Total Amazement...

This is the first year Jack tried to do gifts on his own. I have to wonder if he hadn't done them before because our spending budget was so much smaller or because he didn't care to shop. At one point, though, he gave up and decided to give certain friends a gift certificate for a favorite store of theirs. What better to give a geek than a gift card to geekdom (aka as Fry's electronics). But on the night that they were going to get together he wasn't happy with his handwriting (or the fact that he mis-spelled half the message), so he tore up the gift card holders and asked me to make something. So I sat down at my desk and CASE'd this make & take from the SU rep at CKC-Seattle last month. I used different colors and styles, but this is the basic template. Quick and fast and enjoyable! Sadly, my camera died a happy death and the camera I took THIS photo with was returned to the owner, so I have no photos of the creations, but my new camera is due in on New year's eve so keep your EYES PEELED for some new camera shots!

Laundry Confessions

I'll have to admit that until a meetup earlier this year with some fellow sewing bloggers in my area, I didn't really track which blogs I liked to follow. I randomly clicked on links that sounded interesting and left comments when the mood moved me (which wasn't that often). I'm more of a blog lurker than a comment-er. I knew that what I constantly read was quite a large list. Anina was the one who specifically commented that she used google reader to follow her blogs and that sometimes she just wiped them all clean. "Now why didn't I think of that!" I thought as I sat there. I actually had blogs in my reader, but never actually followed them using the application. Now I'm faithful to my reader as I can access it easier and faster in the reader application on my Blackberry than I can when I'm browsing each blog seperately. Not to mention how much time I save typing!

At any rate, I digress. One of the blogs I follow is that of Amy Sorenson - "The English Geek" who posted today about her Laundry Confessions. Do you have down and dirty, yet to be cleaned and claimed secrets about your Laundry habits? I mention it because I had just responded to an email from Melissa regarding our significant others and their dress habits. More specifically their habits concerning the dreaded "DRESS UP CLOTHES". Sunday best, as it used to be known. She has a holiday event coming up and the closest she could get her DH to a TUX was a suit. Whether that includes a tie is left to be seen. ;) I told her that my DH was liked that. So much of a gearhead, in fact, that he'd wipe the oil dipstick from his car on the back of his jeans. (I used to cringe so badly when I saw that) His side of the closet could be easily measure with a Yardstick with room to properly space each piece of clothing with two fingers spacing between each. Nowadays he's more of a clothes horse than I am. The only reason my side of the closet is bigger is because I have articles I refuse to give/throw away. I'm sure you're familiar with them. Those clothes from days gone by that you JUST KNOW that you'll fit back into? yeah that. sooooNOThappening, but that's a tale for another day. I'm digressing again.

Her story struck familiar chords with me. I too sort by color (and sometimes weight) of the items, but I also do it when the clothes are dry! In my house, we always seem to be on the go, so laundry tends to stick to piles. I'm recently trying to rectify that, but one of the constants has been that when those piles got too high, I'd drag the baskets into the bedroom and sort. 1 basket for stuff to be hung and/or ironed. 1 for pants, another for tops. the last was for socks and underclothes. This last basket is always the first to be done. Underclothes are easy and quick to fold....yes those socks stay put until I'm in the mood. Pants come next and then maybe I'll get around to tops. DH is in charge of hanging up, but mostly because he does a crappy job of it and I keep thinking that the longer he does it the more he'll get used to doing it properly. maybe. i'm probably delusional. You'll notice that bed linens and towels aren't mentioned huh? That's because they're the first load. they're tossed into the drier as soon as the washer stops and then folded/put away immediately. easy peasy.

oh yeah...and those socks? They're waaaaay last mostly because I keep finding DH's socks in the oddest places.

What are YOUR Laundry Confessions?

2nd Day of Christmas

I bought the Tropical Christmas set from my CTMH rep specifically to make christmas cards. But that was BEFORE I decided to do the 25 days of Christmas for my parents. Here's the 2nd card I made for them. Just so you know...I made 15 of each design and my parents got the best of each lot! The inside sentiment included a picture of me and my husband. The sentiment itself talked about how much they taught me about cherishing family and closeness with those you love.

1st day of Christmas

Suffice it to say that I know for certain that my family doesn't read my blog...At least not my parents. Recently, on Ali Edwards blog, she asked what tradition we had for the holidays. I'm sad to say that after ten years of marriage, we don't have any. In fact, I shocked my husband this year by saying I just wanted to spend Christmas day at home with him. The caveat being that we had to spend it together. Watching TV, playing games...whatever. As long as we spent it together.

The neat part though, is that one commenter responded that the tradition she had is that she would mail her mother in law a card for every day in December with a small memory and/or picture. I decided to do this with my parents. It's been a hard year and I think this would be a nice thing for them to receive. This is the first card I'm sending. It's actually "batch one" of the cards I'm sending this year. I'm having fun crafting them.


Inside the card I wrote about how thankful I am to have parents as caring as they are throughout my life.