A Baby, Books, and Bags

TJ came over yesterday and decided to read a book while his Mommy worked on her bags. From all the books available, he chose the book that we always read together in the swing during our Grandma story time last summer. "Dick and Jane". So sweet. In the meantime, all 9 bags are finished. They turned out very nice and Rachel is relieved to have these crossed off her list. Don't they look yummy!!!??? The one on the far left looks filled with things, because it is. Rachel made that one for herself! Smart girl!

I plan to putter around the house today, but also want to have a lazy couple of hours on the couch in front of a good movie. My sore throat is back worse than ever and I am thinking I may need to go to the doctor on Monday. Anyone who knows me, knows I only go as a last resort. I am sure I have a sinus infection and possibly an ear infection too. My own treatment does not seem to be working, but I am close to grabbing that turkey baster!

I also have the 3rd installment of The Face of Trauma close to ready. I will wait until after Christmas. I may end up changing the focus...I have recently encountered an adult who once experienced trauma and I am seeing a cycle here where being the victim is a desired thing. It is foreign to me, though I see it in my own daughter. When I saw it in this adult, it sent a red flag. How can someone possibly heal if they continue to stay a victim? The "poor, poor me" mentality, and thinking you are wronged at every turn, is not a healthy avenue, but one that seems to be where traumatized children end up. It is worth looking into.

A Penguin, A Bag Lady & A Lazy Cookie

The above picture is "A Penguin"! Is it beautiful or what?! My grandson TJ drew this penguin for his Grandma. (The lighter color drawing says "For the Grandma" in TJ writing) I am honored. It hangs on a wall by my desk. He has great detail for a 2 year old. I have a similar picture drawn by his father at almost 4 years old. The hands and feet are drawn the same way. Yesterday he stopped over and came up the stairs saying "I want to look at the Grandma". He has such a way with words! I am truly blessed by this grandchild of mine.

Now I want to introduce the newest bag lady on the block..... Rachel!! On Friday, we cut one bag and completed it, and today we began to assembly line, construct the other 8. We got everything cut and the bag fronts made. Pockets are on the inside of 5 bags and the other 3 are ready to go on. Straps are cut and have the interfacing pressed onto them...all 16! I am still using the same bag pattern provided by Margaret. I feel like I know it well! We just adapted it to be larger and used 1 fabric. I personally like it better with 2 and a 3rd for the lining. Here is the one I made for Charlotte. She uses it for her church bag. It carries her bible, offering and a pen and paper. Rachel's bags are larger and 1 fabric, longer straps (instead of handles) and also she added an inside pocket for a cell phone.Pressing is key to making ANYTHING I think. Ironing is not my favorite thing to do, though without it we would all look a mess. Quilting and sewing would not go as smoothly as it does with a trusty iron at hand!! One of my earliest memories is of my mother ironing. My dad worked nights, 11-7. I was 4 at the most, because I remember the duplex we lived in and we moved from there when I was 4. It was the same place we lived when I got soap in my mouth! My mother ironed everything. She did some strange ironing ritual though....she had a 7-up bottle that had a silver sprinkler cap on the top. I can see it in my mind even now. It looked something like this...
Mom's bottle was taller and had a silver cap. She would sprinkle my dad's shirts and my little dresses and I am sure her own dresses. She would then roll them and stick them in a clear plastic bag and put them in the refrigerator. After my sister and I were tucked in bed and dad had left for work, Mom would spend her nights ironing. We awoke in the morning, all the clothes would be perfectly pressed and hanging in our closet. I do not know the point of the pop bottle or the refrigerated damp clothing rolled so neatly and stacked in their bags, but we ALWAYS had nicely pressed clothes. Did anyone else do this, or have a mother who did this? It is a huge memory for me.

My cold is back with a VENGEANCE!! I have been up for 3 nights with a terrible sore throat, which does not hurt as bad during the day. This morning (my 4th Sunday missing Church because someone was sick) I am feeling beaten. I will rest today. I promise to get the last installment of the Table Topper Tutorial up soon. I planned on baking lots of Christmas cookies, but those will wait. I did manage to get some cookie bars made yesterday. The lazy baker's cookie.... These contain oatmeal, butterscotch chips and chocolate chunks. Very good! So I managed a post with sewing, baking, new treasures and old memories. Have a blessed Lord's Day!!

The Week, Wrapped Up

I have yet to wrap any gifts, but most of them are bought or made. Just a few more to get, but my kids are done and that is the important thing. I can share some of the things I got for them with you. We are doing the "family box" that Niki talked about. Sweet Hubby and I are very excited about this. I got lots of games, some books and a couple of movies to go in the box. Charlotte wants very little. She rarely has a list and this year she asked for snow pants and boots. Well what fun is that? She needs these anyway. We decided to get 1 big gift for each kid and then one smaller gift. That with the family box will be enough. Here is what I got Charlotte. Not exactly, but close. I bought her the My Generation version of the American Girl doll. The one I got her is identical to the one above. The MG version has the name "Gracie" which is Charlotte's favorite nickname. Since the cost was low, I also got her the horse, and a couple of outfits to go with her. At the price difference of $65, it is not a problem to actually play with her. Charlotte loves to "do hair" on her dolls and this one has very long hair and comes with lots of hair accessories.

Zachary. My Zachary! He wants BIG. He only wants one thing, but it is expensive. We do not spend big on Christmas and I want my children to understand the true meaning, without them losing the magic of Christmas. Is it wrong for Christians to tell their kids there is a Santa Claus? I don't know, but my faith in God is not affected because I believed. Sue's daughter Rachel was explaining to her brother Lucas that Santa may not bring him everything on his list. Lucas looked at Rachel and said in horror, "Rachel! You are pretending not to believe in Santa!" Christmas....children....magic (not witchcraft)....Jesus....Savior....God....it all fits together. Back to my Zachary. He will make a great lawyer. After telling him that Santa probably does not give Nintendo DS's and that it would be a great birthday gift in July, he let it drop.....for about a minute! Then he came back to me and said, "you know mom, it IS Jesus's birthday and He would want me to have a Nintendo DS for His birthday present." Here is Zach's Christmas gift...a RED Nintendo DS, because I do think Jesus would want Zachary to have His Birthday gift.
TJ was easy....I thought...I wanted to get him this....
But I could not find them anywhere as they were out of stock. I ended up getting him this... And yes, I asked my son and daughter in law first, because they are NOT staying here! TJ loves to "drum".

Kyle had a list of DVD movies to add to his collection and I found all of them. So my kids are taken care of and I can relax. I really have not stressed too much as I know it takes all the joy out of the season. The one true gift is taken care of and THAT is to be the focus. So now wrapping is next on my list. Right now all of my kids gifts are at Rachel's house hid away from little eyes!

My tree is looking odd...the kids continue to move ornaments around leaving big gaps in the decor, but I am fine with it. It is their tree too and every so often I try to fill in a "hole" and just move on. The ornament which has a place of honor on our tree is never touched. The kids KNOW better.

It is difficult to see, but it says, "Our First Christmas Together 1979". Sweet Hubby bought it for me 29 years ago.

I have spent sometime this week working on my seasonal/quarterly homemaking list. I need to revamp my HMB to add a few jobs that have popped up along the way. It is always a process. I spent some time baking bread yesterday. I love my machine for the mixing kneading process, but I really like my loaf baked in a traditional loaf pan in the oven. SOMETHING went wrong with this one....
No, a little critter did not do this...I must have had an air bubble or something as it was entirely hollow...the loaf was tossed.

We got more snow last night. Carly does not mind...she loves snow.School at the table is GREAT....I get so much more done during the day and things are staying tidy where school supplies are concerned. Rachel will be here very soon to make purse's for Christmas gifts...we have 9 to do, though she chose to do a single fabric instead of 2 different ones. It will definitely make it go faster. There is a brand new blog out there that I hope you will visit. Her name is Sarah. She is a young woman just married a year. She is a quilter and a Christian who works as a veterinary assistant. Pop over and say hi! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

100th Post!!

Welcome to my 100th post g!veaway...(I think I am being sneaky with the ! in place of the i for all the googlers). I can not begin to tell you how much fun blogging has been for me. I have so enjoyed reading all the blogs I subscribe to and hope I have given you a little bit of the same. To show my appreciation I want to offer 2 prizes. In order to win you must leave a comment on this post. Let me know 1 thing you remember as being memorable about this blog. It can be a picture you saw here, or a post you read...just 1 thing you remember that brought you some emotion...a smile or a tear, or even an eyeroll!! Your answer does not determine the winners... I will draw 2 names on Wednesday after lunch...I figure if you have not visited in 3 days, you probably won't be back anyway!! The drawing is open to all my readers overseas, of course! Here are the prizes... A bag made by moi, and a book of 27 quilting patterns called "The Prairie Sampler".
And prize #2... Another hand made bag (I am no longer bagaphobic...can you tell?) and a Hallmark recipe box. Here is a close up of the stitchery on the bag. So just leave a comment telling 1 thing that has meant something to you regarding this blog before Wednesday noon! Thank you again for making my blogging experience so wonderful!!

Oh, and if you go to our home schooling blog, we have a little celebration there too!

Accomplishments

Needles were flying over the weekend! Both by hand and by machine. I finished my stitchery swap and made the label. It will go out on Tuesday. That was a relief!! I practiced my lazy daisy stitch for an upcoming project and think I can move on to another stitch. I am feeling pretty good about it. I seem to do better with 3 strands of floss instead of 2. Luckily it is a 1930's repo project and they used 3 strands back then.

Remember this?

Well look at it now!

That lining is Bright Orange!!!

While working on my bag, I was able to use my new pincushion. Thanks Darlene! Zach put pins in it for me. If you look close you will see the line of yellow pin heads. He followed Darlene's quilting line!

I think I can officially say I am addicted to these bags!! After seeing the gorgeous bucket bags that Linda made, I feel a little less of the bag expert I was beginning to think I was. Did you see them?? Oh my gosh are they wonderful!!! Well she has made 4 of them now. I could not have that, so I cut another one to make my count 5! (just kidding, Linda!) This one is the same floral as my own bag, but the bottom pink and brown fabric is different. I actually like this one better. The lining will be the same as mine. It is a gift for a friend who admired my bag ;)

I also pull this back out...

I appliqued 8 more pieces today. I think I am close to 2/3 of the way done. I will now push to get this first Masterpiece block done by the end of the month! Block number 2 will be marked, and though it has almost as many pieces as the first one (96), it will not be so tedious. Working on the Masterpiece did not go without incident! While I was stitching, TJ, who was visiting, grabbed my scissors. I got them away from him instantly, but he went to grab them back. He had opened them in the split second he had them so they looked like this...

See that sharp point to the left? When he went to grab them, the bottom of his forearm came down on that point! It barely touched him, but I knew it had cut the skin. Though it was not deep, it did split the skin. I tell you...I could almost not stand it. We cleaned it up and put a bandaid on it. It did bleed, but not terribly. I only had plain bandaides and we needed some fun bandaides. Rachel stayed with the kids while Paw Paw and I ran to the drugstore to get them and also some antibiotic ointment for Rachel to take home. I was not sure what he would want, so we got Dora & Diego, Sponge Bob, and Disney Cars. Plus a big organic chocolate chip oatmeal cookie!!! I'm sure the kid thinks Grandma stabbed him!!!! The Masterpiece already has a story!

Bags, Big Boys, & A Bad Girl

Bag number 3 is done and it is actually for me. I plan to keep my floss organizer and current embroidery project in here. I can't show the project as it is my swap piece, but you can tell there is plenty of room. I used a different fabric for the lining as I did not have enough of either fabric in the bag. The lining fabric is stash left over from my pink and brown underground railroad quilt.

While making the bag this morning I had company. Zach found a comfy spot to play his game boy.

Then I got more company. Carly LOVES fabric!!

Of course we could not have that, so she was asked to leave!

She was none to happy with me and let me know just how she felt. Yes, Carly is the "Bad Girl".

This morning my little TJ came over to play at Grandma's house. He says "Grandma's house" very clearly. He is saying new words and sentences everyday and I find myself smiling non stop when he is around. Problem....I can not get him to pose for a picture, so most of the pictures of him are a blur or 1/2 a TJ. Also, he always has a smile until you pull out the camera. He gets very serious very quickly.We found lots of Larry Boy's in the garden and picked them. TJ kept saying "PICKLES!!"
I feel very blessed when this little "big boy" is around. He makes the feeling of contentment wash over me. I love when I give him kisses and hugs and he laughs and says "Again!" and then "One More Time!" for at least 5 more "One More Time"s! Being a Grandma...A major life blessing!