Surgery

 I know this is sort of gross, but...it's life.  I had carpel tunnel surgery done on both my wrists on Friday, along with injections in both thumbs for arthritis.  My thumbs have been giving me a lot of trouble, and while I was having the surgery, Dr. Crane said they might as well give me the injections.  I guess they aren't very comfortable to get, so while I was out they did it.  The wrote on my wrists, my thumbs, and my knee with sharpie.  I guess Dr. Crane likes to make sure he's doing the right thing.  I had my wrists and knee bandaged up until this morning when I took everything off.  It is pretty uncomfortable, but not too bad. I guess everything will take time, but so far...so good.  You can see how my palm is black and blue.  Most Dr.'s cut clear through your palm, but Dr. Crane just makes a little slit in your wrist and goes in with a scope.  I only have one stitch in each wrist.

 I had an ACL done several years ago (by Dr. Crane) and this staple had backed out and was bothering me.  He said they might as well take it out while I was out also.  I guess he had a pair of vise grips on it, another pair of pliers, and was hitting it with a hammer trying to get it out.  It's huge!  I never would have guessed.

You can see the "yes" to the right of the photo.  Not pretty, but now maybe I can kneel down.  My leg hurts almost as much as my wrists do.  I'll be glad to get going again.

Busy Sewing

 I have the chance to get another quilt done this year, so I jumped at it.  I still have alot to do before I have one done for every grandchild.  This time though, I had a very tough time picking a quilt pattern that I really liked.  I got out all my quilt books (this is a very small portion) and poured over them.  I picked my fabric, and still couldn't decide what to make.  But finally just went for it.

 I like this selection of fabric.  I bought it a couple of years ago, and just hadn't used it.  I've decided I really need to start using what I have stashed before something happens to me, and Danelle and Stephanie have to come and clean out my closets...they would wonder what the heck I was thinking...When I finally decided on a pattern, I had to go buy some background fabric anyway...a cream color.

 I went through several sheets of paper trying to figure out what to cut and how much and what order I wanted the colors to go in.  Making a quilt top is quite involved and takes alot of planning.  At least it does for me.  And even then...it's a roll of the dice.

 Here are some of my pieces.  All labeled with the letter they represent.

 I started sewing blocks, and discovered that I cut twice as many as needed on some of them...I forgot that you sewed them and then cut them in half...so I may be making another pinwheel out of these colors.

 Anyway, I have it put together except for two side.  All the pieced to the left.  I have the top and bottom on, and just need to do the same thing down the sides.  When it's all finished, I'll post another photo where you can see the complete pattern.  But I'm pretty happy that I got this much done. 

This Friday I'm having surgery on both wrists, so I'll be out of commission for awhile, and I wanted to get this done before then.  I also got a project done for the blog hop, so I'm doing pretty well.

More of those Grinch photos

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve, especially since so many people dressed up and posed for photos and were willing to have fun with us.  Thanks to our family.  You are all so awesome.

Ten things

I went to a website for a class tonight, and found something that was very interesting to me.  I would like to do it, and I'm going to write the ten things here for all of you.  Maybe you'd be interested in answering these also.  It may take me awhile to come up with the answers...but that's okay.  I can just picture a scrapbook layout with "me" as the star.  I never do layouts about me, but I think this one might be fun.
Here you go:
Ten: "esstentials" that I can not scrapbook without
Nine:  Words I love are:
Eight: Things that make me smile
Seven:  Things I love about my "everyday" life
Six:  Places I'd love to visit before I die
Five:  Things I do everyday- without fail
Four:  Websites/stores that I frequent
Three: Photos I love
Two:  Decisions I've never regretted
One:  additional & very important thing you should know about me

I can't wait to write these things down and record them for my kids and grandkids.  Maybe it's time to scrapbook some of the things that are important to me so they'll know me a little better.  Boy, would I love to have something like that from my mother, grandmother and further back.  Wouldn't you love to know what your great-great grandmother found important, what she did everyday, the work that was expected of her, her life in general?  I would give almost anything to know things like that.  We have very few stories or photos of my family of long ago.  Jeff has some books and life stories, but we've never had much of anything. 
I accept the challenge!

Quilt time

Doris  called and told me that she would do another quilt for me if I would get the top sewn together real quick, so I got out the fabric that I want to use, and have been going through magazines trying to find one that works with it.  So far, I've found lots of quilts that I like, but not the ONE...the one that says...pick me for these fabrics.  I guess I've got to decide soon though, because I've spent a week looking at everything so far.  Tonight...I'll decide and get started.  Yeah.... another quilt this year.

Another day

This fall, Jeff took Mom and I up to North Heglar to pick chokecherries.  We got around 5 gallons, and mom steamed them and made a concentrated juice.  For Christmas, I made syrup from it, and put it in pint jars.  I then cut circles of flannel fabric to go over the top, and made these labels.  For a couple of the gifts, I added a pint of frozen raspberry jam and put the two jars in a black metal jar holder I picked up at WalMart.  For the people at work, I just gave each of them the chokecherry syrup.  They really turned out cute I thought.  I miss judged how much syrup it would make though.  I used three quarts of juice, and ended up with about 9 pints and 1 quart of syrup.  I finished giving the rest of it to Sally and her mother when they came out Friday night. 
The cool thing is, we had fun taking mom to pick the berries, and I got some nice homemade gifts from it.

I screwed up big time

Yesterday, Jeff and I were going to take a drive, so we got up early and thought we'd go to JB's and have breakfast (with our Braquel, of course).  We also thought we'd take our snow shoes that we got last year, but have never used yet.  So, we packed our snow clothes and were getting ready to leave, when I grabbed my camera bag of the counter in the utility...and had a terrible accident.  When I put my camera in the bag a couple days ago, I didn't zip it up, and when I grabbed it, the camera fell out onto the tile floor.  Crash...my heart stopped.
When I picked it up, the lens was broken, and so was my heart.  I started crying immediately.  I had saved for several years to buy a new camera, and now I'm holding it and the lens' is all cracked, dented, ruined.  I couldn't quit crying.  Even now, as I'm writing this I'm crying again. 
We went ahead and left, Jeff fed the horses, and then asked if I was still crying.  Of course I was!  He asked if I had a filter on the lens, and I said yes.  He told me he thought it was just the filter that broke, so we came back in the house and ...maybe...we can't get it to come off because it's dented.  But I took a photo, and I could see it on the screen okay.  I just don't know yet, whether it will be okay or not.
I remember that Robin said when she dropped hers, it ruined the camera.  So, I'm not sure.  I guess I'll take it to Idaho Camera and see if they can check it out.  Maybe get the filter off and see if the lens' is ruined or can be saved.  Or if the camera body is even any good now.  I'm just heart sick!

January exchange cards

You'll recognize my snowflake cards from my blog hop.  As long as I was making them, I decided to use them for my exchange cards also.  The theme this month was to use "scraps".  I always have a ton of scraps.  I loved using some of them up.  Why not join the exchange?

Photo shoot for Sally

 The whole family.

Sally asked me if I would have time to take some photos for her family.  Her sister Emily, had arranged for a friend to take them, but then she had to leave.  I love taking photos...but when it's an actual photo shoot, where people are depending on me to take "great" shots...I get very nervous.  What if none of them turn out, and it's the only time the whole family can get together, they had even bought all matching clothes...I was nervous.  Then when I got there, they were using a fireplace with recessed lights above it, which reflected on the marble...it cast alot of shadows...not all the kids wanted to have their photos taken...it was a bit of a challenge.  But all in all, they weren't too bad.  Hopefully her family will enjoy them and can use them.  Here are a few of the ones I took for Jason and Sally.  What a good looking family huh?

New year

This was a photo we took to try out our backdrop on Christmas Eve.  What a wonderful family I have!  It's a great time whenever we get together, and this year...I want to spend more time with all of them.

January Blog Hop

 This was my first "glittery" project.  I wanted to put glitter on some chipboard snowflakes and then use them for my thank you cards.  I started with a big bag of chipboard flakes...I think I bought them from Oriental Trading a year or so ago.  Figured it was time to use them.

 Next, I painted each of them with mod podge and then sprinkled them with silver glitter.  They turned out quite pretty I thought.  After they were dry, I sprayed them with a fixative so the glitter wouldn't come off so easy.

 I made twenty of them...along with that many cards.  I used  most of them, and then I'll use five for the exchange this month.

I made this snowman a few years ago, but Tori gave us the glass blocks.  I love them.  I took down my Christmas decorations yesterday, and then put up this for the month of January.  

 This is the last project I did.  I wanted to put something up in my cubby hole in the dining room for winter.  Today I went out and cut the SNW from wood.  My scroll saw broke though, and I had to finish them with the band saw, which I'm not nearly as good at running.  Hopefully I can get a part to fix the scroll saw.  Anyway, I painted them white, and then covered a couple of letters with glittery paper.  I then mod podged the N and covered it all over with glitter. I used a big bell for the "o", but I think I probably need to glitter it or at least spray paint it white so it matches better...but, I knew I was already way late posting today, so I just took a photo.  I really like how it turned out though.

The blog hop is a lot of fun, and I would love it if more people would do it.  It encourages me to do a little extra something each month.  Check out Ashley and Danelle's blogs for more fun ideas!