This is a beautiful ornament and card I received from Natty for the SBEBB Ornament Exchange.

Thank you for all the nice comments. For those who asked the chickadee is in The World of Cross Stitching Issue 118. I haven't been blogging lately because my husband is home for 3 weeks and we have started a huge DIY project in our kitchen. We spent the last week and a half buying supplies and putting in new lighting. It is so nice to finally have lights that work.

Today we started ripping out the paneling that the previous owners had put on the lower half of the walls. Underneath the paneling we found the orignal tongue and groove woodwork painted a hideous yellow to match some ugly yellow wallpaper you can see peeking out from underneath the current blue wallpaper. It makes no sense why someone would have covered it up with cheap ugly paneling. Now we are debating whether to cover the entire wall with wallpaper or to paint the wood and install a chair rail or other molding. On another wall over the stove there is some fake brick which we hate. It matched the ugly linoleum that looked like bricks which we tore out years ago. I'm not sure if we can remove it without replacing the wall which isn't in our budget right now.

It has been a hard year for us with our housemate going through cancer treatment and our jobs being affected by the economy. Things seem to be a little better lately and I hope that is a sign that 2007 will be a better year for us. I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year's Eve and that the upcoming year is full of good things for everyone.