The grand unveiling

(I'm having technically difficulties downloading the photos ... so maybe this isn't the grand unveling after all) *sigh*
So I'm going to linke the pages, instead. http://www.scrappintrends.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1320&limit=recent
http://www.scrappintrends.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1311&limit=recent

So I finally get to unveil some of the projects I have been doing for the last few weeks. My design team projects for Scrappintrends.com are going in the gallery on June 1. Well, I jumped the gun and put a couple of them in tonight.
This month everyone on the design team has been working with Cherry Arte paper. It is beautiful stuff, but I’ve been somewhat flummoxed by it because it’s just so over the top.
So, I pushed myself a little and did an over-the-top layout, reminiscent of the “Two Tween Aged Girls” layout I did with Ashlee and Holland. This layout, “Triplets born of Different Mothers” has Ashlee and Holland in it again, as well as Logan.
The boy shrieked (not quite like a little girl) when he saw all the flowers I was cutting up to put on the page because it was way to “girly.” So I had to promise him this page will go to Wyoming ~ I’ll probably give it to Mom. I now need to make a more manly page with the same photos for his book.
I tried to butch it up with the brads that look like screws and the rick-rack, but I believe I failed in the attempt. At least it’s in blue and not pink!
Another project has already been sent to school with DS-11 for his teacher who is retiring this year. I made a clipboard using the Cherry Arte paper, some Paper Loft stickers from their flip-flop line and foam stamps from Lil’ Davis. The clipboard went to school with L last week. I made one for A and his teacher as well, but I didn’t get a photograph of it before it went to school.
My final project was cards, I made six of them. But I am holding off posting them until some point in the future as I have not yet posted them in the Scrappin Trends gallery.
Tomorrow is the last day of school for the children and the last day of freedom for me. DH has to work on Friday as well, then we will be headed into the long summer. I’ll be fighting L, & D for computer time and struggling with all of them to pick up after themselves.
But we are planning a few trips or two as well to break up the monotony.
A played a soccer game tonight and his team skunked the other team. Saturday is his last soccer game of the season, which makes me almost giddy with joy. He is still talking about playing Little League next year, in spite of the fact that his big brother hit him in the face with a ball today. A came in crying and L followed him saying “I told you to keep your eye on the ball.” Apparently A was a little too literal about the command, because he may wake up with a shiner in the morning. We iced it down, and it doesn’t look to bad right now.
Of course the scrapper in me had a hard time not taking a photo. But I did write the title in my head, “A’s first shiner!” It’s a sickness, I tell you, a sickness.

The legend of the icky house

Once upon a time ...

When we moved to our town almost five years ago we rented a sad little two bedroom house. The roof was scabby, the rooms were small and dark and a plethora of unpleasant box elder beetles crawled around the walls and windows.
It came to be known as the “icky house.” The second we sold our condo in St. George we started the process of finding a better home. As luck would have it, a house half-way down the block went up for sale the day we closed on the condo. Although this house has the same basic floor plan of the “icky house” it is a wonderful home. The kitchen has been remodeled, it has a full basement and a really lovely deck, and where the icky house had a brick planter in the middle of the living room, our new house has a hall.
I’m not really sure D is as enchanted with the new house as I am, but I do love the place. I love the yard with the big globe willow. I love the kitchen with its tiled floors. I even love the laundry room secluded in a corner in the basement instead of in a closet off the kitchen, as it was in the “icky house.”
A succession of people followed us in and out of the icky house. First came a divorced woman, her handicapped daughter and her angry teen-aged son. She was a nice lady with a heartbreaking history of marrying the wrong men and struggling with the challenges presented by her children.
She painted the white walls of the house green, added lovely furniture and interior design touches and made the house look as cozy as possible. But problem with her children eventually obliged her to move out of the house. The owners came in and quickly painted the walls white again, rendering it bland and colorless as it had been before she moved in.
Next came the Rubio family with their son, Joey. Mr. Rubio repaired the roof, and then one day they moved without warning.
The house was then sold to a skinny, shirtless man who looked like he could use a bath. His equally skinny woman, a baby, and a few dogs moved in with him and littered the lawn with automobiles, broken wicker furniture and what looked to be the remains of an above ground swimming pool.
Then they disappeared.
The wicker furniture rotted on the porch, papers gathered in the mailbox. The icky house is even sadder than ever with a rangy, weedy lawn and a broken fence leading to the back yard.
But the other day I noticed something really beautiful about the icky house. A huge rose bush bristling with the most luminous flowers I have ever seen.
The bush is taller than I am, crowned with peachy yellow roses reaching to the blue sky as if they are trying to escape their dingy yard.
I had to take photos, of course.
As I examined the flowers, I noticed wild roses intermingled with the more domesticated breed.
Of course I have to wax philosophical, I always do.
But the spectacular rose bush among the weedy yard had me thinking about how quickly nature returns in the wake of man.
It also thought about the beauty to be found among the ugliest situations.
And I felt sorry, as I often did, for the unlovely icky house that had been a rest stop and refuge for so many people, and a real home to so few of the families who had lived there.
I am getting ready to write a story about the “Foster Mother of the Year” in Tooele County. It is the story of a young woman, not yet 30, who along with her husband are in the process of adopting a sibling family of four … the oldest is 14, the youngest four years old.
She did not tell me details of their previous live. But she did say their mother’s rights had been terminated. As we talked the 14 year old boy hovered around offering his thoughts and she cuddled with the freckle-faced six-year-old girl who had just awaken from a nap.
She had tended the garden well. All I could see as the roses, not the weeds. But I know before she arrived on the scene the four children were sad and abandoned much like the icky house.
But she didn’t speak of the weeds, the bugs and the sadness. No, she was full of the joy of discovering beautiful, blooming flowers to add to her garden.

Birds and flowers

I’ve been wandering around in my back yard again. One of the best things about buying an older home ~ at least in our case ~ is we have a lovely garden planted and tended by the lady who owned the house before us.
Each year a bountiful selection of flowers bloom throughout the summer. It started with tulips and iris (although we did plant some of the iris) and now we have columbine, a bunch of different kind of roses and these big white flowers. I think they are called pom-poms but I’m not exactly sure.
It is an old fashioned garden with the flowers I remember from my childhood. I love columbine. I remember “sucking the nectar” out of the little trumpet-like shapes on the flowers. We have also planted lilacs in the front yard, and this year we actually had one of them bloom. I’m hoping to get some healthy bushes in a few years.
Every year we also plant sunflowers. I love them because they are so darn cheerful, the cat loves to hide in them and stalk the little yellow birds that come to eat the seeds, D likes them because they offer shade for the lilacs and the boys like them because they are so very large.
We went to Burger King for breakfast because I had a craving for the cheesy tots. The only Burger King in our community is at a truck stop area near the freeway and the Great Salt Lake; it’s about a 15 minute drive from our house.
There was a mix-up with the order, there usually is at this eatery, but eventually we managed to get our cheesy tots, milk and a few extra orders of hash browns to apologize for the mistakes.
We had planned to take the extra hash browns home with us, but there were sea gulls lurking outside the joint and my DSs love to feed the gulls. Now I know sea gulls are just flying rodents, but really are funny. I took some shots of the bird jumping in the air to snag the hash browns before they could hit the ground.
Later today we are planning to go to the movie “Over the Hedge.” I have plenty to do, but most of it is fun stuff, and I’m not feeling rushed. It has been a lovely holiday.

A good book

Friday it was 80 degrees outside and I was running around in my un-air-conditioned car, going to awards assemblies and dong interviews.
Saturday the temperature dropped to 37 degrees. It was a wonderful day.
We didn’t have soccer games to attend because of the Memorial Day weekend. We couldn’t do yard work because it was raining. The house wasn’t spotless, but most of the laundry was done and I had cleaned the kitchen. L had a new “Battlefield 1942” computer game, so I didn’t get on the computer.
So I spent the day curled up on the sofa with a pile of books, a few licorice whips and a purring cat. It was a slice of heaven.
Time was, sitting with a book and a blanket was my favorite thing to do. I had my nose in a book throughout most of my childhood. I didn’t just read books; I read them and re-read them.
We didn’t have television when I was a child, so everyone read. Some of my favorite memories involve cool evenings on the ranch with the family gathered in our small two bedroom house, each one with a book in hand.
My favorite reading spot was next to the heat vent in the living room. I seem to recall the easy chair was in front of the heat vent. So I curled up behind the chair unseen but with a good view of the house, reading and eating applesauce cookies.
The house was quiet except for the sound of the static filled music from my sister’s radio, frogs singing in the creek down the road, and the rustle of pages turning
Fat, furry moths battered themselves against the window. We never bothered to close the curtains in the living room because our nearest neighbors were two miles away, and strangers rarely traveled the dirt road leading past our house
With three older sisters, the house was bulging with children’s literature. I remember these books with the fondness some people reserve for friends.
I read a series about the wives of American presidents, and Judy Bolton mysteries (I never did care much for Nancy Drew; she was just too prissy for my taste). I consumed Betsy and Tacy books like popcorn, washed down with some Boxcar Children, a little “Five Little Peppers and How they Grew,” and a heaping helping of the Eight Cousin series. I wanted to be Louisa May Alcott when I grew up, or may LM Montgomery of “Anne of Green Gables” fame. I still want to visit P.E. Island because of her books.
One winter when it was -20 degrees outside, I was given a box set of the Little House on the Prairie books for Christmas and I read the entire set over the Christmas holiday while the wind blew and ice crusted on the windows.
One summer I discovered “Black Beauty” and spent the heat of the day on the ranch curled up in a shady corner reading the adventures of the black horse while my father worked the hayfields and mother cooked dinner for the hay men.
Children’s literature still makes me very, very happy. My elementary school husband often brings home children’s fictional novels, and between him, my DS-11 and myself, the tombs get a serious reading before he sets them before his sixth grade students.
Last summer we all (re)read the Harry Potters series. We have been reading the “Guardians of Ga'hoole” ~ a chronicle of a group of owls; “Among the Hidden ~ a string of novels centered on a oppressive society where families are forbidden to have more than two children, and “City of Ember” a trio of tales about an underground city.
Yesterday I read two of the “Charlie Bone” series. These yarns have a Harry Potter-like flavor, in that the action focuses on a school for gifted children, including the “endowed” children of the Red King who have special magical gifts.
Thus I added Charlie and Benjamin, and the girl who can fly in the room in my brain filled with a huge cast of characters.
Just imagine the party if they all came to life, Tom Sawyer and Herminie and Laura and Mary sharing space with shy little Amy and strong willed Joe. Perhaps Frodo and Sam would rub elbows with Harry and Rose and her eight cousins could add to the merriment.
If you understand and recognize all of those names you are either ~ a kindred spirit or a member of my family ~ probably both.
http://www.filmloop.com/x?gzD3vLECQDL3GGy0vftzpCr-jeOL-yuL

The measure of a man

Five days left of school and my DS-11 is busy putting together a report on World War II.
He chose to do the report on Okinawa, because his grandfather, (my father) served in this island front just before the end of the war. In fact, he was on a ship headed for Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped, bringing the war to an end.
My son is one of the few people his age who’s grandfather, (not great-grandfather) was a World War II vet. My father died 10 months, to the day, before my son was born.
Actually, L has grandfathers on both sides who served in the war. My father-in-law was in the European theater. He celebrated his 18th birthday on the way to the Battle of the Bulge.
As part of L’s report, he wanted to make a mold of the Purple Heart my father was awarded during the war. The mold didn’t work, so I took a photograph.
I’ve wanted to do something with this medal since my father placed it in my hot little hands.
I remember the moment so clearly.
It started by my half-listening to the sit-com “Major Dad” with a story line about Major Dad and his father’s Purple Heart. I don’t really remember what happened in the story, but I do remember thinking I wanted to inherit my father’s medal.
So in a phone conversation I told him that I was in no hurry to see him die, but I would love to inherit his Purple Heart.
The next time I came home for a visit, when Mom had gone grocery shopping, he pulled me aside and handed me the medal. We were in the doorway of the garage, and he was on the step below me. I gave him a giant hug. I knew even then that it would be one of the most precious mementos in my possession.
Every time I see the Purple Heart I remember that moment, and wish I could hug him again.
The Purple Heart represents so much of who my father was ~ a simple, fatherless Idaho farm boy raised in the depression. He served in the military, like countless others with, before and after him because it was the right thing to do.
It changed his life.
The Purple Heart is given to warriors who spill blood in the field of battle. But he never told me how he was injured. He never said much about the war.
After serving and seeing unspeakable horrors, he came home, went to college in Logan, Utah on the G.I. Bill, met and married my mother and raised five children. He went back to farm, well actually the ranch, working for his father-in-law Idaho. It was not the town of his birth, but close enough.
It is hard for me to think of my Father without feeling waves of sorrow at his loss, and gratitude for the life of one fatherless Idaho farm boy who through his devotion, unconditional love and service changed the world in ways he could not possibly have imagined.
When I started this blog, I did not intend for it to be a Memorial Day moment. I just wanted to comment on how I need to make a shadow box to display my Father’s Purple Heart.
Maybe that is why I haven’t worked on a project to display the medal. I can’t imagine how I can put all I feel about the man in a little shadow box with a few photos and a Purple Heart.
He is so much more than the war he served. But the fact that he served, tucked his medal in a drawer and went on with his life fixing fences, dressing up like summer Santa Claus with his long legs poking out of red shorts, serving on the town council and loving his children is the measure of the man.
He was a man. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

That's my boy

k to view larger
As you can see, I have more photos of A. He is the one family member who think’s it’s fun to have his photo taken. As a result, my A file is bulging with more shots than the rest of the family combined ~ including the cat.
The light this morning was great. It’s overcast, so we don’t have harsh shadows, but still I have the bright morning light.
A came upstairs dressed for school in a shirt and shorts two sizes too small for him. I sent him downstairs to change the shorts, but decided to let the shirt ride. Then I caught him drying his wet sling-shot ammunition on his shirt. So I sent him back down to change the shirt, too.
After all the changing was done, I loved the way he looked. It’s not really dressy enough for school, (note the hole in the knee!) But it is So Very Little Boy. He went outside to swing while I made the lunches and I saw him on the swing with the sling-shot in hand. I couldn’t resist. I had to take the photos.
I can’t decide which version of the photo I like best. Thoughts anyone?
I am constantly amused by the life of having boys in my house. The other day I went to unload the dryer and found this little plastic lizard resting comfortably on the bottom of the dryer drum. It made me laugh, so I had to take pictures, but I’m not sure the photographs do justice to the moment.
Whine alert.
Do not read past this point if you do not want to read about my poor pathetic life.
It is also possible you will read To Much Information.
Are you sure you still want to read?
This is your final warning.
These happy little moments make up for the misery I am currently enduring. I have a head cold, accompanied by an ear infection and what I believe to be pink-eye, although the PA I visited yesterday was not convinced.
I am seeping fluids from eyes, and nose and hacking up unfortunate slime balls. The entire experience has made me extremely cranky.
Yesterday I went to church long enough to teach my lesson before crawling home to bed. But I can’t sleep, because whenever I recline all the liquids migrate to my head. Last night, after keeping DH up much of the night hacking and blowing my nose, I finally, at 4 a.m. went into the basement and watched television for an hour. By 5 a.m. I was ready to sleep. But at 7 a.m. it was time to get up and get everyone ready for school.
We have little more than a week left of school, which is a mixed blessing. I told DH yesterday that we would be mucking out the house this summer. He agreed. We’ll see. I know L will work for me, A will not.
But seriously, we have to clean the place before the board of health comes and condemns it.
The final, seriously whiny, whine.
Why isn’t anyone looking at my blog and commenting anymore. Is it something I said? Whaaaaaah!

Keep your hands of my camera!

Click on all photos to see them in a larger size. This photo is A getting ready to take his first shot at the T-Ball set-up. Expressive face, isn't it?

First, let me answer questions from the last blog”
Wyo Bro said: How can the average schmow get ahold of these magazines and things that you are doing things for?”
Answer: I’ll let you know if I ever actually get anything published in any said magazines.
Wyo sis said: Wow! Did you sleep?
Answer: Yes I did sleep. But I did not clean. I can’t walk through the house for all the crap on the floor. DH did the dishes and folded laundry this morning, bless him! A is oblivious. L is rebelling. Tonight when I asked hm to find his clothes for church tomorrow he was cranky. Then he found the shirt waded in a heap in his bedroom and yelled at me “You should have picked it up and washed it”
Excuse me? I should have picked it up? I don’t think so.
As to the current news I lost my D-Rebel today. Well, I didn’t exactly lose it. One of the reporters from work called and said she had to go do a story and all the cameras were checked out, would I mind if she took the one in my possession?
Ack! My camera! Why don’t you just ask if you can have a water fight in my scrap room?
But seeing as the camera actually belongs to the newspaper and not me, I said sure and she came and took my third (or is it fourth, behind the cat?) baby.
She was really cute about it. She called me once during the three hours she had it and asked if I wanted to download the photos and email them to her. I said, “no, she could download it at work.”
But her taking the camera reminded me of how much I use it. After the camera came back I took some photos of a scrapping project, and then snapped about one bazillion shots of DS-7 in his soccer uniform playing catch with his sling shot.
The boy loves to catch and throw things. I’m not really sure why we have him in soccer, because from the time he was tiny he liked to stand on his head, throw things in the air and catch them. He can entertain himself for hours rolling around tossing, catching and making those boy noises, you know, “Pshewww, sheww, psheww.”
Later in the evening we went to Wal-Mart and bought the boy a t-ball set. Man does he have a good arm. He’s a left-handed batter, which gives him another edge. We have decided to enroll him in basketball in the winter and baseball next spring ~ it’s too late to do it for this season.
Soon, I am happy to say, soccer will be nothing but an unfortunate memory.
While we are on the subject of A, I need to report a conversation we had tonight while I was unloading the dishwasher.
A: “Mommy, why don’t you like to swim anymore?”
Me: “I still like to swim; I just don’t like to be naked in front of everyone.”
A: “That’s what a swimsuit is for! My swim suit only covers my pants and I’m okay with that.”
I think I had the same kind of conversation with my mother when I was a child. She faithfully took us swimming at Sulphur Springs pool, (yes, it is as bad as it sounds!) and never so much as put a toe in the water.
I was puzzled by it then, I understand now.

It's nice to share

Since I can't post photos of anything else, I'll show off my Iris Cart Mother's Day gift. I'm afraid I'm very much like my Mother. I love things with many drawers so I can sort and stack.
I want to share.
I have been working on several scrap book projects over the last couple of weeks, and I desperately want to post them to a gallery or in my blog or somewhere. But I can not because I have made them for specific calls. And in every case the call asks that the project, layouts, etc. not be posted.
So I have been forced into a mysterious silence and lack of new photos in my blog. I have been scrapping more this week than I have for quite some time. Alas, I have nothing to share.
Tuesday a friend came over and I helped her with a project for her brother. He is getting married this weekend.
The bride-to-be decided she wanted a photo album of their pre-wedding photos to use as a guest book. The problem is, she didn’t get the papers, etc. to my friend until last Friday, leaving her with a week to put together a 16 page album.
So I made 4-5 pages in a five hour period.
Over the weekend I put together a layout with photos of my youngest son and his two cousins. When I went up to visit for Easter, all three little blond boys were dressed in red shirts, so I had to take a ton of photos. But this layout is headed to CK for their book call. I did a second one with the girl cousins, also for the CK book call.
I am in the process of putting together a really fun mini-album for the Crate Paper contest at Scrappin Trends. I am really excited about the concept, and when I took it into my LSS (Local Scrapbook Store) to do some die-cuts, the owner’s husband told me I should teach a class.
So, I might be picking up a teaching gig this summer. Whoo Hoo! But I can’t officially toot yet, because (a) I can’t show the project and (b) I’m not sure she’s going to be able to find a spot and the right equipment for the class.
I have also put together two pages for the Creating Keepsakes Becky Higgins sketch for November. In my humble opinion they are not as good as the pages I did for the October sketch, but still, I like them. However I can’t show you either the October or November sketches until calls go out.
So here I sit, having spent the last week assembling cool pages and projects and submitting them to various places, unable to show and tell.
However, I do have one thing I don’t want to share, and probably will end up sharing, a nasty summer cold. Don’t you love the ironies of life?

Favorite television shows

I am answering a challenge posted by Sophia, a blogger friend from Two Peas in a Bucket. The challenge asked us to talk television and list our top ten television shows. This is a bigger challenge than it appers to be on the surface, there are game shows, dramas, comedies and everything in between.
So my list is a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Night time dramas
1. I didn't like "Dallas" and all the clones thereof. I know JR and big hair reigned supreme during the years of nighttime dramas. But I just didn’t watch them. For one thing, I was going to school and didn’t have access to a television; for another thing, I just didn’t get the whole mania.
On the other hand, I loved "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island," the precursors to "Dallas" et al. They were on Friday or Saturday night (I can’t remember which one) and I was living in the dorms at Rick College. On the weekends everyone with dates hung out in the downstairs lounge with their dates. The dateless grabbed a bowl of popcorn and wandered down the hall in their jammies to watch the soapy shoes together.
'70s sit-coms
2. “Welcome Back Katter” I didn’t like the show. I didn’t like “Sanford and Son,” “Good Times,” or any of the other funny multi-racial kids living in the ghetto shows of the 70s. I wasn’t a fan of “All in the Family,” either. I think even then part of my cringed at the broad stereotypical brush with which the characters were painted.
On the other hand I adored “The Cosby Show,” “Newhart” (loved Daryl, Darel and Darrel), “M*A*S*H” and “Mary Tyler Moore”
Science fiction dramas
3. “Battlestar Glactica” may have been an interesting sci-fi show, but I never really watched it. However I am a huge fan of all StarTrek series. I met my DH through a regular group of friends who gathered together to watch Star Treck The Next Generation. In fact my bridal shower was based on a Star Trek theme.
Early era sitcoms
4. I never watched “The Dick Van Dike Show,” “Leave it to Beaver” “The Beverly Hillbillies” or any of the other happy home comedies of the early era of television. But “Bewitched” is one of my all time favorite shows. I liked “I Dream of Jeanie,” too, but not as much. And, oddly enough, I loved “Dark Shadows.” I did not have a television in my home when I was very young, so when I was in grade school, my best friend and I would run home after school to watch the three shows together.
Game Shows
5. I have seen many game shows in my time, too. But I think one of my favorites was “Match Game.” Again, I have family associations of working at home with mom all day in the summer. When we took a break for lunch we sat down and watched “Match Game” together. But the gambling game shows involving the wammies, or the big playing cards, left me cold.
Cartoons
6. Ah yes, the whole family gathered in the evening before supper to watch “the Muppet Show” and “The Bullwinkle and Rocky” show. I guess that kind of explains my sense of humor.
I remember a little joke Dad and I had. He would say “monomonat” then I would go “do do, da do do.” Then when we reached the chorus I’d do a full head bobbing, hair flaying, da do, do do, do, do, do.
da do do, do, do do,
da do, do do, do, do, do.
da do do
da do, do
dad a do do do do do.
It drove my brother crazy, which is why we had so much fun doing it.
But I never understood cartoons like Scooby doo,
Reality shows
7. Spare me the pointless squabbling of “Big Brother,” the cruelty of “The bachelor” or even the freakishness of shows like “the Swan.
But I am on board for “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” and, just because I like to see how the contestants handle the challenges, “The Apprentice,” and “Project Runway.”
Pre-80s dramas
8. My father loved “Hawaii Five O,” and “Medical Center.” I think they were over my head, but I just didn’t get it as a general rule. But I loved watching “Mission Impossible.” I loved the tape play with the instructions, the cool twists, I wanted to be Linda Day George, and I really enjoyed the part where they peeled their faces off and drove away at the end of the show.
Post-80s dramas
9. I never got into LA Law, Hill Street Blues, or that other law show that is so popular and I can’t remember the name of, except for the SVU is one of the franchises.
But my DH started me with CSI and I do think it’s groovy. I got sucked into “Grey’s Anatomy,” and am totally hooked, and “LOST” is a can’t miss show for me right now. Even when I get very annoyed by the big periods of re-runs and the lack of real information, I gotta see it.
Other shows I love in no special order
Night Court
Darma and Greg
Get Smart
Cheers
The Pink Panther
Gunsmoke
Designing Women
Bob Newhart Show
Quantum Leap / McGiver (because they are kind of the same show)
Seinfield

Ya-Ya!

I am working on a friend’s book for an on-line challenge. I have chosen to do a book about my Ya-Ya scrappers. My first year in Tooele was miserable until I made the acquaintance of Kendra and Julie. More scappers joined our group and now we are the best of buddies.
On Mother’s Day, I rounded up all of them I could find in church and took their photos.

Scrappers, does this woman remind you of anyone? I think she looks like Lisa B. of CK fame.

Here are a few of the other scrappers. I sent the photos into Wal-Mart today and I need to go pick them up after I dry my hair.

David told me today we only have 13 more days of school. I have mixed feelings about that. But I am going to enjoy my solitude while I can. Then I’m going to put everyone to work for some serious deep cleaning. Wish me luck in both the solitude and the deep cleaning.

Happy day

This is just a quick blog wishing everyone a happy Mother’s Day. I had a surprisingly good weekend. David’s brothers came to visit, but David put them to work hauling a whole lot of trash on the deck and in the shed to the dump.
While they were gone I put together a scrapbook page with 4X6 photos that I really like, so I will be sending it in to the current CK book call.
They also ended up moving their sister’s ex-husband out of his new-wife’s house. Apparently that marriage didn’t work out either. Big surprise. I am a bit taken aback that they chose to move him out, because he left to marry this chick and treated their sister very badly. But she asked them to help them, so they did.
Anyway, since they had a truck, we asked them to take us to a part of the Great Salt Lake Beach we can see from the freeway but have never been able to drive there because we didn’t have a truck.
The water was alive with brine shrimp, which made L very happy. DH and A spent a lot of time skipping rocks, or trying too, and DH nephew climbed the rocks. The brothers didn’t seem so thrilled with the excursion. But they were probably a little tuckered from moving their ex-brother-in-laws furniture up three flights of stairs.
I had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Great gifts, I was taken out to dinner by my family, and I took a nap.
I was under the impression that I had to teach in church today, but when I called the RS president she told me I didn’t have to teach until next week, which was a lovely bonus gift. DH and I did have to say the prayers in Sacrament meeting, but that is a small thing, really.
Then I spent the evening watching the Survivor final. Booo! Terry so should have won it all. But I knew he was in trouble when he won the car.
I’ll be posting at some point in the future with more details about the gifts of the day.
But I must say the cloud hanging over my head most of the week has been dispelled. I love my guys.

Ode to Joy

This morning, after waking up at 4:30 to visit the bathroom and let the cat out, I realized once again how much I love to sleep.
Last night was one of the first really hot nights of the year, so we left the windows open to cool off the bedroom. Of course that means we get to hear teenagers race their cars up and down the street, listen to lonely Romeo cats looking for feline companionship and hear the neighbor’s baby bawl.
But at 4:30 a.m. the teens, cats and babies were all asleep and the birds were waking up and singing. (Which is why our cat wanted to go out, it’s prime huntin’ time) It was still dark, and the ceiling fan was blowing a gentle breeze. I didn’t have to get up for another three hours. It was so comfortable it was almost decadent.
As a child I fought naps. But everyone else in the family loved them.
My mother, who worked like the rancher’s daughter she was from dawn to dusk, loved naps.
After a morning of gardening, cleaning, laundry, cooking a large dinner for the hay men and oh yeah, sewing school clothes for and raising five children, she would clean up the kitchen and go crash for an hour.
Then she would get up, fold another load of laundry, sew a pair of blue jeans, cook supper, do some more gardening and sit down to watch television with a little mending in her lap.
Meanwhile Dad would be up at the crack of dawn, making breakfast, fixing farm machinery, irrigating the field, fixing fence, herding cattle, or bailing hay. After a break for lunch he and all the hired hands would crash for an hour during the heat of the day before heading out to do the same thing over again until dark.
While I did not pick up the work ethic from my parents, I did find the nap to be a nice addition to my day.
My sister and I have a joke about our napping schedule. After arising at 10 a.m.., we eat something then retire for our mid-morning nap. Waking long enough to prepare lunch eat and clean up afterwards, we find ourselves needing an afternoon nap, followed by the afternoon snack, the mid afternoon nap, the evening meal, the evening nap etc.
As one friend put it, “I have only two regrets in life, that I have to stop sleeping to eat and that I have to stop eating to sleep.”
So let us raise a sleep eyelid to the Sunday nap, the summer nap, the nap lulled to sleep by the sound of lawnmowers and dishwashers humming in the background. Let us not forget the rainy day nap, the dozing in a chair whilst watching television and the ever popular look-like-your-listening-but-really-sleeping in church or long meetings nap.
I would say more, but it’s after 9 a.m. and I’ve been awake for almost an hour. I need to go get some rest.

Scrapping is almost as good as napping. I did this layout for a circle journal yesterday.

It's all about mememememe

If I were to blog today it would be a serious whine festival in much need of cheese. But as I am planning to scrap all day, I will no doubt cheer up. So in leu of my boo-hooing, I am treating you to my version of the on-line personality test based on my name.
http://www.kabalarians.com/index.cfm
Although the name Alleen creates the urge to understand others, we emphasize that it limits your vision, tuning you to technical details.
This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and and success,
The name of Alleen has created a congenial nature with the desire to associate in friendship and understanding both socially and in the business world.
Peaceful and settled conditions appeal to you and you are naturally desirous of having the security of a home, where your life could follow a definite pattern, and where you would not have to make major decisions.
You find it difficult to take a definite stand, partly because you lack confidence, and also because you dislike any issues which create dissension between people.
Procrastination is a weakness of your nature, causing an inability always to complete your plans or to concentrate for long.
For the record, this is a pretty right-on analysis of me. Spooky!

Stansbury Park

I went to a meeting last night at Stansbury Park. It is a pretty little planned community about 11 miles from my home.
I was originally hired specifically to cover Stansbury Park as my beat. Over the year that I have been attending meeting there twice a month, I have come to know members of the board of trustees. We have developed a good relationship, they treat me fairly and I do the same to them.