Dogsitting the Grandpuppies - Dec 09

It's Amber's Dad's tradition to take all the kids to a movie on Christmas Day. So, this year they asked if I would watch their dogs while they were at the movies. And, they also included her sister Sheila's little Papillon, Sierra. Sure, I said, that's no problem !! Well, first thing happened is that PR retreated to the top of the entertainment center -- too many dogs for him !!

Tyke and Bullet are pretty attached to Amber and Lee and spent the first little bit by the front door trying to figure out where their mom and dad were !

Then they figured out if they weren't there at the front door, maybe they could find them at the back door -- poor little puppies !! I think I'm gonna have to dog sit more often ! ha Lee actually tells me that when they get to our house, once they are on the front porch they realize where they are and get really excited to be at the house -- guess that only plays into it when their mom and dad stay here with them !!

So, they decided they were left behind and they all snuggled up together on the couch !! Do you think all "grandmas" let their grandpuppies up on the couch ??

Isn't Dakota the prettiest thing? Her coloring is just beautiful and she's a good puppy. Here I think she is only about 9 months old.

And this is Sierra, Sheila and Morgan's little Papillon. She's cute as a bug, and very tiny. She can't weigh more than 3 or 4 pounds !!
It was a pretty fun afternoon keeping an eye on the four of them. Probably would be much easier if we had a fenced in backyard and I wasn't afraid of them running off...but, they were really no trouble.

Scattered Family Christmas Pictures - 2009

Milton stayed in Texas this holiday and actually ended up working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Port O'Connor. He was able though, to get together with his mom in Victoria for a quick holiday visit.

Lee and Amber had a couple of days off and were able to come to Lakeport for the holiday. We weren't exchanging gifts, so most of their time was spent with Amber's family and I was able to join them on Christmas Eve and watch the kids all make gingerbread houses --

They did stop by the house real quick on Christmas Day when they were leaving Lakeport to go to Amber's dad's house on the way back to Turlock.

I love having the kids here - no matter if it is for a quick visit.

John was able to forward some pictures to me from Iraq -- here he was able to visit with Santa...wonder what he might be asking for??

He and his teammates enjoyed a Christmas Dinner together in the chow hall.

Do you think any of Santa's "elves" carry weapons?

He entitled this shot "Look, it's Santa". I had sent John these Santa hats in a package I got off to him before the holidays and it was fun to see that they posed for a picture wearing them !

It was a pretty wierd holiday for us all the way around. But, most of all, it is nice to know that, although not together, we are all doing well and everyone is safe wherever they may be.

Christmas Decorating 2009

I love this wreath on the front door. It's a happy little greeter to any visitors who stop by. This year since it is so expensive for holiday travel for Milt to come from Texas and since John is in Iraq, we decided to wait on having our Christmas until March when they both plan to be back. And, that gives Amber a good chance to concentrate on the holidays with her family and not have to stress about sharing their time. But, I was still in the mood to decorate and just went ahead and did some - although I did not put up a tree. I love to have the house decorated and couldn't keep from doing it even though we are waiting...besides, Katherine got me into it !!

I have a Santa collection that I like to put out in the living room and this is the entry way table at the front door.

More Santas...the tall one on the floor was a gift from my friend Billie Anderson a few years ago and the wall hanging is a quilted pieced Santa I made a while back.

See that tall pear shaped Santa in the back of this top shelf behind the red "Noel" sign?? He was my addition this year -- I found him at Ross marked down to $4.99...but one of his feet had a chip - that was barely visible, but a break -- so, I asked for a discount and got him for $2.50 ! On that same shelf the Mr. and Mrs. Claus were hand painted by my mom when she had her ceramic shop..and on the same shelf over to the left is my first Jim Shore Santa - a gift from Katherine last year ! She also gave me the little train set Santa here on the bottom shelf. There's a story behind each Santa, obviously.

Here's Rudolph with the Santa's -- remember that piece I painted I talked about in the post of helping Katherine decorate?? I, of course, painted one for myself way back when !

Here's another addition this year -- see the little circular red Santa on the bottom shelf - on our thrift store shopping trip to Sacramento, I found him at the St Vincent DePaul store -- for a whopping $1 !!!! gotta love bargain shopping.

Now, I love this collection of glass vases on my coffee table. They sit on a quilted table runner which you can barely see. I got this idea from my friend Jennifer Clifton Gentry - the famed photographer !! She had something like this done in her Christmas Decorations that she posted pictures of and I just loved it !!

The woodstove hearth area --

Star above the mantel on a wreath stand -- another bargain shopping find ! You can't tell in the picture, but it is very sparkly.

This is the collection of vases, Christmas balls and candles on the woodstove.

My gold reindeer got a remake this year with different flowers .

In the kitchen I have Snowmen -- this little snowman is a little plate held up on an easel -- the Santa plate has since been moved into the living room with the rest of his friends ! And I love the Christmas balls in these jars on the counter by the stove.

You can see some of the snowmen on these shelves -- and don't you love this little sign - it is a wall cling I found this year on sale at Michael's Craft Store. I think for $1.99 it makes a really cute addition to the room. I'm hoping it will still cling next year, we'll see....

Above my sink there are more snowmen on this glass shelf.. There's some special ones up here - you can almost see the tall glass one on the right, he was from my sister one year.

And this collection of three having a snowball fight were a set that my mom got for me the year she passed away. So, I love having them here by the sink so I can enjoy seeing them each time I'm working on the dishes.

and, a lot more -- as with the Santa's, I have stories for each of these Snowmen ! They are fun to collect.

and, the last shelf of the little cuties !

The dining room table done up a little different this year - here's the same quilt table runner that is on the living room coffee table that you could barely see. I made these pieces about 3 years ago - there's actually a third I gave to my sister...I have 2 because one I gave to my mother-in-law and she gave it back year before last when she moved out of her home and wasn't using it any longer. These pieces will be handed down to Lee and John at some point, but in the meantime I enjoy using them both.

This is the first year I've put out this Christmas village - which sits in the computer room on top of a cabinet - below a quilted Santa wall hanging. I'm glad I got it out this year, I've missed using it and am happy I have these "new" cabinets in the back room and a place to display the village.

The theater from the village.

Purse Organizers

You know how I like all kinds of crafty things and love finding cute and simple patterns. Well, my friend, Tina Sanderson, found this pattern on the internet for purse organizers. I was very impressed with them and thought what cute gifts they would make. So, I wanted to make my friend, Katherine Lancina, one before I went down for Thanksgiving. I found some left over fabric from a quilting project, but did not have the iron-on interfacing I would need. Therefore, instead of making one for Katherine before I went, I just took my machine down to her house and worked on it there...but, I'd picked up the wonder under fuseable fabric instead of the interfacing, so the first attempt was a bust !! Ran back to the fabric store and got the right supplies. Whipped Katherine's up real quick and she loved it !!
But, I want to be clear in saying this is not my original pattern, it is adapted from the one Tina found on the internet.
Once I made Katherine's I got inspired to make up some more - I had lots of friends I thought would like them !! The fabric swatches you see above are from the ones I made for my friends. You can come up with some really fun fabric matches - you just need two coordinating pieces - I liked using a light and a dark. I think the floral pink one is really cute ! (that one went to Tina).

This is very simply made -- two strips of fabric cut 10 x 26. You then iron on the interfacing to the wrong sides of each strip. I found that the stiffer interfacing works best. Once you have the interfacing on, put the two pieces right sides together (with a piece of ribbon in position to hold keys) and stitch them up - leaving a spot to turn them...Then you flip up one edge to make the "pockets"(the pockets are in the "paisley" print in the above picture). When I was making up the ones for gifts, my friend, Jackie Mildenberger, came over and she helped me by ironing on the interfacings and turning them inside out !! That was a tremendous time saver, as all in all, after that first one for Katherine that I'd already made and then 2 more for my sister and niece, Jackie and I made up 11 more of these little buggers !!

This is my personal piece -- you can see my stuff all lined up ready to "install". You can barely see it, but on the top right corner there is a little piece of black ribbon that is doubled over (which was sewn into the seam when the fabric pieces are sewn together - double stitch over that spot with the ribbon to make it strong). From here there will be a "carbiner" hook thing-a-ma-bob from which I can hook my keys. All the ones I did for gifts got this hook, but I ran out of them when it came to mine...but, you get the idea ! Just make your little ribbon ring really short, because once the hook hangs on there it gets a little longer...

All the stuff "stuffed" in and ready to go...

You can see in the above picture how the "pokets" are stitched. Once it is filled, you can circle it around like this to fit in your purse.

Now here it is installed into my purse. That's my wallet showing in the middle of it - the organizer is just circled around my wallet. I didn't think I'd be real crazy about this myself, but once I got it all together with my stuff, I LOVE IT !!! The tricky part is making the "pockets" for it..you almost have to lay out your stuff and decide how wide to make each pocket. But, it's the perfect organizer -- when you change purses, just lift it out complete with all your stuff and insert it into your new purse !! What a super idea -- thanks, Tina, for sharing this !! And, thanks to whomever it was that made that original posting and shared their site !

King Tut Exhibit - December 2009

A group of friends and I purchased tickets online to take a trip down to San Francisco to see the King Tut Exhibit at the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park. We planned this trip several months in advance and eagerly awaited the day we were going. There were 6 of us for the trip - myself, Geri Croshaw, Jacke Mildenberger, Sherry Fitch, Dorothy Lennon and Donna Howard. We planned to take the trip down in Geri's van since it would seat the six of us. Our tickets were for an entry into the exhibit between 12:30 and 1:00 pm, therefore we left Lakeport around 7:30 am to give ourselves plenty of time to get to the museum. And since it was raining when we left, we felt like we would have plenty of time. The trip started out pretty well - we went around thru Ukiah after picking up Sherry and Donna in Upper Lake. We stopped at Cloverdale for a quick breakfast at McDonalds and then a little ways down the road......

I hit something on the freeway - and got a flat !!! I saw this black object in the road, did not anticipate that I would hit it - but when I did, I actually thought it was a piece of black plastic bag...wrong ! As I pulled over, there was another car stopped that I pulled up and in front of - once we called AAA for a tow truck, a lady from the first car walked up to us. She indicated that they had also hit the same object and her husband was changing thier tire ! We waited 1 hour and 5 minutes for AAA to come. All the time thinking that this was throwing off our schedule ! The attendant changed our tire and said we should be fine to drive into the city on the little donut spare....so, we got back on our way !

It was pretty rainy and foggy going over the Golden Gate.

The exhibits at the museum were just amazing. It was almost hard to believe that these treasures had been buried for over 3000 years. We didn't actually see many artifacts from King Tut himself - only a few vessels and boxes from his tomb. The King Tut artifacts are not being removed from Egypt anymore. What we saw were the pieces from his family tombs and that of his wife. The workmanship on these pieces were amazing, and there was so much history revealed. It was quite a learning experience for us all - it was fun to learn about the history and traditions of that time. It's an experience that we will all remember for a long time. I'm so glad we made the commitment to go. You weren't allowed to use cameras in the exhibit - the pieces you see here were located just outside the entrance to the exhibits. We were all in awe the entire time we were viewing the exhibit pieces.

Going back north over the Golden Gate the weather was just about the same as when we had come across earlier to enter the city. I still get a thrill to go over the Golden Gate Bridge no matter how many times I've done it.

The girls all laughed at me, but we got the tire store attendant to take our picture while we were waiting for a new tire to be mounted !! And, I'd picked out this spot in the store because there were all these tires piled up and thought it would make the perfect backdrop for our picture....but, when we stood in front of it we blocked all the tires !!
l-r Geri, Jackie, Dorothy, me, Donna and Sherry

Brand new tire! So sorry that I caused Geri to have to buy a new tire !

Once we got the tire fixed, we relaxed a little bit and went to Red Lobster for dinner. Don't you just love their cheese biscuits ! By this time the girls were tired of my picture taking and wouldn't let me get us all at the table !!

Before leaving for home, we stopped by my friend Katherine Lancina's house for a quick stop and the ladies enjoyed seeing Katherine's home decorated for the holidays. What a nice ending to our fun adventure to San Francisco. We've got lots of good ideas for future mini-trips !! Next on tap is to ride the ferry from Larkspur into the Ferry Building and shop around the Embarcadero -- have to wait til the springtime for that one ! And, I'm sure we're going to be able to talk Katherine into going on that little trip with us !