Miscellaneous Thanksgiving Happies

A bit of catch up - we saw 2012. Definitely a 'Big Screen' must see - the effects were great. I've also got requests in to see Amelia and Old Dogs sometime during the holidays. We watched the newer version of The Alamo on TV, checked out from the library and that may help make up for the fact that the movie tickets at the theater were $9.75 E.A.C.H.!!!!!! Good night, nurse! It WAS really cool to watch The Alamo only a week after being there.

Sewing classes are going great -

Lisabeth cutting out her table runner. I love that at 50, she decided to learn to sew - you go girl!
Tami, who tends to sew while gnashing teeth. I admire her tenacity. Tami had never threaded a needle or sewn on a button, so she automatically gets an A for attempting it.
Sweet Melissa - truly sweet through and through. Her great aunt was so pleased she decided to learn to sew she gave her a brand new machine!
This one will make you dizzy - a blurred photo of Leslie working on her table runner. It ended up super cute.

Next we felted wool sweaters and jackets to make snow caps. I loved that the washing machine looked like the Red Sea! We made these this past Saturday, and they were such fun - a one day project that taught the girls to make a dart, applique and let their creative juices flow a bit. The caps were so fast to make I whipped one up Sunday morning for a baby shower - took me all of 30 minutes start to finish and cost virtually nothing. I'll be making more of these for sure. We've got two more classes, and our next project is a 'Mama Bag' that will teach the girls to make pleats, line a bag, more topstitching practice, whip up a pocket or two as needed, sew straps - they should be able to use the bag project for many future gifts. I put a notice in our church bulletin asking if anyone had old machines tucked away in closets that could use a new home. Hopefully we'll get one or two to give to the girls who don't own a machine yet. Wouldn't that be great?

Here's a great recipe to use up your leftover turkey. Pumpkin Turkey Chili from allrecipes.com - the woman who cooked it told me about a fabulous website - www.supercook.com - type in the ingredients you have and they come up with a recipe. The pumpkin in the chili was not really discernable but did give it a nice thickness and would also probably make it go further and be a healthier version. It should be perfect for all those football games, and the men don't need to know about the pumpkin.
My car is a cross to bear for my husband - not horrible but not great. I keep telling him it's my traveling purse but it makes him groan to open the doors and peer within. So I bought this at Target this weekend - the Eddie Bauer car organizer. I paid around $10.00 - it has two cooler pouches - for bottles and snacks and they might come in handy on road trips or errands when I want to pack a lunch rather than grab McDonalds...

Did everyone else know that you can't go into the store and pick up a jar of Mentholatum? Not only that, if you go to the pharmacy counter and ask anyone under 40 they probably don't even know what it is and you'll have to spell it for them to look it up in their computer. Bless the heart of the pharmacist at CVS who told me he orders in a jar about once a year, for $4.50 and that it would be in the next day, because Don's mother raised him with it, and you can't even start to tell anybody that the way their mother nursed them is anything less than perfect. Since the ointment has a shelf life of about 25 years I ordered two - that should hold us this side of heaven.

Last, I bought this at our church bookstore this weekend. Listening to it, I found myself driving down the street trying to hold back tears enough to see the cars coming at me in the other lane. Steven Curtis Chapman's new CD about the loss of his daughter - whew - indescribable lyrics worth listening to because we all can use a reminder, now and then, of how fragile life really is. Listen to it here - a great way to spend part of Thanksgiving, remembering all God has given each one of us, and most of those blessings are wound up in those he's put into our lives. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.