Saturday, December 18, 2010

Saturday Ventures

YEAH!  Heard from Virpi and those items will catch Santa's ride to Finland this week!!!  Cool!



Abbie yesterday morning in one of her sweaters with fringe. I think she should model for Target puppy section don't you?



And a surprise package from Auntie Parsley!!

Cute stitckers Parsley. Love them!



Abbie was so excited to see this and I was too!



Her tail was waiting!



Oh yippee!  A beautiful sweater !!!!!
in mine and hers favorite color of pink!

She doesn't have one like this and I love the little doggie on the front!!!!!



Beautiful. Thank you, Aunti Parsley very much. You are so special.
Last year Parsley sent Ren a Christmas sweater and it is now Abbie's. She loves it too. I've counted now and she has 30 outfits, I know, that is an illness. LOL



I promise to get her pic in her new sweater real soon to post.

BG and myself are going shopping, yes, that's right shopping the weekend before Christmas. I will armor myself when going to the mall and believe me, he will be profiling everyone as I run hither and yonder in child-like excitement of the decor and the store fun! He says he has shopping to do too. We have decided to get a new bed for Christmas and are going shopping for that and mattresses too. So a full day ahead, and night.

Last night I slept 12 hours, couldn't believe it, woke up at 11:30am this morning. I must have been really tired from the week.

Tomorrow I have to finish Abigail's sampler and frame it. I got the frame for it this week at a Joanne's on a road trip Tuesday.



Thank you Parsley for these very cool Chi bookmarks!!!!!!  I will definitely use these and you know how I love chihauhaus.



Well, last night we had a nice fire which felt so good and probably made me very sleepy as well after we  returned from a Christmas party where I stuffed my stomach like no yonder. I literally felt like I needed spandex pants to attend such good food gatherings. ;)

It's overcast here today but fixing to take a road trip to Buford, Ga. where I'm sure the traffic is gridlocked because of the holiday but who knows what we will venture into today.

Hope your Saturday goes well too.

Till later,
Jennifer

Friday, December 17, 2010

Giveway goodies arrived this afternoon---need winner contact
















The winner of this give a way announced this week is Virpi from Finland. If you know an email address for her please let me know. If I still don't hear from her by Sunday night, I will be drawing another name for these goodies as Santa is ready to ship these. Next week, I will be working most of the week, so hoped to get these out tomorrow or if not, then on Monday.

    The wooden box with lifetime warranty heirloom scissors are eye candy and absolutely stunning. I should have ordered one myself but didn't. And as always Blackbird Designs are beautiful and includes the linen and threads for one of the patterns.

Hope the lucky winner enjoys these for years to come.


Thanks again,
Jennifer

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Christmas 2010 Give-a-way and some blinding news


 As promised, I used the random number generator to find the lucky winner of this package of stitching goodies and Santa is ready to send out when it arrives here really soon(crossing fingers).

The winner is Virpi from Finland!!!

She left her messages on Dec 1st! This girl is on the ready!!!!

Congrats to you and I hope you enjoy all your goodies!

Santa also will be putting in a few other things that you will like. I can't promise it will get there by Christmas but as soon as the order arrives (I ordered it on Thanskgiving and still not here from the ABC Stitch Therapy site), I will be glad to send to you. Just email me at jennifer.dalenberg@yahoo.com your mailing address.

Thanks to all for participating. There were 300 entries! 

This week has been a whirlwind of things that were not so Christmasy so for me,  is the biggest present I can receive and wanted,  is to be able to give something meaningful to somewhere who cares. So, my Christmas wish came true with the mailing of this to Finland.

Thank you again for all who took time out to leave comments. I read each and every one. I wished I could make all your Santa wishes come true. I really do. Some were heartbreaking to read especially those wishing family members to come, or call, or for the health of loved ones, for jobs and broken relationships to mend.
I hope that this Christmas your hopes do come true for each and every one of you.



Around the house this week>>>>>>>>>


Body guard has been out all night and still out now due to the state of emergency ice conditions which has caused over 100 or more accidents just last night in this area alone, this doesn't include Atlanta. The rain came and then the ice came. Ironically, he had to pick me up from 30 miles away as I had my eyes dilated AGAIN for a 2 hour procedure which did show irreversible optic nerve damage from being hit in the eyes years ago. We were so hoping that the intital tests were wrong, or that this couldn't really be happening but the hemmoraging is continuing in the back of the eye near the optc nerve and I am supposed to go again today for GDX testing to see how far it has progressed. Unfortunately there is very little they can do with traumatic glaucoma as it usually isn't detected for 20 years down the road after the blow to the eye socket.
As I had many blows to the eye socket by my X husband in the mid 80's, it is hard for me to really go through all this again with medical providers probing for questions about particular blows, how many, and such without starting to have flashbacks and nightmares again.

The plan is to keep the pressures low in the left eye with medication, which I learned from the eye doctor last evening, is common with this type of glaucoma. Most of the damage is done and set in motion by the time someone notices any symptoms years and years later. My peripheral vision tests are every 6 months for the rest of my life. There is already one tiny area of total black, it's very small but present. 

Yesterday I sat through exams on my eyes that I thought I could not ever tolerate. I used to never be able to put eye drops in, just totally freaked me out. But, you never know what you'll do when you learn you are going to go blind in an eye. They put suction cups on my eyeballs are numbing them many times and turned them around and the pulling of the suction cups and ocular lenses off my eyeballs was something I've never experienced. By the time they had finished 2 hours later, the numbing solutions had drained down my tear ducts to the back of my nose and throat and it was hard to swallow for a while.
She was hoping that the next set of digital pictures (last set was around week before Thanksgiving) didn't show the hemmorhaging in the back of the eye but it is still there which she said is not good news.

Prior to all this I did get my new lenses into my glasses for the computer and close up reading. This time they were good. They aren't designed to correct the distance problems though but I have prescription sunglasses to wear for that and will avoid night driving at all as lights are really hurtful to my eyes, they look much bigger than they really are.

While I can, I will be stitching and reading like crazy. That's all I kept thinking about yesterday is not seeing to stitch or read would be horrible as this is my love. But time will tell and I'm sure everything is for a purpose, usually a greater purpose that we can't "see" literally at all and maybe not meant to for this life.

Fixing to see how the road conditions are. Our roads are completely glossed over with ice sheets and I have 3 things I need to do this afternoon. Many schools are closed. I may be in for a long weekend. Glad I finished my Christmas shopping, the little bit I did; however, I was hoping to go Saturday to finish some things up. We'll see if the temps unthaw by then.
Amazing Grace,
Jennifer



Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sunday snow is coming, yes, in the south. Let it SNOW!


Abigail Rennee

is hoping for more snow

while she is dozing by the fireplace

and visions of snowflakes dance in her head


She has her inside jacket that says, "Baby, it's COLD outside!" over her T today.

Watching Bodyguard take wood back and forth to the fireplace,

then she settles back down for a short little nap

before time to play.

Me?  I just designed a sampler with this inspiration and anticipation of the snow tonight!

When I first woke up at 8am, and looked out the window at the snow dusting, I was as happy as a child of about eight.



Oh, yeah, bring it on, more, more, MORE>



It was frosty enough for a cup of hot tea I had stashed away from our Boston trip this year.



And it is the LEADED kind. I usually drink decaf, but no coffee in the pantry.



I plopped a few Cranberry and Holly scented tart melts in the warmer to get the house cozy.



and looked at my towels I have placed in the old wood bowl and was even in the mood more for snowy weather.



I put out a pillowkeep I made last year. The design is from The Sampler Girl.



The quilted angel, the snow sampler, and some sprigs of lavender all made the morning calmer.



Abbie just became one with the sofa cushions while I did a little dabbling with designing snowflakes this morning.

I promise to share tomorrow, hopefully with some snow pictures as we are supposed to get the snow mostly tonight! 

The word.   SNOW

 Snow.
 Fireplace burning.
 Cranberry and Holly scent.
 A warm, cute puppy.
 Snow stitching and designing all day.
Long Janes all day.
Hot tea.

Now, that's what I call a perfect day.