Cookie Bars, My First Jewelry Design, and All About Pillows and Mattresses

Hi everyone and happy Sunday evening.  I want to jump right in and share my first original jewelry piece. 

The bracelet you see at the bottom of this picture is the first piece of jewelry I came up with without a pattern or a picture.  I modeled it after the necklace pictured at the top of the picture.  I had a difficult time locating beads to come close to those in the necklace, but I am pretty happy with what I found.  The chain was a heavier gauge than I would have liked but I worked with it.  It was fun to start putting something together, and just see where it took me.  The perfectionist in me can find several mistakes and flaws but I am my worst critic.  I can't wait to start my next jewelry project! 

 I wanted to share these delicious cookie bars.  I got the recipe at Real Mom Kitchen .  I changed out a mixture of cherry and white chocolate chips for the chocolate chips and they were fantastic.  It is great to have an easy recipe like this to make homemade cookies without having to stand there and drop them tablespoon by tablespoon onto cookie sheets and wait for each batch to come out.  My family definitely enjoyed these! 

Now, grab a cup of coffee/tea/whatever and sit down for a cautionary tale.  Just because you spend a fortune and test drive a mattress for three minutes does not mean you will have blissful, healthful sleep.  It does not have a happy ending at all-at least not in our case.  We purchased a Tempurpedic mattress, the Cloud nonetheless, a little over a year ago.  It set us back almost two thousand dollars.  We thought it would just take some getting used to.  To skip to the chase, we threw even more money at it, buying various toppers to soften it as the name "cloud" was completely misleading.  By the time we were finished, my husband and I had not slept through the night without waking up in pain for over six months.  We broke down and bought a new mattress which was also expensive(about half the price of the first one) and while my husband was very comfortable on it, my hips continued to wake me up through the night.  I definitely liked it better, but it still wasn't perfect.  You won't believe what now has me sleeping through the night, every night:  a $10 body pillow!  I read on line what people have used to help control hip pain when they sleep.  My chiropractor had suggested putting a pillow between my legs as I am a side sleeper but the pillow kept slipping out when I fell asleep.  A body pillow is very long so it doesn't slip around so much.  I used one when I was pregnant and it saved my life but I didn't think of it for sleeping in general.  I can't believe the difference!  So now my husband and I are both sleeping.  Where am I heading with this?  Other than to give you some unsolicited advice about mattresses,  I wanted to show some flannel pillowcases I whipped up with some cute teacup fabric I had on hand.  I thought my body pillow needed some cuteness!

 I had enough fabric to make a couple of spare cases for the smooshy log shaped pillows we sleep with.  I hope I didn't lose anyone with that lengthy gripe session about mattresses.  Remember, it is only my opinion.

My school year is running down.  I have a week and 2 days before pre-k graduation.  I can't believe my first pre-k class is going into their junior year of high school!  I have enjoyed all the years I have done this.  I recently ran into two kids in a department store who were from my first class.   They both came up to me and gave me a hug.  I can't tell you how proud I was to see what a wonderful young man and lady they have become.  We talked for about fifteen minutes.  It gave me a warm feeling and makes me happy I do what I do. 

I hope you all have a great week.  Take care.  Nancy