9 Things I'm Really Grateful For!

1. My fairy goddaughter, Chelsea. 

I had inspiration strike on a gift for her yesterday. Her mom told me she has been baking up a storm, and the child is only 11! She is SO smart and just a wonderful little girl. She mentioned she guessed she would have to get her an apron or something. 

My Chels with my Ladybug

Well, Sheila does aprons!!!! I used to do a lot of them as gifts. I'd take a blank apron, fabric paints laid out in a palette, a brush, and go to town. I would applique on scraps of fabric, decorations, embroidery, whatever... they were always multimedia and they were FUN. I haven't done one in years. So I had to go to JoAnn today and pick up everything. My fabric paints (wherever they are) are many years old, so I picked up just a few colors. I found an adorable cupcake applique and a little sequined star applique.  Aprons just went on 1/2 price for the weekend sale, yay! Now I think I need a cute little saying to put on it somewhere.   So that's one gift that will take some major time but I'm very excited about doing something different. And yes, it will have crochet on it in some form, somewhere!! 

2) The weather. (It should be snowy at Christmas!) We have lots of snow on the ground now and it looks very Christmasy out. I hadn't gone out in several days up til today. Brrr!!! I need to make myself another scarf sometime to go with my brown mood that I have going.  I worked on Christmas decorating all week – I have to do some and then rest a bit, so it takes awhile. I used to "psycho Christmas decorate" and for the last few years I've kept things to a bare minimum due to health. But this year, I've actually gone a little more toward my "normal psycho!"  Here's a couple of pictures of progress so far. 

3) My best friend Sally was put in the hospital again this week, I would sure appreciate your prayers and/or good thoughts for her. We have been best friends for 30 years. Her daughter is the mom of my fairy goddaughters I mentioned above.  I'm grateful because two days ago she was in critical condition and now she's stable. 

4) A party to go to! Trying to decide whether I could whip out a small shawl in 24K yarn to wear to a Christmas party the 18th. Probably not, right? But I wanna.... I'm very excited, this Christmas I actually feel like going out and doing some things for the first time in soooo many years! 

5) Friends to make gifts for! I'm taking a break from crocheting for a few minutes to write this. I am making my crocheted kitchen towels as usual for a couple special friends.  So far, I've made headband earwarmers, a whole bunch of crocheted hair ties (elasticized bands), a scarf (which isn't actually finished yet), and of course my brown vest (which I am going to be doing demolition and major remodeling to sometime this winter - I wasn't happy with the rear end). 

Today I finished two Swarovski crystal (12 mm!!) illusion necklaces. Those two are plain with no pendant. They need no further adornment!!! I also did a pearl illusion necklace with a cluster pendant made up of a silver cross, a big Swarovski rock, and a silver/crystal button. You can see how to make them here . 

There are so many things I'd like to make for gifts and just so little time. I'd love to give everyone an afghan, or something equally big. There isn't isn't time. But that's ok, that's why God made Amazon:) 

6) A cool place to sell my designs! 


HEY I don't usually promote this a lot - but if you have a friend who crochets, you must see the Sterling Silver Crochet Hook earrings I designed at my CafePress store. They come in heart shape, oval, or round and are small dangles. Very pretty, and affordable!! I also have a zillion other Crochet themed gifts on there - many kinds of shirts, jackets, calendars, license plate frames, note cards, Christmas cards, mouse pads, coffee cups, iPhone cases, and so much more!  What a great way to celebrate your love of Crochet! 

Some of my artwork themes are "Hooked on Crochet," "I'm The Other Happy Hooker," "Who Needs This (Chocolate) When I Have Crochet," and several other artwork designs without sayings - like my pretty jeweled crochet hook with a gemstone dangling from it! It really is fun stuff, it's affordable, and they ship directly to you or anyone you choose.  Best of all, the profits go straight to my Miniature Schnauzer rescue.  SO... just click here , and I would LOVE to hear what you think of my designs! Here is one of the necklaces and earrings.  They have the same design as the T-shirt below. 

                

7)  - Grateful for something way-cool that happened to me! Guess it's ok to toot my own horn on my own blog just a little bit! At Thanksgiving time, in between cooking I spent the day writing on a "lens" (what they call a web page) at Squidoo.com.  It's a very unique site where you can write websites on just about anything you want, and I've been working my butt off for months doing just that. Well, they had a contest on Thanksgiving for the best Thanksgiving themed lens. I did one on my entire Thanksgiving dinner - everything from shopping to what to do with the leftovers, and turned it in. I was thrilled when they picked mine as one of the 25 winners! There was also an Amazon gift certificate as a prize! I wanted something really special to commemorate getting paid for my writing for the first time, so i picked out some really special earrings that spoke to me. It was SO much fun!!  It just feels really good to have someone applaud your work. I think that's just being human:) Anyway, if you're interested, you can read the piece here. 

8) I'm making huge strides with physical strength with my new hip. (Or, hips!) I think I mentioned I ditched the walker a couple of weeks ago and I have just sent it to retire in the attic, hopefully forever. I just noticed today it's been 60 days since the last surgery. I was out shopping and saw a beautiful glass ornament with just the word, "HOPE" on it. It's now hanging near my desk. It hit me so hard when I saw it - with these two surgeries, I have HOPE for a much better life now!! Not to sound sappy, but it's so true. I was to the point this time last year that I had lost all hope for anything but a life full of constant agony. I am so grateful that I am not in that place anymore. 

9) Looks like the plans are settling into place for Christmas. The daughter will be flying out east to spend Christmas with her new boyfriend. The son will be home with his girlfriend. Hopefully I will get to make a little trip down to see my BFF in Kansas City before the holiday. I really need to see her. 

Everybody stay safe, have a great holiday weekend!