It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little one.

-Jean Webster

I'm sewing today finishing some little gifties I have put off way to long! Can't post the photos well you know TIS THE SEASON TO BE SNEAKY.

I have been enjoy events with friends and wrapping and cooking blasting Christmas music all over the house. I snapped a few photos of some of our holiday decor I hope you enjoy. Hey post yours too for me to enjoy! I love to see how everyone else decorates for the holidays. Don't you???

I went to see my friend Jean the other day. She had shoulder REPLACEMENT. She is amazing and doing very well. Her therapy begins soon which will be difficult but if I know Jean she will handle it and move on in a jiffy. She is managing the holidays with one arm quite well.

My book club met and we discussed "The Help" by Katheryn Sockett. Great book. Our next read will be "Have a Little Faith" by Mitch Albom. I'm looking forward to reading this one over the Christmas holidays. I love love love the week after Christmas, it is quiet, peaceful and restful. A great time for reading, sewing, watching movies, sitting by the fire and eating left overs don't you agree????

Here we is the most wonderful book club on the planet. We have been together for many years raising our children together, living through all life has brought each of us, we have enjoyed so much fellowship and tons of good books. We were at Sue's house and planned on going to hear Rick Bragg (he wrote "All Over But the Shoutin" which we read a long time ago) speak but dinner and wine kept us close at home and enjoying each others company....I tried to jump on that reindeer. It didn't go well.

One of the Snow Village scenes we put up in our home..there are several more....

And another visit to "The Village."

And there are two of these corner cupboards! Snow Village everywhere! It is so pretty at night. Oh by the way when we turn the lights on in the village...we leave them on continuously until we take it down in January. Wanna pay my power bill???

More Christmasey photos later my friends. Off to put a pot of chili on and then on to the sewing room. woop woooopiee! Christmas LOVE comin your way from me to you!

Well-Behaved Women Rarely make history. And if this is true-You and I are going to be LEGENDS!

- a birthday card from Melisa prior to our most excellent adventure.

Paducah....6 hours from Atlanta! I jump in the car with Melisa ready for a road trip! Check out Melisa's blog for her great take on the trip too!.

Had to take something to occupy myself as we drove. I packed two rag quilts that needed to be snipped (mistake one and two). Two quilts that I needed to whip the binding down (mistake three and four) and some red work (mistake five...what was I thinking? I could NEVER GET all this done. I need a over packing intervention!). Then of course there is the clothing, make up, vitamins, hair products, body wash, camera, planner, calculator, maps, notebook, and a book to read just in case. INTERVENTION IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. I'm in deep trouble and we haven't even pulled out of the drive way, we are only going to be gone for 36 hours. HOLEY BIG SUITCASES!

I got straight to my rag quilt clipping. I don't usually make rag quilts. Now I know why. You have NEVER SEEN so much fuzz, lint, and threads! I looked like I have been battered, dipped and fried in the stuff. Melisa's car, WHICH she had just had detailed, was a mess. I wrote my name in the lint on the dash board, it was simply awful. She took it gracefully but I'm sure she wanted to punch me in the nose! or worser....I think she really could have thrown me off Mounteagle as we drove over that stupid mountain (I hate that part of the drive).


We were not even out of the greater metropolitan Atlanta area and we were eating! OH WE APOLOGIZE! This was a sign we would both be wearing our trip on our behinds! IT WAS GREAT !!!!!

I revealed my obsession with mistletoe on the journey...I love to look through the trees and see the clumps of stuff growing in the trees. OK this is sounding completely nutty. Melisa offered to shoot some down, but we won't get into that. As we were driving I said 'OH look there is a bunch up there"...as we got closer...and I put on my glasses... Melisa says "You #$%^&*() those are buzzards sitting in the trees!!!!" I'm never gonna live that one down. HENCE THE NAME of this trip is BUZZARDS AND MISTLETOE... Pat and Melisa's most excellent adventure! We laughed our heads off.

See mistletoe in trees!

See buzzards in trees...there is a similarity don't cha think??? please say yes

We made some great plans and came up with some BIG FUN ideas for our trip April 21-24. We are going to take Paducah and the AQS show by STORM...I can't wait. I'm sure you will hear me yaw yawin about the trip in future blogs. Right now I need to go pull the lint out of my washing machine.

AND THE WINNER IS................
-Pat who is home from Paducah..very tired...and the TO DO LIST IS FRIGHTENING

MIRIAM.....Congratulations girl are you in shock???? Did you pass out????? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???? It is your lucky day??? YOU are the grand prize winner of a ton of goodies! Contact me through email and give me your postal address. Hello did you hear that...YOU WON !!!!!

To all that posted about my give a way...I love you so much...I am so grateful for your readership and I look forward to 200 more blogs and goodies and fun stuff. I hope you are all celebrating the joy of this blessed season!

Pat
More later on my Paducah trip aka.. BUZZARDS AND MISTLETOE....I have some splanin to do!

The three grand essentials to happiness in life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. -Joseph Addison

She is coming to get me...one hour...here we go. Another chapter in Pat and Melisa's most excellent adventures. We are on a highly technical, super important, carefully thought out, precisely planned, research based, meticulously executed, fact finding expedition, to PADUCAH KENTUCKY. No we are not getting to the AQS show early to beat the crowds! We are doing research so that we can plan a trip for 50 lucky quilters to the show in April...a bus load of credit card holding, mostly menopausal, needle threading, fabric crazed women...sound like your idea of fun? Me too!

Melisa Ernhardt will be driving, I will be her co pilot sewing all the way! I'm going to open a diet coke and a bag of cheetos...thread a needle and I'm not lookin up till we get there! I'll be playin Carrie Underwood's song "Jesus Take the Wheel" on my ipod. If she so much as drives one mile over 95 I'm going to have to speak to her.

Won't be back till late tomorrow night so think of me. Prayers will be appreciated...I've packed the camera and a note pad. This time I'm taking notes and recording every incident! Here I go...bye bye.

PS. While I'm gone can someone figure out how I get myself into this stuff. Consider it non quilting homework.

And don't forget my give away...

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the Human Soul. -Simone Weil

This is it, THE...MY BIRTHDAY....MY ALMOST 200TH BLOG POST....CHRISTMAS....CHANUKAH...HANUKKAH..HANUKAH...KWANZZA..
KWANZAA...ADVENT...NEW YEARS...LITTLE CHRISTMAS...MEDIUM CHRISTMAS...I LOVE MY FAMILY....I LOVE MY FRIENDS....I LOVE MY DOG (most days)....I LOVE MY LIFE...I LOVE CHRISTMAS COOKIES...I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY SELF CLEANING OVEN...Give a way.

Rules: none, well you gotta post something on "this here" blog cuz if you don't I can't put you in the number generator thingy. You don't have to have a blog to win AND you don't have to tell anybody unless you want to>>> but you do have to give me away to get in dad gum touch with you. If you don't claim your prizes..I'm gonna have to scream and run down Peachtree Street naked and that would be just wrong. (remember my last give a way two people won and didn't claim the prizes...the rejection was unbearable! Don't toy with my emotions PAHLEZZE)

Here are the goods.
If you read my blog then you know about this...page 20...If you don't have one, well, that is just sad.

A collection of goodies
1. Sewing tote bag more on this baby later!
2. Cute little Christmas Raggedy Ann. No I didn't make it probably someone in Shri Lanka or China down the street or someplace made her.
3. Mary Englebreit Layer Cake "The Caroler" .Dang this is the cutest Christmas fabbie collection.
4. Triangles on a roll. 3.5" size...handy dandy!
5. My table runner (rejected from blog past) Unfinished but I will finish before sending so you can look for it it arrive sometime in the next decade...just kidding)

A close up of the runner. It needs it's little buttons and quilting and binding..it is taken from the blog motifs in the above said magazine. Cropped those corners of the picture are you impressed?

Then there is this fabulous tote. I opened up the front sewing pouch because I wanted you to see it and I was pretending to be Vanna White! demo style. Look how I put little Lites around it cuz I I'm playing with my cropping abilities...I really impressed myself this time!

OK that is the stuff now get to posting because I'm going out to lunch and I need some good reading when I get back..before I take my nap...I'm getting older you know! The Drawing will be Tuesday 12.08.09 after I return from my trip to Paducah...more on that tomorrow.

Okay here is a picture of the cute raggedy ann...see I shouldn't brag abou the photo cropping cuz I didn't take a good picture of this to begin with..consider it my humility photo. The amish have those too!

"You are who you choose to be" -Hogarth Hughes, from The Iron Giant

Thinking, thinking thinking. Which in my case can be dangerous...I do WAY TO MUCH thinking and it frequently leads me to do crazy things! This is my 190th blog, so you know what that means!!!! (she's whompin up a give a way)

Also, tomorrow is.... well I'll tell you that TOMORROW.

So tomorrow I will announce a fabulous give a way (or a least I'm gonna give it my best shot!). I'm somewhat concerned about this because the two winners of my magazine give a way NEVER CAME FORWARD TO CLAIM THEIR PRIZES. Can you believe it???? So I suppose I will throw those PRIZES in with this give a way. All will be revealed TOMORROW. Aren't you sooo dang curious???? me too. hahaha

Almost 200 blogs...can you believe it. I'm doing the happy dance and when I'm finished I'm going out to eat with my former teacher co workers..I love them sooo much. I'll take pictures so you can meet them. They are not quilters..which is a fact I have never understood! CIVILIANS! SHEESH.....

Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our love to others, and others' love to us.
-Thomas Traherne

AND SEW WE BEGIN THIS GLORIOUS MONTH..well tomorrow we begin....Here is what I'll be doing!

COOKING (It is endless)
CLEANING (It is my life, I live to clean, and you thought it was quilting?) (I'm lying you know)
DECKING THE HALLS (We must have every inch of this house decorated. It looks like the elves went berzerk!)
DOCTORS APPT.(good grief why did I make this appointment in the middle of all this...)
TAKE THE DOG TO BE GROOMED (she needs to feel good about herself during the holidays too)
STRIP ALL THE BEDS...EVERYBODY IS GONE...TIME FOR CLEAN SHEETS (They are coming back!)
MORE DECKING THE HALLS (what can I say? it's over kill)
WORK ON SEWING ROOM (note to self..do not over turn the sewing room right before Thanksgiving...)
WRITE THREE NEW PATTERNS (that IS what I do..oh my brain hurts)
MORE CLEANING AND DUSTING (Why id decking the halls so messy?)
PICK UP DRY CLEANING (I'm keepin that place in business)
DROP OFF MORE DRY CLEANING (well duh!)
PICK UP PRESCRIPTIONS AND VITAMINS...( I'm gonna have to bulk up on the vitamins this month. Christmas holiday preparation is NOT for sissy's)
SEND OFF SPRING MARKET INFO (YIKEES... I just peed in my pants)
BOOK CLUB MEETING (who has time for reading?)
QUILT GUILD CHRISTMAS LUNCH (maybe I could just drive by and they could put my lunch in a bag, they do it at McDonalds!)
HAIR CUT AND COLOR..(I need an overhaul Santa would throw me off his sled if he got one look at me now)
FINISH 4 PROJECTS FOR GIFTIES..(Why didn't I do this in July???)
PREPARE 700 CHRISTMAS CARDS (Well maybe I could send a Little Valentine greeting this year instead)
GET READY TO START DAH BAKING (OH...this is nuthin but trouble. I'll wearing those cookies soon.They will be right BEHIND ME!)
GET A PEDICURE (then I'll be forced to sit down for an hour)
PACK FOR EXPLORATORY TRIP TO PADUCAH WITH MELISA (more trouble AND whos idea was it to go check out PADUCAH IN DECEMBER.)
GET TEETH CLEANED (GOTTA Look good in those holiday photos)
IRON 10,000 LINEN NAPKINS IN PREPARATION FOR HOLIDAY ENTERTAINING (why did my mother leave me so many linen napkins and table cloths? I'm going to have to speak to her about this when I get to heaven)
ANSWER 1,000 EMAILS NEGLECTED TO ANSWER WHILE PLAYING WITH FAMILY DURING THANKSGIVING (my apologies if you are one of them..and you probably are)
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING (I'm going for the mac daddy shopping experience today on Cyber Monday...I got till mid night right?)
CHURCH...(its IS the reason for the season..right!) (and it is peaceful there...I love that part)
PREPARE FOR CHRISTMAS TRIP TO ASHEVILLE. (lets just see how they fix up the old Biltmore..bet my house is better!)
MAKE DOCTORS APPTS FOR COLLEGE GIRL HOME DURING THE HOLIDAYS (she's 21 why am I doing this?..I gotta get a grip!)
ATTEND AND OR HOST 178 CHRISTMAS PARTIES, COOKIE SWAPS, LUNCHEONS, DINNER PARTIES.. (and be perfectly groomed and full of good holiday cheer....it's hell being a Southern Bell)
QUILT/SEW DAILY (you gotta be kiddin)
BLOG DAILY with photos no less.... (don't hold your breath on that one)(i got nuthin to show or say they are coming to take me away tomorrow)

Love,