Christmas mini houses quilt

Now that Christmas is over I can upload this photo of a coffee table sized quilt I made for my sister. I fell in love with this concept by Jacquie at www.tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com . I made one for my sister and another for a good friend and they both loved them. Thank you Jacquie for your great ideas and inspiration! These will definately be on my gift list for next year and I am planning to further personalize them. I added a jewelry store on my sisters, a quilt store on my friends and both had cat houses since they both love cats.

Christmas Treats....

We had all vowed to spend less this year and use our many talents and make more homemade gifts. I just had to share all the many wonderful goodies I received yesterday and will have to fight off eating them all at once. My sister Cindy and her husband Theo made me some lovely handmade and decorated Apease cookies and some granola. My son Aaron and his girlfriend Greta, made me some wonderful cut out cookies from an old family recipe and I even got my name on a snowman. They also were so sweet to send me some holiday coffee and stuffed peppers from Philadelphia, which they know I love. My good friend Carol made me some cranberry bread and my Aunt Jean sent me some lovely hand towels from one of her holiday trips to Vermont.


All these lovely items make me feel so loved and the comfort of home baked goodies can’t be matched.

Giving back....

I have always known what a wonderful job I have, what a wonderful life I have and the love of friends and family around me; unfortunately not everyone has this life.


Our office adopted a family for Christmas instead of exchanging gifts this year , so today a couple of us went to deliver the gifts. The single mother was out of work and lives with her mother and 2 kids. They were so happy to show us their tree and we placed all the gifts underneath and it was such a wonderful experience. Our economy sucks right now and anything we can do to help each other means so much. I get caught up in this "Christmas" season of buying and wrapping gifts and I love the holiday but it's the giving from our hearts that God expects and enriches all our lives with.

This Christmas will mean so much more to me after having met such a gracious family in need this year.

May you all have the opportunity to give to someone in need.

Merry Christmas,

As 2008 comes to a close

Well it's getting pretty close to the end of the year and I've been thinking about my resolutions for the new year. In the past I always say I'm going to lose weight and spend less but this year I'd like to simply make the commitment to live a more simplistic life. I began 2008 much the same as other years but sometime around the middle of the year I found the etsy website and was taken aback by all the wonderful "handmade" crafters and starting buying things for the holidays. By late in the summer I had the bug again to sew but since I had given my sewing machine away about 10 years ago I knew that would have to be step one. I researched for weeks and finally ended up with a Janome 4900 (that I love by the way). One thing led to another and I found a quilting blog http://www.crazymomquilts.com/ and the hook was set. I have been pretty much just watching from the behind the scenes, building some fabric stash again, took a basic machine peicing class and decided to make a quilt for my son and future daughter in law. The quilt is now made and safely in a box under their tree in Philadelphia just waiting for Christmas morning. I can only hope and pray that they love it and since they know how much fall means to me it will always be a reminder in years to come even after I'm gone. So now all I have to do is organize, get ready for the holidays and begin my list of How to live Simple in 2009!

In the beginning...

I have finally decided after all this time watching from the sidelines to start my own blog! Since I don't know how it works it may take me some time to catch on but in the meantime step 1 is complete!