THIS AND THAT

Auntie Ju's has been on hiatus since November 15th and I've enjoyed having some extra leisure time to putz? around the house - remembering to water plants, putting up Christmas decorations (even though they were sparse this year), enjoying Christmas cookies baked by hubby, cooking Christmas dinner for 5, going out to dinner with friends and attending Christmas Eve service at our St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

Julie used this time to try her hand at hand-dying wool and preparing some new samples and I made a quilt sample from Morris Tapestry fabric, all in preparation for the new season of shows (evidence of our work was shown in a previous blog) and of course, we had to perform the dreaded 'year end inventory'.   I think that's under control - now to update the inventory on the website and then it's up to the bookkeeper to keep it all straight for the rest of the year.

Our Blow-out Sale ends in a couple days on January 3 and then we leave Thursday, January 6 to set-up for our first show of the year in Sanford NC.  If you're in the area please be sure to stop by and see us at the Dennis Wicker Civic Center on Friday and Saturday from 9am to 5pm for The Quilting and Fiber Art Marketplace.  This show includes not only quilt shops but also vendors who offer buttons, trim, antique textiles, jewelry, yarn and fibers, rug hooking, threads, smocking, photography, wooden cases and ladders to display your quilts, books, patterns, notions, rubber stamping and more - all offering inspiration to get your creative juices flowing in 2011!

And through it all, I managed to read three, yes 3, books. 

The first was "The Full Cupboard of Life" by Alexander McCall Smith, the fifth in 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series.  I had read the other 4 books in the series and have had this one on the book shelf for a few months.  It didn't disappoint and to quote a phrase from the New York Times Book Review, "Precious Ramotswe (is) the Miss Marple of Botswana"!

The second book was "Condoleezza Rice, a memoir of my extraordinary, ordinary family and me" by Condoleezza Rice.  What an accomplished woman!

And the third a wonderful book called "Lucky Man" by Michael J. Fox.  From the book cover, "....Michael J. Fox recounts his life, from his childhood in western Canada to his meteoric rise in film and television that made him a world wide celebrity and most important, however, he writes of the last ten years during which he has dealt with Parkinson's disease".  This book was written in 2002 but is a must for anyone whose life has been affected by Parkinson's disease, directly or indirectly.