The Gingerbread house...

Happy New year and may I take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for 2009 and may it be filled with lots of love,  peace, health, happiness and of course creativity...So the New Years Resolutions are still just jotted down notes in my journal and will soon be an actual list.  I checked up on last years resolutions and I had a success rate of about 75%.  If I may say so myself I thought I did pretty well.  Some will be carried forward, some are no longer appropriate for me anymore and some... well... just unrealistic.  
Two years ago one of my resolutions was to start my Suzie Sews blog and maintain it for a year, so on to year three and here I still am, still wittering, still taking pictures of everything and still sewing and knitting up a storm.  I however do not feel still, no life moves and changes, it shifts in all sorts of directions and the ability to move and grow with it are an ever demanding part of life.  Each day that passes I am grateful for so much, I love the things that life teaches me and I love the creativity of my spirit.  I draw inspiration and strength from my ability to use my hands creatively.
So dare we imagine what the New Year holds for us all.  One of the things I believe in is to enjoy the moment.  Motherhood has taught me to slow down, stop the rushing and just open my eyes and see the beauty around me and take joy in the simple pleasures that surround me on a day to day basis.
Its fabulous when we make an effort and we do something out of the ordinary, but what about the ordinary, why should it be so dull?  If you promise yourself one thing this New Year, try and see the goodness in your everyday life.  The sun coming up in the morning, the first show of spring, the delicious food you eat, a successful sewing project...  a smile from a stranger... the list is endless... one of those special moments for me was the last day of the holidays...
The children and I had been invited to a friends for dinner, our kitchen cupboards needed to be restocked after the holiday period so we had no food to take... after a rummage through the kitchen I remembered that we had not done the Gingerbread House... so two excited children and I have to admit.. me too... got sticky and messy and spent a very happy couple of hours putting together our master piece of a house to take along with us as a Hostess Gift... the best part... watching four giddy children smash it to pieces at the end of their meal and eat it all up...

So after a rather sparse time on the making front, I feel inspired, the sewing room is all tidy (with a gorgeous new cupboard to store my fabric in) and ready to spring into action and that is the place I am going to right now...  Wishing you all the very best for the 2009...

I Wish You Your Best Year YET...

Well was it a good one? I thank you for all your lovely comments and emails...I have thought a lot over the last few days about blogging. It was my last years resolution to start one and commit to it for a year. So officially I can stop now. I have so enjoyed being part of this community, the support and actually not feeling like a complete 'NUT' because I get twitchy if I don't make something on a daily basis!!! So I thank each and every one of you who have read my blog all year, for those who have taken time out of their day to leave a comment, to anyone who has just read it for the first time, for those who dip in and out and not forgetting those people who have read it and will not return, well its not every ones cup of tea...So I am going to carry on, I can not face life without my creative time, it really helps me through the day and gives me lots of 'light bulb' moments!

As I am just recovering from the celebrations of New Year, the voice is just starting to return and the headache has at last gone!!! I danced in the New year and eventually had to leave the partying to those with more stamina and take my sleeping babes back to their own beds. I like New Year, I love the reflective part of it and the making of the new plans and all the promise that it brings, last night I sat up in bed with a pot of tea and my heated blanket on as it was so cold out (I am just such a kitten)!!! I made pages of notes on all my hopes and aspirations...I hope that some of them come to fruition - and those that don't, well, its good to dream. I wish you your best year yet...

Just a few more days left of the season then its time to find a new groove, facing a house without all the glitter and twinkle that Christmas brings and the silence as the children return to school...Ahhhh...my solution this year is to use up my sale purchases...lots of new fabric...Yum!!!

Photo: Gingerbread House...made by the little people on New Years Eve!!!

Memories are made of this...

Memories are made of this...yes the last few days have been full of old and new traditions with laughter, tears, and lots and lots of conversation. Its a time for family and friends and not really for sitting at my computer, although I do have a few minutes on my own, so I am going to let the pictures do the talking. I hope you had a blessed Christmas and overcame any obstacles that came your way and you are at peace with the your world, thank you for all the personal wishes. So as we bask in the afterglow of the season and start with the run up to the New year...I wish you well... So Christmas Eve, a hearty meal with the seasons colours and lots of mulled wine (well for this Mommy anyway, especially with a cold...nothing like it to clear the infections). Then we have the children's first Christmas present from Mommy..a new pair of PJs after all the children are all lovely and sweet smelling after a big deep bubbly bath...
Then its outside with the Santa dust and reindeer food...as Santa's tray is laid out (reindeer biscuits, carrot, mince pie and milk...I was not allowed to put sherry out as it might make Santa giddy and he would not be able to get on with his job) the children look up the chimney for signs of Santa and they work out amongst themselves how he actually does it all...
Once the children are a sleep a little magic happens...Santa shakes the snow off his boots and lays out all the lovely gifts for the two little ones that have been good all year (OK maybe the last bits just too much of a fairy tail)!!!
I love this time at night, I have watched the midnight service, all is done, and I sit with the twinkly lights and just soak up the atmosphere and of all the promise it holds for the fun and delight of the next morning. A time to really count my blessings...
The best bit of the morning is seeing it through the eyes of the children...How my wee one loved his kitchen, as I sat and watched them playing I thought of all the lovely stuff I could make to fill its cupboards...felt cup cakes, cookies, fruit and veg....
Ahhh then its the time for Mom to retreat to the kitchen, the mulled wine goes on (again) and the music sings out...you got to love Andy Williams and Bing at this time of year! So the table is laid with my best dinner service..much to my Moms disgust as I tell her how every piece of the matching set was thrifted from various places throughout the last couple of years...

Everyone falls in to bed, the house is full of scrunched up paper and cling film covered bowls of food...TOYS everywhere...and a special camera sits in its box waiting to be opened...yep I got my camera...yes the very same one I have lusted over for about two years now...So we awake on boxing day morning and after a little breakfast and yet more playing we get our wellies on, heavy coats, hats and gloves we venture out on a grey wet day...
After all a walk is part of our family tradition and despite my Mom being in her seventies she joined us, I think because my dad used to love walking around the area I live in. This makes it extra special...
It is now understood by my Mom why our front porch is always full of coats, wellies and lots of mud!!!
The air was clean, the ground was well...wet!!! I love this little walk is is just a short lap around the house, a full circle you go out the road one way and return the opposite direction and the views are amazing at all times of year, of course for me the best time is summer, but you knew that already right?
It is stunning too at this time of year, lots of bare trees and reflective water although it does all look a little sinister, my home area holds so much history I was reading a book about the area and it goes back to the Stone Age...hunter gathering...then through the ages...Romans, Celts and Anglo-Saxons. So as I walk through the surrounding area there is a real sense of belonging to the land and being part of its history...

I am now clearing up the Christmas mess, changing the bed covers over and generally clearing up the house to welcome the next phase of the season, Bringing in the New Year...I wish you all a very Good New Year, may It bring peace and good health.

Happy New Year