What a way to start the year. Sick, Sick, Had an Accident and more Sick.

I know I will look back at my blog and barely remember being ill.  But there is a nasty bug going around.  In fact a lot of people are not getting to the doctor and it is turning into pneumonia.  I have to raise my hand on that one.  I have been sick since December 18th and just went to the doctor last week.  Got a shot, horse pills and scolded.  I'm use to it, I am very heard headed and don't do things like they should be done.

My computer got sick, WAY SICK, so it had to go to the doctor's as well.  That is why I haven't been posting.  Got it back, hooked it up, sat down to type a quick note to my girlfriend.  While I was typing Andy came in and said that he was going out to the chicken coop and I jumped up and told him I wanted to go and see the girls.

We fed them, took the eggs and decided to clean up the coop a little bit.  That is where it became dangerous.  I was at the front and when Andy came out of the coop with some bedding, I backed up and off I went BACKWARDS!!  Four foot drop!  I landed on my right side and don't ask me how.  But shredded my hand, scratched half of my face, bloodied my nose and had A LOT of dirt in my mouth!  Thank God I didn't knock my teeth out of my mouth!

So, with motrin, pain killers and a lot of sympathy, I am recovering.  There is just too much to do to have everything stop me.

My thoght:  It could have been a lot worse.  Even more worse:  Having someone else do that drop instead of me.  Now I know I have to fix it so it doesn't hurt anyone that goes up there.  Nasty.

Well, have a great weekend.  Even with everything that has happened, I have a weekend packed full and don't have time to stop.  Now, where are those pain pills?????  Talk to you next week!

New placemat project...

I found the cutest blog, this happens to be my favorite pastime is to look at other people's blogs, that is one of my guilty pleasures in my world.

I saw that this particular blog called The Haverford House had put her artwork on The Graphic Fairy.  Every Monday Karen has "Brag Monday" and  I can't wait to get on and see what incredible work people will do with her graphics. 

So, I took The Havorford House idea and went one up. Here is my picture:

How cool is this!!!!

I redesigned the center and put this great rooster on it.  It translate in English from French:  I sing loud and clear!  I should rename my blog that.  Boy, I can sing loud in my car, bathroom and anywhere no one else is in the area!  I used a drop cloth Canvas as the place-mat.  It looks really neat and natural too.  Love the natural element.

It was extremely easy to do and I have to say, I am quite pleased with my work, and to think, I created something from nothing.  Thank you The Havorford House for the inspiration and The Graphic Fairy for your unselfish love everyday.

I am linking this post to the Monday party over at the Graphic Fairy, take a moment and check it out, I promise it will inspire you!

We have a winner!!!!!!

Well, I have to be honest here, as the Pioneer Woman says, :Just keeping it real".  I had the hardest time with this giveaway.  Why?  I wanted everyone to win.  With each person writing I kept telling myself, "I want this person to win".  Then the next comment was written down and I thought, "I want this person to win".

I even asked if Andy wanted to be in the room with me when I went on to Random. org. to have them pull the number. I went over to Random.org and put in all 13 numbers and it said #5!  Whoo hoo!  It's done and they won!  Who is that #5?  I went back to look at my spread sheet and #5 is:

Cathy @ glsf@hotmail.com.  Congratulations!!!!!!!!!

Go ahead and contact me and I will send you over the instructions to claim your prize...

As for everyone else, I wish I had 12 more of this prize to give each and every one of you.  Thank you for taking your time to fill out your comment and enter.  I promise that I will be having more of them.  Can't say that I will be having the CSN giveaway, but others ones none the less.  

Have a great week and congrats Cathy!

 

Contest-Great New Year's gift card just for you!

Happy New Year Everybody!

Whew!  How did we all do?  Is your hair all messed up, makeup smeared, drool running out of your mouth?  Oh wait, that is me, you, on the other hand, look FABULOUS!

I thought that I was all finished for my Chirstmas shopping, you know trying to be smart and get everything somewhat done?  Well, I an only say it worked in theory.  I only had to go to the mall, ONCE!!!  Ya hoo.  Next year, my plan is to not set foot in a mall.  Now, I want to share "my plan" with you.

We all do internet shopping, right?  What I hate is looking up page after page of shops and then forgetting where I went to then having to retrace everything I just did.  I really wanted to find a place that has everything in one spot.  Low and behold I found it!  It is a great website called CSN Stores.  They have EVERYTHING from TV stands for flat screens to cookware. It truly is a virtual mall, and this mall makes me happy, see no feet walking in the door, just fingers, (let your fingers do the walking, ha ha, I made a funny!)

Here is the exciting part....I am so happy to be able to give one of my awesome readers a $45.00 gift certificate for CSN Stores.   Yippeee!  Why?  Because I love you!







Ok here is the rules.  (There are always rules, but I am making them and it will be fun)

Rule 1:  You have to spend this gift certificate on YOURSELF.

Rule 2:  You tell me what you are planning to get with your wonderful gift certificate in the comment section.

Rule 3:  How do you enter?  Easy!  Leave a comment in the comment section.

Rule 4:  Send me a gift if you win (just kidding). Gawd!  I thought that was funny.

Rule 5:  You can enter as many times as you like, because, we all have the right to change our mind on things that we want.

This contest will only be valid for Canada and the United States. 

The contest will run until Sunday January 9th and I will pull a name on Monday morning.  Now, how is that for making a Monday worth getting up for, huh?

I will use Random.org to pull the name.  I wish you the best luck and I am excited to be able to give this wonderful present to you!

Good luck and let the contest begin!

How do you say good bye to a part of your life?

I know the title sounds sad, but I ask you "How do you say good bye to a part of your life?"  I am talking about an electric skillet:

Sounds silly, come on an electric appliance?  But if you think about it, what do you have in your kitchen, bathroom or any part of your house that you can think about and realize you have had that "piece in your life for a very long time"?

I had a crock pot that was my parents and they gave it to me YEARS ago.  It even had the fabric cord and not a third prong on it!  When I got my new one and was finally getting rid of it, I got a little meloncoly about it, not knowing why.

Now just the other day we cooked our last meal on our old electric skillet, we got a new one for Christmas.

When Andy threw it away, I looked at it in the trash, yes for recycle, and I started to cry.  He looked at me and said "OK now you are losing it" . "You are really crying over this old electric skillet"?

And the sad part of it was, yes, I was crying over the old electric skillet.  Now I have to admit, I am tired, as we all are, with the emotions of Christmas, the stress, the shopping, the running around, you get it, right?

Well, after I sat there for a few minutes I started to think about that old skillet.  That skillet as with the old crock pot I had a few years ago, had been with me for a good part of my adult life.  It had come into my home for a wedding present from my first marriage, it had been with me through the marriage, the divorce,  new marriage, death of a parent, raising two kids, moved to and  from seven homes.

Twenty one years, that electric skillet has had a place in my home.  So to see it in the trash hurt my heart and I did cry over the years it had been with me.

I know that I have a new, improved skillet sitting brand new in a box under the Christmas tree.

I know that I will have excitement with the opening of the box and cooking my first meal with it and know that it won't got from 0 to "Holy Crap" like my old one did.  The cord will stay plugged in and I can even put this one in the dishwasher.  New and Improved is good, but there is something to be said about wearing a old comfortable shoe....  I dried my tears and said to myself that I look forward to the next 21 years with the new one.  Let's just hope it can last half of that time, I was blessed with this little electric "workhorse" skillet.

P.S.  How long did I have the crock pot for?  30 years, not including the five years before when my parents had it in their home...

What do you have in your home like this electric skillet?  How many years have you had it?

Cute Vinyl Christmas Gift Part One and Two....

You know during the Christmas Season, you are running around checking your list trying to get the best Christmas gift for your husband, wife, children, mom, dad, grandchildren.  When you are all done, you are exhausted like you just ran a marathon, more fluids!  Then as you are sitting back, drooling, you remember, Oh my I forgot the presents for ______!  That my friend, is my definition of Christmas.  The ones forgotten are usually a simple gifts for gift exchange for work, or for the mailman, butcher, doctor, babysitter, book club members, bunko girls, red hats, librarian, teacher, I can go on can't I? 

I have figured out the perfect gifts!!!

I have posted about the incredible machine called Silhouette.  With this puppy, I can make cute Christmas items for about two bucks.  (You can't count the $300.00 it cost to buy this puppy)  Then I could add to it as I want, if I want..  Take a look at this beauty.....

I bought a mixing bowl at the Dollar Tree:

(See the plate underneath it, yep that turned out to be a gift as well).

Came up with the saying "I love Pancakes" putting  on my computer Silhouette software font called "Black Boys on Mopeds"  serious, can't or won't make that one up.  That font is free along with like a gazillion other ones.

Then I put my red (my very FAVORITE color, I LOVE it)  vinyl paper in it and printed. Viola!

Transferred it to my mixing bowl and filled it with red foil shreds (Oh that was a mistake, boy was that messy!!!! But it really looked good, it is like wearing a pair of really high heels, they kill your feet, but you look Fabulous!). I decided to put a red spatula in it, then came up with the great idea to put a bottle of syrup and a box of pancake mix along with it.

 

I then wrapped it in clear basket wrap, again Dollar Tree and for a gift like this was a total of under $10.00!  That is you don't buy pure maple syrup, if you do add about $8.00 to it.  

I had done another one and replaced  Pancakes for Waffles and just added a waffle mix.  You could put "Cookies" and then do a cookie mix in a jar, Cakes then put a cake mix with frosting in it, See the possibilities???

Now you say, you don't own this incredible machine, no worries, go to a craft store and buy vinyl lettering and do it yourself, So easy to do, so personal and you did it yourself! 

Second one..

Bought a plate at the Dollar Tree:

BORING!!!!

Then I took my handy dandy machine and printed on red vinyl again:

And came up with this phrase:

This is going to one of my girlfriends who is a lawyer.  Perfect!

The second one:

Ohhh I love this one too!  I took a cookie, broke it in half and taped it down to the plate.  It is precious, then I took a dozen cookies and put them into a Christmas baggie along with a plate stand and put that in a Dollar Tree Christmas bag. 

This is the one that I am bringing to my family gathering as one of my Christmas exchange gift as with the mixing bowl. 

Again, don't have the machine, go to your craft store, but different vinyl lettering and you can make these cute  and very personal gifts.

Humm,,, maybe I should be selling these, Naw, it is so much more fun to spend money than make it.

Have a great weekend and get out there and do these!  Send over pictures of your work I and everyone else would love to see what you did.

One Scary Site...Horse with no Rider...

It truly was a scary site..

Remember I live very rural.

Let me set the scene...Yesterday late afternoon around 4PM.  We had just come home from an incredible afternoon attending the Tamale Festival down in Indio (that will be my next post.)  We had just loaded up our booty (lots of tamales) in our truck and was headed home.  It was raining and had for the past hour or so.  As we turned the bend, Andy says, "Look, I see a horse running over there".  He was pointing to a meadow which a home owner does keep his horses over there but the horse was runinng  too far and I knew the cowboy had moved his horses to another facility down the hill for the winter.

As we passed the horse, we both realized at the same time that this horse had a saddle on it but no rider!  Andy flipped a U turn immediately, then we watched as the horse started running towards the road!  Andy starts blowing the horn and incredibly the horse starts running parallel to the road!  I roll down my window, stretch halfway out of the truck and grab her reins.  I don't even remember getting out of the truck.  Boy, she was terrified!  Eyes wide open, mouth foaming, open wounds, man oh man, this is not good.  I was talking to her, calming her down, walking her around looking around at the vast area getting sick to my stomach, knowing she has a rider out there somewhere.  It's cold, damp, raining with snow, and to top it off, it was getting dark. 

At that time, a car pulled up and asked if she was our horse we told him no and he said he was going to start looking for the rider in the area that he first saw the horse running.  What a sinking feeling I had.  Across the street, there is  a rental riding stables and we walked her over there and put her into a corral to further check her out.  For the most part, she was pretty good, but the saddle, oh the leather on the side of the saddle was gone.  I thought I was going to throw up!  

About 45 minutes later, here comes the car with the rider in it!!!  He wasn't your cowboy type, actually looked like he should have gotten off a Harley, not a horse.  Black pants, black jacket, black shoes and a black and white bandanna on his head.  He got out of the car limping and gave many many thanks to the driver.  I am sorry now that I didn't get the driver's name.  I yelled out to him as he was driving off "We make a great team!"

The rider said "Man, I thought I was going to die today, it terrified me!"   He was shaking horribly. I was pretty sure he had a consussion and when I asked if I could take him to the hospital, he said no, he just wanted to get back to the house.  Unfortunately, he didn't know where the house was!!!  He had been visiting his girlfriend who just moved out there and he lived in LA.  He just wanted to take the horse for a "quick ride" along Pacific Crest Trail (that is going to be a future post). He was going up a narrow trail and the horse slid in the mud and starting falling to the left down a cliff!  He fell backwards and she caught herself before a drop he said of over 300 feet!  She took off and there he was all by himself.

He was completely lost.  So Andy started asking him specific questions and all the rider could say is the house he is staying at is a log cabin, WOW, we are in trouble!  There are log cabins EVERYWHERE!!!  So we got in the truck and started driving in the direction of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail).  He said it was past a blue house (WHUUUT!)  I sat in the back and kept praying and praying hard..  We only had about 15 minutes before it was totally dark and now the snow and rain was coming down HARD!

We took one dirt road, needless to say it all dirt road here.  He said this is the road where she lived at and we turned around and went back to the corral.

He looked her over and got on.  She was so calm, what a good girl...and Andy and I followed him all the way home, to make sure he was ok.  As we turned the truck around to leave, the rider yelled out, "Thank you so much man, I love you two and I thank God you were there"!

Come to think of it now, we never got his name either.

When it was all said and done and we were just pulling up to the garage, that is when I lost it and started crying and couldn't stop.  Why?  To know that person was out there by himself and had no clue where he was.  For the horse, who was terrified to be without his rider and not know where he was running, just to run to get safe.   That people, out of the blue, stopped and helped, without knowing what was in front of them.


I truly believed in my heart that God put us there right then and there for that man, along with the other driver.  There are angles in our lives and yesterday the three of us were that man's angel.

I am happy to say that his story had a happy ending versus what it could have been.  I still woke up this morning with the fear what could have happened...What a blessing.

Now to go eat a tamale!

Bunny Tracks

I haven't been able to write this week and for that I apologize.  There has been craziness all around and I will think that it has been crazy at your home too.

We went from crazy cold to down right beautiful here this past week.  In one day the temperature raised over 50 degrees!  In the morning it was 9 yes I said 9 and then all the up to 59!  WOW!!

I wanted to post a picture of bunny tracks for no other reason than they looked cute.  You will find from time to time I post bunny tracks in the snow.  I had taken a picture the other night of bunny tracks with an indention of his bunny tail.  But taking a picture in the snow is difficult because of it being white.  The camera has a very difficult seeing pure white.


With all we have to do it is just nice to take a second and not have to think and just enjoy.

Here is one I took that the little guy came all the up to my door:

Awwwee...

He wanted in....well this week the weather is beautiful until the next storm is supposed to hit on Sunday, but for now I will enjoy the warmth, it is getting up to 58 today, break out the shorts!

Happy Thanksgiving! Here is a present or two! Because I love you!

Boy oh boy I bet everyone is running around getting ready for Thanksgiving Day this week.

 Are you having the feast at your house?  Are you going over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house? 

Well I have something I think would be lovely to either give to your guests at their place setting or for your hostess.

I got this from The Graphic Fairy here.  I am putting it into a frame, It was a dollar at the Dollar Tree.

Or, the other day I was looking at another blog I love called Craftily Ever After.  She had the cutest faux burlap with the definition of Thanksgiving.  I fell instantly in love with this.  Wouldn't this be great to again, have these framed (Dollar Tree again) and sitting at the place setting for your guests or wouldn't it be the perfect hostess gift?

I would do a 3x5 for the place setting and a 8x10 for a hostess gift.  

You are more than welcome to copy and keep these wonderful little gifts from our home to yours.  I have mine printed out in Pacasa and do four to a page.  So no fuss no muss!  Easy Breezy!

Please have a safe and beautiful day and I am thankful to have you as my friend.