It's a small world after all.

One of the things that I love most of all about Etsy, is the opportunity it gives you to connect with people in various other countries. It makes the world seem a little less small and me feel a little more part of it.

One seller I recently met, from Etsy Shop Bikbikandroro, I took an immediate liking to. Her kind heart is obvious from several conversations I have had with her. And her creations are some of the cutest I have come across.



This Sailor Tabby Cat softie doll immediately stole my heart.



And these blossom pins are beyond precious.

I just had to share! :)

Whaaaat???

"Whaaaaaat??" is exactly what I said to myself when I just hopped on my blog a few minutes ago and saw that I last posted in JANUARY!!

It is shameful that I have not been able to commit to more time here. I enjoy writing on my blog, and I especially enjoy visiting my blog friends, which is what I will be doing shortly.
I have no excuse other than life being busy, the girls are both in dance, and they were home for almost the entire month of February on break. We went to Disney for a week. It was a blast, and I will share some useful tips that I learned, in the future. Until then, I will leave you with a picture.

The girls are getting big, aren't they?? Little Emily will be 6 in June. 6. I can hardly stand it. And Allie will turn 8, not too far after that... my, my, how time does fly.

A Homemade Valentine

Peel.

Fill.

Melt. (we melted ours at 230 degrees for 11 minutes)

I put a wee bit of hot glue on the back of them and squished them to a square piece of thick paper.

And Emily wrote out all of her classmates names.

This was a fun activity. If you do it - make sure you have plenty of time - it took us a couple of hours from start to finish.
I later read a tip to soak your crayons for 5 minutes and then the paper will come right off.
I read that tip a little too late! ha!

No trees were harmed

No trees were harmed in the making of my branches.

While I was painting some branches a few days ago, it dawned on me - I would hate for someone to think the branches in my shop came from me hacking away at some poor tree.

All of my branches come from long-been-dead trees. They come from walks in the woods behind my house, or my parents house. And I still have quite a lot that I brought from Austin. Yes, when we moved across country - I packed some branches along.

The idea for my branches came from when our property in Austin was just a graveyard of trees who had perished from the prolonged drought. I even have some neat, very large ones - that I had painted and are now displayed in my livingroom on the wall.

But when I was painting the other day - I thought.. hmm... there may be people who view my listings and think I am willy nilly hacking away at the forest.

Such is not the case, and now I feel better for saying so.

New Year Changes

Happy New Year! 2 weeks in and I am just getting around to saying that..

I wish I could give myself a goal of blogging weekly and blog visiting twice a week. Maybe saying it here will make that happen. I just don't think that goal is very realistic for me.

The above picture is me - taken with my vase. I feel like the look of my shop is boring, and I want to try to mix things up in the New Year.

Changes. I am making them.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!

No Cable.

We are approaching a year without Cable or Satellite TV. Have I ever mentioned that?

Well, we fired our cable company at the end of December 2011 because it was an obvious way for us to save money. This is when Bobby got the job to move us back to North Carolina, and at the time, we had thought that he was going to have to move before us, and we had to find way to save money. So, that was one of the things that helped us do that.

A year later, we are still without cable, or satellite. We get over-the-air free channels- so we get the local news and NBC and CBS, and PBS, and a few others. And then we also subscribe to Netflix and Hulu, for about 8 dollars a month each.

We have a blu ray player and Bobby has hooked up a computer to our TV, so we can watch some shows that we miss, that aren't available on Netflix or Hulu.

I can't tell you how much I don't miss the high price of cable or satellite. That first month or two last year was tough.. when I was getting used to being "without" but now that some time has passed, I don't even remember what I was missing.

If you are looking for ways to save money in the new year, I highly recommend going this route!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Posing.

So, we flew to Boston Thanksgiving week. We spent the holiday in New Hampshire with my whole family. It was a nice visit. The first time I have flown in 4 years and the first that Emily and Allie can remember. They were much smaller when we flew last, obviously.

If our flight wasn't so early in the morning, I would have done well with a drink (or two) to take my edge off. I didn't show my nervousness, for the most part, as I didn't want the girls to feel my tension.

Luckily, they were oblivious to my fears - so much so that Emily, as the plane was taking off - yelled, quite loudly and excitedly - "Mommy! Look! We ARE FLYING! Look HOW HIGH we ARE!! MOMMY! We are sooOOooOOOoooo HIGH OFF THE GROUND!! YAY!!! YAAAAY!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!!" Everyone around us chuckled as I dug my nails into the seat, looking at Em with a slightly forced smile, saying, "yay!"
ha! Good Times!

We spent an afternoon walking around Boston, ate some yummy food, picked up a souvenir or two.

And trust me when I say that every picture we took of them - they posed like that.

see?

see?
Memories!