Busy, Busy, Busy

Hello everyone!  How have you all been doing?  Celeste, thank you for the sweet comments.  I so appreciate them.  You are a sweetheart!  I've missed blogging the last few days.  I have been SUPER busy trying to get Christmas card orders done!  Just finished up my sister-in-law's order and got them out in the mail today, now I'm working on a friend's order and plan on having those out tomorrow.  Also, been working on kits for work!  I feel like a chicken with its head cut off.  LOL  I love the holidays, but honestly, I can't wait for them to be over so I can maybe get ready for next year's holidays. LOL  I plan on starting months ahead of time next time, that way if I'm feelin as sick as I have been lately, I won't have to stress so much.  Also, like a dope, I just realized how all this time I could've been just using one or two layouts instead of trying to make each one different! Ha Ha!  I love making everything difficult. :p  Next year, it will be different, I swear! I am grateful for these orders though.  They help me supplement my income a little bit and I love having a great reason to get creative and make things that I otherwise might not get to make.  For instance, children's cards.  I have a nephew in my life, but no little girls so it's awesome that my friends order things for the little girls in their lives cause I have a chance to use pink and princess stuff that I have on hand.  I love girly things and to me, those are the most fun to make.  I've had a great time with all the penguins and reindeer this season though.  They are so cute!  I have so many pictures to post, it's insane!  There were a bunch of challenges I wanted to enter too, but just didn't have time.  :(  Oh well, maybe in January I can start focusing on that a little more.

Fibromyalgia has been taking a toll on me and my best friend lately.  Poor girl is having a hard time handling what it does to me and I feel so bad because I just don't have any answers.  Do any of you that suffer with this or a similar condition have this issue with friends?  Meaning, do you have friends that get so upset because of it and how you have to live, not meaning they're mad at you or anything... My best friend is there for me and not at all angry with me, just angry with this disease, condition, whatever you want to call it.  I'm so bummed because she had so kindly invited me to go to a fun and fancy lunch with another of our friends in Denver today, which is about an hour from where I live.  I was unable to go due to the way I woke up feeling and all the stuff I have to do today.  I even looked up the restaurant and found what I wanted on the menu last night and everything! :(  Having this illness makes things so unpredictable.  You can't plan for 5 minutes ahead, let alone days or weeks ahead, because you just never know how you are going to feel!  I don't even have a clue what it feels like to not have pain.  It's been two years or more now and I have completely forgotten how that feels.  Pain is a part of my life now and it is here every single day.  Not one day of relief.  I have come to accept that, not be defeated by it, but just accept it.  I choose to live my life and be as happy as I can and I don't take anything for granted anymore.  I feel just lucky to be blessed with good friends, family, a wonderful husband, and a roof over our heads, food on the table and enough leftover to do my hobbies!  It's great!  Things could be so much worse and that's what I remind myself of daily.  It's better to live and be happy than to constantly question why I have this and be bitter about it.  I feel I have this for several reasons, the main one being so I can help others who suffer the same thing.  It has brought me so many good things along with the bad and I can see that.  I'm just thankful I can.  I'm glad to have the ability to see the good in something that can be so bad.

Now for the fun stuff... I'm going to post a few cards today and explain a little about them.  Let me know what you think!  All my pics are blurry because I have something wrong with the setting on my camera, btw.  Will have my hubby fix it tonight!

The first one is a card I made custom for my friend for her daughter.  I used paper that I printed from a free file online, cut a reindeer from Create-a-Critter cricut cartridge, cardstock from my stash, stickers from my stash, and red Stickles. I cut the roof line to add a little interest to the card and inked all the edges with brown ink.  I also used a Martha Stewart punch for the snow and diamond Stickles.  I love this card and think it turned out super cute!





Next is a card I made partially from a kit that I purchased at work.  I added my own ribbon and little puffy letters for the "Season's Tweetings".  Please excuse the blurriness of the pic.  Hopefully you can still see it well enough.  If anyone wants the exact brand of anything, just hit me up and I'll get my lazy self out of bed to look at the package. ;)



Hope you all have a super fun crafty day filled with love and luck!

XO ~ Amy Jo