StitchPrayLove - A Review & Giveaway

I was fortunate enough to find a lovely Etsy shop called StitchPrayLove operated by a wonderful customer of KnittingsMyBag, Julie.  Julie is a fellow Mainer so it's a Win/Win for me.  I love to support folks from my beloved Maine but it was a fabulous surprise when I got my order and found out that her lip balms and lotions "ROCK".

Right-off-the-bat, when you go to her shop you can see the attention to detail.  I love her graphs.  She offers tons of choices in scents/fragrances and the packaging is sweet. You even get your choice of labels!

Her prices are so reasonable and they make great gifts for swaps, knitting groups, and stocking stuffers. Now for the important information: how does it feel.

I purchased the Lip Balm Set which comes with a stick lip balm and a jar lip balm.  I chose Raspberries & Cream.  I balm is incredible.  It floats over your lips and soothes them right away.  The scent is just right: not overpowering.  Some balms go on with a waxy feeling but this is more like a lotion for your lips.  The jar is equally lovely.

I also purchased the TRY ME! 3 Solid Lotion Bar Set.  I like to keep lotions in my knitting bags because as we all know, even one little hangnail can get snagged on your yarn.  The scents that I chose are: Pears & Berries; Warm Vanilla; and Amazing Grace: all of which are like the lip balm - just right when it comes to the amount of fragrance.  The little surprise is that they are in the shape of a heart.  Bonus!  How cute is that!  The lotions go on smoothly and they are not greasy like other, more expensive, bar lotions.  This lotion soaks right into your skin and prepares your hands immediately for touching the most delicate of yarns and fibers.  I now keep one next to my ladybug as well because all spinners know that rough hands make for more difficult spinning.

For the price point, you can't beat these wonderful products for handmade gift giving or for purchasing in bulk to have in all your knitting/crocheting project bags. Her customer service is superb and I received my order very quickly.

My review results is 2 Needles Up for StitchPrayLove  Go to her shop and order now ahead of the crowd because once the word gets out, I just know it will be difficult to get her products.

Here is a photo of what I received. **

**NO COMPENSATION WAS GIVING WITH REGARD TO THIS REVIEW. ITEMS WERE PURCHASED THROUGH REGULAR RETAIL CHANNELS AND THE ABOVE COMMENTS MADE ARE SOLELY MY OWN.

GIVEAWAY:  I'm giving away a Lip Balm Set from StitchPrayLove.  I will allow you to go to her shop and choose your scent, let me know and I'll order the set and have it sent directly to you.  Here are the rules of the giveaway: 1. You must subscribe to this blog; 2. You must join the KnittingsMyBag Ravelry Group and 3. You must follow the link to the StitchPrayLove shop, choose your scent and post it in the comment section of this post.  This giveaway will run through November.  I will select one entry through Random.org on December 1, 2013 and order your set on that day.  Thanks for visiting my blog and my Ravelry group and best of luck.

Pump It Up!

KnittingsMyBag has now been around since December of 2009 and, although my little company has been growing each year, it has been growing at a snail's pace.  I'm now at an impasse.  I need to decide whether I want to "Grow" the business or just be satisfied with the way it is now.

After much thought and prayer, I have decided to "Pump It Up" for the next year.  That's right; give it all I've got for one year and see what happens.  This all sounds great, right.  The only fly in the ointment is that my daughter, Hillary, will be getting married in May, 2014 and although they have decided on a small family wedding, it is still taking place 3,000 miles from California and I'm in charge of planning. So, with all that being said, I'm going to be a busy lady for the next year.

Here are some of the ideas I have for KnittingsMyBag in 2014:

Work on branding by products (website, blog, social media);
Expand my selection of project bags;
Add more knitting accessories;
Create a NEW club for my customers;
Pump up my Ravelry group by offering more giveaways and contests;
Institute a VIP customer program;
Add more professional packaging;
Create a KnittingsMyBag newsletter;
Blogging on a regular basis;
*Thinking about a KnittingsMyBag Video Podcast

I hope that you will subscribe to my blog and watch my progress over the coming year to see what is in store for KnittingsMyBag.

Hitting the Road!

Well, it's FINALLY that time of year! Time to travel to my favorite place this side of heaven: Maine. From the moment I leave, I start to dream of the day I will get to return to the lake. There is no more beautiful place to spend time then our little cabin on the lake and I use the term "lake" very loosely. The lake, actually named Echo Lake, known as Puffer's Pond to the locals is only one wide and less than ten miles long. To me, it's as big as the ocean.

This year, my daughter, Hillary, and I will be making the trip by car. That's right, by car.  Our 16 year old bichon, Wilby, is no longer able to make the trip by plane because of his arthritis coupled with the fact that he is now totally deaf and almost blind.  His Vet feels that it would be too stressful for him and could be the end of the poor old man so it's off we go!

I'm certainly NOT one for road trips. I hate being trapped in a car.  Even with knitting to keep me occupied, all I want to do is sleep! With that being said, I'm going to look upon this trip as a once in a lifetime chance to spend 48 hours in a car with my daughter traveling COMPLETELY across the country. 

For me, even with the invention of the GPS, a AAA TripTik is a must.  It may not "speak" to you but the additional it gives you is so valuable.  Our TripTik tells us that it is 3,334 miles from our "house" in Southern California to our "home" in Maine. WOW, now that IS a cross-country trip!

Well, I'm choosing to view this trip as an opportunity to spend some well needed time with my daughter. We have so much fun together. I know that there will be screaming (SLOW DOWN), crying (I'm sick of this), and weight gain (pass those potato chip - I'm bored) but there will be more laughing than anything else.  A trip of a lifetime. A cross-country road trip. Awe, what we do for the love of our pets.

We plan on videoing lots of our adventures so there may be a clip or two on the blog. If not, there will certainly be photos.

I'd ask you to wish us luck but I don't believe in luck. Your prayers would be very much welcomed!

Photos: Hillary, Echo Lake, Lobsters, and Wilby

2:10 pm

Today is my birthday. Yup, December 7th (a day that will live infamy). Actually, I was born in 1959 and not 1941-Pearl Harbor Day. I will certainly never make an impact with my life to equal that of Pearl Harbor Day but I do like to recite the phrase. Today, I am 53 years old. I’ve been married for almost 31 years to the only man I have ever loved or been with physically (which is rare I’ve come to realize). We have a wonderfully beautiful 25 year old daughter who brings me more joy than I could have ever felt possible. YET, on this day, at least for the past four birthdays, I feel lost and alone. You see, my mother passed away on March 9, 2009. She was so much more than a mother to me. She was my friend, my confidant, my biggest supporter, an advisor and above all, my hero. She accomplished things in her life I could only dream of. During WWII, she and her best friend hitchhiked from Vanceboro, Maine (on the Canadian border) to California to work in war factories. She wanted to “do her bit” she always said. She taught in a one room school house and before she retired had taught three generations of children in many families in our small town. After my dad passed away, she and I became even closer. Although I would never live in my hometown again, I went back home every 6 weeks and stayed for 3 weeks until she was diagnosed with breast cancer when I took my daughter and my dog and moved home where I stayed with her until she passed several months later. She was 89 years old and until just one day before she passed away, she was still guiding me, directing me and even in the way she was leaving this earth showing me her strength. On her sickest days she would dictate notes to me to send to those she called, “shut-ins” and “lonely folks” in our town. She would send my sister to purchase little gifts and deliver them to elderly folks with just a note saying, I was thinking about you today and thought you could use this, a friend. Every year as far back as I can remember, my mom called me at exactly 2:10 pm on my birthday. Even when I worked, she would call and when I answered the phone she would always say, “Today at 2:10 pm was the only time you ever caused me any pain.” Of course, that wasn’t true and we would laugh and chat away about everything and about nothing. What a wonderful mother to bring such joy to her child. Now, all these years later, and since December 7, 2009, I watch the clock. I feel the anticipation build as it gets closer and closer to 2:10 pm. Although my mind knows the phone won’t ring, my heart has hope and I hold my phone to my heart praying that God will somehow allow her to call just one more time. I’m a collector of pendulum clocks and they are all over the house. I’m OCD about making them all the exact same time. If you have pendulum clocks (wind up) you know that there is a slight clicking sound as each minute passes. So, as I hear the clock tick onto 2:10 pm, I hold my breath and pray for my phone to ring…………………………………………………….but inevitably I hear the click to 2:11 pm and still my phone is silent. My heart sinks every time as if it was the first time and the tears begin to flow. My sweet mother gave me thousands of pieces of advice over the years. She loved sharing quotes and quips from her mother like: it’s a poor bird who sh**s in his own nest (meaning, it’s a bad person who turns on their own family) (The “sh word” was the only swear word my mother ever used and only when she quoted that verse, I might add). Another one was, “you blister your butt, you sit on the blisters and many a blister you’ll sit on”. That one meant that when you don’t listen to the advice of your mother, you were going to get hurt and you would have no one to blame but yourself. One of the best, and much less confusing, pieces of advice my mother ever gave me was when she said, “When you are feeling sad and lonely and when you are feeling sorry for yourself, that is the time to reach out to someone less fortunate than yourself. Get “out of yourself” and bring some joy to someone else and in their joy, you will find joy as well.” I think of those wonderful words of advice each year on my birthday. Each year at 2:11 pm when I feel like my world is falling apart all over again. I allow myself time to grieve for the wonderful woman I have lost but not for long lest I fall so deep I will not “get out of myself”. Then, I reach down within to the place where my inner strength lives and I reach out to someone to try to bring joy to their lives. Sometimes it’s a phone call, sometimes I send flowers to someone not feeling well or going through a rough patch. Other times I write a note or a long letter giving encouragement and/or hope in their situation. Whatever I do, I do it then and there while I feel vulnerable and raw. It’s a time when I feel I can most connect with someone who might need more than just lip service from another person asking about how they are doing. So, on this December 7, 2012, as I wait for 2:10 pm, I’m writing a blog post. Not so that others can read it, although it may help someone somewhere, but so that I can for the first time in my life hear the click of the clock and smile even with tears on my cheeks. Because, for almost 50 years I was fortunate enough to have received such a precious gift; one that so many people never get to experience. Today at 2:11 pm instead of weeping for my loss, I will thank God that I had a mother who impacted my life as she did and gave me the wonderful advice to look beyond myself to help others and in caring and loving others, I comfort and care for myself. THANK YOU MAMMA! The love I have for you will live on forever and ever.

Summer is here and I'm headed to Maine!!! Wow, I can't believe it. It's that time of year again and this year is going to be even more exciting. We are renovating our family camp. When my parents passed away, they left the camp to one of my sisters, my brother and me. At the first part of this year, my siblings decided they just didn't want to invest the money it was going to take to bring it back to its "glory days" so they signed their shares over to me. The ONLY drawback is that my husband, Jim, and I just purchased the camp across the street two months earlier. So now with two camps to totally renovate on a cash budget, we are perdicting that it will take three years to complete both places. Jim is a wonderful businessman but, well, let's just say that he lacks the skill set to get this job done. We are hiring professionals to do most of the work. Jim will only be around for ten days at the beginning of the summer and then drop in to check on progress at some point during the summer. That means I'm on my own. I'm looking forward to the challenge but I have to admit, I'm a little scared as well. Dealing with New Englanders is not always an easy thing. I can say that because I'm a Mainer through and through and when it comes to out-of-staters, we just don't like 'em. So I will be rampin' up my Maine accent and wearing flannel this summer so that I can get the best deal AND get the most cooperation. I'm going to post lots of photos throughout the process so I hope you will stay-tuned and join me in my journey. It's going to be an emotional rollercoaster for me because this camp is where we lived every summer from the time I was about 8 years old. My mother was a school teacher and my dad was a cobbler for Dexter Shoe (3 miles from the camp). So, once school was out, we packed up and went to the lake. When my daughter, Hillary, was born in 1987, I wanted her to experience the wonderful summers that I did as a child so when she was just four months old, she made her first trip to camp and then every summer after that, no matter where we lived in the country, she and I came to camp for five weeks. The memories we have all made here cannot be replaced. Doing a total remodel and preserving what makes this place "camp" is going to be a balancing act for me. I don't want to get caught up in making it a "resort". I want to keep the feeling of a simple family camp BUT without the need to carry water from town to drink and the smell of musty carpets. It's going to be interesting for sure!!