December 1st To Christmas Is The Longest Time Of The Year

I'll do business first just to get it done and out of the way....


The Snow Faces patterns are in the mail and on their way to their new owners. I was able to get them all finished and mailed on Saturday. Expect them in a few days. Thank you all for such a wonderful response and for your orders. I so much enjoy all the feedback I get.
The pattern is still available until the end of today for $8.00 including the shipping. Tomorrow the price will go up to the regular price of $9.50.

December 1st is tomorrow! Wow, where did November go?
My neighbor and good friend, Linda made this for my Jen way back in 1986. The cross-stitching on it is beautiful.
Yes, it's an advent calendar. When Linda gave it to Jen back then, when Jen was only 4 years old, Linda had tied candies. Every year after that for ... I dunno ... 10 years or so, I tied candies on it and Jen would stand in front of it each and every night throughout December, reciting the verse, ringing the bell at the bottom and then getting her treat.
I can still hear Jen's little girl voice saying that verse. This little advent calendar has soooo many good memories for me. I got it out this year, hoping that Jen will start making her own memories with K, learning and then reciting the verse. I'll go out today to purchase the candy for it.

Linda, if you're reading this ... thank you for doing this oh so long ago. Benny and Linda are our most favorite neighbors (wink, wink)


Soooooooo, Thanksgiving day here at the Wagner home was ....
sorry, but it was a heck of a lot of work!
But it was all worth it because my sister, the ever popular anonymous blog commenter (Casserole Carol), and her family were here, along with my brother, Michael and his family. We don't get together often so the times that we do are so nice that the work involved with getting ready for it is all forgotten.

Naturally, the conversation turned to comments about my blog. The clear message that I got from everyone in the room that reads the blog is that I need to get a picture of myself on here so that people can see what I look like.
I told them that I realize that my face on this blog should appear at least a few times, but no one ever takes my picture and I'm certainly not going to take a picture of myself!

Soooooooo at that point .......

Out came the cameras!

Here's a picture of me with my sister-in-law, Janet. I think we might be eating pumpkin pie here ....



Oh wait ....

Jen forgot to send me that picture. She remembered to put it on her facebook page so let's all go there to see it ....

Oh wait ....
we don't have Facebook, so we can't see it.

That's ok. Here's a picture of me sitting beside Carol. Steph took this one. Don't we look happy??


Oh wait. Stephanie didn't send me that picture yet. I think she forgot.

:)


So .....

It's very clearly NOT MY FAULT that there are no pictures of me on my blog. :)



Sadly, Rachel went back to school on Saturday. Volleyball practice is important at this time of the year. Her team is leaving for the national playoffs in St. Paul, Minesota, tomorrow. Their first game is on Thursday and I wish we could go to watch because it's going to be some mighty good volleybal playing.
Any blog readers who live near St Paul and want to see some really good volleyball games, be sure to check out these tournaments. Look for #13 on the Cal U of Pa team and give her a hug for me. It would be really funny to have a blogger run up to Rachel to give a hug. If you can give her a hug while talking with a thick "Fargo" Minnesota accent ... you would absolutely make her day and mine ... joyous.
So Rachel will be on a mini vacation ... being treated well by the NCAA, shopping in the Mall of America and making great memories with her volleyball "family". She's one lucky girl ... but I really really miss her .. a lot.

Ok, I'm going to get my sewing things back into the dining room now so that I can get back to doing what makes me happy.

Have a happy day everyone!