Gee-tar

I'm learning to play!

Susan has loaned me her guitar, & for Christmas she got me a "Learn to Play Guitar" book & some guitar picks.

I'm so excited!

I tuned the guitar online with THIS handy-dandy site.

I can't wait to be awesome.

♥

Week in Review: December 19-25

The fam & I had a super relaxing Christmas.
It was so much fun to watch the girls open their presents, more so this year than any year I remember. The anticipation, the giddiness, & then the ripping & tearing apart & paper everywhere.
Our house stayed a complete mess of paper & boxes & presents all over the floor for the whole day.
It was great!
And then the day after Christmas??
Oh my.
LAZY to the MAX!
It was amazing, really.
But I've eaten way too many cookies.

I'm SO enjoying having the girls home during their school break. And for the next 3 days, I get them, uninterupted!
No work, no appointments, no nuthin'.
Maybe now we'll finally build that gingerbread house we never got around to building.

Click HERE for a photo play-by-play.

♥

Christmas Breakfast

 I first learned about "breakfast in a bag" in the summer of 2008, at a MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) retreat.

The post can be found HERE.

Basically, it's an omelet in a bag, & it has become a Christmas breakfast tradition ever since.

Gather up your eggs, toppings & freezer bags (specifically marked with each breakfast patron's name in permanent marker).

Crack open your eggs into the bags. (We usually do 2-3 eggs per bag.) More eggs means longer cooking time. Then, toss in your desired toppings. Pre-cooked bacon, pre-cooked ham cubes, cheese, onions, green peppers, olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc.

 Seal the bag shut & then squish it all around to mix it up.

 Toss the bags into a large pot of boiling water.

(Make sure the bags are SPECIFIC freezer bags. They are stronger & can handle the boiling water.)

Cook anywhere between 8-15 minutes.

I usually {carefully} remove the bags from the boiling water & use a wooden spoon to smush around the plastic bag & all its ingredients inside & then toss it back in to cook some more. (I do this a few times during the cooking process to guarantee all the eggs have been thoroughly cooked.)

 When the omelet has fully cooked, simply toss it onto a plate, sprinkle with more cheese, salt & pepper (if desired) & munch away!! No mess to clean up!!

♥

Santa prep

 The girls & I made our traditional sugar cookies this week.

(Mostly we made a mess.)

It's an all-day project & I'm so glad, as the girls get older, they can be of more help.

♥

Sickie

I sit here on the couch, feeling like someone punched me in the head, a shooting pain down my neck & back, curtains closed due to my current sensitivity to light, sinus pressure, sore throat, an all-over achiness & a lack of energy. I woke up to all this loveliness. Out of nowhere it hit me.

I'm feeling lonely & sorry for myself due to the fact that the Mr. left with the girls & some friends to go into town for lunch & shopping this afternoon. And 6 hours later, they aren't home yet. I really wanted to go with them. I almost rode along. But then I remember I felt like crap. And, really, it's best I stayed home.

I have set up camp on the couch. I have surrounded myself with knitting but, sadly, feel too weak & uninterested to touch my current hurry-up-you-have-two-days-left-to-finish-this-project project. I have opened the laptop & watched online episodes of The Sing-Off Christmas Special & the latest episope of Project: Accessory. I also finished watching "Mars Needs Moms". (I sometimes feel silly when animation makes me cry.) And then I watched a romantic movie. And now I'm depressed. (Remind me to never watch a movie where one pair of lovers gets hit by a bus. The bus came out of nowhere!!!) *sigh*

I'm listening to Christmas tunes now, munching on a snack of saltine crackers with that creamy laughing cow cheese & Swedish Nuts. (Oh my gosh, the nuts are amazing! I'll share the recipe sometime.) Broken candy canes, still in their wrapper, are scattered about me. I should prolly suck on one because my breath is nasty. I've been in my jammies all day too. I look like extreme poo. My glasses, dumb phone & a pair of remote controls round out my "sick bed" necessities.

 

I'm trying to take advantage of my alone time, by brainstorming ideas for my next newspaper column, filling pages with short, interupted thoughts. But what I should be doing is researching a few games to play in Pazely's class at school on Tuesday for her party. The Mr. & I are going to lead 15 minutes of games before the children exchange gifts & have snacks. And of course I'll be the embarrassing mom snapping too many photos of her baby. (2 more days until Christmas break! Woot! Woot!)

 

Aw, how sweet. The Mr. just texted to see if I want a chocolate turnover from Arby's on their way home. Of course I do! Which means they'll be home in approximately 40 minutes. And then I'll reheat the pastry in the microwave. And eat it.

Speaking of microwave, I really should warm up this rice pack & place it on my stiff neck...

♥

My newest preoccupation

 I absolutely LOVE photographing wrestling!

I spent the first part of yesterday with my friend Susan at the Bridgeport Invite, sitting next to the mat, our cameras in hand, snapping away for the newspaper.

I love all the crazy angles & the faces. (Not so much the stinky boy smell. But it wasn't bad that day.)

♥

Last Minute Shopping!

2 days left to do your holidy shopping at WhiMSy love!

Shop will be closed starting Saturday, December 17th & will re-open on January 2nd.

(And fork easels are back in the shop!)

PSST!!! For all my blog & facebook readers....For the next two days, enter coupon code 15OFF when checking out to receive 15% off your total order!

♥

Crafty Night: December

Crafty Night: December was a little different than other Crafty Nights in the past. I almost canceled due to the fact that it's almost Christmas & I thought everyone might be busy with all the holiday preparations & shopping & fretting & stuff. (And I was kinda looking forward to taking a break from teaching a craft.) But then I thought how fun it would be to have all my crafty peeps gather for a night of working on our OWN projects. And that's what we did! Everyone brought yummy eats to share, I made wassail, there were holiday tunes aplenty & everyone took home a "dream" owlie ornament that I customized on the back side to read "crafty night".

(One guest brought pumpkin fluff, served with pretzels, graham crackers, & ginger snaps for dipping. How have I never heard of this fluff stuff before?? IT IS AMAZING!!!!)

It was such a relaxing night.

I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY enjoyed it.

Uninterrupted crafting for a solid chunk of time, surrounded by friends, eating delicious food & sipping hot drinks. It really was perfection.

All that said, I've decided to switch up the format of Crafty Night.

Every other month we'll bring our own projects to work on. (FREE!) The other months, I'll continue to teach a craft. (Still only $5!)

Hopefully that won't get too confusing. If it does, I have no problem completely rearranging things once again, so that EVERY month we'll bring our own projects & just hang out to craft.

It's kind of deflating to put all this time & energy into preparing a night of crafting when not too many crafty peoples are showing up. I don't know if that's because I'm in a small town. I don't know if that's because I'm doing a horrible job of getting the word out. I don't know if that's because the number of crafty people per capita is minimal in my vicinity of the world. I don't know why. 

Sadly, it's just not worth it. It's just not working out how I dreamed it would. 

So, we'll see how the new change goes. 

The new "every other" format begins January 2012. I'll kick things off by teaching a craft. 

I'll be sending out postcard reminders every month, so if you're thinking of attending, let me know, & I'll put you on the mailing list!

To visit the Crafty Night facebook page, click HERE.

♥

Week in Review: December 5-11

The weeks keep getting more & more busy, leading up to Christmas...

I LOVE that I get to dive into my Etsy shop. It's been a while since I've gotten to sit & make stuff in such quantities & package them up & ship them off to happy customers. The extra ca$h for Christmas shopping is bonus too! (Although, I'm more likely to buy things like groceries, or even more exciting: gas for the ole ugly van.)

The Mr. & I enjoyed the elementary school children performing their Christmas program. Our little Zoey had some speaking parts.

We enjoyed a splattering of snow. But it's all gone now.

Tacos Mexico, in Scottsbluff, made our week extra happy. Seriously, all I have to do is mention the name of that restaurant & the Mr. lights up. Now, if I can figure out how to stuff some carne asada tacos in his Christmas stocking, I'll be the most awesome wife ever.

This week will be busier than busy-busy, & it includes things like annual Christmas letter-writing & holiday pictures of the girls to photograph. It also includes things like: an ornament exchange & party with the ladies of my church, & some horse-drawn wagon riding, complete with caroling. And then there's a newspaper column to write today, Crafty Night tomorrow, & games to plan for our church Family Fun Night on Wednesday. Finger-foods to make, dishes to bake. Work twice a week, finish holiday shopping, & mail prezzies to family far away. The list goes on...

I'm looking forward to things slowing down after this week. I'm anxious for some fun time with my girls when they get out for Christmas break too. (That's not until NEXT week though...)

For a photo play-by-play, click HERE.

♥

Love is the Way: Winner

As chosen by The Random Number Generator, here are the winners of the 'Love is the Way' Giveaway...

Renee

&

Courtney

Congrats to you both! As soon as I get your addresses, I'll send you an autographed copy of Joey McGee's CD! YAY!

Also, if you missed out on the fab interview or would like information on how to get your own music (CD, downloads, etc.), please visit the blog post HERE.

Thanks to all those who played along!

♥

Comments: A Blogger's High

I wanted to send you all over to the blog "The Real Ninny Muggins" today.

My new blog friends, Madeline & Breanna, are both teenagers, recently starting out in the blog world, & I think they're a hoot.

Their recent blog post is about blog comments. Please visit it HERE & give them LOTS of love!

Madeline says she looks up to me as a blogging mother. {How sweet is that?!} I love to think I've taken those two creative girlies under my blogging wing. When it comes to starting out blogging, it can be a lonely world. My advice to Madeline & Breanna (& to any blogger) has been this: be yourself & you'll find your following.

On their theme of 'commenting', I do remember months of blogging, with each click of the keyboard echoing off the walls of the www. It was painful some days. But I kept blogging because I liked writing. And I liked blabbing about random stuff & pretending it was important. And finally, when I got my first comment, I was left speechless for a moment. I blog for myself, but it sure feels good to get affirmation along the way. A comment can shoot me from here to the stars. A comment fuels the fire. Let's see, how cheesy can I get? Oh, I know: A comment is a warm embrace. Cheesy, but true.

Though I'm definitely guilty of hopping blogs in silence, lately I've been really trying to make an effort to leave a comment on the blogs I visit & peek at, even if just a "Howdy!" or a "You're awesome."

When you leave me a comment, just picture my silly goofy grin & then picture me giving you a giant squeezie hug.
♥

TTV Nature Walk

My friend & adventure pal, Susan, & I went out to shoot some TTV photos last weekend. She got a Kodak Duaflex II for her birthday & hadn't gotten any practice in using it. So we headed out to the Bridgeport Lakes & basically went on a nature photo walk.

I've discussed TTV Photography before. Click HERE for a simple explanation from photojojo. But to quickly sum it up, TTV means "Through The Viewfinder". You simply look through the viewfinder of your vintage "base" camera & snap a photo of what you see with a digital camera. I used my vintage Anscoflex on this particular adventure. I bought all 3 of my vintage cameras from ebay. We also created funny looking paper tubes to block out the light in order to get a decent picture.

I love the personality that every camera has when taking TTV photos: the graininess, the dark edges, the flecks of dirt, the fuzzy corners, the distorted views.

















♥

Love is the Way: Giveaway

Many moons ago I attended a Discipleship Training School in Dunham, Quebec, Canada with Youth With a Mission (YWAM). This particular school attracted the creative-types: musicians, drama-lovers, singers. On the first day, I was the first student to arrive. Then came Jamie. And then Joey. (And then MUCH later, the others arrived.) I remember the three of us sitting around one of the tables in the cafeteria. My two new friends thought I needed a "J" name as well. So, instead of "Nikki", it was shortened to "Nik" & then the 'N' was replaced with a 'J'. Thus, I became "Jik". It's all very scientific you know.

I lost contact with pretty much all of the students. Until recently. Enter: facebook. (I. LOVE. FACEBOOK.) I think it's pretty much awesome that I get to peek into the lives of lots of my friends from YWAM to see {& sometimes envy} all the creative & amazing things they're doing with their lives. Today I'd like to highlight one outstanding individual, my friend (& one of the original "J" Crew): Joey McGee. He's an accomplished musician of the professional sort these days, what with a CD under his belt & all. I asked Joey for a little Q&A session.

Sit back & enjoy...

Have you always liked singing?

I have! I would sing and make up songs all the time as a kid. I was pretty shy though and I didn't really start to sing in public until I was about 20 years old - can you believe that! Of course I sang in church as a kid, but I could hide among the congregation.


What instruments do you play?
So far I play guitar, drums, bass guitar, harmonica . . . and a pretty mean kazoo!


Use 5 words to describe your music style.
Fun. Folk. Rock. Groove. Healing.


Let's say you're chillin', writing music. What does that sort of environment look like?
If I had my druthers about it, I'd be out in the woods somewhere in a cabin, surrounded by trees, birds singing and a river running nearby - with coffee brewing of course! Usually, though, I'm working on songs in the living room, on drives around town (I keep a digi-recorder with me at ALL times) and coffee shops. Note that coffee plays an important role in songwriting . . . and life!


What inspires you when you write music/lyrics??
Most of my songs come from life experiences. Long before I played guitar, I wrote poetry and I've also been journaling for YEARS now. So a lot of the music comes from reflection and experience. Of course there are some songs like Day In The Life of A Girl and Alien Jive that are pure fun and caffeinated imagination!


Who are your musical role models?
Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Prince, Rich Mullins, Darrell Evans, Foo Fighters (I love Foo Fighters), and recently Ben Harper. This list goes on and on and on - there are LOTS of influences that go into my music. My recent songs have been very country-esqe (it must be the move back to Texas). As I was wondering where that came from, I see that there's a whole other side of influences on that end: Glenn Campbell, The dudes from Hee Haw and Brad Paisley to name a few.


How awesome is Jik?
Awesome is an inferior word! I think a better word is P-H-E-N-O-M-E-N-A-L . . . and groovy, of course!


Do you have a funny story to share from one of your gigs?
There was this one time I was playing at a fancy restaurant and at the end of each song there came a "wooohooooo!" from a lady cheering me on! It was sooooo funny and very much out of character for the restaurant's vibe. But it was gorgeous . . . and she kept at it! The "vibe" of the restaurant didn't bother her a bit and it actually loosened up things - it was GREAT!


Do you have any other projects you're working on?
Yes, two at present! I'm finishing up an album called Fade To Sun. It's another eclectic mix of songs that includes a bit of country, groove rock, a Bob Marley cover (Redemption Song), and songs that deal with revelation, coming to grips with reality and fading to light - discovering grace, hope and truth. It'll be pretty groovy.


The OTHER album I'll start to work on will have a really country vibe to it - which is CRAZY since I was this kid that grew up in the city surrounded by jazz, hip hop, rhythm and blues and other urban sounds. But what can I say? I write 'em as they come to me . . . and I really do love land and trees and water . . . and a place where you can shoot a shotgun in peace without injuring anyone!

~•~•~•~

Joey's music is just that: Fun, folk, rock, groove, healing.  The tunes are the perfect 'relax in a coffeeshop' beat. My favorite track on this album is "Boy Met a Girl". I can't help it, I'm a romantic at heart.

Joey would like to give away TWO autographed copies of his CD "Love is the Way"!

Leave a comment on this post. I'll pick two winners on Sunday, December 11th.

ALSO, if you want to get Joey's music, you can find it on:  iTunes, Amazon, & Bandcamp.

Or, send Joey a note at joey@joeymcgeemusic.com

♥

Week in Review: Nov. 28-Dec. 4

Last week I...

...was consumed with crazy holiday crafting for the shop.

...attended the first high school basketball game of the season!

...played with shrinky dinks.

...went on a TTV photo adventure.

...took a spontaneous 45 minute trip to eat pork tacos at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

...received a Crafty Swap package from Argentina!

...ate Chinese food with the Mr.

...Christmas shopped for the munchkins.

...played a prank on my youth group. (Complete with a video starring me & the Mr. Click HERE to view the "Mash the Mush" video. Read the description next to the video before watching.)

...watched my girls play in the snow.

...made an egg casserole for the first time. (Bacon instead of sausage.)

...hung the advent calendar.

For a photo play-by-play, click HERE.

♥

Shrinky Dinky Circles Rings

Pazely & I played with shrinky dinks on Saturday & made some fun little rings.

We thought these would make fun little gifts for Christmas, or they're the perfect size for stocking stuffers.

We kept things simple by drawing & coloring 3 different sized circles onto the shrinky dink plastic.

When cutting out the circles for one of the rings, I left a little space around the edges.

We baked the pieces in our oven, according to the directions on the package.

(375 degrees F for 1-3 minutes)

Then, we used E6000 to glue the pieces together & onto a ring blank.

You can find ring blanks on Etsy by clicking HERE.

Pazely made one with different colored rings on each of her circles.

(And you'll notice the middle ring was cut out without a border. It just gives it a little bit different look.)

I stacked my circles off-centered, but Pazely just calls them "crooked".

♥

Stubby Pencil Studio: WINNER!

Congrats to Mary, the winner of the Stubby Pencil Studio giveaway!!

The girls & I would like to send you 50 Fairy Things to Make & Do AND the gingerbread smencil.

And thanks to everyone who stopped by to take a peek at the review & all

the goodies. Hopefully you've stocked up on flip-tops & smencils for your stockings! If not, head over to the Stubby Pencil Studio & have a looksie.

Stay tuned tomorrow for ANOTHER giveaway, of the musical sort.

♥

Hello December.

Happy December!

Can you believe it's ALREADY December?

I'm doing breathing exercises to try & keep calm & not panic.

(So many gifts to make, not enough time. Most of you know the drill.)

Guess what's in the shop??

New Vintage Button Rings!!

Check them out HERE.

If you're looking for a super creative & all-around fun gift to give this year, don't forget about the

 6-month Vintage Button Ring Club.

Now, back to knitting, stamping, sewing & cutting...

♥

Advent Prize Package Winner!

I totally forgot to announce the winner of the WhiMSy love Advent Prize Package on my blog.

(24 prezzies handmade by me, valued at $155!)

Congrats to Amber Dyer!!

She's already been contacted & is SO EXCITED. In fact, the package should have made its way from Nebraska to Iowa by now.

(And thanks to everyone who played along & made a purchase in my shop. It means A LOT to me!)

You see, I DID announce the winner on the WhiMSy love facebook page.

Which reminds me, if you've not "Liked" my page already, please do! I'd be so delighted if you did!

You'll receive more behind-the-scenes action, sales announcements (sometimes for facebook fans ONLY!), up-to-the-minute blurbs on newly listed items, & other randomness from the WhiMSy love house.

♥