Busy Hands Are Happy Hands

 

 I love this Little Bird and Ladybug. So sweet. No resolutions for me, just Intensions!

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?  Are you successful at keeping them?  

It’s lovely and warm today. 42° F with a forecast of 48° F for a high. Our small amount of snow is nearly gone. 

Mr. Busy has been feeding the birds. This photo was taken Sunday. 

Most politely waiting their turn. 

Christmas Eve we opened gifts from close family. Mr. Busy received a new Tom Clancy book from our daughter. Here she, with the smiley face, is watching and listening to her grandson, our great grandson read the back of the novel. Pa thought he might be interested in reading this book this year. He’s 12, and is very interested in WW II history. 

 A few weeks ago I showed you the candle warmer I bought for myself.  It makes the whole house smell peppermint when I put a new gift candle under the light. 

Tonight is New Year’s Eve, we will be staying in. We are past the partying stage. We are going to do a steak on the stove top and finish in the oven, and baked potatoes in my new air fryer. Looking forward to that. I may pour myself a glass of wine and one for Mr. Busy too, if he wants one. 

Wishing you all Blessings and Good Things in the New Year. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful in the New Year. 

 

 

I’m joining Kathy this morning for Slow Sunday Stitching. Stitching will happen later today. This morning we will bid our daughter goodbye as she heads home to Colorado. She and our granddaughter did all the holiday cooking except for our ‘family Christmas salad’, which I did. What a great help she and her daughter’s family were. We will pack her car up with leftovers, and the extras as she heads back to her favorite place to be other than home, Colorado!

I’ve started to back stitch the octopus #2. I’ve found several missed stitches along the edges. So I stop and put them in and continue with the back stitch. This is an ongoing stitch. But I’m anxious for completion. 

Looks like I still have one coral piece to finish for the back of this biscornu pincushion. 

I had great expectations to complete another stitchery that was Christmas themed. But now it is on to the New Year. I do have a Snowman themed piece that I’ll start today as soon as our daughter gets on the road. I’m looking forward to this one too. 

 In 2026, I hope to better divide my time between stitching and quilting. I will still participate in the slow stitching event and Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  And maybe one or two other QALs or SALs . 

Happy New Year to all, see you next year!🥳🎉🎊🥳🥂!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

 There has only been slow stitching this week. So I’m linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Gingerbread Saltbox  is finished 

The bow bothers me, so I’ll probably change it before I put Christmas decor away in January. 

The weather changed this week. Monday and Tuesday were unseasonably warm, Wednesday and Thursday it got cold and very windy. 

 I thought about Woven Wreaths from 2024. I thought I would give hand quilting a try. I pulled it out of its project bag and the stitching on the December design wasn’t complete. So I fixed that. Now it’s ready to do some quilting. 

I do love it. And will work at the hand quilting in the new year. 

This week will be a bit busy. But I hope to get in a few stitches on some new starts. More about those in the coming weeks. Today, I’ll continue to add the corners on these small poinsettia stitches. I did them maybe 30 years ago and never fully finished them. I found, in my stash, some small ornament frames. But they look funny with the rounded design. So I’ll square them up. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Joyous Kwanzaa!

 

I really meant to post on Thursday. No sense in brooding over it. There were/are lots to like this week.

Our daughter lives in Loveland Co. She  is single and mostly that’s just how she likes it. Except at Christmas. Others in her “tribe” have family to gather with and are busy with grandchildren etc. so she took some PTO time and will be coming home for Christmas this year. Fingers crossed for good traveling weather. 

We got our tree up. 

A trove of miscellaneous ornaments. Multi colored lights and a new Red glittery star.  

We had good weather til midweek. Then we had horrendous wind. We are usually used to wind, but when they blow 60mph, that’s a bit much. One are on the border of Wyoming and Idaho had a gust of 144mph, like a category 4 hurricane. Much damage here and in surrounding states. It’s better today.

I’ve been interested in simmer pots lately. So I gathered supplies and made some to give away to my Thursday Stitchers friends.  Did intake a photo, no! Dang it. 

But here is my own simmer pots lately with all the same ingredients. Whole allspice, whole cloves, cranberries (fresh), an orange or lemon slices and cinnamon sticks and a sprig of fresh rosemary.  I bought myself one of those candle warmer lights. It smells so good. 

Mr Busy and I are sitting in the family room with the Christmas tree lights on and Christmas music playing on the Alexa. Love that part. It’s lovely.  The Christmas Song sung by Nat King Cole is playing right now. 🎵🎶🎶🎵

We’ve started watching a new (to us) series 61st Street on Netflix. It’s from 2022. So far it’s a pretty good story. Sad in a lot of ways. Hoping for a positive ending. 

 That’s all for this week. Except for  LeeAnna conversation starter. Do you like traditional red and green Christmas colors? The answer would be Yes. Do you remember the star on my tree? And my newest wall hanging:

And here is  favorite cup with Christmas Tea in it. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful. 

 

From a favorite Facebook Creator.  Sweatpants and Coffee.

Last night we attended the Christmas Party of the place I used to work. It was an early night. Started at 5:30 and we were home by 8:30. Perfect for us old folks!  All the employees and they are all women this year, received a cute little Christmas decoration. 

Not the best photo, but it’s dark outside and lamplight is terrible. I like his cute wink and tongue sticking  out. 

It’s Christmas Bazaar and Craft Show season. Have you attended any? 

I worked on finishing this little Christmas stamp. I finished it last year and this year it’s fully finished. 

It’s a design from Melisa at Pinker n Punkin Quilting. If you scroll to the bottom of  Melisa’s post that this link takes you to, there is a myriad of links to Christmas beauties. 

Last Saturday was our quilting group’s Christmas gathering. The theme was Reindeer Gsmes. 

Table decorations and prizes for games. The little green bucket from Menards had candy in it. 

And the Camo Hoodie as a  bottle cozy is so cute!

I put up a tree!

There will be an actual Christmas tree in the family room. It is still in the box. Maybe tomorrow Mr Busy and I can get it set up. 🤞

Hop over to LeeAnna’s blog and check out the other participants. Not Afraid of Color. 

LeeAnna’s conversation starter for today is:

Dec 11 2025

The holidays can be stressful...

What always calms you down when you’re really stressed out and upset?

Music is a calming influence for me. I don’t have Sirius Radio in my car any more, but our Alexa Show has a good selection of Christmas music. Mr Busy always used to bring me a vinyl LP of Christmas music when he and the kids shopped for my Christmas gift. I’d kind of forgotten that memory. Thanks LeeAnna for helping me recall it. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful. 

 

Good grief I started to write a Slow Stitching Sunday post,then remembered it was Thursday. My days run together. 

Leeann’s conversation starter for today was:

would you rather go to someone's house for Thanksgiving (even a relative?) or host them in yours?

This year the answer is two-fold and complicated . We are not hosting Thanksgiving at our house.  Mr. Busy and I tried out the buffet at Perkins, this year. It was good. Lots of variety and even pumpkin pie to finish.   The family who can,  will gather together on Saturday.  No turkey, lasagna. Cranberry Salad and pie and cheesecake. 

Love this up I bought for myself. It says CHOOSE LOVE.

Last week Mr Busy 7 I went to the Festival of Trees. Here are just a few. All the trees are auctioned off to raise money for the county healthcare system. 

This large tree brought a total of $60,000. ⤵️

This is like a doll house ⤴️

Just lights and red balls hanging in a tree shape.

This one titled “The Christmas Messenger”.

I’ve started 2 new books. 

My book club read

 

 

 I’ll be stitching this morning on the final backstitching of the octopuses on my Biscornu. My friends keep asking how it coming, “am I done,yet?”  I do need to finish, so I can go on to something else. 

It took me 1.5 hours to get this far on the upper left octopus. But it really does help define it. 

Today also , we will wander through the Festival of Trees. It’s a fundraiser for various health agencies in our city. 

It’s not slow stitching but it’s a favorite activity of mine. 

Linking to KathysQuilts:Slow Sunday Stitching

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

 

 I’m joining Angela and others as we wind down Rainbow Scrap Challenge  for 2025. Still December to go, but it’s a busy time.  I’m working on piecing a backing for my Fall String Quilt. I have so much in my stash it seemed to me. But it’s taking me forever. Not quite wide enough using just the three beige and brown columns.  It needs to be 70x70 for y long armer. She’ll be back from their timeshare in Arizona, after the first of the year. 

So I decided to add some multi-scrap coin-like columns. They take a lot of time and I’m using up 1/2 full bobbins . You can use orange, gray, navy, or green when you have so many colors/ 

The columns are approximately 8” wide. So using them should get my back to the needed dimensions. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US and Happy Weekend to you all in other parts of the world. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

 

To be totally transparent, mine looks like a craft store sneezed. It’s not just fabrics that are in disarray.

We stitched in a new place this week. It’s the VFW meeting place, in the center of town with busy highways all around. Easy to get to, centrally located and a great room. 

And as I left yesterday afternoon at 2pm, I drove out of the area and this herd of antelope were grazing in what used to be grass. 

I always get a kick out of seeing our wildlife up close. They are not afraid at all of a car driving past. A couple noticed me but most ignored me. 

Our state got new license plates this year. Mine didn’t expire until November, but I purchased them at the beginning of November because it easier to put the new ones on when the weather is mild. 

I redacted some of the identifying info, but you can see our famous cowboy on a bucking bronco, the  state seal, and the America Buffalo that is also on our state flag.

This morning I made another batch of a family favorite, Bran Muffins

This is recipe that was in the hometown newspaper where I grew up in western South Dakota. I made a copy from my mom’s recipe book and taped it in book that was a bridal shower gift. After 61 years I need to put it my computer and print out a new one. Hope you can read this. I made 1/2 a batch this time and we will get 3 dozen  at least. We like raisins added or homemade jam dropped onto each one before baking. 

If you need clarification, please sent me a email. 

LeeAnna put this question out there?

Do you remember making construction paper turkeys in elementary school? using your own hand? coloring them in or pasting on cut out colored feathers? taking them home and having a parent put them up in the house?  

 I don’t!  I do remember being the recipient of hand turkeys from grandchildren and great grandchildren . Colored with crayon, sometimes outside the lines.😍

This is all, for the day late post. Please check over at No Afraid of Color, where LeeAnna had put together a list of links of others who LIKE THURSDAY. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful,