IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT!!!

FA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!! Looky, looky! Kai is in a Christmasy sort of mood! Oh, wait! Kai is ALWAYS in the mood for Christmas! But, having just experienced our first real (tho' quite short-lived) cool front (we were in the low 40s at night) I started REALLY getting in the mood. And the new TV Guide came in today's mail - a 2-week issue through the 7th of December. LOTS of Christmas shows are scheduled! I LOVE Christmas shows! Why, I couldn't HAVE the holidays without Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Miracle on 34th Street (the original ONLY because you DO know Edmond Gwynn really IS Santa, don't you?) and Scrooge (again ONLY the one with Alistaire Simms because - well - I LOVE that one best! LOL! I think his first name is spelled differently than I spelled it, tho'. Will check on that later!) Anyway, I decided to show you some stuff. I just finished making the wreath to put next to the mailbox on the front porch! Not NOW, of course - the day after Thanksgiving! And look what came in today's mail! My best friend, Jan, sent the most darling First Christmas bib for my great grandson! AND she sent me the prettiest ornament which means the world to me because of what it says! (I LOVE YOU, my Jan!) Also in the package, a gorgeous holiday kitchen towel (which I double DARE anyone to actually USE) and matching potholder! Needless to say, those three cookies WON'T remain untouched (or uneaten) for long! And, having shown you all of the GOOD stuff, I thought I may as well show you the froggies I made. They were mailed Tuesday with delivery confirmation and it looks as tho' they have been delivered to their destinations. The first one is a lil' critter for Cindy Owens (SUCH A SWEETHEART!!!) who hosted the swap! Her frog's name is Phibian. HUH? PHIBIAN????? Yeah. See, if anyone should ask her who she IS, she can say, "I am Phibian!" BWAHAHAHAHAHA ... AM PHIBIAN. Uh - amphibian ... sorry. Couldn't help myself. Anyway! The second frog is for my swap partner. She is Little Frog on the Prairie. See, Angie loves Little House as much as I do! We were PERFECTLY matched! I even gave her a covered lunch pail like Laura carried, holding - what else - BUGS! Heehee! My sewing leaves MUCH to be desired, and I truly hope I'll be forgiven for that. But I had FUN doing both frog dolls, and put my heart (if not my talent - sigh) into them! Ahhhhh - Christmas is headed this way. I FEEL it because I am waaaaaay too happy! HOHOHOHOHO!

NO, I HAVEN'T CROAKED! JUST HANGIN' AROUND!

Ah-ha! You thought (hoped?) I fell off the face of the earth (or at least off Blogger) didn't you? But I DIDN'T. I'm HERE! (Here I am. This way! Over here! See?) I've just had all those stinkin' computer problems mentioned in my previous post, plus I'm doing some volunteer work again, AND I've been finishing swaps, birthday gifties, and - gasp - CHRISTMAS gifties. Noooo, can't show you any of the above. But I will eventually, of course. Oh, okay. Let me give you a tease. How's this?

WHAT, you ask, is THAT stupid looking thing? Uhhhh ... it's ... SOMETHING! Only NOW it's a FINISHED something, and I LIKE it a LOT! Curious? Bwahahahaha! Too bad. You'll see it at a later date! (What a BAD KAI, huh?)

And what is THIS guy up there doing in my laundry room, pray tell? Just hangin' AROUND, of course! He needed to dry out. Oh - gracious, NO! He wasn't INTOXICATED. He was SOAKED from being painted green! (But, shhhhhh! Don't tell HIM. He thinks he was BORN that way.) Yes, that IS my frog doll (stage one) for a swap. But trust me, the finished doll looks NOTHING like that picture! So if you are peeking, Angie, as Willie Olsen said so eloquently: NAH-NAH! Heehee! At any rate, I'm here & I'm still kicking. Feeling kind of sad 'cause, thanks to the HUGE increase in postage this last year and my big hospital bill, then saving for a new computer, I won't get to mail lots of Christmas gifts. I hope everyone will understand. Pretty please with sugarplums on top? Okay. Your turn, everyone. What are YOU up to?

SAME SONG, DIFFERENT VERSE

WELL, GOOOOOOD GRIEF! It seems like forever since I got to post anything I've created. I HAVE created - quite a LOT, actually - but it's all been for swaps or birthdays and I can't SHOW you all yet. Sigh. But THAT'S not why I'm posting now. In an earlier post, I let you know I'm having SERIOUS computer headaches. I thought I'd gotten them under control, but I absolutely haven't. So I will be biting the bullet & buying a new computer probably sometime later this week. As I just told my best friend in a email, it took me exactly FOUR LONG HOURS to get this blasted thing to work this morning. And last night, I turned it on & it literally ate my emails. POOF! Gone! That included emails I'd saved to draft so I could answer them. NOT HAPPY! There are also MULTIPLE blogs I can no longer access and sites I ALWAYS used to visit which now cause this idiotic thing to FREEZE. So if you think I am ignoring your blog - NO!!!! I just can't access it. Hopefully, a new computer will solve this. I've had a LOT of problems since I got this one, so I will NOT be sad to see it go. At any rate, Happy Blogging to all of you, my lovely friends! And I'll be back soon to bug you again. With any luck, I'll get to visit EVERYONE'S blogs then!
P.S. For those of you who know Helen Grossman, today is her birthday! I KNOW she'd love to have you pop over to her blog and say hello! You'll find her link to the right of my blog! She's a doll!

SUCCESS & SORE LEGS!

Ouch! My poor knees! I've done more squats this past week or so than the law allows. I'm talking about squatting to lift heavy containers. But - except for my yarn stash which is still sorely in need of shelves - I've FINISHED arranging my craft room. Okay, granted it may not look great to anyone ELSE. But EVERYTHING is exactly where I need it to be! Things I rarely use are a bit harder to get to and things I need ALL the time are within easy reach. To me? SUCCESS! I can actually even walk around my entire work table without hitting my foot on ANYTHING! Again - SUCCESS! Now if I can just find a shelf or two to store YEARS of collected yarns. Sigh ...
NOW all I need to do is ... CREATE!!!!!!

A SPOT-ON HOROSCOPE, A FAIRY HOLDING FROGS AND A WORK IN PROGRESS

I always read my horoscope. Not because I BELIEVE it most of the time, but because it's such fun to see how close they came to how my day actually went. See, I read them in the late afternoon to early evening. That way they never influence me. At any rate, today's JUMPED at me. It described not only my buzzing mind, but what I DID with that buzz. Check out the horoscope!
Virgo (8/23-9/22)
Your mind is really buzzing today, and it's creating tons of great ideas on how to better organize things. This is a perfect day to tackle any major cleaning projects you have -- the messiest garage, kitchen pantry or basement is no match for you! Even if you're not feeling especially ambitious today, you can still put this organizational energy to good use by planning a party or putting together a list of projects you want to tackle in the coming months.
And before I show you exactly WHAT I did, let me show you something you've seen PART of before on an earlier post. My best friend, the VERY talented & creative (and wonderful!) Jan Demetralis aka Jandee, made me this amazing Red Fairy some time back. I CHERISH her and she is one of my favorite things EVER. Well, last week, I received a surprise box from her (she & I do that periodically 'cause we LOVES each other - LOL!) and in it were two of the most GORGEOUS gold froggies. I adore frogs. She KNOWS I do! Well, I wanted to showcase them, but wasn't just sure HOW because they are small. Then I was looking at my Red Fairy. OMG! Notice her hands! See how they are so beautifully positioned as tho' she WANTS to hold something? Well, of COURSE! I handed her the two ornate froggies, and VIOLA! Perfection! What say YOU? Don't they look exactly right there?
Now, I will show you both yesterday's AND today's progress in the craft room. WHAT???? It doesn't LOOK as tho' I've done ANYTHING, you say? Oh, but I HAVE!!!! I've pulled TONS of stuff off shelves & gone through a 'kazillion' (MY word) boxes. Am I anywhere NEAR finished? HUH-UH! However, I WILL be by nightfall Friday. That is my goal and I am a goal-oriented & goal-driven kinda critter. Right now things LOOK crazy. But I am actually seeing some real progress. Once I get things I really WON'T ever use tossed (the hardest part because I always think I will use EVERYTHING at some point) the rest will be a piece of cake. For instance, see that lil' white cardboard box on the floor? Look hard - it's among a million OTHER things. Sigh. Well that WAS THREE boxes! It's wooden stuff and I had WAY more than I ever realized. The second picture is my overloaded table which is now completely cleared. And the third is my yarn. I'm SO not pleased with that arrangement but haven't yet decided how to deal with it. I WILL, tho'. The yellow basket in the 4th picture is filled with all things paper! And pictures 5 & 6 are my nicely arranged over-the-desk shelves. Ahhhhh! See Kai. See Kai SMILE because she can actually not only FIND but REACH her craft book! Picture 7 shows the jars I bought to display buttons, doodads, epherma ... in other wirds, stuff & junk! Finally, picture 8 is A big old scratched-up, banged-up tub to the direct right of my desk. It is filled to the brim with lined notebook paper, typing paper, white cardstock, and all office type paper. Not pretty but EXTREMELY functional. And right at my pudgy lil' fingertips! So! There you have it! Stay tuned for final pictures of the completed craft area coming sooooon to a blog post near YOU!

CLEANING AND SMILING!

The disorderly manner in which I attached these photos should tell you how addlebrained I am this afternoon. LOL! I intended to have them in a particular order. But then, of course, I intended to be retired & thin by this age too, so ... Anyway, the fact is, I've had a REALLY happy day! Yes, my computer is still not 100%, but it's WORKING. I'M EASY. WORKING IS FINE! I have cleaned the house up one side & down the other since I took the photos of the craft area. And my daughter just sent me the baby photos via her cell phone a few minutes ago. What STARTED all this craft room nonsense was me looking through the basket I had my ribbon in. I couldn't find SQUAT without taking every single roll OUT. Arrrgghhhh! Well, I remembered I had two big old flat 'boxes'. They USED to be Ray's cassette tape holders. (Remember cassette tapes back in the dark ages? Heehee!) He was planning to toss them when we were moving & I said, "NOOOOOOOOO! I may USE those." He quirked his eyebrow & said, "Yeah, right." But I took them. I removed the dividers (about a kazillion of them, I might add) and laboriously took out all the (inset bad words - VERY bad ones) velvety 'crud' which had to literally be PRIED out. THEN I had to scrub it because it had a load of gluey residue. I had zero idea WHY I went to all that trouble. Until today. You'll see in a bit what I did. I still have the OTHER one & an idea for it as well! That got me on a rearranging tangent. And as you all know, before you can rearrange, you have to UNarrange everything. I took stuff off shelves, out of containers, etc. What a DISASTER. But by tomorrow at this time, I'm going to have a craft room that meets MY needs. It WAS just kind of haphazardly arranged 'cause when we moved in, my main goal was simply to put everything SOMEPLACE. I'm pretty pleased with me right now. TIRED, but pleased. And after I explain the photos to you, I'm going to make myself a big old cup of tea!


Here is Bradley. See Bradley sleep. Sleep, Bradley, sleep. LOL!
Here are the rolls of ribbon, nicely organized in what WAS that old cassette holder. Pretty cool, huh?

Here is MY baby with her grandson! I LIKE this photo so much!

I LOOOOOVE THIS ONE! My wild lil' Comanche daughter is REALLY enjoying the role of Grandma!

Again, in no reasonable order, here is a photo of my felt. Yes, I said felt. The basket is stuffed with it & covered with a clean sheet to protect it. I'm going to put the felt elsewhere. This looks STUPID.

The 3 photos below are the rest of the mess. It DOESN'T look like this now, but I will show you all the room AFTER I complete it.

So, as you can surely tell, I am a little bit wonky today after all the work, but also satisfied because I've accomplished quite a lot AND I've gotten photos from my daughter. All in all, a HAPPY day, and a happy KAI! Now where's that cup of tea????

STUPID COMPUTER!!!!

IN REFERENCE TO THE NOTICE I ADDED EARLIER (SEE BELOW IN RED) I DOOOO BELIEVE, AFTER MORE THAN FOUR LONG HOURS, I HAVE IT FIXED, AT LEAST FOR THE TIME BEING. SO, POOR ALL OF YOU! LOL! I'LL STILL BE BUGGING EVERYONE.



JUST A NOTE TODAY TO TELL YOU ALL MY COMPUTER IS ON IT'S VERY LAST LEGS. DESPITE ALL SECURITY EFFORTS, I HAVE SERIOUS INFECTIONS & CAN'T WRITE MORE THAN 2 WORDS AT A TIME WITHOUT IT ACTING HORRID. WILL BE OFFLINE UNTIL I CAN GET A NEW ONE. LOVE TO ALL - I'LL MISS EVERYONE!