Lazy Girl

I swear I still exist.  I am still here.  I would love to say that I have spent my time away from my blog doing all kinds of crafty and exciting things.  But alas...I am embarrassed to share that the last few weeks I have been nothing more than an unmotivated and lazy girl when it comes to the creativity factor.  I have spent my days maintaining a relatively orderly household, tending the animals and exercising only to find myself sitting on the couch in the afternoons, hopelessly sucked in to the likes of Pinterest and Facebook hoping someone or something will spark some creative interest. 

That is what winter does to me.  Although, I have no excuses since our weather around here has been lovely.  I do manage to get outside a few times a day and enjoy the unseasonably warm days.  I have been reading some wonderful books including, "Undaunted Courage, Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West", by Stephen Ambrose, "The Forgotten Garden", by Kate Morton and currently "The House at Riverton", by the latter (thanks to The Lefthanded Housewife for the awesome book suggestions). 

We are also starting the long awaited work on our Master bathroom.  Sanding has ensued and this weekend points to more sanding, fixing the walls, and installing various fixtures.  When I say we, I mean mostly Hubby does the hard labor while I scour the internet for the perfect mirrors and light fixtures.   I look forward to sharing pictures of the finished project.

So, you see, I am still here, I just chose not to bore you all with my stories of laziness.  I do have a few projects in the queue that I am hoping to find the motivation to attempt soon.  Until then, you will find me lurking on other people's websites, wishing for the motivation they all seem to posses in these long months of winter.  

A few changes...

Hey there!  I just wanted to let ya'll know, that for the next 6 months I will be blogging over at DiabetesSisters website.  My blogging over there will focus being a woman, living with diabetes.  Here is the link to my part of the SisterTALK Blogs.,,,

 http://www.diabetessisters.org/supportcommunity/sistertalkblogs/type-1-blog

...so please check me out!  You should also check out some of the other bloggers too!

I will still be blogging here, but I figure I am going to keep my diabetes blogging to a minimum at In the Short Rows and focus more on my crafting and homemaking stuff, for now. 

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  We are pet sitting for a friend, so Waylon has been enjoying some much needed doggie play-dates with his best friend Roxy.  I did some very fun wedding dress shopping yesterday with my cousin and today is looking like a good day to make a new apron and otherwise be lazy :-)  Happy Sunday! 

Too many bags

Hubby says I have too many bags.  It's a good thing he was talking about the number of purses and duffel bags I have...otherwise I might have used one of those bags to knock him upside the head.  In his defense, I have been making a lot of bags for myself lately.  Some of this stems from winter boredom and too much time on Pinterest. But the main reason is that I would like to start selling some of my crafts.  I figure I can't sell stuff if I haven't test driven the design.  This is my newest addition to my ever growing stash of purses!

 I needed a bigger bag to carry all of my junk and various diabetes related paraphernalia, so I made this messenger bag.

 My favorite part is the stitching.  I did this with my grandmother's old Kenmore.

 I put books in the bag to take pictures, but it is plenty big enough for all of my gear.

 

I love the simple outside and the fun vibrant lining, it makes me happy!  Would you buy a bag like this?

Brothers and superheros

Let me tell you about my brother.  Or better yet, let me embarrass my brother by writing an entire blog post about him.  I'll refer to him as "Day-go" from here on out...you know to protect his "real" name, and well, because "Day-go" was what I called him when we were little...so you know...its cute. 

Day-go and I are a few months shy of 2 years apart.  He is older. Our birthdays fell in a way that we were only one grade apart in school.  I would venture to say that our relationship is similar to most older brother/younger sister pairs.  He always watched out for me, and I bugged him a bit.  Growing up, Day-go and I were pretty much like night and day.  I had dark hair and dark eyes, he had light hair and light eyes.  I took after my mom's family and he could never have denied relation to my dad's kinfolk.  I was a diligent student, stayed out of trouble, and followed the rules...and he...well let's just say he was different than me.  

I am told that when I was very small and still sleeping in the crib, Day-go would wake up early and crawl into the crib with me.  My parents would get a few extra minutes of relaxing in bed while they listened to us "talk" on the monitor.  Which mostly consisted of him making me laugh.  He was quite the entertainer.  As we grew older, I never remember a time we did not get along.  I can count two times (I am not exaggerating) that we actually got into a real fight.  When we both entered into the horrid middle school years we kept out of each others way and only acknowledged each others existence at home.  But nonetheless, we continued to get along and remain civil.

When we hit high school, we ran with the same crowd, had the same friends, and got into the same kinds of trouble.  All the while, Day-go had his "big brother radar" on high, always keeping a watchful eye.  Day-go was well known at our high school and I was well known as "Day-go's sister".  I know for some folks, being known as "someone's sister" is annoying, but I liked it, I wanted everyone to know who's sister I was, I was proud to have the label.  

A curious thing happened after high school.  Even while going our separate ways, Day-go and I continued to cross paths within the same social groups.  We attended the same parties, hung out at the same coffee shop and most often folks could find one where the other was.  Day-go was as much my friend as he was my brother.  

To this day our relationship continues to be the same, equal parts friend, equal parts sibling.  Day-go has taught me many things and made me laugh many times.  He married an amazing woman who is like the sister I never had and together they made me an aunt to two amazing little boys.  I am lucky they live close to me and I visit them every week.  So, when Day-go suggested that this year, as a gift to our mom, we should take a picture of just the two of us, I was definitely on board.  The last picture we have of just us, was from high school.  Day-go's lovely wife took our pictures one day and we gave them to our mom for Christmas.  

I love these pictures, because they are the still life proof of what we share.  I could not have asked for a better brother or a better friend.  I am so proud to be "Day-go's sister".   

 This is the picture we made larger for my mom.  

The next few were put into a collage

 I told you he always knows how to make me laugh!

These are two of my favorite candid shots.

Yep, it was that funny. 

I saw this quote once and it always makes me think of Day-go...

     "Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero." -Marc Brown 

Not just because he used to dress up in a superman cape and jump off the hearth (sorry Day-go) but because having an older brother like him was like having a personal superhero, someone to look up to and someone who was always there whenever I needed him.  Thanks Day-go!

Merry Christmas

Here is the fifth and final installment of my favorite Christmas memories.  You can read my last four here, here, here, and here.  

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all are enjoying your morning!  Christmas morning has always been a special time for me.  As a kid, it was the anticipation and the excitement of seeing what Santa brought and even in to adulthood, I still felt that excitement but it was often directed more towards giving the perfect gift and seeing loved ones.  As I have mentioned before, we spent most of our Christmas mornings at my Grandma Louise and Grandpa Offey's house.  I loved waking up with my other cousins, sneaking in to the den to see what kind of loot we scored!  There are too many memories of the many Christmas mornings to share just one.  It's like a whirlwind of images and if I put them all together it would make the most perfect Christmas!

There was the year where Santa left clues and a scavenger hunt to find where our presents were hidden.  The year my cousin got a Barbie mansion that we played with for hours.  The year "Santa" forgot to put out the presents before we woke up (to credit my parents, we were all old enough to know who the real Santa was) and we had to wake up our parents, go back to bed, and wait for "Santa" to come and leave our gifts.  Oh, and every year my aunts and uncles and other cousins would stop by in the afternoon and we would have a big meal and more presents.  Every Christmas Day seemed to last forever, there was always one more gift to open, one more family member to see.

Now that I am an adult and some of these traditions have changed I am making new memories of Christmas.  I look forward to spending time with family, sharing memories of Christmases past, watching the younger generation's excitement over Santa and the season.  I have enjoyed making gifts this season, each one made specifically for a special person.  The past five years, I have enjoyed spending Christmas with my husband and his family.  This year my family visited on Christmas Eve.  We ate homemade Brunswick Stew and pimento cheese sandwiches.  This evening my hubby's family is coming in to town for a few days.  We are cooking a pork butt on the smoker today, a nice relaxing activity on a cool Christmas Day.  This Christmas, I wake up to a quiet house with just me and my husband.  I miss the hustle and bustle of a house full of family, but I cherish the time we get to spend together on the wonderful holiday.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday Season.  Merry Christmas!

The stars

Here is my Christmas Eve installment of my favorite Christmas memories.  You can read my last three here, here, and here. 

First I would like to tell you about a long standing tradition on my dad's side of the family.  Every Christmas Eve, my dad's entire family (now, when I say entire, I mean entire...aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins..well you get the idea) would get together and celebrate.  It was just like a family reunion, just on Christmas Eve.  There would be pot-luck style grub, Christmas carols, a Christmas play, and even a visit from Santa Claus!  Now, the Christmas play was all the youngin's dressed in various robes and white trash bags, acting out the birth of Christ and Santa would be some unlucky uncle dressed in a Santa suit.  But we all had fun and everyone looked forward to the festivities each year.

This tradition dates back as far as my dad can remember and it has continued to happen every year since.  Although this tradition in and of itself provides a wonderful and lasting memory, it's not the actual event I remember, as much as the ride home.  Almost every year we spent the night at my Grandma Louise and Grandpa Offey's house on Christmas Eve.  After the get together, we would head to their farmhouse.  

Now, you have to keep in mind, that at the get-together we had just had the privilege of seeing Santa with our own eyes.  We didn't know he wasn't the real deal.  He showed up with presents in a bag, with OUR names on them!  I mean, it had to really be the Big Guy.  Our parents were very good about reminding us that he was "in the area" and that we better get ourselves home quickly and in to bed, so as to avoid the inevitable "kids who are awake get skipped over by Santa" conundrum. 

So even though seeing family, acting out a play, and sitting on Santa's lap was more than exciting for this little girl, it was always the ride home that lulled me into the proverbial sugar plums and candy canes trance.  I remember sitting in the back seat of the car, my head tilted against the cool window, gazing out at the stars, hoping for a quick glimpse of Santa's sleigh.  I know there is a pretty good chance my parent's encouraged this behavior as to further their plans to get us in bed soon after crossing the threshold of the farmhouse.  But, alas I found myself mesmerized by the stars. 

The years we did not stay at the farmhouse, we took the hour long journey back to our house.  I still remember the same feeling of wonder while searching the skies for Santa.  Now, I would like to say that this behavior slowly waned as the years passed, but that is simply not true.  I remember one year, as an adult, I was riding back from the get together with my parents.  I was sitting in the backseat of the car with my Grandma Louise.  I remember leaning my head against the window and seeing the stars twinkling in the sky.  Of course, I was not looking for Santa that night (I swear I wasn't!).  But that night, as the stars rushed by and we headed home, I found myself in a kid-like trance, dreaming of what joy Christmas Day would bring.  

Gift wrap please!

This is the third installment of my favorite Christmas memories.  You can read my first two here and here. 

I have always enjoyed wrapping gifts.  As a kid I enjoyed picking the perfect paper and ribbon, tying bows and placing the tag in the perfect place.  I loved a challenge...how DO you wrap a basketball so it doesn't look like a basketball?  And, I was queen of wrapping little things in big boxes to confuse and excite the receiver.  Not to mention, a tree just looks too bare without gifts underneath.  There is nothing short of pure joy then when you put freshly wrapped gifts under a twinkling tree. 

I am sure my mother loved my gift wrapping excitement.  There were even years when I wrapped my own gifts, under the ruse that they were for a cousin or a friend's little girl.  I was none-the-wiser, as long as I got to put a pretty bow on it, I didn't care who it was for!  I remember years when mom and I would set up a wrapping station in the guest bedroom.  I am sure I bugged her to death, wanting to wrap things that were not ready to be wrapped and searching for new things that needed festive wrapping paper.  

I remember one year when I was probably 8 or 9, during a wrapping session, I wrapped a clock radio for my Grandpa.  We had put batteries in the radio so it would be all ready to go when he opened it on Christmas Day.  As soon as I put the last piece of tape on the radio, and flipped the box over, we heard music coming from inside.  I must have hit the button when I was putting it back in the box and now we had a singing Christmas gift.  Well, instead of carefully opening the package, I frantically ripped off the paper as if I was opening my own gift from Santa.  Mom looked on in shock and then explained that we could have just opened one end carefully, but now we will have to re-wrap the entire thing!  Imagine my disappointment...muwahahahaha...wrap it again?  Oh what a shame.  So I proceeded to wrap the gift again, secretly wishing I could wrap presents forever!  

Nowadays, I still look forward to wrapping gifts.  I try to find interesting ways to wrap gifts for other occasions, but Christmas gifts are in a category of their own.  I still like to get the festive holiday paper and bows, wrapping each gift slowly, savoring the perfection of a neatly wrapped box.  Now, I am sure you are all clambering to call me over to your abode to wrap your mountain of Christmas gifts...but I would never want to rob you of the joy...I mean it is Christmastime after all :-)