Merry Christmas to All

Wanted to wish everyone reading a very Merry Christmas and look forward to a prosperous 2011.
Finally this day is here and gifts are wrapped and under the tree. The size of the presents are small but the price is not. The kids are too eager to open presents and excited to see the looks on the faces on other people as they open their presents. My son did most of the wrapping as he has in previous years. He's such a good elf and gets excited with the decorating and the Christmas music. I love all the love in his heart!
Keep safe and enjoy the celebration of Jesus' birth, keep Him close to your heart!

Some of my old favorite stitched pieces

While I was looking over some of my pictures, I came across pictures of some of my favorite stitched pieces that I have hanging on the wall. Here are three of a set that are my first pieces using overdyed threads from back in the 90's. My father-in-law liked them and made frames for them, they were not ironed or stretched and I didn't want to take them apart to do that because he took the pieces and gave them back to me framed. I thought that was so endearing and it's a great memory I have of him.

This last one actually looks like my father-in-law from the back (although he was not from an Indian descent). He was a great character who wore hats and had a presence about him.

Oldies but goodies! They are dear to my heart for many reasons but also because I used "overdyed's" that were new to the stitching world at the time. You should see my stash of GAST and WDW plus a nice selection of silks too! They really have changed the stitching world!

Happy Thanksgiving - alot to celebrate

We are truly thankful for our health, our family, our friends, our support system and to God for blessing us in many areas. We acknowledge that "things" in our life are just luxuries to enjoy but does not define who we are, what matters is having Jesus live in our hearts and having His Spirit to guide us. We are fortunate that we have the extra funds to make Christmas purchases for the kids (son, nieces, nephews, grandsons and great-grandbaby girl) and are able to spend time with family.

Our Thanksgiving feast was just that, a feast! We were blessed with two complete thanksgiving dinners and we had already purchased our BIG turkey, 21.21 lbs! So we blessed another family with one of the given dinners and felt really happy to be able to do that for a family that didn't know how they were going to serve a turkey meal. We believe that we are blessed to be a blessing and as we get older, we enjoy giving and look for ways in which we can help other people. Sometimes it's a word of encouragement, other times it's what we can do for them. Helping out someone is rewarding and keeps our hearts light and a smile on our faces. We truly have alot to celebrate, not just today, but every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I Miss You Dad!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since my sweet dad passed away. He wasn't ready to leave us and tried his hardest to stay but his body couldn't do it anymore. What is the saddest part was him leaving my mom. He loved that woman with everything that he had and it's hard for her to keep going without him. Her life isn't as enjoyable as it used to be. She puts up a good front, but on the surface she's just being brave and trying to be happy.

I've come to hate hearing that cliche, "time heals all wounds". A wound is never completely mended, it's masked by a scar, a cover up, but the hurt of missing someone is always present. Really, what hurts the most is having my parents separated by two different worlds, knowing my mom is missing her mate and life long partner.

In their wedding photo from 1953, my mom made her wedding dress and the night before the wedding, my dad helped her sew on the roses onto the veil because she had decided to decorate it. Then, before the wedding, he couldn't contain his excitement and went into the bedroom where she and all the bridesmaids were so he could see her and everyone was trying to shoo him out saying it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding but he paid no attention to that and went to see his "girl".

November 16th will always be a sad day until they are reunited again.

In the meantime, we reminisce about his wit and humor and funny jokes and antics. We miss his calm nature and easy to get along with attitude, and his never letting things get to him. Most importantly I miss teasing him about the Redskins. A die hard fan to the end who didn't like the Cowboys but never missed a game. It's just not fair that this year the Redskins have a winning season and the Cowboys don't. It's just not fair that he missed that, it would have been a fun football season to have him tease me back this once.

I try not to cry over missing him, but I'll allow some tears this day. It's the first year without him and life was better with him on earth for our own selfish reasons. I know there are many angels laughing at his jokes in the eternal heavens!

I miss you, I miss all your jokes and all your stories. I miss looking out for you and taking care of you, it was always me that benefitted from our extra time together those last 7 years. Thank you for everything Chacho! I love you Dad!

It's Looking Like Fall

We've had a couple of windy days in El Paso and the yellow leaves are starting to blanket the ground. I went outside this morning and took a couple of pictures of our little Brindle Pug in her first fall photo of her life! She posed easily, I think she likes the colors too!

Then Little Ray joined us in the fun and I couldn't help but get a picture of these two best buds!

So, as we say in Texas, "Happy Fall, Y'all!!"

RIP George (Jorge)

Here is a picture of my brother-in-law who passed away Oct 24, 2010 after having a bad reaction to an antidepressant he was recently prescribed. This picture was taken after he got this Chevrolet. He traded in a pick-up truck he had because his new job assignment was far from home and he wanted to save as much as he could on gas. It was a small vehicle for him but it was when gas prices were pretty high and he was very happy with the trade-in. This car was planned to be handed over to his son when the time was right.

There are so many people who are devasted by his very unexpected passing. It was a complete shock and there was no time to help him. He was a great family man, loving husband, friendly and willing to help anyone who asked. One of the best things about him is that he was always making jokes.

He was a police officer at our local community college. It was his dream to become a police officer and he loved his job. His family consisted of my sister, his son and daughter (both kids are teenagers), and plenty of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, etc. We are very much in shock but have lots of great memories.
God Bless You George!

My Mom has been busy!

Getting ready for our first craft show of the 2010 season. Pulled out the totes from the garage and started sorting to see what we have to work with. Now comes the fun part, pricing!

Since our first show is at an elementary school, I had her make a couple of hat and scarf sets for little girls. plus she has alot of scarves and capes that will be great for teacher gifts.

This lady is non-stop! She's more accurate than a machine!

Her fingers are hurting her more so she's slowing down. It takes her a whole week to knit a sweater coat where it used to take 4 days of good Yankees Baseball to watch.

She says this will be her last year for the shows, she says that every year :-)

Pray for us to have fantastic sales this season!