Thanksgiving Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful, thankful, and “foodful” Thanksgiving Day. All of our children and grandchildren had other plans with their extended families this year, so Hubby and I did something else also.

We spent the day with Hubby’s sisters and their parents at the home of one of the sisters. We wondered if the outing would fare well with my MIL. She has Alzheimer’s and hasn’t been on an outing in quite a while. But she did pretty good. She actually remembered me and even said my name. I guess she remembered my dark hair (it’s gray now) because she asked me if I colored my hair. I told her that it was natural, that I was just getting old! Of course she didn’t understand but she said, “Oh”.

We were the last ones to arrive. There were about 14 of us, so it was a nice gathering. I don’t see some of these relatives often enough and there was a grand-niece I’d never seen! She just celebrated her first birthday. Isn’t she a doll?

Momma feeding the baby. I think she was getting sleepy. (The baby, that is!)

Here’s our hostess and a nephew

Hubby and his mother

These nephews and nieces are growing up so fast, I can’t keep track of them!

We had a really nice day. There was lots of food (very good food!) and lots of conversation. I’m thankful we have holidays like Thanksgiving so family can get together. But we should do this more often, holiday or not!

Interesting Site

This “yarn bombing” is really taking off, it seems. Here’s a link to the site of the person who started it all.

http://www.knittaplease.com/index.html

Be sure to check it out. I thought it was crazy at first. But the more I see of it, the more I’m coming to admire the concept.

More Stash!

I have yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. I’m a yarn addict. I could start my own yarn shop. I love yarn. Especially the yarn that’s become available to the public within the last several years. What colors! What textures! I can’t resist yarn sales. So yes, I have yarn.

To add to all this yarn I have, my sister’s stash somehow became mine when she passed away several years ago.  She almost had as big a stash as mine.   I’ve made a lot of afghans, scarves, toys, gift items, etc. from the combination of these stashes. I have enough yarn to last me a looong time.  And yet — people who have yarn to get rid of want to give it to me.

I have a friend at work who wanted to give me yarn. I tried to talk her out of it. I offered suggestions to places she could donate her yarn. But she wanted me to have it. She said that I did beautiful work with yarn. She wanted me to work it up into an afghan or scarves or whatever and then donate it to a good cause. Because I do such beautiful work with yarn. Yes, she repeated that several times.

Well, what could I say. So I took her yarn.

There are lots of pretty colors. Partial skeins. Full skeins. And a surprise. There were about 20 of these little granny square starts.

I started playing  and this is what I came up with.

I had to add the white because she didn’t have enough white to do all the squares. I’ve just about used all the little granny square starts. When I get all of these squares sewed together I’ll see what I have. I may make it bigger into a full size afghan. Or it might stay smaller and be just the right size for a lap afghan. We’ll see. . . . .

Fun with Friends

First, let me apologize for not writing lately. I’ve been a little under the weather. I either ate something or caught a little stomach bug last week. I was up pretty much all night running to the bathroom and being sick. It was the night before I had to go to work at 4 am, so needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. I was up at 2:00 to get ready for work, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. All my body wanted to do was go back to bed. I really think it was something I ate and that I would feel better as the day went on. Which is exactly what happened. But no sleep is not a good thing especially when my job is using my brain. (Oh no!) But I eventually got better. It took several days to get my sleep in and my appetite back but I’m as good as ever now.

Now to my blog story…..

My two friends from K.C. came down last week, picked me up, and we all headed to Branson to shop. Of course the first stop was Lambert’s in Ozark. You don’t leave this place being hungry! Just look at the salad that my friend ordered!

I think we all three could have eaten from it and still not eat it all. Plus, they come around constantly offering fried potatoes, okra, black-eyed peas, and of course, their infamous “throwed rolls”.

It was a beautiful day for shopping at the Branson Landing. We did a lot of window shopping,

and a lot of in-store shopping as well.

We had a lot of fun trying on clothes, laughing, and catching up on news with what’s been going on in our lives. Last year when they came for their visit, I didn’t get home till midnight. But they’re aware of the hours I keep, so we were heading back by eight. After showing Hubby the goodies that I bought, I was off to bed.

I met them at their motel the next morning. Their room was amazing!

It was actually a suite. It’s not that they can afford to stay there, but the husband of one of them travels a lot and he builds up points to stay at certain motels. So they were using up some of his points. Look at this “room”. . . . .

We went to the mall

and spent most of the morning together doing what we love the most — shopping!  We got a few more goodies, then I had to say my good-byes and head home. Hubby and I had some running and errands to do before I had to go back to work the next day. I think they headed home soon after I left anyway.

I soooo look forward to their visit every year. In fact, we’ve already started planning a trip to Osage Beach for March or April next year to shop at the huge Mall there. I can’t wait!

Craft Day 2

Ok, finally here’s the pics of my booth:

I took these yesterday morning before the customers started coming. I sold several things yesterday, but today was a little better. We had an almost contant stream of people all day. They still weren’t buying much, however. The last few customers I had bought several of my higher-priced items, which made the amount  I made today a little more than I made yesterday. I gave a few items away to some of my fellow vendors and their children. And, most importantly, I came home with a couple of empty boxes! That’s good! Now I have room to store more items that I will be able to make now. 

It was another nice day and we had a lot of fun talking and visiting with the customers as well as the other vendors. Hubby came down and sit with me again almost all day. We were allowed to shut down at 3:00 this afternoon so we didn’t have to load our cars and drive home in the dark. They had a drawing for a door prize among the vendors and guess who won? My favorite hubby!! The prize was a cookbook full of recipes by the ladies of the church. They were selling them at the Fair and I almost bought one. They were $8.00, and I really have way too many cookbooks already. But I like small local cookbooks like this because the recipes are the favorites of the ladies who contributed them. Just good ‘o fashion cookin’. Needless to say, I was tickled when I saw that Hubby had won the prize!

At one point in the day yesterday, the nice lady in charge of the Fair came by and took our pic at our booth. Today she came by again and gave us the pic. Here’s the pic she took,

Pretty nice, huh? They are the nicest people and so friendly! I signed up and paid for a booth again next year. Now I’m all hyped up to start working on crafts for next year.

One more thing to mention. Hubby’s niece got married today at 4:00. We knew we wouldn’t have time or the energy to try to make it to the wedding after tearing my booth down and getting everything home. It just happened that the church she was getting married in was just about a mile from where the Craft Fair was going on. So Hubby took a break and run up there for a few minutes. He took the gift that we got her and was able to visit with his brother for a little while. I’m sure the wedding was beautiful (how could it not be on a beautiful day like this!) I was a little sad that we had to miss it, but the important thing is that she had a good wedding, their parents were able to be there and now they can start the rest of their lives together. Congratulations Ashley and Matt!