an dochas and the haran irish dancers

it's another "salina weekend" for my daughter, which means there are 3 little girls who need cared for on friday until daddy is off work. the problem w/ that scenario, though, is that they typically want to extend their stays to include overnight (if not the whole weekend!).

so mommy made her plans to go to salina while i made our plans to attend "an dochas and the haran irish dancers" at pittsburg memorial auditorium. little rain was at uncle kirk's house, helping "work on the farm," which i thought worked out great as she would probably lose interest in the show before it was over.

i tried to get daddy (lucas) to meet up w/ us at the show, but he didn't seem to have much interest in going. it was just going to be grandpa, raven, riahna, and me for the evening. we started off w/ dinner at cafe del rio (which riahna and rain call "del wios") and then on to the show. the little girls acted SO grownup and proper -- they were impressive! they were excited to go see the dancers and knew they would like the show. the tickets were assigned seating and good seats on the floor at memorial auditorium.

the girls had both been fighting a cold, but as the evening wore on -- they just started to wilt. raven, especially, was showing signs of not feeling up to her best. the performance was really good and lots of fun, but she just couldn't make it until the end. she was running a fever, her head was hurting, her throat was hurting, and she was coughing. she had asked a couple times to leave and go home, but we encouraged her to try to stay.

after about 50 minutes of performance, we decided to leave. we knew there was no intermission, so we figured we had made it most of the way through the show. raven was just miserable. we called daddy and gave him the news -- your little girls are coming home tonight (instead of staying all night at our house) and they are sick. i'm sure that made for a long weekend for him!

during the show, riahna was seated in my lap where she could get a better view of the dancers. there was a little boy about her age seated a couple seats over from us. he did everything he could to get her attention -- but she wouldn't look at him. i could tell from her rigid body that she knew he was trying to get her attention, and she was extra attentive to the show. he snapped his fingers, he waved at her, he wriggled around in his seat, he clapped his hands, and even danced w/ stomping feet. nothing worked.

to an outsider, it would look like he had made no impression on her at all. by the time he was stomping his feet, his mother was doing what she could to get his attention to make him sit still and be quiet. the second that he turned away to see what his mother wanted, riahna quit watching the show to watch him. as soon as he turned to watch her again, she was riveted to the show again. this went on for about 8 minutes, and it was quite comical. poor little boy never knew that he had gained her attention, and that little ornery girl had done a very slick job of playing hard to get! it was really quite entertaining to watch!


an dochas and the haran irish dancers provided a great experience and a good evening of entertainment. i am so glad that we decided to see this show and take the little girls to experience it. the funny thing was that most of the songs were about drinking and dying, but they were performed w/ lots of fun and gusto!

a "special" breakfast

great snow day breakfast recipe -- cinnamon french toast bake (taken from the show 'from the kitchens of pillsbury w/ brigitte nguyen). this show, done from various product test kitchens, gives a person some great ideas for using the brand name products in a different way.

here's one that we use for special mornings when we want to enjoy some time together, but i don't feel that i can take a bunch of time out to fix breakfast (usually b/c i'm fixing the lunch meal for the whole family or something like that!).

cinnamon french toast bake

1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 - 12 oz cans cinnamon rolls
6 eggs
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cup maple syrup
icing from the cinnamon roll packages
powdered sugar - optional

1. prehead oven to 375.
2. pour butter into 9 x 13 baking dish.
3. cut cinnamon rolls into 4 pieces each.
4. put cut pieces into buttered dish - 2 layers.
5. beat eggs, cream, cinnamon & vanilla.
6. pour over roll pieces in butter.
7. sprinkle pecans on top.
8. drizzle syrup over top.
9. bake 24 - 28 minutes until brown.
10. drizzle w/ warmed icing from cinnamon roll package.
11. dust w/ powdered sugar, if desired.

we like ours served while hot, w/ a drizzle of heavy cream over it. the leftovers save well and easily reheat in the microwave. makes a great midnight snack or a leftover breakfast.

planning out my life

i've made lots of new years resolutions over the years. this year, i decided to make fewer resolutions and be more determined about monitoring the achievement and getting the results.

one of the big things for me is to have a calendar to help keep me organized. it also helps me remember what i have covered in classes, when assignments are do, when to return papers, etc., when to pay bills, when paychecks arrive, plus all the normal calendar entries.

one of my resolutions this year was to make a conscious effort to make more artwork, to be more active in my art groups, and to keep posting stuff to my blogs (and not just fb!).

i made a special trip to joplin to shop for calendars. i knew what i wanted, but there was nothing there like that. one that i kind of liked was $60! i decided on one that was $20 and not really what i wanted, but at least it was purple!

as i have gotten older, too, i've thought of what i want my children and grandchildren to know about me some day. i thought this would be a great time to start incorporating my everyday life into what they might want to know. so, i am doing the best that i can to do some artwork EVERY day in my calendar that has to do w/ what's going on in my everyday life.

plus, i like this calendar better now that i thought i would, so i kept the sticker from the front to help me to find the same thing next year. a litte time every day (or most days) to try and do a little artwork (no matter how little) for my personal enjoyment now and for someone's enjoyment some time in the future when they look back in time.

my ulterior motive in working on this calendar in this manner is to help convince jerry that i need that "colossal journal" (that has the colossal price tag) so i can "document" things in our life for our kids and grandkids to look back on some day! wish me luck and we'll see how that goes!

a day of dance

the little girls dance at jody phillips dance company, and they LOVE dance. on saturday, they had a full day a dance activities -- getting ready, practice at the studio, practice at the gym, a break for lunch, meet up an hour before performance, organize and practice performance again, line up, wait on the half-time, and then perform.

raven is 7 and this is her 4th year of dance. riahna is 5 and this is her 2nd year of dance. they really like all the dress up stuff, the glitter/glamour, the make-up, the actual dancing, and usually the performing. they are always showing off their dance moves when they are out to visit. sometimes, mommy (summer) even gets up and shows off her moves w/ them!

overall, it was a great experience. ALL of the dancers did a great job, but it was a long day for a lot of those little ones. raven really gets in to her music and dancing and does the full movement -- you can tell she really enjoys what she is doing. riahna likes the dance and is good, but she often gets distracted by what all is going on around her.

as it turned out today, riahna was too tired to dance at the performance and she just sat down on the floor and watched the others. i think mommy is a little upset w/ her and saying that this video clip will be going into her senior video, but those things happen. besides, she'll probably do more irritating things than this before graduating high school!

funny thing is that as a grandparent, it doesn't bother me. if it had been my kid, i would've wanted to choke her. either it's age, or life, or experience, or something, but those things just don't matter as much any more!

keeping it up

well, i'm less than a month into the new year, but i am doing fairly well at keeping up w/ the things that i'm trying to do -- blogging more regularly, creating and posting more artwork, writing or creating artwork each day, documenting life by journaling in my calendar.

so, if you look in my calendar, it will look like a picture book of appointments, activities, achievements, goals, and other updates. pictures inspired by the weather, doodles inspired by work or other activity of that day, logos for movies we're watching, etc. this is something that i think my family (grandchildren) will be interested to see some day.

i also agreed to post the "pay it forward 2011" on facebook, where the first 5 people to sign up on my list would get a handmade gift from me. i think i actually have 6 people on my list, but that's all good. i found out a couple days that i have a "pay it forward" gift waiting in my mailbox at work tomorrow. i'm so excited to see it that i can't hardly wait.

now, my dilemna -- do i make a return gift for each person whose list i am on, do i send them a thank you card through the mail, or do i just thank them online and post how excited i was to get their gift, etc.? i feel somewhat obligated to make them a gift, but i don't want to step on any toes. suggestions and comments are certainly appreciated here! i guess i'll just play it by ear right now and see how it goes!

seems like forever

i'll make no secrets about it -- i didn't vote for obama and i've got no respect for him. i had little respect for him before he took office, but if it could be measured . . . it would be running in the big negative numbers!

i'm posting this countdown ticker to my blog, just to remind me of how much longer we will be burdened w/ the poor decision made by a large amount of people. funny how people are NOT bragging about their choice now!

i've already purchased my "obama's last day" t-shirt so i can start sharing my celebration w/ others early. to the obama-fans -- live it up, b/c his pratices will be coming to an abrupt halt!

topic posted - graceful envelope 2011

ok, the 2011 topic is posted for the graceful envelope contest, sponsored by the washington calligraphers guild. the current flyer is posted here -- http://www.calligraphersguild.org/PDF/2011GracefulEnvelopeFlier.pdf

i am planning to create an envelope for this, and i would like to challenge anyone who likes to be creative to join me. all the expense would be a stamp and your creative time/energy. who knows who might have the winning idea for this topic!

anyone interested in participating can see more information here -- http://www.calligraphersguild.org/envelope.html

they also have several years of winning submissions posted for all age groups!

it IS official!

it is now official! my "50 x 50" list has now been changed to a "60 x 60" list. this change has come about for multiple reasons, but mainly b/c i realized that i was staring down the barrel of turning 50 (in 5 years) with way too many things to get done!

some (or many) of the things that i wanted to accomplish before i turned 50 have not happened as quickly as i wanted due to financial reasons or health reasons. by adding more time to my list, i was also able to add some new ideas to my list, too.

previously, i had trouble filling up the list of 50 things that i wanted to accomplish, but now my list is up to #55. still leaves me a littls time to add new things as they might arise in life AND i can always mark something off if my interests have changed. ultimately, the goal is to complete all these wonderful things by the time i'm 60 and have a scrapbook about them.

wish me luck!!!

time to get on it again!

well, as w/ many people and things, the new year provides the perfect time for self-evaluation and resolutions. i haven't written on here in quite a while, allowing the views of others to impact what i would write about. it has now come about in my life that these viewsopinions mean nothing to me, so why make changes in life because of them?

i originally started this blog to record some stories from my childhood for my children to have. also, i wanted an outlet for my creativity, my personal celebrations, and a little family bragging. this blog is for my friends and my family -- period. if you don't fall into one of those categories, you might as well get lost. i don't need your blessing and you don't need mine. no need for anyone to get confused about that point.

there have been LOTS of events in the last 5 years that i haven't posted b/c of someone else's views or feelings. i'll be making those up now some time, to make this a more relevant accounting of life and events -- both mine and ours.

2011 hand prints - family

well, we've missed a couple years of getting our handprints stamped on new year's day . . . but we got back on it this year! we had scott here and summer/lucas/raven/riahna/rain as well as jerry and me. i will get these "autographed" by the participants -- probably on superbowl day.

i think this is such a neat way to document and visualize how much the kids (including my own grown children) have grown and how our family has grown in size (inclusiong and reproduction)! i have a few other pages of these where we all fit on the one page. we could've squeezed it all in this year, but it was more easily created and viewed w/ being a little spread out.