December in Florida

While much of the country is breaking out their warmest winter clothes and driving through snow to do their holiday shopping, I had a knock on the door last week from this man, asking if it would be OK to take the coconuts off my tree:

He was up the tree in no time, and pretty soon I heard coconuts plopping to the ground, bouncing off a piece of foam. We both win: he got coconuts to sell, and I no longer have to look up and protect my head every time I have to walk under the coconut tree!

OMDB challenge for Operation Write Home

Imagine my surprise to find out I was one of two random winners of a $25 gift certificate from Daily Bread Designs as a result of my entry into their November challenge for Operation Write Home! I picked out two great background stamps: a honeycomb and a doodle. ODBD goes one better than that: each month they will donate $25 towards shipping for each 25 cards posted in the OWH thread, up to $50. Last month we had 50 entries (one to a customer)! The December challenge is called "Get Sentimental", and we are to create a card where the sentiment is the main focus. Here's my entry:

The silver rectangles are my current favorite (free!) supply. I emboss coffee can liners and cut them up and mat them.

If you've never made a card for OWH, hope you will take a look at their website. It's a simple thing to do with all those bits and scraps we all have, and the cards are much appreciated by our men and women in uniform.

What Happened to Moderation? (rant alert!)

I am neither Republican nor Democrat, neither liberal nor conservative, and I vote for the persons I think will best serve all of us. I hate the labels we put on one another. Labels only serve to divide us – which I sometimes think is the goal of political parties. I truly believe that most of us want the same things, and that if you put us in a room together without any party affiliation or any labels, we could agree or at least compromise amicably on a great many things. I deplore the way politics is conducted, with little regard for what would best serve the public. Both parties twist the facts to their own ends. I can’t tell you how much I hate that! I consider myself a moderate. Like any family, we as a nation need to spend our resources prudently. We all need to contribute our fair share to our common benefit.

I have a very nice acquaintance whose company I enjoy, who I sometimes scrap with. We’ve discussed families, projects, and what’s going on in our lives, but never politics or religion. Yet on several occasions she has forwarded to me e-mails that really irk me: e.g., women receiving Medicaid should be required to have a birth control implant or a tubal ligation; people getting public assistance should lose the right to vote and should be housed in barracks. And lots more stuff like that which I find pretty harsh.

I will always come down on the side of the poor and disadvantaged. Does that make me a bleeding heart liberal? I think it makes me a more compassionate person. I have seen too many people struggling to make ends meet through no fault of their own -- more than ever in these tough economic times. How many people do you know who are trying, without success, to find a job? Or have lost their house? Declared bankruptcy? Been unable to afford to see the doctor? We should be ashamed of ourselves as a nation if we can’t help those less fortunate than we are.

So far I have ignored my friend and simply deleted her messages. What do I tell her? That the things she forwards me are pretty mean-spirited?

How about a little moderation in our country? You know, where reasonable people work together to solve problems and make life better for all of us.

A girl can dream….

Love Cards

Just some love cards on their way to OWH this week, along with some assorted thank you, missing you and thinking of you. Now I need to make a few cards for my own use: a few Christmas cards, a couple birthday cards, and I need to get going on valentines. I send out very few Christmas cards, mostly because I always feel overwhelmed anyway this time of year; but I make up for it by sending a valentine to each of my children, grandchildren and siblings.

Love Card for OWH

Believe it or not, OWH needs valentines by December 31. However, I think I'll do love-themed cards, which are good anytime. A company called Our Daily Bread Designs is donating the cost of shipping one large box to the troops for every 25 cards linked to the OWH blog by the end of the month (one link to a customer)  Here's one I did today:

I see I'm the 20th link and it's only the 7th of the month. So it looks like OWH will get at least one, and maybe even two, box ship donations this month! I complain about shipping costs all the time, and their expenses have to be huge, so this is a real nice offer.

Great Grandma's China

I just got back from a 3-week trip to Omaha, Naperville (Chicago) and Atlanta to visit family. While in Naperville, my sister offered, as she has for many years, to pack up some of our great grandmother's china for me. This time we were driving and not flying, so she carefully packaged this little tea set for me. They are totally not my style, but precious to me because they are family heirlooms. And frankly, it makes me want to have a tea party with my youngest granddaughter!

We always heard that the pieces were hand-painted by great grandma; yet many of the pieces have a china company name and logo on the bottom in addition to Mary's signature. Jack asked me today if the pieces were identical. Wow, I never thought of that! A good look today showed that neither the cups nor the saucers are identical to one another, although at a casual glance you wouldn't notice. Various pieces in the set are from different companies, yet except for the two pieces in the upper left they all match. An online search of one of the companies indicated that some of the pieces were available either plain or patterned. So, I'm thinking that Mary probably did paint them. Now why didn't I inherit her talent?

Operation Write Home joins World Cardmaking Day!

How fun that Operation Write Home is celebrating World Cardmaking Day with a blog hop! Participants are making a holiday card, and I can't wait to be inspired by all the great cards that will be posted. I made several using die cuts and paper from the Making Memories Colorful Christmas line:

OWH is a wonderful organization that collects cards to ship to our military in Afghanistan and Iraq so that they can have something nice to write home on. I so much enjoy making cards for them, and feel like I'm doing a good turn as well! Hope you will click the link below and hop on over to see more cards!