Playing at Cornerstone Coffee tonight!

I'm sorry this post is so late in coming... but, oh well. Life just has a way of getting in the way!
Wayne, Colin and I are playing at Cornerstone tonight! So I hope to see all of my local friends there. (Hint-hint, if you're a local friend!!) :) Wayne will be playing with Quinn, Austen and Hannah, each separately, starting at 8:00. I think that'll take about an hour and then the trio will play. If you missed Hannah performing on Beatles Night, you won't want to miss this!! She and Wayne are going to play Hey, Jude!! She does an amazing job.

We were hoping for this to be a gig for the entire band (bass and drums included), but our bassist had a video shoot to do, with his real job, in New Jersey and it just happened to be this weekend! :( So, hopefully everyone will be available for the next gig. We're hoping to play at Cornerstone again in March. Keep your ears open.

We're also looking to play at some festivals/fairs this summer, so if any of you have any ideas about those, I'd love to hear them! (We're talking Oregon, southwest Washington events). I have contacted "The Bite of Oregon", The Oregon Garden "Brewfest", Carlton's A Walk in the Park and the people who run the Brown Bag Concerts and the Farmer's Market. If you have any other ideas, please share them with me! Thanks!

OK... this is it for now. How are those gratitude journals coming along?
Have a wonderful weekend!!

Did I say how much I appreciate your comments?

Have I said how much I appreciate your comments? Because, I really do! It's important to me to know that people are reading my blog and to know that they're enjoying it. If you become a "follower", then you will be alerted when I put up a new post. So, you don't have to keep checking it, wondering if I've posted or not! How cool is that??

So, thanks for those comments and keep 'em comin'!

Teri

Pillow fabrics... who'd have thought it could be so complicated?!

I've been trying to find fabric to redo some pillows that we inherited from my sister-in-law...along with a love-seat. We have a couch that is this blue that's dark, but not quite Navy blue. You know, one of those colors that's a little "off" from all the other fabric that you look at... or so it seems! I found a collection at Craft Warehouse, in Salem, yesterday, that I now wish I had bought a few pieces of!! But, I remembered that I want to go for a "cottagey" look, so I went with these more whimsical pieces of Moda/Mary Engelbreit fabric. I'm going to start with the smaller pillow, so only got three fat-quarters. Now that I have them home, I'm not sure they're going to work! We have an old chair that we had reupholstered a few years ago... in a more classic (?) fabric. (Also pictured here.) Am I going to be able to get away with Cottagey, with this other fabric?? Ugh. This is why I don't get these kinds of projects done!! I get too caught up in the details and don't "just do it"! I could never work for Nike! :) Help?? Anyone?? I'll definitely have to ask my friend, Angela, over at http://www.cottagemagpie.com/! She'll know what to do!! :)

I've looked and looked, online, trying to find that fabric I saw yesterday, but to no avail. I can't believe I haven't learned, well, until this very moment, that when I see a fabric that I want to use, to write down who the maker is and what it's called!! I wanted to post a pic of it, too, but I guess that's not going to happen right now. Maybe later. I know you'll all be waiting, ever so anxiously, for that picture to show up. :)

Thanks for listening!

Teri

As I said, in all fairness, I should also include a photo of Jack's Gratitude book. It's also very nice and has information in it about being grateful. Very helpful information, I might add! Information that made me have an "ah-hah" moment after questioning this one part of being grateful for several years!! Yay! I'm so excited to have figured this part out!

Of course, you could use any kind of notebook, with binder paper in it! I just find that pretty books are more inspiring. :)

(Gratitude: A Daily Journal, copyright, 2007, by D. D. Watkins and Self-Esteem Seminars LP

Happy New Year and Gratitude

Day Book, inside.

Happy new year to all of you!

I think this is going to be a great year, in many ways, and I look forward to seeing all the good things that are coming my way....and yours, too!

We had a small gathering to ring in the new year and it was a lot of fun. I am grateful that I have so many wonderful friends and even though not all of them could be here for the festivities, (our house is not big and some of them live far away!) at least I was able to celebrate with a few of them. My thanks to those who were here!

So, have you all heard about the power of being Grateful?
It is said that if you are grateful, you'll be a happier person. So, would any of you care to take the challenge that I propose? I challenge you to start a Gratitude Journal and keep it for a year. There are a couple of books that I'd recommend, for the journal. One is Jack Canfield and D.D. Watkins', Gratitude: A Daily Journal. The other helpful book, by Jack Canfield, is, The Key to Using the Law of Attraction. I highly recommend this book. But, if you haven't seen the movie, The Secret, yet, maybe you should do that, first! I had to wait for a week to rent it from Movietime a couple of years ago, but perhaps it has calmed down by now. I hope not. :)

I was looking for calendars the other day in Incahoots, (for you locals) and found these gorgeous desk calendars!! I bought three of them, for three different friends, and when one of those friends opened hers, she said it was too beautiful to fill in with appointments and meetings. I suggested using it as a Gratitude Journal... and she agreed that that was a lovely idea! You can see these books here: http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/products/?isbn=0740775448 The one I'm showing here has a butterfly theme, but the one on the website is called, "Nesting" and is a bird theme. Both equally beautiful, in my opinion. (I bought both of them!) The pages for your entries look like old ledgers. Very antiquey looking. (Shown above as I can't figure out how to put these pictures exactly where I want them to be!!) :)

So, in Jack Canfield's Gratitude Journal, he talks about thinking about your day, at the end of each day, and writing down five things that happened during that day that you are grateful for. I'd like to ask you to write just three things that you're grateful for, here, just to get you started. :) (Click on "__ comments" and it'll take you to the comment area. The ___ is for the number of comments already posted. It might say "0 comments" or "2 comments", but that's where you want to go to comment!) One of the tricky things is to be grateful for even the things that you don't really want to happen again! In my mind, it's not really about being grateful for those events or happenings, but just to be grateful, always. I heard about being grateful for everything years ago, but I haven't had a clear understanding of why you'd want to do that ~ until this morning!! What The Secret tells us, from my perspective (and now I know that I need to watch it again!!) is that what we focus on, grows. Many of us already know that. But, also, what we are grateful for - we get more of. So, why would I want to be grateful for something "bad"? But, it's not what I'm grateful for that dictates what comes to me....it's that negative happenings have a lower frequency. Positive happenings have a higher frequency. When you have higher vibrations, via love and gratitude, (your feelings and emotions) you resonate with other higher frequencies! Plus, you simply feel better and so don't attract the lower frequencies! The Secret puts it in a fairly simple manner..... easy to understand, for the most part. Watch it. I'm finding that I want to give a copy to everyone that I know!! Especially to people who are having real problems in their lives.

Inside this Day Book, at each season change, there is this beautiful layout. The one I chose is for Winter... I thought that was appropriate. :) It's the photo at the top of this post.

I just learned that the best way to put photos on here is to put all the photos on, first, and then do your text around them. So, in all fairness, I should have photos of the Jack Canfield's Gratitude book.....but, I'll do that in another post so as not to confuse myself. :)

So, are you with me on the challenge?? If so, please add what you're grateful for here, too....just three things... that's all you have to write! Then, think about them the rest of your day. (You can write more if you'd like!) Then, start a gratitude journal and intend to keep it for a year. I'd love to hear your feedback after you've been doing it for a month or so. (The beautiful calendars/day books at Incahoots are on sale right now!) If you're going to join me in this challenge, please let me know! Thanks!

Since I'm asking you to list what you're grateful for, it's only fair of me to list what I'm grateful for! I'll start out with the obvious... my wonderful husband, our four great kids and that we are all healthy.

Here's to a year of Gratitude! Happy New Year!

"Let is Snow"!! And, boy, has it!

I made this for a friend, for Christmas. I had the embroidery finished but just finished making it into a pillow today. Yeah, yeah.... I know... I'm late. What's new? I swear that I'm going to start making gifts early for next Christmas!! Early, as in... January!! No, I get all my good Christmas ideas in about the first or second week of December! I actually appreciate that stores put things out earlier these days.... it gives me good ideas earlier! I don't understand why people think they can wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start making a zillion gifts, baking a zillion cookies and batches of fudge, writing to friends that they only write to once a year, which you'd like to put a little thought into... no?? So, my friends, you can remind me, next July, that I need to start making things now, not in December!! Mabye that'll work.

Anyway, this embroidery pattern is from Crabapple Hill (http://www.crabapplehillstudio.com/) and Meg Hawkey. I love her stuff! My oldest daughter, who reminds us nearly every day that she hates the snow, asked me if I could make another one of these pillows, but, instead, make it read, "Make it stop snowing!" Such a wit. No fear, dear, it was 50 degrees today! Downright balmy! I think the snow is gone for a while.

Personally, I loved it... but, then I had the freedom to stay home... I didn't need to try to get to work, etc.... It did keep us from music practice with our bandmates a couple of times, but, oh, well.... we'll make up for that! :) I loved the snow falling while Christmas carols were playing and the smell of baking cookies was wafting through the house. I can't tell you how many times one of my kids came in the backdoor and said, "Oh! It smells so good in here!!"... either because of cookies or dinner cooking. Music to a mother's ears, for sure... especially when you have teenagers!

We had a wonderful Christmas as I hope all of you did. I love this "lull" week of getting ready for the New Year. I'm excited about the coming year... not that this year was bad; it was a great year... but I look forward to all the fantastic things the Universe has in store for us!

I wish you all a happy, healthy and properous New Year!

Teri

This was the view outside our back door a few days ago. We definitely had a White Christmas this year! I thoroughly enjoyed all the snow, but I was able to stay home if I needed to, so that made it nicer, for sure. We did have a limb snap, after being weighted down onto the power line that goes to our house! It wasn't ten minutes before Wayne called the Water and Light people, to alert them of the issue, that I heard it go. It landed on the top of Wayne's truck, but, luckily, it was small enough that it didn't do any damage...and we were really lucky that it didn't pull down that power line!!! We're grateful that we never lost power.... our home was toasty and cozy all through the cold-spell, even the days that didn't get higher than the 20's. :)