Making a Big Mess!

Last night on my way home from work I saw this building leaning like crazy.  They're removing it to make way for something, I'm not sure what.  It's been there for about a hundred years give or take a decade.

Today it's just a big mess!

I was sitting through a lot of traffic
 at a red light and waiting for my
turn.  Look past the car ahead of me,
on the right, you can see a pile.

Getting closer to the corner, this pile
was upright last night but is pushed
down today.

 

This part of the building is still leaning...

but I expect that either tonight on my way home, or next week on the way in I will see a whole block long pile of rubble in place of this old building.

Out with the old, in with the new!  I wonder if they're putting in condos.  That seems to be our modus operandi in the near downtown area these days.

Are you a maker?  Theses guys surely are (and I mean guys in the generic sense because I'm sure there are women in construction too).

All I've made this week has already been posted.  Mostly it was just a mess in my sewing room, but at least I made something!  How big is your mess this week, or are you a clean as you go person?

Sew on...

Stampin Up Gifts

I placed an order from Stampin Up a couple of weeks ago.  I have a demonstrator I've known for several years.  Her husband works here at my company so I hear from him when there's a sale or something exciting happens like new stamps are out or she's hosting a card-making session.

 

I ordered on line and chose her as my demonstrator.  You can do that even if you didn't have a party or attend one. You don't get any freebies that way but sometimes you just want something without any fuss.

 

She sent me (as she always does) an adorable thank you note, made by herself of course.   There's usually a little gift attached or enclosed.

 

This time there was a tiny clipboard in the envelope.  Check it out!  It's a small cardboard square covered in cute paper, with some small memo-sized white paper attached with-of all things-a binder clip!

However it's not just ANY old binder clip.  This binder clip is covered with matching paper. A couple of pieces of ribbon are attached just for fun.

It's the perfect size to hang next to my phone for when you need to jot down someone's number.

And of course she stamped the 'maker' on the back and wrote her name on it!

Very cute, and so appreciated!  Thanks, Connie.

Stamp on...

Christmas is Coming!!

Today I looked at the calendar and gasped in mock horror -- there are only 39 days until Christmas Day!!

O-M-G!!

What???  How can that be??  Yeah, I know it's on December 24-25 every year.  But I didn't know it was almost here!!

Well, we're seeing these in the stores....

 

 My Christmas Cactus is starting up again...

And I think it might be time to get some of those craft items done that I started seems like last week.  Except it turns out it was last week plus a year ago...

Maybe it's the unseasonably nice weather we've been having here in Wisconsin.  Most of the area still looks like this

So I'm sure a lot of us are not in the mood for this yet...

Those of you who complain that Christmas has been in the stores for too long already will need to TRY to have just a little sympathy for those of us who feel like it's sneaking up on us.

Again...

Sew on!

Retail Therapy (Sort of...)

I don't think I'm going to get over the shock of the election and its aftermath quickly, but I'm working on it.  Moving on...

When you're feeling down in the dumps what do you do?  A little retail therapy usually helps me feel better.  I don't even have to buy anything although it's LOTS better if I do.  Just the process of going into a store, realizing that we have so many choices, and so much available to us, makes me feel better.

If I buy fabric, or books, well then it's just been nirvana.  Not the band.  😉

Here's what I did yesterday:

Stopped by my local library to pick up a book... and on the way out there's an area of shelves where you can buy books for pennies, really, nothing over $5 and many for much, much less.  I was on my way to the car and I thought I'd just take a peek.

I found these four books plus one other and spent $7 total.  I mean two of these are hard covers, and you know the price of hardcover books these days!  They were $1 each.  The Alexander McCall was 50 cents!  I love his books!  The one on the top was $2.50 but it's the latest DCI Banks mystery (of PBS fame...)

 

The Cara Black at the bottom of this pile was also purchased at the library, also a hard cover.

 

There was also a big padded mailer on the table from Amazon and the three top books were in that.  I purchased them via Amazon Smile on Saturday.  My church will get a small donation from that purchase.  There are quite a number of charities that participate, there might be some organization that you could help if you check it out.

 

 

Two weekends ago I went to Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee, a small conference for mystery and crime writers and fans.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly and came home with a whole list of new writers to check out.  That's where I met Cara Black and heard her speak on a panel about her French lady detective, and her series of books -- Murder in (insert location in France).

 

We also had the pleasure of listening to an interview with Sara Paretsky.  If you don't know who she is, she's the creator of the Chicago female detective V.I. Warshawsky.  I've been reading those novels since I stumbled across the first one at a little used book emporium in Seattle years ago.  Yes, I went to the Powell's mother ship during a trip there.  All I can say is wow!  I had to buy another tote bag to carry my finds home that trip.

Here's a very bad phone pic of Sara singing about the Chicago Cubs before she started the interview.  The other person on stage is co-emcee Dana Cameron.  I am on the lookout for copies of the Emma Fielding novels, one of Dana's multitude of series, she's very prolific!

Sorry for the fuzzy focus.  I did get a nice shot of the back of the lady sitting in front of me.  Here's one of Dana with Tom Schreck who was giving us the opportunity to learn some boxing moves.  He's the author of a number of novels involving boxers, and he also coaches boxing.  He pointed out that if you read about someone using a right hook there might be some inaccuracy in the fight description because that could get you ko'd!  Who knew he'd let Dana get that close??  LOL!

 



The last thing I did before I went to bed last night was cut and bag some more kits for our church quilt guild.  My co-leader and I had made some purchases a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed like spending some time in the sewing studio would be good therapy.

 

We've given out a large number of quilts to people having babies, having surgery, etc, and we needed to replenish the kit bag.  Now I feel ready for this Saturday and the quilty ladies!

 



 

Getting ready to sew on...