Christmas Eye Candy

I was in a Christmas ornament swap with Jeanie and Shelley this season. This is the beautiful ornament that I received from Jeanie. I Love it. She knows I Love Kittys and she does too. It is so cute and I already have it on my tree,,front and center. The pictures aren't that great as I had to use my scanner as my camera batteries were charging. Below is the front of the ornament and next picture is the back.

Thanks so much Jeanie,,I will treasure it always. I hope you get mine this week,,it was sent out Monday.
A little more art that I have received lately is some 4 x 4 Christmas chunky pages. I was in a swap and received 4 of them.



And I also participated in a Christmas ATC swap too.

I really didn't participate in too many swaps this Holiday season. I did a Christmas inchie with my Mom and another with someone in another group. And I also did a Christmas Banner swap and should receive it this week. I will post pictures of it when I get it. I am also doing a Goodie box swap will that Jill is hosting. You send your partner a good size box of artsy stuff such as art supplies, pictures, embellishments, etc... I think this will be fun as I always love to get goodies that I can use in the mail.
I have been working fast and furiously on some jewelry projects that I am giving as presents. I also making some Hot Cocoa bags to give to some of my co-workers. I got the cutest template and recipe over at Lollychop's blog. She is so generous in giving all kinds of cool templates, patterns, and recipes away on her blog. The templates are in PDF form. She also had some cool Christmas gift tags and little cards. I have really enjoyed visiting her blog and she is just a really nice friend,,and her posts are funny too. So pay her a visit and say Hi!

I sure do have to say this. Some times when I get kind of sad and blue, which does happen sometimes,,I know I can always count on my blogger buds to cheer me up. And all of you do that for me. I go to your blogs and read them and smile. Or if your sad and blue or sick or have family that is not well, I can sympathize and know that I am not the only one feeling that way or the same kind of issues. So always know that you have a good friend in me too.
Ok,,,I had to get a little sentimental today,,lol.

I hope every one has a wonderful Wednesday!!!
xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxox

Monday's musings!

Here are some pictures of some beautiful sunsets we have had the past few days.

I Love it when the sky looks like this. And my ride in this morning was so pretty because of the sunrise but I didn't have my camera to take a picture of it. I did take a picture with my cell phone but it didn't turn out that good.
Yesterday I went over and got my Mom to bring her over to watch our fave Football team play. We had a great time. She always gets chilly at my house as I don't keep it quite as warm as hers so I had to bundle her up in my Titan's blanket and I put a Santa's hat on her too.

Next picture is when she was so happy because the Titan's made a touchdown!

We do Love to watch our Titans play ball and they won again. So we are going to the Play offs and hopefully on to the Superbowl! Daniel came in and had to snap a picture of both of us as I had my Santa hat on too!

No,,she didn't fall asleep,,she just shut her eyes when the flash went off. And of course I had to have my big mouth open,,lol.
I also took some pictures of some of my Christmas decorations that I have out and of my Christmas Tree.







Now I just need to do some Christmas shopping and put some presents under that empty tree. I always wait till the last minute to do my shopping. Mainly its because we have to wait till get "Sparky" gets his Christmas bonus check,lol.
I hope every one had a wonderful Monday! I have been pretty sore today with my good ole Arthur acting up. Heavy rains are expected tomorrow and tomorrow night. No more snow for awhile.
xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo

Sunday's jabber

Lots to talk about today. Well its been a few days so I can, right? First off, I got a phone call from my doctor's office late friday afternoon. It seems the blood work that they did on Monday shows that I have elevated levels of ANA(autoantibodies), thus indicating that I have Rheumatoid arthritus. So they will be setting me up with a Rheumatologist. I kind of felt that this was the case all along but wasn't for sure about it. But what I have researched online sounds like what I have been going through. I know its not very severe yet and I am hoping they will be able to give me meds to control it. The good thing is it has shook me up enough that I am following the recommendations I have read about what to eat to keep the Gout from flaring up again. So, I think I have lost a few pounds through all of this. I am still hurting some but not as bad. The below normal temps we have been having hasn't helped it at all.
So,,I will deal with it and try to do what I can to keep it from progressing.
On to happier notes. Yesterday my sweet niece came to vist my Mom and I. She is like a daughter to me and I use to babysit her all the time when she was little. Her husband and her have been married for about 9 years. They always said they were not going to have children, but guess what? Yep,,she's pregnant and her delivery date is next month. We are all so excited and can't wait to have "Little Samuel" join our family. We haven't had a baby in our family for many years, every since my children were little, which was 21 years ago.
We had a great visit and my step-bro prepared a great lunch for us all. It was very Christmassy looking with Mom's Christmas plates and decorations up in the kitchen.
Here is a pic of Mom and Emily at the table. Of course I didn't notice that the ceiling fan chains were in the way when I snapped it,,duh.
Emily is very petite and she has only gained 15 lbs during her pregnancy. But that is all baby fat. I think its wonderful since I gain way too much weight each time I was expecting. We also had some baby presents for her and her hubby to open while they were here.
She is such a sweetie. And they both are so excited about the new addition.
I had to snap a funny picture of my step-dad. Between my parents and my step-bro, they have 2 Bichon Frise dogs. Well, my step-bro's dog seems to think that it is her duty to keep my step-dad's scalp cleaned and washed very day.
Ha,,now that would drive me bonkers, but dad is so laid back that he jus sits there and lets her go to town. According to Mom and Bro he gets a good "shampoo" every day. And Sugar gets pretty spoiled by him in return.
So, today I am going to bring Mom over to my house and we are going to do a little Artsy stuff,,and watch our Football team, the almighty Titans, whip Cleveland.
Its still very cold here today and the high will only be 37 degrees. Our December has been way below normal in temps so far. And I think we will get a good snow before January. I hope it happens on Christmas day.
OH,,and great news. My stepdaughter and her boyfriend will be flying in from Idaho on the 18th to spend two weeks with us. We can't wait as we haven't seen her in almost 2 years. Its going to be so much fun having them here.
Today I am going to take some pictures of my Christmas deco and will post them this coming week.
I hope everyone is having a great week-end! I am leaving you with pictures of our "mini snowfall" that we had on Monday. It was just a trace and melted pretty quickly, but we usually do not get snow here till January.






xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxo

Christmas Postcards

I made these for a Christmas Postcard swap that I am in this season. I Love making Postcards.

I used alot of rubber stamps with these. The little girl and Santa is a Oxford Impressions stamp. I Love Suzanne's stamps.

I also found out from my Dear friend Jill that Lisa Vollrath has some great free Vintage images she is giving away for December if you post a link to her site. I too, like Jill, have been a fan of hers since starting in Altered Art. Go visit her site and look at her other sites too. She has some great tutorials and some wonderful goodies for sale that are great for all of our Art Project needs. And another great blog site also from Jill, Art by Chrysti, is having a great giveaway called the 29 days of giveaways. She will be giving something away for the next 29 days, so make sure you visit her site too. Its always so nice to have such generous artists to take to giveaway such great prizes. So please visit both of these great Artists sites!
I hope every one has a great Wednesday!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox

Happy Birthday Candace!!!

Today is the day that my first born-Candace Elizabeth (Candy) would have turned 25 years old. She left us after only 7 weeks old and became an Angel. I still miss her but I have faith that I will see her again one day.


Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

Art, Christmas deco, and pain!

Today is Monday and I have been in pain since yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday night with severe shooting pains in my foot. My Gout has returned with a vengeance. I spent most of the day in bed yesterday as I could hardly walk at all. Its also forming in some of my other joints too. My bad ankle that I broke is really sore today and my wrists and fingers are achy too. Gout is a form of rheumatoid arthritis. I had an appointment to go see a specialist 2 months ago, but I backed out as I wasn't hurting as much. I hate going to doctors. Now I wish I had.
I will be seeing one as soon as I can today as I cannot stand this pain.
We woke up this morning to snow showers outside. Our temps are not cold enough for it to stick but it looks pretty. I am wondering if this strong cold front that is coming through is what started my painful bout of gout.
Saturday was a fun day. Daniel and I got in the Christmas mood and did some decorating. We started with the outside lights. Here is a pic of me sitting in the driveway untangling the icicle lights.

It wasn't cold outside, just cloudy and windy. But I still tried to keep bundled up from the cool wind.
Daniel was the official lights "putter upper". He is part monkey and will climb great heights to put up lights,,not me,,I don't do heights.



Ok,,I did use the stepladder on the front porch and actually was on the very first wrung of the ladder putting up my stars across the porch.

Even from this height I felt a little shaky,,lol.
The next pictures were taken at dusk. Some of the stars(they are motion stars so they are all not lit up in these pics) and the blue icicle lights that run along the roof top.

I will get more pictures of the house in the dark after my gout eases up.
Next I went inside and started on my Christmas tree. I wanted a real tree again this year but decided to just go with my old fake tree and get it over with.
Got to sort the branches and start the task of building the tree.

Ok,,lights are on and now for the star.
I did get the whole tree decorated that night but didn't get pictures of it. I will take some this week as it looks really pretty.
While I was off last week for the holiday I was very creative. I worked on several swaps and completed them. I also did some soldering on some pendants.
I made a few of them into necklaces and will make more necklaces and pendants. They will be presents this year. I couldn't get a very good shot of the pendants but will try to get some better pics soon.
Now I am off of here and back to bed with my ice pack. "Hurry up Doc and get in your office cause I need some relief"
Its getting very white outside and the snow is sticking on the roof tips and grass,,thankful not the roads. So pretty!
I will post later about my doctor appointment outcome.
Hope every one had a wonderful Thanksgiving,,and Christmas isn't too far away.
Have a great Monday!!!
xoxoxoxooxoxoxo