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.

Dakota Skye

The official description of Dakota Skye might not draw in viewers - it sounds really corny. I decided to watch it after it kept showing up in my suggestions on Netflix. If you have Netflix, it's available for instant viewing - which is why I watched it last night after trick-or-treating. I liked that the whole 'superpower' aspect is seriously downplayed throughout the movie. It's basically a movie about coming of age and learning who - and HOW - to trust. The characters seem very real, have great chemistry, most of the acting was terrific, and it has a really good soundtrack. It does start off a little slow, but it starts picking up after about 30 minutes, and there is some really terrific (but sporadic) cinematography. Probably best enjoyed by those in their late-teens and early twenties who can easily relate to the high school age drama, but I really enjoyed it (and I'm 41).

Happy Halloween!!!

I received this wonderful handmade Halloween card from a terrific customer!! Isn't it just the cutest??? And the picture of Robert she used on the card is simply perfect. Thank you!


We went to the pumpkin patch last weekend. It stopped raining for a few hours, so we thought we better get going!! Grandma came over for a visit, so she went with us. And now that I am trying to find a good photo to use, I realize that I didn't get many good shots. That sucks.

Etsy Gift Guide

One of my Twilight/New Moon zippered pouches made it into an Etsy Gift Guide titled "An Inspired Dark Romance." How cool is that?!?!?!?

Bright Star

I really wanted to see Bright Star in the theatre, but it looks like that won't be happening. So I will have to wait until it comes out on DVD. It looks really good. Bright Star is a drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats’ untimely death at age 25.

This is the book that I borrowed from the library to learn more about Keats. It is 656 pages long, and no, I didn't read the entire book. But it is very detailed, and very informative. Here is a wonderful compilation on the history of John Keats and Fanny Brawne. If you have the chance, read the letters that John wrote to Fanny. They are truly beautiful.