young and fabulous, yes indeedy!

My cousin sent me a birthday card ... LOL ... OH YEAH, young and fabulous, that's me! (more like older than dirt but still moving hahhahahhaha)

Had some pre-birthday birthday fun over the weekend on Saturday ... first the wonderful Road to California Quilt Show, out in mega WINDY Ontario and then a fun modern ballet, based on the music of Sarah McLachlan, "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy".

I had fun but could have had a whole lot more hahahha

The ballet was lovely, such beautiful images
made with the human body. And I adore Sarah McLachlan.


And here's my very first mini sampler 

that I showed you a sneak peek of earlier,
for my partner Marti ...

Happy Monday!

groovy stuff

January 20th was the 21st anniversary of the day hubs and I met ... twenty one years ... just flew by!

WHOOSH! 

On Tuesday, I mailed my first mini sampler off to my partner, Marti, in Linda's swap, A Swap For All Seasons. Per the good old USPS, Marti will be receiving it today so I'm going to share a little bit with you.

I found this saying/quote online to use on my card for Marti.

A bit of a peek at my sampler for Marti.

I had so much fun making it for you Marti!

I know it sounds hokey but I love being creative, it's where I feel true joy and feel connected. I hope to do lots more this year!

Happy almost weekend, my crafty friends!

catching up

Even though we were sick, we had a whirlwind of activity over Christmas week. I think we've been paying for it ever since though - hubby's cold morphed into a bad sinus infection and cough and I've got zero energy and allergies. We've been like sloths ever since.

We did drag ourselves out for New Year's Eve dinner though. We went to the same wonderful place we went to on Xmas Eve, this time for their NYE Sushi Tasting Menu. Eight super duper tasty tasty sushi's. All vegan. YUMMERS! They gave us a hat and a tiara as a gift this time ... and took the worlds worst photo of us which will not be seeing the light of day EVER, hahhahhahahha.

 

I just remembered, I don't think I ever mentioned that we saw a performance of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey a few weeks ago with two English actors and ... PUPPETS!!!

And I'm so excited! I'm participating in a year long swap hosted by lovely Linda of A Swap For All Seasons. We are to make a mini fabric sampler for our partners each month, which we can ultimately make into a garland/banner when the year is through, if we choose to. How fun it will be to have a garland of 12 hand sewn samplers! 

This is quite a challenge for me but I'm really excited and looking forward to it. Started pulling down some boxes of fabric yesterday and I'm rather overwhelmed with ideas at the moment. My mind is off and running and going a million directions LOL. Anyway, I'll hope to share my progress with you over the coming year. 

Happy New Year and new adventures to you!

happy new year

Hoping you all had a fun NYE and wishing you abundant good health and much happiness in 2015! We've been enjoying moving at a slow pace over here during my husbands holiday break and thankful there's still another week left to hopefully catch up on some of the many movies we missed in 2014. Or maybe just be couch potatoes for awhile longer.

I don't make resolutions or set goals for each new year but I am doing a lot of reflecting on things of late (being of a certain age now), eager for simpler, less complicated days and more meaningful ones.

 

Happy New Year to you!

christmas eats

When I wrote about the fun event we went to last weekend, I forgot to say that Charles Phoenix made us dessert too! Drum roll ... "Twink and Ho" Trifle in honor of the Twinkie and Ho Ho Factory where the event was held. Retro foodie fun fun fun! It looked great but I was too skeeerrred to eat it with all that high fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring and flavoring and preservatives LOL. Not an eighth of a teaspoon of real food in that bwahhahhahahhaha

We were all on our own for Christmas yesterday and we pretty much napped and read and ate the day away. We did go out to our favorite vegan restaurant for Christmas dinner and had a wonderful time as always. They always take a photo on special occasions, so nice to have a memento from the evening. There was a special three course meal for Christmas with an optional dessert course. Yummy in my tummy!!!

 Red and White Christmas Soup

New York Rockefeller Terrine

 Holiday Gift Box

Frosty's Frozen Fantasy

Sorry, terrible picture. The dessert was so charming, a snowman with a chalet and decorated tree. Hoping you can see it better in the photo on the menu ... and they sent us home with snowman cookies too.

Our neighbors must have stopped by while we were out to dinner because my husband found a Christmas card and plate of cookies their kids made for us on our porch when he went out for our paper early this morning. I feel so sad, we only enter through our front door when we've gone for a walk and since we drove home, they must have sat out all night long sniffle sniffle ... 

woof woof Merry Christmas

a very reluctant Rudolph ...

 

Holiday frivolity continues unabated over here LOL ... poor Missy got dragged into the act ... for a biscuit.

Tuesday we had the immense pleasure of going to see (the 89 years young!) Angela Lansbury in a revival of Noel Coward's, "Blithe Spirit". Fun fun fun. 

We had a lovely time on Christmas Eve at my cousins home. We're on our own today for Christmas. Hubby made me french toast for breakfast and there'll be lots of Christmas movie viewing.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

holiday happenings

To the tune of Jingle Bells, we're "Coughing all the way" through the holidays over here. Sheesh, will this monster of a bug leave town, puhleeeezze! Nevertheless, we are out and about and celebrating the season a bit. Fa la la la la ...  Gingerbread cookies have been eaten snarf snarf ...

and more Christmas cards made ...

Saturday night we saw the wonderful Irish accoustic band Lunasa in concert with singer Karan Casey at the Broad Theater, for A Celtic Holiday. Beautiful haunting music and Karan Casey's gorgeous voice.

And more merry making on Sunday! I've wanted to see Charles Phoenix for years and finally got to see his Retro Holiday Slide Show over the weekend. HYSTERICAL! Laughed for two hours straight without a pause. The event took place at the former Twinkie and Ho Ho Factory!!! - which has become Modernica Props, a gigantic movie prop rental company. Vintage lovers take a seat before you get the vapors and pass out on me --- filled to overflowing with mid century wonderfulness.

Holiday attire was suggested and we silly kids couldn't resist
bwahhahhahha ...

Happy almost Christmas!

santa's on his way

The up side to having the mean old bug and unrelenting strangling cough from you-know-where, that hangs onto you (and hubby even more so!) for dear life and won't let go, is having plenty of crafty play time!  I can't seem to stop making holiday cards LOL. I think a snowman card is next on the list ... "in the meadow we can build a snowman ..."

Meanwhile, Thanksgiving is still up in the living room and I'm hoping I can remember where my feather tree went to before Christmas Eve??!

The list is long long long of events planned and eagerly looked forward to (some all year long WAH!) that we've missed this December. But today we're off to a play, loaded down with smiles, kleenex and a boat load of lozenges. All appendages crossed for no lengthy coughing fits.



Happy (hale and hearty!) Holidays to you!

a crafty happy holidays to you

Santa's Workshop is chugging along over here ... 

making Christmas cards today!

thanksgiving happy mail culmination and woohoo celebration of thankfulness of lovely crafty friends

sick as a noodle over here ... cough cough hack hack ... sort of like the walking dead, except it's more like the barely moving ...

Hubby teaches elementary school, the Petri dish of new and old fashioned viruses. No escaping the germs of 32 children - each armed with a nuclear arsenal of ickyness hahahhaha - and bringing it home to the wifey.

So we had a different holiday vacation week than we had planned - the hubby leading the way with the dastardly bug and then my being walloped and flattened by it on Friday. Each of us in denial, swearing it was bad allergies, it must be allergies, until the coughing. Will it ever end??!

We went out to dinner as planned on Thanksgiving (we were going to forfeit our deposit if we didn't, so decided to give it a try), my poor husband coughing into a handkerchief throughout the evening. I was just at that tipping point of feeling weird and low energy, but thinking I might just not get it. HAH! Take that Sally! Neener neener the weasely bug said to me. 

Smacked me down early morning on Friday.

But that's enough whining! 

Time to report the arrival of more thanksgiving happy mail (above)!  Vivian's adorable card arrived, accompanied by the cutest thanksgiving stationery. Thank you thank you thank you Viv, love everything, so charming and so very sweet of you.

And here are the cards I made for everyone ... and I enclosed a couple fall leaf die cuts from paper I watercolored and some acorns in each ... I had so much fun!

Thanks enormous bunches dear Pam, Patty, Debbie, Joyce and Viv! I had the best time making cards for you guys and eagerly looked forward to the arrival of yours, like a little kid. It was so great the way it worked out, everyone's darling cards arriving on a different day, bringing smiles across the miles, again and again.

Hope you all enjoyed yourselves too!

Happy week to everyone!