The Sewing Mom

I received this in an email from my sister and couldn’t take my eyes off of it the entire time I watched it.  It’s absolutely fantastic and what a treat it must have been for the people who just happened to be having lunch in the food court on this particular afternoon.

Wow!  Our week long holiday is coming to an end and I am sad about that!  It’s really been very relaxing and I have enjoyed it immensely!

My daughter has been home from school all week and she’s spent time with us and with a lot of her friends.  She’s been very busy, but she has truly been enjoying herself.  She goes back to school tomorrow.  My husband has been off since Thursday and he too seems to be very relaxed.  He even took my daughter out Black Friday shopping  Friday morning and they both seemed to have a good time!  (He hates to shop!)  I worked a few hours every day except for Thursday when I spent the day cooking, my favorite meal of the year to cook.  I worked early morning hours so I’ve had the afternoons off to spend with my family.  I haven’t even left the house since Wednesday and I love it!  I did quite a bit of online shopping yesterday for my daughter and that was fun, she loaded the online shopping carts and then I edited and paid!  It just doesn’t get any easier than that, especially when most of the sites were offering free shipping.

Today my daughter and I will venture out to the real stores.  We only have a few items on our list, so we’ll probably just enjoy spending some time together before she goes back to school in the morning.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful week! 

Funny Graphics hosted at MySpaceGraphicsandAnimations.net

Today, while I am busy cooking for my family, I want to take the time to say I am thankful for the opportunity to have my blog and to be able to share my thoughts and creations with so many people around the world. To all my readers in the U.S., I wish you all a Blessed Thanksgiving!

I’m a bit concerned, typically by this time of year I am all but done with my holiday shopping. This year, I’ve barely even started. Truth be told, I think I’ve only purchased 2 small items, both for my daughter. It’s not quite Thanksgiving and I can feel the panic setting in. I don’t like crowds, so I avoid the malls during the holidays. I am so thankful for the internet, I can avoid the crowds & long lines and still get what I’m looking for.

Have you ever shopped at Zappos.com for gifts? They carry many of the same products that the major department stores at the mall carry, same brands, same colors, so I’m thinking, why not save myself the misery of going to the mall and order from them instead? I remember this site from years ago, it sold shoes and boots. Now they have done some serious expansion and the carry everything, including jackets and coats to jewelry to sporting goods. I have at least one item from every one of those categories on my shopping list! I can probably get all my shopping done at just this one website!

Since moving to Texas 3 years ago, my daughter hasn’t owned a coat. We don’t need the heavy weight coats we wore in Chicago, but still, it can get cold enough to want something warmer than a sweatshirt. I really like the selection of coats offered at Zappos.com, my favorite is the one pictured above. I love the design, it looks like the old style wool peacoat, but this one is made from fleece, more appropriate for where we live. I’m hoping my daughter likes it too!

How’s your holiday shopping coming along?

Yesterday we drove to Arlington to attend a high school football playoff game being played in Cowboys Stadium. This behemoth is nothing more than a self-made monument to Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones. It is really a disgrace that he has built something so ginormous to glorify himself and line his pockets with gold. Mind you, this is simply my opinion and, since this is MY blog, I am allowed to say what I feel. If you disagree, you can skip reading this post and move along. Come back on another day and I will show you some sewing I’ve been working on. For now, let me tell you about our visit to Jerry’s house.

We arrived a full 2 hours prior to game time, turning onto the street in front of the stadium itself as directed by ALL of the street signs. From that point on, it took us a full hour just to drive 4 blocks to a parking lot that they had not roped off or closed. The traffic was absolutely horrendous, even with traffic cops trying to keep things moving. People are arriving from all directions and it was more like chaos. I could only be thankful that we had allowed plenty of time. There were a total of 4 high school playoff games being played in the stadium yesterday, all back to back. One entry ticket allowed to stay as long as you liked once you entered the building. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind parking at a distance and having to walk, that’s to be expected. What bothered me was the simple fact that it should not take a full hour to go a measly 4 blocks to park! When Jerry built his glass house, he made absolutely no thought as to how the people buying the tickets to get in would have to arrive.

After finally getting parked, we began the long trek back to the stadium along a nice paved walkway. We followed the path as far as it would take us, along with several hundred other people and then we came upon a 6 lane road that we needed to cross. Of course, just as half of us stepped off the curb to cross, we hear yelling, words screaming at us to go to the crosswalk! Yea right, seem logical, except the paved pathway hadn’t led us anywhere near a crosswalk, so now we all had to hike another full block in the wrong direction, just to get to a crosswalk! What a pain in the ass! There were quite a few elderly people trying to keep up, and I think most of them fell by the wayside somewhere along the way because I never saw them again.

Eventually, we made it into the stadium where I did make one simple purchase. I paid my hard earned $6 for a small Dr. Pepper and then my husband and I made our way to the section we wanted to sit in. It was all general admission and we needed to wait for a game to finish so that crowd would get up and vacate their seats so that we could then occupy them to watch our own team. Of course, the great Mr. Jones must again not have been thinking, because the stairways up/down the seating areas were all very narrow. This made it supremely difficult for there to be 2 way traffic, those leaving and those arriving. I even had a lady yell at me because she said I was going the wrong direction on the stairs. UGH! After dealing with the traffic nightmare outside the stadium, she should feel quite fortunate to still have her face!

In the end, we had decent seats, mid-level on the 20 yard line, just above where the marching band (including my daughter) were sitting. Then came another disturbing fact. As the band began playing the National Anthem, I recalled hearing that Mr. Jones had actually forgotten to include our country’s flag in his stadium. Indeed, I had to ask my husband where the flag was. He pointed WAAAAY up high to the rafters. Yes, if you look past the giant Pepsi sign, you can see our beautiful flag, flying in the dark. Mr. Jerry Jones, you should be ashamed of yourself! While you show your losing Cowboys on your megatron, you gave no thought to the freedoms awarded you in this great country of ours that actually allowed you to build this monument.