Happy Thanksgiving

A day to give thanks for your blessings...sometimes it's hard for me to see the forest through the trees. Today I will step back and count my blessings...
my beautiful,healthy, independent girls.
my hard-working,patient husband
a roof over my head
a working vehicle(when the snow starts flying I will be even more grateful for the 4 wheel drive)
my husband has a job
Ebay-which allows me to make at least a small contribution to the household bills
my sweet pup who makes me smile everyday
and this might seem weird but I am just so grateful that i have my own bathroom-no one else ever goes in there, it is my haven- I can sink into my deep tub with a pile of bubbles and just forget the world exists, I can keep my jars and bottles of miracle lotions,gels and potions out and no one will get anything dirty or leaky or use my favorite sweet smelling handsoap to wash their greasy hands, no one leaves whiskers in the sink, no one leaves toothpaste on the counter, no "forgets" to replace the TP., no one leaves towels on the floor(except me). I don't think I can ever go back to sharing a bathroom!
As a side note-if you are gearing up for Christmas card making, I have some fabulous Christmas stamps in the Ebay store right now-some on auction and the rest are BUY IT NOW-some end on Sunday. Also I have a LOT of ink pads right now.
Have a beautiful day...don't eat too much, you know you'll regret it...go for the dessert first so you can enjoy it!

Some Christmas decorating ideas

I admit I am feeling rather "scroogey" this year, I still can't help looking at other people's fabulous ideas...guess what these GLORIOUS trees are made of...
Go here to check it out...http://amyhogan.com/blog/renovation/?p=2342
So very cool

i PULLED THESE IMAGES OFF OF MY NEW FAVORITE DECOR BLOG...http://frenchlarkspur.blogspot.com

I know I don't have enough white and cream buttons to do all of this yet but I will make a few of the ornaments for sure...I am dying to do a white/cream tree for my bedroom. I am seeing a lot of twig trees lately-just a branch stuck in a pot and decorated..maybe spraypainted white or soft silver-I am sure I can find a branch around here-LOL!

need a boost?

See over there in the side bar where it says INSPIRATION OVERLOAD...? If you click on those links they will take you to my inspiration blogs,one for cards,scrapbook pages and misc handmade items and the other is for Decor...not much in the way of words but instead pages of photos find in my web travels that I find to be inspiring...feel free to go take a peek...I add to them several times a week so be sure to bookmark the address so you can check them out often.

the morning sun...

There are times when I wish I could be the kind of person who sleeps late but then I would miss views like this one. Mornings are wonderful. I always wake up feeling hopeful, I enjoy the quiet. Even when the kids were little I encouraged quiet in the mornings-there was no TV while getting ready for school(unless we needed to check the weather). I wanted their day to start off calm. The chaos of the world will work it's way in sooner or later but for now, anything is possible.

remember

remember what it felt like to be young and full of ideas,plans,dreams,expectations,hope...do you remember how you looked at how your parents lived and thought " I will never be like that"..I will raise my kids differently, I will decorate my house differently, I will eat differently,love differently, work differently...I will never force my kids to eat food they hate,I will never point out my daughters physical faults, I will never spend every saturday cleaning the house....I will have lots of windows and very few curtains, I will have dogs that are allowed in every room of the house, I will not own more cleaning supplies than books, I will allow my kids to be kids...in some respects I have stayed true to myself...when it comes to my kids, I have made the sacrifices I needed to make...I opted to stay home and raise them myself rather than put them in day care-it has been an enormous financial burden trying to live on one income but we managed. Was it the right thing to do? To devote my days to raising my kids...what about now...they are raised, Jill is completely independant and jenna needs very little from me...what now? I always thought that having my kids early in life was the best idea so that when they were raised I would still be young enough to enjoy my freedon, my husband and I would have plenty of time to do the things we wanted to do, now here I am.... FREE....still young but with no marketable job skills so my choices are extremely limited...minimum wage, competing with high school kids. My husband and I can't do any of the things we wanted to do because we have no money, we are still living paycheck to paycheck..we wanted to travel but we have only had ONE vacation in the past 20 years(and we took the kids..we've never been on a trip alone=sad), we wanted to renovate a dream house but we can't even afford to build a front porch on this house...we used to talk about our daughters getting married and how pretty the wedding would be...now we are hoping they elope. So what do we do?? Keep dreaming?? Keep planning? Is that what life is...constantly struggling?I am disillusioned, I am tired of the constant battle to make ends meet. There has to be more to it than this.

Just listed

I just listed some new stamps on Ebay...wishing I could keep some of these :>(
Plus a bunch more...there are some unmounted clear sets from Stampington also.