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Hi https://goo.gl/jJ5c1H  sstampamie

A Brand New Day

I'm at the Jersey shore for my annual girlfriend getaway.

Busy, busy, busy.....

I have been busy this past week getting all of my handmade banners listed in my Etsy shop. Goodness, I had no idea that I had so many made that had not gotten listed yet!!  I do love designing and creating fun things....the rest of it.....not so much.

So apparently I have just been creating and creating and thinking that I would photograph the items and list them "later"......when it is a sunny day......when it is a sunn"ier" day, when I have more energy, when I don't have x, y, or z that MUST get done now....you get the picture, I'm sure.

And I've had to come up with a system to keep track of which ones I've made but not photographed, which ones I've photographed but not yet listed and which ones have been listed. I'm talking about each physical banner and where to put it and store it so I know where it is in my workflow!

I also have had to do the same with all of the photos that I have taken of each item. I usually take a minimum of 5 photos for each item and lots of times take more than that many.  So I have ended up with quite a bunch of photos in my pictures folders. Acckkkkkk.....I do not know how etsy sellers who have hundreds of items keep things straight. I don't know, maybe I'm just being too anal, but I want to make sure that I know where to find an item when I need to!

I was concentrating on listing Valentine's Day banners and so many of these could be used in other ways too.  Many of them would compliment a wedding beautifully or would add a sweet accent to a tea party!

Now this is one that is strictly for Valentine's Day!

 Isn't it adorable? I just could not resist this fabric featuring all of these sweet puppies in Valentine's Day poses! It sure would make a dog lover's heart beat faster!!

I also made one that is reversible and the "back side" is St. Patrick's Day puppies!!! Yup, it is reversible so you get adorable puppies on BOTH sides!!

Woo hoo, you can never have too many puppies.....well at least pictures of puppies!!

My shop is Banners Abloom on etsy -  check it out here  Banners Abloom

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!!

Amelia Rose

My Past Career

Since I am an "empty nester" I'm at a point in my life where I want to build a new career and direction to go with my life. At first when I was thinking about this, I thought " I never worked in an office or had a "job" so I didn't have a career." But in thinking about it, I realized that I did indeed, have a career and it was the only one that I ever wanted to have, being a mother. Yup, I have a college degree, but having a family and being a mother was all that I really ever wanted to do with my life!

I was the only child of a divorced woman and in the late 50's and early 60's that was quite an unusual thing to be! I never met my father although I found out when I was an adult that he lived in a town not very far from where I had lived until I was eight years old. I lived with my grandparents until my mother and I moved 300 miles away two weeks before President Kennedy was shot. I can still remember walking down the hall in my new school and seeing the black and white TV screen showing all of the chaos that was going on in Dallas on that fateful day. Even in second grade I knew that something big had just happened to our country.

 So then it was just mom and me in a big new town. She never did remarry so I didn't have any siblings or even step-brothers or sisters. Needless to say it was a very lonely way to grow up.

As I was growing up I also dreamed of marrying a man with lots of brothers and sisters, to make up for my lack of siblings. Did that happen? No, of course not!! I married another only child! What are the chances! Well, anyway, it's over and done with!

So my three children and two grandchildren are the most precious things to me on this earth.

I am so very blessed to have them in my life and am so honored to be their mother and grandmother.

I am very lucky indeed!

I'm telling you all of this to illustrate why having a family of my very own was all that I ever really wanted in my life. I went to college and took classes and graduated with a degree in Studio Art.  But having my own family was what was foremost in my heart.

I never thought ahead to the time when my babies would be all grown up and leaving the nest. Somehow it always seemed so far away.......and now it has arrived, whether I want it here or not. It is out of my control and I hate that! But kicking and fussing and making myself miserable doesn't do anything but ........make me miserable, so I have to put my big girl panties on and get going on this next season of my life!

I'll be turning 60 this November.  I am extremely grateful to have made it to this age. There are too many people that I know who were not so lucky.  They never got to choose what they would like to do "with the rest of their life". 

So, I have a lot of work ahead of me, trying to navigate the choppy seas of life and attempting to make some mark in this life and I would like to leave the world a better place. 

I am hoping that my blogging will follow my journey in discovering myself and why I am here and what I am supposed to do with this gift of life that I have been given!

Amelia Rose

 

Tea at Her Majesty's Tea Room

I was lucky enough to enjoy a real treat today, a tea/luncheon in the most beautiful shop. It's located in Dunlap here in Illinois and it is called "Her Majesty's English Tea Room"

The entrance welcomes you with a typical English cottage garden spilling over in every direction with posies, blooms and herbs and vegetables. There are stepping stones that lead you to the front door and when that door is opened it is like being transported across the pond!!

It is filled to the rafters with everything imaginable that could be considered "British"! And I LOVE it all!! There was not one thing in this store that I would not be happy to take home with me!! Every nook and cranny is filled with the most beautiful of treats!

There are clothes, home decorations, teas and treats, teapots and teacups galore! We got there early so that we would be sure to have time to browse, but I'm certain that I could have spent several hours in there and still would have missed much that was being offered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an adorable little "shed" in the middle of the store with flowers and toy stuffed goats on the roof and it is filled with all sorts of whimsical fairies and such.  

I love the brightly colored galoshes to wear in the garden when one just has to be sloshing about in the muck! Unfortunately, I already have a pair of dull blue ones, so I couldn't justify buying another pair just because they were "totally adorbs"! Poo!

 Yes, there is even a real honest-to-goodness London cab in the shop!! How they got it in I will never know, but what a surprise to walk into the back room and find it sitting there covered with even more goodies!

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally were seated after our exhaustive adventures we were all treated to our very own 3 tiered tray filled with sweet and savory goodies!  Oh my, what delish-ish-ness! Is that even a word?

There plentiful pots of steaming tea to accompany our treats with exotic names like Long Island Cola. There was even a pitcher of sweet peach iced tea also.

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by the laughter of friends and the beauty of all things British!

Well, I did what I set out to accomplish. So many times I have taken pictures of an interesting place that I have been to or an event that I attended fully intending to write a blog post about it when I got home. You can see how often I have done that by my sparse or non-existent posts! lol.  So, anyway, I did it....and I only cried once, (for quite a while I have to admit) when the photos insisted on coming in SIDEWAYS!!!! Awwkkkk!! I did actually figure it out all by my "widdle self"! I had taken the pix on my phone and had it at a weird size setting. So this is all a learning curve and for someone who is NOT tech savy it is tough. But I shall soldier on..... now I just have to hope it doesn't disappear into cyberspace when I hit the publish button.

That Didn't Work Out Too Well...

So.......I haven't posted here in over a year.  It's a fact that I am not proud of, but it is what it is and I am not going to beat myself up about it. I'm going to start afresh and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. What are the reasons....oh I don't know....I'm from the generation that did NOT grow up playing on the computer from infancy on.  It seems like everything that I try to accomplish on the computer becomes a big stinking deal and never goes smoothly. Then I get frustrated and ignore it for a day, a month,.....a year. And here I am.

I do love to write, I always have, but this is more than just writing. I'm supposed to include a visual with every post.  Where am I supposed to get a picture for every single post? I guess I will discover the best places for images and of course, I can use some of my own photos, which should be fun.

And I have to offer interesting, useful content.  Well, we'll just see how that goes. All I can do is try.....again.

So here goes!

Amelia Rose (crap. Now I've got to figure out again how to space this correctly. *sigh*)