The Sewing Mom

Every year I know what Christmas gifts I’m buying for my family, and friends, but the people I find most difficult to buy for are people we come in contact with almost daily and yet we know very little about them. The people I’m talking about are school teachers. What do we give to someone who plays such an important role in our children’s lives?

After working side by side with teachers the past five years, one thing I’ve learned is that they really enjoy receiving gift certificates. They can then go purchase the things they enjoy and choose the colors and sizes themselves. I know I lost track of how many candles these teachers received and so did they. So I’m thinking that gift certificates will be what my daughter gives to her three teachers this year. Now that the decision of what to buy is made I have to decide do we buy gift certificates to particular stores and if so, which stores? I don’t know these teachers and I don’t know where they like to shop. I hate the thought of giving gift certificates that never get used, that’s ust a waste of money in my opinion.

I found this wonderful VISA Gift Certificate that can be customized with your own photo! I thought it would be so much fun to take a picture of my daughter’s class and upload the photo to have it imprinted directly onto the VISA giftcard! So, not only does the teacher get a personalized gift card that she can use any where she chooses, but she gets a keepsake photo, it’s like getting two gifts in one! Can’t get any better than that.

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No recipe this evening, we decided after our long adventure to the airport that we would go out to dinner. In addition to my daughter, my mom and sister arrived yesterday for a short visit on their way to Arizona, and they rode along to the airport with us.

We saw a number of restaurants close to the airport and thought we’d stop at one on the way back. Unfortunately, the offramp led us past where we wanted to be and I couldn’t figure out how to get back to restaurant row, so I decided to get back on the highway and head closer to home.

We wound up going to Mimi’s Cafe and had a wonderful dinner. We also ordered dessert and brought it home. I’m sitting here eating bread pudding and it’s delicious. My mom ordered a brownie with ice cream and the brownie is about 5×5x2 inches! It’s enormous! Wonder if she’ll be able to sleep tonight after she eats it!

We lived in the Chicago area for 7 years, up until April of this year.  In that time we had some very good friends get married in the Chicago area.  We saw every type of Chicago Wedding from the huge formal  Catholic wedding to the small intimate beach wedding on Lake Michigan.  No matter what style or how big the wedding, the details in planning a wedding are pretty much the same.  A wedding is typically one of the biggest and most important event in a couple’s life and so attention to detail is important. 

One of my very dear friends got married in September on the shores of Lake Michigan.  It was a medium size wedding as it was the second marriage for both the bride and the groom, but I believe it was even more important to my friend than her first wedding for that very reason.  She was much more cautious going into this second marriage and wanted everything to be perfect, a beautiful celebration of getting a second chance at a life she had dreamed of.

I think having a source that provides organizing tools and lists of local wedding vendors to supply everything from the wedding cakes to the flowers can help anyone plan their beautiful and special event. If you can’t afford a wedding planner (and who can?), Chicago.1weddingsource.com is an excellent alternative.

Technorati Tags: Chicago, Chicago Wedding

My husband left again today on yet another business trip, this time he’s off to Europe.  I hope the trip improves because just getting him to the DFW airport today was very stressful.  We left the house 3 hours before his flight to make the 45 minute drive to the airport and it turned into almost an hour and a half.

We got on the I-635 westbound and came to a screeching hault.  It was so bad that people were driving their vehicles over the grass median to get off the highway and on to the side road which was also backed up.  Apparently they had been doing construction earlier in the day taking the normally 5 lanes of westbound traffic down to 2 lanes and it cause everything to come to a halt.  When we finally got just past the last lane closure we saw the workman picking up the cones and then traffic started going smoothly. Unfortunately by then, my husband was stressed about having to check in for an international flight and losing time, so he drove like a madman the rest of the way.

I haven’t heard from him and his flight should have left an hour ago, so I’m assuming that everything worked out just fine and hope he has a good trip.  We’ll see him next Saturday when we repeat the drive to the airport, I think I’ll take a different route!

We thought my mother-in-law was going to have to hire an attorney. She was stepping off a curb to cross a street at a cross walk and was struck by a motorcyclist. He dropped his bike, but other than that was uninjured. My mother-in-law on the other hand suffered head, neck and back injuries and is still suffering 8 months later.

She lives in California so we took a look at Los Angeles Criminal Defense Blog | California Criminal Attorneys Law Blog to see what rights she had. We also found some very interesting information on some of the celebrity legal issues we’re always hearing about in the news. They even provide commentary on Court TV which we found to be very interesting.

What is up with the weather?  Yesterday, in Dallas, it was 82 degrees!  Not only that, but it was humid too.  We even had to turn the air conditioner back on.  The day before we were running the heater.  When I picked my daughter up from school in the afternoon I drove the car with the top down, something I would never have been able to do past October living in the upper midwest.  This is December isn’t it? 

Most of my friends, online and IRL, are shoveling snow right now.  I’m trying to figure out out to cool down, it’s still so muggy out this morning and it’s almost 70 now.  I know we are supposed to have a front come through Sunday afternoon that will bring much cooler temperatures, but for now I guess I just have to sweat it.

This insane weather is really going to drive me nuts!

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