New Year News - The Sad and the Happy

My New Year started out with a sad thing. My cousin Miki's wife, Regina, died at 10:40 pm on January 1st. She had been in hospice since before Christmas. I've linked her obituary below because so many of you were hoping along with me that she would be able to pull back from this new cancer. Unfortunately, this time cancer was the winner. I thank each of you for your prayers and thoughts during this difficult time.

Click HERE to read Regina's obituary in the Winston-Salem Journal. 

But life moves on, and I got wonderful cards from so many friends and relations over the holiday season. I'm putting group photos of them below and will follow up with scans of the more amazing cards in another day or so. Thank you all for your private good wishes, e-cards (so many of those!) and physical cards. Each and every one of them made my holiday really special.

Here's the first of many polar bear images I received. It was the animal of the year. 

The large mandala was sent by Shruti. I'll be scanning that one to share
with all of you. It's amazing! The second card is another polar bear. 

The large star is from my friend Iris in Germany. It's actually a clear star
filled with many small golden stars that move in a suspension liquid.
It doesn't photograph well, but it's really gorgeous. 

Here are two more polar bear images, along with a wonderful black cat from
my English friend, Rose. The family cards were all black and white this year. 

And yet another polar bear. They're all different, which is so wonderful. The
card on the far right is from my friend Poo who embossed lightweight metal and
then hand colored it with alcohol inks. It's a beauty! 

The final group of this year's cards had cardinals (love cardinals!) and also
a lovely Native American card from my sister Starlet who lives on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It was lovely to hear from her again. 

DH and I spent our days off cleaning, cleaning, and doing yet more cleaning. We also ate a lot of food that was probably not good for us, but it was lovely. I'm up in weight today, so I'm so grateful that I'm heading off to the gym for a session in the pool. It's time to get my life back on schedule after two weeks of 3-days off. Tomorrow is registration for Bead & Button Show classes. I've picked my choices (so EXPENSIVE!) and I'll be hovering at my computer, ready to plug them in and get my payment made. I'm starting to get excited about June and it's only January. Silly me! Have a wonderful Monday.