Greetings from up north!

 Hello, old friends! (Young old friends?) I sometimes wonder how long I've been doing this blog thing. I guess I could check, right? Aha! I see that I started my original blog (Backwoods Crazy Quilt) in January of 2009. And I moved over here in June of 2011. I think I had both going for a while and then just dropped the first one. It's still there, of course. I'm not much of one for rehashing history, so I don't go back and read it much, if at all. I like to look forward and live in the present. God brings us through so many hard things. I'm thankful He's brought us through and will continue until the day we meet Him face-to-face. Meanwhile, one day at a time is all He calls us to deal with! :)

Audrey's oral surgery went off without a hitch. The oral surgeon had to make a hole in the roof of her mouth to get to the "root of the problem" and then covered it with a synthetic skin graft. That has dissolved and she seems to be doing fine. 

Here's the happy crew a couple of days ago playing games on my Kindle. 

I was going to say that Hazel doesn't always make faces, but I guess she does enjoy doing that quite a bit.

For those of you who were very concerned about how my puzzle turned out (ha ha) here it is. Sans 5 pieces! I did find one piece under the box lid, so there were only 4 missing then. That's what I get for buying puzzles at the thrift store, ha ha.

Now I've begun this 1,000 piece puzzle. Someone made a note on the box that all the pieces are there. Hopefully nobody has used the puzzle since that note was added. 

I hope this will fit on the table by the time I finish it! Uncle Sam is only one of ten figures in the picture!

Not only did I finish a puzzle, I also finished this scarf that I've been piddling along on for ages. Completely knit stitched, because I'm a coward when it comes to knitting, ha! My next project might be an arm knitted infinity scarf, because it's much quicker!

See the orange blob in the middle of the photo? A snowmobile. They are whining past our place in large groups. They follow the road ditches here where there isn't a trail for them. A couple just came down the wrong side of the road and had to figure out what to do when they came to the huge pile of snow at the end of our driveway. Ha ha, serves 'em right! :) (They just went out on the road to get around it, but they're supposed to be in the ditch on the other side of the road.)

I'm still working on the two books I mentioned in my last post, but this one just arrived in the mail. I think one of my friends on Facebook recommended it. Looks interesting! I'll probably start it soon to counterbalance the theology books.

This morning's reading. Lord give us courage. We may not always have such a cushy Christian walk. 

And then there is a little artwork...

This is a 5x7 canvas I made for a monthly trade. I don't do this every month.

And a few starter cards I made for the Continuous Round Robin.  These were the last of my APC (Artist Playing Card) series, so now I just sit back and wait to get my finished cards back after two more people add "stuff" to them.

When you guys are typing up your rough draft for your blog do you have problems with the scroll bar playing hide and seek? Not sure what that's about. Why can't it just sit there in plain view?

Well, I think that's all I have for now, so I'll hit Publish and be on my way! I hope you're all well and I'll be checking in on you. :)

Shalom and love to all!

The stork delivers again!

 I'm a little late announcing that on November 23 grandchild #18, Colton Scott, joined us, weighing in at 7 lb. 1 oz.!  His parents tell us he's a keeper and everyone is doing fine. :) He lives with his parents in Longmont, Colorado. 

I hope you've all had a great holiday season so far. I'll have to catch up on blogs after I post this. I think I'm spending too much time on YouTube! I've been watching a lot of episodes of Sherlock Holmes lately. This is an old television series starring Ronald Howard that I'd never seen before. I like that they're only 30 minutes long. The Basil Rathbone version is usually an hour or so long and is more like a movie. I like both!

Our church usually has a Widows Luncheon at Christmas time, but wasn't able to have it this year. So, instead, they gave us each a nice gift box. 

And here's a little picture of Miss River May. Hope you can see it. 

Once again, I'm hunting around through my pictures looking for something interesting to talk about. Not that my family isn't interesting, but I guess we all have fairly routine lives. Micah has several doctor appointments for Adele, in preparation for some dental surgery. All of the doctors seem to be an hour or more away from home, so we'll be on the road a lot in the next couple of weeks. (A physical checkup today, a covid test next week and then dental work on the 22nd.) It will be nice to have that behind us!

And now, let the randomness begin!

Some inchies...

These were for a swap in which we had to use at least one postage stamp on each card with a theme of performance arts.

Backgrounds that someone will add collage elements to...

Barncat. You can't tell from this photo, but this guy weighs about ten pounds...or more. He looks like a raccoon!

More backgrounds. These three were made from a very old Czech primer. It was in bad shape, so I wasn't too hesitant to use it for collage.

The next three are macro shots of butterfly wings. (Backgrounds, once again.)

I'm not sure if I've shown the next four cards. We received an envelope from the swap host containing odds and ends and we had to use at least two items from her bits and pieces for each card. We call this a Trash to Treasure swap.

I was babysitting Sully yesterday while Micah and the other four kids went somewhere. I got a paper cut from a book I was looking at and Sully ran to the kitchen, climbed up on the counter, found a band-aid (Wonder Woman?) in the upper cabinets and then proceeded to extricate it from the wrapper and bandage my finger. He insisted. Quite the emergency first aid responder!

A couple more I'm not sure if I've shown... This was another swap which required the use of postage stamps. This time with a bird theme (on at least one stamp). The backgrounds sometimes make more sense when you can see what country the stamps come from, lol.

The previously shown fat cat, joined by another.

A Sully gift. I couldn't resist! I also got the three girls and Sully bow and arrow sets. (With suction cups.)

Rudolph the Cheeky Reindeer by Adele. He made me laugh out loud!

God bless and shalom to all my family and friends out there!

And Meeeerrrryyyy Christmas, if I don't get around to posting again before then! :)

Yawn...Oh! Excuse me!

 Ha ha. I seem to be going through a season of life when I wake at 4 a.m. and can't get back to sleep...so I get up! Then later I'm so draggy that I try to nap without much success. Part of the reason I'm too lazy to blog much. ;)

I've been doing a lot of reading and watching YouTube vlogs/podcasts/or whatever they call them. Lots of politics and religion, so I won't go into that, ha ha. Well, maybe a little. 

One of my favorites to watch at the moment is John L Cooper, who some of us know as the lead singer in a Christian Rock band called Skillet. My boys listened to them a lot about 20 years ago!! Everyone is getting old! Anyway, Skillet is still out there singing and this young man (whom I'd like to adopt) has a YouTube channel called Cooper Stuff where he talks about politics and religion. He has a lot of wisdom on both topics, in my opinion. I'm very impressed with him and his family. 

Other than that I've started reading through the Bible in a year in chronological order. I'll probably cheat and read some NT at the same time I'm working through the OT. I think this is a time in history when we really need to know what's in the Bible and how to defend our faith. I'm weak in that area, so I'm trying to learn more. 

When I'm not doing that I'm making a few cards and walking. Yesterday it was so wet and cold that I did my first YouTube workout. I just don't enjoy biting winds and damp air! :) And Leslie Sansone's walking workouts exercise some muscles I don't use when I just walk.

Let's see what I can rustle up for photos.

These were for an ongoing APC swap called Flowers and a Little Something Extra.

These were for the Postage Stamp ATC swap with a theme of Christmas.

In my last blog post I showed a "Found Poetry" card. These are for the same swap. The one on the right is called Blackout Poetry because you use a whole page of text, then draw squares around words and "black out" the rest of the page with your picture. (Hope that makes sense!)

And last, but not least, the grand girls coloring outside a few weeks ago. It was warm then!

I think that's all the news for now. I had fun visiting blogs this morning. I may miss one of your posts now and then, but I try to get around and see what you're all up to. I'm interested! 

Love y'all!

Shalom!

Surgery tomorrow...

 Just an update. My cataract surgery (left eye) is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:30. Micah and crew will deliver me to the hospital, go and get breakfast at a drive-through and then return to wait for me. (My COVID test came back negative, obviously. Yay!)

Prayers appreciated! :) The next four weeks (including the surgery on the other eye) will be interesting. 

These three painted rocks were left along our walking trail the other day.

This one wasn't one of them. I just can't figure out how to remove it! 

Sully invented a new game...

Outside art...

I think C.S. Lewis expressed these thoughts in several different places and in slightly different ways over the years. But I always love to read it.

The evening parade. And there are more out-of-frame!

Oh, a friend of my daughter's said they call these "redneck kites"! Ha ha! In case you didn't see the previous post, it's a grocery bag, tied to a stick with a string. Then you RUN FAST! 

Most of my ATC/APC art lately has been for the Continuous Random Round Robin. I know I explained this earlier, but it basically means three people work on the cards. I've sent out "starters", then two more people will add something to them and send one completed one back to me. That's the short explanation, lol. Here are the starters I've sent out lately.

Apparently, I neglected to take photos of the Aces, twos and threes. I did make a note in my "records", describing them. I'm too obsessive about recordkeeping, ha ha.

Not much else to report. I've enjoyed visiting your blogs this morning! God bless everyone and peace on your households. Love y'all!