So what's keeping me so busy..........

Wellllllll, let's start with the Christmas tree lights. We'll have to back up to Sunday when my husband and I carried the tree upstairs from the basement. Simple enough. The next day, Monday, I got it all put together. It's a large tree, about 8 ft. tall. We've had it since 1988. Again, simple enough. Then he got out the lights, three boxes of some fancy "fade-in, fade-out" lights in green, red and frosted white that we have also had since 1988. He made sure they worked. And then he went off to bed because he has to get up to go to work. I'm the nightowl. I stayed up to put the lights on the tree.
I picked a string of lights and began at the top and got them just right on the top third of the tree. Plugged them in and the white lights didn't work. I was not in the mood to fiddle with the lights so I went to my sewing room to work on ornaments and I sent him an e-mail that he would find when he got to work the next morning - the lights don't work.
So, on Tuesday, I worked on ornaments for my swaps and stuff to go in the boxes and assembled the supplies I needed to take for the card crafting project at the correctional facility. Then when he got home we ate a delicious meal (buttering him up so he'll happily fix the lights). He checked all the strings, found the bad or missing bulbs (I think the dog ate one because I heard a crunch - he has a stomach of steel and has eaten worse) and declared them "working". So again, he goes off to bed and I am ready to place the lights on tree, hum carols and enjoy the night.
I put the lights on the top third of the tree and "bingo", they worked. I was very pleased. I moved to the bottom third of the tree and strung those lights. Plugged them in and no white lights worked. I tested every white bulb. Spent an hour doing it because I tested them twice. I gave up and strung the middle third of the tree. I plug them in and the green lights don't work. I am not happy at this point so I go to my sewing room to watch my soap opera (yes, I watch a soap opera).
On Wednesday, after the card-crafting sessions, my friend Barb and I went to get a sandwich and have some time to catch up on our kids and stuff. We tried one place that makes great sandwiches but we discovered you can no longer order them in the evening so we had to go elsewhere. Taco John's Steak-to-Go got our business, not Panzanella. I got home then about ten minutes before the light man. After he read the mail, he looked at me and said "what"? He knew by the look on my face that something wasn't right. "The lights don't work, do they?" he said. "That's right", I reply. So we go into the living room and he can see that the green ones don't work on the middle strand. He touches a green bulb, jiggles it, and the string of lights spring to life with working green lights! I'm like, no way! You come in and touch them and they work! Not fair. He adjusts the bulb to make sure it's secure and moves to the bottom string to see what white light is not working. He reaches in and removes a white bulb and puts in another one and again, the lights work. Now, remember, I spent an hour checking these bulbs and he walks in and they work in less than 5 minutes. Unbelievable!!

So the lights work but I couldn't decorate because I had to bake goodies for our church women's group project. Made 2 dozen peanut butter kisses, then four dozen thin chocolate oatmeal cookies that I frosted into sandwich cookies and I made a batch of brownies with peanut butter chips in them. The cookies were for the "goodie bags" that will go to those in nursing homes or confined to their homes here in our area.



In the photo above, you can see (from left) Carol, Raye, Carmen (our president and a very good one!) and Philly stuffing candies and such in plastic bags. Then we took them out to the table where the bags were lined up and filled the gift bags with all the candies and cookies. That's Joann on the left and Lorraine on the right. Those goodie bags are so full of good stuff that it'll last a month! Well, maybe a week. ;-)

Earlier I made a Spanish Rice casserole to take along with the cookies because after the "goodie bags" are filled, we all enjoy a potluck. You know the food was good, of course. There was a short meeting and then home to more ornaments and some laundry. Then I frosted the brownies because in the evening, it was our annual Crazy Quilting Christmas Potluck. After that I made a spinach pasta cottage cheese with chicken and cream of broccoli soup concoction that I topped with cornbread stuffing crumbs. Baked it up and it was still hot when I arrived at the Historical Society for Crazy quilting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself because when I got home from the church here's the package that was laying on my front porch. On the back it said SSCS. Oh, yay, it was the package from my Secret Santa in Chookyblue's swap! I opened the box and inside there were ten little packages all wrapped in white tissue paper. Good grief, and I'm supposed to wait til Christmas to unwrap these. I'll never make it!! And I didn't. This afternoon, I just had to unwrap a little one that the bow had fallen off and so I felt it should be unwrapped. It was something cute but I'll wait to show you when I open all the packages. ;-)

We do an ornament exchange at our Crazy Quilting gathering and here are the three I chose to put in the little gift bag that I made for them. Two are chenille stem ones that I made with my grandson and if you want to see more you can check out the photo on the blog that I've set up just for me and Jacob. It's here. I set up the blog sometime ago but haven't really tended to it. Same for one for crazy quilting. I debuted the Tea and Stitches blog this week and also have the Sew and Share blog.

I could share all the photos and such in this blog but I think they need their own "space" so that's why I chose to set up individual blogs for these things. When I visited the "Webmaster" site recently, I learned a bit about "categorizing" and it's something that I need to do here on my blog. It will help new visitors find old posts that might be of interest. Having seperate blogs is also another way to "catagorize" topics. I will be making some changes during the next few weeks, just a little tweeking so don't be surprised if something doesn't look quite the same. It's still just me - long posts and lots of chatter and photos!

Sometime next week, I'll post photos from our Crazy Quilting potluck and also some big news about an exciting exhibit coming up in March. In the meantime, here's a photo of the wrapped ornaments that we "swapped". You'll get to see what was in the packages when I post the photos next week. You'll find them here , so check it out so you won't be surprised when the link takes you to a black screen.

Today, I was exhausted because I couldn't sleep last night and then my husband and the dog were snoring so that meant a noisy night. Heading off to bed in a few minutes and it's all quiet tonight except for the howly wind that is blowing outside. So fellow Minnesotans, can you believe how cold it is for early December? Sure glad I have no place to go tomorrow. I'll be doing more tree decorating and ornament projects. Just four boxes to mail that I should have taken to the post office today but I never made it to the post office. I am a week late in getting them out and hope that when they are received those who get the packages will be happy with all the goodies they find inside and won't mind that the package is a little late. I got the doll swap and the SSCS and Stitchers Angel swaps out by their deadlines but the ornament swaps have been a challenge for reasons I don't need to bother you with. I do love making ornaments and this evening I opened up the boxes that contain my collection of close to 500 ornaments that go on my trees. I'll be sharing photos and stories all this next week on the ornaments and where they came from or how I made them. Time to turn out the lights and snuggle up with an extra blanket tonight!!!

Sandi