How Lucky Am I?

Yesterday I was singing and blogging about being at "The End Of A Long Odyssey!" and figured that I couldn't be happier and couldn't be luckier.

Well, I couldn't be more wrong. I actually could be luckier and could be happier. How can that be?

Well, this morning I awoke to a snowstorm - which, by the way, doesn't make me happy. At our ages hubby and I just don't like snow anymore. It's beautiful to look at, but requires way tooooooo much work to clean-up. And, this winter is just not cooperating.

In any event, I wasn't happy to see all the "white" this morning and then I decided to check my email.

Not only did I have one wonderful email, but two this morning. Two emails that changed my mood and my perspective.

The first email was from a wonderful woman, who also happens to be an astonishing doll maker, who told me that she had downloaded my "How To Create A Print Pattern and E-Pattern" Free E-Book and wanted to thank me for sharing this information with her and for helping her.

For me, I couldn't be happier to hear this. You see, all my pleasure comes from knowing that I've helped someone else and to hear this just warmed my heart on a cold, snowy day.

I was in a great mood after I sent my email back to her and thought - well, it might just be a good day after all - snow and all!

Then I read another one of my emails. Well, this was a comment left on one of my blogs that said I had won a doll in a blog giveaway contest.

Her name is Hannah and she was created by Shirley of Skellyton Art Originals Designs and was donated by her as part of a Kindred Sisters Gathering Post blog giveaway.

Needless to say I was thrilled. As you can tell from the picture above Hannah is a beautiful doll.

So, I decided to find out more about the wonderful creator of Hannah. Here's what I found out about Shirley from her Skellyton Art Originals Designs blog profile:

Skellyton Art creations are original designs many one of a kind, never to be reproduced works of art. It is a combined effort of Mother and Daughter. Myself I am Wife, Mom, grandma and a survivor of a career in retail management I am making an effort to return to a more creative lifestyle. Excited to learn that there are successful artist who create soley in Halloween motifs, I knew I had finally found what I wanted to do. Halloween has always been a special holiday for me. I spent my childhood with a cemetery for a front yard. [it was across the street] Being the youngest of 4 girls. I shared a bed with my sister, who never failed to terrify me with her scary stories. I was five years younger, of course I believed her when she told me of the people buried under our bed. Why wouldn't I? There were dead people across the street. We spent many hours in the dark watching Dracula, Wolfman,Twilight Zone or any spooky movie we could find. Then I would lay in the bed with the covers up to my neck and a crucifix over our bed watching for Dracula or any monster to creep into the room.

Hannah is a beautiful doll and I can hardly wait to see her. But, Hannah is not the only beautiful doll Shirley and her daughter have made. You really need to go to their blog and watch the slideshows of all their creations. They really are wonderful, wonderful dolls - each a work of art all unto themselves.

I wish I could own them all. But, I'm thrilled just to have Hannah. I hope the rest of my "dollies" love her as much as I do. We'll see - my "dollies" can be very jealous and very temperamental.

Today I received two wonderful emails. Thanks from a customer and the winning of a beautiful handmade doll. It doesn't get much better than this.

Nana - Look At My Hair!

My grandson "Noodles" and I have had this ongoing discussion for several years now about his hair. You see, he was blessed with a full head of thick curly hair. I just LOVE all his curls and think he has the most wonderful head of hair that you ever could imagine. I would LOVE to have his hair.

I, unfortunately was born with fine and straight hair. It doesn't even know the meaning of the word curl. Even if I tried to curl it my hair would revolt and revert back to it's fine, straight nature.

As a result of my love of my grandson's hair I'm always after his Dad not to cut his hair. To just let it grow.

Sometimes "Noodles" wins the "don't cut my hair" battle with his Dad and sometimes he doesn't. This time - he won. He wouldn't let his Dad cut his hair until he had shown Nana how long it had gotten on Christmas Eve.

What he didn't know was that I had cut a picture out of one of my magazines of a famous good looking young man with an incredible head of long, curly hair - who just happens to have the same name as my grandson and sings in a rock band.

When he came in on Christmas Eve he ran over and said, "Nana look at my hair!"

I couldn't believe how long it had gotten and told him that I loved all the curls. I also told him that he was a "good-looking guy" and took out the picture I had cut out and said, "See - he's a famous rock singer. Look at his terrific head of curly hair. Now that's a good looking guy, too!"

Of course, he's no where near as good looking as my grandson who is shown below with his twin cousins. The twins, like their Mom and Dad, were both blessed with full heads of terrific thick straight hair. Lucky guys that they are. Now if I'm going to have straight hair while couldn't I at least have been blessed with a full head of thick straight hair?

I Finally Got A Terrific Picture of My Eldest Grandson!

It seems like teenagers go through a period where they don't want their picture taken and my eldest grandson was in this phase for the last several years. In fact, like most teenage boys if I tried to take his picture he would turn away or cover his face.

The last decent picture I had of him was this:

That was close to 6 years ago and I haven't gotten a really good picture of my grandson since then. That is, until this Christmas Eve when he finally let me take his picture. Here's the results:

Now I may be biased, but I have to say my grandson has grown into quite the looker. The best part is that not only is he handsome, but he's a a nice guy to boot.

In fact, he's everything a grandmother would want in a grandson. Intelligent, handsome, witty, full of life and very talented. I couldn't be prouder of him and couldn't love him more.

For me, however, no matter how grown-up he has become he will always be this guy to me: