It's been an amazing week!

Wow!!! Fasten your seat belt and hold on... enjoy the ride... that's what this past week has felt like for me! 


First off, I was privileged to have an article published in an online magazine called "SoCrafty!"  You can see my article here.  "SoCrafty" has asked me to make regular contributions, what an honor! Now I will definitely be busy coming up with new ideas for the articles!



I'm busy working on my newest design, but I can't reveal what it is yet! That's because I'm running a contest at my online crochet group to guess the design and win the pattern! 


The other huge thing that happened this week is that my dream of writing a crochet book with all my designs may be realized sooner than I thought! I lost my visual ability to switch back and forth quickly from one thing to another. I have 15 years of crochet patterns all written down in notebooks, and I'm not able to type them up without a lot of difficulty because of the eyesight thing. Well, my girlfriend Heidi has come to the rescue and offered to type them all up for me and turn them into wonderful text docs that I can manipulate as I wish. This is a dream come true for me!! I really do want to save my designs for posterity, and I will be working hard at making this book happen!



Now for the really fun stuff... I got to take a little trip to Kansas City this past weekend to see my sister, Celia, and Sally, my BFF.  Sally had a very critical illness last fall and I was recovering from the hip surgery so I couldn't make the trip down until now. I hadn't seen Celia since last summer. We got a really neat hotel room and took our little baby Ladybug with us... she is an excellent bye-bye dog! It was her first hotel, first elevator ride, lots of other firsts... and she handled it all in stride!  Here she is, making herself at home on the hotel bed. 

Here she is, making herself at home on the hotel bed. 

Later on, my sister brought over my little precious "niece," Lucy Liu, a tiny Yorkie. She is Ladybug's BFF and they had a ball playing together! 

Left, my sis Celia holding Ladybug, Lucy Liu peeking through, and me.

Later on, Celia and her husband Randy took us to a fabulous buffet dinner at the Argosy Casino. And yes, we did manage to lose just a few coins there! We all had a blast.  

The amazing entrance to the Argosy Casino.
The night sky is all painted but it fooled me!

Ron, left and my brother-in-law Randy chat while Celia
and I are yapping and playing with the furkids.

Ladybug got to cuddle with her aunt Sally and she was a perfect little lady while visiting there all day Sunday.  Sally and I had an awesome time visiting, and her husband Ron made us all a fabulous dinner.  Then Ron (my Ron, LOL) and I stopped for some of our favorite HiBoy burgers and headed back north.  It was a perfect weekend and it did me SO much good to see my two girls!! 

Ladybug loved snuggling with her aunt Sally! The pretty girl
in the background is my fairy-grand-goddaughter, Lacey.

Well, I guess that's enough excitement for one week - and this week has barely started! Love it!!


– Sheila

Not Christmas, But Sure Feels Like It!

Ever had a day where you wake up and feel like it's Christmas morning and you're running to the tree to collect your gifts? This is one of those days for me! I just knew there would be good news in my email (there was) and some great opportunity looms on the horizon.  LOVE days like this! I am very excited to start work on a brand new crochet design today. It's a SECRET!!  It's something I've had a couple of requests to do, and something I've meant to make for years. Something everybody in the whole world needs, too! So, wish me luck, I hope it turns out as well as I'm imagining!

Kind of disappeared a little for awhile, Koby's passing really threw me. (If you haven't read my prior posts, Koby was one of my rescue schnauzers who battled diabetes and finally lost. You can read about him here).  Anyway, here is a photo of Koby in much happier times. He adored his "swimmie pool," I always kept it for him every summer. I miss the little guy terribly. 

We had quite the adventure when we took five dogs in for vaccinations at the local low-cost vax clinic for area rescues. I'd never been to one before, and our budget demanded we give it a try! It was a snowy, windy day, about 18º outside, ice everywhere to walk on... my worst nightmare with two new hips!) But I didn't fall, we managed not to freeze to death, and all the furkids have their shots. Whew. Ron really was a huge help moving the dogs around.  Here they are playing in the snow during the huge snowstorm earlier this month. 

Got out my jewelry stuff to play in and had a great time with my friend Heidi the other night. I had orders for two of the Rainbow Bridge Memorial Gemstone Bracelets. I selected the stones and then turned Heidi loose on laying them out in her preferred design. I think they turned out really pretty, don't you agree?

I really need to start playing jewelry again. I tend to put it aside for long periods of time and then go back to it. 

I spent a lot of time this month sorting out my own costume jewelry and getting rid of the stuff I don't wear or like anymore. 

I'm not sure what it is about rainbows, they just make me happy! The person gets to pick their focal (standout) stone to memorialize an occasion of a particular month. People really seem to appreciate them.  The first one is an October focal that I designed using blue Peruvian opal, white opals, a pink Peruvian opal, and Opalite. 

Here's something new I've been doing the last month or so. There is this site called Listia.com. It works a lot like eBay with auctions, but you GIVE away your items! People bid points which you collect and then use to buy stuff from other people's auctions. It's beautifully simple, really. A very common auction on there is a "stuffed purse." Here is my first stuffed purse auction. It's a blue Coach bag stuffed with various goodies. I'm hoping to get lots of points from this one! Anyway, if you have a lot of stuff you don't want anymore, this is a great place to get rid of it! 

Well, I need to get busy crocheting on that secret project now! Hugs to the world - Sheila