Counting Down

Did anyone make a paper chain to count down the days to Christmas? Is your house the kind that counts Christmas Day in the count down or do you stop at Christmas Eve? Either way you look at it, it's right around the corner.

I am almost done with things here. I still have some last minute things to pick up. My Dad and sister are the impossible gift people this year. I can't think of a thing for either one of them. I have LOADS of wrapping left to do. The kids spent the night at my parents last weekend for Ron and I to go to that work Christmas party. We took what free time we had in the morning to wrap but we ran out of wrapping paper. I had gotten one of those Target wrap packs that came with 4 rolls of paper, ribbons and some gift tags. NOT A LOT OF PAPER IN THOSE!! LOL, two tubes were that foil paper and only had like 10 feet of paper. That was enough to wrap one pair of rollerblades.

Speaking of rollerblades, that is what I decided to get the boys as their "big" gift this year. They have some old garage sale blades from the kid across the street. But we had a rock driveway for so long, they never got to use them. The boys are growing so fast, I am sure Lauren would fit those old one nows. Here is the best thing about this "big" gift of theirs.... ON SALE AT TARGET! Andrew's new skates were only $12.99 and Jacob's were $16.99. How awesome is that?!? Normally I would be thinking... rollerblades, bad idea... they won't get to use them for the next 5 months. BUT, seems we have confirmation that there is NO chance of a white Christmas in these parts. So, I know they will be on the driveway as soon as the boxes are open.

I told y'all how I like to see the boys in cute Christmas sweaters, no likely this year. There seems to be a total lack of cute sweaters out there. I went to Kohl's, Old Navy, Target, and Wal-Mart and had no luck. If it wasn't a solid color sweater, it had a weird colored stripe arcoss it.

Alright... enough Christmas chit chat for today, more chit chat tomorrow... on to some beady news. I cleaned beads yesterday. The red/purple ones and the new b&w discs (how do you all spell disks? 'c' or 'k'?) I AM LOVIN' 'EM! I will be trying to sneak out to the torch again tonight. Starting tomorrow, Ron will be on vacation until January 2nd so I am hoping to have lots of torch time then. Of course, he will say go make beads, and I will say, but I need to do another load of laundry and clean up the mess you made at breakfast, but eventually I am sure I will get some time in.

On the publication front, there is exciting news... I just got word from the editors at BeadStyle that the March 2007 issue will be on stands January 30th!! I can't wait to see it!! I am dyeing to know what the photos look like and how they wrote the article. Remember, this one I just sent them the piece, they wrote it.

I am also excited to let you know that I submitted my piece "Frozen Branches" to ArtJewelry magazine this week. Unfortunately, they feel the piece has too much beadwork to be featured but they did ask if I would be interested in writing an article on wire connections (aka links). I am still thinking about it. They are looking for one article with several of my previously unpublished links. I haven't decided yet if it is a good idea to give up a bunch of my secrets in one article. But then again, it is another huge publication that would give me great exposure. So, I am weighing my options. Also need to figure out if I know a bunch of links that would go good in one article, lol. I'll keep you posted.

My my what a blabber mouth I am today. Look how long this post is.