What are you doing New Year's . . .

. . . New Year's Eve?

But before we start on New Year's, I want to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas.  I hope you all had wonderful time visiting with family and friends.  Our's was very nice.  Each year it gets more and more quiet and less bustle y.  Guess that's a result of the boys getting older.  

And maybe of me and Hubby getting older too!

One of my major regrets this past Christmas was I didn't take one photo.  Not a one!  No snaps taken during Hubby's family gathering here for the Christmas Eve Wigilia dinner.  No snaps taken Christmas morning opening gifts.  No snaps taken Christams evening when my family came for desert, cocktails and gifts.

What was wrong with me????  

What a bad mom . . . blogger . . . scrapbooker.  

And here's the kicker ~ I got a new camera for Christmas.  Maybe I was just downright tired.  There was a bit of rush this season to get it all done with Son No. 1's college graduation the weekend before Christmas.  But I am really seriously regretting not taking the time to grab the camera . . . any camera.

I've been in no rush this week to dismantle Christmas.  I like to use the week between Christmas and New Year as a time to relax and enjoy it all without any pressures of baking, shopping, wrapping, etc.  Heck, I'm still listening to Christmas music!

I did pack away my Santas and replaced them with a more wintery-type decor.  Some of my snowpeople can take center stage now for a while.

On to New Years Eve . . .

We'll be spending a very quiet, very low-key New Year's Eve with my brother and his wife at their new home a couple hours away in New Jersey.  They used to live right behind us.  Their daughter, my newly-engaged neice ~ Congrats Rachie!!! ~ still lives there.  She's pretty much taken over the house, so, although they've moved away, I'm quite sure we'll see them a lot!

My hopes for the New Year are pretty much the same as every other new year.  I wouldn't call them resolutions per se, but more like goals.

• Get my home more organized.
• Purge more unneeded stuff.
• Eat better.  Don't necessarily need work on the whole diet and exercise thing since I've done well with my weightloss from the spring, and exercise is always a priority.  But more of just trying to eat generally healthier.
• Spend more time being creative.
• Finish many of the unfinished projects looming overhead.
• Be a better mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and just a better person to all the people so important in my life.

I'm wishing a fun, safe and reflective New Year's Eve to all.  

Whatever your plans are for tonight, or goals for the New Year, I wish you well.  

See you all in 2012!

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Merry Christmas Eve!

This is it!

Ready or not, it's time for the big dance. 

 As usual, I'm wishing I had one more week even more this year then in year's past.  

I didn't get as fully pre-prepared, if you will, for the trip down to North Carolina last weekend for Son No. 1's college graduation.  Which, by the way, went very well.  And the absolute bestest news is he's already landed a job!  

WooHoo!  

Honestly, I was a bit worried for him in this economy and so much unemployment.  He started phone interviewing for this position while in NC before graduation.  He had one final in-person interview once home, and a few days later he was informed he had the position.

Needless to say, we are very proud and happy for him . . .  and much relieved!

Didn't quite everything done on my list for this Christmas.  But it's all good.  Not really going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of it all.   It does feel like I blinked and Christmas was here.  

Tonight, as with every Christmas Eve, we'll be hosting Hubby's family for an almost traditional Wigilia.  It's the Polish Christmas Eve vigil dinner.  

No beef or chicken - fish/seafood only, a planned number of odd dishes - 7, 9, 11, breaking communion wafers with family while giving thanks.   Hubby's family has always practiced this Polish tradition, and I'm happy we've been given the task of hosting the past half dozen or so years.  

In the words of a Pole . . .

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia!

I hope you all enjoy the time spent with family and close friends over the next few days. 

Hopefully I'll get some time to visit some of you by way of your blogs these next few days too.  I also want to thank all of you for your readership and support.  I have enjoyed getting to know quite a few of you through your blogs.  

Merry Christmas to all!

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NOEL

Wanted to share a cute little project I did a couple weeks ago.

I bought that chipboard NOEL a few years back.  One of those projects that was supposed be a quick couple-hour deal, but for some reason for the past few years it just kept getting pushed aside by more important things needing to get done this time of year.

Well finally I finished it.  I covered each letter with scrapbook paper in a coordinating line.  Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding, I believe.  My original plan was to somehow link the letters together in a banner/pennant fashion.  

Then a little light bulb popped on in my head.  Instead of yet another banner hanging somewhere in my house, I decided to frame it using a frame I remembered I had in the frame graveyard in the basement.  The frame got a quick coat of paint, a little distressing ink rubbed on the frame's detail design (I was too lazy to grab my antiquing glaze, and the distressing ink was right there!), then I hot glued the letters right to the corrugated backing of the frame and slapped it on the wall.

Easy peasy.

When the Holidays are over, I can just take out the mounted word and use the frame for something else. 

And, I found the perfect spot to hang it ~ right next to the hutch.  

Figured I might as well share some pics of what all is going on in, and around, and on top the hutch.  Frankly, I can't wait to get a new one.  That piece was purchased years ago as an inexpensive, temporary fix until we could find and afford something else.  Well, it's been there way longer than we planned.  We were actually talking the other day about getting something new.  Think I'd like to get a dresser type sideboard with a detached shelf.

 

I made those little primitive wool stockings hanging on the ladder up there a hundred years ago.  

A few more things to get done for the BIG day.  A small pile of gifts to wrap.  A bit more baking.  And I have to finish my Christmas cards.  They should have been done weeks ago.  

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting them finished tomorrow.  We hit the road for an 8 hour drive to Charlotte, NC, for Son No. 1's college graduation.  Honestly, I still can't believe my first baby is graduating college.  How did he get so old so fast?  

The bigger question, how did I get so old so fast????

Have a great weekend!

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More Burlap Goodness

Do ya think ya'll can stand one more blogger's burlap stocking pictorial???  

I couldn't help myself.  

I just had to whip up some burlap stockings to hang from the hangy hook thing in the powder room.  Seems silly to have a hangy hook thing with no thingys hanging from it.  

Say that ten times fast ;o)

"What to do?" I thought.  

"Why, I'll sew up some burlap stockings, and use some of the same line of curtain fabric to embellish them."  

Funny thing, when I purchased that hangy hook thing at Pier 1 about a year ago, I didn't even realize it coordinated perfectly with the fabric I used to make the valance in the powder room.  Don't ya just love when stuff like that happens.  

Serendipitous!

They look so darn cute in there, I'm thinking they may have found a permanent home.

They're not the only bit of burlap in the powder room.  Back in the summer I added some burlap inside a frame and slapped a starfish in there with some hot glue.  

It's staying too.  

And just to stay consistent with the starfish and burlap bit, I added yet more burlap and more starfishes in among those Christmas balls and greens.  

And the best part, this whole arrangement will carry through the whole winter.  

One less change I'll have to make after Christmas.

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