My sister sent these to me...

Cool..........................

After we saw these adorable snowmen on the cover of the November issue of Cloth Paper Scissors, Bailey and I started looking for little bottles. At first our bottles where too big, we only had enough beads to fill one bottle... S0 we made a trip to Value Village... (not like we needed a reason) we found little liquor bottles, Crown Royal, Gin & Wine. for .60 cents each, what a deal!! We used the top of the bottle for their hats...

We filled the bottles with pearls, glass glitter (Pam & Jason found it for me on their trip to Germany last Christmas) and silver beads (from broken jewelry). The heads are made of air dry clay, rolled in glitter flakes, we used stickers and left over Christmas tinsel.

I found this last night on Etsy...

I think is says it all....

The artist name is Marisa Allegra Williams

I think it says it all.......

Today is the last day of early voting in NC...I want to encourage all my friends to VOTE... not just vote but... vote for a change........ Our vote really matters this election... more that ever before. You don't have to agree with everything Barack Obama says, you don't have believe everything he says he will do, but you have to agree we need a change in the direction our country is headed... a change in our leadership... I hear it and feel it every where I go... we want out of this War, we want out troops home, we want our teachers paid higher wages, we want more manufacturing back in this country, we want to be able to afford health care. I want a person running my country who knows what it's like to be raised by a single mother, or grandmother, to know the sting of racial abuse, who had to work for a good education. I want that person in charge...He wants what I want.. a better life for our children and our grand children...I don't think Obama can fix much in 8 years... but all I'm hoping for is that he can start a positive change that will continue... If you think McCain is the answer... I will have to quote Dr.Phil "how has that been working for ya"!

Friday was the first day to vote early...I'm glad we had the chance to go and get ahead of the crowd...

Friday night Carla & I had sushi, then we went to see "W" at the theater..... bless his heart!

Images from the deck of our mountain house on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

It has been a very interesting few weeks... It has taken me 50 years to learn when to just let go....



Something good should come from it.........let this be a lesson...


When the little voice in your head starts screaming "get the %$#@ out of here" pay attention... I shouldn't have been at the TCO one day much less three years. I kept hoping it would get better, surely "it can't get worse" Oh Yes it can... I kept thinking surely someone would realise how horrible it was. How after years of not motivating employees, low pay, and no support the the good employees would leave... leaving support people who only cared about covering there A$% and blaming others.. Surely at some point someone would realise when you constantly have to give clients refunds because the customer start date was just a suggestion to the operations department. Or when the egos of the not much more than minimum wage employees, who shouldn't work anywhere where they would have to look at others people much less be expected to help someone, becomes the driving factor on weather business is ordered, delivered or gets thrown away. Surely someone would realise when 50% of a department has files complaints to the HR department on the same person, that something needs fixing. Or that the sales assistant's main job was to avoid doing anything... except using HIS time making sales people feel stupid & inadequate .




You would think the new manager in a department SHE knew nothing about and should never have managed, would be interested in the input from HER employees...




I'm so glad to be out of there....people starting turning on each other... ex-sales manager went from golden haired girl to being on the short list, the DOD was in so much hot water with HR he had to leave the STATE not just the company... and a manager (who I considered a close friend) of another department got a hard on for the vacant Directors job.. use her dumbest salesman to set up her friend (who had always defended her to others) with a known difficult customer to prove to HER BOSS that the department desperately NEED HER to fix the department & make HER enough money she could retire to the mountains earlier than planned.



But as John Lennon wrote..."Instant Karma will hit you up beside the head....Last I heard she was sent to the Siberia office (Matthews) to manage the sales people she has been talking trash about for years.






WOW!!!!!!!!!!! that felt great.................now I never have to think about it again.

Look at that face, I can't believe she is 9, where has the time gone. If you haven't guessed the theme was "The Olympics" The kids competed in a 5 meter race, volleyball, laughing, cake eating, present opening... it was a fun time. After the party we stated and wrecked two hotel rooms, eating and watching Man vs Wild... and in the morning had Hope's favorite breakfast at Tex & Shirley's.

What Fun... we laughed, I cried... then laughed some more. Bailey took Carla & I to see Mamma Mia! she was so excited about a movie named Mia... Once the music started she just smiled and sang, with her Mia being a huge ABBA fan she had heard most of the songs since she was a baby, either ABBA or ABBA Teens.

If I ever get married again ( you again Lynn) I want to ride a donkey up a cliff side, with my golden locks of hair down my back, wearing a dress looking like a Goddess, with ABBA playing in the background...DOT DOT DOT.

Mary Helen Chappell Morris

1954-2008

We miss you

I can't believe he is almost two... sucha sweet boy,I took him to the pool Sunday afternoon. He wanted to put his face under the water but he gets so excited he can't keep him mouth closed..

What a silly guy.

Knock it off, Napoleon! Just make yourself a dang quesa-dilluh!


I found this tshirt for Bailey today!
SWEET

Hey Weavers..

If you vote for me, all your wildest dreams will come true!

It rained almost all weekend... we needed the rain but it puts a damper on swimming and fireworks. The kids handled it by begging us to let them swim in their rain soaked clothes. We put a stop to the begging by taking them to see some fireworks, of course we where the only people there. We ended back at the house to watch Napolean Dynamite LOL (What the flip was Grandma doing at the sand dunes? )

We took the kids cherry picking at Orchard Gap, in Virginia. This cherry orchard has been here for almost 100 years. I have never seen so many cherries in my life, the tree branches where hanging full of ripe fruit.. all different types and colors. Sweet Red and sour yellow ones.. I think we ate almost as many as we picked...

What a great and fun dinner I had with Jane last weekend... after Jane closed the shop we had dinner at the Purple Onion... It was wonderful and so was the bottle of wine we shared. What a great finish to the day...

I had a great time last weekend at Random Arts...I took Kristi Steiner's "Booklace Class" with my friends Sarah & Maryanne. It was great, my booklace is beauitful. We finished our project, and I want to make another one soon.

Having a blast... Now this is what I call FUN!

Soldering charms my new past time.. Just getting ready to go to Random Arts, to see my friend Jane... can't wait...

OMG.... my dear friend sent me these photos today... He titled them "Somethings never change" ... 32 years from Father & son to Son & Grandson.. he is blessed! LYMI

Look at these beautiful pins... The pins and art jewlery anr some of the many things Keesha makes. She is one of the many friends I made at Art and Soul. I just love her blog...

Check out her blog at lemoncholys

Sweet baby girl, she is having a hard time with her teeth, they just seem to come in over or behind her baby teeth... But she is so brave.. Dr Steiner has pulled four teeth so far...maybe with more space her permanent teeth will be able to come in correctly.

Seriously..how cute are they...

This is a huge Dragon Fly Huge Butterfly

Our back yard is "just beautiful, after some TLC and rain it's lovely. We are spending more time in it this year than in years past... maybe it knows it and is showing off... This is the third year for this oak leaf hydrangea (sleep, creep, and leap) It must be true. The smell of the Carolina Jasmine is wonderful..
I love this Ivy.. about 4 years ago, my friend Laura (snoot) Bridges and I went to a garden show in Greensboro. They had hundreds of the most beautiful specimen plants I have ever seen in one yard. Many of the plants you could have a start of, they had shovel's and bags next to the plants. I look a very small start of the ivy.
Some of the Ivy leaves are 8 inches across.