I am in the process of creating my crocheted kindness!  This year, in addition to the food that my family usually donates to the Thanksgiving collection at our local Community Center, I am making crocheted pine cones to add.  I have a bunch made already and every evening I work on making more.  Here is what the pine cones look like:

I chose pine cones because they are not something that is specific to any religion and they are a symbol of love to me because of the fond childhood memories I have of collecting them and creating with them.  I’m going to add a ribbon with a little note that says, “You are cared about” to each one.  I’ll be delivering my pine cones and food to the center this Wednesday!

Also, today, my daughter and I will be shopping for the annual toy collection that takes place in our school district!  I’m thinking craft project kits will be perfect!

This post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention that I have been on the receiving end of so much kindness in the past few months!  It has been a difficult few months and the love and support that has been given to me and my daughter has been beautiful.  Love in the form of blessing coins, and cookies and handwritten notes and blog comments and emails.  I feel the hugs!  Thank you!  Your kindness has made a huge difference!  I’ve also received so many small kindnesses during my many visits to our high school in the form of teenagers holding doors for me and letting me fit into traffic and thank you’s when I hold doors for them.  All this kindness fills me with hope!

Now, go visit Se’Lah and Anyes for links to a lot more kindness!

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Michael Franti & Spearhead – The Sound of Sunshine

Happy Weekend, my friends!  You help me see the sunshine!

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I’m not sure if it’s visible at this size, but in this first image there’s a spot that looks like dust on my lens.  It’s not, it’s a dragonfly caught in flight!

Deep breath in, let it out.  Okay.  That’s what I’m doing now to calm down from a bloggy panic!  I happily logged on to my blog today to discover all of my posts and pages were GONE.  AAAAAAAHHHHHH!  A little more than two years of blogging, gone.  I needn’t have worried one bit.  All it took was a chat with Neil at my host and a little repair work on his part and all is back in order!  Thank you, Neil!

This weekend is our one tiny little summer vacation.  I hope you have a great weekend with lots of rest, relaxation and fun!  See you on Tuesday!

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Happy Birthday!  Kath, I hope your day is wonderful!

It’s a wonderful, big birthday for Kath (one half of soeurs du jour) today!  Stop in over there when you get a chance to enjoy the party!

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The Pioneer Woman chose this photo of mine to be a contestant  in her latest photography assignment, America!  What an exciting thing to wake up to today!

Speaking of photos on Flickr, have you seen how the images are larger there now?!  And if you click on an image and then get a little magnifying glass, and click again, you see the image even larger, and on a black background?  Love it! You can try it on my photo above, which I linked to Flickr.  Click on it here, then click it again in Flickr.  Cool!

I’m working on creating a crochet cricket thanks to the idea which was given to me by my blogging buddy, Katie from Can’t Get There From Here!  Thanks for the idea, Katie!

I’m still working on the knit Long Beach washcloth that I showed you here.  I think I am the slowest knitter ever!

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends!

Happy Thursday to all!

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My 10th post, in August, 2008, was a post about my (usually) sweet little pup, Timmy!  You can visit the original post here:  The Wild “Child”! The photos in the post are not the greatest quality but I love how you can see what a happy pup Timmy is!

Timmy and his frisbee

I’m inviting 5 of you to play along, if you’re willing!  I tag:

Katie at Can’t Get There From Here

Leslye and Taylor at Spread Your Wings

Puna at Life Signatures

Mrs. E at Easy Street

Tracy at Pink Purl

And 6th, I invite everyone else to play along, too!  Let me know if you do!  I would love to see what you were posting about in the beginning of your blogging adventure!

Kimmie, thank you so much for inviting me to play along!  It was really fun to look back to the beginning and see what I was posting about!

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The prayer flags are brightening my kitchen on these dreary colorless days of winter and they are brightening my heart, too!  Thank you so much, Se’Lah!  You are a jewel!

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Awhile back I was given the Honest Scrap Award by mrs. e at Easy Street!  Thank you, mrs. e!  The rules are to post 10 completely honest things about yourself.  The thing is I’m having a really hard time thinking of 10 things that I haven’t told you already, and 10 things that wouldn’t completely bore you out of your mind!  So here they are.  Just skip this part if it’s too boring.

1. In 5th grade I had a crush on the cutest boy in my class.  He was smart, blond, athletic and outgoing. He didn’t know I existed.  He liked the cutest girl in our class and it wasn’t me.  In high school I saw him get into a fight with another boy in the cafeteria.  It brought me to tears.
2. I like liver.  As a special treat for me when I was a kid, my mom would occasionally buy chicken livers and cook them for me!  She would just boil them with dried minced onion and I’d eat them!
3. I brought a photo of our dog at the time, Bart, into the labor room with me when I was having our first child.  The birthing teacher had told us to bring something to focus on, you know, to make it hurt less.  It didn’t work.  The epidural worked much better!
4. In grade school and middle school there was a girl that was horrible to me.  School administrators either didn’t or couldn’t do anything to stop it.  She was gone in high school.  I’m thinking she ended up in juvenile detention, or something like that.  Then, many years later, my husband and I bought our first house.  Her parents lived right next door to us.  Her adult brother still lived at home.  He and his father had weekly fist fights.  We only lived there a year.
5. I drink green tea iced tea and black tea hot tea, and almost nothing else.  Both with only a little bit of sugar.  I love me some tea!
6. Ever since my mom died 14 years ago, I dream about her almost every night.  When she first died, the dreams were bad nightmare dreams.  Now they are good, or silly!
7. I was in a car accident with my dad when I was pregnant with my daughter, one month before my mom died.  My dad and I and my sweet baby were all fine.
8. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer I was eleven.  She was seeing doctors a lot.  I decided I wanted to be a doctor.  That didn’t happen.  And now I realize that my feelings back then were that if I were a doctor, bad things couldn’t happen.  A kid’s way of thinking.
9. My favorite pair of shoes is my children’s size 3 North Face Prophecy sneakers.  I cannot believe that I used to wear heels every day when I worked in an office!
10. The nicest dress I have ever owned is a maternity dress that I bought to wear to a wake.  I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes, ever.  Even my wedding dress was cheap!  But, I was pregnant and had nothing acceptable to wear for the wake, and obviously, I had to get a dress quick.  I’m sure I cringed when I paid for it.  I still have it hanging in my closet, 12 years later.  About once a year I still admire how nice it is!

I know everyone is very busy at this time of year, so I’m not going to pass this on to any specific bloggers.  If you want to tell us some honest scrap about yourself, I would love to read it!

And…not as long ago, the creative blogging team of Kelly and Victoria at Design Ties gave me the Kreativ Blogger Award!  Thank you, Kelly and Victoria!  Luckily, the rules for this award are to tell seven things about myself that you might not know!  Pick any seven things from my list of ten above and you’ve got them!  Also, I need to pass the Kreativ Blogger award on to seven other bloggers!  Here they are!

• Maya at Springtree Road – Dyeing yarn, spinning yarn, knitting, photography!  Maya is an artist with all of it!
• Tracy at Pink Purl – I just met Tracy through Se’Lah and I’m so happy I did!  I know she makes beautiful jewelry and beautiful cupcakes.  I need to do some more exploring on her site!
• Lailani at The Green Grass Grows All Around – Lailani is an entrepreneur.  I so admire her can do, positive attitude.  And…she just posted a really beautiful shadow box that she made for her mother-in-law!  I love hand made gifts!
• ELK at Red or Gray Art – ELK just finished a month of posting collages that she created daily on her art site.  As with her photography, ELK’s art is something that makes me feel joyful!
• Leslye and Taylor at Spread Your Wings – A mom and daughter team of artists/photographers!  Beautiful!
• Katie at Can’t Get There From Here – Katie brings us her creative writing every day.  I love her style and I always look forward to reading her stories about her girls, Gracie and Bee, and about her running and her family, and her Love Thursday posts are always something to think about.
• Kimmie at Words on Paper Scraps – Kimmie combines her words and photography so beautifully!

Please don’t stress over passing this award on or posting your seven things.  Only do it if you want to!  Enjoy this season as I enjoy your blogs!

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Now for the exciting news!  Se’Lah is having a *Gift of Jewels* giveaway!  Se’Lah and some very cool blogging friends of hers (and me, how’d I get in there?) have made or selected some special gifts to be given away.  Check out Se’Lah’s blog every day from now until December 7, 2009 to get in on the fun!

Do you have a memory you would like to share today?  Just leave a link to your blog post or photo in Mr. Linky!  If you don’t have a blog, tell us about a memory in the comment section.  I want to hear from everybody!  (If Mr. Linky  isn’t working, you can put your link in the comments section.)  Please remember to:

• Leave a link to the specific blog post, not to your general blog address, to make it easier for people to find your memory post.
• Make sure your link works and that it goes to your specific memory post.
• Put a link back to here in your post so that your readers can come and read about everyone’s memories!
• Visit the other participants and please leave comments on their posts!  We all love comments!
• Enjoy the party and come back next week for Monday Memories: The Fortieth!

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