I promise... I'm still alive!

This morning I got a call from my sister-in-law checking to see if I was still alive and well. My mother and sister have also commented on my absence from the blog world. I'm sorry! Thank you to all my faithful readers (aka family and friends) that have been checking in on me just to be disappointed to find nothing new.

So the question is what have I been up to in my absence?

Well, I posted earlier (I guess its been a few weeks) about how fall brings on the project bug. I have been busy doing a plethora of projects (just about everything except cleaning my house, which is in shambles). Unfortunately none of them are completed YET! I will give you a sneak peak into what I have been working on though.

There are the makings of a scarecrow. I have been searching for a few weeks now for a flannel shirt at a garage sale and have still come up empty handed. We'll give it one more week and then I will have to head to the thrift store.

I finally picked up my Babbett afghan again. It was my project rampage of last fall but it never got all pieced together. I am about a third of the way through putting all the squares together...finally! I'm really excited with the way it is turning out.

I had a cell phone scare a couple weeks ago when my battery completely died. I was afraid I had lost all the phone numbers in it. That would be a sad day! So I put together our own personal phone book. It includes our ward list, my cell phone numbers, our address and our own personal numbers too, as well as our doctors. Handy for those emergencies when my brain might not be working.

I've started my holiday planning. The last couple of years I have used a cheap composition book and glued paper on the front and put tab dividers down the side. This year I have been very loosely following the suggestions from a blog called One Hundred Days to Christmas. I have included in my binder a calendar for the rest of the year, project lists, shopping lists, menus, gift lists for ideas and what I have and how much I've spent, etc. This is working not only for Christmas but Halloween and Thanksgiving too in addition to the three family birthdays that also fall in that window.

I have started my Christmas shopping. I have some things I've found at garage sales and the consignment store in town and I am filling in the rest by shopping on the Internet. There are deals to be had! I am so addicted to searching around for the best price and reading the reviews and figuring out if I can get free shipping or not. Elijah is pretty much done but I am stumped on what to get Sam (especially from Santa). What do you get a two year old that isn't crazy about any one thing and has all his brother's toys to play with?? Any suggestions? Anyway, one of the things I have lined up for them are the crayon rolls that Skip to My Lou does a great tutorial for (she is doing a bunch of links to homemade Christmas gift ideas. A great blog to look at!). I found the fabric for mine at Walmart and got it all for under $2.00 (with enough to make two and about enough to make at least one more). I picked up the crayons when they were super cheap at the beginning of the school year.

I've also still been working on the Ami Animals, though they have been back burner-ed as of late. I have an elephant in the works with plans for more!

There is one more thing I've got my hands in currently, but I can't share it here, too many ears! Lets just say I'm enjoying the whole homemade Christmas thing. There are a lot of amazing ideas out there. I'll post some links to my favorite toy stores and blogs with ideas soon.

So there you have it!

What projects are you working on? Have you even started thinking about Christmas? I'd love to hear!