Quick note: Happy Halloween

Just a quick note to let you know there will be more freebies soon. Right now things are a little chaotic. Doing a tea party for grand-daughter tomorrow so lots of preparation. Also, situation with my niece just isn't working out. She's very headstrong and wants to do whatever pleases her, doesn't want any parenting, doesn't want any rules (says I'm too organized because I want to know things like when she will be home, who she is with, and have dinner & evening snack within a certain time period). In short, she doesn't like how we do things here and we have had enough of her attitude so told her parents it is best for her to return to their house. Her father is supposed to come on Sunday to move the bulk of her things out. Oh well, we tried. Anyway, this means it's going to be a rough weekend but things will get back to what passes for normal here soon. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Sometimes we all could use a lift

Was thinking about a dear friend who is going through a rough spot when I got a message in my inbox from Queens Kathy & Cindy. I've probably shared a link to their website before, but it bears repeating. Who are these "queens"? You probably remember the flamboyant Mimi from the Drew Carey show? that would be Kathy and Cindy is her friend of many years. Their blog is called Queen Of Your Own Life and is well worth a visit: http://www.queenofyourownlife.com/home You will find adorable cards with all kinds of positive messages that are empowering. Sign up for weekly inspirations and you won't be disappointed. Here is a recent favorite:

I suggested to my friend that she post it to her desktop. I'm sure you will find something that speaks to you too.

Country Christmas freebie

Been a busy day: doctor appointment, exercise at pool, grocery shopping. Just added Country Christmas to store:

12 full size papers and 24 elements. PU & S4H Here is a simple qp made from it for you. Note: frames are not in kit.

http://www.4shared.com/zip/qKXx9jVsce/ws_CountyChristmas_qp.html?

Another week begins

and here I am, at the PC as I let my tummy calm down. Having some digestive issues so not a good idea to lie down and try to sleep. This past week seemed to fly by. Weather has been bouncing around here in Tidewater and that (& stress) has triggered two migraines. The first wasn't bad but Friday's lingered into late Saturday afternoon and by then I was too exhausted to want to do anything. Still, I did accomplish a couple things last week: went for my annual GYN exam with a new doc. Think she's from Brazil. Very nice. She said since all my past PAP tests had been free of problems, I will no longer have to get that done. While in vicinity, I made a follow up visit with my primary care doc for this coming Monday. The best thing was managing to go to the pool 2 days and exercise without putting myself in too much pain for days after. Aiming for 3 days this week and then stay on a regular schedule.

I've been getting into tea party mode. Spent some time (too much) on Pinterest collecting tea quotes for a little paste book I want to make and looking for new recipes to try. When I give a tea party, I go about it in a big way lol. Typically, I make my own invitations, decorate the dining room, hang an appropriate flag outside the front door. I make up treat bags for each guest and plan the menu to include a salad &/or savory course, followed by scones and spreads, and finished up with a sweet course. And tea, of course! Sometimes I'll have an activity for guests. especially younger guests. This time it's going to be such a chore just to remove excess stuff from dining room, clear table, and find a place to put all the misplaced items, that I'm taking a number of shortcuts. I sent a Halloween card with tea party invitation written in. I decided that since Halloween will be over with the day before, I'll just call this a Fall Tea or Pumpkin Party Tea and go easy on Halloween elements. I've got a fall leaf garland that I will drape and will use a fall tablecloth, cheating with paper napkins. For our first course, I'm making pumpkin dip to go with red and green apple slices. We'll consider that a "salad." Tea sandwiches will be simple homemade egg salad and I'll cut bread with a pumpkin cookie cutter and make up ham and cheese sandwiches. There will also be cheese popcorn on the side for crunch. For the scone course, I'm going to try a recipe that is supposed to be the one Queen Elizabeth gives to her family members. It's just a basic scone and yes, I'll make it up first early in the week to make sure it turns out well. To go with the scones, lemon curd, orange marmalade, and faux Devonshire cream. Will try to go by the local British Shoppe to see if they have any real Double Devonshire in stock but good to have a backup plan. For the sweets course, I've got Kroger's Lemon shortbread cookies and will pick up some mini cupcakes instead of baking those myself. For tea, we will drink Stash's wonderful Chai. The aroma alone is delicious! It's cold and flu season so I'm going practical with the treat bags: cough drops, pocket tissue packs, lip balm, small hand sanitizer, and a Skittles Halloween character. We will try playing Halloween bingo, using candy corn as markers. Not sure what prize will be yet. And there will be tulle wrapped parcels of candy corn and pumpkins for each guest to take home. Will see if my niece and the other Rachel can take some photos for us to share. Gathered a lot of ideas for next couple of tea parties too. An easy way to waste time. Was going to show you a photo of the snuggle sack and bunny lovey I made for Nicole's baby but can't figure out how to get my printer to read the camera card with new PC.

Halloween freebie

Just some vintage Halloween images collected over the years. Pulic domain so use as you would like.

Oops, link in post didn't show. Trying again to add it. http://www.4shared.com/zip/BECivKV4ce/ss4cu_VintageHalloween_freebie.html?

Pumpkin Party Sales

http://digistyledesigns.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=86 See designs at Digi Style Designs

Quick Post & freebie

Just a quick post tonight. There's football on the TV so I'm hiding out in the computer room to be away from some of the noise. Just really tired but it's almost time for me to go in and fix the family their nightly snack so I'm working on a set of simple autumn papers. Have a simple little freebie for you tonight - a treat bag topper. It fits the top of Ziplock sandwich baggies. We're on a main street so don't get treat-or-treaters. Most people now take their children to shopping malls, churches or schools for Halloween festivities. But I usually have a little something on hand for grandchildren, the man who cuts our grass and so forth. I recommend using the "print to edge" option on your printer, and if you use cardstock you will get a crisper, nicer looking topper.

Link: http://www.4shared.com/zip/UMWhqxQNba/ws_HalloweenBagToppers.html? I'm giving a Halloween tea for grand-daughter, her mother, and my niece on Saturday 11/1 so I'm going in to work on the menu now. Hugs!

Mid way through another week & a freebie

It's Wednesday already? I don't remember much about Sunday except Dad's visit. Oh, and hubby made delicious barbeque! Need to buy him a new pressure cooker though because this one is leaking and what a mess it was to clean it off the glass stove top. Monday I took my SIL out to lunch at Joe's Crab Shack where we feasted on shrimp. This is my husband's sister, the one who had breast cancer and she is doing pretty well. Naturally, there is still a good bit of anxiety and depression but she's getting help and her moods are stabilizing. Afterwards, we went over to Michael's Arts & Crafts where I bought some charms for bookmarks my niece wants to make. Yesterday, niece was still off on school holiday and while we watched American Horror Story's first session on Netflix (blood and gore not really my thing; I prefer psychological thrillers) we both crocheted like crazy and she baked some caramel apple cupcakes from a new mix we found. Tasty but very sweet. Today I will be delivering baby gifts for Baby Chloe, 3rd girl for one of my doctors receptionist. Almost forgot to take photos and when I did my hands were shaking badly from low blood sugar. Will try to post those later tonight. I still have some of the variagated yarn I made the snuggle sacks and caps from and some of the green I used to make frog lovey for my nephew's baby boy. Also made a frog hat and a frog drool bib with it! Now I'm using those two leftover yarns to make a diaper cover. Hope it will be enough; if not, I'll take it apart and save for another project. Have been experimenting with some vintage Halloween stickers and made a couple papers. Not my best efforts but perhaps someone can use them?

Pick up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/6Cua0EXGba/ws_halloween_papers.html?

What I've Been Doing & a freebie

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I had a couple doctor appointments last week along with some medical news and was running various errands. Finally got results of the test I had last month. Seems the results got lost in the hospital system and didn't reach my doctor. When I called, they went looking for the report. Turns out I have mild gastro paresis which, simply put means that nerve damage is causing my stomach to empty slower than it should. Which explains continued nausea, bloating and pain after gallbladder surgery. The diet info I received basically tells me to avoid anything I like and, contrary to general health wisdom which is telling us to eat more fiber, more vegetables and avoid starches, tells me to avoid such because it's harder to digest and can cause problems. Vegetables and fruits that can be tolerated should be pureed! Have to make sure I stay hydrated and have been advised to keep Glucerna (diabetic form of Ensure) on hand for bad days. Fun, fun, fun!

Went to grandson's baseball game yesterday afternoon. Saw him playing first base and batting a few times but the weather turned quite cool and I got chilled sitting there in my short sleeved shirt so had to retreat to the car for warmth. Talking to granddaughter after the game, hubby kindly suggested that I'd love to give her another tea party and she added it would be good for Halloween and she'd invite her cousin. The dining room is still in a bad state and is small with my table only comfortably seating 4 so I explained we'd have the cousin another time as I now have my niece living with me and with grand-daughter and her mother that would make four. I'm tired just thinking about it! But I have to find some way to get dining room ready for next month's Thanksgiving dinner anyway so I'm now planning tea party menu.

Have had frantic fingers as I'm crocheting for my brother's grandson due in December and also making something for the receptionist at one of my doctor's offices. She's due next month but her doctor says could be sooner as baby appears to be bigger than expected for original time line. I've overestimated on the yarn for baby Hunter's snuggle sack and cap (or cocoon as some say) and had plenty to make the same for receptionist's baby Chloe. A little girl doesn't need everything to be pink, right? Because I'm going to see tht expectant mother this week, I finished her snuggle sack and hat and made a bunny rabbit lovey/security blanket. Going to make a bib in pink tonight. Hunter's frog hat and frog lovey are just waiting for finishing touches before I can pack them up. I found a frog bib pattern to use up the rest of that green yarn. They are doing his nursery in bears which was the theme for Bryan's (baby's father) nursery too but I'm sure he will be recieving lots of teddy bear stuff so thought a frog would be a nice companion for the bears. I'll try to get photos of Chloe's gifts posted in next day or so.

It's early to be thinking winter but I was going through more old files and found a contribution I made for a collaborative kit some years back. The store is long out of business so no problem with me re-releasing my part. Just 4 full size papers and 11 elements but maybe some of you can use it? Elements and papers are zipped within the one zip you can find here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/Mxpo52lIba/ws_Icicle.html?

New Additions from Wonderland Scraps & Part 2 of freebie

Just added to store:

Friendship Garden above is a large kit containing with 20 papers in sunny warm hues and garden themed elements. You will find 19 floral elements, 10 frames, 1 photo mat, 3 tags, 4 ribbons/ric rac, 2 bows, 3 buttons, 2 beaded borders and one picket fence border. five garden "critters." and one sweet pin. Couldn't fit everything in main preview so do see additional images in the store. While working in my file system, I also found a Christmas kit that was originally part of a coll several years ago and I re-released it as Holiday Shimmer. Traditional red and greens with lots of cute elements.

There are additonal images in the store to show what didn't show up on main preview. And now, the other part of the Monster Mash freebie:

Pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/9h-mAFOQba/ws_MonsterMash_2.html?

Cleaning Out Files - freebie for you

Lately I've been trying to organize all the files that got dumped on new PC from several hard drives on the old. In doing so I came across an old Halloween kit that was made as part of a monthly collab kit for a store that no longer exists. Going to give you part tonight and the rest tomorrow.

The first zip is here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/c-r9CKe7ce/ws_MonsterMash_1.html? Look for second zip on Tuesday. Hugs!

Maybe I'm getting too old & a freebie

I love my niece, I really do and I worry about her. In some ways I think she's more naive than the average 18 yr-old. She thinks she's a full fledged adult and tells me not to worry about her, but I do worry. She's attending an urban university which has the typical security problems of such places (I ought to know having attended it many years ago and then attending and working for Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond). The police are still searching for a missing UVA student and there have been several assaults in the vicinity of Norfolk's Old Dominion University (her school). Let's face it - we hear about the sicko people out there in every news cast. So we don't like for her to be out there after dark. She's admitted she's not comfortable standing at a bus stop once the sun goes down and I've been driving to pick her up the nights she has biology lab. Thought we had an understanding about her staying after to have dinner with friends or do research. We just asked her to call us and let us know she wasn't coming straight home and about when to expect her. If it's dinner with a boyfriend, we'd like to at least know his name. Why? she wanted to know. So we explained that if she didn't show when expected and we had to contact authorities we'd need to be able to say who would have seen her last. Does that sound unreasonable? This past week, she's been late every day. She did call most of the afternoons, saying she'd be home before dark. But she wasn't home by then. Once she came in later and said she'd gotten a ride home with a friend. We tried to not be too fussy about it, saying we had been wondering when to go out looking for her and were glad to hear she'd gotten a ride. Thursday it was even later and she walked in with a little attitude when we looked up at her saying, I got a ride, so . . . I was too angry to say anything then. Wasn't feeling good anyway so thought I'd give it to next day and explain we aren't mind readers and she should call to let us know she wasn't coming in until later and had a ride. Unfortunately, Friday I had to go in "her" room to look for some glue that was in my side of the double closet. I'll just say the room was a mess and I had to move a lot of stuff before I could get in the closet. I know, it's a small room but . . . . Again she was not home when expected (no call) and my husband had brought her a late lunch/early dinner. I'd been stewing all day and had left her a note saying I expected her to keep commitments or have decency to call if plans changed and told her to clean her room. And yes, I did put in a couple zingers I guess about her behavior and suggested if she didn't want to obey any rules or be cared about, she could try living in the dorms. You know, when our feelings are hurt and we're disappointed in someone, we may not be acting our best either. When R did get in and read the note, she wanted to know what she'd done wrong to deserve it. I explained again, she got defensive & angry, and when I suggested that maybe she was overdoing the social life instead of attending to her first priority which is learning and getting good grades, she insisted she was studying and claimed to have been looking for work on campus and talking to the job counselor and so on. I want to believe her but some of it doesn't quite add up. Kids! She called her Dad and went home for the weekend. Talking to her parents isn't an answer until we are ready to give up and send her home for good. They think it's okay to turn her lose to be an adult and she's ill prepared, believe me. Sigh! So I'm been obsessing over whether I was too harsh in trying to get my points across, whether I'm just too old and impatient to deal with teens anymore (& teens used to be my favorite age group!), and whether R will ever understand we love her and care about her.

Sorry for the rant. I did make another fall paper and added two elements to the zip.

Pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/evgKM6VDba/ws_fallpaper4el.html?

Another fall freebie

Have got to run and take the baked macaroni out of the oven so just going to post the freebie now. Here's another full size paper and bow for you:

Pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/wTXoHOK8ce/ws-fall_paperbow.html? BTW I checked on the Wishlist at Digi Style Designs and right now it just seems to be a tag on front page that leads no where. There are no "Wishlist" buttons on products pages. And I agree that a working wishlist would be a good thing so I'm contacting the owner to ask what the situation is. Is it something that her techie was supposed to install but didn't? a new module for zen that hasn't been purchased but the button was added to front page for future use? Will let ya know what I find out.