New Photos by ChadO

Chad teased me with some photos yesterday!  They are so awesome.  This is my favorite part of getting the professional shots.  Getting the photographs. Another reason Chad is so great is he almost always sends me a few teasers before he gets all the shots to me.

He does such a great job.    His photos are always better than mine and they always make my quilts look great.  AND they give me a sense of accomplishment.  Now, they are officially done and I can continue to move on and learn new lessons and make more quilts.

THANK YOU CHAD!

 Shakti Belts

ZaZen

ZaZen (detail)

ZaZen (detail) 

Pura Vida

Pura Vida (detail)

This last one is HuBb's.  I have to show off his talent as well. (In case you can't figure it out from the photo this is on a skateboard)

I will get a lot more photos than these sometime in the next few days on a disk and I will share more when I have them.  The detail shots are always my favorites, so stay tuned!

Again, if you want to contact Chad to inquire about photos HERE is his information.  

it's so bright

I know you all need for me to give you yet another reason why Jason Hubbard rocks because I haven't already filled your head with all the great things he does for us, but this one is definitely at the top of my list of awesomeness.

What is it you ask?

It is a giant light box!!! For tracing quilting patterns and drawings. It is a life saver awaiting my use - not to mention the kids love it too! It's been up and running since Friday and Kalib has traced all kinds of slime creatures from dragon quest (his latest obsession) which have then lead to paintings by both he and India.

If you look closely at what Jason is bent over it's going to be my next critter stolen from his sketch book. I've already got a couple of projects ahead of it, but he didn't like the eyeball on it, so he TRACED what he did like and redrew it and in no time it was pinned to my design wall awaiting my attention. It's coming soon. The quilts and works are a flowing through me.

So, how big is this giant light box you ask? Well... it is 24 inches by 32 inches and he managed to build it for right around $60. I have been looking at these for years trying to justify the cost, but they are so expensive and really too small for what I need in quilting. And we have talked about building one before, but it wasn't until recently that I realized it is just absurd that I don't have one. So, while cursing the last of the piecing for the quilt I was working on (I've already started a whole new quilt and I should have the background finished hopefully today or tomorrow) that I turned to this awesome man and said, "I need a light box. This is ridiculous trying to hold this up to the light so that I can see to get the pieces to line up and they slip apart when I bring them back down from the light. Can we please really think about it and build one?" Now, I had recently read a blog post of someone who built one too and that had gotten my brain going again, but theirs was too over done and probably would have cost us a fortune. My loving husband, went to the computer and started looking at them and how to build them and then he realized we had florescent lights under our bed that would work and all we needed was the box and the plexiglass. The very next morning we headed to Lowe's for the 2 pieces of wood he needed and he set to work immediately. The words of my joy cannot be expressed through my typing. Then, the snow came, and I couldn't order the glass. The box, with the lights all wired sat there, taunting me. I was feeling impatient, so at the first sign of things being safe enough for me to get to the glass store and get that piece of plexiglass I ordered it. On Friday he attached it and now I have a giant light box that cost very little compared to the ones I had been looking at and I am just giddy! I'll take pictures of me using it when I get there soon!!! Now, the big question is where am I going to store it? Who cares?! It's going to be out more than put away!

Thank you Jason for being so awesome!

christmas

It' so hard to get here everyday with something insightful to say when we are busy and absorbed into hanging out. Jason has been off work this week (mom hasn't, but I've been happy with the small amount of time I get to be home with him in the mornings.) We also have company from out of town which I'm sure I will get around to posting about in a few days.

Christmas was so awesome this year. We always strive to not go overboard, well I do, I want to buy gifts our children will cherish and remember and I want their gifts to have staying power and not be just another fad or the latest gadget. I want them to look back on their Christmas's and always remember that their parents made the effort to buy them what they wanted but they always put their heart into whatever they were giving. I think this year, my wish came true. I'm usually trying to finish up Christmas giving on Christmas eve. I'm usually a big ball of stress about what we are going to give, how are we ever going to afford all the gifts we have to buy (which compared to a lot of people is very little), but let's face it, we live on a small fixed income and we don't have a lot of money to spend and honestly, I would rather buy for my kids than anyone - that's how I always feel. This year was totally different. Not that Jason and I had a ton of money to buy gifts, but we managed everything we wanted to do without putting ourselves into financial woes and I ended up having the best Christmas shopping season I have ever had. We were all done a week before Christmas and had plenty of time to simply enjoy the season with our families. It was wonderful and the cherry on top was our kids thanking us for the gifts we gave them. Each one, exactly what they wanted.

Last year, we instituted the same gift giving strategy as some of our friends with larger families. Each kid gets three gifts. We buy something to read, something to wear, and something they can do. We haven't set a limit on $$ yet, but I see that happening sometime in our future. I like to buy the BIG gifts for birthdays. They feel more special to me. So, this year, when we started contemplating what to get the kids, my parents stepped in and said they wanted to buy the something to do gift we were planning, so we handed that over to them and we were able to buy something smaller. (THANKS mom and dad!)

For Christmas, India received a new pair of boots,

some software for making movies that she's been looking at for a while. (can't wait to see what she does with that!)


And a magazine subscription which hasn't quite started yet.


Kalib received a top hat (he collects hats)


The Guardian's of Gahoole Book Series


And Lego's and a Wii game (which I failed to get photos of)

My parents bought the kids a Wii (I'm still having mixed emotions about this, but I'm working to embrace it and I have to admit, Just Dance 2 - which India also got is A LOT of fun)


And we got...
a 32" flat screen, high defintion tv and new dvd player.


Christmas morning, the kids wake up and get their stockings which are filled with all kinds of small goodies. India got some baking stuff and 2 more books along with a lot of gag type things and Kalib got more hats and a couple more books.




Then we headed over to J's grandmothers where I am unable to get very many pictures, but the kids received many of the other things on their lists.


It was a lovely Christmas filled with family and creativity. What more could I ask for? The kids didn't get so much that it made me feel icky and the house was pretty easy to get back to our normal, so that was nice too and now, we are ready to see what 2011 holds for us. I can't wait!

ornaments

The highlight of Christmas every year for me is the when we make our ornaments for our tree. Last year we took strips of pretty paper and wrote what we were grateful for and put them in glass ornament balls. They were awesome, but we couldn't do the same thing this year, so we painted salt dough ornaments that we made. I love this tradition above all other Christmas traditions we may have because we laugh at each other and we are together in a very sweet way and there is no focus on anything else having to do with the holidays except being in that moment together. It is such quality time with our beautiful children and I want to savor every moment as they grow up so fast something I am really realizing now that India is taller than me.

This year, we gathered together and I read a story about the winter solstice. I read the story about Amaterasu retold by StarHawk (it's in the book Circle Round), a personal favorite. Then the painting commences. Thankfully, a couple of months ago I picked up a large coffee table at the Goodwill, so we now have a large surface we can all 4 fit around that is not also where we eat, although we do eat there a lot too. The ornaments turned out great and we spent a good two hours, just genuinely making art together and hanging out. Best night of the holidays thus far. You should try it. Make it a tradition. You won't regret it! And getting your ornaments that you made out the next year to put on your tree is priceless.

So, on to the details of the ornaments. I have tried a couple of years before to make salt dough ornaments, but they always crack and become brittle and this year I am so glad I didn't give up. I came across this recipe with directions for baking them slowly and that was the key. SLOWLY - like 5 or 6 hours at 200 degrees. Our oven even stopped working while they were baking and had to have a new element. Thankfully, we were able to get it back up and running and still get our ornaments made in plenty of time. We had to have lots of new paint and paint brushes, glitter pens, and we painted like 20 or more ornaments between the 4 of us and there are still more to be painted that I'm hopefully going to get to today. I plan to make a garland out of what is left and Christmas Eve is not too late for me to get it done - that of course is AFTER I clean and finish my baking and do laundry although I can paint them while the laundry is happening (thinking while writing again).

So, on to the pictures...

our sweet tree

It's been up for over a week, I have just been too busy to write. Typical of this time of year. Thankfully, we are done shopping and making for the holiday and almost all of the presents are wrapped and under the tree. Only 3 more to get under there before Friday when we celebrate Christmas with my folks. Saturday morning, early, we are off to Jason's grandmothers for the day. We decorated our tree a week ago Sunday, that's Dec 12 for those of you trying to figure it out. The kids and Jason got the tree while I was off spa-ing it up with my friends at the Jeju in Atlanta. I LOVE the tree they got! They went after a potted tree, which has never ended well for us. They have always died in the past and this one ended up being just perfect for the spot I wanted to put it this year. So, Sunday evening, we went and got some doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and turned on some cheesy Christmas music and set to work.

My favorite part of decorating the tree is really just going through the ornaments. You see, we have a holiday tradition of decorating our own ornaments rather than buying them. We often have a party and invite our friends over to do the same, but it hasn't worked out this year for us to do that this year. I've made salt dough ornaments (we had better directions this year) and now they are just waiting for us to get them painted. I also found an idea for a pretty paper snowflake that I may try once we get going on tomorrow night. I love how the kids make fun of what they have created in the past and seeing the progress their skills have made. I love sharing the stories over who gave us what ornaments. Of course, there are always a few we don't remember, but I love thinking about our loved ones as we hang them on the tree and the times we share with the memories. We always have more ornaments than the tree can ever hold, but that's o.k. we still get them all out and look at them.

So, without further ado, here's our tree.

and l

Christmas parading

We now have a yearly obligation to the Christmas parade. This year to India's great pleasure we managed to meet up with all her friends to watch the parade. It was cold, but the parade was fun. The girls heckled every float and had a great time entertaining themselves as well as the adults.

This is Gwenny - she's never been to a Christmas parade before. She was SUPER excited.

The girls


Some of the friend family...


I had an internal debate as to whether to put this one of J up or not, but he looks so funny... and thankfully, he doesn't embarrass all that easily and he was making the face on purpose AND he knew I was taking a picture... he knew I would put it up.


oh yes... our Christmas parade has storm troopers... that's right... us Athens folks are not only stupid football fans, but we embrace the nerdom also. I LOVE STAR WARS!!! This was the treat of the night for me. Wish I had have gotten my picture taken with one.


And a post about the parade without a few floats would be incomplete.




me and my little guy. (Ashley says I looked like a homeless person all wrapped up in my shawl, but I was warm... was she? No, she had to borrow Kalib's gloves - so there)


Kalib

building trails

I can't take credit for these photos. India took them while Jason and I (mostly Jason - but I did help as did the kids) busily worked on building trails in the woods behind our house. All the land around ours has been logged. It's all filled and thick with brush. There are lots and lots of happy animals in those briars I feel certain, but our land is still healing from having cotton grown on it in the early 1900's. As many of you know I live on family land that I grew up on and our woods are the woods that I played in when I was visiting my grandparents. (Not that my grandmother would all that often let me play in the woods by myself - girls aren't supposed to get dirty), I spent plenty of time in these woods, but my grandparents were of the generation that if you owned the land you could do with it what you wanted. There is a giant gully (or giant hole) on the backside of our land that is the depth of a fully grown tree - it's actually deeper than that because the top of the trees in there are still below the edge... anyhow, I digress, my grandfather dumped his trash in there and he let their neighbors do the same. It is a sad sight, although I have always been very fascinated with the gully - maybe because I am fascinated with water runoff. We have a ditch that runs on the far side of our house and down our driveway that the runoff from the road runs into and it has cut quite the ravine through our woods and into the gully. There's some water that moves back there, but we can't get to it safely - partly because the ravine is so deep and partly because of all the trash in it. When we moved onto our land we decided to let our woods have some peace. We have stayed out of them for the most part in an attempt to allow them to heal. When the kids were pretty small, we awoke one morning to the sound of tractors and trees falling only to look out of my bedroom window and see the trees on the land ajoining ours being pushed over and logged. If you have never watched the logging process it is painful if you have any love of trees. The tractors destroy everything in their path even the trees they are supposed to not be taking down and the land is left in shambles and barren. It was awful. It is like a seen straight out of Ferngully. I sat on my bed and watched and cried. A few days later, we got a call wanting to know if we would be interested in also selling our trees and we said "No, thank you. We will let our woods continue to prosper and grow." So, over the last few years, our woods have healed and they have become a beautiful pine forest and there are hardwoods beginning to grow in size and the pines are beginning to fall and you can feel the energy of the wood shifting knowing it is a safe place. No one is dumping garbage, the trees that fall are being cut up and the land is safe - at least for now, what happens after us, I don't know... Anyhow, we now feel like we can tread back there again in a good way. So, over the last few weekends, that wonderful husband of mine, has been working super hard (no big surprises there) on building us trails. We have 3 lovely trails on our 8 acres of wood in the faux country (we live almost in the city - close enough that it isn't such a chore to go anywhere, but far enough that we are able to have some land - we are only 5 minutes from town, but you wouldn't know it when you are here). The kids - especially India, are loving the woods and the autonomy you get when meandering back there and Tonka is loving all the walks he is getting to go on. I've been trying to take him everyday. It takes about 20 minutes to walk the longest trail all the way around. It is difficult to get a picture of them, but here's India's attempt. Thank you, Jason, for being inspired to do this, and thank you Earth for working so hard to heal our little patch of wood...

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a strange holiday to me, I'm grateful for it for reminding people we should be thankful, but something I don't really get is why we have to set time aside each year to be reminded to be thankful. Shouldn't we be thankful everyday? I've been watching posts on Facebook all month long and people writing the things they are thankful for and I have noticed that a lot of people who are usually complainers have found plenty of things this month to be thankful for, so why not challenge yourself to find something to be thankful for 365 days a year and let's celebrate how great life is on Thanksgiving. Few of us have less than we need and most of us have more than we need yet we still manage to spend a lot of energy complaining rather than celebrating what life offers us. No one has ever said life was easy. It's not supposed to be, but when we put our energies toward being grateful for all that we have - even if it isn't much, we bring so much more into our lives. I try each day to find something to be grateful for. I'm not saying it's easy, but try it and see if life doesn't seem so much better? Now, onto my post...

For Thanksgiving this year we went to my parents house. My mom recently had her knee replaced and wasn't able to stand long enough to make a Thanksgiving meal and my grandmother is no longer able to cook giant meals like Thanksgiving. They have always had a traditional meal and this year they were going to go to Cracker Barrel. We usually stay home on Thanksgiving and the whole cooking thing is usually a huge family affair and we don't usually have turkey we usually have something less traditional. We don't typically gather with family so that we can carve out our own family tradition with just the four of us, but this year, I went all out wanting to give back to my folks. I've never made a turkey of any size before. I think one year I bought a boneless turkey that was already stuffed and seasoned and I don't remember it being all that good. This year, I did my research and settled on this recipe. Kalib helped me with the brine, but he wasn't too into touching the turkey (can't say I blame him on that one) and that 12 pound turkey submersed in water barely fit in my refrigerator. Jason got up with me at 6am the next morning (EARLY for me) to help me get all the veggies cut up and the turkey washed and stuffed and into the oven. We were trying to give it plenty of cooking time to have it ready for lunch. The goal was to have all the food done and on the way to my parents in time to eat by 2. My turkey was done at 9:30 am - I was of the impression turkey's usually take 5 or 6 hours to cook a turkey - evidently not - at least not mine... We got up early for no reason, but it turned out all right because we were able to get the potatoes in the oven earlier and we were able to eat at 1pm. I also made roasted sweet potatoes along with yukon gold potatoes - this was my favorite thing I fixed. I made collards fresh picked from the garden, asparagus, green beans with almond slices, mac n cheese, a loaf of fresh bread and India made a cake. My mom wanted to contribute, so she made stuffing. The food was so yummy and my turkey turned out to be delicious. It was a good day and my parents were super happy they didn't end up at the Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they just prefer the tradition). I'm glad we ended up doing what we did. My parents bend over backwards to help us out and they are such an important part of our lives. I'm glad we were able to give something back to them... not to mention we have so many left overs that I haven't had to really cook since Thursday.

raven cliff falls

On Saturday, we went to Raven cliff falls just north of Helen, GA for a hike in the woods. It's the first time since my surgery I've done anything strenuous, and it was just fine other than my boots kept eating my socks and I had to take them off and the boots don't fit as good without socks. For me, the cost was well worth it. It was a truly lovely day in the woods. We got a little lost heading up because the directions from the website were wrong. That seems to happen a lot in that area. Thankfully, most of the parking areas around Helen have maps and we were able to figure out where to go. We took Tonka, our good old and faithful dog, with us. He probably wishes we hadn't. He was so tired when we got home that he didn't even get up. We had to coerce him to go to his bed when we got home and then he laid around all day long the next day. Those of you who know Tonka know this is not all that unusual, but he usually hangs out in whatever room there are people in and he didn't even care about that. He barely even lifted his eyes when we came into the room he was in.

So, the hike... the woods were beautiful, the leaves were beautiful, the sound of our feet as they crushed the leaves on the trail was incredible. The river, stream, or creek (we had a debate over what it was) had a glorious song. It was so wonderful to be in the woods for any length of time and we got to spend most of the day in them. There were a lot of people on the trail - evidently it is a pretty popular trail, but we spent a lot of time wandering away from the trail and checking out the water or hanging out just taking in the air. The air is so much cleaner in the forest of the mountains. We found a couple of great camping spots that you have to hike into that we will be going back for. Jason and I got the details about the trail wrong, we thought it was 2 1/2 miles round trip. It turns out it is 2 1/2 miles in and 2 1/2 miles out. We didn't make it to the big waterfall. Tonka was giving out by about 2 miles in and we still had to get him back out, so we decided to turn around and appreciate a day in the woods and we will go back and leave Tonka at home (I did really enjoy having him with us. A much shorter walk and he would have been just fine) and I will wear socks that my shoes don't eat.

In typical Sarah fashion, there are a ton of pictures, but I don't know how to narrow them down to only a few when the earth is filled with such beauty and when I have such a good looking family. Here are our pictures from the day.

Heading into the woods.

see how the water shapes the rocks. This is something that I have always found really fascinating. My favorite place around here to really take in the power of water to shape its landscape is Three Forks in Clayton where 3 rivers converge into one. The water is loud, it's powerful and there are numerous whirlpools where the rocks have been shaped by the powerful water.

kids are wondering how cold the water was. It wasn't so cold that they weren't afraid of falling in, but it was cold enough that I was worried about them falling in and complaining the whole way back to Athens about how cold they were... (you know how mama's think.)

This is a cool little spot where people over some time have added rocks. Naturally, we added some...

These are the lower falls that we did make it to.

I really like this picture because Jason does these 10 second dance parties from time to time and he looks like he's having one on those slippery rocks.

See I really was there...