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    T Tuesday: Christmas wrap(up) edition

    December 30, 2019 - By 

    Hello and welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday! You may have noticed that I’ve been gone a while. I talked about my back saga in the previous post so we are moving on to something more festive and fun!

    Since we were hosting Christmas (because I love it!) I had to lean on the rest of the family to do all of the heavy and not so heavy lifting.

    Even the simple things like getting a cake in and out of the oven.

    The past few years I’ve made a rum cake for Christmas but this time I went for a Fireball Whiskey cake. It was so good. I forgot to take a photo of it with the icing…likely because it wasn’t very pretty.

    We had overnight guests on Christmas eve…Mini-me gave up her bed and slept on the couch. Of course, this meant that she was up even earlier than she usually is. She is my early bird kid.

    It was a long wait…even with me making all kinds of noise in the kitchen.

    This was my favorite present under the tree…it’s hard to wrap arrows. Mini-me needed a new set for archery season which is just days away.

    Marvin had to be a part of the chaos…bows are his favorite.

    I suppose the whiskey cake could have been my “beverage” for T stands for Tuesday but instead, I thought I’d share the tiniest cocktail I’ve ever seen. My BIL brought this over. It wasn’t anything I cared for but the can sure was cute.

    I’ve been working on purging my rubber stamps. I was so frustrated digging through them trying desperately to find a Happy Anniversary stamp since I had promised my MIL that I’d make her some cards. I had a bunch of bases completed they just needed a sentiment and the also requested “shiny butterflies”. Thankfully I have a very crafty neighbor who is willing to share. Thanks, KW!

    The “shiny butterflies” have the big wow factor but are pretty easy to make. I stamped each butterfly on white card stock with black Staz-on ink. I used watercolor paint to colorize each. After completely dry, I fussy cut each and placed on a non-stick surface. I coated each one with Diamond glaze. As they dry a slight curl happens quite naturally giving them an even more “lifelike” appearance.

    I have now looked through every single one of my stamps and alas…I never even had a Happy Anniversary stamp. ugh. Well, now I do…I bought a set of sentiments at Michaels. I’m sure you’ll be seeing some cards in the near future with these words.

    Today is Mini-me’s 17th birthday. I can hardly believe it. 

    I was planning to go out and get her favorite meal… Chipotle…but we are getting a snowstorm. It remains to be seen if we venture out or not.

    Speaking of crazy storms and slippery conditions….have you seen this video?

    The video was taken a few miles from our house. Mini-me had friends on that bus heading to a girls’ hockey tournament.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?
  • Around home - Art - Blog - Creativity

    Where I’ve been….

    December 27, 2019 - By 

    Hello!! I bet you thought I forgot all about blogging. December has been full of highs and lows….none of which had me racing to the keyboard to share. Since my last completed post was December 3rd, we have a great deal of catching up to do.

    December 10th I actually had a partial post written for T Tuesday wrapping up November.

    T Tuesday: November wrap-up edition

    I’m a little slow on the draw lately. I’m finally wrapping up November. Technically, I’m not fully wrapped up since I haven’t completed the #junkjournalnov19 prompts. But just go with me on this.

    11/30 Zodiac sign

    12/30 Autumn evening

    14/30 Dress

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    As you can see I never finished the post including missing one of the days. That’s ok…I’m learning to embrace imperfection.

    December really was a whirlwind. Lots of activities, snowstorms, J coming home for winter break, shopping, cooking, sewing, shoveling, cleaning, decorating and a little bit of creating.

    Everything came to a screeching halt when I threw my back out on December 12th….the morning of Mini-me’s holiday choir concert…also a Thursday. This was really unfortunate because my chiropractor doesn’t work on Thursday! I always seem to break on a Thursday!

    The last 2 weeks have been painful and scary at times. I’ve had an urgent care visit, 2 ER visits, 2 injections, 5 medications, an MRI, 7 days of missed work and numerous chiropractor visits…including one today.

    In the end, I’m doing much better. Diagnostic tests came back good, the healing process is moving forward. My back still is easily fatigued and a bit fragile but something really positive came out of this. I’m learning to ask for help, let others do, letting go of things I can’t change and embrace the chaos.

  • Around home - Blog

    T Tuesday: assembly edition

    October 7, 2019 - By 

    This week’s post is brought to you by IKEA…well, not officially. It’s just what the past three days and counting were all about. Building new pieces for the kids’ rooms. Truly not the entire time but it certainly felt like it. And I’m still at it!!

    My weekend actually started a day early. J was feeling really cruddy and just wanted to come home to rest. He caught the 6:45 am bus from college. I knew he was definitely ill when he voluntarily got up that early. I took the day off so I could meet the bus at MOA.

    It was good to see him a few weeks earlier than expected…just a bummer that he was so sick. Nasty virus. I didn’t even hug him until he was leaving….sad but true. He pretty much spent the weekend in bed or in a steaming hot shower trying to clear his congestion.

    So I mentioned IKEA…in the above picture if I had panned right 90° right, you’d see IKEA. Of course, at this moment in time, we hadn’t decided to purchase anything new. SO off to home we drove.

    The next morning we made the decision to buy two new dressers and a desk from IKEA…back across the city we went.  Mini-me and I started by putting together her new dresser. It went wonderfully. Then we open the desk box….DAMAGED GOODS! UGH!

    I was not about to drive back there again on the same day since we’d be heading back on Sunday to drop J off at the bus. When we returned we got a new desk and another storage unit. Yep…4 pieces of furniture to assemble. Oh goodie…

    This is the current state of things. I’m on the last piece. Four drawers left to assemble on J’s new dresser. I can tell you one thing…my body doesn’t like me sitting on the floor that long.

    I promise I’ll share photos of the new pieces…but for now. My water is empty and I need to shower because it’s picture day at school tomorrow! Remember the stress of picture day? It’s funny…not quite as stressful for me these days. I know for sure no picture I take can be as bad as the ones I took during my middle school years! LOL

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?