I'm So Thankful!

Greg and I had a GREAT Thanksgiving break! We headed out on Tuesday afternoon and were fortunate to spend the evening with our friend Nell who lives in Canon City. Canon City is located on Hwy. 50, so we did not go out of our way at all! On Wednesday we woke bright and early and continued our journey up to Rangley. We arrived mid afternoon and enjoyed visiting with my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces throughout the evening.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. And I couldn't wait to eat! Most of my sister-in-laws family lives in Rangely so there was a good size crowd and LOTS OF FOOD! No wonder I love Thanksgiving! Karen (my sister-in-law) makes the best home made dressing and rolls! Yum-o! Karen was also hosting a book party for me with The Body Shop at Home so I set up a display of products so everyone could sample and smell. It was a big hit! I even recruited one of Karen's nieces to become a consultant!


After we ate David (my brother) took Greg and I on a short sight-seeing drive. Afterwards we were able to settle down for the evening with more visiting and we even tried to watch a movie.

Then came Black Friday! We all got up bright and early so we could make the one and a half hour drive to Grand Junction to spend the day. The drive there was beautiful! There was just enough of a light snowfall the night before to make everything pretty!




We hit the mall first and it was crowded, but I think that's part of the fun of Black Friday! I didn't buy anything, instead Greg and I took turns shopping with each of our nieces so they could buy each others Christmas presents as well as birthday presents for their mom. Once everyone had shopped til they dropped, we cruised on over to Famous Dave's for some tasty bar-b-que! (This Southern gal never turns down a bar-b-que dinner!) It wasn't quite as tasty as my hubby's bar-b-que, but then again, maybe I'm just a little biased. ;) From their the gals went to some cute downtown boutiques and then we all met up again at a Christmas craft fair where Greg and I took this cute pic with our nieces Emily and Braylee. They are just too precious!



After the craft fair we headed on over to the movie theatre where we watched "Four Christmases". And let me tell ya, that movie did not disappoint! It was knee-slappin' hilarious! Greg and I actually want to go to the movies and watch it again. It's that funny. I guess it doesn't help that I love Reese Witherspoon and Greg loves Vince Vaughn. It was a two thumbs up for me!

The movies were followed by a quick trip to the pet store (just for fun!) and to a sporting goods store. Afterwards, everyone was tired so we headed back to Rangely and capped the night off with some yummy Thanksgiving leftovers!

We left around noon on Saturday afternoon and we decided to take a different route back to Lamar. We thought it would have been fun to take I-70 into Denver and spend the evening there. Oh if only I had a magic crystal ball.....

Shortly after we passed Glenwood Springs we got stopped in traffic for over two hours. It was horrible. And the reason was because the interstate has two separate roads, the road for the westbound traffic is slightly higher on the mountain than the eastbound road. Well, a semi went over the westbound highway and lets just say there was a major wreck.

From where we were parked we couldn't see any of this. But, the guy parked next to us happened to be a wrecker on his way to Denver so he was able to talk to the wreckers to find out what was going on. He did tell us that there was one fatality, which was really sad. I'm not sure what time the wreck happened but it must have happened shortly before we got there, because a guy from the Department of Transportation made everyone crunch in together so wreckers and ambulances could get through. We happened to stop before the accident to get lunch and fill up on diesel, so it really made me think, "that could have been us".

As if that wasn't enough, after we were finally able to get back on the road, about an hour later we were driving through the town of Avon. I was telling Greg a story about how much I hated that town because of an experience my sister and I had when I was driving through it several years ago. Not two minutes later, the next thing I know we were lost control of our truck and were sliding over both lanes of traffic. We ended up in the meridian and I just knew we were headed straight into the oncoming traffic on the other side. I freaked out! Luckily Greg manages to stay calm in the most stressful of situations so he clicked it into 4 wheel drive and asked (um, yelled) for me to tell him when the lane was clear. He knew if we stopped we'd be stuck. Somehow we got back on the road safe and sound. How we didn't hit anything is beyond me.

Unfortunately, things didn't get any better from there. I was pretty shook up about the whole near death experience and I was ready to just call it a night. Even though technically we had only driven three hours. But Greg insisted that the roads would be worse in the morning. I glanced at the map and noticed that we had to go over Vail Pass, so I called David to see how dangerous the pass was. (Greg warned me before I called not to tell him that we almost died, because according to him everything was peachy keen). So I kept the drama queen inside of me in check and my brother said the same thing that Greg did and that we should really make it to Denver. *Sigh* There's really nothing like the feeling one gets when one is driving down an icy road on a mountain in the dark. To say that it sucked would be putting it mildly. And of course my stomach was in knots from our near death experience, so I really had to pee. Like, bad. But, before we could exit at the next town, wouldn't you know, we get stuck in traffic. Again. This time we were at a stop for an hour and then it turned into a slow crawl. All I could see were red lights from the other cars brake lights. I have never considered peeing in a cup so bad in my life. How I held it is beyond me. Men are so lucky.

Needless to say, we never quite made it to Denver. Around 9:00 P.M. I knew we were approaching a hotel that we had stayed at back in April, so I convinced Greg to just stay there. We were tired and hungry. Not even the brand new Irish Pub with delicious potato and onion soup could revive us, so off to bed we went.

Sunday wasn't much better. The roads were extremely foggy until we got into Denver. (We were only fifteen miles away). The roads in Denver were wet but very easy to manage. That is, until we got past the airport. Then we were greeted yet again by icy roads. Luckily, we knew how what to do, so no damage was done! It did take us about an hour to drive maybe twenty miles. But after that, the roads were miraculously clear and dry! However, the wind speeds decided to reach 60 mph, so we had to laugh at all the tumbleweeds that crossed our path! I swear, I've never seen so many tumbleweeds in my life until I moved to Colorado! Who would have thought!

To sum it all up, normally if someone were to ask me what I'm thankful for around this time of year, I would say the normal things: good health, friends, family, blah, blah, blah. This year, however, I'm so thankful that we have not been in a car wreck!!!!

Beading Blunders

I have to vent. I had anticipated today to be an artsy beading day. And I really started to get a lot accomplished. Started is the key word here. Where do I begin...well, as I mentioned I am thinking of entering a craft fair next month. I even called and got all the details for it today which is a big check mark off of my list. I haven't confirmed that I am going yet and I really feel that I need to have more pieces to sell before I go. Luckily while I was in Oklahoma I got to visit my favorite bead store, Alouette. Apparently I wasn't the normal observant shopper that I usually am as you'll see below.

I laid all my beading supplies out on the table and decided the first thing I would make is a breast feeding reminder bracelet. The basic concept of the bracelet involves numbers from 1 through 12 and a charm that someone can move around to the next time they are supposed to breast feed. I have only made one and it was for my sister. Since it turned out so good I thought why not make one to sell. Who knows, it could be my signature piece. The thing is, the numeric beads I use are pretty expensive and I can only find them at Alouette. So I was pretty excited to be able to finally have all the materials I needed to make this particular bracelet. That is, until I started laying out my number beads, only to discover that yours truly apparently didn't buy a "0" bead for my number 10. Great. Now I'll have to call Alouette and have them mail me one measly bead. Wonderful. No biggie, I'll just move on to my next piece.

I had also bought some really cool African bone beads that looked like zebra at Alouette. They are square and I had to dig around to find two that were about the same size. I bought them with plans of making a pair of earrings. Basically I would have the bone hanging from the bottom with two strands of black seed beads looping up and attaching to the actual earring. In my mind they were pretty cool and would look so cute on a gal all dressed up for a night out on the town. That is, until I realized that only one of the bone beads had two holes drilled through and the other one only had one hole drilled through. OK. Deep breath. This is not a disaster. I decided I would just have it dangling from one strand rather than two. Which I did. Only it's not as dramatic as it would have been with two strands. Fine. I didn't make the matching earring. I'm hoping I will suddenly have a grand idea as to how to drill a hole through about an inch of bone. And by me I mean my husband. If we have to break out a power tool for this little bead, then so be it!

Moving on to my third and final project. My great idea for overcoming the "lack of inventory" problem for the craft show was that I would make book thongs!!! My mom had made some last year for her church bazaar and I literally use mine everyday. If you don't know what a book thong is, it's a book mark that is made out of a piece of cord with beads tied to each end that dangle out of both ends of the book when it's being used. Brilliant! I can sell them pretty cheap on my website, have more inventory for the craft fair, and use up random beads. I bought several packages of the cord in various colors at Wal-Mart. And of course, while I was at Alouette, I bought several more tubes of seed beads in colors that would match the cord. And although the previous two projects failed, this was obviously a no brainer, right? Nope. Since I had never actually opened the cord out of their packages, I didn't realize how big the cord actually was. And I thought seed beads would easily string onto it? Yeah right. And out of all the beads I have (which isn't a ton, but I am getting quite the collection) only two will actually string onto the cord.

Somehow I managed to not chunk my box of beads across the room. So much for that whole "more inventory" plan for this craft fair. But I'm trying to be realistic about the whole situation. Surely I can find something else to use other than braiding cord for the book thongs. I am confident that my husband will know how to drill a hole into a piece of bone. And I'm positive that once I receive my 0 bead from Alouette I'll have my bracelet made way before the craft fair. And I realize that my bad Alouette shopping experience is really all of Norman's fault. I should have known better than to try to go to the bead store on Campus Corner on the day of the first OU football game.

And on another bright side, I have also proven that a theory of mine is actually wrong. I found a $20 bill in my jacket pocket this morning. I always took that as an omen that it's going to be a good day. Guess not!

For a good cause

Hey everyone! One of my dear friends (www.crazypaper.etsy.com) is holding an online auction to raise money for a former teacher of hers that has cancer. Here's the link: http://stores.ebay.com/helpsolveforx All money will be sent towards medical bills so any help would be appreciated. I donated two pairs of earrings, so it's fine if you want to be a little bit biased and bid on those ;) Several other artists from etsy donated items from their shops so there are a lot of homemade items listed on the auction. Thanks and happy bidding!

On another note I am thinking of setting up camp at a craft fair in October. It's a very small town so it will not be very fancy but it will at least get my feet wet. Which of course means that I'm inspired to create all over again, but there is a lack of bead stores here. By lack I mean none. *sigh* So we'll see if I actually go through with this or not. If anyone has ever sold at a craft fair I am open to any and all suggestions!