The Ghost of Turkey's Past

The Ghost of Turkey Past.

By Christy Pohler, Jamie, Erin & Linda Chase

11/23/2012

    'Twas the day of Thanksgiving and all through the house

    not a creature was hungry and no one would rouse.

    The turkey was wrapped in foil without fear

    And knowing that leftovers would soon disappear.

    The family passed out on the couches and beds

    While players of football smashed in their heads.

    Ma' in her sweat pants and my buttons snapped,

    I slipped off to my room for an afternoon nap.

    While Ma' tucked away the last dinner platter

    My team is now losing so the game doesn't matter.

    Off to dreamland I flew like a flash

    Into Turkey coma I quickly crashed.

    Heaped mashed potatoes mounded like snow,

    I should not have had that last spoonful I know.

   When what to my wandering dreams should appear.

    But the ghost of a turkey drinking a beer.

    With a shriveled old waddle

    And a sharp pointed beak.

    He pointed at me, 

    "Its you that I seek!".

    

    As fierce as an eagle he waddled my way 

    My spine turned to jelly when he called me by name.

    "My cousin, my uncle, my great grandpa Jim, 

    My mother, my sister and most of my kin.

    From the breast to the gizzard

    From the great to the small, 

    You killed them.

    You cooked them.

    You ate them all!

    We planned our escape.

    We tried hard to fly.

    We couldn't get airborne

    and we're doomed to die. 

    To your axes and appetites I lost all I knew.

    Now how would you feel if this happened to you?"

    A turn in my tummy I felt I might heave,

    Ghost turkey exclaimed, "That's my cousin Steve!"

    I grew remorseful regretting my deeds. 

    "Great turkey, forgive me,"  I fervently plead!

    "I swear from this moment, when my tummy does growl,

    I'll curb all my urges from murder most fowl.

    My fine feathered friends are safe now I swear 

    Next holiday come I'll find different fair." 

    With a nod of his head and a sip from his bottle, 

    Out of my dreams the ghost turkey did waddle.

    In a sweat drenched panic I woke with a start. 

    A moment was needed to calm racing heart.

    Washing my face and combing my hair, 

    I gathered myself and walked down the stairs. 

    I entered the kitchen; room now in my belly. 

    With a craving for stuffing and cranberry jelly. 

    Ma's getting out turkey, "You want some, Sam?"

    I replied with a grimace, "I'll stick with HAM!"

God works in His own timing

My family recently sold their house which has been on the market for over 2 years. It has been a planned move for quite sometime and a desire of our hearts to be in the Hill Country of Texas. For the past 2 years since my father's brain injury it has been a winding road that God has laid out for them.

I am so excited about the new adventure in my family's life... But I can't help but feel a little sad at the thought of my family living 300 miles away , when my whole life they have been just around the corner.

I pray that the Lord blesses them on this new adventure and works out a new pathways for my family and I to be able to have the desires of our hearts as well.

the Lord knows where we're supposed to go and when were supposed to get there until the Lord removes his hand from our circumstances that allows us to move in his perfect timing we will just have to take mini road trips to the hill country to see my family.

Machine Embroidery

I've been a busy bee lately. My wonderful mother lent me her embroidery machine to practice some designs and get better at it till I get one of my own.

So far I have been going crazy with ideas and projects for the machine while I have it.
Check out some of the items that I've made so far.

Enjoy!

Hair cuts.

It's been over a year since B. and myself had to cut our hair. We were in desperate need of a trim. My hair has gotten so long yet I still find myself wanting to cut it short... What is it with fall weather that makes us girls go crazy with short haircuts? Every day after a shower I find myself pulling my hair up into a bun, ponytail, or some sort of French twist braid that has become my everyday hairstyles.

I caught myself on Pinterest the other day looking at short haircut and wanting for a tram so I ask my sister to at least cut off the dead ends to help relieve some of the fuss in the morning. I also decided that no more screaming and fighting and kicking over combing B's hair so we went for a Bob.

Check out some of the pictures below of B's haircut and some of the ones that I have saved for future reference my own Bobed haircut!

Houston quilt show...ideas ideas

Crooked Sister: ADORN=Amazing

I've been looking everywhere for the best either wristlet or hip bag. So far I have found a few ideas for making my own...which would be perfect if not for my crazy schedule. I've been trying to play catch up from the last two weeks of being sick and then down at my parents  for the funeral. My floors are a mess, there are piles of laundry and I have no energy to clean any of it.

I'm so emotionally exhausted that I just can't bring myself to do anything other than the basics. (Dishes and cooking...well and keeping Betsy from destroying the house.) I also got news that God has made a way to get me to the Houston Quilt Show with my mother, which I'm super excited about. I have yet to go to any of the big quilt shows...other than the local one that comes every year. I've heard really good things about the show.  I'm in the market for an embroidery machine and can't wait to check out the booths and see what they have there.

I'm hoping that I can make a nice easy to keep with me wristlet or hip bag for the long walking and shopping ahead of me in Houston. I can't wait to see what it all is like.

Check out the link above, so far this is one of the best I've found that matches my needs.

Enjoy!

One more reason to get to heaven!

Our entire world was turned upside down this past weekend when a dear friend of ours was killed. She was the kind of person who made you want to be just like her. She had her own gravity ...she would walk in the room and people would instantly be drawn to her.

I don't think its my place to say how, or what, or who...all I can say is that this world lost a light that shone brighter than any other, the day we lost her. She leaves behind 3 sons and a family that is grieving there precious daughter, sister, niece and friends who feel a loss that has left a gaping hole in their hearts!

We will never forget the friendship, laughter, jokes, and memories that she gave us in the short 29 years she was here.

Please pray for the family, friends and children left behind.

And my dear friend...please hug Baby Bear for me in heaven!

Pop Box Video With Templates

Good Morning!

So my internal alarm clock woke me up at 2:30 this morning and even two melatonin could not get me back to sleep...so I got up and started to YouTube and Pinterest a little to pass the time till I could do something productive!

I found this amazing die that looks totaly awesome for my Sizzix...but at $39.99 and on sale at $23.99 its a little out of my price range for just a cute little box.

SO in looking further I found this tutorial video from  elliesnipper and just love it! I actually prefer this one because I think I like the fact that it has the 4 un-folded sides to place photos or Christmas/Holiday greetings on it!

I think that this will be my next project to make before Christmas!

Also, check out her blog where you can find the FREE printable PDF templates to give it a try yourself!

Now I just need to go find a rubber band and print my templates!

Enjoy!

Folded Paper Wreath-Re-Do

Folded Paper 

Wreath-Re DO!

Original Folded Paper Wreath Tutorial

I found this awesome tutorial on making a folded paper wreath...check out the link here
<3

The tutorial shows that the wreath is made with red and green cut pieces of paper, however I had a bunch of scrap pages left laying around from last simester and so I thought I would try it out a little different. I made the same wreath with standard copy/print paper (I even up-cycled old school papers from last semester.)

You need: 12 - 8.5x11pieces of paper

1. Fold the page length way in half
2. Then fold the long rectangle in half again
3. With the open end facing up (away from you) fold the corners down (see the example picture below)
4. Then fold the paper in half again with the "Triangle" facing in. This differs a little from the tutorial linked above because instead of only folding the page in half once you are going to have more layers and in the end a little bit thicker wreath.
5. When you have folded all 12 pieces, stick the "Triangle" ends into the open centers of the next piece...keep doing this till all the ends are together and stick the first piece to the last piece.

Step No. 3-4

Step No. 5

Alternative Paper Wreath with 8.5x11 pages and 12 pieces

Add caption

With this wreath you can use up all those old pices of paper laying around and make a cute wreath form to decorate the house with. You could paint, staple, hot glue and generally DOLL UP the wreath with any seasons decor!

ENJOY!

Easy and fun children's crafts

Betsy has been asking me almost every morning to "Do some Crapts" (aka crafts)...this was an easy craft that we did for her "Grammy" as a present.

One of the things I have come to realize is that taking a few minutes out of each day to sit down and forget about dishes and laundry and all the other things that take up the day and focus on Betsy for at least half an hour to get her creativity started, helps to give her a better day. So we have started doing crafts in the morning after breakfast to be able to get the day started off right.

She loved making these easy Christmas bunting/banner and it showed me how much she has really advanced in hand eye coordination and in being able to sit down and focus on the task.

I used my sizzix big shot and my new Christmas Tree Die to cut out 6 trees, and I had pre-cut card stock strips which we glued them onto  with regular white glue. To make it easier on her we put a little glue on a plate and handed her a  Q-tip to apply the glue to the tree cut out. She then used the Q-tip to apply glue to the front with cute sound effects "Bloop-Bloop" as she dabbed glue onto the front and then "Shakey-shakey" with the glitter to add some "Sprklys" to it!

Betsy had a blast making these and when Grammy came over she  dragged her to the wall where they were hanging to dry so that she could show off her handy work!
I think we will be making many more of these in the next few weeks as Christmas presents for the family! (Shhhhhh don't tell them!)

We had fun and I hope you take a few minutes out of each day to enjoy some time with your little ones and make these lovely little banners!

Enjoy!

A Broken Bread Machine and Fresh Baked Bread!

I have finally started to find my Groove in the house hold chores and routine.

I have been really busy trying to keep the house clean and do all the crafts that I am just itching to do. Here is what I have figured out for my weekly schedule...
Monday: Clean the house from top to bottom
Tuesday: Craft/Sew and start on some laundry and ironing.
Wednesday: MOPS crafts/getting ready for church and light cleaning around the house
Thursday: Fun day with Betsy (at the park or something) till Choir practice
Friday: Laundry and light cleaning with fun night with Peter
Saturday/Sunday: GIVE UP ON CLEANING...BECAUSE THE HOUSE IS NEVER GOING TO STAY CLEAN!

:) HA HA HA!!!

Today was busy busy....My lazy bones daughter sat around and watched Mickey Mouse all day while I cleaned house...so I'm going to have to run her hard tomorrow to make up for the lazy-ness today.

We ran out of bread in the house last night and I had been itching to make some for quite some time. I finally got to it and even though I had a few bumps in the road...like a broken bread machine and 3 different containers of Yeast that I had to test and see if it was still any good...it still turned out AWESOME!

I ended up making two French breads and one loaf of half wheat/white bread that tasted simply heavenly.

I did try to make some Honey Butter...but it turned out a little strange. Anyone have some good flavored butter recipes? I would love to check them out...leave them in the comments or leave a link to your favorite recipes!

Thanks so much,
ENJOY!

Give thanks with a grateful heart!

I'm so grateful that God let our A/C break on some of the cooler days of this season. Today is the hottest we have had with it broken...at 95°. I called the landlord and he has a guy coming to look at the unit. The last time was 2 nights ago and it was cool and windy that night.

I have a banner in my living room that says "Give thanks with a grateful heart". That has been something that has been resonating within me for a while. I am to be grateful for everything that God has given me...even the things like not so hot of days when my A/C is broken...and a used (yet very nice) color printer given to us for free at the exact time that our old one finally used the last of the tonner (that still worked, not all of them worked.)

I remembered the other day the perfect timing that God gave us after we had just lost our first born and I was recovering from the c/section. Our house had been on the market for 9 months prior to us selling it...the time we needed to the very day that I would be fully recovered from my surgery and in need of a new adventure to help me deal with the loss if our precious little one.

On the last day of my 6 weeks recovery I decided to clean my house from top to bottom. And not 30 min after getting done my realtor called and had an interested buyer to look at the house. It sold with in two days after that and we were finally ready to move on to the next faze of our life and learning to live without our little one.

Even though that was the worst time of my life...I was selling my childhood home...mourning my precious little girl and yet he was watching over every detail of my life and laying out the perfect timing for Evey move and every step that I take.

Thank God everyday for what he has done to make your life the miracle that it is. Even thank Him for broken air-conditioning!

Enjoy!

posted from Bloggeroid

One of those days...

One of Those Days!

Labor Day 2012

Its been one of those days in the house. DH was off work for labor day...DD was home driving me crazy and doing everything she could to get into trouble.


I did get some of the crafting done that I had planned on but it was not an enjoyable time because every few minutes was something else blowing up around here.

I'm glad that the day is over! I'm heading off to bed as soon as I get this blog posted.

I wanted to show you all some of the little things I was doing today.

A new friend of mine, is moving away :( and some of us are planning a going away party for her and her family. So I decided to start making some napkin rings and cutlery sets for the party....with a theme of blues and white (Blue Skies ahead...) I started out making ovals out of cardstock and stamping "Best Wishes" and "Good Luck"...then working my way to the ring itself, I cut an 8.5x11 sheet of dark blue card stock (on the 8.5 side) int 1" strips. I stamped the 1" strips with my favorite "squigle" stamp and began wraping forks and napkins together....this brought me back to my Waitress days wrapping soup spouns at the end of my shifts....ahhhh memories!

Well, I got a whole backet done  and gave up...there should be a lot more people there, but I don't think I'm going to have the "staying power" to wrap that many forks and napkins.

I also worked on another "Give Thanks" Mini Banner. I'm totaly in love with my Gold Distressing Ink remix...I simply use an old slightly dried out Gold Ink pad and rub it along the edges for that "aged" or "distressed" look that lots of people pay big bucks to get...I use an old ink pad from a freebie I got along time ago.

Well, hope that your labor day was more succesful and restful than mine...I definatly "Labored" on my labor day!


Till I see you again, ENJOY!

Walking, talking and chalking

It was a beautiful evening outside tonight. The September sky was lit up and the breeze was blowing...and an earlier rain left it cool and not muggy...a rare thing in south Texas.

Betsy decided it was time to use her sidewalk chalk...so we colored and played for a while before taking a long walk.

She is growing up so fast that I feel like I have blinked and she went from being a baby to a snot nosed kid.
one of my favorite things to do when the whether starts to cool off is go for long walks. Its such a rare thing to have such a beautiful evening like this that I think everyone had the same idea...people were wailking there dogs, families were bbqing and children were playing in the sprinklers...it was almost like a real neighborhood.








I'm glad that I got this chance to have a peaceful evening with my family...because the rest of the long weekend if going to be full of busy events and lots of going...

Happy labor day ya'll and Enjoy!

posted from Bloggeroid

Polish Christmas Ornament STOP PINNING START DOING PROJECT No. 2

STOP PINNING AND START DOING Project Challenge No. 2 

Polish Star Ornament

In keeping with the Stop Pinning and Start Doing project, this was my first attempt at a Polish Star Ornament. I recently saw this youtube video showing how to make this paper star. I knew it would take a while to do all those points but I had no idea how time consuming it was to do them.

In the video she says to use a sharp pencil to make the points, which I did not have (can't find a pencil sharpener to save my life...lol) so I used a pen tip. It worked because I was able to wrap the end around the point, but it did leave little openings on the end of my star...unlike hers which have nice closed points. It took me a whole evening (2-3hrs) and the next morning (another 2hrs) to wrap all the points on the 10 stars that I made. Which is a little TOO much time for me...so I can say that I will NOT be making these for Christmas presents this year (tee hee hee)! But at least I can say I mastered another craft WOO HOO!!!

Maybe with practice I would get faster and better at making the points to these Polish Star Ornaments so I may try them again but I don't think my fingers can stand another round of that right now. I think I'll stick to the double star that I made before!

Check out STOP PINNING AND START DOING Project No. 1 Double Star

Check out my Pinterest page for Paper/Origami to see some of the other paper crafts that I have and will be making with my Stop Pinning and Start Doing challenge. I plan on making the most of my fall break from school by going wild on crafting, home making, child raising and family loving adventure!

ENJOY!

Stop Pinning And Start Doing Challenge! Project No. 1 Double Star

Double StarCheck out the tutorial on how to make these by clicking on the picture.

Double Star

Stop Pinning and Start Doing! 

Project No. 1

Double Star

So last week I decided to start a STOP PINNING AND START DOING project.

I started because of the fact that my laptop was being shipped off for repair to the HP store. I'm figured without the distraction of the laptop I would be able to get more done...and I did, my house was spotless for almost a whole week, which those mommies who have/had a 3 year old would understand that, its nearly impossible to keep the house clean with a kid dropping crumbs and making messes all over the place.

I also pulled out the craft supplies and started getting ready for the new season of MOPS!

Double Star

I've been making kits for the crafts to get them all ready and organized for the year and make a few of them to use as samples. My favorite so far has been then "Give Thanks" Mini Banner```````````````````````````` and now my Double Star...

This start was so much fun to make and a lot easier than I originally thought it would...I used a Burlap 12x12 scrapbook paper that I had on hand and cut them down to 6x6 squares. I used my sizzix die framelet to measure out the sheets and the square on the inside to make the cuts.

This would be a really great project to make with kids (maybe 6+)

Check out the blog with instructions by clicking on the first picture with the yellow and green stars and check out my Pinterest page of Paper/Origami Projects to keep up with what I've been pinning.

I got my laptop back in the mail today (what I'm using to write this blog post...much easier than my cell phone) but I'm hoping to be able to keep working on the projects as I make them to STOP PINNING AND START DOING!

Give Thanks

It's been a crafty day. I've been working on all the neat crafts that were going to be doing this season in MOPS at my church.



This is a cute mini banner for Thanksgiving that well be making in November. I'm so pleased with the way its turned out and the gold aging on the edges of the ovals.

Hope your all having a great week and Enjoy!

posted from Bloggeroid

Crazy days

Its been one if those weeks. I was determined to clean every inch of the apartment and keep it clean so I could finally craft without guilt...however dear daughter had other ideas about what it was she wanted from me.

She was a total terror this week and made it almost impossible to get anything done. But we muddled through and got more cleaned in these past five days than I have for a who year.

I have what I like to call crafters guilt. It is a condition that causes crafting women to put off the real desire to Craft and create because there is some kind of cleaning/cooking/child rearing to do before crafts can be started....I think I have it pretty bad. I refuse to pull out the "hard core" crafts till I know everything is done or I feel incredible guilty about my lack of completion...even though I would much rather be doing hand embroidery than dishes.

Sigh...but this Friday my wonderful mother and sisters said they would take the little angel spawn of mine off my hands for an evening so dear husband and I could have a date night. I was in desperate need of some alone time with DH after the many late night crying and the little ones talk of "spooky " Owl-Vacume cleaners.

Irritating -ly my wonderful spawn decided that the day that she was going to go to Grammys house was the day she would be a saint....she listened and obeyed ...for the most part...and let me get a ton of cleaning done.

My house is almost completely clean!!!! Its a miracle!

Now if I can keep it clean ill be able to beat the disease of Crafters Guilt this next week and maybe get a head start on Christmas presents. (Fingers crossed!)

Now if I can keep my precious little one from reverting back into the crazed 3 year old monster again this coming week should be really fun!!!!

Starting with a new project I started tonight of embroidering a fall/Thanksgiving wall quilt! Ill post pictures soon as I get it out of the hoop and viewable!

Till then Enjoy!

posted from Bloggeroid