August 19, 2010

Here is a chance to get a class from KC Willis. Her works is just so cool. She had this workshop in a box that you could buy since most of us couldn't get out to Colorado for one of her in person workshops. Now she is trimming the workshop in a box to a workshop in a bag.

She has live workshops (a step up from the box for those interested in stepping up) that you can read about right here http://kcwillis.blogspot.com/2010/08/bye-bye-boxhello-giveaway.html. Check out this site as well www.studioretreats.ning.com in the same blog. She offers Collage Camp...her on-line workshop and link to (www.collagecamp.ning.com) that you may be interested in too.

August 8, 2010

Since I last talked to ya'll, I have a new great granddaughter. She made her debut on 7-27-2010, 1:31 PM, 7lb and 5oz, 20 inches long. She has long feet and fingers and I told her dad that they will have to start saving for a piano with those hands. She is a strawberry blond and just gorgeous. I will include a picture. She is Miss Laila Ann.

Laila Ann

Benjamin and his princess, Laila Ann

We have had probably one of the hottest summers on record around here. With the heat index it is soared up to 118 some days and there have been heat advisories almost every day. Most days it will roar with thunder and lightning and then we will get a teaspoonful of rain. However, day before yesterday we actually got 2 1/4 inches and again yesterday we got enough to fill up the potholes in the street. At least we have had some okra and tomatoes from what little rain there has been. I am not a fall or winter person at all, but some kind of break in this weather would certainly be welcome.

My oldest grandson, his wife, and Miss Zoey Elizabeth leave this week for a three year tour compliments of the US Air Force over in Germany. If you gathered all of our tears, they would probably raise the level of the Red River a foot or two. I can't even think about it without my eyes brimming over. My parents came up several weekends ago to have lunch with them and say goodbye. Mama, who recently turned 85, even brought her bathing suit and got in the pool with them. She didn't want to get out and would have stayed over if my dad wouldn't have gotten antsy to leave. I will try and find a picture or two of their visit and include them.

Zoey Elizabeth, Telesia, Lee, My mom, Jane, 85 years old in the pool

Jeff, My dad, 90 years old

Bill is whittling away on his bathroom project, but I have finally convinced him to get out there earlier than noon, work before the temperatures soar, and then come inside and rest during the hottest part of the day. He loves the outside, but this is killer weather.

I found and reconnected with two college friends and last night we met up in Shreveport and closed down the restaurant where we met. We had so much fun reminding each other of things we had done, people we knew and wondered where they were and what they were doing, laughing our heads off, and just having a fun time. It is so nice when no one has changed and you just pick up where you left off before everyone went their merry ways. We will try to get together again around Christmas time.

Stay cool, drink plenty of liquids, and laugh like there was no tomorrow. Until the next time.....

July 17, 2010

I don't know about where you live, but here in Louisiana, it is way hot. Everything is just laying low trying not to breathe too much of that hot air into its lungs. I had to go to two different cities this week and just getting out of the truck and into the building was an effort. Then to get out of the building, back across the melty tarmac parking lot and into the oven-like vehicle was just about too much.

For about two weeks now we have had some violent lightning and thunder storms that produce probably a tablespoonful of rain, but you can't get into the pool for fear you will be struck dead. Just a typical Louisiana summer. However, I think this one is really hotter than most we have had in a long time. I can assure you, if I don't have to go outside, I don't.

Last time I wrote it was my dad's 90th birthday. Two weeks after that, we pulled off a surprise party for my mother's 85th birthday, which was also their 67th anniversary. We had a nice group of folks show up for her party. Only one brother didn't make it, but he and his wife took my parents out for breakfast on the actual day of my mom's birthday, so I guess that counted for them. We missed having him there to tell stories with one of my other brothers though. They are always our entertainment committee for family gatherings. They can have you rolling in the floor laughing at what all they did when we were growing up. My younger brother and I are probably their biggest fans.


I had my 2nd in line grandson, in age, with back surgery, which must not have taken because for three weeks he has been in unbelievable pain. He ended up having to be taken by ambulance this past Sunday back to the city to the hospital for another back surgery. He is doing much better this time with pain, but nothing like what he was experiencing before. His little wife is due just about any day with their first child, but I hope she can wait maybe one week until he is more mobile and can get around better.

My first born grandson is being transferred to Germany for a 3 year tour and he, his wife and Zoey will leave on August 11th. I think there will be some wailing going on around these parts. I just hope they will be able to come home on leave at least once or twice during that time. Zoey will be 4 years old by the time they do come home and she will have forgotten who her Mi Mi is by then. Thank goodness for Skype and I hope I can figure out how to use it and that our times work out to be able to talk and see each other.

Bill has helped me build, out of an old bedside table, a little "kitchen" for Zoey. I haven't taken pictures of it yet, but when I do, I will post them. It is kind of primitive, but it is cute. I had them mix what was supposed to be just a breath of pink paint, but it had quite a bit of pink in it once I brushed it on. Oh well, it is something for her to play with when she is at my daughter's house. It will do in a rush and she will never know the difference. It grates on my nerves though because that old perfectionist in me is growling since it isn't like the ones you buy. I just have to remember that it is homemade and that she is 15 months old. Now, if I just had a pink pot holder, I might be more satisfied with it.

My son's 13 year old son is in Knoxville playing in the world series and I am waiting on a phone call any minute to see if they are going to be 1st or 2nd place. This makes the 4th game they have played today with 15 minutes in between each game. I don't know how in the world they can even stay in the competition after that much ball gaming in one day. It has been like that all week long. Had they lost yesterday, then there was a possibility they would have had to play 6 games in a row. Good thing he is a kid with energy. Makes me want to crawl in the bed just thinking about it.

Bill has finally finished all of the cabinet work in my new kitchen addition. Now he has spent this week working on his bathroom addition. Actually, it is a brand new bathroom for him. His old bathroom will become a passageway/linen closet when he busts through the wall into the new section. I don't know how in the world he has survived out in this heat, but he is an outdoor person and at least has two fans blowing on him. If he can hurry and finish the overhead stuff and get off the ladder, then the rest should be smooth sailing. When that room is finished, then we will be able to put down new flooring. I want the same flooring in the new bath, linen closet/passageway, new/old kitchen, small dining room, hallway, and my bathroom. Right now, the new part just has sub-flooring and there are two different types of flooring in two of the areas. I want it consistent throughout.

When that is done, then the living room needs a face lift. That is the problem with living in a house that is around 100 years old. It is a money pit, but there is no way we could ever afford to replicate the space at today's prices. We couldn't even buy a broom closet at today's prices for what we paid for this house and four town lots back in 1974. I kid you not.

Stay cool and maybe I will not wait so long to post next time. Don't hold your breath though.

I have been missing in action. Where have I been? Doing as little as possible. Just too lazy I guess to find my way to this blog to write. I kid you not! I have a hard time remembering how to get here!

In the next little village up from mine I have found a gold mine. My village is small, but this one is even smaller, but it has a new and fully stocked, state-of-the-art library. The librarian is the best!!! I have been spending hours and hours reading now that I am a member of that library. We have one here in our village, but I don't care when I drive by it, there aren't any cars there. Who knows when they are open. When they were on Front Street, they kept pretty regular hours, but when they moved onto the school grounds, I believe they got slack.

Now when I hear of or see a book that I want to read, I just write it down and when I go to the library I turn in my list and usually within a week they have what I have requested. I don't think I will ever have to purchase another book again. It is like being turned a loose in a candy store. We aren't talking about old musty smelling books, but new ones with clean dust jackets on them. They have computers for folks who want to look up things. There are DVDs to check out, newspapers from the surrounding area, magazines, you name it, they either have it or will get it for you.

Since around my birthday we have had yard wreckers here as well. Since 1974 we have had various and sundry above ground pools getting larger and larger ones each time. Several years ago when these old shoulders and knees decided they didn't want to work any longer, I had one heck of a time getting myself out of our pool. I honestly thought I would end my life like a bar of soap that is left in the tub too long. Yep, just melt away, never to be seen again. I honestly don't remember how in the heck I ever got myself out of there the last time I went in, but I never went back. That was three years ago.

The knees have been replaced, but after the last replacement and the MRSA staff infection, I refuse to have the shoulders replaced even though my ortho surgeon says they must. Too bad. I will live with the pain, but unless it is a real life and death situation, this old woman won't be going to a hospital to have anything done to her again. I was never afraid of a hospital or surgery before, but you get that infection and you get scared very quickly and for life. Gives me shivers just thinking about what all was done to me in what is supposed to be a clean place, but is apparently a filthy place.

My doctor suggested water therapy and of course I had to tell him I could get into our pool, but couldn't get out any longer. He suggested an inground pool and I asked him if he was paying. :-) We talked about it and decided, why not? We don't travel, our children aren't hurting for money, we can't take it with us, so why not? Thus, the yard wreckers.

If you have never dealt with people who come into your yard to dig and install an inground pool, call me first. If that won't do, I will give you my son's number and he will give you an earful. After losing my religion, saying words that my mother at 85 years old would still try and shove a bar of Ivory soap down my mouth for saying or even thinking, six weeks of cussing out loud and inside my head, it is a reality. There are still a few kinks to work out, like they broke the sand filter and had better get themselves out here very quickly to either bring a new one or fix this one or else...but, we are certainly enjoying the new addition to the yard.


Bill has St. Augustine grass growing around the pool where there was red sand and it looks like it is spreading like it should. Three more weeks and he will be able to mow it. Not all of the plants made it when they replanted them, but those that did are flowering and look nice. We have been cooking lots of veggies and eating outside and that has to be good for you. Lots of exercise.

Another thing that took up some time was helping my mother pull together a surprise 90th birthday party for my dad a week and a half ago. We almost made it until he caught her taking a lot of cokes out to the storeroom and wanted to know why so many drinks. She said she told him that his sons were coming over to fry some fish for him and that is what the cokes were for. Even though it wasn't a complete surprise, he was still very surprised at all of the friends and family who showed up. The gig was up though when my brothers came up with their big outdoor fish fryers and skillets. By then, people started arriving. My mother had the neatest cake made that had a picture of him playing golf airbrushed on it. She had hidden it under the bed. He still plays golf three days a week.


Now, this Saturday we are trying to have a surprise 85th birthday dinner for my mother, but since my brothers said that daddy's birthday gathering made them decide they wanted to go out of the big party fish frying business (it was hot as blue blazes that day), we are all meeting at a fish restaurant and afterwards we will go to my parent's home for cake and ice cream. We were kind of afraid to chance waiting on having a surprise 90th for her. I don't really know why though because on both sides of their families, their parents and grandparents lived to be almost 100 and Mama had one uncle who made it to 105. I think they will be around for quite a while longer. They are two amazing people. Oh, tomorrow is my mother's birthday, but it is also their 66th wedding anniversary. You just don't see that much anymore.

Have a super summer and like I say everytime I write, I will try to do better, but don't hold my feet to the fire. You know how I am and how hard it is for me to find my way to this page. :-)

Zoey and the Crawdad

Mid-April so I must be doing something right to be here blogging before the end of the month. Had my 65th birthday on Wednesday and really don't feel any older. My daughter cooked supper for us and made a guiltless cake to boot. Had a card with lots of cash in it. There was a present from my son and his crew waiting there for me too. It was a personalized travel mug with black and has white circles and then a hot pink "J" in a border. Neat-O. Inside the mug was some cash and pictures of the grands that thrilled me, of course. Never can get enough pictures of those precious faces.

Oldest granddaughter has been in Arkansas visiting her older brother and his wife and Zoey. She actually brought Zoey back with her. What a trip. You can guess where I am headed in a little while. Here is a picture of that doll with her bunny ears on and one holding a crayfish (I can't make this one get under the bunny ear girl picture). And her mama wants a girly-girl. I think she is going to have to settle for 1/2 girly-girl.

1st Easter and the bunny ears

Yesterday while we went to Alexandria for more birthday goodness with my parents and my youngest brother. We met them at a little place out in Ball, Louisiana, named Fant's. The older gentleman whose son owns the place used to be our neighbors when we first moved to Alexandria. They had the best seafood. After we ate, we went to my brother's house for cake and more presents. John had taken pictures of the "Medussa" tree in my front yard and the old swing with the rusted out eye hook and blew them up to 8 x 10s for me. He is really getting great at photography. Notices things that us non-photographers don't see.

My parents treated us to lunch, had a card with more cash in it, Mama knitted me a shawl/scarf and hat, and a sweet birch looking doll with flowers in front of her face like she is shy. I have seen them at Hallmark and they probably have a name.

We had a leisure drive home up old Hwy. 71 and stayed off I-49. When we got home, the yard had a long-bed trailer in it and parked in the side yard was a backhoe. They must have dropped it off so they can start the excavation on Monday.

Today, Sunday, Bill went to Shreveport and while he was gone, two young men from the pool company came to tear down the above-ground pool. They have been at it for 4 1/2 hours. When they started, wasps came out of the things that hold up the sides of the pool. Good thing Bill had left them some wasp spray. Last time I looked, they were nearing the end. I am taking pictures about once an hour of the demolition. I hear their truck cranking up so they must be finished. Off to take the last pictures before the hole starts to be dug in the morning. This is getting exciting.

March 31, 2010

In like a lamb, roared through like a lion, out like a lamb.  That was our March.

Observations:

Don’t think you can remember the color of your last post.  That is true if you don’t post regularly.  That is especially true if your memory is going away.  That might of bothered me a while back and could bother me tomorrow being kind of obsessive-compulsive, but today, it doesn’t bother me.  I might go back and fix it, but I might not.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  Well, that is something I have always heard anyway.  When I started my blog my intention was to write daily, kind of like a diary.  Got really ill when I had surgery and then it was once in a while.  Looking at my posts it seems now I am doing well if I post once a month.  I will try to do better, but being kind of ADD, things get in my way and I wander off and forget the way back.

 

Birthdays for one year olds.  Give them a fake cake made of just icing.  Make sure there is a plastic tablecloth underneath.  Preferably they need to be buck naked when you turn them a loose on their private cake, but I think there is a law against that and if there isn’t, then give Congress a few minutes and they will pass a law as such.  I digress.  Turn the child a loose and since this is their first encounter with a cake, they will test the waters and stick their finger into the icing and bring the finger to the mouth – like they do the dog food, scraps of paper on the floor, and everything they find – hand to mouth syndrome.  Next, put the entire hand into the icing and bring that to the mouth since that first taste was so good.  Enough sugar now to keep said child fueled for all day long.  Let’s see what can be done with two hands.  Pat, pat, pat.  Slide hands back and forth on the table cloth.  If the cake happens to be a Strawberry Shortcake cake, then the colors are pink and green which equal brown when mixed.

Before the party can continue, the child has to be whisked away to be hosed down washed up and redressed and the table has to be cleaned up.  Now it is time to open presents.  I am guilty!!!  Yes, I am.  I brought multiple presents to the party along with the multiple presents that everyone else brought.  What in the world were we thinking.  Apparently we forgot that a one year old child has the attention span of a gnat.  With that being said, just two, hear me, TWO presents total would have been more than enough.

After opening two presents, it was just a blur of paper and ribbons so carefully tied being jammed into a garbage sack to go off to the landfill.  I will say that whatever season the child was born in surely makes it nice for the parents.  They won’t have to buy any clothes at all until the next season rolls around.  Just think of the money they can save to go to the movies and to eat out.  My, oh, my.  Well, that is what I would have done with the money.  Just saying.

Would you believe it if I told you that this adorable child opened  one of my gifts and that was the end of the gift opening.  God bless her.  Took that mop and broom and you would have thought her mama had made her Susie Homemaker since birth.  Went straight to the kitchen and started using them both at the same time.  She needs a few lessons and then I think her mother can just point her in the direction of the kitchen and never have to clean a floor again.  (I did hear that she had stepped on the broom – one of those straight kinds like janitors use – and it came up and bopped her in the head which caused a torrent of tears – just has to learn how to use the thing properly)  Never did go hack to opening the presents.

We all had a good time visiting with the other grand parents, great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who we don’t get to see but on rare occasions.  The real cake and ice cream were good too.

 

Getting elderly – When does that time come?  I thought it might be with age, but decided that wasn’t it.  My dad is 90 and plays golf three days a week.  My mom is 85 and knits up a storm and you are lucky of you call and she is at home.  I guess if it were age, then they would qualify as elderly.

Health – This past year has proven that health can certainly age you, but if you erase the year and pretend it never happened, then maybe it didn’t.

Gait – Bad knees give you a bad gait like you have glass between the cushions in your knees.  Get new knees and your gait changes.  Now you totter along scared to death you will fall down and tear loose something that will damage those new knees.  I think sometime I look elderly by the way I walk, but I hope not.

Hair color – I choose not to color my hair.  Could be that I am following in my mother’s footsteps and “aging gracefully” as she likes to say.  I think it is because I am lazy and don’t want to spend my money at the beauty shop but would rather spend it on crafting things.  I had my hair streaked when I was younger and you had to go when the root line started growing out.  Yep, I think it is more lazy than anything else.

Teeth or the lack or – This, right now, is definitely my current definition of elderly.  Recently I broke a tooth and went to see my least favorite, but sweetest doctor, my dentist.  I complained of the tooth next to it hurting up in the gumline.  He x-rayed and came back in with worry written on his face.  I have seen his face a lot since he began his practice probably 30 years ago and can read it like a book.  I have teeth that my mother blessed me with and they are made of chalk.  Not worth a damn.  You can floss, see the hygienist twice yearly, brush 50 times a day, but you are eventually going to have root canals, crowns, bridges, and assorted other hurtful things going on in your mouth.

Did I say I still, sometime, cry in the dentist chair?  Well, I do.  Comes from pure terror as a child and a terrible dentist whose breath would have slayed a dragon.  I love my dentist because he has learned over the years to gas me up and that it takes a long time and lots of juice to deaden my mouth, unlike the dragon slayer dentist.

Well, he comes back in and says that the root on the eye tooth, which is next to the chipped tooth, has to come out as it has a split root and the chipped tooth is so badly chipped, like in half, that it can’t be saved either.  He says there are two ways to go and it is my choice.  Pull them all and get upper dentures – I completely came unglued and wept.  The other choice was to make a bridge that you have to put in and take out daily and that would buy me a few years.  I chose the latter one.

I will be 65 next week and in my mind that is too young to have to have real false teeth.  LOL  Vanity is what it is, pure and simple.  Here is where elderly comes to play.  At this time in my life, elderly is when you have a plastic box on your bathroom sink that you wash each day, fill with water at night, pour in some Scope, and deposit brushed teeth into at night.  That is elderly.  What do you do if you go and visit someone.  Where do you put these things?  In your suitcase?  On their sink?  Under the bed, which makes me think of something funny I will share in a moment.  What do you do with these awful things?  I do know you have a bad time trying to eat a Snicker bar with them in your mouth.  Seems the caramel wants to pull them right out of your mouth.  I have to remember not to hear sticky anything out in public, ever!!!

That funny story and I will leave the elderly scene.   My daughter’s youngest son is a hoot.  When he was about two years old, his great-grandmother came to spend the night with them.  She lives in East Texas so her visits always included at least one night at their house.  When they got up the next morning, she went to put her false teeth in and they weren’t in the box on the bathroom sink.  They looked high and low.  The children were asked if they had seen them and this grandchild sheepishly hung his head and said, “Yes, I know where they are.”  “Well, where are they?”  “They are under my pillow.  I looked in the box and they scared me so I put them under my pillow.”  Thus, the case of the missing teeth was solved.

Until the next time…..

February 25, 2010

I must have been held captive by foreign beings since I have been missing for so long.  Arkansas was on the agenda and then buckets of rain and several days of snow.

Several weekends ago I went to a workshop near Monroe, Louisiana which was taught by Michelle Zindorf.  Talk about a dynamic and organized teacher.  Unbelievable workshop.  I learned so much and will try and insert the cards I made.  Remember that this was my first use of a brayer and it was an incredible experience.  WOW

 

This one was my least favorite card.  I am not sure why, but it just didn’t appeal to me.  When I saw the example card what I saw was three tombstones.  I made sure to space mine out a bit so it would look more like the aqueduct that it is.  The flowers were heat embossed.

I call this one Asian Sunset over Water.  We learned how to do a reflection with this card without using a reflection stamp.  The hinges are a punched piece that was bent in double and attached with brads.

This one is Deer in the Snow.  So original!!!  I missed getting into the upper left-hand corner with this one which threw off my sunrays.

I added the small red bird after our class.  I needed just this little speck of color.

 

This card reminded me of Toledo Bend near where I live.  It is a spit of land out of into the lake.

The orange doesn’t show up like I would wish in this scan.  Love the playful tire swing on the tree.

These are no place near what Michelle does, but for my first try at her techniques, I am proud of my work.

Just found out that we will have another great-granddaughter in late July.  No name has been picked yet, but just so long it is healthy, that is all that matters.  They didn’t take to the name I suggested, Seawillow.  That was the name of a friend’s grandmother and I like unusual names.  Reminds me of when I gave my daughter some names before the births of her children and she told me if I wanted names like that I needed to have some more children.  LOL  Oh, the wit of that girl.

We haven’t done much lately but try to stay warm and dry.  I had my fill of snow when we lived in Denver.  It can go back on up North as far as I am concerned.

It is hard to believe, but our first great-granddaughter, Zoey Elizabeth, will be one year old in less than a month.  Where does time go?  Terrell Thomas just turned 18 last month and Emily Anna will be 20 the last day of this month.  They surely getting old since I know it isn’t me that is ageing.

This year I will try to do better about posting.  It took a long time for me to find the program to write in that allows me to put the pictures into the post.

Spring, hurry and get here!!!

January 7, 2010

I am trying out Windows Live so I can put pictures where I want them  I hope this works as I don’t like all of my pictures all on the right side.

This has been a sad time for me as my uncle in South Carolina died on Sunday night and we live too far to go to the funeral.  I really wanted to be there for my cousin and aunt and to see cousins and the only surviving aunt and uncle.  He was such a character.  When he was with his brothers and even alone, he was so funny that I would have to beg him to let me catch my breath before he proceeded with is stories.  My mom, his sister, says her brothers loved to “embroider” their stories as time went on.  I have such fond memories of our visits each summer and when they would come to my hometown for a visit.

A friend died this week also and I went to her funeral yesterday.  She had gotten down and was so feisty she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that.  I know her children and grandchildren will miss her.

It is bitter cold here and is supposed to get even colder overnight and through the weekend.  I just hope we don’t lose power as we have central heat.  We do have two space heaters, but they will struggle to keep up with the cold.  We also have a gas stove next to the electric one and that has always been a bonus in weather without power.  At least we can cook.  Last year, we purchased a generator so we wouldn't lose what is in the freezers.

This past Saturday night I got to see a friend who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years.  She still looks the same.  We met in Natchitoches for supper and had a good time catching up.  We promised we wouldn’t wait to long to connect again.  If we wait that long, I will be in my late 80s and won’t be able to drive over to our old stomping grounds.

We found out we will be great-grandparents again in either late July or early August.  Another baby to love and cuddle.  I am praying for a healthy baby.  It will be over a month before they will be able to tell if it is a boy or girl.  It really doesn’t matter to me which it is, but I do hope it will have red hair like my grandson.  None of the grandchildren or the other great-granddaughter have red hair and that is a weakness I have – I love red hair.

Here is it midnight and Bill just walked in with a coconut cake he baked.  I bet he is in there dishing up a piece with vanilla ice cream on it.  Just what my hips and stomach need.

Later