Thanksgiving

Just popping by to wish everyone a happy & blessed Thanksgiving!  Tomorrow I will be quite busy getting food ready to cook on Thursday ... making the traditional Jello salad, cutting celery & onions & bread for the stuffing, etc.    

Despite all the stresses & problems & other things that can cause anxiety & bring us down throughout the year, we all still have so much to be thankful for.  Right now I am thankful that I found my box of cross stitched ornaments!!!  Yesterday I pulled out a plastic container in one of the spare bedrooms that definitely has cross stitched things in it,  I sat it by the tree & opened it this morning to unwrap the ornaments, but surprise!!!  It was shelf sitters & pinkeeps & the like.  I therefore went into the Christmas/other storage section in the lower level (sounds nicer than saying "in the basement") & pulled out a bunch of boxes, looking for a label on one of them that would tell me my precious cross stitched ornaments were inside.  I knew I wouldn't have put them in a taped up, ready to move moving box, & I didn't.  They were in a plastic container.  That is where I thought I would find them at the beginning, but again I pulled out that plastic container yesterday thinking that was were they were, but I had forgotten the quantity of cross stitched ornaments I have!!!  Where I found them just a few minutes ago was in a larger plastic container.  Anyway, hooray!  I found them   : )

I mentioned in my last post that we are going to be having a bare bones sort of Christmas this year.  It seems odd not having all the decorations out & about, but that is the way it's going to be.  The cross stitched ornaments will be displayed on our skinny primitive tree ... just like when we were living in our home back in Utopia.  I have not decorated with my cross stitched ornaments since back then ... three years ago ... so it will be fun to see all the ornaments & remember the exchanges & to once more marvel at Myra's finishing skills.  I will, of course, take a picture or two to post.  

Once again I wish you all a very happy & blessed Thanksgiving!      

Okay ... Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

Oh how I have missed blogging!  I can say that I've just been too busy to post, & I will say that because it's true, but still!  I have often thought "Just once a month!  Just post something once a month!"  Time, however, rushes by & I realize that two or three months (or more) have passed & I still haven't posted.  Shame on me!  (I am giving myself a gentle slap on the hand now.)  So as the title of this post says, let's try this again, shall we?

What, you may ask, has been keeping me so busy. The usual.  Downsizing, cleaning, laundry, cooking, crafting, & the never ending dental & medical appointments.  Who said that you find lots of time on your hands when you retire?  It's not true at all.

I don't want to ramble on for too long today.  I'm just going to ease myself back into this.  T'would be nice to become a regular blogger again.  For now I will share a few photos of some of the craft projects I've been working on these past few weeks/months.  Incidentally, if I owe you an email I will answer ... truly I will!  Please be patient with me.

By the way ... CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!   Isn't it wonderful!?!?!  And I decided that today was as good a time as any to bring Christmas to my blog   : )   I won't be doing a lot of decorating this year.  Christmas is going to be very simple.  Maybe just the skinny prim tree with the prim lights & my collection of cross stitch ornaments adorning it.  I continue to fight off the urge to start stitching again.  It's rather difficult for me to have two different crafting pursuits going at the same time.  I will be knitting & think about the quilt I could be working on ... or I'll be working on a quilt & thinking about the ornaments I could be stitching.  Does anyone else experience this?  I never used to have these kinds of thoughts when I was 40-ish.  Why I can remember when I did quilting, wood crafting, painting, tatting, & bobbin lace making, all at the same period in time!  What has happened?  The times they have a-changed, I guess.

Okay ... here are those photos I promised   : )   I couldn't help but include the first one.  Although you can't clearly see the cabled mitts I knit for John (my most recent completed project), I love that golden tree in the background   : )   You can get a closer look at the mitts in photo #2.  Photo #3 shows a pair I knit for myself.

Here's a hat.  It will be a donation, along with a few other things, to an organization in this area that helps veterans.

The following photos show some of the socks I have knitted so far this year.

This is yarn I'm using to knit a pair of Christmas socks.  I just started them.  The name of this yarn is We Need A Little Christmas.  It's like it was made for me   : )

And last, but not least, this is one of the shawls I completed last month.  Shhhh ... it's a gift   : )