The Hunt

It was December 22, 2001. We were living in Utah at the time. I was 8 months pregnant with my second child, had a 22 month old baby running around, DH was living in Egypt for a year (for work), and we had our house up for sale. Yes, life was a little chaotic, but good!

Due to my husband's inability to make it home for Christmas, our dear friends had invited my son and I over for Christmas dinner. Awesome! My son is the pickiest eater EVER, so making turkey and the fixings only for myself would have been depressing.

At 6:30 pm on the 22nd, my doorbell rang. I answered it and was greeted by some overly cheerful people wearing reindeer antlers and Santa hats.

"Hello!" they exclaimed, "We are on a Christmas Scavenger Hunt and hope you can help us!"

"Sure," I said, intrigued by this proposal, "what are you looking for?"

"Well," the lady replied, "We are trying to provide a needy family with enough food for Christmas breakfast and dinner. Do you happen to have some green beans, a pound of bacon, or rolls?"

I excused myself and went to check. Opening the pantry door, I was reminded of the fact I was not cooking anything this year! No green beans...no rolls in the fridge...and no bacon. Darn! This was such a cool scavenger hunt and I really wanted to help!

"Sorry," I sadly said to the cheerful hunters, "I don't have any of those items."

"Oh, that's OK," she gleefully replied. "We are also taking donations to buy the family a gift card from Target so they can do some Christmas shopping. Would you care to donate to that?"

I ran to my purse as well as I could being so pregnant! Opening my wallet I realized I literally had NO money. Nope...not even a dollar. How embarrassing!

I sulked back to the door and had to tell them how sorry I was I could not help. "But good luck to you," I exclaimed!

About 8:45 pm my doorbell rang yet again. Oh my...now it is getting late. Who could this be? I opened the door to see 25 people on my porch spilling onto the walkway and into my front yard. Candles were lit and carols were being sung. Before I could react, they were in my house, delivering boxes upon boxes of toys and food.

"Merry Christmas," the same jolly lady replied, "Part of our scavenger hunt was finding the needy family...and YOU are it!"

I was literally speechless. Of course, being hormonal, I started to cry. What a dismal sight I must have been...BIG pregnant, young child, house up for sale, no husband in sight! All I could do was stand there. There was no telling them to stop! They were SO HAPPY to have found me! I could not bear to tell them I was NOT the needy family!

They only stayed for a few minutes, finishing a beautiful rendition of Silent Night and Joy to the World, ending with a round of hugs from all. After they left, I stood there with a tear stained face just looking at the boxes upon boxes of things, wondering what I should do with it all.

The next morning, I called our church office and relayed my story of the night before. By divine intervention just hours before my call, 2 needy families contacted my chruch asking for immediate help. I quickly loaded my Ford Excursion, which was FULL to the brim with boxes, and drove over to make my special delivery. It felt so good passing this wonderful gift on to someone else who truly needed it.

Our pastor shared this story with each church service that day. It put a smile on our congregation's face and led to many jokes about my "neediness" and inability to keep anything in the pantry or a dollar in my wallet!

I love this story. Whenever I retell it, I get the same feeling in my heart as the day it happened. It is truly a testament to the generosity of strangers and the true meaning of Christmas.

May the joy of the season bring warmth to your heart as it did mine.

Vindication

Oh yeah, it feels good.

My DH called the landlord today and said they needed to come back out. We were NOT going to spend one more night here with the elusive mouse.

They did come out, still saying we don't smell anything!

Our landlord, on the verge of tears, said that the workers told her boss that we were just smelling things that were not there.

I can't tell you how good it felt when they cut a huge hole out of my hardwood kitchen floor, peeled back the insulation only to find...a 6 inch mouse. Dead. Smelly.

HA! I have never been happier to see a dead mouse in all of my life!

All I Want for Christmas

About 3 weeks ago my Golden Retriever, Sami, was going crazy over by her food bowls. Now I know what you are thinking...define crazy. Contrary to what you are probably thinking, she did not put on a grass skirt, grab a lei and ukulele and start singing, rather she was obsessed with watching the wall and pawing at it.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing you are...there is a mouse in there!

Thankfully we never once saw little poopies or other evidence that is mouse ever set foot on the interior of my house. When a week went by and my Golden finally stopped her obsession with my wall, I thought perhaps Miss Mouse went to find another warm place to hunker down for the winter.

Last week I noticed a lingering unpleasant odor. Humm...sometimes Japan does kind of smell funny, but nope, this was different. Oh my word...I bet Miss Mouse died in my wall!

So, on Wed I phoned our landlord who honestly thought I was off my rocker. The conversation kind of went like this...
Hi! I am pretty sure there is a dead mouse in my wall. No, no...never saw the mouse alive, but I am pretty sure I had one because of my dog. Well, I know this is strange, but you need to come out here to look.

She shows up and claims to not smell it. By Thursday I was about to die. DH says I have a "dog nose"...I can smell things a mile away. At first I thought it was just his excuse to claim he did not know a kid had a poopy diaper, but now I do think I just might have super-human sniffing ability. Honestly though, I think this thing could wake the dead.

At any rate, after many calls and threats to move out of the house, they came out and literally tore out 2 sections of my wall. Thankfully they did find a nest and poopy...but no mouse. Where is that dang thing???

They removed the insulation and were going to see if that helped. Maybe it buried itself in the layers. Ummm...NOPE! I am sure it is still there.

It is Sunday here and I have to wait until tomorrow to call them again. We have company coming out for Christmas. Our tree is near the stench.

All I want for Christmas is an exterminator!

It Never Gets Old

Can you see me right now? I am doing the happy dance! (It kind of looks like a combination of the Cabbage Patch and Running Man all in one...oh my...I just dated myself...)

I got 3 more cards published in Just Cards (Volume 12)! I think this deserves a reward...say, some new paper??!! LOL Just Kidding!! I will have to find some other way to reward myself after Christmas. You never know what Santa might have in his sleigh for me! Doubtful there is any paper, though. However, I would love there to be a replacement piece of blue Bazzil shimmery cardstock. By the way, I still have not seen that dang Turkey. If I find him, I will be sure to let Santa know he deserves coal in his stocking! But I digress...

I sent these cards in a year ago! In fact, they are some of the first cards I made to introduce myself to my Pen Pals on Split Coast. My style has changed a lot in a year. I have learned so much from SCS and my fellow bloggers, but I do still love these none-the-less.

Is everyone prepared for the Holiday? I have yet to bake a thing! I did make it to the commissary today, so I am ready to roll this weekend! Unfortunately, my oldest DD is sick! I wonder if she has what the baby had 2 weeks ago. I guess I would rather have her sick now than on Dec 25th!

My Father-in-Law is coming to town on Monday, so I may be MIA for a little while. Might be difficult to sneak into the craft room with company here. That's OK, though. We love to play cards so that will surely dominate my time. My favorite card game is called 35. It is like rummy with a twist! Do you play cards? If so, what is your favorite game?

Giving the Bird...a disguise

A week before Thanksgiving, I had an evening function to attend. This meant DH had to cart the kids from here to there, get homework complete, kids' showered, and in bed by 8. Oh yeah...and make something resembling dinner as well! As we all know, this tasking in and of itself is not for the faint of heart!

Of course, I had to add the bonus challenge...my 8 year old had a Tom the Turkey project due the next day.

Have you heard of Tom the Turkey? He is a turkey that needs to be dressed up in a disguise so he can escape ending up on someone's dinner table. Lucky for him, he is just on an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper, so no one would want to cook him up anyway, but he did need a disguise none-the-less.

DH took one look and said, "You have got to be kidding me! You are the crafty one in the family! You should be helping with this!"

Unfortunately, I had to go, so I just left the both of them with a pat on the back, kiss on the forehead, and words of wisdom...you guys will be fine! I am sure at this point DH wanted to give me the bird, but instead he just sighed.

You might be wondering why it took me so long to blog about this little project. Well, there is good reason.

I arrived home at 9:30...DH was watching TV. He seemed fine...no obvious battle scars, kids were in bed and the house was relatively picked up.

"So, how did Tom come out?"

"Fine," he replied, almost cocky, "but I could not find any colored paper in your craft stuff."

***ALARM RED, ALARM RED, ALARM RED***

"Ummm...you needed colored paper? Well, what about the construction paper the kids have upstairs?"

"Oh, they have that?" he questioned.

Well yes, I thought, of course they do!

"Yeah, I just went and grabbed some from this bin here. Sorry, it kind of fell over and went everywhere."

"Um hum"....with a ton of control in my voice, as if my dear son's school project was worth more than my pretty, pretty papers we all know I have a little addiction to. And then I saw it...still in the cutter...the evidence. My heart skipped a beat...they used my Bazzil shimmery cardstock! On a TURKEY!

Dang Bird. I only wish I could find him...I would stuff him something fierce! Unfortunately for me, he is hiding out somewhere in a MegaMan costume made of shimmery Bazzil cardstock...

Kaper Chart

Last year I was a Daisy Girl Scout co-leader with my DD's current Brownie Leader. We made our own Kaper Chart with use of the Cricut and had the BEST Kaper Chart in the Girl Scout Hut, if I do say so myself! LOL

This year I am "just" a supportive parent, having given up my gig as a leader. DD's leader asked if I would consider making the Kaper Chart again this year. Of course, I said I would love to.

My instructions:

• use a theme of "Our Rising Stars"
• use a color scheme inclusive of blue and brown

So, I went and purchased a normal sized sheet of poster board (actually 2, because I needed one for when I messed up! LOL). After measuring it, I split the design into thirds going horizontally, taking into consideration a 1 inch top and bottom border.

Then I worked on the blue rectangles. I ended up cutting them to 5 x 6, mostly guided by the fact I did not want them to be square and my starting paper size was 12 x 12. From there, I made the stars, basing their size on the blue rectangles.

The stars were cut using the George cartridge, using both the star and the shadow set at 4". I also cut thin cardboard at 4" (not on the shadow feature) to reinforce the stars. They have Velcro on the back so they needed to be sturdy to stand up to repeated taking on and off. The cardboard is covered easily by the white paper. I decided to break from the brown and blue scheme at this point thinking that I needed an accent color. I chose yellow for obvious reasons!

I finished the stars by using my Cricut Design Studio (CDS) with the Street Sign font. The names were set at 1". (Looking back I think I could have easily managed 1 1/2" inches, but I did not want the names to hang off the stars. I think I got close on Samantha, so maybe the 1" was a good decision!) I welded the names together (as much as I could, anyway), ran them through the Xyron, and adhered them to the stars. I did those in the lighter blue to bring back the requested color scheme.

I then used the CDS again with the Street Sign Font to make the job titles. I chose brown to again get back to her requested color scheme. (IRL you can see the job titles easily...they are subdued in the picture.)

I finished off making the Brownie Troop info with Street Sign in brown, set at 3". I wanted the Rising Stars to be accented, so I used Making the Grade for a more whimsical effect. That, too, is done in 3".

Once I laid it all out, I decided to make a shooting star as my accent piece. Ahead of time, I thought I would do a string of stars, but quite frankly, I felt like it was going to be distracting. I cut a 10" star using George and CDS, putting it at a 25 degree slant. I then versamarked the star and embossed it with Iridescent Ice to give it a sparkle! Once that was down, I used a pencil to draw some lines and colored every other one with yellow Crayola marker!

I then adhered everything to the poster board using the Xyron and my beloved ATG gun! I finished it off by using stickles on the girl's names, so it looks like their name in lights!

I actually think the rectangles look like a movie star's name on their dressing room door!

Thanks for looking!

Prayers

I have never posted a prayer request, but I feel compelled to do so now.

I have been following a blog about a young Mother with Colon Cancer for a long while now. In fact, I found it through my dear friend who had Stage 3 Colon Cancer herself. (My friend is now NED-no evidence of disease! She literally kicked it in the a@@! Praise the Lord!)

At any rate, Shawndra is in need of prayers now more than ever. If you feel so inclined, please add her to your prayer list. If you do not pray, positive thoughts are welcome as well.

Shawndra is a fighter...with all of us behind her, maybe her body will find the strength to fight off this horrid disease.

Mocha Coffee

Oh my...I apologize for being MIA. It is that time of year, I think!

This week started out well enough...I spent last weekend actually scrapbooking and got several pages done. I am well below my annual goal, but I still have 27 days to meet it! LOL Then it seems the you-know-what hit the fan, compiled with my normal Mom's Taxi schedule, time just got away from me!

It seems like when life gets really chaotic, something happens to make you slow down and take notice. For instance, today I was at a BIG Holiday function my club coordinates. We invite Japanese guests and treat them to a fabulous lunch, complete with Holiday songs, food and good ol' fashioned gift exchange. This event takes weeks of planning...then in one second...I have to leave because my youngest is sick!

Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy to take care of my poor sweet girl, but it was just kind of anticlimactic to be in the room among our guests and have to bow out gracefully before it ever really started. (Although seeing the expression on my Vice President's face when I said I had to leave was priceless in and of itself!!)

So here I sit, catching up on my SCS blog group and snuggling with my little mini-space heater, a.k.a. my daughter!

Here is the re-worked version of my Minty Christmas card I asked for help on! You girls rock and thank you so much for all of your suggestions! I ended up going more monochromatic and I love the results. Had to add some bling because no card is complete without it! LOL

Stamps: Minty Christmas and sentiment from Stampingbella.com

Paper: Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, CM DSP, GP White

Ink: Nick Bantock Lamp Black by Ranger, Copics to color, SU Chocolate Chip for sentiment

Accessories: SU Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, Red Stickles (berries and candy cane), Rhinestones from the 100 yen store!

Thanks for stopping in!