COMING AND GOING by Norman Rockwell


Thanksgiving travel.
Whether in years past on drives to Grandma's house
or in the college years to my Dad's house
or in the working years to the hospital to work on Thanksgiving
in the now years to Mike's Mom's house, or my Dad's on Bainbridge Island, or my Mom's in South Holland.......

so lucky to be able to get to where there is warmth, food, love, relaxation, and laughter.

Gratitude.

Thankful for all my blog buddies!
I could never imagine the wonderful friends I would make through blogging!

A Thankful Give-Away

I have had such great good fortune in my life. I have been blessed with a wonderful husband, family and friends. Sometimes when I really think about it I get all choked up. Then add to that my passions in life (music, reading, stamping and cross-stitching); I know I really am one lucky gal.
In honor of those thoughts and because I am a hoarder and am now going into therapy for the same (not formally; just on my own) I have some cross-stitch charts to give away. Here is the first set.........




So, if you would like these charts (all four) to be sent to you.....please leave me a comment with something that you are thankful for. You will be entered into the "contest." I will pick a name this Friday and send the package out next Saturday.

EDITED TO ADD WINNER: CINDY!!!! YOU WON. PLEASE SEND ME YOUR ADDRESS. I had Mike pick a number and then the person with the corresponding number in leaving a comment was the winner. Stay tuned for some more giveaways in the near future. Cindy, please email me your address. My email is duetabode@comcast.net

Hepped Up

These are the things I am currently excited about.....time to start listening to The Nutcracker!! I think I will bring the CD to work tomorrow and listen.....or maybe not. It touches a really tender spot in my heart and sometimes I get emotional. Better save it for home listening.
Loving the TV show Glee!!!! I bought the album too!
Looking forward to reading this book. I was lucky enough to meet the author, Jim Kokoris, once. He is a really nice guy and a great writer. Run, don't walk, to get a copy of his first novel, The Rich Part of Life, one of my all time favorite books.
You know how I have not been stamping in a while....that means that I have not been scouring stamping sites on a daily basis. Today I stumbled across some stamps that inspire me to clear a path into my stamping room.
Last night at the stitch night at Inspired Needle my friend Karin was working on the above. It is Finch Song by Shepard's Bush. It is one million times more lovely in person. I hope to stitch it someday.
Above is Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow. I will be working on this one next year. It will be so much fun because several stitching friends will be working on it and we are going to meet once a month to sit and stitch on this project. Last night at stitch night I had a blast just stitching and listening to all the conversations around me. I love to hear people talk passionately about their hobbies and things they love.
Above is a piece of Christmas art that got my heart racing. This ATC is from the Red Lead Paperworks blog and is by a really great gal, Linda Freeman. If you want Christmas inspiration get over to their website. It is a treasure trove.
Lastly, above and below, two new stamps from Magenta. They are so dear!

So, that is the stuff that is on my mind tonight. Dreaming of reading, stamping, stitching, and music. If only I was so taken by cleaning and cooking!

I have been very neglectful of my blog of late. The main reason is that we have a new computer. We went from a PC to a Mac. I love this new computer. It is completely amazing and gorgeous, but there is a bit of a learning curve. So, I have been acclimating myself and moving slowly.

Last Sunday my Mom and I went up to Woodstock, Illinois to hang out with our friend Dorothy and her brother John. Dorothy sent me pictures of the day in a program that I cannot download right now. We had a wonderful day though. John is a bookmaker, among other things, and it was a treat to look at his artwork. We all brought things to work on, we laughed a lot, and Dorothy made some wonderful pumpkin soup for lunch.

Today, Sunday, is going to be devoted to the usual (reading, napping, and thinking about cross-stitching and/or organizing. I will try to get into the blogging habit again because I love all of the wonderful friends and ideas it brings into my life.

The Early Works

Here are a few of my "early works." These are three of the pieces I made for my Dad and Mary. They still have them hanging in places of honor; isn't that sweet? Above is a Prairie Schooler I did for my Dad. He was in the Navy and now has a sailboat. He loves the sea. I still love this piece very much. I think it is one of my favorites.

This is a sampler I made for Mary. I guess I have loved samplers for a very long time as this was made in 1990.
I believe this is one of the very first pieces I did. At the time my Dad and Mary had a sheep ranch near Mt. Shasta in California.

While on vacation with my Iphone I thought that my new Sony Cybershot had become obsolete. So, while these pictures taken with the Iphone are serviceable, I am glad to see that I still need my new digital camera for pictures of needlework.

The Book Project

Ingredients: Tab, old books, adoring and smart father, Zutter Bind-it-All Version 2.0, time, patience (provided by said father), inspiration, and love of ephemera.
Several years ago I ran across an old book that had been turned into a journal. Ever since, I have been on the quest to make my own. Research was done, time passed, interesting books were gathered, conversations were had, and finally it was the right place and time to proceed.
Let me say at the outset that this project would have never come to fruition without my Dad. He is a genius at measuring, spatial thinking, and craftmanship.
My Dad deconstructed the books in a manner that preserved the entire book.
He made sure that the pages came out so that they could be used.
I brought four books for our trial run and they turned out fantastically. Above is the book my friend Noreen picked. These are our prototypes. Eventually what I want to do is add blank pages (using plain paper, patterned paper, old maps, etc.) and then use my stamp collection to add journal prompts. There are so many old books out there with great covers!
My Dad and I are going to try to work out a system whereby I send him the books, he does the hard work, and then I decorate them up. I do believe that I will always leave the covers as they are orginally; they just look great exactly as is.
Here is the team; Jacobs and Daughter. We had a great time and I can't wait to keep working on this project. Thanks Dad!!!!

Cut up Apples????

I know, I know! I have been gone for weeks only to return with a picture of cut up apple pieces???? What kind of return from vacation post is this? Well, we only have my PC to blame. It is running at the speed of a person entrenched in quicksand....very slowly in other words. I only have the patience for one picture to upload because they are all turned this way and that and straightening them out would take hours!

So, here is a picture that was right side up. It is a good picture of my vacation to Bainbridge Island because I never ate so many apples in my life! You must know that I do not like to eat fruit. Yuch. Boring. Anyway, out in Washington my Dad's wife, Mary, cut up apples in these little pieces and low and behold, they were really tasty. I don't know if it was the shape or the type of apples, but it was really fun to eat apples this way. We had "john-a-golds" or something like that. I came home and tried to recreate this great snack with a Gala apple; and yuch. It was not good at all. I am going to have to go to the grocery store and really look at the names of the apples.

I had a really wonderful trip. I would like to show you a day by day picture-log; but that does not seem possible with the computer issues. I will try to catch you up with a random picture or two a day.