Thankful and a give away!

Edited to add: Ooh, the stuff I've found while in NYC! Just maybe a little somethin' somethin' from places like Tinsel Trading and Mr. Pink's!

I am still exhausted from the house full of family, but it was a wonderful time. The food was outstanding. I don't mean to brag, but we really outdid ourselves this time. I don't think I'll lose this full feeling for at least another week!

Highlights~

*the perfect day for a trip to the zoo in D.C. We could not have ordered up better weather. And we were able to see the pandas showing off.

*the first annual talent show complete with magic, art, a circus act, singing, feats of intelligence and great strength and a champion burper.

*making a gingerbread house which has since lost a wall and the roof is all wonky. I think we got more frosting on ourselves than on the house.

*We've started a gratitude journal which will be sent to the host family each year for safe-keeping. Several lovely entries, some handprints to document growing children and menu notes. It's already broken in and waiting for next year's gathering.

*playing lots and lots of domino games. Our dominoes only see the light of day on major holidays and this time they got a workout. Friendly competition and no one being sore winners (which are worse than sore losers)!

I've started adding some of the blogs I read regularly in the side column. I'll be adding more as I get the time. If you're not there, it's not because I don't love and adore you. it's because I'm not dressed yet and need to drive my daughter to school! I'm pretty sure that my list of blog favorites now far exceeds my list of art supply favorite sites!

Last, but not least, I have some goodies to bestow to someone.....

The Christmas season is officially here and all my supplies are spread far & wide in the studio as I work on whipping up fun new projects from old findings. Don't we all love presents? What I love more than getting presents is giving presents, so I'd like to give someone a little package filled with fun vintage Christmas goodies. Just leave a comment and when I get back from NYC on Thursday night, I'll have one of my trusty assistants draw a name. Danielle, no loading the ballot box! lol

In this tiny, fun assortment, there is a nice large sheet of vintage Christmas giftwrap from a department store roll, a teensie little basket made of old greeting cards, some tiny Shiny Brite ornaments perfect for crafting, a dresden, a few vintage cards (one that folds into a cool box ornament), several Christmas seals and tiny stamps. I may find something cool in NYC to throw in there as well. Ya just never know!

Fun stuff!

My first Joli Paquet kit arrived today! If you didn't get in on the fun already, I think there are some kits left from these talented ladies. Check it out! I had been so very sad to miss Silver Bella, but this group rocked it out with fun kits full of sparkles, magic and all things glittery.
And, a box full of amazing goodies. From Ebay. I quite literally feel like I hit the jackpot with this lot and will be looking to share a few things, so be on the lookout for my next blog entry which will be my measly 25th entry for a retro, kitschy Christmas giveaway! I was so excited going through this box that I forgot for a moment that the hubby probably wouldn't look at several packages arriving on the same day as a 'good mail day', but rather as a, 'oh boy, what has she gone and done now' kind of event. I was squealing at him to come and look. I completely lost my wits, but wow, good haul.
Also in the giveaway will be some goodies from my vast assortment of Christmas love stash. Can you tell I love Christmas? Does that come across? Because if it didn't, let me tell you, I LOVE CHRISTMAS!
Today while hubby was working on an enormous project from The List, I had a little time to play in the studio. It looks like a craft store blew up in there, but good things are happening. Sometimes they're happening so fast, I seem to be in the midst of 3-4 different projects at once.

Before Christmas completely takes over though, I've got to give Autumn its due. The leaves this year have been absolutely gorgeous beyond compare. Some days have felt like pretty gifts all wrapped up in a cozy sweater with a steaming mug of soup kinds of days. To do: make more soups & stews, read more novels while curled up under a quilt, jump into a pile of leaves and sit on the porch swing to while the afternoon away....

The Big Turkey, Me!

is just around the bend. My side of the family is descending upon our humble abode. I am so not ready! But I am. Does that make any sense? I hate housecleaning. With. A. Passion. I haven't been able to negotiate for a cleaning service with Tim as a part of my "If Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy" contract though. He's more of an indignant "Why pay someone good money for something I can do myself?" kind of guy. Unfortunately, when we have mass quantities of people coming to stay, he's more likely to be overtaken by the urgent need to rearrange the garage (because, um, you know, that's where we're all going to spend time eating pumpkin pie and watching football, right?) than being overtaken by the need to vacuum, dust, do breakfast dishes or change sheets. On these issues, after knowing each other since we were 14, we still have what I call 'intense fellowship', i.e. arguments.

The only solution to this problem is to do something I fought against for YEARS in our marriage. I still get a little eye twitch while doing it, but the headaches it saves me make it definitely worth the doing. Make him a list. I couldn't stand making lists of to-do's for him. I was not his mother. I did not understand why he couldn't take a look around the house and see the work that needed to be done. His mind doesn't operate the way mine does though. He can appear to be looking around the living room but in his head, he's thinking "I need to check Casii's front tires." Good thing to think because I have one that tends to lose air faster than the others, but he would never see the pile of books on the floor, the newspaper spread out over 3 sofa cushions, the cat hair that needs to be vacuumed off the rug or the 3 glasses on the coffee table left there from the night before.

When I finally humbled myself to make lists for him, he was ecstatic to check off tasks for me. He still gets sidetracked (how a man goes downstairs to get a bag of peas from the freezer for me, never to return. only to be seen outside 20 minutes later mowing the lawn is beyond me), but the list will bring him back on track. I get what I want in the bargain too rather than driving him crazy because I'm stressed beyond belief trying to do it all myself.

Moral of the story: While our first-born stubborn selves are equal, we are NOT the same. Our brains are wired differently. A self-help book would tell us to celebrate those differences. My advice to anyone who has similar issues, is to make a nice martini (margarita, glass of red wine, whatever floats your boat), make that list and take the edge off your personality differences.

What I do enjoy is the homekeeping part of entertaining. Creating an atmosphere, putting on music, baking pumpkin bread, filling little guests baskets. The details that will make someone smile, make someone comfortable and ease the way for frazzled family nerves.

I got a crazy idea this year that I was going to make little placecards. Sketched it up, made a demo model and proceeded to churn them out. They were a lot more work than I planned on, but I think they turned out nicely. Next time I'm hosting though, I may see the good sense in writing someones name on a tent folded piece of cardstock!

A couple of weeks ago, Dianna tagged me to list 7 random facts about me. I'm so tardy, sorry girlfriend! Be warned, you asked for it!

1. My name really is Casii. Not Cassandra or any other form derived from Cassandra. My mom thought this spelling was glamorous. I think she was still hopped up on Demerol when she filled out my birth certificate.

2. I have no pinky toenails. Freaky, ain't it?

3. I'm older than my spouse. By eleven days, but don't you know he milks it about landing himself an older woman.

4. My spouse and I like to play little pranks on each other. This is usually precipitated by one of us going out of town. Much of the time it involves underwear; hanging it from the ceiling fan, chandeliers, tucking it under pillows, suitcase or laptop bags. We've also had fun with the Dove true beauty ads. We'll rip those out and post them on mirrors, fold them up to fit into wallets, tuck them into lunch bags. When Sanjaya was on American Idol and defying all odds by hanging around, I was flipping out at the television. Tim had been out of town one week and picked up SEVERAL free copies of USA Today from the hotel lobby because there was a big article on Sanjaya. I was finding that young man's photo in obscure places for days. It was, at once, torturous and hilarious. Our latest prank? A thong traveled with him out of town, but he got me too. I'd been cleaning out the spice cabinet and what did I open the door to find? A giant 3 Musketeers ad I'd torn from a magazine.

5. As a teenager, I snuck a large pizza into the movie theater. Also, bags full of Taco Bell, sodas tucked into my waistband and probably lots of other crazy contraband. Today, they still haven't heard my pleas to have diet Dr. Pepper and the big theater doesn't have Junior Mints. What kind of movie place doesn't have Junior Mints?!? If you see a lady with a leftover Halloween box of Junior Mints going into the theater, keep it on the downlow, will you?

6. Addicted to diet Dr. Pepper. See above.

7. On a holiday note, the moment that the Halloween decorations are put away, I get out the Christmas cds. Right now, Harry Connick Jr. is serenading me. After that, it will be Nat King Cole and then Brian Setzer. It's happy, swinging stuff. Drives my kids crazy! hehehehe

Watch out friends, I'll be tagging some of you next!

The ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties...

are all gone now! Back to their boxes until next year. We had a really cool group of youth show up and they actually watched the movie! Sometimes when we do the movie on the side of the house, they're more into the chatter than the clattering of bones on the screen.

But, darn it all, they left me with cupcakes! Yummy, red velvet, white chocolate cream cheese frosted cupcakes. Kill me now. I have no willpower. Zip, nada, zilch. I had so much fun making them and thought they were so adorably cute that they'd just have to gobble them all up. Nothing doing. If you make your way to my house, don't be surprised if you find a cupcake or two in your handbag later....

Exhausted though I was, yesterday I managed to drag my sugar-hangovered self out to shop with Michelle. Her creative synapses are firing just about 100% of the time. We were supposed to head straight for a field trip to Ikea, but on the way, we saw a Target, looked at each other and yelled "Halloween Clearance!" Whipping over 3 lanes of traffic, we parked in a hurry and ran into the joint. No need to ask where the goods were because we could hear the crowd. Like women shopping for a Tickle Me Elmo doll circa 1996, we were snatching up the goods left and right. I got that feather wreath that I had refused to pay full price for as well as a bunch of goodies for Thanksgiving (all their fall goods were clearanced too). For good measure, we threw in t-shirts, stockings, sock and even Making Memories Halloween stuff. No buyers remorse here!

You'd think the adrenaline would've died off after that, but cheers erupted when we saw the flags of Ikea waving in the distance. Bags grabbed, we tore through that place shopping it like we were a couple of hyperactive 5 year olds high on a bag of Pixie sticks. Everytime I go there, I fall in love with the apartment mock-ups. How they manage to make 650 square feet of living space look so fabulous is beyond me. I can't squeeze my worldly belongings into my own house which is considerably larger. For all the solutions they offer to smarter, chic, simpler living, I came out with a huge bag full of goodies to wedge into my already crowded house.

It did give me some motivation to go into my studio and do a little rearranging. Kept it simple and changed the way I stored cardstock and patterned paper. Oddly, this gave me 2 fully empty Cropper Hopper paper keepers. Does this mean I should go scrapbook shopping?

Dianna tagged me and I will get my list together soon. Just so hard to find 7 random facts about me! lolololol Not! My problem is narrowing the list down so no one is truly horrified to call me friend. Good thing Halloween is over because if it weren't, my list would be downright scary....

Halloween and Homecoming

Ah, she's growing up. My little girl, our Kirky, the tomboy of yesteryear.

Saturday night was the Homecoming Dance. The efforts of dress shopping, getting Dad's approval for said dress, shoe shopping, finding the perfect pearl in Hawaii and the loan of a little black clutch paid off. I sat her on our old kitchen stool and we played makeover. I'm not bragging, but she's seriously a looker. If she weren't the only girl born that day, I'd swear she didn't come from her dad and I. She's beautiful inside & out.

Now it's time to buckle down for Halloween! This month has been one big whirlwind of crazy, so I haven't been able to sit down for some serious creepy creating like I want to. I did manage to have fun with this tiny banner....

The little girl was one of the images I picked up while at my sis's in Michigan last weekend. Other elements came from Little Pink Studio who always carries fun vintage supplies on her Etsy site. Pop in some plain old crepe paper, Heidi Swapp, MM and goodies from my own stash; I like her. She's got serious attitude.

This is Sozo, just because. We're painting the entryway and she wanted to help out.

Did I show this before? I've got half-timers these days. I fell in love with this revolving stand. The DH thought I was nutters. I still love it. It's covered in chippy golf-leafing and topped off with a crown. Perfect for creepy cards right now and even better once December rolls around to hold holiday greetings!

If you're in my neighborhood on Halloween night, bring a lawn chair for the annual movie on the side of the house. The guys will be setting up the projector and speakers. I'll be setting out illegal amounts of candy and snack foods. This year? The Nightmare Before Christmas. A little Tim Burton, a dark night and scores of little kids on a sugar high? Now that's scary!

Catch Up Photo Post!

Because Blogger better let me post some photos today!

Hawaii, the Big Island: One side is all blackened lava fields with resorts popped here and there amidst beautiful beaches. Very different than our experience at Maui. They pretty much just bulldoze lava, plop some fuzzy grass on top, build a resort and landscape! The other side is rainforest lush with scenery that feels like it's straight out of Jurassic Park. Not many beaches, but gorgeous sea cliffs and mighty crashing waves.

Sunset at A-somethin, something, I can't pronounce beach otherwise known as A-Bay Beach at Waikoloa (the water in front is an ancient fishpond):

Loco Moco. Mmm, yummy, artery clogging local deliciousness. Loco Moco is rice (brown rice isn't an option) topped with eggs(want to be Stink-Eyed off the island? Ask for Egg Beaters instead, lolol), topped with meat (I went for Portuguese sausage, Tim went for Spam, kids went for sausage or bacon, vegetarians need not apply), finished off with gravy. As a side, potato-mac salad. Bad for me, but I figured all the hiking, swimming and snorkeling would even it out.

See that guy in the water? He's tied himself to a concrete post and has a spear. Why did he tie himself up? Well, because you're not supposed to be in that freaking water! It used to be a port, but the water is too rough. In the late 80's I think, a barge full of new Toyotas broke loose and crashed upon the rocks here. An insurance adjuster from Lloyds of London came by on helicopter and insisted that it land on the barge so he could get a closer look. Big wave came and drowned the adjuster. Nope, we wouldn't be snorkeling there.

Chilling on Hapuna Beach while Mom and Dad boogie board. All future attempts at decent photos prompted wild hand gestures and strange bodily noises.

Sea Turtles abound on the Big Island! They are quite firm in their admonishments to stay at least 20 feet away from the turtles, but apparently the turtles didn't get the memo. They will swim with you, around you, ignore you or take a liking to you, but they are hard to stay 20 feet away from unless you are out of the water at all times. I got a big kick out of them. So cute! Of course, all I could think of to say to them was "Cowabunga Dude" because I had "Finding Nemo" on the brain.

The photo of this crater does not do justice to the raw fear and terror it inspires. In Volcano National Park, it's unofficially called The Devil's Mouth. The sides of have collapsed down into sheer walls and just getting within 6 feet, I got sick to my stomach. I'm not bragging, but I'll ride any amusement park attraction, I'll go to the scariest haunted houses in October and it takes a lot to truly freak me out. This did it. There was a smallish sign telling people to walk no further about 100 feet away because of unstable crater walls. The clear path lets us know that most people ignore the sign. It's in our guide book as worth the look, so we did. Even my college freshman who thinks he's immortal respected the boundaries I told him to keep. Yep, that was my Halloween scare for the year.

Sunset atop Mauna Kea. This tops our sunrise at Haleakala on Maui. It was almost a party atmosphere with people taking photos in parkas in the thin, moonscape atmosphere, but when the sun began descending a hush came upon everyone. As the sun departed, someone sat on a rock and softly played old hymns on a harmonica. Even as an adult, it was one of those rare moments when you really feel like God wanted to show YOU something special. The ride up there was wild, the ride down even wilder in the dark, but if you ever go to the Big Island, just do it Bro!

Loco Moco Bro!

We are back from the Big Island, but still on island time. This means mornings are haggard, but I get a second wind about 11p.m. that lasts until 3a.m. This would be amazing if I didn't have children to attempt to get on a regular schedule!

I have so much to get caught up with, but before I do, I just want to let my fellow 21 Challenge people know how much of an honor it was to take this journey with them. I will be checking your blogs and commenting as much as I can. My 21 days finished up in Hawaii and I can tell you it was no problem meeting my goal with the hiking, swimming, snorkeling and boogie boarding we did. (help to set off any servings of loco moco and shave ice I had)

As proud as I was going into this trip of my small goals over the course of this 21 days, as soon as I was at the gate for my flight to Hawaii, I could tell I was probably one of the 10 largest people on the plane. I was on a full load of Iron Man triatheletes! These people are not only thin and in shape, they are sinewy and lean to the point of appearing almost emaciated. On the roads, they had signs saying "Caution: Ironman atheletes in training" and they were! Everywhere we went, they were biking or running over hot highways cut into lava flows. No shade, no rest stops.

A lot of this trip involved trust. Our children needing to trust that we weren't wasting their time, endangering them or driving around needlessly. We had to explain again and again that this was our first time on the Big Island, so we were experiencing it just as they were. They were frustrated when we took wrong turns down bumpy lava roads (which are merely suggestions of paths rather than roads), skeptical when we coached them through their first attempts at snorkeling and hanging on to their hats as we took them up scary roads with heart-stopping drops (um, Mom was askeered too).

I hope they are able to look back and see that our intent was good and their experiences worth it. I hope the sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea was worth the cold, thin air and truly frightening drive up there. I hope the turtles, eels and colorful fish was worth their first try with a snorkel tube and trying to adjust their breathing to relax and not fear the depths of the water. I want them to realize that Volcano National Park is truly unlike anything they will ever see close to home and to appreciate the fierceness of nature. I'd like them to look back with fondness at picking avocados over a waterfall after a grueling hike down a questionable path in the rainforest. I'm proud that 2 out of 3 tried Loco Moco, a local concoction that is killer on the arteries, but I feel a visit to any area isn't complete unless you eat as the locals do. And I'm fairly sure that just a day or two into their return home that they are already romanticizing their time in Hawaii from what I hear them tell their friends.

This is hard to believe from a group of kids whose overwhelming request in Hawaii was to go back to the condo. Have they even mentioned the condo to their friends? Nooooooo.

Blogger is taking forever to load photos today, so they'll be coming soon!

The next morning after I returned home, a bunch of fellow scrapbook artistes and I got together for a scrapbook yard sale. I think we were our own best customers, but we had a great time! Never have enough time to visit amongst each other. These are some of the most amazing women I know; heartfelt and hilarious. Finally I was able to meet Kim of Too Much Stuff! We had traded comments back and forth on our blogs for quite some time as well as emailing. I'm delighted to find that she is as witty, genuine and fun in real time as she is with her written word, even more so!