Are You Ready?

Just a few days left until Christmas. Are you ready? I am almost and yet, I am never quite! I truly agonize over how to find that special gift for those I give gifts to. I always have majestic, magnificent, overwhelming plans, that start fermenting in my mind for the following Christmas even before the current Christmas comes to pass. Yet every year and more so this year, I don't even get 1/99th done. Something always interferes! I have 5 sweaters started that no one will get this year. One is absolutely gorgeous and was started as a gift for Christmas 2008. With the move and the shoulder injury this year, I haven't even been able to put my hands on it to finish it. Maybe next year.

I suppose that if I finished one before starting the other I might achieve more, but there is always a good reason for putting one down and starting the next, honest! Three of the five will have to be remade, bigger or abandonned, or finished and gifted to some deserving family in need. There is one that is done and I think I've bought 4 sets of buttons for it and I always manage to lose them. It's the weirdest thing! I bought new wonderful buttons just this week at JoAnn's, and they seem to have flown away! They were butterflies, you see! If they fly your way, will you catch them and send them back!

So much work and stress for such a very few minutes of gifting. But I just love seeing if I've hit the bulls eye. I'll spend days and weeks on a gift for the few moments of watching someone get it. With luck, their reaction gives me a hint that it is a hit and will be used or looked at and treasured at least for a while!

But, it's time to get off the computer. There is more work to do! So I'll leave you with a Christmas wish. May all your efforts to make Christmas special, be cherished by those around you. And may their efforts to warm your heart, succeed!

Getting Crafty - Scrapbook Buddies rise again

Many of you reading this are/were part of my Scrapbook Buddies in Florida and some I hope are new members of the group here in the tri-state area (Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio). As people say, life goes on and it is time for me to get my life rolling again. I have been scrapbooking over the last few months, but I haven't gotten my Buddies together!

I intend to do just that starting with a meetup at my house on January 6th. I hope that I can get quite a few new friends to come out here and enjoy!

Meanwhile, I did make a couple of LO's about Christmas 2007 and 2008, but I can't show them to you as they are part of my Christmas presents. I must admit that I am a year late giving the 2007 layout, but I'm sure they will be glad to add it to the Christmas albums I gave them a few years back!

As for my heritage book, I unfortunately did not manage to get it completed in time to send to be printed in time for them to get to people for Christmas, so I've given myself a break on that until the new year! I did get more pictures from my other cousin Irene who lives just outside Quebec City, thanks Irene, which will allow me to make sure that both she and her sister, who I grew up with are included. I discovered, as I was putting everything in final form, that I was still missing information without which it made no sense to go to press. For example, the picture above is of my great-grandparents 25th wedding anniversary. I got this picture from my cousin in Belgium, Marie-Jeanne. I've identified just about everyone, my grandmother is the one playing the violin in the middle of the picture, but the two mandolin players on either end of the picture. I know that one is M-J's grandmother Rosalie, but which one (I'm guessing the one in the lighter dress on the right) but who is the other lady? I also seem to be missing the name of one of my grandmother's nine siblings. So is that the mystery lady? I have learned other interesting things woking on this book and even things that were right in front of me for years, but that only clicked after the 20th time looking at them! That is one of the things that makes working on heritage books totally facinating! There are layers and layers of things you get to learn about your family. Suddenly stories that you were told click with something else that you uncover. It is amazing some of the things I've learned about that are different from what I'd always believed! There may even be some discoveries that you wonder if you should share or not!

So if, like me and my blog winner for November, Sharon you are working on a heritage album, be prepared to learn new and wonderful things about your family!