Christmas is upon us

And I am not ready yet. In years past I have gotten most of my Christmas shopping done the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then I scan the Black Friday ads and end up doing a lot of exchanges and returns and rebuys that weekend because of the sales. So not this year. I decided to wait until Black Friday to BEGIN my shopping. We are on a tighter than tight budget this year so I really have to watch my pennies. But today the Monday before Thanksgiving I am feeling a bit out of sorts. I feel like I am behind the curve for shopping and such.

I have three weeks before we go to disney world again and that isn't much time. December 13th is out due to us seeing Santa in the morning. I can use that afternoon but really want to be done done before then. I had thought of doing some holiday shopping on line this year but just haven't mentally gotten there yet either.

I really need to get my act together. I think I know what is bogging me down and I hope to have that cleared up tonight. It is that the Christmas tree isn't in the family room. We thought of putting it in the living room but it looks so lonely in there and we don't really use that room so it isn't in a place that we can sit and enjoy the tree. It isn't in the room that we live in. So here is the problem. All my scrapbooking and crafting stuff is in the corner where we usually put the Christmas tree. That means that I have to clear out all my stuff and put it somewhere so we can move the tree down there. I considered swapping my scrapbook stuff to the living room which isn't such a bad idea but then that room really is a more formal room and I tend to be messy with my stuff so it isn't quite the right place. So at this point I have to pack it all up. Yup ALL of it. And that is what I am going to do tonight. I started yesterday and I am about a third done. Tonight it just needs to go somewhere.

Just to get you in the mood for decorating your house, here are some links that you might like!

http://bucketideasforchristmas.blogspot.com/ (too many trees for me but I picked up an idea or two anyway) Scroll all the way down to the big pictures. there are soo many trees!!!

http://www.100daystochristmas.com/ cool give aways and lots of ideas on what to do to get ready for Christmas.

New Etsy Shop

The craft show went well. I made $100 and I have a bunch of cards that I haven't sold yet. I opened an Etsy shop to sell the cards and my hair bows. Go check it out!!! I will give a family and friends discount!! It is Whitney's Cards & Gifts.

The zucchini is still overwhelming but I can only stink up the house for a little while making relish before I can't stand the smell anymore. I would never be able to work in a pickle factory. I am also making copious amounts of zucchini bread and I just found out about a zucchini cake that takes 4 cups of zucchini. We are having zucchini for dinner every night too. Too bad it doesn't freeze well.

Some scrappy fun...

check out my other blog tonight for some new scrappy pics.

Kick A spaghetti sauce and Storybook Maker

Oh my God! I made some awesome spaghetti sauce tonight. I usually make a meat sauce which is very good but tonight I decided to do meatballs but wanted a bit more than marinara sauce with a meatball so I made a meat sauce too. The meatsauce had sausage in it and it made a very nice flavor. Then I put in the meatballs after I cooked them in the cast iron pan. It was quite yummy.

So now for the next oh my God! I was scrapbooking last night at a crop over at my friend Gwen's house. She is a Creative Memories Consultant and as I was getting ready to leave I picked up a storybook that she had made. Now I had seen these before and wasn't really impressed with them. But her's made me do some inquiring. So I asked her how easy it was and she went into a ten minute speal showing me on her computer how easy it was. She told me to go home and download the free software and the free templates and play around. I did just that this morning and started playing around with our Christmas pictures from this year. I showed my husband and he was impressed too at how quickly I could make a book. He even told me to order it and see what it looked like. But then he asked if it would replace the traditional scrapbooks that I do and I said no way!! I love my scrapbooks and I love making them. So if you haven't played around with Storybook Maker, take a few minutes to go to the Creative Memories website and click on Storybook Maker Free download. Then once that is downloaded go back to the website and find the free templates and follow the directions to download them too, or at least the ones you like. Then spend an hour and play. It is a lot of fun!!

Another New Blog

I have contacted Lion Brand website and asked them to please look at their blogs that they have on their site. They have approximately 7 blogs and only one blogger is writing at all. I asked them to consider adding other bloggers to their site and to consider me as one of them. They responded with a very nice email stating that they are redoing their site and will be making changes in the spring time including adding and deleting their bloggers who don't write. They asked me to contact them in the spring and they would be happy to consider me.

With that said, I thought it would be wise for me to begin my own blog of my handcrafts for two reasons. One, if they consider me they will need something to look at and this blog would be an excellent example of what kind of material they would get from me. Two, I do so much handwork (almost nightly I pick something up) that it would be a great outlet for you all to see much of my work and my thought process in completing it.

So do check it out. Remember that I have just begun this blog and there isn't much on there right now but it will bulk up quickly.

www.whitneyshandwork.blogspot.com

My Successes

I have realized that I need to count my little successes to feel even a bit better about the huge list of things to do compared to what actually gets accomplished.

So this weekend I:
1. actually got to my friend's house and completed 13 pages scrapbooking. That was Friday evening and today I realized that I had already made Caroline's 2nd birthday book. So now we have two of the same event, damn.
2. planted 3 tomato plants in my little garden next to the house. We found out that we lost a bunch of broccoli and tomato plants as well as all our lettuce in our larger garden down the street. Deer came and ate them all.
3. have done approximately 7 loads of laundry in the past two days. I still have a bunch to do AND I haven't done my clothes in two weeks!
4. watched two soccer games, one for each of the girls. I sat in the rain...
5. cleaned out the front closet and part of the living room. I still have the kitchen, rest of the living room, dining room and family room oh and the bathroom to do before Tuesday evening for Bunko. (it is at my house this month)

So with that list I hope everyone knows why, just why most of the time I feel like I am moving ever so slightly backwards.