Thank you

Thank you to those of you that left caring messages and thoughts and prayers for John and I.  Whatever we had it was pretty bad.  We are not over it completely yet but lots better.  I'll spare you the details but we think we had some kind of food poisoning.

Cathleen, one of my favorite bloggers posted a beautiful card the other day with a link to a YouTube video showing how to make this lovely wreath.  They are easy to do and can be used for a variety of functions.  I made the felt flower with a die from My Favorite Things.

I haven't done much of anything since Sunday.  I was so grateful for a dear friend who was willing to go on a "mercy run" early Monday morning for us and bring us some ginger ale.  It's the only thing that ever tastes good when I have a sick stomach. 

We had 2" of snow of Monday.  Yesterday it was 70 degrees.  Crazy weather.

Here are a couple blogs you really need to visit:

Violet's CAS design work is really wonderful.


Gayatri's design work is also superb.

Hope Spring is just around the corner.  Thank you for stopping in today.


Blessing from Yesterday:  Being able to keep something in our stomachs.

Sick

John is much better but I now have what he had.  The nausea is relentless.  Not sure when I'll be back.

Quick Post

I mainly want to thank you for prayers for John.  He is feeling a little better.  The last time he vomited was 10a.m. yesterday but he's still carrying his "bucket" around with him just in case.  He was able to keep down a sport drink to help with the loss of electrolytes and a scrambled egg yesterday.  We don't know if this was food poisoning or a flu bug.  I've been concerned about dehydration because of him losing so much fluid.  I'm glad he can drink something, now.

I made this card for my son's significant other last month for her birthday.  The tulip stamp set is from PTI and is one of my all-time favorite images to color.

My younger daughter has requested some little ATC-size cards to give her new guy so I'll be back in the next few days with those.  And to show you how I do the zipper card.  Here is a photo of my lower kitchen cupboards that I finished painting.  The upper ones will be done by midweek and then I can get started on the other side.  I scrub, sand, and paint each side of each door 4 times.  And that's after removing each door and taking off all of the hardware so that I can scrub it, too.  I have 17 more doors to do on the other side of the kitchen.  Hopefully, this week I'll have less commitments and more time to paint.  I really want to get this project done!!!

Have you ever done a project like this that requires your home to be in a constant mess?  Sometimes I just have to escape from it to my stamping area.  :0)

Thank you so much for your visit. 

Blessing from Yesterday:  Well, there were more than one.  First - John quit vomiting and could keep liquid down.  Then I finally got the attention of a tenant that is 3 months behind in her rent and we made a payment schedule - now if she'll just keep to it.  And finally, I found a young couple to rent my last empty property to - it's been vacant for 3 months.

Another Zipper Card and some Photos

There is a new way to follow your favorite bloggers.  You can see I have a new link over on the right to Linky's new web site for the service.  Click it if you wish to follow my blog in this way - or if you're interested in using this service yourself.

Here's my card for today if that's why you visit.  I'm just crazy for these zipper cards made with my new PTI die.  It's so fun to put a secret message under the area that you zip back.  Next time, I'll show you how it looks once you "unzip" it.  If you want to read more about our life, continue on.

 John has been sick all night.  I mean throwing-up-all-night-sick.  No other symptoms.  I'm hoping that this morning he'll be able to keep down a cup of tea.  I don't want him to become dehydrated.  Of course my first concern when it began was a stroke because vomiting can be part of that.  I checked out all of the things that are suggested if a stroke is suspected and he did fine on them.  Complete smile.  Squeeze my fingers.  No paralysis.  Could answer questions.  We both ate the same things yesterday and so far I'm ok.  We have no idea what has happened.

Thursday evening, John took me out for a wonderful evening.  There is a dinner theater in a little town about 55 miles north of us.  It's in this big old barn.  Huge barn.  Inside, the seating is all around the stage and also upstairs in a balcony.

We sat right next to the stage.  Great seats!  John could hear most of it since we were so close.  You can see the salt and pepper on our table at the bottom of this photo.

If you look closely, you can see where I put my name in green above my head.  John took this photo from upstairs.

The servers do double duty because they are also the actors.  The main portion of the meal is a buffet - good food.  Rolls, salad, dessert and drink are all brought to the tables by the servers.  We sat with a couple from northern Illinois.  They were farmers that had been to the theater before and had driven 140 miles that day just to come to this performance.  The play was called "The Foreigner" and was really quite good.  Very humorous and great acting.

When I came to my computer on Thursday morning, I found these gifts wrapped up.  The bracelet and heart-shaped pendant are man-made diamonds.  John had given me some matching pieces for Christmas.  The gold heart has an amethyst and a sapphire stone (our birthstones) and inscribed on the sides of the heart are our names.  When I die, I want to be buried with it around my neck.  (Sorry if that grosses any of you but when you get our age you think about those things.)

Thank you for stopping in today.  I appreciate your visits and your comments.  I would welcome prayers for John.


Blessing from Yesterday:  Got more painting done and should be able to finish up one side of the kitchen by Monday.

Playing with Dies

I'm hopping in here quickly this morning as I've got lots to do before we head out to doctor appointments.

This morning I made two things.  First, this zipper card that will go to my older daughter.  I'll be making lots of these and I'm even thinking about putting them in my Etsy shop (which has had nothing for a couple years).  I also used my "Lamp" dies - they are sure fun, too.

And then, I used my new gift card holder die for this one.  I'm going to add some of these to my Etsy shop, too.  This die was more than I normally spend on dies and I thought about it for days before ordering it.  The only problem I have is that it's longer than the cutting pads I have for my Cuttlebug, so I had to carefully run it through twice.  I know they have longer ones but right now I don't want to put out the extra dollars for them if this works for me.  It's a great die and makes creating gift card holders super fun and easy.

I used images from the new Papertrey Ink Anniversary set.  It is a beautiful set.

Thank you for stopping in today.  Love having you here.


Blessing from Yesterday:  Handyman got another job completed on a rental.

Ten Years of Blessings!

On Thursday John and I celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary.  Last month I wrote about how we met, etc.  If you want to read it, go HERE.  It's been quite an adventure with this man.  Even though he just turned 91 last week, he assures me that we will celebrate our 15th as well.  I believe him.  We have lots more things we want to see and do together.

Yesterday I received my latest PTI order, brimming with treasures.  For this card for John on Thursday, I used two new die sets - the zipper set and the lamp set.  See the arrow pointing to where he will pull back the cardstock to reveal a hidden sentiment?  (The die perforates it for you.)  Fun, huh?  It says "You light up my life" underneath.  I also used the new Anniversary Stamp Set for the "love you forever" and on the inside of the card, Happy Anniversary.  I need to purchase the stamp set that goes with the Mover and Shakers dies because I had to borrow the arrow stamp from a CSS set.  Also, the line of dots is from PTI's Faux Ribbon set.  The lamp shade is popped up on foam.  I love this lamp set - lots and lots of ideas for using it.

PTI has a new way to package their stamp sets.  It's quite nice.  And they include ideas for using the stamps plus a few suggestions for other stamps that can be used with them.  That's one thing I love about PTI - they are always generous with their tips and ideas.

Time to get on with other things.  Thank you for stopping in today.  Your visits mean a lot to me.

Blessing from Yesterday:  A long phone conversation with my older daughter who normally doesn't not like to talk much.

Sympathy

I needed a sympathy card for a friend of John's family whose little granddaughter just passed away after a valiant battle with brain cancer.  Quite sad.  It just seems like I hear of more and more people that are fighting this terrible disease.  The layout for this card was inspired by the new challenge blog called iSpy Sketches.

I used one of the images from an older Stampin'Up! set called Peaceful Wishes.  Peace is what I pray for, for this family.

That's all I have today.  Thank you for stopping by.


Blessing from Yesterday:  Got a good chunk of painting done on the kitchen cabinets but still have a long ways to go.