It's a Wrap and Inflatables

I finished quilting the It's a Wrap quilt tonight, although I still have to sew down the binding. The next time you see it, it will be done, washed, and hanging on the wall behind the kitchen tree--hopefully tomorrow night. I know this isn't a great photo, but I wanted to share--I've been working on it all day. Isn't it funny how quilts always take longer than you expect them to? Or is that just me?

One of the lead news stories tonight was about the theft of a family's inflatable Santa, taken in the middle of the night from their front lawn. Speaking from experience, I'd suggest that guy check his neighbors across the street, the ones who have had to look at the darn thing since he put it up.

If you have an inflatable something-or-other sitting in your front yard, I don't mean to offend you. Seriously, I've seen a few yard displays with inflatable figures that looked just fine, and I kind of like those big inflatable "globes" with all kinds of stuff going on inside, but it just seems to me that a lone plastic inflatable Santa is kind of pathetic.

A few years back, the renters across the street from us put up an inflatable snowman next to a much smaller inflatable Santa/chimney combo. They just stuck them both right out near the sidewalk with no other decorations to make them look at all attractive. From our living room, we had to look at them night after night, and I hated those things! In fact, I considered sneaking over there at night and stabbing them to death (the inflatables, not the neighbors). Boy was I excited to see them sitting in a heap on the grass that first morning--I thought someone had beat me to it! That night, though, they came back to life, much to my dismay!

We have new neighbors over there this year, and when I noticed they were stringing up Christmas lights outside a few days ago, I watched with some apprehension. No, no inflatables, thank goodness! Just a tasteful display of Christmas lights and a Christmas tree in the window, which is pretty much the same thing we have.

Yes, I know I'm a Christmas decorating snob. I don't know why that is or why I'm so hung up on the whole Christmas thing. Yes, I even drive myself nuts sometimes. I wonder if there's a 12-step program?

Well, the weekend's over, and it's back to work in the morning. Time to turn out the lights in the Sweat Shop and head to bed. I'm glad you could stop by and visit!

Ah, Heat!

Last night at this time, I was sitting here, writing to you, thinking my fingers just might break off from the cold at any minute. I had noticed, at around 11:30 p.m. or so, that cold air was blowing out of our heater vents. I went to bed wearing a sweatshirt-type nightgown, stretchy pants, and socks. I put an extra quilt on the bed. Now I know some of you will laugh your heads off when I tell you that it was 62 degrees in my house and I was freezing to death, but for California, indoors, that's mighty chilly!

Of course, things like this only seem to happen on weekends, don't they? I thought for sure we'd have to make a run to Home Depot for space heaters so we wouldn't turn into popsicles by Monday when the heating repair guys opened their doors. You see, we couldn't just call any heating repair guy because our system's only a couple years old and, depending on the problem, was under warranty with a specific heating company. Luckily, though, my husband telephoned them this morning and found that they were, in fact, open on Saturday. By early afternoon, I had what sounded like Santa and all his reindeer up on my roof and soon thereafter, blessed warmth was flowing out those vents once again. Why can't we have a nice hot flash when we need one?

Today (Saturday), I puttered around the house, putting some final touches on my Christmas decorating. I pinned the It's a Wrap/Holly Jolly quilt and started quilting it. And I made stuffing and roasted a chicken. You might think that having just made a turkey less than two weeks ago, I wouldn't be doing the same thing to a chicken, but we like chicken and I had sort of accidentally bought a second package of stuffing, so what the heck?! Stuffed chicken it was!

I've talked before about how many meals we get out of one poor chicken so I won't bore you again, but I've just finished making a pot of chicken soup. Tomorrow I'm putting some of that 9 (or 10) can soup/chili in the crockpot. Between one thing and another, I figure I really won't have to do much cooking for about a week--plenty of time to start getting Christmas gifts planned and started.

I've "sprinkled" some Christmas photos here and there through my post tonight. I really DO wish you could see the decorations up close and personal--they're always so much prettier when you see the soft glow of white Christmas lights reflecting off of shiny glass ornaments and smell the scented candles burning around the house. The photo below was taken looking into the Sweat Shop from the doorway.

Today's mail brought some green balls from a good friend, Sharon. The decorations in "that" color green have been placed on the tree in the kitchen--you can get a little peek at it in the first photo at the top of this post, but I'll hold off on showing you the tree in all it's Technicolor glory until after I get the It's a Wrap quilt up on the wall behind it--hopefully in the next couple days. Once I get that quilt finished, I will probably move on to the Hometown Christmas section that I'm planning to applique--which I'm already LATE on!

Time for me to get that soup packaged up and put away, turn out the lights in the Sweat Shop, and head to bed, where I can sleep comfortably tonight without the fear that I'll wake up encased in ice in the morning!

Happy Birthday LISA!

Today's my friend Lisa's birthday, and I wanted to wish her a very happy day! She doesn't read my blog except on rare occasions, but it's the thought that counts, right? Lisa's just not a blogger--I don't think she stays in one place long enough to read anything.

I've told you some funny stories about Lisa before, but there are a couple I haven't told you. One in particular comes to mind because it took place at this time of the year just about . . . oh, something like 24 years ago, maybe.

Remember how I've told you my husband and I agreed when we first got married to only exchange stocking stuffers at Christmas because we couldn't afford "big" gifts? Well, being a newlywed and all and trying to think of what to get for the stocking of my husband who didn't really have any hobbies, I soon developed a "tradition" of stuffing his stocking with . . . hummmm . . . I'm not sure quite how to say it in a delicate way except to say that I stuffed his stocking with "marital aids." After all, those were the gifts that kept on giving, right?!

Anyway, a couple years into the marriage and Christmas was approaching. One day, in chatting with Lisa about buying Christmas gifts, I told her my shopping plan. She thought it was a great idea and asked if she could come along. "Sure," I said. Now you have to realize that back then, despite being in the midst of the "sexual revolution," there weren't a lot of places of this sort that catered to the female shopper--"adult bookstores" were about the only place to shop for these kinds of things and they weren't exactly classy establishments. Nevertheless, we arranged to meet one Saturday morning in the parking lot of a reasonably decent "adult bookstore."

Although Lisa's about four years younger than I am, even when we first met, she struck me as mature and fairly worldly--more so than me in some ways. I arrived in the parking lot that Saturday morning at the designated time and had to wait a little bit. Soon, though, I saw Lisa's little red BMW pull into the lot, and Lisa got out of the car. Right away, I noticed she was dressed in a suit--kind of a tweedy pleated wool skirt and jacket and fairly conservative pumps. On a Saturday morning. "Do you have to be somewhere later? A meeting or something?," I asked. As it turned out, no, Lisa didn't have anywhere to go but the adult bookstore that morning. In fact, she had worn the suit only because she didn't want to look "scuzzy" and cheap. As I later learned, this was the first time Lisa had ever been to an adult bookstore.

So, picture this. Two women shopping in an adult bookstore at 10 a.m. on a Saturday, one of whom--who just happens to be 6 feet tall--wearing a suit. Yeah, we blended in and weren't at all conspicuous! LOL!

Happy birthday, Lisa, you wild thing, you!

Holiday Favorites

Okay, enough decorating already! I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a little holiday FUN!

First of all, I wanted to do a little holiday dance for all of you faithful readers. You'll need Flash Player to view this and I know there are a few of you (like my good friend Eileen) who may not have a system to support it, but I think basically if you're able to watch U-Tube type videos, you'll do fine with this link:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1114319955

Second, what holiday season can go by without a little bowling? Have you ever played Elf Bowling? Truly it's a fun game to play at work because it's tons more fun than actually WORKING, but if your office or place of employment has a policy against goofing off on the office computers when you're supposed to be working, then perhaps you might try it at home instead. Here's a link:

http://www.nstorm.com/games/game_detail.asp?game_id=2

NStorm has all sorts of Elf Bowling games--this link should take you to the first and original game. You can check out their website, though, for later incarnations. Seems to me I recall some kind of elf shuffleboard that was kind of fun too. They have several "Elf" games now, and I haven't played too many of them--something to look forward to during this holiday season!

Oh, and by the way, do you have someone difficult to shop for on your holiday gift list? Don't forget to check out the Elf Bowling "gear." Perhaps the Elf Bowling thong would make the perfect gift for your best friend. Or maybe you can pick up a T-Shirt for your husband that reads, "Want to See My North Pole?" Or maybe the mousepad with the elf that says, "When life hands you an orange, make screwdrivers" would make the perfect gift for your boss! As you can see, there's truly something for everyone in the NStorm gift shop!

And I DID say this post was all about holiday favorites, right? So here's a fruit cake recipe from my house to yours--enjoy!

Holiday Fruitcake Recipe

1 C Water

1 C Sugar

4 Large eggs

3 C dried fruit

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 C Brown sugar

Lemon juice

Nuts

1 FULL bottle of your favorite whiskey

Sample the whiskey to check for quality. Take out a large bowl. Check the whiskey again to be sure that it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 C of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 tsp. sugar and beat again. Make sure the whiskey is still OK. Cry another cup. Turn off the mixer. Break two geggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix on the burner. If the fried fruit gets stuck in the beaters, pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the whiskey to check for toxisisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whiskey. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one tablespoon of sugar or something . . . whatever you can find. Grease the oven. Turn on the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Check the whiskey again. Go to bed. Who the hell likes fruit cake anyway???

Cat for Sale

Anyone want a cat with a delightful personality but a proclivity for knocking down and breaking glass Christmas ornaments? No? Probably just as well because I'm pretty attached to her, but gosh darn it! This morning she was fascinated by the ornaments hanging from the valance in the bedroom--which hung there last year and were ignored by her. She's pretty mischevious, though, and decided this morning that she wanted to bat one down. All I can say is that she's no longer on Santa's list of good little cats.

Can you stand more Christmas decorating photos? I'm at the stage where I'm trying to finish up the last bits--which happen to be a couple trees--and fine tune some of the decorations I put up earlier. By "fine tune," I actually mean "change things around a little." I won't bore you with a lot of chat--I'll just tell you what you're looking at 'cause you KNOW my photography skills aren't always the best!

The tree in the Sweat Shop.

A close up shot so you can see the cute button and bead garland (Target) and one of the Williraye ornaments (Target again) and rusty-looking bells (where else? Target!).

Remember the sleigh I painted? I decided to move it to my son's former room, put a lighted tree on it, and enlist a friendly bear to pull it along.

Do you have any of those old wooden spools? I stuck a candle on top of one and tied a bow on--fast to do and I like the way it looks.

Thought I'd just show you that platter I mentioned the other day. My husband still hasn't noticed it--or at least he hasn't said anything! It's the green one at the back with the penguin.

This is me. No, not really! LOL! I was in JoAnn's today--YET AGAIN--and decided to take a look at their patterns for pajamas. I haven't sewn clothes for a long time, but my girl boss and I were talking the other day and she mentioned that she likes to make herself a pair of PJs every Christmas. That sounded like an excellent idea to me, because I never seem to find any in the store that I really like all that much. Anyway, I doubt I'll have time BEFORE Christmas to make a pair, but maybe after. And what was I doing in JoAnn's again? Well, my personal Christmas decorating consultant, Missy, was at work today and I was telling her about some issues I have with decorating the tree in the kitchen, and she sent me off to JoAnn's for some crystal-ice-encrusted branches. So I was forced to go--not my fault at all! Really! I'm waiting for some ornaments to arrive via UPS that are scheduled to be here by Friday and then I can try to get that one finished up. In the meantime, I have another to decorate for my daughter's former room. I think I have six trees. Yeah, I know I'm nuts. But I love Christmas!

People Are Nice, Life is Good, and Sharon Needs to Start the Hometown Christmas Quilt!

I have some this-and-that stuff to share with you--miscellaneous, non-cohesive, tidbits of chat. I think those words, "miscellaneous," "non-cohesive," and "tidbits" probably describe my life during the holiday season. In fact, I suspect they describe all our lives! If you're anything like me, you've realized that Christmas is now less than four weeks away and you have a lot to do. And you have no idea how you'll get it all done. And you know that you have more to do than you've even thought about yet because the idea of thinking of any more stuff to do scares you silly. And you want to scream. And you want to crawl into the back corner of a dark closet and pull your eyelashes out. But you don't. Do you?

Or maybe you're not like me. Maybe you've already finished your Christmas shopping, wrapped your gifts, and gotten your Christmas cards in the mail. Now you're free to sit by the fire gazing out at the gently falling snow while contemplating world peace, mingle at cocktail parties in a perfect size 5 dress, and hostess lavish charity events for homeless children. But probably not.

I digress. So, you're probably wondering what I did tonight, right? But even if you're not, it doesn't matter because I'm telling you anyway. I went to Target yet again, this time to buy some snowflakes. Why can't I just go to Target and buy snowflakes? Why does a trip for snowflakes end up costing something like $80? One of life's mysteries. But then the national and world economy is a mystery to me too. All I know is that I'm apparently stimulating it. I think I'm probably better at stimulating the economy than a hooker is at stimulating . . . well, never mind. Where was I? Oh, snowflakes. So I came home and told my husband I was starting dinner. In the meantime, because I'm a woman and fully capable of multi-tasking, I got myself a hammer and finishing nails so I could hang the snowflakes on the wall behind the range. My husband had a hard time understanding why I needed a hammer and nails to cook his dinner, but I figured I could hammer and stir, hammer and stir, and before long, we'd have soup AND Holly Jolly snowflakes. That worked pretty well until I accidentally hit the handle of the wooden spoon, which flew out of the pot and onto the floor, and splattered tomato soup all over the stovetop, the front of the oven, and the floor. But at least it didn't get on my snowflakes! And sure enough, by the time the soup was ready, so were the snowflakes.

So here's Holly Jolly now, surrounded by glittering, colorful snowflakes. Better, yes? And I would suggest that if you try this trick at home, you paint the letters a color that contrasts with the walls. Before I added the fabric to the fronts, I painted the letters white. If I had painted them black, for instance, I think they would have "popped" from the background a little more. Live and learn. Read blogs and learn more. Not a great photo but I couldn't wait until morning when the light would be better.

I was reading Sharon's blog tonight to see how she's doing on that Hometown Christmas project and I noticed that Carole had commented on "Rob--I mean Rod--Stewart" and it reminded me that I don't think I mentioned what a nice thing my guy boss did for me a couple weeks ago. We were talking about music one day and a few days later, he gave me two CDs he had made of some music he thought I'd like. It took me awhile to get around to listening to them, but I finally did over the weekend while I was decorating and my husband was gone--I cranked those speakers up so I could hear them no matter where I was in the house. And he was right--I did like them. Wasn't that a nice thing for him to do? Both of my "kids" are great to work with!

And speaking of stuff that makes me do a little happy dance, in yesterday's mail I receive my bingo winnings from my online Thimbleberries group--we've been playing lately for 2-1/2" strips of fabric, and I probably won about the equivalent of a jelly roll--here's a photo:

Cool, huh?! My win, though, means I have to call the bingo words for our December game. Heavy responsibility during a busy time of the year, but I'll try to rise to the occasion.

Tomorrow night (Wednesday), I think I'll work on decorating the tree in the Sweat Shop. Some of what I purchased at Target tonight is for that tree, and I was so excited about the goodies I got that I WOULD have started decorating tonight if it wasn't for having to hang snowflakes, cook dinner, and clean up sloshed soup. But tomorrow night will do. If all goes as planned--and you know it rarely does!--I'll get it done and share a photo with you.

Finally tonight, for those of you working on the Hometown Christmas project, our next section is due by Friday. Have I done mine? Nope! Have I even looked to see which section it is? Nope! But I will! I have a feeling it might be that holly and berries one--someone said it looked like something their cat had walked on and I have to laugh and agree. If that's the one, I'll be doing something completely different with applique, so I may well be late this time. How are you all doing? Who's keeping up? Who's getting ahead? Who hasn't even started theirs yet?! I think it may be a little hard to keep up this month, but you can always catch up in January if you need to.

Have a great Wednesday and thanks for visiting!

More Christmas

Are you getting tired of my decorating yet? I am! But frankly I'm just too pooped tonight to think of anything else to entertain you with, so I'll give you a few more photos. (I still have two more trees to decorate plus a little more--just a warning of what's to come!)

My son's room. Doesn't that photo look blurry or is it just my tired eyes? The camera didn't TELL me the photo was blurry!

I had to move my unfinished quilt tops into a larger basket, so I decided to decorate it while I was at it. Sure makes me feel less guilty if I can turn unfinished "work" into something pretty! But yep, there are a bunch of rolled up quilt tops hiding behind those pinecones and stuffed animals! I'm such a slacker!

Another photo that catches those alien red balls on my tree. Really, though, I was taking the photo to show you the quilt--I don't think I showed you this one before. This is a Thimbleberries pattern (Starlight Pines) that I half sized--and it's still big enough for a throw.

The kitchen tree so far. I think I'm taking the pinecone/berries off and using those for the tree in the Sweat Shop, but I'm waiting to get a box of lime green ornaments and a box of turquoise blue ornaments I ordered. So, this is still a work in progress, but mainly I wanted to show you the tree skirt I made from Marcie's cute, free pattern. The Holly Jolly "It's a Wrap" quilt will hang on the wall behind the tree once I get it quilted.

The Christmas quilt hanging on my bedroom wall. This is one I made a couple years ago.

Guess what? I think I've figured out what to do about the slighly barren look of the space where I have my Holly Jolly letters. I remember seeing some flat-ish glittery snowflake ornaments at Target in these colors I'm using. I think I'll stop by on my way home from work and see what I can get. I should be able to use some tiny nails to hang them around the letters and spark that area up a bit.

And guess what else? Today I went to JoAnn's where I found they have 3-packs of Christmas trees on sale--you get a 2' tree, a 3' tree, and a 4' tree for about $15. Of course, one of those boxes came home with me. I needed one--maybe two--trees but I couldn't pass up a deal, so I settled for three. They also had some fun Debbie Mumm Christmas "stuff." A couple of Christmas dish towels, a quartet of snowmen ornaments sitting on jingle bells, and a platter with a penguin came home with me too. Shhhhh! Don't tell my husband about that platter! He has fits when I bring new dishes into the house. He's not real observant sometimes, so it might be a few days before he notices the platter sitting in my hutch and then I can tell him I've had it for awhile! Then again, sometimes he notices things right away. He DOES enjoy the decorations and sometimes he'll wander around looking at things, but he's already given the hutch the once over, so maybe he won't look at it again for awhile. We can only hope.

Okay, bedtime for me--tomorrow's another work day, darn it! Oh, and a special preview just for you: If you've avidly followed my Saturday Day of Beauty posts and have missed me posting anything for the last several weeks, I'm seriously considering shaving my legs on Saturday, even if it means a loss of warmth in my lower extremities. So, if you're following along on this routine with me, sharpen up that razor or get out the Ginsu knives, because it's been awhile now and we'll probably need some sharp blades for cutting down that forest we've been nurturing. But I figure it's always nice to pay special attention to personal hygiene and beauty during the holiday season, don't you think?

Finally, don't forget the next section of the Hometown Christmas quilt is "due" by the end of the week. Sharon, are you listening? Sharon? Go on over and ask Sharon to show you her Hometown Christmas, okay? "See" you tomorrow!

Back to Work!

My vacation's over and it's back to work for me! I'm incredibly tired tonight and I've stayed up waaaay too late--as usual--but I was on a roll and trying to get everything done, more or less. Yes, there are many things I thought I'd get done while I was on vacation--like taking in and hemming a few pairs of pants--that I didn't quite get to, but I'm happy to say that the house is just about ready for Christmas and it's nice and clean! I think the only thing I have left to do is decorate my tree for the Sweat Shop--and maybe a tree for my daughter's former bedroom, but I'm undecided about that. I need to make a trip to JoAnn's for a few things, so maybe I'll look at their trees. Or not.

Besides the decorating, today I shampooed the rest of the house--my daughter's room, my bedroom, and the other half of the hallway. I also decoupaged some Holly Jolly and Christmas Past fabric onto my Holly Jolly letters and used Gorilla Glue to attach thumbtacks to the back. Not ideal but it seems to have worked--at least for now.

Anyway, I'll just share a couple photos with you before going to bed to get my beauty sleep.

"Holly Jolly" of course! It looks a little stark in that space, so I'll have to find something to liven it up a little bit--not sure what though. And remember that Santa cookie jar on the left? I decided since we aren't eating cookies, I COULD fill it with our 100 calorie snack packages.

And since I'm showing you letters, here's the "Noel." They seem to be reflecting the flash too much, but they look pretty good in the space, which can be seen from the front entryway; to the right is the kitchen and to the left is the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Back in the kitchen, here's my hutch. The hutch is a dark green, and I like to decorate with red and white for the holidays. I can then leave some of it up after Christmas as we move toward Valentine's Day. In fact, I have a Valentine's Day tree. Really! Wait until you see it! But one holiday at a time. Oh, and those "dolls" on top of the hutch--I bring those out every couple years and stick them somewhere in the house. These guys are "vintage"--they were my mom's many years ago. Since I'm going for a slightly retro look this year, they seems to fit.

The front bathroom--I just figured you'd want to see the runner I put up on the wall.

And a stitchery and paint (acrylic with textile medium) pillow cover. This is in my son's former room. I tried to get a couple photos in there, but the flash reflected off the window in one, and the other didn't turn out very well either. I'll have to get a few more photos another time.

And, finally, the quilt on my daughter's bed. I took a shortcut on the applique when I made this a few years ago. I traced the shapes of the holly leaves, berries, and bow onto a lightweight nonfusible interfacing. I then sewed that to the fabric, "good" sides together, cut a slit in the interfacing and turned the pieces right side out. After pressing them, I pinned them to the quilt and sewed them on while I was quilting the quilt. It worked out just fine! I'm sure I'll use the technique again someday.

Time for my beauty sleep, so I'll say goodnight! Thanks for visiting, and I'll "see" you later!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . .

Okay, maybe it's not QUITE looking a lot like Christmas around here, but at least I got the tree and the living room done. I'm never quite pleased with photos of Christmas decorations because they just don't capture the glow of the Christmas lights. And for some reason, the camera flash does weird things to the red balls on the tree. I call this my "gay guy tree." Politically incorrect, I'm sure, but what else can you call a tree covered with a bunch of elves, fairies, and butterflies? Actually gay guys probably have much better taste, but we like these decorations--for now, anyway. I suspect I'll want to do something different in another couple years.

When the kids were growing up, we always had a soccer tree because the two of them were mad about soccer. Once they moved out, though, I changed the tree.

Actually, what it's looking a LOT like around here is a supreme MESS. I sorted many of the boxes of Christmas decorations and distributed them to various rooms. I have "stuff" piled here and there--stuff to decorate with and stuff I took down to make way for decorations. But I know that underneath all that mess, my house is fairly clean. By the way, I "tested" out the new rug shampooer today and did the carpets in my son's former room and The Sweat Shop--works great! It's probably a sign of some deep-seated psychosis, but I get a bit of a kick out of dumping all that filthy water afterward--it's kind of like a pat on the back, knowing that I did an excellent job busting the dirt! I should have take a photo--or maybe not. Just take my word, okay? It's MUCH cleaner than it was before!

In the midst of decorating the living room, I had to stop for a few arts and crafts moments. Here's the first--the "before" photo.

I was really tired of gold deer--in fact, I was so tired of gold deer, I haven't put them out for the last few years. The only problem is that the large area on top of the entertainment center needs something . . . well, LARGE on it, and these deer work fairly well. If I could come up with a better idea, I'd change it, but inspiration hasn't struck yet, so I decided to repaint the deer a bit more realistically. Here's the "after."

Then since I really liked the display on Warm Pie, Happy Home's blog with the sled, quilt, and books, I wanted to recreate something similar. So the other day, I pulled out a boring old sled and gave it a crackle finish. Tonight I painted some holly leaves and berries on it. Here's how it came out.

I also had this carved wooden Santa who had gotten a little wobbly over the years, so my husband was nice enough to take Santa to the garage and give him a sturdier base. I love the folk arty look of this guy, although my kids think Santa's doing something naughty with the tree. Take a look. Naughty or nice?

Remember how moms used to lick their fingers and smooth down kids' hair? Do you ever do something like that to quickly remove pet hair or lint? Well, I was trying to get a little cat hair off a quilt and I didn't want to climb off the step stool to go get a damp sponge, so I tried the damp finger thing. The first attempt didn't quite get it all, so I repeated the steps and now I think I have a hair ball in my throat. Maybe I DON'T want to come back as a cat in my next life after all. GACK!

That's my decorated mantle. I figure if there's a home invasion robbery, I can grab that spear that's holding the wreath and defend my property. You'll notice there are no stockings hung with care. That's because my stocking is 6 feet long and looks pretty silly up there, so we don't bother. When my husband and I first got married and didn't have much money, we agreed we'd just do stocking stuffers. That's when I bought myself a 6 foot stocking. I may be sort of blondish (grayish), but I'm not dumb!

Play Time

As I'm writing this, I'm almost too tired to stay awake, but I suspect there are a few of you who check in every morning and would probably wonder what happened to me if I didn't post something. I'll try to keep this post short though so I can crawl into bed. Too many late nights are finally catching up to me, I think!

I gave myself permission to "play" today. After all, all work and no play makes Kim a dull girl! (Not to mention the sore muscles and aching back.) Besides, this IS my vacation, right?! So no decorating and no cleaning happened here today. Not even any arts and crafts, unless you lump quilting into the arts and crafts category--which I guess it probably is. So, okay, yeah some arts and crafts took place.

This morning I made this little quilted gift bag. Kind of cute, huh? Now I just need to figure out what kind of gift to give myself that will fit in the bag. What? You think a gift bag ought to be given? Well, okay, you win. I actually DID make it for someone else, but maybe I need to make myself one or two someday. But not today.

Today I made this for myself:

This is the It's a Wrap pattern by Sandy Gervais/Pieces From The Heart made with the Holly Jolly fabric. No, don't look too closely at my points and sashing/cornerstone intersections. They're not horrible, but they aren't perfect either, and I know that at least ONE OF YOU--and you know who you are!--likes to check to see how I do on my points. (The back, however, is simply stunning--come on over and take a look if you don't believe me! Lovely pressed seams all over the place!) I do like to be fairly accurate, but I'm not going to have a cow if it's not perfect. I'm a student of the "back of the galloping horse" school of quilting--if something looks okay from the back of a galloping horse (theoretically speaking, you understand--I don't really get on a horse and test it) and I don't have the patience to fuss with it, then that's okay with me! This is actually a very forgiving pattern, though, since there aren't a lot of pieces to line up. I made mine a little smaller than the pattern with 16 presents instead of 25 because I have a specific place in mind to hang it and a limited amount of room.

I have another two days before I go back to work, and I'm planning to spend all the time I can in decorating and cleaning--play time is over! I would like to try to get this quilt pinned this weekend, though, so I can get it quilted next week and up on the wall before long.

Finally, I thought I'd share this with you. You know that pesky younger cat of mine, Spike? Well, I went into my bedroom this afternoon and closed the door so I could have a few uninterrupted minutes of time on the computer. Lately she's taken to trying to climb onto my lap while I'm on the computer and I was trying to avoid that. I guess she must have tried following me but had to settle for opening the door of the linen closet that's outside my bedroom and climbing up into there instead of my lap. Silly cat!

It's long past my bedtime, so I'm heading to bed. Hasta la vista, baby!