After a long wait at the airport last night.....

My son Mattie finally got here last night right before Midnight. I left my home on Thursday at about 2pm and went to pick up my Mom, then we went over to pick up Jennifer and the kids. We got to the airport at about 5:30pm and just when we are pulling into the parking area we get a phone call telling us that Mattie is on a different flight, a later flight...a much later flight!! He was originally going to be coming in at 6:55pm and now he wasn't going to be there until 10:50pm and then that time turned into 11:45pm. So we waited and waited and then waited some more and finally he was here.


The gate where he was going to come out of, very empty~


To be able to get to this gate you have to have a boarding pass and go through securtiy, so guess What I got!!

A boarding pass(my special ticket)~




His plane arrived at 11:42pm and when he came out I made sure to give him a great big hug, he is the best hugger there is

Me and Mattie~




We left the airport after paying the outrageous fee of $27 for parking and started on our long journey home. We dropped Jennifer and Matthew and the kids off at Jennifer's house then I went to drop my Mom off at her apartment and I made it home a little after 4:30am. I was strangely wide awake and decided to stay up and get some laundry done. Now it's a little after 1:30 and I am starting to get so tired.

I may take a nap later but right now I am still doing laundry.I am putting off grocery shopping till another day other than bananas we have enough food to last for a few days.

Praying that everyone has a very blessed and wonderful weekend.

Blessings,Joann

Mattie is on his way home!!!

Just got the call, Mattie comes home tomorrow night. I am so excited that I just want to drop everything I am doing and just think about tomorrow. I can't believe that he is finally coming. Seems like we have waited for so long.
don't know how much I will be on the computer in the days to come but I will certainly be back with pictures.

Blessings,Joann

One down and one more to go!!

Yesterday the carpet installer came and installed our new carpet in the craft room, now we are still waiting to get Mattie home.

I have a picture of what the carpet looked like before~







The craft room with new carpet and trim~




I really like the color of the carpet and the style, it's called Lasting elegance in Saddle color. It doesnt' show up very well in the photo but it sure makes the room look so different. The last carpet was dark and made the room look small it is a small room but now it looks very large and bright!!


This week so far I have been working on finishing some embroidery things I had started over the summer. Two of the pieces are in redwork, I love doing redwork, but the last piece I did in two colors, Red and blue.




PLedge of alligience~




I think they all turned out nice and am happy with them. I will be getting one of those black bookcases that we bought for the living room for my craft room and I was thinking of making one of the items I got done into a small pillow to set on the bookcase for a decoration. Not sure yet what I will make of the Pledge of alligience one, maybe a small wall hanging. So now that the carpet is in and the trim is done it is now my turn to put everything away in it's own place. I have a big pile of stuff sitting on the back patio that came out of the craft room. I have a few things that will be going on the bookcase, but I haven't gotten it yet.YOu may have noticed that we took out one side of the table top, seemed like all it was ever used for was to pile things on, I think I have plenty of room for my computer and my sewing area. Roger very nicely put up my thread holders and bobbin holder, now to just get my rulers hung up and that will get them off of the table top.You can also tell in the photo that I have plenty to do in the craft room at least organizing things will help a bit.

I was very happy to have my internet back, but have to say I really didn't miss it as much as I thought I would.Mattie called from Iraq yesterday morning but not today so that may mean he has gone to Kuwait, then we just have to wait for him to fly to the states. I am really getting excited.


Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for stopping by, Blessings,Joann

Now we wait....

We are now waiting for two things to happen this week. Monday morning we should be having the carpet put in the craft room, spent many hours getting it ready this weekend and of course the most important thing we are waiting on is Mattie coming home. We are thinking he may be here by Friday!! I am so excited for him to come home. But Friday seems like it is so far away. This weekend went by very slow.Today while watching football with Roger I looked at him and asked "is it still sunday?' sadly it still was.

I have taken some pictures of the craft room and will take some after pictures tomorrow after the carpet is in. Then I will post them all so you can see what it looks like right now.
I will have no internet plugged in tomorrow but will be back in a few days maybe even tomorrow night.

I pray that everyone has a wonderful Monday and entire week.

Blessings,Joann

We Knew it would be coming.....

Now that we have an actual date of Roger's last day on his job I just feel kind of numb. February 25, 2011 will end Roger's temporary job.The good things are he won't have to drive that stupid outrageous commute every day and I will get to spend lots of time with him. Actually we feel truly blessed, this job was supposed to last for 6-9 months, he started working on May 19, 2009 so any time after that we felt was just abundant blessings from our God. We have both talked about this time and we realize that we don't need to worry about another job because God already has our plans made up, we just don't know what they are and of course we tend to worry but we shouldn't. Worry you know how hard it is to not worry, well let me tell you it is very hard!!!We are praying that he will be eligible for unemployment so we won't have to live off of our savings. I have looked up unemployment benefits and it seems like the maximum amount that you can get is $1800 a month and we can easily live on that.

Monday we are having my craft room carpeted, made a few adjustments in there and I will post some pictures after it is all done. I have done very little crafting but I am blaming that on not having a craft room I can use and not saying that I am just being lazy this past weeks, well I have been sick for about a week now. Started feeling much better on Thursday and went grocery shopping today so I guess I am back to normal now :)

I took those scarves I made the grandkids over to them a couple of weeks ago but forgot to take a picture of them with the scarves on, they seemed to like them.
Mattie has been calling pretty regular, this past week every morning except Wed and today. He will be coming home on leave in a few weeks don't know exactly when but we are all very excited about it. I have been buying him some things he wanted for when he gets here, some clothes and a cell phone for getting in touch with all his friends and I still need to get him a pair of shoes.

My 2011 certainly didn't start out too great but I am still claiming my joy in Jesus!!

I am thinking about joining in the Bible study of the book of James on the 17th through the good morning girls web site. I think it will be interesting. I was thinking of doing another Bible study too but then figured it would be too confusing for me to do two at one time.

Prayer requests, please keep my grandson Dylan in your prayers, he has been having a few problems at school and needs to be lifted up.
Roger's job situation, praying for a real good permanent job, one with benefits would be so wonderful.
Prayers for me I won't go into great detail but would like to also be lifted up.
thank you so much my very good friends

Blessings,Joann

January 4, 2011

I have been doing a lot of both praying and thinking about what I would like to accomplish in 2011. I was very excited to start a new year and start the stitching challenge but I have made a decision that I am not going to continue with the stitching challenge, I started out behind and now all my thoughts are consumed with trying to catch up. I was thinking if I could get a little more done on my first project and then start the second I wouldn't be too far behind, but then I came to the conclusion that I am not enjoying this very much. I know that I mentioned in another post that Management would be a good theme for me this year, I think I would like to add also Peace as my theme. I have many things rambling around in my head all the time that I really just want to find peace for. As far as the theme of management, this would be in all areas of my life. Time would be the main area, I am a very good time waster, you got some time that you want to waste then send it on over here and I will waste it very good for you.Managing my time in my entire life sounds so simple and you would think it would be easy...well you would be wrong!! Managing time also takes time and that is the thing I am bad at managing in the first place..now I feel as though I am going in circles with no end in site.

Joy is another theme for this year for me, I want to find joy in all that I do and I want to do everything joyfully, even yucky things like cleaning the bathrooms :)
So there you have it my Themes for 2011~
Management of~
My time with God, be in His Word more each day and truly be in prayer for more than two minutes.
My household chores, Get a routine and stick to it!!
My eating~Cut back on whatever I can

Peace~
Finding the peace of God's love
Peace within our home
Peace in my heart

Joy~

Being more joyful on a daily basis
Doing chores with more joy
The joy of reading and keeping God's words in my heart

The past, this is not a theme but just something I need to do, forget about previous wrongs and start new, reach out to those who have hurt me in the past and fogive (this is much easier said than done)them, love all people even if I do not have any love for them to love them with love from Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a sister in Christ..
What is that Bible verse about Love not keeping score, can't remember right now but it says something about not keeping score and I really need to heed what that says. Some people will always live in the past and dwell there and for those I am so sorry that they can not move on.

Have a beautiful week ahead, Blessings,Joann

Crazy January 2011 challenge

Crazy stitching challenge has started and as usual I am behind :)

Sat down last night and went through my floss and wrote down what I have and what I need. How come is it that everytime I want to do some sort of stitching I never have the color I need?? I have over 150 colors and still needed to go out and buy about 40 new skeins of floss today~



I still don't have all the colors as Joann's didn't have a few but I do think I have enough to at least get started.

I need to have 15 projects to start one each day from January 1st through 15th. I have decided to do a monthly snowman project for 12 of the days and then add in a few other projects to round out the 15. Still


One of the stitching projects, on the top in the picture is the original size, the botom is the same pattern but 150% larger~



The January snowman pattern original size~






This is what it looks like after enlarging it 150%, much easier to see and read~



I still need to post a list of the 15 projects but just don't have time right now.Today for the challenge mainly I got all my aida cloths, needles, floss, patterns and anything else I need all organized into gallon sized ziploc bags. As you can tell my projects will be small.

I think this challenge will be fun, and I look forward to seeing what everyone is doing.

Have a blessed week and a wonderful day with the Lord tomorrow.

Joyful days to you, Joann