Hat/scarf set.

Another hat/scarf set.

And 4 more hats for Casting off the Cold.

Pics

Another scarf for Juliet. I made a matching hat for this but forgot to take a pic.

Baby blanket that I started ages ago and just got around to finishing. This will be going to Casting off the Cold.

Hat for COTC.

Another hat for COTC.

I think Sassy is camera shy....LOL

I have more projects done...just need to wait for the rechargeables to recharge.

Please take a moment to read this.

Please read, it is an absolutely beautiful story…..

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket.Their father was gone.
The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared.Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds.
He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either.
If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.
I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town.No luck.
The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel.An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids.She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning.She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.
I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.
When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage.
The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires!There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.
Had angels taken up residence in Indiana ? I wondered.
I made a deal with the local service station.In exchange f or his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough.
Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids.
I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning.
Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine.The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10!
I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans.Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes.
There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes.There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour.
There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items.
And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude.
And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December.
And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

THE POWER OF PRAYER.
I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:
1. 'Yes!'
2. 'Not yet.'
3. 'I have something better in mind.'


God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar.


You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine.
My instructions were to pick four people that I wanted God to bless, and I picked you.
Please pass this to at least four people you want to be blessed and a copy back to me.
This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we receive.
There is no cost but a lot of rewards.
Let's continue to pray for one another.

Here is the prayer:
Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email buddies reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power. Amen.

few more kitten funnies

Love this one....LMAO


And of course, with a new version of any computer program....one has this problem when trying to get someone to help....LOL

New version of computer program at work

So the new version of TruckMate 8.0 started at work yesterday. We spent more time out of the system than we did in......by the end of the day I felt like this kitten....LOL

Best Christmas Ever!!!

This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. It won first prize.

As a joke, my brother Jay used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them.
What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.
One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart.
I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown.If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. you'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, 'What does this do?' 'You're kidding me!' 'Who would buy that?'
Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.
I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour.
Finding what I wanted was difficult. 'Love Dolls' come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for 'Lovable Louise.' She was at the bottom of the price scale.
To call Louise a 'doll' took a huge leap of imagination.
On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray.
I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.
The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy, but had left the dog confused.
She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more.
We all agreed that Louise should remain in her pantyhose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.
My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. 'What the hell is that?' she asked.
My brother quickly explained, 'It's a doll.' 'Who would play with something like that?' Granny snapped.
I kept my mouth shut.
'Where are her clothes?' Granny continued.
'Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran,' Jay said, to steer her into the dining room.
But Granny was relentless. 'Why doesn't she have any teeth?'
Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, 'Hang on Granny, hang on!'
My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, ' Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?' I told him she was Jay's friend.
A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home. The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa.
The cat screamed.
I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants.
Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.
It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.
Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise's collapse.
We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health.
I can't wait until next Christmas.

Some Christmas Maxines for you to enjoy.