Counting Down

Its almost a new year! May yours be filled with family, friends, good health, joy, love, peace and whatever makes your heart sing out loud!

Reflect

As the moments of 2008 start to fade (can't believe tomorrow is the last day of the year!), its time to reflect. This time I'm not reflecting on this past year-its high and lows, its plusses and minuses. Instead I'm reflecting on the cycle of life.
No, not the Lion King, but how our lives roll through some regular natural moments- like winter- short days-though getting slowly day by day, snow and cold, our bodies not wanting to get out of bed on a cold morning nor not really ambitious in January evenings. With school, the semester is winding down. Then we get in February- and our thoughts turn to love and Valentine's day, and then our February school vacation. Mud season, the last of snow, spring at last, then blackfly season and the sumemr tasks like starting up the gardens and opening the screen porch. Green grass and leaves returning...summer, warmth, vacation, and then the arrival of fall, a new school year, leaves turning, holiday season...
I know I have put this into a very short synopsis, but it is so much in itself to go through. Comforting to go through, just a swing in the natural cycle of life. Then there is the discovery as our bodies change as we age and watch our children grow older. Never mind the news and events which make up our lives. Our children's lives non cycle through something like ours...I remember being 17 like Katie is. Our life is not a circle that matches theirs, but a spiral.
Ok, maybe I am being philosophical and maybe I am just babbling and make no sense, but I am struck by change (after watching Milk yesterday and Marley and Me today) and lack of change. One thought I had was that I was born into a world of segregation and now (in 21 days) we shall have an African American President. But the cycle of the Presidency continues. So not a circle, but a spiral. Winter comes every year, with certain definates (like short days and colder temperatures), but one never knows how much snow. Or for how long it will go on here in NH. Spiral again.
I find this cycle comforting tonight, maybe because I'm often a little afraid of the New Year- afraid of the bad things that may come, but this year, I am not. I am more filled with hope. Hope is a very very good thing, and I guess I have babbled on enough for one night.

Holiday Week Big Bow Awards

Give these 2 items the big Bow Holiday vacation award-Two great items for your head to indulge in when your waistline has eaten as many cookies and desserts as possible:

1-great movie-Milk- the story of Harvey Milk the first gay elected official in the US- it was excellent and Sean Penn with James Franco and several others all did excellent jobs in the film. I am a historical story buff and that one really hits the nail on the head- especially with bits and pieces I can actually remember from the news as a teenager. (Scary thought- this movie is set when events actually occured in 1977-1978 when I was Katie's age. She and I discussed this as we left the movie).

2-great read- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. This is a well written detective story with interesting characters set in Sweden-which is interesting for me since 3 of my Grandparents came from there. Haven't quite finished reading it-hoping to do that tonight- and unless the ending bombs out I recommend this book.

One of those days

Here's some great photos of my family on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Aren't we the handsome crew?

Now today was grey and dark. Woke up with a headache and it was not in my stars to be productive- but I've fought it all day. Tried to print some photos and the printer's offline. Wanted to pick up my house but Katie has pulled her room apart to move it around and the whole upstairs is the biggest disaster area on the planet and she's got the vaccuum squirreled away up there. Tried to do laundry then Dave said he was going to fill the hot tub since he's fixed the leak-ok, so I'm SOOOOO happy to have my hottub back but feel like I kind of wasted a day. Read a bit, got my photos ready to print...

Oh well, what can I do about any of it?

A wonderful holiday it was!

It was a great holiday-all 3 days of it in this house. Wednesday it was out to lunch with my in-laws, yesterday we stayed home in our pjs and had fun (and waited forever for our roast to be cooked so we didn't have dinner until 9 last night)and today we went to visit my mom.
Hope everyone's holiday was as wonderful as mine!
Love this photo I made last night with Photoshop elements (finally a version that works on this icky old Vista) and a fuzzy flashless photo of our tree and some snowflakes using an icestorm photo).
Joy and peace for the rest of this holiday season.

Happy Holidays

Guess what? Its snowing again- though it is suppose to turn to rain later. I need to finish picking up the house before the clutter returns tomorrow. We're off to meet the Nelson's for lunch in Portsmouth today...start this actual holiday off with some fun.

Wishing you all a happy holiday-whichever it is you will celebrate today!

The stockings were hung

And the shopping all done-
the presents all wrapped-
the cards sent out in the mail-
the tree it is trimmed and
snow it is shoveled!
vacation has started and
only thing left is to a buy a roast for dinner-
It is almost Christmas
and the spirit is flowing!
Cheers!

More snow and more tags

Another 8-12 inches expected today. Since I'm being LAZY after wrapping Katie's Christmas gifts, I will show some of the other tags I made. Hopefully can get a couple of other chores finished up today, since tomorrow and Tuesday its back to school-and then- its Christmas. Hard to believe this is Christmas week.

Saturday

Woke up to more snow-still flurries coming down, but we've gone out and cleaned up and went to the vet to pick up Harley and (just to make this a long run on sentence with lots of ands) went to the post office to mail the cards I wrote last night and stopped by the grocery store...Harley's hopping pretty good on 3 legs after his knee surgery and very happy to be HOME. We're happy he's home too-and now pizza is ready and time for some food.

Another snowstorm on the way

Busy day- Harley goes in to get his knee surgery (since the vet had an emergency yesterday and didn't get to him), I'm home on a personal day and need to run out before the snow comes, and as I just said- 5-10 more inches of snow on its way this afternoon. Wow. I have tons of holiday things to do (the stress is starting) and I need to chill, still recooping from our 5 day power loss but feel terrible for all those 35,000 NH folks still without power. And those power crews- working hard- thank you and hope you get home for Christmas and some well needed rest.

Anyhow- here's some more holiday tags- quick makes- they're not meant to be big artistic tags but gift tags- the ones that get ripped off and tossed out so why spent too much time making them time, but, I had such a blast making them. I wanted them to be fun and even cute in some cases. I used lots of Hero Arts stamps and some MSE stamps and there's even a Paper Artsy stamp in there.

Will post some more later on.

A few more icestorm photos

Spent my day home doing laundry (there's still a huge pile) and vacuuming the first floor (the secodn floor is still quite icky) and organizing my bags of gifts and doing a bit of wrapping and shoveling both the deck and the driveway and still making some base pages so I can do a holiday book. Think the printers broken, it won't come on. ERG! They're saying more snow Friady night-ERG! Anyhow was a really busy day but glad I was home WITH power so I could do these things rather than sitting in the dark or quiet!

Weekend Adventure

Ice storm! We were hit pretty bad but not as bad as some people. We lost power by 2:30 a.m. Friday and it came back in the afternoon yesterday-5 days of darkness and no water. Thanks goodness we have a woodstove for heat- but some poor people have had no heat- and very cold houses. Of course we don't have a generator-high on our purchase list once we get past this...and everynight I'd fall asleep to the hum of gas motors up and down our street as people ran their generators. Was tough living in the dark for so many days- and going out to eat and going out to shower at people's houses...

These photos are from my yard on Friday afternoon once the rain stopped. A couple of close ups, a view of my backyard and Dave's carpentry workshop...Have a bunch more...will post later today.

So school was closed for Katie and I on Friday and me on Monday (it was an evacuation center)-and now I'm out again as its snowing-and it must be nasty down at the coast since Katie has school but most places in the seacoast are closed. Welcome winter...though its still a couple of days away.

Now we're getting ice

What can I say about weather in NH in December?

Yesterday almost 60 degrees-now we're barely 30 and its icing. UGH!

Rain, rain and then tomorrow...

Maybe ice or snow. This morning when I got up at 5, it was 53 degrees. 53-and only 5 degrees this past Monday. Bitter cold, balmy, its all a part of this great New England weather. And this say tomorrow-ice, snow, maybe a big mess tomorrow night and Friday morning.

This photo was taken when we went to cut our Christmas tree, and I love it.

Another note, lots of new stamps coming out. TEMPTATIONS. Artistic Outpost has 3 new plates...a cool retro Valentine plate, a circus plate (love the circus peanut elephant on it) and a fortune teller plate. FUN. If you head on over to Technique Tuesday, they have a new Ali Edwards Valentine's plate. I love it. And this weekend-the new Hero Arts...wonder if they'll be cool? I'm curious and can't wait to see what they have. Of course I can't afford to buy them all...wouldn't it be fun it a stamp addict could just buy, buy ,buy....but then what would you do with them all and where would you put them all. Oh so many stamps, so little time AND money.

Today we had a light snow

This photo is actually a week or so ago, but again today we had another light snow here. The ground is white, but not very deep, kind of like in this photo. I like how the flakes look in this photo. And at least its back in the 30's and NOT bitterly cold like yesterday.
I can't get out of my own way tonight. I'm tired with a terrible headache. I feel fat and all I see is a massive double chin when I look at myself. I stayed late with kids after school, came home and have either napped or feel like I've wasted my night-which although not over-is for me as my head kills and I'm tired. I really wanted to go play in the studio since last night I didn't-but better, I did some successful holiday shopping after school. Should have gone today and did some errands at Target, but instead tonight has been pretty much a waste. I need to perk up and nt feel so pity-pity-me but maybe I'm entitled to one night of me being whiney.
maybe my soup will be heated up in a bit too so I can eat.
And with the way the economy is, I should be thankful I have a warm house and a meal and a great family and 2 lovable cats and a dog...I am lucky I guess but tonight I am not feeling much more than cranky.

Bitter Cold

It was 5 degrees this morning...about 9 now. BRRRRRRRRRR. This is bitter biting cold. At least the wind how died down a bit.

Here's a few more tags for your viewing.

Fun and cute holiday tags

Stamps flowers (Hero Arts) and color with gelly roll pen. Stamp to/from and trim bottom with scissors.
Stamps the gingerbread man (Sassafras Lass) on paper with brown ink, cut it out and then attach. Stamp words and outline with white pen.

Stamp December 25th on white paper and cut out. Using word stamp stamp background words with brown. Attach white cut-out and then stamp to/from and do not open (Inkadinkado).

This is a Hero

Arts tag, stamped and cut out. The red star at the top is some stickles red glitter glue.

The reindeer is by Sassafras Lass and I added the red nose.

These were a fun way to spend a cloudy and flurry-filled afternoon. Holiday tags. Take 3 sheets of 12 x 12 paper and cut it into 2 inch strips. Then cut those strips into 3 inch pieces. Now you're ready to make a pile of tags (I made 62 with a few pieces of background left).

I made a few others but I can't blog more than 5 photos at a time. The trick is to make several the identical tags at the same time. It makes the whole project go much faster and smoother.

The last photos of my Holiday Book

Here's how the whole book looks now that it is finished!

More of my Holiday Book photos

I particulary like the nutcracker and the trees pages shown above. Trees are one of Tim Holtz's new holiday stamps. They are very cool.

Saw the movie Australia afetr work today. It was EXCELLENT! I recommend it to everyone-and the 3 hours it ran didn't even seem like 3 hours. (PLus you get to look at Hugh Jackman).