Whew!

I am so glad that Christmas is finally over! I get so stressed out this time of year. I finally feel that I can breathe again. The holidays are sad because I think about my mother, too--she died on Christmas Eve 27 years ago and I still miss her, especially around the holidays.

We had a nice, quiet Christmas with just DH and myself, DS and DDIL, and my dear MIL. Oh, and Monty, of course.

Monty likes his "Bobo" toy we got him for Christmas, although he doesn't play with it, he just snuggles up to it. When he was a puppy our other dog would not allow him to play with any of her toys (and all toys were HER toys) so he never learned to play with things. Now she is gone but he doesn't know what to do with a toy. Poor baby! He also got a brand new "shirt" which is what we call his harness. Here he is guarding Bobo and DH from the evil photographer (me.)


This squirrel frequents our yard. His right eye is permanently damaged, but he seems to do just fine with one eye, although he didn't see my son and I sneak up on him and take his picture several times. We were only about six feet away. He dodges traffic all right (so far!)


DH grew this Double Dancing Queen Amaryllis. It has three blooms open, and each has three layers of petals. Isn't it gorgeous? The stem is only about six inches long.

I had to put away all my sewing stuff so that we could use the dining table for Christmas dinner. I just finished getting everything back out this afternoon, so I plan on sewing this evening and over the weekend. I am working on a couple of fabric postcard swaps, I'll post pictures later.

DH and I went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets on Wednesday. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was quite as good as the first movie. This was less believable, and showed less detail regarding how they accomplished some of their capers, like breaking into Buckingham Palace (would it really be that easy??) But it was good fun. DH is going to see Charlie Wilson's War tonight (not my cup of tea.)

Off to the sewing machine!

Still here...

I'm still here, although I've been too busy getting ready for Christmas to post for awhile. The photo above shows six of the twelve blocks I have made to put together into a baby quilt for my gift stash. I like the secondary pattern they create. I found the pattern in the latest issue of McCall's Quilting magazine.


I received this Snowman postcard from Priscilla in Minnesota--I wish my camera could take a better photo of it.


This Snowman card is from Beth in New Jersey and is hand-painted. Again, too much flash.


This one is from Chris in Great Britain. I love the icicle stitching around the edges.


This is a card from Roslyn in Australia, for a "My Favorite Color" swap.


...and this one from Maureen in the U.K.....


This from Sarah in the U.K.--lots of special stitches here.


A bright yellow card from Jackie in Texas.



...and a bright pink one with silk flowers from Monica in Texas. The butterfly is machine embroidered.

Other than the baby quilt blocks, I haven't done much sewing. I still have three quilt tops to quilt, but they can wait. I have to have some tests done by the cardiologist next week, and I probably won't get much chance to sew until after New Year's Day.