Sunday, November 30, 2008

Christmas Cheer


I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a good time with my family here at our house and with Wes' family at his brother's house. Yes, I cooked a turkey...a 20-pounder...thank you very much. No, I don't have pictures like Amber. You'll just have to trust me. Everything went fine except for a few misadventures involving the corn pudding.

I am in full Christmas Cheer mode. We put up our tree today and I was inspired by this post to attempt a garland on my fireplace mantle. I'm pretty happy with the results. Not bad for a first try! The tree is always a challenge. First of all, it's huge. Nine feet. Wes managed to drag it into the living room and wrestled the bottom section into the base, screwed it in tight and plugged it in only to discover that it was actually the MIDDLE section. So, we undid everything and wrangled the real bottom into the stand and then it went smoothly. Hayley is mortified that I put feathers on it. She calls it the Big Bird Tree. I think it's kinda fun and funky. I only uttered the phrase "I'm losing my Christmas joy!" about five times while we were decorating and we only broke two or three glass balls. That's pretty good for us. All the while we were listening to my new Christmas cd by Third Day. And we only had to go to Wal-Mart twice. And the dog only stole my ribbon twice. Around the Sullivan house we call this Success!


Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Tying up loose ends

I've been meaning to blog about the contest I won for several weeks. I entered some of the Bloggy Giveaways and I WON!!! I won a $20 Starbucks gift card from Becca at Becca's Backyard . Go check out her blog sometime and tell her I sent you. I can't wait for the next Bloggy Giveaways. Now that I know how it works, I plan to do a giveaway myself!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Fun stuff

I got some fabric this week for making the doggie beds. You'll recognize two of the fabrics from the collars and Tess' bed but the one on the far left is new. I just LOVE it!



They are from left to right: Disco Dot-Sherbert, Santa Dot and Lotus Paisley-Lime. I'm planning to make beds in two sizes: Small-24" x 24" and Large-35" by 35". The insert is made with a really sturdy off-white ticking and stuffed with 20 oz polyfill (small) or 40 oz. polyfill (large.) You could also buy additional decorative slip covers. Think seasonal! I can do custom sizes but you wouldn't be able to use my stock slipcovers. I made a large insert today and it's really nice...I would use this size for my Golden Retriever and German Shepherd. The really fun part was trying to stuff it with Tess trying to lay on it! I finally convinced her that I meant business so she resorted to snatching tufts of polyfill and running away. She thought it was a really fun game! If you're interested in buying a bed leave me a comment and let me know which size and what fabric you're interested in and I'll let you know about pricing. If you don't see a fabric you like, keep checking back because I'll be getting in more fabric periodically.

I went shopping today. Momma needed some retail therapy! I found the cutest little jingle bells!



So about now you're asking yourself, "What in the world is she going to do with teeny tiny jingle bells?" You'll just have to wait and see!

I also had a Pier 1 gift card that I've been saving because my favorite thing to buy from Pier 1 is their Christmas stuff. Look what I got!!!



I spent 30 minutes in the store mixing and matching and rearranging Christmas balls. Fun stuff!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Randomness

I'm not sure that's a word but I like it anyway. It's been a few days since I posted so I thought maybe you might be worried about me. :-) So here's a few thoughts that are floating around in my brain...

Did you watch the shuttle launch tonight? It's unusual for NASA to have a nightime launch and it was really neat. Did you know that one and a half minutes into the launch the shuttle has burned so much fuel that it weighs half of what it did when it took off? Wow. If you ever get a chance to go to Kennedy Space Center you should. We went a few years ago. In fact, we were there shortly after the Columbia accident. Things were pretty sombre but it was still impressive. You really don't get a feel for the immense size of the thing when you watch on tv. We're so used to these launches these days that it hardly even makes the news. But have you ever really thought about what an accomplishment it is every time one of those ginormous (another non-word that I love)shuttles launches? Think about the intricate details involved and even the tiniest flaw can be disastrous. Think about the incredible brain-power required to figure out how to get this huge chunk of metal into space. I mean, in less than 3 minutes the thing is leaving our atmosphere. It's mind-boggling!

On a totally different subject, have you tried the new Candy Cane Oreos? Oh. My. Word. They taste like Girl Scout Thin Mints! I feel a little guilty for not sharing them with my family before they left for the deer camp. But not too guilty.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Question

Capitalism is alive and well at the Sullivan's home. I am launching my new line of handcrafted pet collars and doggie pillows under the name "Pet Panache." Drum roll please....



I suppose if I were a good little socialist I would just give these away since I obviously have plenty and there might be some poor pet owners out there who can't afford fashionable neckwear for their pooch. But alas! I am a capitalist pig! And you, my faithful readers, are going to be my market research focus group. Here's where the question comes in...

Which one of these fabrics is your favorite? I have plenty of fabric but limited hardware so I need to know which ones to make more of. Since I'm not smart enough to figure out how to put the poll inside this post...please scroll down to the bottom of my blog to choose your favorite(s). The poll will end on Tuesday at 2:00 pm. Thanks!

Friday, November 7, 2008

I cannot be silent

My apologies to those of you who hate political blogs but I have few things I need to say. As the saying goes, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" or perhaps, to say nothing.

Now, I'm not implying that Barak Obama and/or the Democratic Party are evil. I do, however, believe that this country is going down a very dangerous path. On Tuesday, a little more than 65 million people in this country knowingly, or even worse, unknowingly embraced socialism. How is this possible in America, the land of the free?

Our first mistake was kicking God out of schools and out of the public square. As John Adams said on October 11, 1798 in an address to the military, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (Emphasis mine.) Our nation was founded on Christian principles and the idea of self-government. But self-government depends on the assumption that the people willinglly subject themselves to God's laws. Patrick Henry understood this necessity. On March 23, 1775 he said, "Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Mr. Henry also warned that "it is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." May we remember God and may He have mercy on this nation.

While we kicked God out of school we welcomed every other philosophy, ideology and attitude. Our children are being subtly indoctrinated to believe many things that are contrary to the Christian principles on which this nation was founded. We teach our children that life should be "fair." We give every child a ribbon or trophy just for participation. We don't allow our children to fail at anything because it might damage their self-esteem. As a result, we have raised a generation that believes everything in life should be handed to them. There is no such thing as work ethic anymore. Even in our churches we emphasize the warm, fuzzy side of God. God is love, grace, mercy. He IS all those things but He is also righteous and holy. We have watered down the gospel message so that we don't hurt anyone's feelings. We have become so tolerant in our society that we have now tolerated the taking of our liberties bit by bit. Joseph Stalin understood. He said, "America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within." Dear friends, we are collapsing from within.

I believe that our freedom comes from the Almighty. Thomas Jefferson did too. He said, "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." I, too, tremble for my country. We allow the killing of unborn babies and we celebrate it as freedom of choice. We enslave people with government handouts, sentencing them to a life of bondage, and we celebrate it as fairness. We stifle speech about Jesus Christ and celebrate it as separation of church and state. We accept the perversion of the God-ordained definition of marriage and celebrate it as tolerance. Yes, God is just and we should all tremble.

I don't believe that our founding fathers would recognize the nation we have become. On July 4, 1837, John Quincy Adams said, "Posterity--you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." I am ashamed when I think of the cost that previous generations have paid to preserve our freedom and then see how we have abused, perverted and taken for granted that freedom. We have made very poor use of it indeed.

My faith and my patriotism are entertwined. My liberty is a gift from God and that liberty allows my worship of God. Therefore, if my liberty is threatened, my faith is threatened. My liberty and yours is slipping away as this nation of sheep creeps closer towards socialism. It is up to people of faith, like you and me, to educate the people around us of the dangers of loving peace and security more than liberty and freedom. Dare I say that this may be almost as important as sharing the gospel? Indeed, our freedom to share the gospel depends on it. We must fight to preserve this great nation as our founding fathers intended it be. In the words of John Quincy Adams, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity...From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct."