I’m scrambling now to get stuff ready for my craft/antique/junk booth that I get control of Jan 1. I know I’ll take a day or two get it painted and set up, so I don’t have to have everything ready immediately. However, I’m trying to be proactive for the next holiday–Valentine’s Day. Can you believe stores already had stuff out for that before Christmas?! Too soon.

Today I made these “love” bugs for my inventory. I also have a Valentine’s wreath and am planning on making a couple of gift baskets with vintage wine glasses. Oh! and I have some pink blown-glass balls that I want to paint with hearts and flowers. Add all that to the other items I’m trying to fix up and I feel behind already. Sigh. Here I thought I was doing good today. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to list the same items on my Etsy site (SURCYclage) since I don’t want to take the risk of selling an item on both places. I’ll eventually need to decide what the focus should be for each place.

This is beginning to sound like a full-time job. Ha! Maybe one day…In the meantime, I’m thankful I have this week to work on things.

Merry Christmas! Happy birthday, Jesus!

I hope you all felt the love today. I know I did. We had saved all the presents our family had sent to us so we had a lovely morning opening gifts. Since it was just our little family, we had to let the pups open presents too. They were so funny fighting to get toys out of gift bags.

Speaking of the pups, Patrick had these socks made for me. They’re too cute!

We spent the rest of the day watching holiday movies, talking with family members and finally eating a wonderful dinner Patrick made. I even found time to do some crafting. I feel so blessed and thankful today.

I’m thankful today that I now have a week off for the holidays and can spend some time relaxing.

We got an early Christmas gift from friends today. I love that saying, Merry Everything. Maybe some folks think it’s overdone, but it’s a reminder that we should find joy on the regular. Not just at Christmas or other holidays. We should find ways to make the ordinary something to celebrate. I’m thankful for our friends and their gift today.

Winter solstice. Longest night of the year. Beginning of Winter. It was cold today, so it does seem a bit more like winter, although we have no snow yet. I’d love if we got snow for Christmas but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

What we may get for Christmas is our new deck. The guys have been moving along on it. It seems so big now but I’m sure it will be different when the railing is done.

I’m sure these guys working in the cold appreciate that we don’t have snow. And for their sakes, I’m glad it has held off. But when they’re done Thursday afternoon, it can snow like a snow globe.

I’m thankful things are moving smoothly on the deck. I’m also thankful that after today, we start to get more daylight again. Once Christmas is past, I’m ready for winter to end.

It’s Christmas week! I’m thankful work was busy, so the day went by quickly. Only a few more work days before Christmas break.

I’m thankful today that I got to see my sister Jen and brother-in-law Jim for a little bit today while they were in town for his family Christmas. I’m so glad to see some of my family on the regular.

I’m also thankful for a day of mostly relaxing. I actually woke up at 2:00 am and then couldn’t get back to sleep for a while because I kept thinking of all the stuff on my to-do list. Then of course, in the daylight, I’m reminded that my list doesn’t have to be done tomorrow. Or even next week. I need to be better about giving myself space to just be. (I guess I’ll add that my list. Haha!) I aspire to Chance’s level of relaxation…making the most of whatever spot he’s in.

I finally have an outlet for my creative side. I got a booth at an antique/junk shop that will start in January. Woohoo!

Patrick and I scoped out the shop today checking out other booths and thinking of ways I can stage mine. Then we stumbled upon a warehouse sale where I found a cool old cabinet to use for small items. Sadly, it’s too tall to fit in my car, but they said I can arrange to pick it up later. I’m thankful to have something new for the new year.

What a nice ending to another long week. I met some friends after work for a quick drink and white elephant gift exchange. I hadn’t seen some of them in months, and I enjoyed the brief social respite. I can’t wait for the day we can get together on the regular.

Then later Patrick and I went through a Christmas light show put on by a local church.

They had it last year, and although we talked more than once about checking it out, we never did.

I love sparkly lights. I like most sparkly things. I’m grateful we finally saw them; it was exactly as Christmasy as I had hoped. One of our parks also has lights to drive through, so we’re planning to do that soon, too. Maybe we will get some snow to make it even more festive. Fingers crossed!