I got lucky....

Again, mind out of the gutter people... (Sandra you know who I'm talking to!).

I won a give-away! It was not just any give away either. It is this beautiful hand made Scandinavian Matryoshkas doll. The giver was non other than Bari J Ackerman. If you don't know her or her blog, you are really missing out. Go check her out here. She's one incredible woman. She's got some beautiful patterns using the most luscious fabrics. Visiting her blog is always a treat.

The doll was actually made by Emily over at Ravenhill. She's does amazing stuff. If you'd like one of your own, they are available at her Etsy shop here.

In any case, I love love love this doll. Julianne thinks she's getting it ~ but there is NO WAY! It's mine... all mine!

Just a quickie...

Go on now, get your mind out of the gutter... I wasn't talking about that kind of quickie!

I'm home with my poor little guy who has a bad cold that will hopefully NOT turn into the flu (yes, he's had the H1N1 vaccine).


Just wanted to post the cutest picture of one of my grandpups. I made Jen a crib sheet from this tutuorial. Super easy and fun. Anyway she tried it on the crib to make sure if fit and sent me this photo. I have the cutest darn grandpups. They spent the weekend here getting completely spoiled!

I have lots more to post about ~ but it's gonna have to wait. My little man is asking for more soup and iced tea!

Falling Iguanas

Forget the falling snow, here in Florida the big story is falling iguanas. The green iguana is native to South and Central America but a very popular pet here in North America. People have been buying them as pets. Pets that can be expensive and difficult to care for. So, what do they do when they can no longer care for them? They let them loose.

Experts guess that they were introduced to South Florida in the 1990's and have been an extremely invasive species. I know my step mom has whole families of iguanas living in the big tree behind her house. We see them pretty much every time we are there.

Iguanas favorite nesting places are the very leafy branches of large trees. These trees provide both comfort and camouflage. These reptiles prefer temperatures of 80's and 90's.

Lately the temps in Florida have gotten as low as the 20's, bringing snow and sleet which is rarely seen here. An amazing thing happens to the iguanas when the temps dip below 40 ~ the iguanas go into a type of hibernation and become comatose with very little blood flowing through their bodies. When this happens they lose their grip on the branches and fall from the trees. Once they hit the ground they stay there ~ looking dead. There have been reports everywhere of this happening. Most of them warm up and fully recover ~ as long as the fall has not done any major damage.

Apparently some "not so bright" dude in Florida started collecting the fallen comatose animals and putting them in the back of his station wagon. Story has it that while driving down the street (probably with the heat on) these reptiles came back to life, crawling all over the car and him ~ almost causing an accident.

Only in Florida folks, only in Florida.

And then there was one..

My mom was one of 7 brothers and sisters born to Frank and Anna Granger. She was the oldest. This week her youngest brother, my Uncle Dick passed away from heart failure. He was 74.
For more than 20 yrs he was a merchant marine working for Socony Mobile and traveled all over the world.
He collected elephants from places he visited and I remember spending summers in NY as a kid, always being fascinated by his collection and even starting my own.. He once brought me back a pink onyx elephant from Mexico. It is one of my prized possessions.

He had the best laugh ever. It was deep and right from the heart. I can still hear it. He also told the best scary stories ever. I can still remember him telling all us little kids the story of the tell-tale heart. He would go all out with sound effects and everything. We were always scared but we always wanted more.

He never had children of his own but between his 18 nieces and nephews (and even more great nieces/nephews) ~ he was always adored.

He was also a very giving man. You had to be very careful when you were with him cause if he caught you admiring something, chances were it would show up at some point. He wasn't just generous with family (which he was) he gave to many organizations as well.

The picture above is My Uncle Dick (me and then boyfriend Robert) in 1972 when the ship he was working on came in to the port in Ft. Lauderdale.

This picture of us is from the last time I saw my uncle. It was in March of 2000 when I went to Jersey for my Uncle Frank's funeral.

Now there is only 1 sibling left. My darling Aunt Peggy and she is not taking this well. My mom passed away in 1982 (age 54). We lost my moms other two sisters just 3 months apart in 2006. Honey was 66 and Carol was 59. My Uncle Jimmy passed away in 72 at the very early age of 39 and Uncle Frank was 72.

Even though I didn't see him often, he was someone very special in my life and I'm going to miss him so much and will always regret not getting up there to see him when I had the chance.

The Christmas photo we tried to do..

Every year we try to get a good photo for our annual Christmas picture. Our best shot is at Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we were not successful getting all of us in the photo since we didn't have anyone else to take the photo and we didn't have a tri pod (got one for Christmas).
This one almost made the cut but it didn't have Charlotte in it.

Here are a couple of others from the same shoot...
Jen, Jeremy & the pups

Me and my (not so)little man
Charlotte and Julz
The kids
The boys
The Girls
And finally me and my honey
In the end we ended up with this one We got a passer by to snap this for us at a festival in St. Augustine the following night! Go figure....

I love a parade

It was Nate's turn to be in the annual Rockledge Christmas parade this year. Last year Julianne marched with the Girl Scouts (the troop is no longer). This year Nate marched with the band from his middle school. He's the cutie on the drums.

This was another float sponsored by a church. Somehow this just seems wrong on so many levels.


Julianne enjoyed the day cause all the floats threw candy to the crowd and since we were close to the beginning she got TONS!

I hope hard work pays off...

I've been working hard on getting my Etsy shop nice and stocked. I'd love to know what you all think of the new listings.

Prices okay? Anything I should or shouldn't be listing? I depend on you guys to be truthful with me, so please head on over when you get a chance ~ thanks! Oh, and don't forget to tell your friends!

Here are a few of the new listings...

Some grown up screen bags:



This is one of my favorites:



Who doesn't like dancing lobsters?

These wallets are new:



They can hold a lot of items. I've got 20 cards in this one - debit card, driver's license, library cards, etc., plus some cash and I could have fit more - and it still closes nicely.



I've finally gotten what's left of the busy books listed:



These sold really well, so not all of the ones pictured are available.

I also put up some new criss-cross coasters. I use these all the time, and I probably have 20 or so new sets in the shop ~ mostly mixed and matched from leftovers of other stuff.

These are a couple of my favorites:



And last but not least, some yo-yo hair bows:



Julianne wears these in her hair from time to time -



- when she's not wearing them on her wrist (something she's always done, but at least now there's something cute on there):



Well, that was my Saturday...

It's the big Three Oh!

Not me, silly ~ my Jennifer. After 3 days of labor and a C-section after losing a heartbeat on both of us, she came into the world at 1:05 AM which is precisely when I've scheduled this to post... and now my baby is going to have a baby. I'm just not sure how I could possibly have a 30 y/o. Seems it was just yesterday I was that age.

In any case... Happy Birthday to the most wonderful daughter I could have ever asked for. I love you sweetie! You'll always be my baby.

Night of the Arts

Way back when I told you about this "little" event I was planning for the school called "Night of the Arts." Well I pulled it off and it was a success! The best part was we had literally hundreds of people show up. The worst part was having to make a speech in front of all those hundreds of people ~ especially after the wonderful introduction from the principal.
We kicked off the night with a performance by the chorus Had a dozen vendors selling their wares Story telling in the library Gift wrapping by the 6th graders The Make it and Take it craft tables were a big hit Coffee and Hot Chocolate provided by Starbucks filled our donations jar Bake Sale was HUGE. We got in more baked goods than I could have imagined Pizza, we ordered too many and didn't advertise enough since it was a last minute addition to the roster
Kids art work was the hit of the night Here are my kids helping get everything framed beforehand
And finally ~ Just needed to show off the wonderful display rack my darling husband made me for my pillows and purses I actually could have used two but what didn't fit on the rack was displayed on a table.
Most of the vendors did well. I did a couple of hundred dollars so I was a happy camper. Might have to look into doing some other craft fairs down the road.
Anyway... It went well... I'm glad it's over. There is some talk about when I do this again next year ~ WHOAH ~ who said I'm doing this again????

A belated Happy Birthday

My darling son in law's birthday is December 1st and No, I didn't forget it... just now getting around to blogging about it!
We were up in Jacksonville for Thanksgiving weekend and Jen has been planning his surprise party for quite some time. I have to say she pulled it off beautifully and he didn't suspect a thing.
He loves baseball and her initial idea was to have his party at an actual game ~ not easy to do in December so her step mom came up with the idea of actually having our own game. Jen ordered shirts for all party goers with his last name and the number 30 on the back of them.
Jeremy is a "big brother" as in Big Brothers/Big Sisters and she made up a dummy flyer about a sports day at the park for the organization. So on Saturday morning we "left" Jacksonville (or so he thought) and went to the park to get everything set up. In the meantime Jen and Jeremy went and picked up their little bro to take him to the sports day. He was totally taken by surprise and we all had a wonderful time.
He's still not sure what is happening here
Nate taking a swing
My husbands past & present How funny is that?
Jeremy and twin brother Jason
We had players ranging in age from 5 to 50+ Here's a shot of the whole gang

And then from the back ~ showing off our shirts
Jen couldn't play because of the baby ~ they didn't want her to accidentally fall or get hit but we let her take a couple of swings after the game was over
Believe it or not Julianne and I even played and didn't embarrass ourselves. Although I do have to admit that my ex was pitching and took it easy on us. Rich was really good especially considering he DOES NOT play sports. I'd really love to be able to do stuff like this more often. I think maybe an annual game for Jeremy's birthday is in order.
After the game we grilled hot dogs (of course) and hamburgers and of course cake All in all I think Jen did good and Jeremy really appreciated it.