Deck the Halls 2008

I participated in the last craft show for this year on the 6th, and became ill on the 8th. I'm finally beginning to feel better, thankfully, so I will share a bit of my Christmas decorating.

I'm missing three trees this year -- my sewing area, entryway tree and the basement family room, but here's what I did manage to get done.

The tree in the living room.  I can't seem to get a picture that shows the tree lights in all their glory.   :)   I like lights -- lots of lights; there's 1000 lights on this 6 1/2 ft. tree.  Actually, it does fluctuate between 950 and 1000, as half of the second strand keeps going on/off, on/off.  The Lionel train underneath is a Santa Fe diesel from the 1950s, I think.  My husband is the train guy.

A few of my favorite ornaments:

This little pair of socks is my favorite.  They're the Christmas socks I purchased on the day I went into labor with my daughter. She wore them on her first Christmas. I have a sweet, sweet picture of her wearing her Christmas socks, but she's also wearing her birthday suit, so I won't post the picture -- but it's cute...really cute.  :)

My daughter purchased this ornament for me at the second craft show I did this year.  I *love* snowmen.  The woman in the booth next to mine made several of these and sold them all.  No surprise to me, I think it's adorable.

This little ornament set has hung at the top of every Christmas tree for 25 years.  I wonder if they still sell those little cheap, plastic nativities?

Unfortunately, we don't have a fireplace and as such, our stockings are not hung by the chimney with care.  They're on the TV stand.  This is not an endorsement for Olive Garden, that's just what happened to be on, but I am impressed with the quality of the picture on the television.

Moving to the kitchen table:

The candle looks wonky because my husband has a thing about playing with shaping candle wax while the candle is burning.  I have no idea why.  I'll admit I have roasted marshmallows over candle flames, but not very often.

Normally, I have a tree on the buffet that sits in our entryway.  Here's this year's decoration.  I like it, but I miss the tree because the tree has LIGHTS (usually 200 on a 2 ft. tree -- all white lights -- with the ornaments I used in the bowl). 

In the master bedroom, my Shabby Chic-ish tree:

This tree appears to have a large bare spot, but it doesn't.  There are tiny little angels and rosebuds in that area.  Here's the nativity that's under the tree.  You can see one of the little angels right above the star.

Here's a few more pictures from the living room:

My husband was in the high school band and played the bass drum. My MIL buys him a drummer boy nearly every Christmas.

There's a pretty wreath on the front door, but I forgot to take a picture.

I realize my decorating is not magazine spread worthy, but we like it.  :)

Would you like to win a fabulous handbag?

If you're interested, head on over to Lila Tueller's blog and try your skills at deciphering morphed celebrities. The grand prize is a handbag made by the oh-so-very-talented Lila using fabrics from her upcoming fabric line, Soire'e.

Isn't the fabric lovely? It's certainly worth the effort and you'll have fun, too!

You May Have Already Seen This, but We Need a Laugh

In these times of confusion, we turn to some of our most respected political/social figures for the answer to that age old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

SARAH PALIN: Before it got to the other side, I shot the chicken,
cleaned and dressed it, and had chicken burgers for lunch.

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One! that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his current problems
before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so badly. Instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road.  Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken 2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken 2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never crash or need to be rebooted.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

Happy Anniversary!

Twenty-five years -- a quarter of a century!

Happy Anniversary to us.

Few wedding pictures survive due to a certain someone; but we love her just the same. :)

Patterns, Bags, Books -- Mamma Mia!

I hope all of you enjoyed the long weekend. My daughter and I headed for the theater to see Mamma Mia! The Sing-Along. We'd seen Mamma Mia! (twice) and I had no idea they were releasing a sing-along version until I was channel surfing through a bout of insomnia. I had never, ever gone to a movie more than once until Mamma Mia! The first time we saw it, we were invited to go with my sil(s) and I wasn't too sure about it. I generally don't like musicals --not even Grease. But this movie/musical is fabulously fun from the word go. It's definitely a "chick flick". We laughed a lot and even cried a little, too. If you haven't seen it, you need to hurry! The sing-along has a limited release - only one theater in our area is showing it. And if you do go see it, do not leave when the end credits start because you'll miss one of the best parts of the movie. Trust me on this and stay put until it's text-only . :) .

After the movie we paid a visit to Barnes and Noble where we purchased some books from the bargain section.

I did manage to fit some sewing into the weekend. I completed four bags for the fall craft fairs. I took photos, but they didn't turn out well. Here's a so-so quality picture of a bag I made for me. Nothing fancy, but I like it. The fabric's background is a dark plum color. It's prettier in person. :)

On Saturday the mail carrier delivered Heather Bailey's Daily Spice Halter Apron with a little bonus pattern for a felt flower. I think I'm going to use a fabric from Amy Butler's "Charm" collection for my first apron. I purchased two yards of it from the bargain table at a local quilt shop more than a year ago.

Though I'll have to keep the project the back burner while I keep working on bags for the craft shows. It frustrates me that I'm so far behind.

Again, my apologies for the poor photos. I'll try to do better next time.

Oh, one more thing concerning Mamma Mia. Yes, I've heard all the brouhaha about Pierce Brosnan's singing. He stays on-pitch and as far as I'm concerned, that's all that's required for this movie. He could sing to me on or off pitch anytime he wanted -- not that he'd want to, of course...I'm just sayin'... :)

A Literary Meme with a Twist

I have had this post saved as a draft for sometime.  I cannot remember the blog from which it originated.  My apology should this make it's way back to you.

I'm not familiar with many of the titles so I have a lot of strike throughs for books I know nothing about.  At least I'm above "The Big Read" average statistic, which is that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on the list.

If you'd  like to participate, just copy and paste this list of books into your own blog, and follow the instructions below, or add up the books you’ve read.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog. (This list in no way represents the top 100 books according to "The Big Read. It’s missing the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer. For shame.)

1  Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2  The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3  Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4  The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5  To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (read several, not all)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Random Flashback - A Young Teen's Take on "Tommy"

Some years ago, my daughter was ill and camped out on the couch in our living room watching television when the 1970s movie  "Tommy" was being shown.  Afterward, she passed some time writing a post about "Tommy" for her Xanga (I think that's what it was called).   I didn't know she'd written anything about the movie until I happened upon her post.  I got such a laugh out of it I kept a copy. 

While searching for something on my computer today I found the old movie "review" and it still made me laugh.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I home schooled my daughter k-12.  As she begins her sophomore year of college this week, I've been waxing nostalgic quite a lot.  I'm getting off track here... I'll just paste what she wrote,  re-read it, remember that time in life, and laugh.  Again.  :) 

Well, while I was sick on the couch this weekend I broadened my cultural knowledge by watching the 70s rock-opera “Tommy.” It was quite the educational experience – I’d never before realized just how disturbed people were in the 70s….

Unless you have a great love for 70s culture or rock music, there is no need to bother with this movie. If you’re curious what it’s about, I can pretty much outline it for you: Tommy becomes deaf, dumb, and blind after witnessing his stepfather murder his father (who was supposed to already be dead.) His mother and stepfather try many bizarre methods of curing him; including taking him to a group that wears masks and dances around a statue of Marilyn Monroe. He is abused by relatives. One night he wanders out his home and into a junkyard, where he happens across a pinball machine that is miraculously functioning despite the lack of electricity in the junkyard. Some mysterious strobe lights appear at this point too… I really don’t know how the junkyard could afford it all…. Anyway, it is discovered that the boy is a “pinball wizard” and makes millions for his family. Elton John appears at this point, wearing boots that are larger than he is. However, all the millions are no comfort to his mother because he is still deaf and blind. Thus, overcome with her grief, she shoves Tommy through a mirrored glass window, and he plummets into a pool below. He flounders as he sinks through the water, but suddenly he sees light above him! He is cured! (Note that he can now speak perfectly well, despite the fact that several years have passed since he had sight, hearing and speech) He and his family spend their millions to teach people about the life-changing power of pinball. But the people rebel and an angry mob begins smashing and burning the pinball machines (I thought my dad was going to begin weeping at this point. Ok, not really, but he commented on the waste of nice pinball machines. For those who don’t know, we have 3 in our basement) But the mob won’t stop until they’ve killed both of Tommy’s parents. Tommy himself escapes, and after placing his parent’s bodies together, he climbs a mountain and watches the sun rise, and the final “The End” screen pops up.

That, my friends is the movie in a nutshell. So if someday you’re bored and have a couple hours and several hundred brain cells to waste…. Well…. I’d still pick something else.