New additions

I completely got wrapped up in Halloween and forgot to mention that the NEW fall issue of the Make-Do Mail is available in the shop! Full of great fall tips, recipes and projects!

And you'll also see there's a new section of the Make-Do Mercantile called The Corgi Shop. Two new corgi items and both are customized to your preferences! And there will be more soon!

Thank you, everyone

A BIG thank you to everyone for your support and caring comments on the loss of Roswita. I was so overwhelmed and comforted by all the stories of pet fish that were truly cared for and loved. On the same sad day, my mom had to put one of her little rescue pups down. Skeeter was a miniature poodle that came to mom with a broken jaw (an old wound) and was so malnourished the bone was basically mush. After what seemed like months in a wire and plastic brace screwed to his face, he lived out the rest of his life with half a bottom jaw and no teeth. He thought he was tough though, his growl was still fierce! Skeeter was one of my mom's many forever-fosters, dogs that come in through rescue but it becomes obvious they can never leave due to medical problems, mental problems (a yorkie she has now is completely senile) or incurable lack of social skills. My mom is such a caring person, she gives feeds them, cleans them and provides them the best life they've ever known for the rest of their natural life. I'm so grateful to have her as my mom!

I also want to send out a great big thanks to Lydia at Drop In & Decorate who is a superb person! And she interviewed me over at the DI&D blog! I hope it inspires at least one person to host an event, decorating cookies is fun!

Year's end is near-Resolutions

I know, I KNOW! New Year's Resolutions are NOT a good idea. But that's only if you half-heartedly make them and don't have a plan. I have a plan!

My one big resolution as this year comes to a close is to keep up with mailing birthday and anniversary cards. Now is the time when I sit down and add all the birthdays and anniversaries to my new calendar. And in past years, I have let so many of those milestones slip by without even a call, let alone a nice card of gift. So this year I will be sending for each and every single one I put in my calendar. Do you want a birthday card next year? Anniversary card? Does your dog want a birthday card? Or a gotcha day card? Maybe you'd like an Arbor day card! Well, let me know so that it goes in the calendar. If it's not in the calendar, you will definitely NOT get a card!

I love to shop for stationery and cards, I love to MAKE cards! So I should USE them! I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of correspondence!

Besides that, my only other goal is to make more quilt blocks. I would like to commit to making one a day. That would make QUITE a few quilts in 2009! But I just don't think that is realistic, so I'm going with one a week, which will still finish up quite a few in-progress projects and start a few new ones. :)

Naughty or Nice?

It may behoove you to check your status with Santa since Christmas is right around the corner! Luckily, I am sweeter then ribbon candy!

The last of the Halloween pictures

At work, we take Halloween seriously! Yes, we do a holiday party around Christmas time, but Halloween is the REAL party! The library is host to a trick-or-treat party for parents and kids, complete with goody bags, apple cider, and picture-taking station. Then the kids go around to everyone's offices to fill their bags with even more candy!

And I am right at the epicenter as my office is IN the library! That also means I get to help decorate, which is tons of fun (and tons of work). My friend Jay created this creepy monster bookcase. I decided to create a few new projects this year. This is my spooky jar display. Some of the jars include: egg capsules and their resultant mucous (fake plastic grapes in green water), sample taken from lycanthrope den (the contents of my vacuum cleaner after doing the living room) and maggots of flesh eating flies (plastic stuffing pellets suspended between oil and red water).

This big plastic bag spider was also new. He's stuffed with crumpled newspapers, which we always have TONS of at the end of each week when we recycle the old newspapers.

This week is always festive at work and people wear their costumes on Friday! Here's my Punky Brewster costume.

I did lots of spirderwebs this year, I think it added an eerie vibe without being ogry. (I made a promise to a few people at work not to put the dead bodies/body parts/gory stuff out this year since some kids got scared last year.)

Bloggy Giveaway winner!

Random.org generated our winner this morning. (You can thank my husband for reminding me to do it because we are both terribly sick with colds and I would have been happy to drink tea and watch tv ALL DAY!)

Our winner of the pattern of her choice is:
Mudpies and Mary Janes

Congrats! I'll be emailing you shortly.

Talk about swaps

Rachel from Swap-Bot said some really nice things about the SwapDex and CorgiPants on the blog over there! How sweet is she?

I am expanding SwapDex to include interviews with swappers and swap hosts. If you are interested in being featured, just let me know! I am looking for a wide variety of swappers and hosts, I think it'll be a lot of fun!

Sad News

Roswita
Originally uploaded by Corgipants

In the midst of all the Halloween fun and festivities, we have had a sad event occur. Roswita, the decade-old fancy goldfish passed on. She was looking sickly, having not eaten in about four days, and took a turn for the worse. I kept putting food in every night, hoping for the best but it seems her time had come. Today she was worse, struggling to right herself and with some obvious loss of motion in her tail so I had to make the decision to make her death quick and hopefully painless rather than prolong the inevitable and have her starve to death slowly. I hope I made the right decision. I know, it may seem silly to be putting so much thought into a goldfish but she was with us for over 5 years. We adopted her (along with two other fish) from a family that was moving away and couldn't take her. She'd been with us through two moves and had grown to nearly 8 inches. It will be very quiet in her corner without the blurb-blurb of her happy tail stirring the water.

Getting spooky at work!

Another Halloween themed post for Living Locurto'sHalloween Blog Party! This time, for charity!

Our fall/Halloween Drop in and Decorate party was today! We decorated nearly 200 cookies for donation to the local shelter and we'll deliver them tomorrow. The lovely Lydia who heads up Drop In now had a blog for DI&D so go visit and say hi! And I encourage everyone to get a few friends together and decorate some cookies for a food pantry, shelter, or crisis center. Everyone has enjoyed the cookies we've donated so much, sometimes it's the simplest things that can brighten someone's day. A decorated cookie carries with it the time, effort and creativity you put into it and people can feel that. Here are some pictures from today's gathering.

Here are some of my fantastic coworkers hard at work.

This is our jumble of a conference table, full of cookies, frosting and decorating supplies. And here are all the lovely cookies. Well, not all, but some!

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival

I'm very excited about the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival because this time around, I have something to give away! One lucky winner will receive my Pillowcase Pinnie pattern OR Black Forest Scoodie pattern (their choice), available at the Make-Do Mercantile! At the end of the giveaway period, I'll be using the random number generator to choose who the winner will be! Gotta love the fact that they're both PDFs so you'll get your prize instantly and can start whipping up some crafty goodness!

To enter, just leave a comment and make sure to leave your email if it's not available somewhere on your website. How else will I email you your prize? Last day for entry is October 31. More giveaways at the Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival! Visit each one for a chance to win!