Blessed Christmas

I wanted to send out wishes to you and yours for a blessed Christmas.

Christmas is a time for feeling blessed and being blessed. I wanted to share a few of the things that have been so poignant for me this year.

We had Christmas already with Ky's family, and had a wonderful time. We felt particularly blessed by our quality time spent in particular with our niece and nephew (10 and 13 respectively) and not to be too sappy, but I just really enjoyed our interaction with them and my heart felt warmed to have them as family. It really renewed my intention to try to spend more time with them before they hit the true teen years and lose interest in us! One particularly sweet moment for me came when my nephew asked my husband if he would be willing to teach him to throw pottery like he'd offered a while ago.

Earlier this month we had Ky's Christmas work party at one of our favorite restaurants and the company was wonderful. I was so pleased to get to see Ky be recognized for his efforts. He has been working long days and evenings and hiring really wonderful staff to make things work like they should, and in the president's speech, he mostly focused on Ky and his appreciation for him. The night was topped off when 4 of us (me, Ky, and Ky's co-worker that Ky initially followed to the current company and his wife) were left wrapping up the evening with the president of the company after everyone else had left. We mentioned that we're going to Hawaii in December 2008. At that point, the president said how happy for us to have that as something to look forward to and went on to say that because Ky has worked so hard to make things work better and run smoother for his company, he wanted to give us a Christmas gift and pay for our airline tickets. He told us when we buy our tickets, to send him the bill! I think at that point, my mouth may have actually fallen open.

Then yesterday, we donated our 1996 Jetta to charity (a bittersweet memory, as this is the first car Ky and I bought together before we were even engaged, and it's seen us through getting married, finishing college (for me), moving a couple of times, and over 9 years of marriage). The tow truck driver that came to pick it up came around dusk, and with Ky being the chatty fellow he is, he stepped out to talk to him. I glanced out the window, but didn't go with Ky. Later her related this story to me:

Ky greeted him with a Merry Christmas, and thanked him for coming to get the car. He said the man's face was transformed at the warm words and said Ky
was the first customer to wish him a Merry Christmas this season. They talked about how God and Jesus have been pushed from the season by political correctness, and that it almost feels rebellious to wish someone something other than Happy Holidays. They talked about how the driver was trying to get his own business started and that he donates his time picking up vehicles that were being donated to charity. Then the man turned to go to work putting the Jetta on his truck. Ky went inside to the box of new leather work gloves that I'd given him the day before when we opened presents with his family. He pulled out a pair (of the Costco three-pack) and took them outside. He handed them to the towtruck driver and again wished him Merry Christmas. He said the man nearly teared up seeing Ky's gift of the gloves. He turned his gloved hands palm-up and showed dirty, holey gloves and thanked Ky earnestly saying that he couldn't afford new gloves.

When Ky told me this story, I truly felt happy that we could help someone less fortunate than us, but I also feel so blessed to be married to a man who would give away part of his gift to someone who needed it more.

I hope you and your family have what you need this holiday season and that you can take time to note those things that are extra blessings.

Nine years! Whoa.

I can't believe that today is our nine year anniversary. Time has just flown by during the time that we've been married. I can't imagine anyone better for me than my husband. He's so supportive of me and only wants what's best for me. He's really a wonderful man, and I'm so lucky to have him share my life.

Maybe tonight we'll go out and buy our co-anniversary present to each other... a new dishwasher. One that really works! Not a traditionally exciting gift, but we've discussed it, and well, we would both be really happy to not have to fight our existing dishwasher any more. Maybe we'll be more excited, well, ok, willing to do the dishes if there's a better chance they'll ALL be clean at the end of the cycle.

I hope you're having a good day today and that you can take a moment to be thankful for those who mean a lot to you.

Pomegranate and scallops

I made this card when I first got the Garden Whimsy set and my new In Colors. I really love how bright and happy this card is. :)

You'd never guess my love for it based on how LONG this card has been sitting in my draft post folder! It's been in there since the 6th of August. Wow.

If you're a regular visitor, you may have noticed the lack of posts. Thanks for continuing to stop by and check things out, even though nothing new has made it up recently! We just had some fun stuff going on that precluded my being able to stamp, photograph and post to my blog. Ky had a birthday this week and two weeks ago we bought a new pop-up trailer.

Now granted, this is a 2005 trailer, so it's really not new, but it's sure new to us! We had a great time, and kept being amazed by the technological advances that had evolved since the time our previous trailer was made in 1978 (see photo below). What a difference 27 years makes!


For our inaugural trip, we went camping at Chambers Lake which is up above Fort Collins, Colorado, to a campground that's up Poudre Canyon. It was so beautiful. Everywhere we looked was so green and lush. As Colorado natives, we kept saying how remarkable it was to see everything being SO green as far into the summer as late August. This is not to say that things go dead and brown here, just that it's been a wet summer for us, and it really showed in the landscape.

This is a shot of one of the creeks that feeds Chambers Lake. It has a big job ahead of it to refill the lake. When we arrived, the lake wasn't much more than a substantial pond. Ky and I were able to stand in what is normally the bottom of the lake to take the picture above. According to campground rumor, they had drained much of the lake for irrigating Weld County and to make repairs to the dam. While the lack of lake was startling at first sight, it was incredibly beautiful nonetheless. Here is a different river that also feeds into the lake and comes from a different direction. This river had a winding path running alongside of it and Ky and I hiked it for quite some way.


For one of our day's entertainment we took the Jeep and went exploring on some of the many roads branching off of Poudre Canyon. Ky wanted to go check out a campground that's located off of a road that states that trailers are not advised for it. Since we weren't hooked up to the trailer, off we went! It turned out that we probably could have made it with our new trailer, so that will be good to know for the future.

We followed another dirt road up to the Craggs (see picture just below) and stood in awe at the foot of an amazing rocky crag that jutted up out of the mountain. The picture below doesn't do it justice, but it was immense!


So that's just a bit of why I haven't been around lately! I have stamped some though, and you'll be seeing some more projects cropping up soon. :) Have a great labor day weekend! I'm off to brunch with Ky's family to celebrate his birthday.

I haven't been stamping - I've had the blues!

No cards from today. I worked until 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, Ky and I went to see Tab Benoit play at Herman's Hideaway, a local concert venue. We don't have video from tonight, but I'm linking to a previous performance of his elsewhere. He was AMAZING. This video does not, however, show off his incredible speed and skill with the guitar. Ky and I had a great time on our date!

Also playing tonight as his opening act was Erica Brown and her band. They did a great job with high energy on the part of Erica Brown and we really enjoyed the guitarist from her band, too. They are a local Denver band, and we always like supporting local artists. Here's her website if you're interested, but when you open it, beware, it plays a music clip automatically.

Edible, ornamental, alien

I just thought I'd take a moment to show you some of the things we have growing at our house this spring. We have some very tasty strawberries that the birds and I are fighting over. It's a matter of who spots them first when they're actually ready to eat!

Then we have some plums that we suspect may just be ornamental, but we'll be giving them a try later when they're bigger and soften up. These are particularly interesting to me because we've lived in this house, with this same tree for five years, and this is the first time that ANY plums have ever appeared.


And finally, we have a tray of corn kernels that I'll be planting this evening. A couple seasons ago a worker at a local garden store gave us a tip on helping corn along before it ever gets in the ground. You spread out the kernels between layers of paper towel and wet them daily. It softens up the kernels so they sprout and then they don't take as long, or need as much water to get started. Don't they look weird? Ky and I say it looks like we're growing sheets of alien babies. :0 We're late getting the corn in this year, so it's good that it has a healthy head start.

Swapping FINALLY! (and an injury)

I haven't had my stamping impetus in place for several weeks now. I don't know where it went, and because it was missing, I'm terribly late getting my June swaps done. These are for our local demonstrators' group swap, and the theme is simply, Summer. I'm glad to have these done and glad to lift off the weight of guilt for not getting my swaps done (at all) on time. Both swaps were done using brand new, never-before-inked stamps, and it was fun to break them in.

On the card above, the Big Blooms blue flower is cut out and raised up on dimensionals. I have had this card in mind for a couple of nights now and it was good to ink them up and stamp them out.

This set is Artfully Asian and once I saw it was safe for the coming year's catalog, I went ahead and got it. The stamps were colored with markers and then colored in further with additional markers. The flower outlines are Rose Red colored in with Cameo Coral and the branches are Garden Green filled in using Certainly Celery.

CAUTION: possible squeamish alert for the following content!!!
As I was stamping the thank you notes, Ky called up the stairs, saying, "Melissa? I'm really sorry...but we need to go to the emergency room." Never good when he's just ready to go to the ER because I've previously had to talk him INTO going for stitches and such. The following photo is the very sanitized version of his cleanly bandaged and numbed thumb.

I did great until we got to the hospital, checked in, into an exam room, and then I was pretty sure I was going to pass OUT. I'm not normally a fainter, but the upper right corner of Ky's left-hand thumb is GONE, and it started to really sink in. After a little walk through the halls and a purchase of a Diet Coke I was fine. He had x-rays, and numbing shots, and it was cleaned out and wrapped up - no stitches this time because there's nothing to sew back together. He is completely fine with no bone damage - though he is banned from using the table saw anytime soon. It's is kind of cool (not that I'd recommend trying it out on your own fingers), but apparently, when he cut it off, the heat produced by the blade cauterized the wound so it really didn't bleed very much. We're to schedule with a hand surgeon on Monday for an earliest-available appointment. I'm very hopeful that the narcotic painkillers prescribed for him are VERY good or he'll be in a lot of pain.

Holy hail!!

Downtown Denver just received a DUMPING of pea/marble-sized hail. It probably lasted 20 minutes and just poured down. It looked like what it often looks like here during a pretty good snow. The following photos were taken out of our fifth floor office window.

You can click on the photos for bigger versions of the photos if you're interested.

Yum!

A woman cannot exist by stamping alone...

The other night for dinner Ky and I worked together and made a delicious pork tenderloin w/ balsamic-cranberry sauce. We've made it before, and it is SO good. I got the recipe off of epicurious, and it's originally from Bon Appétit magazine.

The chopped onions and fresh rosemary:

I thought the colors were so pretty! Also a nice contrast to my red silicone spatula...

The seared pork:


Searing means you cook the meat on a high heat to cook the outside and keep the moisture inside. It also means you get yummy cooked bits in the pan. Then you cook the tenderloin in the oven to complete the cooking of the inside.

And, the final product:

I like how artistically Ky arranged the pork and cleanly poured the sauce.

I hope you enjoyed my little departure!

Some cute for your Friday

No cards today. I was out playing Bunco last night while Ky took the dogs and went to his parents house for a visit. Doug and Nita always welcome the "grand-dogs" and we hope the girls are on their best behavior when they go visiting. Sounds like the dogs ate pretty well, too, talking them into sharing some crackers and a treat of salmon! Do you figure Lily used the face above to work her magic?

Have a happy Friday! The weekend's almost here...

As always, you can click on the photo to see the BIG version.

Well, it's a start...

Click on the photo for an enlarged version.

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to make a sign based on the word "create." I'm not sure it's finished, but I thought I'd post a photo of where it stands currently. I'm not sure how I'll hang it on the wall either, so that will definitely need to be figured out...

Supplies:

The majority of the background is this cool adhesive-backed cork found at Archivers, the green weathered-looking paper on the right is one side of a piece of Basic Grey paper. I found the lock and key at Michael's last year, and the buttons at Archiver in September of last year. The chipboard on the far left is Basic Grey's "naked chipboard" which I pressed into my Stampin' Up Ruby Red inkpad. The word "life" is from the Stampin' Up set "Happy Everything" on Stampin' Up's Old Olive and Very Vanilla paper, which was stamped in Ruby Red and then sponged over with Creamy Caramel. The rocks are from Pier One, and actually were originally purchased to go at the base of a pillar candle, but I had extras, and liked their earthiness.

Inspiration

I was looking at the blog of a woman that focuses on scrapbooking. She even sends out a newsletter focusing on her life and being a "life artist," and I was intrigued by her idea of choosing ONE word for a year to focus on and direct her life.

I think that I likely won't record it on her blog, but I do think that I'm going to have my word be Create.

There are so many things that I always want to get done! I think that they are all things that I can make happen if I just work at it and make time for it. I'm going to make some sort of art or frame or letters to embody the word create and I'll post photos of it later.

In choosing my word, I also came across some quotes that match how I see things, or how I would LIKE to see things. I hope one of them inspires you as well. If you would like to choose a word to work at with me, I'd love to hear about it from you.

• "Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."- Mark Twain
• "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."- Leo Buscaglia
  
• "Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes."- Victor Hugo
  
• "I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom."- Gen. George Patton
  
• "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."- Ella Fitzgerald
  
• "Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant of metals." - Voltaire
  
• "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions."- Kahlil Gibran
  
• "Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. " - Rabindranath Tagore
  
• "In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions."- Henry Ward Beecher
  
• "My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success."- Helen Hayes
  
• "An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather."- Washington Irving