I delivered my memo holders that I made to my college friends today and they really seemed to like them. I think the video of them being made will go live tomorrow.  I think they came out pretty well and they seemed to be more impressed with the felt on the bottom than anything.  They were impressed that I thought of everything.
Spending time with old friends is really wonderful.  You don’t need to explain things because they know you so well and understand you perfectly.  You don’t have to apologize because you’d never do anything to intentionally hurt each other.  Spending time together is like sitting in a comfortable chair with a snuggly blanket and your favorite slippers.  You feel safe, secure and loved.   They both seemed worried about my upcoming hip surgery.  They brought me a big bouquet of roses, which made me feel loved but also conveyed their nervousness to me.  If I could change one thing about having this disease, it’s the overall anxiety it creates in those around me.  I hate how worried everyone is and how there’s nothing I can do about it.  When my parents were alive and my sister lived nearby, after every surgery, as soon as I was completely conscious, no matter how much it hurt, I would tell them the same bad (and kind of dirty) joke that involved a swearing parrot.  It was my way of letting them know everything was going to be ok.  I guarantee as soon as I wake up on the 13th, poor Rich is going to hear the parrot joke for the 9th or 10th time and everything will be ok.  Trust me.

So I finished two more gift projects that should have been done before Christmas but are done in time for the get together we have planned with our friends.  I saw this cute desk note holder that I made for my brother in law as a minion.  It wasn’t very hard and looked pretty great when I was done with it, so I decided to do the same for my college friends.  One is into “The Wizard of Oz” and the other was a math major and loves anything to do with math.  I found a rubber stamp that referenced Pi and knew it was perfect for her.  I made a bunch of stamped pages for inside and I’m ready to go.  When I give a gift that involves a stamped image that they will use, I like to give the stamp and some inks so they can replenish their notes once they use them up.  I think it makes it a gift that keeps on giving and I won’t have to keep track of a Pi stamp forever (that’s an added bonus if you have seen my craft room lately.)  My friend Linda asked if maybe a hurricane came through there, but no, it was just the messy side of crafting.  I’d like to be neater and am working on that as my resolution in 2016.  I don’t normally do a resolution as I never can think of one I would really want to commit to.  I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but all of my imperfections seem to be ones I can live with.  What does that say about me?  Am I too lazy to fix myself, or maybe I just don’t care enough about my issues.  (Isn’t that another way of saying I’m too lazy?)

Normally I don’t think my house is really messy, but the same cannot be said of my craft room.  Every time I clean it and promise myself I won’t let it get bad again, it does indeed, get bad.  I’m trying to make sure I give people my projects because I accumulate those as well.  If someone compliments me on a project, there’s a good chance they will be gifted that project.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled when anyone likes something I make, I also happen to be my own worst critic and have trouble spending quality time with said project.  I want to make it and then find someone who likes it to give it to.   If I don’t give these projects away and they keep accumulating, I will be the hoarder formerly known as Sandy.  There will be no way to walk through that space and eventually Rich will put out a missing persons’ bulletin because I’m lost in the clutter.  No, this year I am going to make a resolution.  I will maintain a semi-normal crafting space where you can see the floor and the top of counter surfaces (most of the time).  I’m really going to work on cleaning there tomorrow, or the day after, or, well you get the picture.

Bye, Bye, Bye,  Two Oh One Five.

I’ve got a huge celebration planned for tonight.  Dinner, movie and bed.  I know that you are brimming with jealousy but hold onto it.  It may even involve two huge golden retrievers vying for room on the couch.  Rich and I have date night every Friday night and have been doing so for over ten years.  It’s the same but different every week.  We usually have pizza, but sometimes opt for wings and always popcorn with a ton of butter and lots of Mountain Dew, our crack of choice.  I’m not sure why, but the caffeine in Mountain Dew doesn’t make me nuts, but coffee keeps me up for days.  Rich has always been proud that he converted me to his drink of choice and so we consume a ton of it every Friday.  Since Friday is so special, why not make it New Years Eve?  I never make it to midnight anyway, so there’s no difference there.  We love movies and certain television shows that we “power watch” on Fridays by watching them on demand or Net Flix.  The dogs think they own the night and if one has couch time, the other thinks that she should as well.  Once they see the afghan placed on the couch it’s every dog for themselves.  Some evenings Rich has to sit somewhere else as they are serious couch hogs.  Aggie turns fifteen in February and struggles going up and down the stairs so Rich has to guide her to make sure she doesn’t fall.  She’s rolled down the stairs from top to bottom at least twice and scared the crap out of us, but jumped up like nothing happened.  Bella, who is four, decided this week that she’s not getting enough attention, so ate a make up brush, a Christmas ornament and a very large pinecone she found.  She’s never quite figured out what growling is for, so she growls at everyone while wagging her tail and trying to show them a stuffed animal she always carries.  She has stuffed animals in every room because she has to have one at the ready in case someone comes to the door, she hears a loud noise, or she thinks Rich is home.  I’m seriously not sure who runs this house, because it’s definitely not us.  I know they have us trained.  Good thing we didn’t have kids.

I’ve been thinking about 2016 and what it might bring.  The first thing that comes to mind is snow.  It seems like a certainty that we will get snow, but the forecasters are saying our February could be in the 50’s and 60’s.  Last year it didn’t really snow until the first week of January but then never stopped until May.  I wonder if we get a reprieve in February, could that mean snow until June?  It isn’t unheard of, but rare here.  I never plant Memorial Day flowers on my parents grave until that weekend, not because I’m lazy (well I am lazy), but we almost always have a frost the week before Memorial Day thus killing everything I painstakingly planted (or Rich planted and I watched, you be the judge.)

We have fed deer during the winter for probably the last ten years.  When I was a kid, my dad explained that we need hunters otherwise the deer population gets too large and they starve for lack of food.  As an adult, I’ve always felt there should be an alternative to killing the herd, so we feed as many deer as we can.  We rarely see deer until the first real snow and then at dusk they show up looking for dinner.  It’s unbelievable how they know exactly where and when to find a hearty meal.  We buy roughly 1,000 pounds of corn from a local farmer and dole it out as the pile diminishes.  Our herd has been as high as around twenty-five (they’re hard to count when they move around so much.)  When it gets that high, it’s survival of the fittest and we have deer arguments where they try to beat each other with their front hooves.  It isn’t pretty and I always wonder if we’re going to have a death match in our backyard.

We haven’t opened a bag of corn yet this year so I’m assuming we have some pretty chubby mice in our storage garage.  I picture a Disney animated film with a mouse so fat it can’t get up to help Cinderella make her dress.  We’d have to retitle it something like “No Song, No Dress, No Prince, Just One Fat Mouse.”

I think I have too much time on my hands, or corn, depending on how you look at it.

I finished a really big project today and I’m pretty proud of it.  It will be up on video in the next couple of days.  I made an album for my friend Cora for Christmas.  She and I always celebrate a few days late.  It’s the first album I’ve ever made and it was really fun, but I think it was over my comfort threshold.  I used the crop-a-dile to punch eyelets so many times that my arms were shaking.  Ok, it was only six times, but seemed like a lot more.  A couple of the eyelets didn’t take because of the thickness of the materials so I may have to glue them in.  I really wanted the album to be You Tube worthy because I’ve seen so many really lovely albums and I didn’t want to look like a hack.  Of course those crafters have been doing this forever and I’ve been doing it for around a year.  If it hadn’t been for You Tube, I would have never learned how to do anything.  I really wish there had been a physically challenged crafter to show me how to do things but it’s been great using crafting skills I haven’t used since college and finding a new way to feel useful.  That was the one thing I really missed when I left work.  I loved feeling needed and problem solving and for the first year or so I didn’t have anything to fill the gap.  Luckily I had dinner with one of my favorite college professors and we discussed my lack of purpose.  He asked if I’d like to do something at the school and I told him that I had interviewed students there and they were not very prepared.  I wanted to start a program where we practiced interviewing with the students so they were ready for their “real” interviews.  Since then, I interview all of the business and accounting seniors and most juniors to prepare them for internship interviews as well.  I’m really proud of the work the students have put into it and the results are showing that our students are getting more second interviews and more job offers than the other schools that we compete against for jobs.  Since I only do the interviews for three weeks in the fall and the same in the spring, I still have a lot of down time.  The You Tube channel has given me a new purpose and a great creative outlet.  Thanks for taking the time to watch my videos and reading my blogs, I’m really blessed.

I’ve been thinking about projects for the future and my mind has kind of blanked out on me. I think the ice storm outside has somehow frozen my brain as well.  Maybe a nap would help.  I was never a napper when I worked, but now, I guess I am.  As I type this, I look over to see Rich snuggling into his favorite La-Z-Boy for a little nap of his own.  Maybe it’s an age thing.  You get past fifty and all of a sudden you’re the woman who can’t make it through the afternoon without a little downtime.  I’m great after 11PM and I’m not sure why.  My internal clock is starting to readjust from days to nights and vice versa.  I’d like to wake up before 10AM, but my internal alarm clock doesn’t agree.  It thinks noon might be a more agreeable wake up time.  I have a project that really needs to be completed but I’m literally too tired to do it.  I going for a small (or not so small) nap and see how things look after that.  I’m hoping they look better than they do right now.  My frozen brain may not thaw until after a long winter’s nap. Maybe my brain is now part bear and is hibernating.  Yes, let’s go with that.  See you in the spring.

I am so excited! I just got an email from a stamp company that wants me to review their product.  I am thrilled that someone would think of me for this and can’t wait to do it.   They want to know how their stamps work for the disabled crafter.  I love the idea of helping to make products for the disabled community and just can’t wait to get started.  Today was a very very good day!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.  We spent ours with friends and family.  I have to say, I was so happy to get home and finally take a deep sigh and relax.  I think Christmas is stressful for most of us and it doesn’t seem like it should be, but it is.

It was so great spending time with our friends as it always is, and we should make the time to see each other more often.

I have big plans for You Tube for the future and think that 2016 will be a great year.  I’m starting out strong but on January 13th, I’m having my hip “revised.”  That’s when they take an artificial hip and take out what’s worn and replace it with something new.  The surgeon who is doing it is using a new technique that doesn’t cut muscle and only makes a 4 inch incision and you spend one day in the hospital.  I’m thrilled that technology has come this far since 1991.  I had a five day hospital stay and my incision is at least 10 inches long and may be longer.  (I’ve never gotten anything back there to measure it.)   I’m planning on having enough videos on reserve that you’ll never notice my absence.  My blog however, may be silent for a few days.  I’ll let you know how everything goes once I’m back up and running again.  So that’s the plan and in the meantime, I’m excited about some upcoming videos I have planned.