sewing.
5. I hate to be interrupted during the last bite anything. I often save the best for last and I want to enjoy it ... don’t bug me when I’m eating chocolate.
6. When its cold outside, or I’m stressed my hands do this:
In the end the holiday weekend was something like a wedding; hours spent in preparation and minutes to enjoy all that hard work. And the worst part is that its my own fault. Saturday I was content to work a little and rest a lot, figuring I had tons of time. But as I always do when I go to J’s house for a party I drank too much and went home far too late which affected how much got done Sunday. In other words the bare minimum of bathroom cleaning, fondu making, and gift giving and receiving. The only hurry I got into on Sunday was going to bed. Christmas morning found me sitting in my sewing room with a hairless rag doll, a pile of fabric earmarked for the polar bear and the dawning realization that I once again I had backed myself into a corner. Worse, about two hours into hurried hair attachment, it struck me that step-brother #1 also had a child and that I had nothing for her. In my defense I see each of my three step-brothers about once a year (Christmas); twice if one of them is throwing a baby shower. And I see step-brother #1 less than that. Luckily for me his daughter, who really is a ‘red-headed step child’, is twelve and after several moments of panic and serious consideration of running a particularly cute dog toy through the washing machine, I realized that she was the right age for a beaded bracelet. In other words, something I could throw together quickly.
To shorten a long, windy, story I did finish everything, and in my opinion, it all came out quite well. But I made us late getting to my dad’s house and we literally passed the step-families on their way out. The bracelet was delivered through the car window in the middle of the street, the polar bear was stuffed into a passing shopping bag as they loaded the car, and the doll was instantly forgotten when the baby spied our dog. Sadder still, in my rush to leave the house I failed to bring my camera so there is zero proof that any of these objects ever existed.
We then spent a relaxing hour or so at my dad’s, did a little gift exchange and then went to my uncle’s for dinner. We were home around six, D sat down with the computer and I with a book and we both ignored the mess we’d made of the living room the night before. For people that weren’t going to buy much for each other there sure is a lot of wrapping paper, boxes and gifts strung out across the living room. I always feel a little sorry for D, he doesn’t have family here and even if he did I’m not sure they’d actually exchange gifts. My family does buy for him, particularly my step-mom, but his pile is always a little weak, and I can’t help but try to make up for that.
Though rushed it was a nice Christmas filled with good company and pleasant surprises. Big things I received were, money for an EZ Cube, a macro lense for the new camera, and an HTML editor (be afraid, be very afraid). Small things were movies, a book, earrings, the necklace D made for me, and a couple ‘dust’ collectors, that are going to look great in the living room once all the wrapping paper is cleared.
I hope your holiday was at least ten times better, and twenty times more relaxing, and I really hope that I’ve learned my lesson *cough*. I really did kind of spoil it for myself and now all that is left is to clean up the mess and carry on.
More than a few years ago I decided to do a ‘handmade’ Christmas and I started collecting patterns of things that I thought might make nice gifts. My handmade Christmas really didn’t happen due to overly lofty goals and procrastination, but I saved all of those patterns. Some were purchased patterns, others were printed from online sites but most were copied from library books. Oddly enough when I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to make something for my toddler step-niece and nephew I did not first turn to that file full of patterns, but to Ebay, as I knew exactly what I wanted to make but the pattern was discontinued. A few days ago I received that pattern and reading through it realized that I had made a mistake. The fleece polar bears were huge! Not only did I not have enough of any one fabric in my stash to complete one, but I would need eleven pounds of fiber fill. ELEVEN POUNDS! The bears would run $50+ each to make. My step brothers’ kids are cute, but they ain’t that cute!
I started racking my brain for ideas of what else I could make, better yet, what I could make from the stash. My brain finally stumbled on the memory of those collected patterns, and specifically a rag-doll pattern I have always wanted to make but never had much reason. I dug that pattern out last night, carefully traced it onto Graphics 360 paper* and cut out pieces for the doll, dress and pinafore.
This morning my work phone rang at 4am. It took forty minutes to resolve the problem and there was no point going back to sleep at that point so I started sewing. By the time my alarm clock went off I’d finished arms, legs, boots, and most of the head ... and I think I am in love. Three dimensional things aren’t my forte, just ask my 3D instructor from college (nightmare class!), but this rag doll is going along well. Despite being in pieces and not having a face she is already cute, which I’m taking as a good sign - though I haven’t uncrossed my fingers yet.
The gift for the boy is proving more difficult. Right now I am planning to strike out on my own and make a smaller version of the polar bear, using fleece and batting that I already have on hand. Striking out without a pattern is also not one of my strong points, so there could be a last minute run to Target or dig through the pattern box.
Either way I’m sure I’ll work something out. I’m really not too stressed over it as I had hoped to be caught up enough with everything to spend the weekend sewing anyway. Sure there’s a cake to bake Saturday for a party Saturday night, and house cleaning and cooking for Christmas Eve with my mom, and more cooking for Christmas day with the rest of my family, but I’ve planned well. The cake will be the same Pumpkin Clove cake I made for Thanksgiving, and I’ll bake it off Friday night. Saturday I’ll make the frosting and plop it on the cake ... it is a seriously casual cake, I’ll take photos this time. Sunday’s dinner will be cheese fondu with chocolate fondu for dessert (easy peasy), and Christmas day I’m taking a jello salad (yep, Kim, my great aunt’s recipe) and sweet potato casserole - both of which I’ll put together Sunday. It sounds like a long list, but it really isn’t. There are no over achieving Marthaesque projects on it, at least not with the cooking and cleaning, I’ll let you know how the sewing goes.
So, what’s left on your list?
*I still have several tablets of this left over from college. Yeah, I know, I graduated in ‘91. Fabric isn’t the only thing I stash.
Today was ‘fat envelope day’ here at the Object. In all there were three holiday cards with wee gifties tucked inside: A holiday magnet from Rox, an ornament from Donni, and another from Cindy, and chocolate from Amysue. And last week there was one with a key chain from Jae. It seems that even though the Tribe has ended the spirit lives on, and what a lovely spirit it is. Thank you ladies for all your thoughtfulness.
And goodies are rolling in from outside the Tribe as well, Greenie sent me a subscription to Southern Living, and the ever thoughtful Kim sent me a flock of chicks. Ok, not really, but she did make a donation to Heifer in my name for a flock of chicks ... something I’ve always ‘intended’ to do, and an all together wonderful holiday gift.
D and I went a little nuts this weekend and bought furniture; a sofa(coffee colored), two chairs and an ottoman. All leather. Have I mentioned that we have four cats and a dog, all of whom are accustomed to getting on the furniture whenever the mood strikes? I fear that we have lost our minds, but it is so much nicer than it was. You can all come to dinner now that the furniture isn’t embarrassing. Of course, you can’t come tonight as we are putting the old stuff on the curb. It is too nasty to donate, and to be honest, I am trying to come up with ways to hide it from the neighbors because I know how much worse it is going to look in the sun. I know we live a little on the messy side, I just don’t want anyone else to know.
Before the furniture shopping spree, which, by the way, was brought on by two separate killer sales, we went to the “Gemstone, Jewelry & Bead” show that is held in Fort Myers twice a year. The first time we went it was mostly jewelry we couldn’t afford, this time is was mostly beads and D had a hard time holding me back. Even he had difficulty resisting all those sparkly things and spend a great deal of time choosing a focal bead, some spacers and a satin chain. He is going to make me a necklace for Christmas. How cute is he?
And I found flat square beads with circles punched out of the center and donut shaped flat beads that I plan to use on the cuffs of our new, mod Christmas stockings. Yeah. Seven days to Christmas and I got the urge to make hand beaded stockings. Oh, and the urge to make two polar bear floor thows for my step niece and nephew, plus the covered journals for the James Kim Memorial donation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ... I’m seriously cracked!
The last of the Christmas presents are straggling in (I do most of my shopping online) and I am particularly pleased with today’s arrival. I made calenders at Qoop (via my Flickr acct). I cant share the calender, but you can visit my Flickr page and look at the calender set. Be warned, all the photo’s are of the dog ... cute overload! This was a last minute idea and not terribly well executed, but you notice that less when it is all printed up and bound. I’m sure my mom and D will love it, and it is a perfect example of ‘dust free’ Christmas gifts ... use ‘em and loose ‘em.
I’m in a good place these days and it delights me to tell you that.
Many crafters are getting together to hold an auction to benefit the Kim family. With some gentle encouragement from Sarah I will also participate. However, like Sarah, I missed the sign up deadline, so I will simply offer my items here, with all proceeds going to the James Kim Memorial Fund. Sarah suggested I make covered journals, similar to the one I sent her in the Pincushion Swap, and I agreed that those may be popular. So, my goal is to produce five of them between Christmas and New Year’s and offer them for $15 each (shipping is included in that price). The journals that I am using are readily available at Barnes & Noble* - when you need a refill, and hopefully will be a good size (4x6) for notes and sketching.
Right now color and design is up in the air, as I will be working from my stash, but I will post photos as soon as I have a few made. When I get the photo’s up I will also re-post the links for the actual auction, as well as Sarah’s site as she will be offering the cutest knit flapper hats you have ever seen! I encourage everyone to participate, even if you don’t buy something from the auction or me, you can help out by spreading the word.
If you are just dying to get your hands on one I will be happy to accept a ‘pre-order’, just shoot me an e-mail or leave me a note in the comments. Thanks!
*I wanted to shoot for 7 journals, for a $100 donation, but the five I picked up cleaned out my local store - heh.
I didn’t sleep well last night, knowing I had an appointment this morning. I was plenty tired, but by midnight, when D came to bed I was still flipping around like a fish. He asked if I was ok, and I answered that I didn’t know ... I felt ‘buzzy’. My chest felt like there was an impossibly huge bumble bee in there bashing into things, and vibrating my rib cage. Dan mumbled a response and was asleep in under three minutes. I lay there, hating the sounds of his even breathing, and the dog’s snoring, and fought with my brain for some peace. Some time around one I drifted off, only to be awaken by my bladder at four. About six o’clock I fell back to sleep, the heavy, timeless kind; and the alarm went off at six thirty. I didn’t have to, but I got up and went about my routine taking extra care with my shower and picking out spotless socks and underwear.
Of all my doctor’s visits it is this one that I worry most about my underclothes, particularly my socks because she’ll actually see those (if she cared to look). Never mind that I’m wearing jeans with worn hems or a tee shirt with a barely visible food stain right between ‘the girls’. My socks have to be pristine.
Rather than leave when D did, I hung out for an hour and a half cleaning powdered sugar from every surface in the kitchen, sugar that I had evenly dispersed last night while baking. I fiddled around on the computer a bit, and watched the news. But my attention kept turning back to my appointment and I finally gave up and headed out, some ten minutes early.
Once at the office I was given the usual clipboard filled with forms to fill out and told to have a seat, they’d call me when they were ready. Almost forty five minutes later (thirty minutes after my appointed time) they did and ushered me to the bathroom way in the back of the women’s center, the one where the little man on the ‘men/women’ sign has been carefully covered over with plain white paper. I was given a cup, a pen and a knowing grin before she closed the door.
I have a few talents but peeing-in-a-cup is certainly not one of them. My bladder, yes the same one that has no qualms waking me at 4am, suddenly goes quiet and shy. Or, if I do convince myself that I can pee while contorted in the ‘catch’ position I either miss the cup entirely or provide a specimen so small it would embarrass a man in another little room with a little cup and an entirely different goal in mind. I actually filled a cup once only to drop the damn thing in the toilet.
I was adequately successful today but when I opened the door, after what I am sure was too much time, I found a man standing there. I was so flustered by his appearance, deep in the bowels of the women’s center and by fact that I knew that ‘he knew’ what I was doing in there, that I nearly handed him my cup before realizing that his very pregnant wife was waiting to get into the room I was leaving. The nurse who took my blood pressure about five minutes later seemed surprised to find it ‘a little high’.
Finally, a full hour after my appointed time, I was shown into the exam room where I sat just long enough to get cold, before the midwife appeared. In the twelve or thirteen years I’ve lived in Florida I’ve never actually seen an OBGYN, just the nurse practitioners or midwives. And that is just fine by me. They are a different sort of doctor, more earthy and laid back, and far less likely to preach. And usually women. I’ve only seen a man for this exam once. He had the cajones to interview me in his office first, bible carefully centered on his majestic mahogany desk and was kind enough to provide a thumping-sermon on premarital sex prior to my exam. I never went back.
Today’s examiner, who I’ll call Bird, was a pretty black women who claimed to be in her 50’s and who could be heard up and down the halls barking commands and laughing. She spoke a mile a minute through a slightly crooked mouth; three long, shallow scars leading down from the corner of her mouth pulled her lips slightly askew. She was pleasant but brisk, preachy but understanding, and a million times more skilled than Atila the Hun at my DO’s office. Bird was deft and sure, and completed my exam in less time than it had taken me to pee in the cup.
She said I could sit up, and I did, but couldn’t take my feet from the stirrups because she had opened a drawer in the end of the exam table, two inches below my butt, and was digging around for something. Seeing her careful coiffure bobbing between my paper sheeted knees set me giggling and she responded by raising her head without standing; her eyes and forehead visible above the sheet. My face was cramping with the effort of not laughing aloud and she rolled her eyes at me and moved so I could take my feet from the stirrups. She handed me what she had taken from the drawer, a ‘wet-nap’, a panty liner, and a packet of AstroGlide (which I had never heard of till that moment)
“It’s much better than K-Y”, she informed me, smiling. “Get dressed, we’ll call you, happy holidays.”
When she closed the door I clamped both hands firmly over my mouth and guffawed, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time, and never over an annual exam. Bird, I’ll be seeing you next year ... happily!
I’ve no idea why I get my self so torqued prior to a doctor’s visit, particularly this one. You’d think by now, with the number of doc’s I have to see each year that I’d have gotten used to it by now. Oddly enough, I worry very little about my health between visits, its just that day or two prior that costs me sleep. My grandfather does not regularly visit his doctors because, as he says, they might tell him something is wrong with him. I expect my reason may be much the same.
I NEED want some of this fabric! I am all ‘a flutter’ with three of them ... care to guess which?
Browsing through blogs yesterday I came across a woman who was unloading 30 years of collected kitsch because “it just wasn’t who she was anymore’. Amen sister! Practically our whole house isn’t ‘who we are’ and to make matters extra difficult D and I are about as different as two folks can be. I can honestly say that were we to separate there would be a whole herd of folks whispering “I never did understand what he/she say in him/her”. ‘Eclectic’ wouldn’t even come close to defining what a room would look like that merged our tastes, but ‘utter chaos’ does come to mind.
Financially we aren’t ready to replace all the furniture; emotionally though I’m prepared to through myself into hock just to get it done. ‘Limbo-land’ sucks. I don’t hate what we have; ok, I do, but it would be exhausting to walk into the house every day and ‘hate it’. Instead it’s more ambivalence than anything else. I can’t get rid of it, (where would we sit?) and I can’t afford to replace it.
In the seven or eight years that D and I have been together we have purchased one piece of furniture together; the dining set. We searched for weeks and finally settled on an oak ‘French country’ set. ‘Settling’ is bad, and a huge waste of money. We both agree now that we don’t like it, and we aren’t sure we ever did. We also agree we never want to do that again.
Another obstacle to this dilemma is our pets. I accepted, long before I met D, that I would never have a photo perfect home because I preferred to have animals and dust to silence and perfection. But it is hard to spend money on something new knowing that it will be covered in hair, claws and drool in less than ten minutes of being delivered. Thank goodness we don’t have kids, I’d probably just elect to pad the floors and walls, suspend the tv from the ceiling and call it a day.
And finally, me. I’m the biggest obstacle of the bunch, because I’ve grown up, and my tastes have changed drastically (mid life crisis maybe?). I envision plain furniture, simple lines, nothing too distinct and accessories that dictate the actual style. Most importantly I really don’t want anything that matches. No sprawling sofa groups or bedroom sets for me, I want it to look as though it were collected over time. The obvious problem with that desire being that by the time I’ve collected all those things my tastes will have changed again. It is a vicious circle.
For the curious, here’s what I’m looking at:
Sofa (no love seat and recovering the ‘eyelash’ pillows in something brighter)
Chairs
Coffee table (love, love, love that table, but it may be too close to the dining table - dunno?)
Dining table
Bed (this one is close to what I want, but a bit too tall)
You’ll notice that as furniture goes these are pretty reasonable. Knowing that it will eventually be destroyed makes me very hesitant to buy big, not to mention the budget. I figure we could replace the major pieces in living and dining area for under three-grand. I haven’t shared this information with D, and he’s more of a black lacquer kinda person (blech!). The suggestion box is open.
Shopping: done. Swaps: done. Things to do: Christmas cards, packages to ship, some baking, one party (more baking) and hell month at work. Hell month consists of inventorying six service vehicles and the warehouse, balancing the inventories, and closing out the year. Posting, as you might guess, could become more sporadic that usual. I’ll work most Saturdays, many evenings and will be sorely in need of a vacation come January first. Ah well ‘Tis the season.
I’d actually like to be working this weekend because I’m down to three weeks to count* six trucks. But counting a truck means pulling a tech off of the road and this being the busiest time of the year puts my desire to count at odds with our need to take care of customers. Still, my weekend will be plenty busy with chores, holiday decorating and three blessed hours at the spa.
Saturday afternoon I’ll be enjoying three of the four spa visits that D gave me for my birthday, including a pedicure and a facial. I still expect that the visit will be more of a ‘sales pitch’ than a spa day, but I plan on enjoying myself anyway. Hmmmm I wonder if since each trip included a complimentary beverage if I should press for three beverages ... or just demand wine! Heh!
*To put the count into perspective, each truck has a printed inventory of about a hundred pages, fifty items to a page. Inventory items range from circuit boards and belts in large boxes to tiny screws, fuses and washers. The warehouse count is around five hundred pages, fifty items a page, and consists of almost every kind of mechanical part you can imagine.
I haven’t been very original with my Christmas shopping this year. On one hand I feel a little guilty about that, but on the other I don’t care, ‘cause I’m done. Gifts so far are things like wine and wine glasses, perfume, a gift card, pearl and diamond earrings*, candle holders and so on. About the only effort I’ve applied is to buy the right kind of wine and perfume and get the gift card from a favorite restaurant. As for D and I we bought a DVD recorder as a gift to ourselves and one or two little things to give each other Christmas morning and that’s it. We’ve dubbed it the ‘dust free’ Christmas. Basically we don’t want anything that collects dust, not that a DVD recorder won’t but at least has a purpose unlike things we’ve given and received in the past. I am on the verge of giving only consumable items as gifts, unless someone asks for something specific.
This new attitude is an interesting side effect from my year-long campaign to reduce the clutter as well as reaching an age where the things I need are no longer easily purchased by someone else, much less affordable. We need furniture, kitchen cabinets, five rooms worth of paint, a new sprinkler system, and a myriad of other things. Even if someone went nuts and wanted to buy us those things no one would want to shop for them. More honestly, I wouldn’t want someone else picking them out, I barely let D help with such matters and he lives there.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to give gifts that will be liked and appreciated but I no longer feel the need to give something that will be cherished. What good is an object so loved that it is carefully stored away and never enjoyed? This has been a hard lesson for a ‘class A’ hoarder like myself, but I’m finally getting it. For example, I’ve given several baby quilts all with instructions to ‘use them’. I’d much rather one be used and loved, holed and stained, drug for a zillion baby steps and finally thrown away than have it hung carefully on a wall to be admired and never touched. If you don’t use and enjoy what you have it ultimately goes to waste, and I doubt anyone ever intended such an end for a gift given.
The things I’ve purchased only follow my new philosophy by about seventy five percent, and I don’t think that makes me a hypocrite. Some folks will always be difficult to buy for and the ‘old stand-by gifts’ will always be the easiest to give, even the ones that gather dust. More importantly I can say “I’m DONE” on December 7th, and that is victory enough!
*Really, really tiny pearl and diamond earrings ... also known as ‘budget friendly’. Of course I also picked out a really nice piece of something shiny for myself while I was there (no Rox, not an engagement ring) but I was able to resist .....I’ll let you know how long that lasts, they’ve got a pretty nice lay-away program - heh.
Grandma is doing well, with exception of refusing to breath in her ‘machine’ and get up and walk as often as they’d like (she can be something of a ‘drama queen’) and is being released today (back to the care facility where she lives). The best news, however, is that all of her pathology for the surrounding tissue came back 100% cancer free! Go Grandma! I can’t quite explain how it feels to get some good news, and how hard it is to share it around here (thinking of my uncle).
Which brings me to my belated monthly review. November’s chore was simple ... be happy, though not simply done. I can honestly say I worked at it. I made concentrated efforts to not let disappointments get me down, or be too sad at the memorial for my grandfather (I tried to celebrate the life he lived). I’ve taken lots of ‘me’ time, and indulged in a few luxuries that I normally wouldn’t and I am better for it. I won’t say it has been all sunshine and butterflies, but it has been better, and hopefully will continue to move that way.
I am stumbling through my usual slow warm up to the ‘holiday spirit’. Some of it is forced; like getting the decorations up by the weekend, shopping and a self imposed project that I just can’t get started. I struggle with the decoration every year. It is so strange to be handling santa’s and snowmen in 80 degree weather. This year, though, there may be hope. No, we aren’t expecting snow. Instead, ‘Mod’ is in and I like it - lots. I spent some time at Pier1 last week and purchased a small assortment of ornaments, in some very non Christmas colors - olive green, turquoise, copper and gold. Hopefully it will be popular for a few more years and I can build the collection. I’d like to have a more cohesive decoration scheme. I don’t need it perfect, but I’d like it to look a little more ‘on purpose’ rather than ‘hey, someone dropped a box of ornaments’. Till then I’ll just call it ‘eclectic’.
Yes, that’s right I call the mail lady at work the ‘mail bat’, and to be honest that’s pretty durn nice. She slams, and bangs and huffs and puffs and heaven help you if you cause her to actually get out of the truck and carry something in; she practically launches it from the front door, rather than step inside.
Anyway, despite her never changing attitude, she delivered more good cheer today, and my desk is fairly sagging beneath all of its loveliness. First though, I want to share a better photo of my pincushion from Booga J.
It was a little lost in the group photo I shared previously, and certainly not given its fair due. I’m just in love with it, and am especially fond of the ric-rac peeking out along the first inside edge. Thanks again Booga J.
Now, today’s arrivals. Technically the first item arrived with Saturday’s mail but had to sit, locked in a dark mailbox until today. It’s my OrnaMental swap from the talented Lisa, at Plath’s Adventures! Not one but two ornaments, each equally cute. The beaded star is a little washed out in the sunlight, but just imagine it sparkling from the Christmas tree. The stocking is so cute I want a pair just like it for my boats - heh. The photo just doesn’t share how tiny and perfect it is! And to top off an already wonderful package she included a card (my second of the year) and a packet of Chai Latte ... the woman is a mind reader! I love Chai Latte! Thanks so much Lisa, and a wonderful holiday to you, your hubby and the furry kids!
And lastly (but not leastly) the second hygiene related birthday gift from Rox, man I’ve got to start showering more often-heh. She gave me a gift card for Indigo Wild. I placed my order sometime last week and promptly forgot about it, so imagine my delight when UPS dropped of a divine smelling box with my name on it. And inside? Well, see for yourself:
As my grandmother would have said, “A little dab of everything.” I purposely ordered sample sets, and 1/2 bars so I could try as many things as possible. On top of that they sent a free full bar, and several other samples, each smelling more divine than the next. If you need stocking stuffers this year I highly recommend their small sampler, its very inexpensive and packed with soapy goodness!
On an entirely different subject my pincushion swap partner has received her package so I can reveal to you who this inanely crafty lady is, its Sarah. Go check her out, she is positively amazing, I have no idea when she sleeps!
This post has been edited to correct the gift from Tianne. She is just super sweet, and sent this out to celebrate the holidays and not as part of the OrnaMental swap.
I know my posting has been so irregular lately that you’ve probably just fallen from your chair that I posted twice today. When I came back to the office from the post office there were two packages waiting for me and I was just so excited that I couldn’t wait to share.
The first is an ornament from the from the ever timely Tianne (she is always on the ball). And would you look how cute! A tiny little stocking in holiday colors filled with Musk Lifesavers and a candy cane, a TimTam, a Caramello Koala and a tiny organza bag that I’m thinking will work as an ornament too (filled with potpourri). Such a lovely package and great way to wind up the week! Thanks Tianne, its perfect!
The second was from the Pin Cushion Challenge; my maker was the scary talented hostess herself, Booga J (how freakin’ lucky am I?). As you can see the pin cushion could not be cuter, and she included an awesome assortment of oriental themed fabric, embroidery thread, twill tape, buttons and ribbon (sweetest ribbon ever!). She also sent quilting pins shaped like butterflies and chocolate ... mmm chocolate. If I’m lucky I can have all the evidence eaten in the car on the way home so I wont have to share. Many thanks Booga J, you sneaky thing, I couldn’t have had a better partner!
Evidently my personal hygiene has been somewhat lacking of late because this birthday was jam-packed with gifts to make me smell better, feel softer or have less hair. It started with Rox’s early gift of an Elizabeth Arden Green Tea set, which included perfume, lotion and shower gel. Then D came through with not one, but four separate spa visits; one haircut/style, one facial which includes a somewhat concerning ‘decollete massage’ and ‘hair removal’, one mini pedicure, and one back facial and hand massage. Not to be outdone, my mom gave me practically the entire Origins ‘ginger’ line. Really. There’s a Christmas gift box containing body souffle, essence of ginger, bubble bath, body scrub, body wash and a bath mitt. And since that wasn’t enough ginger there is a second box containing a ginger candle, shampoo, perfume and massage oil.
Rox’s gift is great, no complaints there. And mom’s also is fine, though I may swap a few of the gingers out for other scents, because it really is a lot of ginger. But, at the risk of sounding ungrateful let me explain D’s spa package. He purchased it from a door-to-door salesman for a spa I’ve never heard of. Each visit proudly includes a complimentary beverage (snigger) and a coupon for a discount ‘bonus’ feature; for example if you want the pedicure visit to actually include a full pedicure all you have to do is slip them a $20. And the description of each visit includes a free consultation (skin, hair, color etc) which screams to me ‘we’re gonna strong arm you to buy lots of product you done need’. Sigh, a spa visit just isn’t as relaxing when your cosmetologist is moonlighting as a used car salesman. I’m sure it will be ok, no green hair or anything, but how do I discourage a purchase like this in the future without discouraging all spa purchases? And before you say ‘suggest a specific spa to him’ you should know that I did, but the hot chick in the short skirt who was selling the certificates caused a bit of amnesia - heh.