Thanksgiving weekend and lack of photos!

Well, I will add the ONE photo (or two) of the things I DID take pictures of this weekend, but there aren't many. I have become really bad about taking photo's during events (or is it really good about living in the moment?).

Butch had loaded the truck with all sorts of goodies before I got home from work on Wednesday so I was able to grab a suitcase and get it all packed and ready to go in a matter of minutes and off we went! What was IN the truck you ask? Well, things that we will store at the little house while we are gone due to either a) lack of ability to pack it or b) wanting to have ease of access when we come home for visits. Aka, Propane tanks for one and some of the poke sticks for Butch's scuba for another. SO... those and a few (few????) coolers went to Florida to reside for a few years. Folks can use the coolers while they are there and we can have easy access to them if we need them for whatever. Oh, and a few chairs also went there as well.

When we get to the house it's dark and I dashed into the potty... only to have Butch come by the door and holler in "NO!"... I'm like "WHAT????" So he simply repeats "just NO, you'll see"... uhm, OK... I go back out to help him get the important stuff into the house for the night and there was this CUTE adorable super friendly black cat... OK, now I get the "NO" as you can NOT have her... but I loved on her and went about my business. A while later Elizabeth made it into town and calls me to the door. I let her know I had already seen the cute kitty... then she tells me she was here the last time they were in town. Hum... they were tempted to steal her then... so the plot starts here!

Thanksgiving was full of food, card games, naps and just visiting. We had a huge spread, but missed having Angela, mom and dad there with us. Angela was working the holiday so she can have Christmas off for the week (yay!) and Dad isn't up for traveling as we don't have a lift chair and easy in/out access for him to get to and from Sally's. So, it was just Liz, Butch, Me and Sally this weekend. It was also to be some lonely airmen, but they didn't have anyone to join us, so it was just us for dinner...what a dinner!!! LOTS of food as usual! Every bit of it delicious!

SOOOOO Friday, my job was to empty out the shed of all the GARBAGE that was out there... what was there?? Well, about 7 drawers from the old cabinet we tore out when we removed the wall from the kitchen AND the cabinet doors from that side as well - top AND bottom doors... yes, they were heart pine, NO, I did not want them. Really... what am I going to do with them? Another project? Nope, thanks. So, out to the side of the road they went. There were also three doors from inside the house. Yep doors with handles and hinges and all - they were from the hallway and the living room/kitchen where the entry hall enters into the house... it used to end in three doors. One straight ahead to the living room, one to the left to the kitchen AND one to the right to the OTHER hall to the bedrooms. Who on earth needed that many doors??? Not us and certainly not the folks before us as we had removed yet another door from the kitchen to the living room on the OTHER end of the center wall... so some doors were obviously missing from ages ago. One was from the laundry room as it had a grate on the bottom of it to allow air flow into that room... it had since been replaced by a "solid" (hollow core) door some years back. So, all the doors went to the curb as well. What else went out there? The storm door from the back of the house along with the frame from it - aluminum that someone picked up for recycle I'm sure. There was also a set of vertical blinds (unsure why we kept those) and an old tube TV set, a large piece of plywood, AND a kitchen sink. So, I find that funny... but yes, the kitchen sink from before was out there as well. SO it all went to the curb along with random pieces of wood from what appeared to be an old bunk bed. It was a good size pile and would have been bigger but Butch stopped me from chucking the old counter that was in there as well. He now has plans for that to be inserted as a work bench for him. Uhmmmmm OK. So, wood all stacked in the corner, all the other smaller junk that was motorcycle parts and frames and just junk were tossed in the regular garbage can and the place was in decent shape! What's even funnier is that someone went through the stuff and actually cleaned up my crappy pile - I was trudging all this stuff from the backyard by hand - took what they wanted and stacked the rest of the other stuff up in a nice neat pile! VERY sweet of whoever it was.

The truck was unloaded and Butch started to install the Ring doorbell onto the house. Now THAT was a challenge as the child was the one who went into the attic. It was OK when it was from the center to the kitchen, find the end of the insulation and get a piece of wire shoved down the hole for us to fish out to hook up the new powered doorbell that Butch picked up for us.... because of course the Ring needs POWER.... ugh. SO... this was a LONG affair to get done. Liz pulled the first wire, cursing the whole way and coughing due to something up in the attic. Once that was done, we hooked up the old wires on the front of the house and the bell lit up. Good... but it would NOT carry enough power to get the bell to ring. WTF? So... we attempted to get Liz to pull the sire up while we had attached the new wire to the old, only to have the old brittle wire break and come apart. Drat it! So... there we sat with no wire going to the attic for that part.... and Liz NOT happy up there... I don't blame her. SO... she comes back down and I finally convince him I do NOT need a front doorbell just now... it's not critical in the whole plan. So we leave it. He concentrated on the RING and gets it installed. The good news is this was most of this was done on Friday as Liz was leaving on Saturday to head to the house and take her cat home with her. She was going to leave on Friday but she ended up staying as her plans at first were to drive to Nashville to see her boyfriend Alex play at a bar up there.... those plans changed with a cat in the picture.

So... how did the cat come to be? Well, she went around the neighborhood asking if the cat belonged to anyone and found out that no, it did not! She was a cat that someone had meanly left after they moved. Poor kitty, and she was so loving too, not sure how someone could do that!!! She was so enamored with Liz that she would pad at the back door to be let in... as in pawing frantically at the glass door. If it wasn't so pathetic, it would have been cute, so on Friday evening while we were all chilling out at Sally's house, we let the kitty in to visit... she slept on Liz's lap for a bit, then found a blanket on top of a pile and slept on that for a bit, then I convinced her to sleep with ME on the recliner... she stretched out on the footstool next to me and enjoyed a good thorough rub down by me :) She stretched and loved every second of the attention!! What was even funnier is that the two NON-cat people spent a lot of time watching her enjoy her time indoors laying on the floor and batting at my toes as I was wiggling them at her. Ha! They watched her more than the two cat lovers did :) Maybe Butch will be a convert at some time as he did talk to her a LOT when she was in and out of the little house while he was working on stuff :) ha!

So - Liz and I went to Walmart on Saturday morning and got a carrier for the cat, some litter, a litter box, food and such... so now she was all set to go home with Liz and start her new life. Ah... so sweet!!!

Saturday afternoon Butch and I tackled the azaleas at the corner of the house.... good heavens! They had three of those bramble sticker trees that come from a tuber... those things are hateful to say the least... I cut my thumb a few times... three nice scratches across it that bled SO badly!! Then by the time I got to the other two/three of the stickers, I had a few more cuts on my right arm and looked like I had done some serious battle! BUT I won. Butch got the tubers all dug up and hopefully we didn't miss any of the pieces and they won't grow back... and the azalea that was 6' tall and about 8' wide is now tiny little nubs at less than 6" tall. I may have gotten a little aggressive with it, but honestly if it comes back, it comes back, if not I will not cry!! NEXT one to get cut down will be the camellia at the front of the house. That thing is so OLD that it has a trunk the size of a tree... I swear it's about 6" in circumference or more... and it's 6' tall plus. I did trim it down just a little ... it wasn't really time to trim it back as this one is a white flowered winter bloomer, but it had some straggly sprouts on its top that had to go!

After all that I sat down for a bit and just enjoyed the beautiful warm day! Liz and I sat out on the drive and played with the cat who was batting around acorns while we were sitting there... again, she is really cute! Liz took her to the vet on Sunday and they estimate her at about a year and a half. It makes sense, she sort of looks/acts like a teen. A well behaved teen kitty, but a teen in looks for sure! Shortly after that I helped Liz put her in the carrier crate and sent them on their way... kitty strapped in the front seat and not looking too awfully panicked in there...Liz said she traveled fairly well and was eventually asleep in there. GREAT news for her and the kitty alike!

Butch and I wrapped up the last few bits of clean up and called it a day, rested and relaxed, went to dinner then got up early to hit the road back home. We went through Marianna during daylight hours this time and WOW the devastation from Hurricane Matthew was VERY far north!! I was surprised at the amount of snapped and pushed down trees along the freeway just to the west of Marianna, then driving north through Donaldsonville - just WOW at the amount of trees down everywhere, big oaks, lots of snapped pines... there were snapped trees as far north as Colquitt and beyond... not quite as bad when we got north of there, but enough to make us really notice how much devastation was there... north of Donaldsonville there was a house where it was surrounded by trees and you NEVER saw the house, not really... it took me years to see it tucked in there in the dark trees... and it's a LARGE two story brick home (granted gray brick that blends in with the shadows)... and it's VERY open now... more than 50% of the trees in there were down! Wow... just WOW... When we talked to some folks there in the town while getting Gas, Butch said they were planning on cleaning up for a YEAR! Yeah, lots of HUGE trees... some of the root systems/balls were taller than Butch's truck... there were pecan orchards where a good 80% of the trees were pushed over or snapped off. Even Albany had an orchard where the older trees were toppled in a large number.

So, long weekend, fun weekend, productive weekend with the shed cleaned out, stuff put in storage down there, azalea cut back, and Ring doorbell being put in, (a hole in the drywall cut, patched and ready to paint... I need to find those paint colors for that house!! )...

Make a mug pottery class

I made two mug blanks the first week (Monday before last). and got set for class yesterday with a by practicing on a squinting eye. Like this:



I wasn’t thrilled wit the look but not super disappointed either. So last night I started in the tongue handle and teeth etc. I figured I could see how I felt about it once I got that part done.

The results of TWO hours of sculpting is this:









Ok I think they’re cute (?). They are just what I pictured but I just couldn’t visualize the eyes in place so my teacher YinTing suggested I sculpt on a thin piece of clay to transfer to the mug.

OK. Let’s try that!




Yeah. I still can’t picture this on the mug. So it stayed off. The mug will be done without eyes and I may make another mug with full face on the front instead.

I still have two weeks of time to do more. One week I can make a new mug with a face. One to glaze.

So this is my adventure in clay this month AND I found out Kelly Barracks has a clay studio with a wheel. That could be fun to play at over the years I’m there.

Hurry up and Wait, stresses and Fish Fries

Interview date: August 30
Job offer date: September 21
Today's date: November 5

Well, it's a new month and I still know NOTHING about my date to report. Nada, zip, zilch.
BUT we've been cleaning the house, organizing and putting things here and there, selling stuff and getting set to GO.
I'm getting a little doubtful that we're even going. Folks are asking me if I'm excited. Well, I WAS excited... when I first made this decision in September. I was thrilled. I was ready to go. I was filling out paperwork, submitting it and getting all set to get packed out and ... well, just GO.

And here I sit 1.5 months later... waiting to hear if I will be leaving in January or not... trying to find out just what my departure date is... and living in a house that the husband is packing like a mad person.

I was SO frustrated in the beginning living in boxes and thinking "what the blazes are you doing, this is what the packers will DO for you" I'm so beyond that after a month of watching the house explode into boxed messes. This weekend I tackled parts of the garage. I swear it's enough to make a gal want to break down in tears. I sat there in the back of my car staring at everything thinking "shoot me now"... it's all such a mess... a complete and utter mess.

I'm pulling a lot of easily distracted moves. I will start in one area and get overwhelmed. I will move to another and repeat. I did get the cabinets cleaned out in the garage that I was tasked with along with a few others.... but then I would just want to throw my hands up in disgust and walk away.

I did attempt a garage sale this weekend as the neighborhood was having one. I thought "OK, why not" right? Yeah, NO. I lasted all of 2 hours, packed it all into the house and called it quits. I then boxed a good amount of it all and took it to goodwill. I boxed the "better" things to take to consignment. I then finished my count of items to take in on Monday... only to realize that Monday I have pottery and I won't be going to consignment as the timeline is way too tight to pull it off.... maybe... I may still go as I got to work 1/2 hour early today meaning I could leave 1/2 hour early and head on out there, dump everything then drive straight to Macon to meet up with Liz for dinner prior to pottery. It's all a debate.

Even this blog post is all over the place!

SO. Garage sale, I sat out there for 2 hours and thought "well, while I'm out here I will put the bigger things on Facebook Marketplace". I sold one thing on there immediately and the gal walked me through how to get money through the application. Sweet. She came to get the item a few hours later after paying on line. I also sold (don't laugh) the pressure washer that Butch had put down by the curb a few days prior. I admitted it was broken and we thought it was a blown head gasket. He bought it and a VERY old tent for $20.00 better than a poke in the nose! So, how's that for funny I sold a garbage thing at the sale ... and that was it, the other thing sold on the marketplace. SO, just goes to show you that garage sales are no longer for me!!

I loaded up all the frames and other odds and ends and took those to Goodwill to be of use to someone else.

I also advertised the larger outdoor furniture set that I had gotten from Target some 7 years ago... and it sold within 10 minutes. The folks came from 45minutes away to get it. Older couple that had been trying to get a set for a while. They didn't argue the price and took it home with them that afternoon! Sweet! The back porch is clearing out.

Then I promptly took a nap. No, really, I napped. Then that evening we went to our scuba club fish fry out near Cochran - it was a very nice night eating fish, socializing and enjoying a bonfire. Liz even came out to have some fish with us. Great night and thanks to my nap I lasted MUCH longer than I typically do on those events. We were one of the last to head home.

Sunday I had to get motivated as I had climbed straight into bed after the bonfires so I still smelled of smoke AND now my bed did too! I pulled the sheets to be washed and rolled my TWO WEEKS worth of laundry to the laundry room and got started. Quite a few loads to include jackets from the night prior as well! Lots of smoky items as they were burning cedars that had fallen over the year during storms. Quite sooty!

While Laundry was going I decided to load the car for consignment (filled the back) - forgetting I won't be going on Monday - duh. But it's loaded.
I then hit the garage. YUCK!! I pulled out lots of items to go into the trash... things I wasn't even sure what the blazes it was, old toys, lots of old sidewalk chalk... yes, they have been in there a LONG while since my kids are now 23 and 19!

A few racquets headed to consignment for racquetball and one for tennis I do believe. Either way they are going! We also have a TON of Roundup. I will take that to Florida to be stored and used there when we come home to visit and clean up around the little house. I also cleaned out around the shoe bins, chucking kids shoes that have been there way too long. There was also a pair of inline skates that were so old that the plastic literally disintegrated in my hands as I was pulling them out! Very fragile stuff!! The regular skates were still functional and they went into the consignment pile even though they had writing all over them... I tried to get it off with a "Mr. Clean" pad, but it wasn't budging. I got a bit off but I'm not willing to put that much work into it at this point. If someone wants them and is OK with writing all over them, more power to them! If not, they will eventually head on to donation status.

After those two areas I decided to head to the back porch with a yard size garbage bag and tackle the lockers... I did chuck quite a few things, but also found out how many NEW items are in there as well. There are a LOT of goggles in there!!! Maybe I should box them up and send them to Damian and Tandy with their pool and smaller kids!! Either way the lockers are empty of everything including towels.

Towels were also sorted and the best of them were pulled aside to use in Germany. The rest were advertised on Facebook to friends. I had one holler she wanted them and Mom wanted a few as well, so they are all claimed and will go to new homes!

I kept going from garage to backyard to garage to sitting on the back of my car as I was loading looking at things and wanting to cry. I finally just gave up and went inside, drew a bath and called it a day. Chocolate, bath and a book for a while... made things a bit better. Then I went in and watched recorded shows for a while before dinner. Ahhhhh, the life. I even went to bed early because my body kept saying "it's 10pm... go to sleep" so I did, and I enjoyed it!

Medical cleanup.

Next day on the eye. Yep. Swelling in full force today. Sigh. Oh well, the world keeps turning.

Time to clean out the medicines.


And so it begins. I pulled all the meds out of the kitchen and bathroom. Time to cull.


I opened the “Emergency “ pack from the cancer center. I think I kept everything. Ya never know what you need in the future.


The Chuck pile.


The end result to ship


What stays in the kitchen cabinet for last minute packing.


One more thing off my list of things todo.

My poor eye

Left eye. I had a growth...Er scabby place remixed from my left eye lid today at lunch. I only have me to blame as they wanted to say it was blah blah blah that wasn’t a big deal. Why did I press to get a biopsy? Last time they thought it was “nothing” it was skin cancer. This is also the eye lid where I had a mole at the edge of the lash line that over the years has “spread” and colon cancer warns of susceptibility to skin cancer...and I already had two spots of nasal cell. Soooooo better safe than sorry at this point.

Long story to say I told them I’m simply too paranoid - biopsy it!


Can’t see it! I had just driven back to the office. It was just starting to swell a little.


Barely see it and without the glasses you can see it’s swelling a bit now.


Close up. Not too gross.

Fast forward to the end of the day. 3:30pm. And it’s now noticeable enough that a coworker commented on it. Yep!!



Swelling notable with glasses now.





Yikes. Really red now - boooo.

Oh well. I’m home now and putting Neosporin on it until bed time.

I won’t wine too bad about it because I did it to myself by insisting on a biopsy.

Scars....

Why are all my scars just weird?  My stoma scar was a small hole that was less than quarter sized when it started...it spread!  Now it’s silver dollar size... 

my port removal started out smooth then pulled up in a knot on one side. What the heck?  Why can’t they stay nice and small and “normal”. Sigh. I know, I know. It’s character and I’m alive...I get it, I really do. But it would be nice to just have a small flat line of a scar on my chest...the belly?  Meh. I don’t care as much on that one. 

One of these days I’ll have a scar that doesn’t go all weird.
Better yet, no more scars....how about that?

Excerpts from life.

SO this story came out today...

ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) — A school district has apologized to parents, after hosting a drag queen as part of a career day. A spokesperson for Adams 12 Five Star schools said Rocky Top Middle School staff should have notified parents a drag queen would be speaking to their children, before allowing the speech to happen.

 

Students at Rocky Top range from 6th to 8th grade. The drag queen, identified as a woman who goes by “Jessica L’Whor,” is a relative of one student. The district confirmed she was invited to attend career day….. (with more discussions… )

 

L’Whor did not perform for the students, rather electing to read a book which addressed bullying.

(with more discussions… this is just an excerpt )

 

What are your thoughts on this?  I think I'm on the rare side who thinks it would be fine as my kids at that age had already been exposed (introduced?) to those who have a different lifestyle than they, themselves would choose.

 

They have a relative who is gay.  They have relatives who have had children without marriage.  They have relatives who are religious and religious in what some consider non-main stream religion as they are from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormons).  They even had friends who self-identified as a different gender than what society deemed them as based on their biological make up.  I'm sure they had already seen cross dressing in the media and on TV.  So, why NOT start a discussion about it?  I don't see this as being any different than the sex talks at school... or the discussions about religions they had already had with friends and us.

 

What are YOUR thoughts on this?

What have I done????

Butch has never been home prior to a move and honestly I wish he weren’t now. Good lord his “packing” method is going to drive me to drink. Why? He has pulled EVERYTHING out. And it’s everywhere. Am I kidding? NO! There is not a single place in this house not in total upheaval. Well maybe not the potty rooms. I can not live like this!!!!

Want to see??
Brace yourself!




Living room. Yes. Shoot me now!!


Wide angle so you really get to feel the claustrophobia!!


Breakfast table


Kitchen. OK. I take blame for kitchen as those ARE my pots.


Dining room table is mostly mine too as there are kids mementos and thrift store staging. The computer is his. The rest is sales stuff and memorabilia boxes.


Angela’s room. Aka Butches office.


I’ll claim the seasonal boxes as well as Liz and I were culling. And this is what would go with us to Germany.


The back bedroom. Storage staging and odds and ends that are to be sold.


More storage and such.


Even my room is not safe.

Sigh. Shoot me now as this was my decision.

Social Media Fast

Although I'm not really a practicing Mormon at this point of my life, I was raised as such and have seen all my relatives doing the whole 7 day social media fast. I got curious as to what was said about it and why the push, so I went out and read up on it. It makes sense. It made me evaluate my use of social media... but here's the thing. In April I moved to a new job. A job where my phone is locked in a cubby outside of my actual work area... it sits all day in a cubby in the atrium of my building. EEEEKKKK, right?

What I learned from that move was that, yes, the first day or two I missed the ease of grabbing my phone and zipping a text to a kid. What I also learned is that there are MANY more ways to work this. I learned to forward my phone to my office number so that if calls came to my cell during the day I wouldn't miss them. I would just get them in my office where I could address whatever it was - be it a medical reminder or a pest control re-scheduling. Problem 1 solved.

Problem 2 was contact with kids... although my kids are older and sort of self-sufficient, I did find that I missed some of the contact I would have with them on occasions during the day. At first I would log into Facebook at work and NOT surf it, but open the Instant Message option so I could Text to Angela as needed during the day. This only lasted about the first month, then I discovered that she wasn't in need of constant contact and was just fine out there on her own... yay for adulting!! AND if she really needed me she would call my phone and wala, it would transfer to my work phone and as long as I wasn't in a meeting, I was getting her calls as they came in - case in point, she called yesterday, so I chatted with her for a bit and we solved the problems of the day and went on.

The OTHER way I can cheat on that is that Liz works on base and I can IM her any time I want... not that she responds as much as she has a much more stressful job than I do working in finance... and she's a decidcated little worker! BUT if we need to chat, we have that option.

So, did I go on a total fast? Nope, but I did learn that I can function just fine with just checking things at night and doing a quick run down on the world. Do I find I compare myself to others on social media? I don't really think so. I use it as a tool... when I had questions about health things and issues with cancer, stomas, reversals, and the like I would reach out to my communities on facebook (for those of you who every have to face colon/rectal cancer "ColonTown" is the BEST resource for ANY question you may have - not kidding ANY question). I don't know that I would compare myself to those in there and feel like I wasn't where I needed to be, but rather I would take comfort from knowing that I wasn't alone in feeling what I was feeling or experiencing what I was experiencing, and in a weird way I was happy to give others hope when I was having an easier time with one area or the other... to let others know that although, yeah, this experience sucks, not all outcomes are horrible, and there is hope that things can work out OK. I guess I have turned into (always been?) a glass half full gal. I have seen silver linings in most of the things that have happened to date in my life.

Anyway... are there times I look at other things out there and think ... "oh, how I wish I could do/experience/have that?" Sure. Is it short lived? Yeah... with exception of Gails tallent with scrapbooking and cards - ha! Love you Gail!!

So, that's my 2 cents on the whole thoughts of life lately...

Colonoscopy 1year followup

First colonoscopy after cancer/LAR/reversal. Are they always like this? Good heavens! I thought I was done at midnight. Nope. 2am accident. Clean up (wearing pad always) wear Depends a climb back into bed.

Up at 5. And it’s now no longer clear!!! WTF??? I go in anyway as they are removing the port. I have an accident on the way to hospital. Shoot over the back of the Depends. Ruin pants. Have spare and undies/pads in car. No biggie. Change. Do it again in a run to the potty. Ruin everything AGAIN. Yeah. No more spares. Good news I sits clear again!

Head to floor. Get gown asked for an adult diaper. They have none. Really? A hospital without Depends?? OK. They’re aware of my “issue”. They give me pads for the chair.


Still smiling after the issues. Shit happens more that typical my my life - ha!

I make it to the potty a few times until they give me a bag of liquids. Yeah. Activated everything AGAIN. I go to stand to get on gurney and KNOW I’ll never make it to the potty. So I sit in the pad and just do what I’m going to. Sigh. Need a new gown now too!! BUT it was better than leaving a trail to the potty.


Say bye bye port!!

I make it all the way through surgery and colonoscopy and wear a lovely hospital gown home. Yep. I’m out of clothing at this point.


Don’t I look thrilled to be riding in the car in a gown? LOL. Guess I should have smiled, eh?


Not that you can see the port is gone but it is!!

At home I climb into bed to nap as it was not enough sleep last night. Wake up to a HUGE accident. Through a Depends sheets comforter everything. Good grief!!! Is it always like this now?? I have never had these issues before. Am I doomed to have these types of issues forever on these?? Here’s hoping not!!

Scrapbook retreat

And I was OFF to SLC to join Janet and Gail for another fun weekend of scrapping!!


The flight was the roughest I have been on in a while! They sat the crew down for most of the flight it was so rough!

Later that evening!


This retreat was very different than any other we have been to. Very un structured and free for all and I LOVED it!


The first night was mini cards. They gave you the pack and instructions and turned you lose. We were free to chat and visit and just enjoy our time. We worked on the cards and if we had questions there was a sample set on a easel in the front of the room or the gals would come by and help you. Very stress free. We could then work on anything you wanted to that you brought. Well, I brought NOTHING. Yep. Well to my defense I have been culling and working on the house to downsize so I really didn’t have scrapbooking on my mind. Heck I didn’t pack until the night before. Really. Even supplies. Yeah. Not a good planner - ha!!


BUT Gail to the rescue with her cute Kiwi Lane card packs she had with her!! I had a GREAT time using the templates and enjoyed scrapping with them.





One of the cute projects we had was a set of pumpkins. I only put one together as I was going to have to fly home with this stuff and didn’t want to try and figure out how to mush them all down and Un-mush them when I got home! They’re cute!!


More cards!!





Two page layout that was super cute!


I got to see Tiffany and Noah on Friday night. With NO pictures on my phone dang it! I did get pictures but none are on here. I’ll have to get them from Janet!!

We had a nice dinner and got to visit a bit.



Saturday a dear friend from Georgia came down from Ogden to see me. She had transferred to the Pentagon some years back and we kept in touch through her moves. She had just recently moved to a new job in Ogden and it was the perfect time to meet up and chat for a bit. I really enjoyed the short time we had together and our visit!

Next up was Britnee and Eric and the kids. They came down. No pictures. It was a GREAT but short visit with them. Got hugs and off we went again!!

Gail and I drove over to see Nick and Kaylee and family. It was Logan’s 2nd birthday party! Cute! He is such a happy boy.


We also got to see Mike, Linda, Bernice and Gayla while we popped in for a short visit. Then off again to SLC to meet back up with Robert and his crew!

Jessica and Scarlett came out.


Mandy, Kolton and Onyx came out as well. They were sure cute babies.


Sarah was also there. It was a great time visiting with family!!

Again there ARE pictures. Just not on my phone!! I was busy hugging on babies and visiting!

And with that another great scrapbooking retreat and whirlwind visit back to de family was done!


I’m excited to go back in December to see everyone again for Christmas!!

Catching up. Pottery

About 9 weeks ago I started a NEW pottery class. This time it was hand building. It was not quite as fun as the wheel class, but very informative in different techniques.

Here is some of the work.


This was actually one of the later pieces as it took a full two weeks to complete. I joke that this is “fat bastard” as it started out so much smaller on the base but because I have a horrible tendency to go WAY too thin on my walls (both in wheel and hand building) it collapsed on itself and widened quite a bit. Like double the width it was to be originally! Oh well it turned out well. The technique is sgraffito. You underglaze with black then remove what you want to make the pattern.


I added flowers to the ends and sides as well.





This is the 2nd thing we made. Not sure I’m happy with this one but it is what it is.


Took a few minutes to make this for giggles.


Here is a collection of pots from wheel and hand making. I took the time to glaze my pieces from wheel as I wasn’t too thrilled with the unglazed pieces. They felt chalky to me. So they all stuck around for some glaze :)


My first works. Poppies that are incense holders.


A mug. With stamped designs.


Another that was done with a literal stamp after. We shall see how this one turns out. Not sure I’m thrilled with it.

Ok here are the ones from wheel after the firing.



The crew!


My two favorites!


This was done by rolling the pot in paint chips they had laying around. LOVED it!!


Love my eyeball. ;)