2009 A Year in Review

What a year. Time to reflect and review. I am joining with Cindy at My Romantic Home to look back over the year and share.



I had a wonderful year in my home based business as a Health and Cleansing Coach. I have personally coached many many folks in to Improved Health, Better Sleep, More Energy and Released Pounds and Inches like Crazy! I love helping people and hearing those happy comments about how our program has changed their lives is what keeps me going. I have taken on some new business partners in 2009 that have become more than partners more than friends (you know who you are!!).

I look forward to helping more people in 2010 with health and also how to make serious money working from home. more here: www.myskinnystory.com We are beginning a weight loss challenge right after the New Year....would you like to join us? email me.



I found Facebook early in 2009 and I've been hooked ever since. It makes me feel connected to the "outside" world. I work from home and live far from town, so it's nice to have friends that are constantly there. Are you on Facebook? Come find me isastephanie@yahoo.com

In Feb I found the One World One Heart Giveaway event. It was pretty much at the end and I was so happy that I found it. I gave away a crystal necklace that I made. I visited each and every participant, I think it was over 900. Wow. That was a blast.

And, I won several wonderful handcrafted items. My favorite was Miss Annabelle. You will see her again when I show you my finished (well it's not finished yet) sewing room reFRESH.

I did alot of sewing, mostly Refashion. Did some beading, knitting and decorating.

Then in March, I started guitar lessons. I wanted to learn to play for our camping trip in June. In April, my teacher asked me to sing with his group. I thought he was crazy. By June I was performing at the local Farmer's Market. That continued through the summer.


By Fall I was in the band and doing Gigs (that what we call a show....who came up with that anyway?). Music has dominated ever since. Hubby joined the band with his harmonica. We are both learning new instruments (more about that in the future). Here is the band: www.crystalimagemusic.com



Over the summer we lived for those wonderful family BBQ's!! And, brunches and sitting on our deck just enjoying where we live.


I also participated in Pink Saturday pretty consistently up until mid summer. I'm hoping to jump back in, I really miss my pink friends!


Family vacay in June...that was so fun. And, yes, I did play my guitar. We are really looking forward to this year.

This was the year of rafting for us. We love to raft in Yosemite, but that season is very short. This year we found a cool place close to home. I can't wait to go again!






At the end of summer we were graced with a visit from our beautiful Granddaughters. Aren't they precious! This was at our visit to Tea Eras.


In November I actually finished my project for my ASG group "Classic Clothes". I have procrastinated with this project for years. It took a luncheon to make me finish it!! That was so fun, those ladies are truly talented!!

In December I was elected to be President of Amador County Women's Network for 2010. I'm super excited about it and looking forward to a whole lot of fun and networking. It's a fabulous group and it is an honor for me to serve as President. Yay!

We had a wonderful Holiday Season, Thanksgiving and Christmas with our family, and we hope that you did too! Right now, I'm enjoying this quiet time after the holidays. I'm setting my goals and plans for 2010. I just know it's going to be a great year!

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I can't stop making these....

I was privileged to tour a new friend's sewing and craft room. Sigh. It was lovely...BEAUTIFUL and full of treasures and so organized. I haven't wanted to even go in my own workspace. I just keep shoving more and more stuff in there, it's not nice anymore! So, Lulu's Cottage is in chaos. I have pulled everything out of my craft/sewing room (a closet really). So far, it's just a huge mess! My daughter said it looked like I was having a yard sale! I need to purge. It's so hard to let these things go.....I might want them. I decided to take a break and show you my latest obsession....


I made these for Christmas presents. I really enjoy making them while watching tv.




This doesn't even include all the ones that I already gave away. I must be crazy!! My favorite isn't even featured here, it's red with black and I wear it alot.


This pattern is SO easy!! And, I just adore how it turns out.








I may have a problem here. What the heck am I going to do with these? I have a new one already started and ideas for another. I must be crazy!

Is this lame?

My goal for this Christmas was to make all our gifts, and spend NO money. I usually do make things at Christmas. To be honest, when I look back on some of the gifts I made and gave away...I shudder. I decided on scarves, crochet (using my extensive stash of yarn) and I found a pattern I liked. For the guys I decided on something simple. And for my son, I decided to add a beanie.

I was watching tv and crocheting away when a commercial came on. It was a guy about the same age as my son. He was holding a scrunched up knitted beanie in his hand. He said something like "homemade gifts are LAME", then he went on to the rest of the commercial. I was at that MOMENT making a beanie for my kid. I had to ask myself, "is this lame?". Whatever. When I finished said hat....it WAS lame. It was worse than that, it was UGLY. Argh. I quickly found a different pattern and made another hat that was less lame. We ended up discarding my goal of all handmade gifts and used a gift card that we won from Lowes to buy things. Still didn't cost anything, so that sort of fit in with the original goal.

This is the "less" lame hat. I added a scarf at the last minute.

This is the Lame and Ugly hat and scarf. He wanted to keep it because it's warm and he lives in a cold climate.

What a sweet son....showing enthusiasm. And, he wore this cap for the rest of his visit here....making me so very happy!

Dear Daughter showing off one of the TWO scarves I made for her.

Son in Law seemed pleased with his scarf. I choose to BELIEVE that he was indeed pleased and not just trying to score points....which he did ...either way.

It was a lovely Christmas here at Lulus Cottage. We ate and ate and ate. And, we enjoyed just being together.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas too.