Well..... It's been forever since I enterred any new posts...so here is the scoop.. Meggie is home for Christmas break. We put off decorating the tree until she was here with us, so we decorated it this evening. While the kids were busy putting the ornaments on, I read a short story from a book that Megan brought us.. Chirstmas stories from the Little House books. I read aloud and they had a great time, the only thing missing was a log on the fire. Which makes me think of cold weather. We do have snow on the ground and may end up with a small storm before Christmas. I just love white Christmases. So festive and cozy indoors.

The other new news around here is that I took a part time job to get out of the house a bit. I am loving working just a few days a week at Beads Inspired, our local new bead store that has amazingly beautiful supplies. Tons of real stone beads in all sizes and lots of incredible findings. Love working and playing with all the fun things. I will post some photos a bit later.

Another thing that has happened and I don't know if this is going to sound strange or not, hopefully not. I know that I said I wasn't going to enter HOF this year. I had resigned to just skipping it all together. Well, I dreampt Nana Sara and in my dream she asked why I wasn't going to enter and I told her. Her response was, "well, Mija, you need to do it, but do it in Spanish, for me," so... I am enterring. I know I won't win, but it's not about winning this time. It's about continueing doing what I love doing and preserving a big part of my heritage by completing it in Spanish. It's coming together rather nicely.

I have also decided to step back from the design teams, to stop doing things that add too much stress to my life. Working with different companies is a lot of fun, and the rewards are pretty good, but, it's becoming more of a task where I have to force my creativity, and that's not what I like. I want to create and play for the sake of fun, not because of deadlines. Giving up my teaching on Creativity Unbound was a big decision and it was a hard one to make, but, I know it was the right one for me. It's still a great site and I will enjoy seeing where it goes from here.

I feel like I am jumping all over the place, I guess that's what the mind does at 3:59 am...hmm.. oh.. other interesting news.. with working at the bead store I am able to play with beads and create beautiful jewelry and get paid at the same time. Can't beat that... I submitted a few things to Bead Trends a while ago and they are publishing four of my items in the March/April issue.

I went shopping the other day with Shelly and Lori D, and we did a power shop day down in SF. We left at 8 am and didn't get home until 12:45 am the next morning. I got all my Christmas shopping done in a day.. woot hoot. while we were there we went to a Scrapbook store and Lori D bought 601 and then asked me to show her my layout. I did and the sales clerks overheard us and asked to see the layout.... it was kinda funny.. they made a big "to Do" over being pubbed and a bunch of other gals got around and wanted to know how I put the page together... it was fun... well... I am rambling so I have to hit the hay and try to get some rest. I think Meggie will be glad that I finally posted something new...

Love you all soooooooo very very much.
Mary