It's getting to look a little like Christmas...and it is :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas, 

Happy Holidays, 

Happy Hump Day!

The holiday is here and it is a day off for me! 

My loving husband and I really enjoy having our own business, but these holidays are killlers. For the last week, I have been getting up at 3am in order to be at the store dipping strawberries, apples, bananas and pineapple reindeer shapes in chocolate by 3:30am so that our wonderful staff can get going on making the beautiful arrangements when they come in at 8am that look like this...

Or this...

And for Christmas...these was this bouquet...

Once the last delivery was made yesterday and the last bouquet was picked up, the store was closed and Christmas 2013 was in the books. And for the first time in over a week we were all home for dinner...Robert (older son), Matthew (younger son), Loving Husband and I. It was nice to be home all together and today it is nice to be lazy, to have slept in until 7:45am.

So, to you, my dear stitching friends from all over - I wish you a Merry Christmas...a Happy Holiday. May love and peace fill your hearts!

Until next time, take care and remember...

Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch Often!

Lisa

I know what I really want for Christmas.

I want my childhood back.

Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of our hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.

~ROBERT FULGHUM

_______________________________________________________________

(below is a post I started on December 13 and never posted...

oh my, it has been a little crazy around here!)

Well, I suppose when the temps start heading back up to the mid-sixties it is hard to get into the Christmas spirit...and when you are a small business owner and have to work from sun up to sun down (plus organize your sons' carpools to and from the hockey rink), it is hard to get into the Christmas spirit.

So to help bring in some spirit, I finally took down the faux Christmas tree box from the top shelf in the garage and got it unpacked...

But wait...what are those things in the box with the 22 year old faux tree?

Could that be...Hockey Pucks?????? Guess I shouldn't be too surprised to find hockey pucks in the box...for that explains the nice hole that was ripped in the side of the poor old box. Nevertheless, the faux tree my DH and I purchased our first Christmas together as husband and wife, was unharmed and went up in no time.

A sprinkling of white lights...all of my wonderful Xstitched ornaments from many of you from over the years placed around the tree...Snowden the Snowman, lay underneath guarding the stockings. And to top things off...the styrofoam angel Matthew made when he was in preschool (he is now a freshman in high school). Now, it is beginning to look like Christmas!

And soon, I will have a new ornament to place on our tree. For last night, while sitting in a rink, watching my older son's practice....

I put the last final stitches into my Prairie Schooler 2009....

I hope to find time to finish it off and hang it on the Christmas tree...however, it is highly doubtful. Maybe it will be on the tree next year :)

Anyway, time to head off to the store. Until next time...remember,

Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch often!

Lisa

"Hello"...from Los Angeles

'tis the day after Christmas...Boxing Day for our Canadian friends up north...and "return those unwanted gifts" day for others. For me, it is a day to sleep in a little before getting up and hitting the fitness room at the Marriot Long Beach, while the boys slept in a little longer.

Yesterday, after getting up at 6am to watch the boys open their Christmas gifts (they boys received "needed" items - underware, socks, pajamas -  so that they could use their gift cards received from their grandparents on "wanted" items) we had a quick breakfast and headed into *The Store* so that we could be there for all the Christmas fruit arrangement pick ups scheduled between 8 and 12. We even made up a few other arrangements to have on hand "just in case" walk ins came in looking for something special to take to a Christmas meal they were having that day - which was a good thing, as we sold 3 out of the 4 that were made. Just like Thanksgiving, the boys came with us to work, greeting the customers at the door, found their arrangement in the walk-in refrigerator and carried it out to their cars. They really have a good time coming in with us to "work". This wasn't your typical Christmas family celebration, but it worked for us...and if that wasn't atypical enough for you, around 3pm the boys and I had the car all packed up and started our journey down to LA for our hockey week.

Matthew's (younger son) starts his tournament today with a game at 4pm...his tournament goes until Tuesday evening...Robert (older son) starts his tounament on Tuesday and finishes up on Thursday evening, when we head back home. We have camped out in the Marriot, bringing food so that we can keep the costs down, eating breakfasts and some lunches in our room.

That is about it, hope you are having a nice holiday with your friends, families and loved ones!

Take care and remember...

Love, Live, Laugh and Stitch Often!

Lisa

Love is the greatest medicine.

I ask to be the healing medicine for others.

I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and to love others as they wish to be loved.

I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and open to my being loved as I wish to be loved.

~Julia Cameron

You are as prone to love as the sun it so shine;

it being the most delightful and natural employment of the soul of humans

~Thomas Traherne

Catching Up...

It has been a long time since I have sat down and blogged. The computers that I normally use - the little laptops which I can use while spinning on the stationary bike- have been plagued by all sorts of viruses that we haven't been able to nurse them to health, so we have had to put them asleep until we can find a cure...or maybe Santa will bring us a new lap top. In the mean time, thank goodness for our ancient "big" computer we have had since the dinosaur years, the kind that is so slow but you are thankful that works so that the kids can do their homework and you can log (when they aren't on it) and catch up on facebook or blog reading.

Anyway, between work - the boys' hockey - *The Business* - I have been crazy busy still, however today I find myself with a little time between Robert's hockey select camp tryouts to sit and catch you all up on my life.

Last night, after Matthew went to his first middle school dance, I was able to finally put up our Christmas tree.

Our faux tree is 20 years old and is in sad shape (I was thinking about the tree that Charlie Brown brings home from the Christmas tree lot) - the top is a little wobbly - but it still works as a good tree to put lights and ornaments on. It was fun this year, pulling out some of our favorite ornaments and putting up my new ones that I received from my ornament exchange group as well as some others I received from exchange groups throughout the year. To be able to say: "This one is from Australia...and this one is from Canada...this one The Netherlands...this one from Oklahoma...this from Michigan, etc." is pretty cool, don't you think? Then there are those that the boys made over the year and the ones DH & I had when we were first married. And my special ones that came from my great-grandmother and my grandmother, which I remember hanging on their trees when I was a little kid. Isn't hanging ornaments a fun way to reminisce?

Well, just wanted to stop by and say "hi". Hope all is well with you all out there and that you are finding time to stitch and laugh! Take care, Lisa

'Twas the day after the holiday...

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. We really enjoyed ours. I was the first to wake up (4:30am), as I wanted to get my workout in before the boys jumped out of bed. I was amazed that I had finished, had time for a little nap and a couple of stitches on MW before the boys got up...it was about 7:30-ish. I remember the days that they would beat us out of bed with excitement. Well, I did find out the reason they slept in...it was because they were all up at midnight. I guess Matthew's (younger son) cell phone got some text messages from someone he didn't know, which woke him up as well as DH and Robert (older son). After DH told Matthew just to turn him phone off (there is some common wisdom for you), DH went back to bed; and I guess Robert stayed in Matthew's room for a little while until he finally grew sleepy, returning back to his own bed. All of this went on and I was sound asleep.

Once everyone was up, we headed downstairs to see if St. Nick made a visit...

Matthew found that the chocolate milk was drank, the chocolate crinkle cookies were all gone except for a few crumbs...even the carrots, which were left out for the reindeer, were eaten. Matthew said that he was glad that he put out that 8th carrot...see, there was some debate whether or not Santa would need Rudolph this year because the weather here in Northern California has been nice. But when Matthew got up, he noticed that there was a little fog - so Rudolph probably was needed and got his carrot, too.

After cleaning up Santa's midnight snack, Robert started to read the letter that Santa wrote him in response to the letter he left by the fireplace...and then Matthew read his. Santa said that he was proud of both boys for their school work as well as their work ethic in hockey and thus tried to fullfill some of the wishes.

Both boys enjoyed new hockey gear, which included new shoulder pads for Robert, gloves for Matthew and sticks for both. One of Robert's biggest hockey wishes was to have a full size net to practice shooting on (Thank you Santa!) and Matthew's biggest Christmas present wish was for a TechDeck ramp (which is a little ramp to use with his miniture skateboards...Thank you Santa!)

Robert also unwrapped a couple of new games - board games that is...Boggle and Spy Clue. So, during the day we played some family games. Boggle was a lot of fun. Just incase you have never played it - it is a game where you mix up a letters and then you have 3 minutes to spell as many word you can. After the 3 minutes is up, everyone takes a turn to read their words - if anyone else came up with that word then you have to scratch it off your list. We really had a good time playing this game - let's just say we all were really good at making up words. It has been a while since we laughed that hard!

So, between opening the presents - enjoying a lunch of mac-n-cheese and lit'l smokies - and playing board games as a family...and hanging out in our pjs for the day...it was a great holiday.

And...oh, yea...what did Santa bring me?

My first design pair of Gingher Scissors (arn't they beautiful?)

"A Friend" by Little Leaf Designs - Elizabeth's Designs

"January and February" by Little House Needleworks - the new month design kit

18"x27" Lakeside Linen 36ct Vintage Lt. Examplar (for the LHN months project)

2 bags of Fabric odds & ends

I must have been a very good girl!

Well...until next time remember: Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch often!

Lisa

MW update in a quick "fly by" posting

Thought I would do a quick post this afternoon and upload a picture of my status on MW. While I started out with a conversion (from the DMC to GAST) staying somewhat true to the colors, I have decided that I didn't like some of the conversions and some of there just didn't work with the color of my fab...so as I stitch I have been changing up some of the colors. I am enjoying stitching on this, though! In fact, while I did say that this would be a "at home" project...I purchased a large plastic zipper pouch so that it transported to the rinks with ease, so I have also been working on it a little while at the hockey rinks. 

Robert (older son) is at the rink this morning - DH took him...Matthew (younger son) has practice later today.

Friday, the boys finished up school for the year, getting out early for their start of the holiday break. DH came home early and we went to see the new movie Avatar in 3D. It really was a fun movie that I recommend if you are looking for an adventure/fantasy movie with a lot of special effect. I really liked it...in fact we all did, as long as DH didn't put too much of a political slant on some of the story lines :) It was a nice start for our holiday break.

Tomorrow, the boys and I will just veg out at home until time for hockey practice in the evening. Most of my prepping for Santa is done. Still need to make the Special Santa Krinkle Cookies, which I will either do today or tomorrow. Santa is still a very popular person for my 13yr old and 10 yr old, so we continue to feed that popularity (does that make sense?). Little by little elves have delivered things to the house (aka mailmen & FedEx) and hopefully the wrapping elves will visit throughout the week and not wait until the last minute to make an appearance - for that usually causes too much stress on Christmas Eve :)

Well, just wanted to stop by and say "hi"

Take care everyone and remember...

Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch Often

Lisa