Treasured Gift

I blogged last night about receiving the antique silver cake server that's been passed down to me from my maternal grandmother. I guess I was too lazy to get a photo of it so I'm including it with this post.Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read the note; it is so sweet!

Had a good 1st day back at work after the holidays. The 'crud' is going around the office but I think I had my worst days with it last week. My supervisor, Debbie, felt lousy today. We tried to get her to go home starting at 1:00 but she's hard-headed and didn't leave til 4:30. Christy, if you read this you can fuss at your Mama!

I'm a devoted reader of James Patterson's Alex Cross novels. I just finished 'I, Alex Cross' and it is FANTASTIC! I've never read a Cross novel that was bad but this one is exceptionally good. I only wish Mr. Patterson wrote as fast as I read LOL! Here's a pic of the book below. If you like to read mystery novels, this will not disappoint you.

I usually wait and buy the paperbook editions but I wanted to read this one so much I splurged and bought the hardback. I read the books that I really like many, many times so I want to start getting them in hardback so they'll last forever. I've got quite a few books in my collection but 99% of them are paperback. Some of my favorites have been read a dozen times or more.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday and God Bless You!

My bustle is hustled out!

All the Christmas get-togethers are done as of today. We all ate too much and got some great gifts. Most importantly, we spent loads of time with family and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. I didn't get many 'Christmas' photos but got some good pics of family that I'll share here. First one above is my sister, Annette and her husband, Gary.







Next is my brother, Jerry and his wife, Angela.

Then I HAVE to show the picture of my brother (above) with his first harvested deer. He's only been hunting for the last 2 or 3 years and he finally got a deer. A 6 point buck at that. He was so excited he was bubbling. He's got a fantastic fun-loving personality anyway and it was pure joy to see how excited he was to get his first deer. This next picture may be too graphic for some to view so consider yourselves warned. This is just a part of life in the South and Yes, we do eat the meat :-)

We don't go all out with gifts at Christmas anymore. The kids are grown so we give them money usually so they can choose what they want. Nelson got me a beautiful Elgin watch that I really needed. I had not had a 'good' watch in a long time and he did a fantastic job choosing which style to get me. My mom gave me a Swiffer Wet Jet that I'd been considering buying for myself. She loves hers and I'm hearing the same comment from other SWJ owners as well. I haven't tried it yet because my floors today needed much more than a Swiffer to be cleaned up. (They were pretty gross!) Nelson got them with the mop before our guests got here. My back doesn't let me do too much heavy cleaning so I'm usually the one dusting and putting clutter back in its place. He does the heavy stuff normally and lets me do the laundry. System works well for us :-)

My favorite gift this year is an antique cake server that my Mom passed down to me from my grandmother (Nanny). Mom said Nanny only had 2 pieces of real silver and Mom passed one of them to me. Mom presented it to me with the most beautiful note that explained the background of the piece along with a notation that she knows I will treasure it. She is SO right; I was immeasurably touched and grateful to receive something so precious.

Nelson and I had talked about getting a new flat panel television for our Christmas gift to each other. Now we're debating between the television and a new sofa/loveseat for the living room. The sofa we have is so soft that noone wants to sit on it because it's so hard to get up from haha  And the two recliners in there are very old and look pretty tacky. They're comfortable and in good mechanical shape though. I doubt they're worth paying someone to recover them and I sure don't know how to do that. So now Nelson and I have to decide between the television or the furniture. We certainly don't NEED the tv and we could use nicer furniture for those times when we have guests. Decisions, decisions ;-)

I spent all day Saturday with my almost-14 year old niece, Kristina. She loves art and is beginning to dabble in collage which is my favorite thing to play with too. She and I spent several hours in Wal Mart yesterday looking at art supplies (and everything else in the store). I enjoyed spending time with her so much and hope we get to do it more regularly.  I've had a cold since Christmas Eve and didn't feel much like playing with any of my art projects when I actually had a stretch of time that I could have. Thankfully the worst part of the cold was over before any of our get-togethers were scheduled. I just hope I didn't pass it on to everyone I came in contact with over the last few days.

Enough rambling. Christmas at our house was wonderful. We have all been blessed far more than we deserve and several family members made the comment this year that we are grateful for what we have and really couldn't think of another thing we actually need. We all know people who are dealing with critical illness or recent losses of loved ones at this time of year and our hearts and prayers go out to them.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with lots of love and laughter. God Bless You!

And the winner is.....

It's been a good week so far. I haven't blogged much this week because all I could think about was the drawing to be held tonight for my box of goodies. I've been doing lots of reading and my new Somerset Studio magazine came in Monday so that has kept me occupied for many wonderful hours.

Our office Christmas party is coming up this Friday night and I'm looking forward to that. There will be alot of people there and we always have a great time. This year we're actually having it at our dealership rather than one of the others as in past years. The 'cook' responsible for the steaks works at our dealership so we get to host it. Fine with me; we won't have to go far to party.

This week started out with warm, almost hot, weather and it's now turned off really cold. This type of weather seems to keep people in this area sick with sinus infections or some other crud. Or maybe the sickness would be here regardless of the weather, who knows?!

I really don't have much to say and no pictures to post so this will be a short one. I feel like I'm forgetting something though.....hmmmmmm.....

OH! Did I not tell who the winner is?! *big smiles* I used random.org to select a number between 1 and 40 (that's how many possible winning entries I had to pick from). AND.....drumroll......

random.org chose......

#40 (can you believe it?! I don't have a screen print function so I can't show you *bummer*)

Well, #40 had been randomly assigned to......

Jeanette Janson!!!

I've been following her blog for a while and it is great so please hop over there and check it out. Congratulations to Jeanette!!

Thanks to everyone for participating. Stay tuned because I will be hosting more giveaways for sure; I have had so much fun getting stuff together for this one. And getting such wonderful participation has been great. I'm meeting new bloggers and I love doing that. There are so many great blogs out there. It's so easy for me to get so engrossed in visiting blogs that I lose all sense of time.

Have a great Thursday and God Bless You!

So happy and giveaway reminder

I've had a great response to the blog giveaway so far and I am so glad. Now I know how these other blog owners feel when they get so many comments on their posts. That's my goal...to have an interesting enough blog that people feel led to comment on the posts. It's a thrill every time I check in and see another comment; love, love, love it!!!

To enter the giveaway to be held on December 16th, go here and comment. Read the post from December 9th to get the ins and outs of entering. Note that there's an opportunity to have your name entered more than once!

Great day today in cold Mississippi! I'm usually very hot-natured when at work; I'm the one with the desk fan blowing while the other girls are hugging their mini-heaters. Well, not today! I was cold ALL DAY LONG. What a change from my usual state. It was in the low 40's (Fahrenheit) outside today which isn't all that cold really. It's just a big dip in a short amount of time for this area and my bones couldn't shake the chill today.

I'm off all weekend and I am sooooo glad. I'm ready for an entire weekend to do some things around the house. Hopefully some of it will be fun stuff while I get caught up on laundry and *shudder* cleaning house. I wish I had the funds to hire a maid for one day a week. Of course, I'd wear myself out cleaning before she got here so she wouldn't see how bad it was LOL!!! Guess I'll save my maid money and just do it myself. One of these days :-)

My remarks about a messy craft room drew some sympathetic comments. Now we know we're not alone if our craft rooms are too stacked up to work in. Apparently it's a problem that plagues many of us. When I was working on the decorations for Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary party a couple of months ago...I had to move the needed supplies to the dining room table so I'd have room to work. And you know what?  Some of that stuff is STILL THERE *embarrassed giggle* I know; I'm hopeless.

It's just NOT FUN to clean up so I never finish the entire job once I do get started on it. I get sidetracked so easily...by the phone, the television, finding an embellishment or art supply I'm suddenly inspired by. Those sidetrack roads are just too numerous and call too loudly for me to ignore.

It's a good thing I'm married to the most patient man in the world. He's a true sweetheart and never complains about all the stuff. I do keep it out of his way for the most part. And if I ask him to help me clean up or get organized, he's always willing to tackle any job with me. I'm blessed and I know it!

Here's a picture of my father, Clyde aka Granddaddy B,  when he was in the military many years ago. The resolution is too low for it to be used in any art pieces so please don't try...for looking only :-)  I just want y'all to 'meet' my Daddy. Isn't he dreamy? LOL!!  Mom said he was always told he looked like the movie star Tab Hunter.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to enter the giveaway at the original post from December 9th !!

God Bless You

100th Post Giveaway and New Blog Design

So glad to be back in blogland! Well, I've been visiting blogs pretty regularly but wanted to post my official 100th blog post when the blog update was complete.  

Susie Jefferson at http://1stfloorflatblogology.blogspot.com/ created this beautiful set of blogwear just for me. AND she corrected that horrible glitch that wouldn't let some people post comments. I LOVE and CRAVE comments so I was thrilled with that fix. Please go check out Susie's multiple blogs and see for yourself how great of a designer she is. She's got some great freebies and shares tons of blogger how-to's; so talented and SUPER to work with.

So...this is the official 100th blog post and as promised, I'm hosting a GIVEAWAY!  I'll pick a winner using the random number generator thingy before midnight on Wednesday, December 16th which gives me a week to advertise the giveaway. I'd love to pick up some new blog buddies along the way but mainly I'm just glad to give back to the art community that's given me so much joy along with knowledge.The picture here shows just a PALTRY FEW of the goodies that the lucky winner will receive.

There's a box of decoupage sheets with a Victorian theme, a ready-to-alter photo frame with heart-shaped cutout for the photo, some mini-playing cards that are so CUTE, a brand new mini alphabet stamp set (never opened) and lots of other neat stuff and things that any artist can use (or use to barter with other artists). I've had so much fun tossing things in the box for this giveaway that I know I'll be having more giveaways in the future.

I saw on someone's blog that they'd hosted a 'clean up the craft room' giveaway. They basically cleaned up in their craft room and gave away some great stuff. I could definitely have AT LEAST one giveaway just to do that as is evidenced in the photo below.

 So THIS is why I can never get anything done. I've been complaining that I don't have enough time but now y'all know the REAL reason...I can't get to my craft table for the STUFF!!! I have always been a packrat but since I've started making collages and artist trading cards, it's really become ridiculous! Anyway, as soon as I can clear off a space I'll be making some more stuff (and adding to another box for the next giveaway :-) I really could use more time though LOL

So, leave a comment on this post and your name will be assigned a number and added to the giveaway one time. If you become or are already a follower of this blog, your name will be assigned a different number and be added to the giveaway a 2nd time. If you post on your own blog about this giveaway and direct people to this post to enter themselves (and let me know where to find your referral post)  I'll assign you a 3rd number for the giveaway. On giveaway day, I'll use http://random.org to choose one number and whomever has been assigned that number will be the winner! (Being my first giveaway, I sure hope everything goes as planned and I haven't forgotten anything LOL)

Thanks for reading my ramblings and for the sweet comments all of you have left. I am so blessed to have great family and friends, including blog friends. Y'all have a great Thursday and God Bless You!

2nd test - update

Not an official post as I don't want it to count and ruin my 100th post giveaway LOL! Just letting everyone know I'm still around. Susie's still working on the blog re-design and I'll be back with good stuff when it's all done. Shouldn't be too long before all is back to normal. Have a great day

comments can be left on new posts now! (YAY and THANKS to Susie Jefferson!!!)