Oops....its January

ok...so I lied.  I did not keep up with my little blog here over the holidays.  I meant to...really I did.  But with all the birthdays and holiday goings on, I just didn't make it.  So I am back and hopefully better than ever.

We had a great Christmas.  Just before Christmas Alan got a job offer!  Talk about a Christmas miracle.  He starts his new job later this week and we are just so happy! Yay...only 21 months of searching:)  We had a very enjoyable holiday with lots of family and our annual Christmas Night Feast complete with a Roast Beast!  We splurge once a year and invite all our family and open our house to friends that are in town for a very yummy dinner with a crown roast as the main attraction.  Its a fun night and helps to just tide that Christmas feeling over just a little bit longer.

The boys had a great break and were really appreciative this Christmas.  Its the first time they have been able to stay home for the entire break....ever!  They have either gone to daycare or a relative's house early while I was at work.  Needless to say the return to "the real world" has been a little like re-entering earth's atmosphere at top speed.

Almost Thanksgiving...Already??

I can't believe it is almost Thanksgiving! Geez...The next couple of months will prove to be a whirlwind of events, as we have major holidays and as if that wasn't enough; I have birthdays for both my children, my sister and both of my parents as well. Throw in a couple of close friends birthdays not to mention countless holiday parties and get togethers and you've got yourself a whirlwind of sorts.

I kicked off my official holiday season by attending the Southern Christmas Show last Friday. Always fun. It got my creative juices flowing and I began working on some projects over the weekend. Plus I am hanging curtains and (creating)photo decor throughout the house, so it looks like we've done something besides unpack when folks come over for festivities this year. Which is why I wasn't blogging much over the last week. I will do my best to stay on top of designing, but with the economy as it is, I will be handcrafting much of the giving we do this year and of course that will take time away from designing, plus I have a job and a family...soooo....you get the idea, right? I am striving to be as organized as possible, but it is a struggle!

I have some new products this week.

Hope Chest, my follow up kit to Hummingbird Lane is released in all its glory at digital freebies today, which means it is 30% off through Monday. Its a lovely kit with a vintagy feel.

I am still stocking my shelves over at my kjoi store. You can find the following kits over there:

 

And my Cotton Candy Freebie will be gone after this week.  I'll pack it up and offer it as a mini-kit after this week, so get it while its still here! Scroll down or click on the Simple Girl Products link found in the link list.

Toodles!

The Hummingbird Lane Collection

This has been a really popular collection at my digital freebies store and I now have the entire collection stocked in my kjoi store! 

 

You can get this entire collection for the low, low price of $13.00.  But if you want to buy individual pieces of the collection, you can do that too!  Click here to go to my kjoi store and shop til you drop!  I was finishing up my new Hope Chest kit, its going to be a terrific accompanyment to the Hummingbird Lane kit!

Check out the sneak peek!

This dreaming thing...I think its overrated

Seriously. I'm leaning that way.  And for the record, I'm not speaking in the grandiose idyllic dreaming of the future sense.  I'm talking in your jammies, lay your head on the pillow, fall asleep, wake up in the morning and recall dreams from the night before.  Pretty simple and nothing particularly special, right?

Well for me, this hasn't happened with regularity in close to 15 years.  I would say that over these years I awaken daily with a blank memory of the last evening...completely blank...with a sense that something was dreamed but completely unable to remember one tiny detail. From time to time I would remember a dream, probably on average about 1-2 maybe 3 per month. And usually the way it would work is that I would remember a bit of the dream in the morning and go about the day and by evening, couldn't tell you what I dreamed last night....that is when I would actually dream.

I began to notice that my nightly dreaming was below average sometime in high school.  But even in high school, I would dream more often than I have over recent years.  I even remember relating my increased dreaming to being blissfully head over heels in love with my high school sweetheart, whom I was convinced was my soulmate, otherwise why would my nightly dreaming have increased, right?  The dreaming was sparse in college and became sparser still after college when I entered the real world(and those "dreams of the future" became harder to attain).

I began to accept it as a way of life, Tanya just doesn't dream at night very often.  Certainly, if I did I would remember it.  Most of the people I know who recall dreams, even multiple ones, tend to be fitful sleepers or even suffer from sleep issues.  And I slept well, always had.  I just attributed it to that; I am a hard sleeper and therefore, I don't have many dreams.   So for me I figured it was just the ying to my yang...I sleep well, therefore I do not dream.

This habit continued even into my recent marriage which is an enormous contrast to my husband. (so there goes my "if I am with my soulmate I will dream" theory)  He wakes up everyday with some bizzare dream sequence to discuss.  Case in point; A couple of weeks ago a friend and fellow competitor for a job he had interviewed for was eaten by a T-rex from the car.  He will wake up and some days look at me funny, because some fella in his dream had swept me off my feet and whisked me away (this usually requires me to bake something with chocolate in order to assure him that it was indeed just a dream and no-one is after his woman, believe me).  Most mornings after he retells his dream(s), I just look at him puzzled and tell him "You sure have an active imagination."  I rarely can share anything with him...because there's nothing to share, dream folder is empty.

Imagine my curiosity then as to why I am suddenly flooded with dreams.  I have been having dreams nearly everynight for the last 2-3 weeks.  I am still not remembering them for long...except the one I had a couple of weeks ago that my ex had kidnapped me and the kids and was threatening to kill us in some old abandoned house...and my husband was searching for us but couldn't find us...I could hear him, but he couldnt find us.  I however, hold my husband responsible for this one, because he made me watch the Blair Witch Project start to finish(which I had never done before).  He of course fell asleep with the remote hidden somewhere and I was too scared to move to turn it off.  But still, I have not been able to shake that dream.

I dreamed again last night...I won't bore you with the details.  But today I am seriously wondering why I am having all these dreams.  And honestly, I'm not sure if I like it.  I had become accustomed to my waking up with a mostly rested, blank slate each day.  Now I am waking up and my mind is already cluttered trying to make sense of nonsensical happenings that galloped through while I slept.  And so I find myself distracted lately, wondering what the dreams mean...do they mean anything?  I am taking to interpretting them and probably getting it completely wrong.  And I find myself affected by these dreams.  Waking up with feelings and moods already formed but having to backtrack to the dreams to try to figure out why I am waking up confused or grumpy or scared, for no apparent reason.  So I'm thinking this whole dreaming thing...its a little overrated.  I'm kinda missing my blissful, however dull sleep.

New Kits, Freebie Tease...and a few pics from Halloween

It's taken me weeks to complete this kit, "Pink and Poofy Cotton Candy" because somewhere in the middle of it I lost my creative focus.  Notably the less I visit Facebook, the more focused and creative I manage to be...hmmmmm....could there possibly be a connection?  This kit is the next installment in my "What I love about Fall" series.  Although I am afraid I may have to abandon this series for now as I must gear up for the holidays!  Can you believe it?  Christmas is right around the corner!  So much to do so little time!

You can pick up this kit as a new release this week, beginning November 11 at Digital Freebies (which means it will be 30% off the first week).  While you are there, look around because I am also releasing some templates this week.

I've got several kits in the works that will be released over the next few weeks and some paper packs too.  I'll be releasing a follow up to Hummingbird Lane, called "Hope Chest".  The color scheme will coordinate completely with the Hummingbird Lane kit and the feel of the kit will be somewhat vintage. Look for it to be released next week at Digital Freebies.  You will also find a fall/Thanksgiving themed freebie for the Friday Freebie at Digital Freebies on November 21 with a coordinating kit to be released the following week(Thanksgiving week).  I've also got several Christmas things in the works, so be sure to keep up with the blog so you know where to go to find my new items and upcoming sales...so you can get the best deal!

I am slowly but surely adding to my new store over at Kjoi.  Its been a slow process and I am planning to have a sale over there on everything once I get all my items into the store!  Possibly a big sale since I've been so slow in loading my store.  Be sure to sign up for my newsletter(you'll get a little freebie) so I can keep you updated on sales!

I forgot to upload a halloween picture.  The boys are star wars crazy lately, as is evident by this photo of them in all their Halloween regalia. The boys went outside and Alan took photos of them and they put on a bit of a light saber jousting show for the neighbors.

These pictures actually went missing, they just disappeared from my memory card, even after I had reviewed them hours later.  I was able to recover them however using a free software called zero assumption recovery. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I've got this freebie available to whet your appetite for my new Cotton Candy themed kit:

Thanks for stopping by!

~tanya