Mandy The Mannequin

During the summer months my Mom and Dad go to a lot of garage sales. I've been reminding my mother for years that I really need a dress form or mannequin or something that I could use to take pictures of my purses. So our family gathered at my parents house this year for Christmas, and after the presents were opened my mother called us all into my brother's old bedroom to show us this:


(My husband has now named her Mandy the Mannequin. He claims she has to have a name if she is going to continue to scare the crap out of us. I put her on our stair landing, and she really does scare us because we aren't used to having someone lurking on the stairs at all hours).

My parents walk 3 times a week. In nice weather they walk their neighborhood or go to a park. In bad weather they go to their local mall. It used to be a really huge outdoor mall until they decided to enclose it and put a roof on it in the late 1980's. Since then it's gone downhill. It's not very safe, all of the large department stores have closed, the food court is closed, the movie theatre is closed... so there's not much reason to go there except to walk. A few weeks ago they were walking in the mall and a store was closed, but they had mannequin parts laying around. So my mom went in and asked what they were going to do with the mannequins, and the guy told them they were selling them for $20 each, so my parents walked out of the mall with one for me.

It's perfect for taking pictures of my purses. I never have an extra person around to use as a model, and no one wants to see ME modeling my purses, so this is great.

Where in the world is Santa Claus?

My kids always loved finding out where Santa was on Christmas Eve. It was also a good way to get them to go to bed when they were all wound up. We could check to see how close Santa was to make sure they were sleeping when he arrived. There are several good places to watch Santa's progress:

NORAD Santa Tracker

Follow NORAD on Twitter

Santa Tracker

Merry Christmas!!!

Sewing and shipping and hoping it gets there on time...

I finished up the last of my custom orders. Everything will arrive in time for Christmas gift giving.

I am now offering Gift Certificates available in any denomination. For a limited time, if you purchase a minimum $20 Gift Certificate, your recipient will receive FREE SHIPPING when the certificate is redeemed.

Dan's Emerald Forest

Every Christmas season my family heads over to Dan's Emerald Forest to see the wonderful display. My parents still live in the house where we grew up, which is in the same town as Dan's house, so it's never hard finding time to visit both. Usually we pick an awful cold day to visit my parent's and make the side trip to Dan's to see what is new. This year was no exception. It was 32 degrees with a slight breeze and a few sprinkles. Chilly. Actually, our local FOX news was live at Dan's the Wednesday before our visit. We had really strong winds that day, knocking down lighting displays all over town, and the wind kept the trains off the track at Dan's.



We've been taking the kids every year since they were little. The kids love seeing what is new and what they remember from the year before. You can always find something that you've never seen before. My husband always has a hundred questions for Dan. He likes to hear the dirty details of how the changes occurred since the previous year.

I was a bit sad - due to the rain sprinkles the drive-in theatre was movieless. There is usually a small flat screen tv that serves as the movie screen. Here you can see the cars pointing in one direction with nothing to watch. Last year I think 'It's A Wonderful Life' was playing.



New this year - or should I say returning this year - was the ski slope. But I don't think the little gondolas were running up and down the side of the ski slope. At least I don't remember them moving at all.

The Little Tree

We've had the same Christmas tree for years and years and the kids have always loved it. It's huge, pre-lit, and rotates - which is just the coolest thing ever. Dad and I have grown tired of trying to get all of the lights to work - we end up stringing lights on it so the whole tree is lit. So this year we thought we'd try something different and bought a pre-lit 6 foot tree (it was only $35). Which is really quite nice and perfect for US. However, my kids hate it!! My son refused to help decorate it this year, and my daughter complains every day about the 'stupid tree', mainly because it doesn't rotate. Here she is in front of the stupid tree. I took this photo as we were heading out the door to her school choir performance 2 weeks ago. Notice the green cast on her arm? She had a blue cast on before, but after a few days her fingers swelled up and I took her back to the doctor. Her cast was squishing her hand, right around the top knuckles of her fingers and causing them to swell. So they cut that cast off and she picked out a different color. She had the cast removed for good on Monday. She's much happier now.

Cardinals Game

This is one of our summertime events that I never got around to posting about. During 4th and 5th grade, my daughter was in show choir at her school. It was an after school activity, and they had several concerts and appearances at events throughout that time. One of the biggest was singing the National Anthem at a Cardinals home game on August 19, 2009. Here is a shot of my daughter on the outfield Jumbo Tron.

Amy Butler Ginger Bliss and Charm Fabrics

I recently had the opportunity to purchase Amy Butler Ginger Bliss and Charm fabrics. The 2 bundles on top are fat quarters, the fabrics on bottom are yardage, and I didn't pay an arm and a leg for these either. Has everyone seen the ridiculous amounts people are asking for some of the prints? I am not that desperate to own out of print fabrics. Truly, if I paid $30 for a yard of fabric, I would NOT want to use it!!

Cyber Monday

The sale in my Etsy shop is going on through Monday, November 30.

Weekend Sale

Rob and I feel the same way about Black Friday shopping. I just don't do it. Too many crazies out there for me!! But I do love online shopping. And now YOU have a reason to love online shopping too. Get 20% off every item in my Etsy Shop. PLUS - Get a free gift when you spend $30 or more!! Please let me know if you would prefer a revised invoice from Paypal. Otherwise, payments are due immediately and all refunds will be issued by me asap. This is the last sale in my shop for 2009!!

Turkey Day Sale!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!


Special Thanksgiving Day Sale for my blog readers!!!
30% off every item in my Etsy Shop.
PLUS - Get a free gift when you spend $50 or more!!

Please enter "Turkey Day Sale" in the message to seller. Also let me know if you would prefer a revised invoice from Paypal. Otherwise, payments are due immediately and all refunds will be issued by me asap.

Hurry!! This discount is only good through Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26. On Friday the sale will be announced in my shop and drop to 20% off every item. This is also the last sale in my shop for 2009.

Laptop Bags

I have made 2 of these laptop bags recently. They are really nice and big and fit a 15" laptop and anything else you may want to carry. The first one was a custom order that the person never purchased. Which really pissed me off. I was contacted on Etsy about making a bag large enough for her to fit her laptop in. So we convo'd back and forth and worked out the details. She also has a shop, so I checked out her sales and feedback and figured it was safe to make the order without the usual 50% deposit for custom orders. How wrong I was. After I made it and listed it and contacted her to let her know it was ready, I got no response. After 8 days I contacted her again, and she said she would "check it out". I have no idea if that meant check it out LOOK AT IT. Or check it out BUY IT. Either way, she didn't purchase the listing and she didn't contact me. I waited a few more days and asked her to let me know if she had changed her mind about the item. Still no response. So I took her name off of it. I have no idea why she thinks it was okay to place a custom order and then back out of it. If I were really, really mean I would post her shop and tell everyone not to buy from her.

Is it broken or not?

About 10 days ago, my daughter went down the street to play with her friend. She was back home within 5 minutes screaming her head off. She had been twirling around, got dizzy, and fell onto the concrete, and of course put her arms out to catch herself. She finally calmed down, and mostly just her wrist hurt. I am over-protective, and she over-reacts (drama queen style), but I thought her wrist may have been sprained. It was a Thursday night, so we decided to wait and see how it felt. It was still sore on Friday and Saturday, it was swollen, and she was favoring it, so I kept it wrapped up. By Sunday she was really complaining about how bad it hurt - worse than it had been. I called the doctor on Monday and got a late afternoon appointment. The doctor checked her wrist and declared it was most likely broken - which made me feel like crap for assuming it was just a sprain. We went next door to the hospital for X-Rays. The doctor called us at home within 30 minutes and said it was NOT broken.

Tuesday goes by, her wrist still hurts. Wednesday it still hurts. Thursday it still hurts. So we called her doctor back and he suggested seeing an orthopedist. Somehow we got lucky and got into the orthopedist the next day, which was this past Friday. He looked at the X-Ray and declared her wrist IS broken, so they put a cast on it. Evidently the break is near a growth plate, so they are worried about long term problems. After 3 weeks they will take off the cast and see how the pain and swelling is and make a decision to recast for another 3 weeks or not.

New Moon And Robert Pattinson

I turned on the tv and as I flipped through the channels I came across the Joy Behar show on HLN. Joy and her guests were talking about People's Sexiest Man Alive 2009. One of the women guests suggested Robert Pattinson should have won instead. Danny Bonaduce busts in with his opinion - he thinks Robert looks like Tori Spelling!! Then Danny goes on about how Robert's eyes are on the side of his head. Joy told him he better watch out or Robert will come on Danny's show and kick his ass. So Danny thinks that would be good for his ratings, and then invites Robert onto his show. He says "Robert, you're welcome to come on my show any time and kick my ass."

Oh, how I wish Robert were a violent person and would go and kick that loudmouth's butt!!! LOL

My husband and I went to see New Moon earlier. They showed the trailer for Robert's movie Remember Me. My husband even commented that it looks like it may be a good movie. So I may actually get him to take me to the movies again before Eclipse comes out. LOL

I am going to say a few things about New Moon, nothing too spoilerish (especially if you have read the books), but if you haven't seen the movie yet, come back and read this later!!

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It was boring. Long and boring. I think my husband almost dozed off. The soundtrack sucks. I didn't listen to the soundtrack prior to viewing the movie. I am a loooooong way from my teenage angst years, so these songs really do nothing for me. The background music sucks. The movie tried waaaay too hard to be intense and dramatic. I feel they tried to cram in all of the good dialog from the book, and in doing so, they left out a lot of the smaller things that contributed to the flow of the storyline. I wasn't all that impressed - it's kind of a let down after all the hype. I guess I just expected so much more. I tried really hard to love this movie. I want to love this movie. But it was just okay. And that makes me very sad.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon made history at the box office Friday, with midnight showings racking up $26.3 million in ticket sales.

**Edited to add: Just so no one thinks I am freaking retarded and hated New Moon, I have a few more things to say. While the wolfie special effects weren't all that great, they were what I expected (if you've seen the "Jacob, RUN!!!" trailer, that's what you get.) I love the Volturi scenes, although they all looked weird and not at all scary and powerful. I loved the fight scene between Edward and Felix. That was pretty cool. And I LOVED the cliffhanger ending (and the very loud collective gasp from the audience). That was hilarious!! I feel the movie could have been so much more. There were long silent moments where nothing really happens. A lot of the scenes are really boring and long, especially scenes that are supposed to be very emotional - it's like they tried to cram as many good lines from the book into these scenes, and it just made them fall flat. I found myself thinking "Just say the line already and move along to the next scene..." And these long boring scenes are made more boring by the lack of motion or movement by the characters. They literally stand looking at each other saying their lines without moving at all. Well, they DO move their lips, but nothing else. It's supposed to be emotional, so EMOTE!!!

Overall, while I found New Moon to be semi-boring, I'd still rate it a B-. I liked it, I just didn't love it. And I am pleased I was able to see it on opening day.

Remember Me

Remember Me

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

I am really looking forward to seeing Robert Pattinson in Remember Me. From the trailer it seems as though he has a pretty good performance. Very different from 'Edward' - which is a good thing.

14 Days!!!!!

Eeeek!!! Only 14 more days. 2 weeks. Whichever. I still can't believe it's almost here. Unfortunately, we won't be going to the midnight showing. Obviously. We have kids, and we can't just leave them alone in the house while we go off to see a movie in the middle of the night. So we will be going on Friday night. I'll take it. Nothing and nobody better get in my way.