Spring has Sprung!

Finally we are starting to see some springlike weather.  It's still cool....but no rain and no snow and temperature above 50....I'll take it!!

Going into the spring weather is bitter sweet for me.  A few months ago I had posted about the newest addition to the family...Timothy James.  With such a saddened heart, I have to say this little furbaby has become a fur angel.  He was such a sweet lil man and was becoming the sweetest cat.  We had a such a great bond since he was just a little kitten when I "catnapped" him off the streets of Branchville and he hadn't been handled by people up until then.  Everything was going along great with him, getting all of his routine shots and then had gone for neutering end of February.  Just after the neutering, I noticed his belly getting big and we had been going around with a worm situation so at first we thought the worms were back.  Unfortunately the news was not good...he had what is called FIP, which I've come to learn is such an insideous disease.   He still had such a spark to him and at first all you could tell by looking at him that gave away his illness was this huge round belly which was full of this icky yellow fluid.  So we did all we could for him, looking at any known, albeit longshot treatments.  Unfortunately, the night of his first treatment injection, he must have had a stroke or something, he was still with us but not good.  I said I would do all I could for him while I knew he still had that spark but would also do the right thing when the time came and that morning we laid my sweet boy to rest.  While it felt like this all took weeks, months.....all in all it was a matter of 9 days from the day I took him to the vet, while he was acting perfectly normal except for sporting a big belly to the fateful end day. 

My mom questionned why he was allowed to come into our lives for such a short time but I would like to think there was a reason he came into my life.  Perhaps it was known that he was only going to be with us for a short time, but in that short time he came into a home, was loved, named and will be cherished forever.  So, we're back to me and the 2 girls and we're going to keep it that way for awhile.  Someday I'm sure I'll be ready for a new baby (who can ever say no to a kitten?!)  but Nutmeg is 17 this month and I'm not looking to stress her out. 

Now, of course if I'm driving home someday again and a little furbaby creature scurries in front of my car, we all now I'm hitting the brakes, right?   I'm just sayin! 

Today's goal......try and organize this mess of a room I call the craft room!  Eek....who came and ransacked this room???    Of course, I generally close the door to the room but today the door "somehow" got popped open and I have 2 furry kids who are doing anything but help me clean and organize it.  I swear, I think they act worse than kids sometimes!!

Winner winner!

Happy Valenine Day's Eve!  Tomorrow is the big "V" holiday....will you be getting chocolate and roses?   Well, for one follower I am happy to say they will also be getting a new stitchery pattern!

First I want to thank everyone who entered and to those that helped boost my blog!! 

So............after counting my entries (and for those who were counting, the first comment counted as entries 1-5)

Random number generation / Random Numbers Generate a random number betweenand = 22 This random number generator (RNG) has generated some random numbers for you in the table below. Click 'More random numbers' to generate some more, click 'customize' to alter the number ranges (and text if required). For a full explanation of the nature of randomness and random numbers, click the 'Information' menu link.

#22 - Danice you are our winner!   Please email me your mailing address so I can send out your package which will contain the pattern and the supplies to get you started as well as a few additional goodies!!

Congrats to Danice!

Have a great night everyone!
Aunt DeeDee

Giveaway Time

Now that I'm getting my life back into the swing of things, I'm hoping to get my blog back to life as well and what better way than with a giveaway. I hope to see entries from those who have been kind enough to stay with me during my absence and not delete my blog .....but would also love to see some new friend as well!

So the big question is what is the giveaway? I was blessed to have received a few new patterns this year for Christmas from Rustic Threads. I received 2 duplicates however and want to giveaway one of the duplicate patterns.

There will be several chances for entries. Please leave a comment for each of your entries so that each one will be counted.

Ready? The first one is mandatory for a single entry, all of the other items are optional but will gain you extra entries. Good luck!

1. Post a comment below and let me know what your New Year's resolution was and have you stuck with it?
2. Become a follower of my blog and comment that you've done so. Already a follower, simply comment that you are for an extra easy entry!
3. Blog, Facebook or twitter about this giveaway for another entry.
4. Visit Rustic Threads website and come back and tell me what your favorite pattern is on her site.
5. Visit Sarah's new blog Creating Christmas with Sarah Beth and let me know that you are now following her blog. She's off to a great start on her blog with some great tutorials!

I will leave this open for 2 weeks from today. The more entries that we get, I will start to add some more goodies to go along with the pattern and will post pics as we go along.  Sounds good? Ok....let's start this giveaway!

Take Care,
Aunt DeeDee

Brrrrrr.......Flurries are coming!

What is up with this weather?  We are due some flurries today.  Originally it was calling for a bigger storm but I believe now they are saying we're just to get some flurries to an inch or so.  Of course, the weather station has been wrong before and it could also mean we're about to get dumped upon!

So, I'm making it a mission to write each day and I'm off to a roll here!  With the weekend coming, I'm thinking of what I need to do.  I really want to start some projects I have rolling around in my head but I know what I really need to do start to clean and organize the craft room.

Which leads me to my question today:  what is the best way you organize your craft room?  I'm always looking for ideas for storage and organization.  Sometimes I want it to look quaint, storing things in unique items but then I know sometimes it's easier to be pratical.  For example, do I really like the look of plastic containers, of course not, but my DMC flosses and buttons are just better suited to be stored in them.  I do have one jar of buttons to be cute but I am not about to dig through a jar for a particular color.  That's why they are sorted by color in the plastic containers....the jar is purely decoration!  :)

So what's YOUR best way to store any particular craft item?

Ok...off to work at the main job....the one that supports my fabric addiction!

Have a great weekend.....and a giveaway is coming!

Take Care,
Dawn
"Aunt DeeDee"

Life is getting back to....well just getting back to it

It's hard to believe we lost my dad almost a year ago this coming March.  The holidays are just not the same but we managed to get through them.   Last year, I didn't have much desire to craft and creat and those urges are now coming back.  Mom has been perking up a bit now too....she's been in the craft room organizing and cleaning her stuff.  Every day she's been on the computer looking at new patterns and getting new inspiration.

So I'll be back to blogging and bringing some "freshness" to the blog and updating the website.  We have some new things in mind that we are trying and creating this year and we're gearing up to our annual show we do in November and want this year to be our biggest and best looking display we've ever done. 

I will be posting a giveaway this weekend so please keep a watch out for that.  For Christmas I received the same pattern from my mom and my sister and the pattern seller was so generous to let me choose another Epattern and keep the duplicate or regift it so a giveaway it is.  More details to follow, but I would like to thank Sarah at Rustic Threads for her kindness and generosity!

And speaking of Sarah from Rustic Threads she has a nice blog that she is just starting up that I would encourage everyone to check out and follow - Creating Christmas with Sarah Beth .  She shares some wonderful tutorials and recipes.  Looking forward to reading her posts!!

Oh and I have "baby" news to tell!  For awhile my biological clock has been ticking, well my feline biological clock that is!  All of my girls I've had, they've come to me around 6 months of age.  I've never had the experience of kittenhood.  After losing Pumpkin last year, which was very hard as she was my first cat, I started getting the itch for a kitten.  We never go out and seek a cat, they find us.  So I knew in time I would eventually get another cat and it might in fact be a full grown one not a kitten....whatever comes across my path will be what it will be.  Well across my path indeed!  I was coming home for lunch one day just before Thanksgiving.  It was one of those days that was so not typical - it was a miracle that the timing was just right.  I left work very late for lunch, almost didn't go in fact.  I picked up some food from the deli and even then I was tempted to just take the food back to the office but at that last second I thought "No, let me just run home for a few minutes and take a rest!"  I turned to go up our hill and there crossing in front of my car was this little gray fluff ball.  Let me explain a little though...in the center of our town we have had quite the feral cat problem.  Most of the cats do make it up the hill to my mom because they know the crazy cat lady up the hill will feed them if they come!  We've only seen the adult cats but had heard there had been kittens around but we never saw them....until that fateful day that is.  Well to say the least I swerved my car to the side of the road and jumped out of the car; called my mom and said come down quick I need help and that there was a kitten.  The darn lil bugger took almost an hour for us to catch as he kept going under a porch of one of the buildings.  Finally we took a piece of material (like any good crafter, I had material in my car!  LOL) and we threw it on him and caught him.  He was so tiny and malnourished.  He got a clean bill of health from the vet and I had to tell my old girls that SURPRISE! You now have a baby brother!! 

So please meet......Timothy James!

Timothy James Johnson November 2012, about 4 wks old



Timmy dressed up for Christmas....I couldn't resist!  The tshirt said "Santa I can explain!"

 Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  Remember to keep an eye for my giveaway announcement this weekend!

Take Care,
Dawn
"Aunt DeeDee"

Getting back to life....day by day

Wow, I think enough time has past so that I can sit and type this but nope....I don't think there can ever be enough time.  In March, our family experienced a great loss.  My dad was called to Heaven.  It was unexpected and I won't go into the details.  But what was a normal hospital visit for my dad....he had emphysema and at times his breathing got bad and he went in, got it under control and would be back at home.  There was alot that the hospital missed the boat on and I told my mom, my sis and I would stand behind her if she felt it was something we needed to pursue with them.  But I think there were things wrong with Dad that he didn't tell us and I honestly think he didn't know what what wrong either.  So many times we may feel something's not right but you can't just pinpoint it.

I am so grateful that in the past few years I moved into the apartment in my parents house and that I was closer to them and especially afterwards to be with my mom.  So each day, we go on and most days you stop and he's in my thoughts. 

I'll be online and posting more.  Our annual craft show will be upon us before we know it and I've been working on stuff each night when I get home from work.

Tonight we went to the state fair to check on the prim sheep and pig my mom entered. She won 1st place on the sheep and 2nd place on the pig!!!   I know my dad would have been so proud of her!!
And I see blogger has changed alot since I haven't been online.  Once I figure out how to post pictures again, I'll post a pic of the ribbon winning prims!!

Aunt DeeDee

The Kraft Journal blog

All things happen for a reason I believe.   Last September I found myself unemployed.  After 6 months of unemployment I finally found a job that also came with quite a commute.  I was there for 6 months and truly enjoyed working there.  Great work environment and great co-workers.  But when an opportunity came to me to work closer to home (only 2.4 miles from home to be exact) I couldn't pass it up.  While I was sad to say good bye to all of the great people I was working with, I was also excited to start on this new chapter in life.  I started on Tuesday of this week and I really feel like this will be a great experience!  And now that I'm not giving 3 to 4 hours a day to commuting I can be back online, checking up on all of my great blogs I follow and also can get back into the craft room and get creating again!

So, in my new found free time tonight I came across The Kraft Journal blog!   Oh you HAVE to go and check it out.  I've only briefly have browsed through it and have found some great techniques and tutorials.  I'm sure you'll enjoy!!! 

Be on the lookout as I will now be back to posting regularly and I feel a giveaway is in order so stay tuned!!

Aunt DeeDee