My Jewelry Shop

I have started a little jewelry shop on the Etsy website. This is where people sell their handmade items. I only have one item so far, but I hope to add more as I go along. My hope this year is to make and sell some jewelry at different places, since I had a lot of fun selling at our office Art Sale. I ended up making $150 which was super exciting for the first time selling!

My jewelry site is listed to the right of the blog if you're interested in looking. :-)

Christmas Wrap Up

Well, we are back in Tulsa after a great two weeks in SC. We managed to drive to SC in one day (19 hours!). At the time, it seemed to be neverending, but looking back it wasn't too bad. The DVD player stopped working just a few hours into the trip. There was no way we would make it the rest of the way without it, so we stopped at good ol' Wal Mart and picked up a replacement. Big James did 99% of the driving and little James was very well behaved, so it was much better than I could have expected.

The two weeks went by so fast and were so busy, but were very well spent. It seemed like almost everyday we were preparing to celebrate or celebrating something - Christmas Eve, Christmas, Birthdays (my own and others), New Years Eve, New Years Day, etc. - but I wouldn't have wanted to be that busy anywhere else!

We started out with a visit to the Festival of Lights, the drive & walk through Christmas light display that has been around for years and I just love! Every year it seems they have added something new and exciting so it doesn't seem like the same old things every time. Here are some pictures from the marshmallow roast - the little boy that is not James is my very cute nephew, Miles, who is about a year and a half younger than James. These pictures look similar, because of the coats and stuff, but one is me and James and the other is my sister in law and Miles. The similarities made me laugh!

Christmas Eve is when James' family does their big exchange. And I mean big! It is always a lot of fun, with lots of good food and the inevitable paper fight. Little James even got in on the action this year! Here are pictures of the tree before the gifts were distributed, the paper fight, and the not so small indoor jump castle. I wish I had gotten on camera all the hard work it took James to get this thing blown up! Poor James didn't make it in many pictures because he was busy doing all the daddy work! Keep in mind that at this point we were only a 1/3 of the way through with opening the gifts we would be traveling back with. We still had my family and Santa.

Christmas arrived with more gifts from Santa and my mom. Santa also brought a very cute, but somewhat unwelcomed gift, which was more enjoyed by Miles than by James. I have a video of James' reaction to the puppy - insert screaming - but it makes me too sad to put it on here. We are hoping he will start warming up to her soon! We named her Caroline to remind us of home. :-)

Then there was my birthday (29! ouch!) and New Years and then the weeks dwindled down and we got packed up and headed back. The return trip was a little more exhausting, what with the puppy, gifts, and the boat we decided to bring with us. Again, I should have taken a picture! We ended up staying the night about half way. Due to the boat, James did 100% of the driving and thanks to the very addictive Twilight series books, I was fully entertained! Of course, we didn't get to see everyone we wanted, and didn't spend enough time with those we did see, but we are thankful for the time we did have. I am still not unpacked and organized, but glad that the trip was safe and fun-filled!

Happy New Year!

Warms the Heart

On a super cold day like today, nothing warms the heart like the spirit of Christmas. This is a picture of one of the conference rooms in the building I work in. Wall to wall presents doesn't even describe it! The agency I work for has an Adopt a Family program to help families who are in need due to domestic violence situations. I believe we had about fifty families adopted. This means very generous people giving of their time and money to lift up total strangers and their families.

I literally had tears in my eyes when I saw this room for the first time. The picture doesn't even do it justice.

I am trying to keep this feeling in my heart when I am feeling that Christmas stress creep up. This is what it is all about.

My First Jewelry Sale

I think I mentioned briefly in my first post that I like to make jewelry. I am pretty inexperienced, but have a lot of fun with it. There is so much to learn and it can get pretty overwhelming to want to know how to do everything I see. I kind of get lost in what I can do and what I want to do and then I'm left sitting there with a bunch of projects I need to work on and don't know where to begin. I am just trying to pace myself and just improve on the little things and learn new things one at a time. I really had no clue how much there is that can be done with handmade jewelry.

Monday will be officially the first time I've tried to sell anything. A few people I work with also make jewelry and other things for hobbies so we decided to have a little Christmas shopping sale at work for the staff. I'm half excited and half nervous about puttting myself out there like that, but I'm going to do it anyway. A percentage of what we make goes toward the United Way which supports our agency. I have a random selection of things from beaded ornaments to keychains to bracelets.

Here are some pictures of my things:

Here is a picture from a Bead Show I went to a few weeks ago - talk about overwhelming! This is just one of MANY tables. Those are all strands and strands of different beads.



Wish me luck! I doubt I'll be quitting my job anytime soon or anything! :-)

A Wonderful Weekend

Of all the things I am thankful for, being back at work today is not one of them. I am normally the type of person who enjoys some time off, but am ready to get back to routine. Not this time. I had such a wonderful four day weekend. We did so many fun things and I am just wishing I could stay at home all the way through Christmas. We leave for SC in less than three weeks and I am super excited about that. It usually takes me a while to get into the Christmas spirit, but this year I am already there. It must be that little blonde haired boy who is so excited about all things Christmas.

Thanksgiving day was really nice and James and I were really proud to have conquered our very own Thanksgiving meal all on our own. I made plenty of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes and then there was the very stressful, very expensive, very TASTY turkey. We decided that we wanted a fried turkey because we wanted it to be a very southern meal and James makes a great fried turkey. So I bought the turkey and all the marinades and rubs and peanut oil. I knew that we didn't have the propane tank because the movers couldn't pack it, so I bought another one. Well, the movers didn't detach this very necessary hose from the tank so it was in SC too. No problem, I bought another one. Thanksgiving day arrives - big problem - the hose doesn't work with our fryer. Insert trip to Wal-Mart number one, in which James returns with a second fryer. Then there is not enough oil to cook what I thought was a small turkey, but apparently I was wrong. Insert trip to Wal-Mart number two for more oil. Next problem, the propane tank valve won't open. After much frustration, James is able to get the valve open and a little later we had this amazing turkey! We have also had since then very good leftovers too!

I set out Friday morning with my shopping plan a little before 6:30. I pretty much got nothing that I planned for because I didn't get to any place early enough. I guess I am not a very good Black Friday shopper. Friday night we took James to see Christmas lights at a big local church, which he loved.

On Saturday we made this lovely Gingergread House.

We also got the outdoor decorations up and Sunday I got the indoor things set out. All we have left is the tree. Oh and shopping, and cards, and traveling, and.......

All in all, it was a great weekend (minus the GIANT loss by Carolina to Clemson) and I am really looking forward to the Christmas activities to come.

One year.....

Well, November marks one year since we officially moved to Tulsa. (Technically, I didn't move until January, but James began his job last November.) A lot of people ask us what its like here. Once you're in a new place, it is sometimes hard to see the differences. I guess people expect 1,000 miles away to be like a foreign land. Don't get me wrong, there are some big differences, but it is not like we went away to South Africa or something. So I have been trying to think of the things that are different here to try to give people a little more idea of what Oklahoma is like compared to South Carolina.


First, there is the landscape. The people that live here call this area "Green Country," which I haven't figured out if that is just for Tulsa, or the whole state. I have to bite my lip when I hear people say this. I want to say, "Listen, are you color blind?" When I first came, they had recently gone through a pretty bad ice storm and all the trees were bare and the grass was dead. So I figured I would give it until Spring. Well, the grass did turn green and the leaves came back, but there was still brown hay surrounding my house and it wasn't quite what I expected. It was also very short lived, we barely got into fall before all the trees were bare again and we're back to "Brown Country." I want to say, "If you want to see 'Green Country' please take a little field trip with me."

Tulsa a.k.a Green Country....

South Carolina road


Get the idea???

Oklahomans also consider this a "southern" area. I disagree. While I was surprised that you can order sweet tea at some restaurants and not get strange looks, I would call it "slightly sweetened tea." In South Carolina, you are lucky to get some tea in your sugar and if you come across any restaurant, fast food place, gas station or vending machine that doesn't sell it, then I think you've just stepped out of SC. It is also not hot enough here (year round) to be considered southern. Yesterday, it was 37 when I left for work and the high was 47. I believe it was 71 in Charleston. If it gets close to 37 in SC, milk, bread and batteries start flying off the grocery store shelves. Also on the "southern" note, no one has an accent in OK. There is never any question if a word is really one syllable or two (did vs. dee-id) and all the words they say can probably be found in a dictionary unlike "Ah-sposo" = "I suppose so."

I may step on many OK toes with this next topic, but I don't think any of the few people I know here read this, so I'm going for it. The road systems make no sense. gasp! They think its genius, and it makes perfect sense to them. The entire city is mapped out on a grid. If you looked at it from above you would see perfect little squares. All roads are parallel and perpendicular. And they are very, very long. So to me, just because I think I know where something on 71st street is, I am most definitely probably going to be wrong, because a road could be in Downtown Tulsa and also Broken Arrow, which is about 25 minutes away. Because they are all in blocks, there is a red light every half second which is good for safety, not so good for people running late. The majority of streets are numbered AND they throw in a directional (sometimes at the beginning and the end) so addresses end up looking like 8642 E. 31st N. and that just makes no sense to me, but they say "OH I know RIGHT where that is!" If you ever come to OK make sure you bring a compass, because no one will tell you to turn left or right, or if they are located on the right or left corner, they will say that you should drive west and they will be located on the northwest corner of 31st and 96th. I really could continue on this topic, but I think that pretty much covers my frustration with it for now. :-)

I get lots of questions about the food in OK. Yes, there is food here. Lots of Mexican and barbeque restaurants and an Arby's on every corner. There is a big variety of restaurants here and a lot of non-chain places. Well, they might be chains, they just haven't made it to the East Coast. There is also a list of restaurants that have not made it to the Mid-West. Zaxby's, Fazoli's, Bojangles are ones that come to mind that are not here. There are very few seafood restaurants (for obvious reasons) and the barbeque restaurants and totally different than SC ones. A barbeque restaurant here has a choice of smoked meats with a few side options (hash & rice not being one of those choices). They also serve pickles, peppers & onions on the side of every plate, which I haven't quite figured that out yet. Pulled pork is one of the options, but that is not the main entree, like at SC restaurants. There is also no "mustard" bbq sauce. I think if they saw what SC considers barbeque, they would be really confused (and just maybe grossed out). But I miss it!

The last thing that I will comment on is the weather. It's basically hurricanes vs. tornadoes. I prefer hurricanes. Lots of pre-disaster warning, not gonna sneak up on you in the middle of the night, can do things to gaurd your home against them for the most part. Tornadoes, however, the only warning you get is an at most five minute pre-strike siren, that you could possibly miss or mistake for a car alarm. The best you can do is get in an interior room (if you have one) or get in the bathtub with a matress over you (note - this is only if you heard the alarms!) Keep in mind, the possibility of a two year old cooperating is pretty slim. Evacuation is not part of the weatherman language around here. Take-shelter, NOW is more their style. There are shelters you can pay big bucks for, but I haven't quite been talked into that yet. I keep picturing a movie scene where I just didn't make it to the shelter in time and the tornado swept me up along the way. I'm sure when spring-time (a.k.a tornado season) comes back around, I will have much more to say on this topic, and I am not looking forward to it.

So, for one year in the Mid-west, this is what I can tell you. A new shade of green, a different style of barbeque, and a road system that requires a degree in statistics. Interesting, to say the least.

November already?

Halloween was a blast. We went to a church festival while it was still daylight and then came to our house to trick or treat at dark. James did great. He said all his Trick-or-treats and Thank-yous right on cue after just a little practice. He has more candy than he can ever think about eating. His favorite treat was a cupcake from the church (which he got confused with a pancake). He mostly likes to just play with the candy more than anything.

This picture was taken at the church festival.

I really can't believe it is November already. I kept putting off thinking about Christmas until November, but now it is upon me. Maybe I can postpone until Thanksgiving? That is probably not a good idea. This year will be slightly more complicated with shipping gifts to and from SC and figuring out when Santa Claus comes and where, so early planning will be my best bet - so I am trying to get motivated.

We are not going to SC for Thanksgiving. We decided to save our traveling and vacation time for Christmas. This seems like a good plan now, but I'm sure I'll start feeling the blues when the day comes. I am planning to make a dinner myself, which hopefully will keep me occupied enough to keep from feeling sad. Fingers crossed!

I went first thing this morning to vote and luckily my line wasn't too long. I am super impressed with those who are waiting in line for hours. That is true American spirit. I am anxious to find out the results. I don't get too involved in politics, but this election has been pretty interesting and it seems more people are voting than ever. I am sure it will be a long night and I hope there aren't any major glitches that cause delayed results like we have seen in the past. I hope everyone that can gets out to vote today!