everythingquilts tagged me today

I was tagged today and now I need to tell you six things about me, you may not know.
I also have to link back to my taggee who is everythingquilts.
ok six things
1. I turned 50 this year!
2. My best friend is NTQuilter.
3. I am one of three kids, I am the oldest and both of my siblings suffer from Huntingtons Chorea which is a hereditary disease. I don`t have it.
4. I have 4 sons and one grandson. I WANT a granddaughter.
5. My sister gave me a Bichon Frise puppy for my birthday last year, she was born on my birthday. Her name is Misty and I love her to pieces!
6. I have been quilting for about two years, my grandmother quilted for her whole
life and would love that I am a quilter.

Here are the rules
1. you must link back to me on your blog
2. post the rules on your blog
3. state 6 things about you we don`t know
4. tag 6 more people
5. let the person that tagged you know that you responded as well
6. tell the 6 people you tagged by posting it on thier blog.

Day started out great! BUT

Well today was my only day off for the next 8-9 days. I started out great, got my exchange gift finished up for the crochet board and mailed it out. I finished stuffing a box for my friend Donna and got that in the mail finally. She is just starting out CQing and I wanted to send her some things in that line. I sponsored her in the CQ embellishment swap that I host several times a year, so her and I split all the bags I had coming to me. I crocheted a small snowflake for my best friend and just need to stiffen it up and pack her Christmas box up and mail it.
THEN the bottom of my day fell out. The nursing home where my mother in law has been for the last month or so called and said she was doing very badly and non responsive.
I called my husband at work around two this afternoon to tell him. He called me back a little bit ago and my dear mother in law passed away. She has had Alzheimers for a little while now. Still it is hard dealing with her passing. She was in her 80s, and was really a good person. She helped my husband and I buy our first home, which we still live in. She use to cook these great Sunday dinners and then send us home with care packages that would last us almost till the next Sunday. She was that kind of person! I will miss her!
Tammy

Winter Giveaway!

THis is going to be the Winter giveaway which will be starting in January. I will also post it in the sidebar. Check out the site and decide if you want to play, and if you want to be part of the giveaway. I won two gifts in the Fall into Fall giveaway and what a great way to find new blogs to read.

Sew Happy Quilting: Pay It Forward

Sew Happy Quilting: Pay It Forward
This is the Pay it forward link back to Donna`s site. She got me started on this. And she taught me how to post the link!!! Thanks Donna.
Any questions on how this works, just ask and I will try to help you out.
Now I need three people to sign up on my site.

last two

I loved these little Christmas buttons!

close ups

CQ ornaments DONE!!

Well these four small ornaments are finally done! And they really did work out, although when I started piecing them, I thought they would never get done. I tried about five new things and maybe two worked out. But they are really cute. Thanks to Talia for the rhinestone embellishments on the mittens. I found the cutest little lightbulbs and added them to my tree. Now that I know how things worked I want to make a few more for some special friends!

Pay it Forward

I am a member of the growing group of Pay it Forward!! I am committing to sending three homemade gifts to three people in the next six to twelve months. Would you like to join? I will have a link so you can read all about it. As soon as I figure out how to get that link on here. The premise is real easy, you sign up here with me, and then you post it on your blog and get three more people to sign up and on and on. The first three that sign up get your gift. I think that the way you get your gifts is to also look for others that sign up and let them know you are one of the players. That way you get the three items. When I post the link, it will give you more info if needed.
Tammy

What I am working on

Well I did quite a bit of hand work this week. I did a lot of embroidery and beading on a Crazy Quilt round robin that I am in. I can`t show it, as it is not to be shown until the end of this RR. That will be in about seven months.
I am also doing a crochet item for a swap on the crochet boards, and that will be a surprise for the recipient around the first of December. I will post some pics of that as soon as she recieves it.
I bought a 1/4 inch foot for my sewing machine and am going to work on doing red and white blocks for a swap as soon as I unbury my machine from all the CQing I am working on.
I don`t know about the rest of the CQers out there, but when I work on CQing, I make a huge mess!! I have so much stuff for embellishing, and fabrics. I get out all my boxes and decide want I want to use. Sometimes I get ideas real fast and sometimes it takes a few days or weeks to make up my mind. I lay things against the fabrics and sometimes I just start stitching and go from there. I bought those plastic shoe boxes from the local dollar store and at this time, have about 20 of them full of stuff. Everytime I try to organize, I get tired of it and start just shoving things in the boxes! That is great until I am looking for something, that I KNOW I have and can not find it. Oh well at sometime I will get them all organized. And the good thing is that I find things I forgot I had! lol
Well back to working on the last of my CQ ornaments for mailing this week.

giveaway

I found a great quilt giveaway on everythingquilts blog and am going to try and link it here, so here goes!!

Family Trials

Today was a hard day for me. My MIL had to go into a nursing home a month or so ago. She has Alzheimers and was getting very bad. Well today we had an auction at her home. My husband Steve is one of four brothers and three of them came to the auction, one from Florida, one from Virginia and my husband and I attended the auction. I cried when we got to the house and most of the items had already been moved outside or to the basement for the sale. I think it was because it seemed real to me for the first time. I am the total optimist! I think things are never that bad until I actually see it. And for me, seeing that empty house made me realize that my mother in law is really in a home, and does not know anyone anymore. My husbands one brother that lives right near there could not bother to come. That seemed wrong and Steve was upset, but that is another whole story. I think one of the things that bothered me most was knowing how hard she had worked all her life, raising four sons on her own. She was a great lady and I will miss that part of her. But she is happy, she loves for anyone to come see her. She does not miss us when we don`t get up, because she does not remember us. Everything is brand new to her. Kevin, the yougest son took her some ice cream and she was delighted with it, it was like something she had never eaten or even seen.
Maybe that is the best thing about this horrible disease.

Vacation at last

I had a few days of vacation that I needed to use before the end of the year. I decided this was a great week to take them. I got to go to a new quilt shop yesterday and a Harley shop with DH. What a beautiful day it was. The weather was just perfect for a drive. First stop was a store about one hour from us called Surplus City. It is just the neatest place. One half of it is mens stuff, tools, hardware, paint, stuff like that. The other half is fabric, crafts, decorative items. I got several yards of fabric, some rick rack and also some yardage of laces. Then it was on to the quilt shop I had seen advertised on Quilting Arts tv show on PBS. It was a cute shop with lots of goodies squeezed into a small shop. I bought some great batiks, and a new pattern. I also bought some more beading needles. Then we went to the State College Harley shop, OMG, if you ever are in that area, stop in and see that shop. It is huge and very nicely laid out. The people there were very nice too. I found a coat that I loved and told him to get me one for Christmas. There was only one there and in my size. He said if we don`t get it now, it will be gone. So we did!! Maybe tomorrow I will get him to take a picture of me with it on and post it.
Well when we got outside, we almost had a flat tire, there was a guy that worked out there got us and airhose and we pumped up the tire and headed home! It was a great day!
Tammy

another giveaway

I found another site that is a really cool site to visit with an awesome giveaway, I am posting here also
http://simple-needs.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-10-29T15%3A25%3A00-04%3A00&max-results=7

great site

I was just out wandering around in blog land and found this site. They give directions for a new gift every day in November. And there are some great giveaways at the same time.
Check it out!!
http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/

Friends

I love the computer! Want to know why?? Because of the great friends you meet. Today got me thinking about how many wonderful woman I have met because of the computer. Woman from all over the world, from all walks of life, woman like me with a love of quilting, crocheting, whatever. With the way we work nowadays, we hardly have time for anything besides that and family. Friendships are so hard to keep up with in this modern day, we are tired after work, we don`t get out as much, or have the time to "do lunch, go shopping, just sit and talk" but we can "visit" with all our friends every night right in our living room, wearing our pj`s! What more could we ask. And the friendships are real! We truly care about each other, we share hopes, dreams and joys and sorrows, right here and now!! Don`t ever tell me that my friends on this computer are not real, because we all know they are. I laugh and I cry right along with them.
I would do whatever I could for them and know they feel the same way. Some I will meet face to face, lots I already have, some I will never see their faces, but they are as important to me as the ones I have met. Guess I just wanted to let all my friends know how much they mean to me!!
Tammy