hand in hand

an dochas and the haran irish dancers

2011-02-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-30T15:23:00.001-08:00

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

2011-01-29T23:36:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-23T10:25:00.001-08:00

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

2011-01-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-01-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-01-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

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.

wow! new recipe!!!

2010-04-21T19:18:00.001-07:00

tonight i tried a new recipe for dinner, and it was truly fantastic! i've been trying new things specifically to try and work more veggies into our diet and to keep the variety. fantastic!!!

this dinner made a full meal for 2 adults w/ enough leftovers for another meal for 1 person. this will be perfect for jerry, since i have night class tomorrow night! to make this recipe go further, use 16 oz pasta as the recipe originally called for. i knew that since it was just for the 2 of us, we didn't need such a large amount to serve or of leftovers from a 1# pasta batch.

sweet and sour noodles

* salt
* 8 oz pasta
* 1 lb chicken or pork, sliced very thin
* 2 leeks, thinly sliced and cleaned
* 2 handfuls shitake mushrooms - sliced
* 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
* 2" piece ginger root, minced
* 1/3 c dark soy sauce
* 2 T agave syrup or honey
* 1 lime, zest and juice
* hot sauce to taste
* 2 c shredded lettuce (romaine or iceberg)
* cilantro or basil for garnish

bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta. add salt and cook pasta to al dente.

when the pasta goes into the water, heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. add the chicken or pork, brown and transfer to a plate.

add the leeks and mushrooms to the skillet and stir fry for 2 minutes. add the garlic and ginger and cook for a minute more. stir in the agave syrup or honey, lime zest and juice and hot sauce, to taste.

in a large serving bowl, toss the veggies with the meat, noodles and lettuce to combine.

garnish with cilantro or basil and serve with lime wedges alongside.

farmers' market

2009-08-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

this is our new project this year -- farmers' market in pittsburg. we're doing this project together w/ summer and lucas and family. the little girls are great help w/ projects like this! sometimes that's true and sometimes that's not true, but they still believe it to be true. if you are ever in doubt, they will certainly give you instructions on what you should be doing or involve you in a dirt clod fight!

we've had a garden each year for the last 3 years, but this year we made our garden bigger with the intention of having some produce to sell at farmers' market. it seems like each year we have more than we can use of something, and sometimes we have more than we can find homes for use! by planning to do this, it insured that we had what we needed and hopefully some extra.

i can tomatoes, salsa, greenbeans, jalapenos, pickles, relish, and find uses for the other produce in cooking or meal prep. this year, i've put about 30 bags of zucchini in the freezer to make zucchini bread. it's already cooked and measured out in the needed amount. i've picked some blackberries and put in the freezer. i told a friend the other day that i'm in a "feeding the freezer" frenzy! if we don't start eating some of this stuff soon -- there won't be any room for the beef that we're wanting to butcher soon!

so this year we planted our garden of the things that we like to use, and we just planted extra. that way if that crop was just ok, we still had what we wanted to use. if the crop was bountiful -- we had enough to sell at farmers' market.

as you can see from the picture, the crop has been bountiful so far. we still have a ton of tomatoes that need to ripen, but they seem to be taking their own sweet time about getting there! we also have tons more gourds, a few more canteloupe, new zuchhini planted and growing, and turnips growing.

this picture is from farmers' market this morning. we had birdhouse gourds, green peppers, canteloupes, red tomatoes, husky gold tomatoes, sweet tangerine tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes (sugar snack, sun gold, and italian ice), zucchini, basil, and mint.

summer made a batch of fresh pesto (basil and olive oil) and served samples on some italian bread. lots of people tried samples and then bought basil to make their own. we sold out of basil very quickly, but we still handed out samples. we laughed and called it a "teaser" for next week so people would come back!

i think next week summer's going to make pesto again, and we're going to make and serve mint tea. we've been having mint-flavored tea a lot lately -- very refreshing!

so now you know that friday nights at our house are spent picking, carrying, washing, sorting, packing, and planning for what's going to farmers' market on saturday mornings. we have garden work time another couple nights a week, but friday night seems to be the most involved. we're planning to do this again next year, except we're planning it bigger and better!

come see us at farmers' market!

watermelon from our garden

2009-08-22T14:39:00.001-07:00

so far, here is our prize winner (for us!) -- a 21 pound watermelon from our garden. we haven't grown very many watermelon and haven't grown them for farmers' market, but just for us.

jerry has been just dying to pick this one and checks it each time we're outside. i used to laugh at my grandpa burger for checking his watermelon patch several times a day, but now i know why! they really change from morning to evening.

we cut this watermelon for our dessert last night when summer, lucas, riahna, and rain were here. it was very good, but would've gone passed its prime if we had waited much longer. now we have about 30 or so more out there that we need to be getting picked!

anyone like watermelon? now you know what we'll be serving for the next week or so at our house!

it's always something

2008-11-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

well, life goes on as usual -- but things are changing for some! ever notice how someone seems to make a major life change (like quitting a solid job in the chosen career field for returning to school to work on another degree in the same career field) and then brushes it off as if it was something he or she just wanted to do?

typically, that's a load of BS and usually that person made this decision with some help from someone else -- like the boss who didn't rehire the person, like the special someone who doesn't call back, or like the schoolboard that non-renews a contract. as a university instructor, i know this is a common storyline that people use to cover up some major life-altering screw-up that affected far more people than the idiot who made the original stupid decisions that resulted in the "life-style changes".

in today's economy, only a fool would give up a career to go back to school to try and get a higher degree to get a higher position in the same field at some later time. the bad thing is that with a non-renew on the record, the higher position is not likely to ever follow. after all, administrators talk and someone will eventually tell what it was that brought about the non-renewal. people don't forget it when their child has been put in danger by the careless and heartless actions of someone else.

if the person making the idiotic decisions was in a teaching position when the stupid decisions possibly harmed a child and/or family, no level of achievement or higher degree would make that ugly situation disappear when that person later is job-hunting. after all, who would that person use as job references? co-workers? parents? former students? or maybe administrators? what would they have to say of that person or about the scenario.

while some people might think these things are better left in the closet -- i think some things are much better left out of the courtroom! i know that if my children had even been in that position where they were put into danger by the thoughtless and careless acts of someoneone else -- there would be no need to file charges and no need to take up the valuable time of the court system. that lets you know my family's views on child abuse!!!

the BIG tomato

2008-09-03T09:12:00.001-07:00

well, summer is almost over and we have spent much of our time gardening and preserving! we've had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, but here is the "monster tomato" from our garden so far -- 1 lb and 1 oz. i knew there would be some sceptics in the family, so i've taken a picture of the tomato on the kitchen scales as proof! we've had many tomatoes that weighed in at almost a pound, but just not quite.

so far, we've canned 70 qts of tomatoes & 24 pints of jalapenos, and we've frozen 15 qts of sweet corn and 56 qts of apple sauce. we still have more tomatoes and jalapenos coming on, cucumbers picked to make pickles, and more zucchini than we can keep up w/ giving away!

we have over 30 canteloupes coming on (and have already picked 3) and have about 20 watermelons on the vine. the way we have it figured -- the canteloupes and the watermelons will probably all be ready at the same time! if that happens, i'm not really sure what we'll do w/ all that produce!

we have had SO much fun watching our garden and watching the grandchildren "helping" in the garden. then grandpa started making all these rules like "no throwing dirt" and "no kicking dirt" and pretty soon it'll be "no having fun"!

i told jerry if he wasn't careful, no one would be going to the garden w/ him if he had all those rules! it's rather hard for me to enforce rules on the grandkids when i'm not willing to follow them myself! but, i guess i could just throw a rotten tomato instead??? i'm sure that would be just ducky -- don't you think?

evelyn's quilt for auction

2008-05-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

the elliott reunion is coming up very soon, and evelyn has her quilt ready for the auction. the auction is the fundraiser to support the reunion expenses that may occur in preparing the reunion gathering. this year, evelyn has designed a family quilt (with jennifer and janie and joleen's help) that notes this reunion was held in missouri, has a block for the elliott parents, and a block for each of the children (evelyn and her siblings). this is also a memorable reunion because it's the first time the reunion has been anywhere except nebraska.

this is quite an amazing quilt and very meaningful to the family members. jerry and i have already decided what we are willing to bid for this treasure and we're hoping that we come away the proud winners. we understand that we might not be, but we're going to give it a run for the money!

bidders must be present to bid and/or win any auction items. be prepared and be forewarned!

midwest storms

2008-05-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

many people have asked lately about the tornadoes near us and what was going on with that. this is a photo of the tornado from 5/10/08 that hit picher, OK, through seneca, MO (south edge of joplin, MO), and then on down through granby, MO.

this picture was taken from the parking lot of central school in baxter springs, KS -- about 10 minutes from picher, OK, area. i received this picture through email, so i'm not sure who should get the credit for the original photograph.

ireport has posted several pictures of this incident if you're interested in specific destruction of this area.

this particular tornado rated an EF 3-4 on the scale, which means it's pretty bad. i've not ever noticed a hyphenated number before, but i guess it could've changed levels of destruction as it traveled or something. if you're interested in tornado ratings, you can read the classifications.

what can i say? not a lot going on in tornado alley during tornado season -- other than watching the storms roll in and (hopefully) right on by. we had another tornado warning last night and could hear the pittsburg, KS, sirens going off. part of the my kids were already here and the other part arrived shortly before the sirens. i guess it was more fun to watch the storm from here!

last night to keep raven from being scared of tornadoes, i told her that's how a person gets to oz to see the wizard -- so she just went on about playing as if there was nothing wrong. no need having her crying as well as riahna, who was afraid of the thunder (and the cat and the dog and the train, etc!)

new baby is here!

2008-04-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

well, she finally arrived on monday evening around 6 p.m. and of course, she's beautiful! here's our first glimpse of her when we first arrived. grandpa jerry was near bursting w/ pride as i stood back and watched b/c i have a cold. how unlucky is that???

jerry had to be out of town for 3 days for a work conference, and he was so worried that she would arrive while he was gone and he wouldn't get to see her until he returned -- so this was great luck for him! he had his bags all packed so we could race to the hospital as soon as we heard she was here.

all is well; everyone is doing great. summer and i are going to joplin tonight and hope to see her while we are there. i'm sure she won't be the least little bit spoiled (said with dripping sarcasm!), but there is nothing wrong with being spoiled w/ love.

vacation photo for jerry

2008-03-25T14:42:00.001-07:00

well, we've just returned from a wonderful week in new orleans for spring break. after years of paying for mission trips for kids and other people, we went on a mission trip ourselves -- a first for both of us. our church went to new orleans to help rebuild homes after hurricane katrina. it was a great experience and we had lots of fun!

on our afternoon off, our group went to the french quarter. since jerry is still recovering from knee replacement surgery, he didn't want to just walk around and shop so we went to the aquarium. it was a fantastic time and we had this picture taken. i didn't really want to, but jerry talked me into it and it turned out great -- i'm so glad we did it.

we later "lost" the picture as we left it behind in the restaurant where we had dinner and didn't realize it until almost 2 hours later. that meant a walk back down to the other end of the french quarter to retrieve our prize and we were lucky that the waitress had found it and set it back for us. we were so excited to show it to our grandchildren, as they all love to watch shrek when they come to visit.

i was SO homesick for the little ones that i couldn't wait to see them when i got back. that is the longest that i have gone w/o seeing them and it really hurt. they were waiting here at the house when we got home that night and spent the next 2 hours climbing all over memaw and grandpa. thank God for cell phones and keeping in touch. i even got an "i love you" on voicemail from riahna that i'll be saving!

the biggest party yet

2008-01-31T18:03:00.000-08:00

amazing as it may seem, we're planning the biggest party yet to happen at our house. it seems that so many parties end up here and we LOVE having people over and spending time w/ family and friends. we've had thanksgiving, christmas, superbowl, father's day, mother's day, and 4th of july plus just "come over and have some food and fun" get-togethers. but now, we're hosting the elliott family reunion for 2008.

that's right. the nebraska reunion is now going to be in missouri! we're probably going to have a hundred or more people here and we're so excited! we've got 3 days of fun and activities planned for all ages . . . including the elliott reunion auction. top secret word has it that evelyn is making one of her quilts for the auction. super-top-secret word is that the "missouri bunch" is pooling their money to make sure that no one from nebraska can take that quilt home w/ them!!! sounds like some excitement building there!

about 2 weeks ago, we sent out an invitation letter and a reminder of the reunion activities and dates. we're also collecting recipes for an elliott family cookbook to be distributed at the reunion, so everyone needs to get recipes collected and turned in to cindy to be included in the book. we've already heard from several people in the family and know that we're having family come from coast to coast -- even people we were so surprised to hear were making the trip.

we included this great group shot of the family, taken at the 2006 reunion when we went to nebraska and took evelyn w/ us. we had a great time on that trip, taking some time to do a couple tourist stops along the way, and i met many great people from jerry's family. after doing all the pictures from evelyn's 80th bday party, i knew these people from pictures and now i could meet them in real life. it was a great trip and provided the invitation to everyone there to visit us in missouri in 2008.

we are so excited for this event and the fun times, memories, and great pictures that we'll have. oh yeah, and hopefully and beautiful new quilt, too!!! it'll be a great june and a wonderful summer!

3 little gorillas

2008-01-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

finally a picture that we can post of the 3 little grandsons, who are growing up SO fast. this was the christmas card that amanda had made, and she even sent one to the "other grandparent" (who hasn't seen the grandchildren since 4/22/06).

because amanda sent her a picture, i am free to post this picture of them on my blog, as it is by jacob and amanda's request that i don't post pictures of the boys. that all goes back to the situation in kidnapped! a very stressful day!!

anyway, at our new year's eve party, i asked amanda why she sent a picture and if she was thinking to reconcile. she explained her intentions and we had a good laugh over the situation. isn't family just great?!?

here are the 3 little boys that we are so proud of and enjoy spending time w/ doing special activities and having them out to the house. they are so much fun that we can't wait to see them again the next time! as soon as the weather gets nicer, we'll have even more fun things to do w/ them when we can be outside.

done w/ court . . . for a while

2008-01-10T02:29:00.000-08:00

well, yesterday was our day in court to try and have justin friel emancipated. he hasn't complied w/ the statutes and guidelines of the law on what a minor should do and should provide to a parent, so we felt we should no longer be responsible for paying for his schooling and/or for his health and mental issues. unfortunately, the judge didn't quite agree w/ us.

instead of emancipating justin and making him be on his own, the judge just relieved us from paying for his tuition for the time period that he was non-compliant w/ the rules. funny, he only became compliant at all after we filed the paperwork to have him emancipated. anyway, it didn't quite work out the way we wanted, but i'm darned sure it didn't turn out the way they wanted it! in a scenario like this, sometimes that is just as (or even more!) important!!

overall, it wasn't a bad deal for us. we spent $500 in attorney fees to save $2300 in tuition. not a bad trade-off, and i would take another deal like that any day! but now that we have that crap taken care of, we can get back to the regular kind of life . . . doing the things we want and not worrying about what and who is going to try and hold things against us for court.

since we saved so much money, we've decided to plan a trip to las vegas for our anniversary, although the date might be off a little bit, and we also have lots of work and planning to do to prepare for the friel family reunion that is to be held at our house this summer. we're really excited about having everyone, including the nebraska bunch, out to our house for a weekend party. i'm sure it will be loads of fun and create tons of family memories for us to savor.

holiday letdown

2007-11-20T06:48:00.000-08:00

while others are preparing for their thanksgiving holiday coming up, it feels to me as if the holiday is already over. we had our big thanksgiving dinner on sunday, 11/18, with all of jerry's family here and most of my family here. overall, we had about 30 people for dinner and to spend most of the day. it was great fun, but for some reason i didn't get many pictures taken.

we had jerry's mother, brother, 3 sisters and families, nephew and family, neice and child, son and family. on my side, we had my mother and husband, my son and girlfriend, and my daughter w/ her hubby and 2 little girls. there was SO much food here, i didn't even see it all.

we had a great dinner, lots of time to spend together as a family, beautiful weather so the kids could play outside, and a wonderful time to spend together being thankful for all that we have. after everyone left but our kids, we started the movie shrek the third for our evening. we snuggled down in our comfy seats w/ our blankets (at least raven and i did!) and watched the movie -- it was a great ending to a wonderful day.

i left jerry in charge of taking pictures that day -- we have 5 pictures and all of the same people doing the same thing. bad judgment mistake on my part, i guess, to give the camera to someone still on pain pills and recovering from surgery and say, "here, you take the pictures for today." i'll know better next time!

raven's preschool portrait

2007-11-16T17:08:00.001-08:00

this is raven, one of my little princesses, last year at preschool just after she had turned 3 years old. she has always loved going to miss lorie's "prettyschool", which is how she says "preschool" when she's in a hurry. now it's just a habit and i think she thinks of it as "pretty school". she loves going SO much that even when she's sick, she thinks she needs to go to school.

here is her current picture, taken just after she turned 4. it was amazing to see the change in her, as i guess i don't notice the overall changes when i see her so often. she told me she had pictures taken and i asked her how she posed. she said, "he told me to put my foot out." i couldn't quite figure out what she was talking about, but she was excited about it so i didn't push for more info. after seeing the picture, now i know what she meant!

i was floored when i saw what a little lady she looked like in this picture -- so young and yet so grown up looking. i guess that's one of the best parts of parenting is that we can just sit back and watch them grow up. she's certainly going to run her parents around the block a time or two, and i'm sure i'm going to enjoy the show.

raven, memaw and grandpa are so proud of you and think you have a wonderful and bright future ahead of you!

jerry's "captain morgan" machine

2007-11-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

well, now that knee replacement surgery is over, the fun part starts -- physical therapy! for the first 2 weeks at home, we had a home health care physical therapist who came to the house 5 days a week. now, we have 3 trips a week to physical therapy in town at the hospital.

based on the recommendations of the home health physical therapist, jerry got a knee bending machine. i'm not sure of the technical name for this equipment, but scott refers to it as "the captain morgan machine". i think scott feels rather safe giving jerry quite a bit of hassle, as he knows that jerry can't get up and do much about it. after all, he just has to stay out of cane-striking distance!

so between a list of exercises to do each day, walking around the house/porch or down the lane, and spending time in the "captain morgan machine," jerry also has plenty of time to play games on the computer, read, watch television, make work phone calls, sort the mail, and overall just go stir-crazy in the house. since his surgery, he's added the sports package to our cable, watched pay-per-views, downloaded the full games on the internet, and purchased more books online! at this rate, we can't afford for him to be house-bound much longer!

he rooked me into a trip to walmart the other day (i despise going to walmart) and he even rode to parsons w/ me when i went to teach class the other day. just getting out of the house was a huge treat for him. saturday, 11/10, was opening day of deer season, and it was tough for him to be stuck in the house while the boys were hunting. after all, last year, jerry got his deer right after season opened.

we were going to make a trip out somewhere, driving around and exploring, but just didn't get to it with everything else going on. maybe tomorrow will bring a day that has time for these little pleasures in life.

riahna checking the pumpkin

2007-10-27T20:45:00.002-07:00

just part of the fun in going out to check "the great pumpkin" is seeing the looks on the kids' faces when they see how much it has grown or how much it has changed -- or even "hey, there's someone i know!" and pose for the camera!

"hey, peek-a-boo! look at me!! i'm looking at you!!!"

the joy(s) of a 17-month old!

pumpkin volunteer

2007-10-27T20:45:00.001-07:00

i feel rather like charlie brown waiting on the great pumpkin to appear . . . but this is what we have. we tried to raise pumpkins in our garden this year, but after saving them from drowning in our terribly wet spring/summer -- they all died in the humid heat of early to mid-august. i was so disappointed, too, because we had several pumpkins that were all about basketball size. i was hoping to have at least 1 pumpkin for each of our 5 grandchildren.

but, no such luck.

last spring, in our front flower garden, we noticed a viney looking plant growing on the east end near the rose bush. we knew it was something from the garden, but we weren't sure what it was. well, as the plant grew and matured, we figured out that it was a pumpkin plant. a volunteer plant from the pumpkins that we had left sitting on our front porch last fall/winter.

somehow, a seed from one of those pumpkins was planted in our flower garden, and it survived! so, we tried to raise pumpkins and failed -- but we were given a pumpkin that we didn't plant! we've been eagerly watching and waiting for the day when this pumpkin is ready to pick. it's getting close now, and this hardy pumpkin will be the only pumpkin to grace our front porch.

each time the girls come out to visit, they have to go out and check on the pumpkin and see how big it is and how it's doing. it's about basketball size now and the vine is dying off. i assume that means it's about ready to pick, but i'm waiting on the stem to start to show that it's ready.

soon, very soon, "the great pumpkin" will be on our front porch for all to see! a very happy halloween to all!!!

a surprise visit to nevada

2007-10-21T18:06:00.001-07:00

well, today was quite a surprise for several people. first off, it's the first post i've made to this blog in quite some time. second, jerry was out and about visiting people for the first time since his surgery! third, i'm actually getting this posted in a timely manner -- so i better get some positive comments from "those people" who have been fussing at me!

for those of you who didn't know, jerry's mother had back surgery on 10/04 in kansas city for some pinched nerves and terrible back pain that she was having. then on 10/09, jerry had knee replacement surgery on his right knee at st. johns hospital in joplin. that means evelyn is now walking w/ a cane and jerry is walking w/ a walker.

this last couple weeks have been very stressful and extremely exhausting for me, taking care of jerry since his surgery and starting back to work after fall break. scott, who still lives at home, has been invaluable in helping w/ jerry, and jacob has been wonderful to come out and visit and/or help, too.

we have rearranged the house to make it more accommodating for jerry, plus we moved ALL the toys to the little front room to insure that he doesn't step on a little toy piece while he's up walking around. he has a great physical therapist (by coincidence, my step-sister-in-law!) who comes to the house 5 days a week for the first 2 weeks that he's home. she has been wonderful to work with, too.

anyway, today we got jerry out of the house. i knew that evelyn had been worried about him and would "rest easier" if she could see for herself that he was doing well. so we loaded him up in the car (plus a pain pill) and headed toward nevada for our surprise visit. we had called ahead to make sure they would be home, and since there was a chiefs game on -- we knew they would still be there.

boy, they were surprised to see us walk in the door. we stayed and chatted for about 45 minutes, and then we figured it was time to get jerry back on his way home. jeff and evelyn walked us to the front doors and then evelyn decided to go ahead for a little walk outside.

it was a great trip and a wonderful way to spend the afternoon. jerry just got his 20 staples out this last friday, and he still has quite a bit of physical therapy to do -- but he'll get there. we have lots of plans for our future and the list of things that we want to do is growing all the time.

hope to see most all of you very soon. if not before, then we'll definitely see you at our house for thanksgiving! amazing how quickly the holidays are coming!!!

new buggy

2007-09-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

well, i thought my days of driving a mini-van were over . . . but i guess not! i was so excited at the prospect of having "outgrown" a minivan, or maybe i should say that i had "ungrown" a minivan and no longer needed all that room to haul other people. i could actually choose a car based on what i wanted and what i needed now.

i had been needing a new car for a while, but jerry and i recently went car shopping to see what was out there and what we liked. we were kind of leaning toward a kia sportage for several reasons -- warranty, price, size, 4WD (important to jerry), sits up tall (important to jill), and we have friends/family who have these and were very happy w/ them.

we didn't go to buy -- we just went to look and shop. jerry had been in touch w/ a salesman at roper kia in joplin through email and requested some different prices and stuff. once we got there, we were so impressed w/ the salesman, the dealership, the car, the package, the financing, the rebates and pricing, we ended up just choosing our vehicle and making our deal.

only problem was, the longer i looked at non-minivans, the more i realized that the days of traveling together w/ my family were over. a sportage would only carry 5 people and that wouldn't be comfortable for a long trip. a sedona would easily carry 7, the typical number for a minivan. right now, that's nice because that fits everyone in my family OR everyone in jacob's family along w/ us. that makes traveling together somewhere so much easier and so much more fun.

we've had the new van now for 2 month and already we have been on several trips -- canoeing at elk river, branson to silver dollar city, kansas city, and more. we didn't wait to start "breaking it in" -- although we haven't done some of the things we planned to this fall, we'll just keep chipping away at the lists of things to get done!

before christmas, we need to get back down to silver dollar city, up to kansas city for the thanksgiving weekend and plaza lighting, numerous shopping trips, to oakton to the live nativity scene, to carthage to see the precious moments chapel and lights at the college, and more. i can tell already that we'll have many great memories w/ this vehicle -- just like the previous mini-vans. i can't wait!!!

life goes on

2007-07-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

well, i haven't been posting much here lately because of the court situation w/ jerry's ex (melenda friel) and didn't want those things to be used against us. but after thinking long and hard about it -- i decided to go ahead and post whatever i want about our lives and those people we know. if we have to make lifestyle changes because justin friel needs special medical treatment or to attend counseling for his pornography addiction or homosexual tendencies or whatever -- we're going to do it and get it done w/, BUT it's not going to stop us from living our lives or from sharing our lives w/ others. after all, it's not like paying 1/2 of his tuition to go to private school is enough!

we've had some really neat things going on in our lives that i hadn't posted b/c of the court situation, so i'll get caught up on those events real soon. i've got some great pictures to post of events, too, so i'll sort and post those this weekend.

i'm going to full-time this fall at pitt state and also teaching adjunct for a local community college. it certainly allows me much more freedom that the typical teaching situation in a public school.

the further i am away from teaching in a public school and dealing w/ parents and politics, the happier i am. i recently talked w/ some family members who have children in the diamond r-4 district (where i used to teach) and got an ear-full of negative news about the district. after i left that family event, i was even more happy than ever that i left that place.

it was amazing the bad news they shared about so many people involved in the school district there -- deanna yokley demoted from administrator to classroom teacher, mark mayo (superintendent) not having his raise approved or his contract renewed, poor classroom instruction, angry and/or stressed out teachers, many teachers leaving for various reasons, etc. it was so disheartening overall. the only person they had good comments about was the new counselor there and said that he had done an outstanding job in getting scholarships for kids and working to get kids headed toward college. i'm so glad to be out of that cancerous situation, where negativity just seems to feed and fester until it brings everyone down.

as for me -- i'm taking 12 hours of college this summer. 6 hours toward a new grad degree and 6 hours of art. i'm loving it and learning so much (in the art classes!) that i can't wait to progress to higher levels of art classes.

jerry's doing good and had his 2nd best month of sales last month that he's ever had. that's always encouraging. he's had more 1st this last year than a person would believe!!! he had his highest month ever (while he was off the month of february for shoulder surgery and recovery!), great improvements on his job, new employees at work that know what they are doing, and so much more. even bigger events to come, too!!

scott is tranfering to pitt state this fall, so that will be a lot less driving back and forth to parsons for him! he's been working for a window company out of topeka for the summer and will work next weekend at the farm show for his out-of-town buddy as usual.

summer's family is doing just great and you can read all about them at their blog, which summer has finally started updating again recently! i'm not posting the address here b/c there are some people that we don't want to have it, but if you want to look and don't have the address -- email me and i'll send it to you!

everybody . . . dies famous . . . in a small town

2007-06-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

i'm not dead yet -- but this might be my 15 seconds of fame!

thought you guys might like to know that i made the front page of the local paper (and no, it wasn't in the "arrests" section!). the picture of "jerry's bins at sunrise" was pictured on the front page with the article and a link to the hydrangea picture titled "a moment of rest" was given. i've included both of those pictures so you could see them if you want.

you can find the article here --

in case you can't follow the link -- here's the article copied and pasted --

Box of Colored Pencils Changed Nature Lover's Life
By Andra Bryan Stefanoni
THE MORNING SUN - June 13, 2007

A garden's blooms and birds may be fleeting, but Jill Campbell, Asbury, has turned a way of preserving what nature puts forth into a passion.

It all began with a box of colored pencils.

"I am an English teacher at Pitt State, and one day a few years ago I found a box of colored pencils, evidently abandoned by the teacher or students who used the classroom before me," she said. "I began experimenting with them to see what I could do, and in no time found myself really drawn to it."

No pun intended.

As an English teacher, for many years she has focused on the arrangement of words. Now she has added to her creative repertoire things like shadows, color, textures, and light.

"I didn't have art in high school, but I have always been a fancy letterer or doodler. I came across an online group called Illustration Friday in which they send you a one-word prompt and if you illustrate it you can post your link to their page," she said. "I thought, surely I can do that."

Her first one-word prompt was "strength."

"I had a picture of my husband's new grandson, only a few minutes old, and I thought, 'What more strength is there than that?' and I drew him and posted it to my blog. I posted it to my other groups, asking them to be gentle on their critiques, but got good feedback."

She is particularly drawn to the natural world, capturing flowers and natural scenes. One of her works, "Hydrangea," [should be "A Moment of Rest"] was chosen to be part of an exhibit at Powell Gardens in northwest Missouri under the direction of Cynthia Padilla, the owner of the online Botanical Art Group of which Campbell is a member. Her work also is featured in the online version of the exhibit, which can be seen at http://orchidsandhydrangeas.blogspot.com/

In fact, Campbell was instrumental in getting Padilla, a well-known botanical illustrator, to Powell Gardens this spring for a workshop. There she learned techniques like flower petals, stems, rubbings, and tracings.

"Once you start drawing things in nature, you start taking notice of things more than before," she said.

Campbell always draws from photographs, because it makes the drawing process portable and not hurried. "If I'm working from a picture, it's no hurry to get it done. The flower won't wilt, the moment is captured. If you're drawing a strawberry and using an actual strawberry, after a while it starts to change color and not look quite so pretty," she said.

A Sony Cybershot, 10.1 megapixel, is her camera of choice, which means she doesn't have to be right on top of subject - she can be 100 feet away - to get what she want. Her photography skills are equally good, and earned her a third place finish in the Crowder College Quill contest for her entry, "Jerry's Bins at Sunrise."

Campbell finds plenty of natural subjects in her garden, where last year she canned 70 quarts of tomatoes and 60 quarts of green beans, and where she planted sunflowers for a granddaughter.

"One that reached 11 feet was our biggest one; we took lots of photos and that provided inspiration for my drawings," she said.

She offers these tips to beginners or those striving to improve nature-related illustrations:

o Turn the piece you're working on upside down so you are just looking at shadows and light, instead of the subject matter.

o Do your original sketch on tracing paper, then once you've got it, darken your lines. Keep this as an original, and transfer the image to good paper lightly, where you can then complete the shading, color, etc. This saves time and effort if you make a mistake, because you still have the original on the tracing paper and can reproduce it again easily.

o Use paper designated specifically for the art medium you are using, such as watercolor paper or color pencil paper.

o Invest in a good set of colored pencils for home - Prisma Colors are great and include 120 pencils on four trays - as well as a simple student set of 24 (such as Prang) to throw in a backpack for portability while traveling or outdoors.

Andra Bryan Stefanoni can be reached at andra.stefanoni@morningsun.net

the hydrangea picture wasn't shown in the newspaper article, but the online link was given to the orchids and hydragneas show blog. here is the picture that was displayed at powell gardens --

you can see the full-blown version of it at flickr

1106 - summer sundays

2007-05-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

a long-time icon of pittsburg, kansas, is the 1106 drive-in. this is the old-style drive-in, for hamburgers, sandwiches, fries, tots, ice cream. the best greasy burger and fries in the area -- truth be told. the restaurant has been there almost all of my life (and i'm 41), so it is very well-known in this area.

for this altered book project, the topic was "dining rituals" and i was totally stumped on this one. my family had dining rituals, but i didn't really feel they were special enough or decorative enough to put in the book. then i remembered eating in the car at 1106 . . .

when i was little, we often went to the swimming pool for the afternoon on sundays. this was really quite a treat because we lived out of town and swimming was not something that we got to do just any time. we had a 1964 turquoise dodge, just the model shown in the pictures above. while it may look roomy -- it wasn't big enough in the back seat for 2 big brothers and little sister!

anyway, after an afternoon of swimming, we would often stop off at 1106 for a snack or for a meal. it was a great treat. i recently heard that 1106 was closing because it was being sold and i felt so sad -- as if part of my childhood was disappearing. i hadn't eaten there but 2x in the last 5 years, but it just felt wrong for it to not be there.

well, we've just found out that the 1106 is only closing for repairs and will soon reopen for business as usual. the business did sell, but the owner sold to someone who wanted to keep the pittsburg icon the same instead of tearing it down to make a new business there. i guess backyard burger is going to have to take over the old burger king building!

yeah, 1106 is still a part of pittsburg!

blueberry kisses

2007-05-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

well, it's a wednesday, and a typical day w/ the girls. riahna wants to do whatever raven is doing and raven usually doesn't want riahna's help w/ such things as coloring/writing/painting, etc. other than that, they play together very well. i guess neither one wants to share the markers.

raven wanted to color and write her name and riahna wanted to lay on the color book and make huge sweeping moves w/ a marker as if she were coloring. not enough room for both of them on 1 book, so they each had their own book and their own stash of markers.

everybody was happy. each little girls had her own pile of markers and her own big color book to work in. riahna didn't know how to take the lids off of the markers or she wasn't strong enough to get them off -- either way, she was safe playing w/ the markers.

i went into the kitchen to check on lunch, and when i came back -- this is what i found. either riahna figured out how to get the lid off or one wasn't on there very good. raven was just working away on her pictures and riahna was working on sucking the ink of of a blue crayola magic marker.
she was very proud of herself and very happy, too. anyone want a blueberry kiss that's probably a little sloppy? needless to say -- she was done w/ the markers for the day!

the fun of grandparenting

2007-05-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

there is nothing better than seeing the smiling faces of the grandchildren looking up as soon as they enter the door. each child has a special place in our hearts. each child has different expectations of their interaction w/ us -- but each child does have very special interaction w/ us.

i guess i could say we are very blessed. between us, we have 5 grandchildren, and we get to see ALL of them on a regular basis. some things i cannot post here about jerry's grandchildren -- but that doesn't mean that we have less of a relationship to them. it just means that we can't show that relationship and/or the pictures because the parents don't want the grandmother (jerry's ex-wife) to see the children at all. even in pictures. they feel that she is that much of a threat to the children's safety.

the holidays and summer time are such great times to spend together -- easter, mother's day, birthdays, father's day, 4th of july. so many great pictures opportunities. for those of you who know where to look, there is another blog w/ all the kids pictures posted there to keep you up-to-date on them.

i'll post as many things as i can, but some posts may be extremely limited b/c of the upcoming court situation.

big girl work boots

2007-04-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

holidays are never dull at our house, and this includes ANY gathering of family and/or friends. we had my family easter gathering on palm sunday at our house b/c we were going to nevada for jerry's family on easter.

most holidays bring something special for the kids and easter brings lots of stuff. little riahna was very proud to show off her "big girl work boots" that the easter bunny brought her. now she can really help work cattle when she goes out to the farm to play. in no time at all, uncle kirk will have to make riahna her own sized cattle prod. that way both little girls will have sticks to whack things, animals, or other people w/!

not even 1 year old here and getting her decked out for some serious dirty work! looks like trouble to me!!!

morel mushrooms???

2007-04-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

anyone familiar w/ mushrooms out there? i think these are morels and edible, but i'm not for sure on that. if it's a morel, then it would fall into the Morchella esculenta category.

anyone want to offer an opinion? found in sw missouri in the timber just 3 days ago. of course, having grown up around here, i was constantly reminded as a child not to eat anything that i was not certain of as many plants look fine but are actually poisonous.

care to offer your opinion on type?

wikipedia -- a tool for fools

2007-04-02T03:14:00.000-07:00

wikipedia has gotten quite a lot of press over the last couple years as the "in place" to do internet research. something seems to happen to people's own ability to think once they read something on a computer screen -- almost as if their minds have been taken over by someone else causing them to do totally stupid things based on the instructions or information from a complete stranger!

for example, think of the emails that have been sent instructing computer users to search and delete certain files from their hard drives which "might" be dangerous. based on the words/advice of total strangers, people will delete needed files from their own computers or even their work computers. what in the world would possess them to follow the instructions of an unknown person? especially when it will be creating more problems for them on down the line when their computer no longer works as it should.

these same people pass around emails searching for lost children that have been lost for many years or were never lost to begin w/. after all, someone sent it to them or posted it on the internet -- so it MUST be true. they are just trying to do their part (as instructed) to carry on the cause. did it not ever occur to these people to check the reliability of the information before forwarding it on or before following the instructions?

i guess not -- hence the use and popularity of wikipedia. even people who are supposedly educated will state facts and then use wikipedia as their source to back it up. to the person that does that -- the fool's award should follow shortly. but then again, to those people, they probably couldn't find reliable, legitimate sources, so what else could they do to back up their ridiculous statements?

in teaching a college class on research methods, one of the first things that i do it to put wikipedia off-limits for research. why? because students don't have the ability to sort reliable and credible from not -- so why dangle the not reliable and not credible in front of their noses for possible mistakes.

even according to wikipedia itself --
"Wikipedia appeals to the authority of peer-reviewed publications rather than the personal authority of experts. Wikipedia does not require that its contributors give their legal names or provide other information to establish their identity. Although some contributors are authorities in their field, Wikipedia requires that even their contributions be supported by published sources. A drawback of this citation-only approach is that readers may be unable to judge the credibility of a cited source."

hello? if you don't have to give your legal name or do anything to build your own credibility, what makes the information that you would submit considered reliable and/or credible? even if you have to cite a source, could it not be a source that you wrote and posted to your personal web site or an article in a non-reliable and non-credible source?

think about it . . . if you found out that you or a loved one had a terminal disease, would you want information based on reliable and credible information? or just any old information that any old person w/o a legal name and w/o creditials could post to the internet based on any old sources they could find to back up their statements.

i think the answer if obvious when people take time to think about it. it's just the people who can't think or don't think that rely on sources like wikipedia to support their own ridiculous statements or claims.

the really bad thing -- these same people vote and drive and reproduce!

a moment of rest

2007-03-28T00:52:00.001-07:00

so proud and SO stressed at having had a picture accepted to a juried art show (juried by cynthia padilla) to be displayed at powell gardens, near kansas city. there is a show there for the months of march and april, on "orchids & hydrangeas". i'm just thankful that it's done and the stress/pressure is off of my back for now!

i'm going to a class at powell gardens in a couple weeks, also taught by cynthia padilla, and i can't wait to see/meet the other people in the class. several of them will also have artwork there.

there is an artists' reception on thursday, from 4 - 6, of that week where many of the artists will be available to meet and talk. jerry will be taking time off from work to attend this w/ me, as it's a fairly important event. ok, it's a very important event -- but i didn't want to sound too presumptious!

i'm really rather nervous about the art classes, too, b/c i've not been to art classes before and i'm used to being alone when i draw. that way, if i mess up -- there's no one there but me to see that! now i'm going to be in a room full of other people. what if i can't pull it together and draw on command? i don't know -- i guess i'll just have to go out for a coke or something!

i had a call from a local writer for the paper who wanted to interview me and put something in the paper about the artwork accepted into the show and something about me. i'm not sure when this will all happen (or even IF it will happen) but it was very exciting. maybe that's my 15 seconds of fame!?!

janus -- looking back and looking ahead

2007-03-28T00:51:00.001-07:00

this beginning of the year analysis of what happened last year and what we hope will happen this year helps me see where we've been, where we're going, and where we're going to improve. jerry and i both feel very blessed in what we have together and w/ our family that we want to make sure that this is always a priority.

we had SO many great things going on last year and building such great relationships w/ our families. we have several new things in the works for this year, and jerry and i will be exploring several new possibilities for our futures in the decisions that we make this year. hopefully new things will grow that help us in the future and add a new dimension to our lives. we also have several plans for travel this year that we hope will provide us w/ some great memories and definitely some great adventures! maybe even some stories to tell our grandchildren!

we spend so much important time w/ our families, the kids, and grandkids. they are more important in our lives than they probably even know -- but we look forward to doing our special things w/ them this year and watching them grow and develop in their own lives. we enjoy making, creating, continuing traditions that keep us strong as a family and as friends.

we wish a very bountiful 2007 to all of our family and friends. this year definitely started better than others -- like 2004, the new year's day that lucas and i (and summer, too, but she likes to pretend she wasn't there!) lost the big screen tv out of the back of the truck!

pink flamingos to count

2007-03-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

this comp book journal page was inspired by a conversation w/ my kids about what i was going to do when they got older. at the time they were about 14 & 16, i was terribly worried about what i would do in life when they outgrew me. i really felt like there was a time in the near future where they would be too busy w/ their own lives and families and careers for there to be much time for me.

i cashed out my retirement at my job and took the kids on a big vacation at 15 & 17, thinking it would be the last time that we had that time to spend together. the times of our family vacations was nearing an end, i thought. we had a wonderful 10 days together that i wouldn't trade for all the world and all the riches in it -- but i have come to a life-changing realization.

my kids aren't going anywhere and they aren't leaving me! they're now 21 & 23 and we spend just as much time together as before. my daughter is now married w/ 2 children of her own, but only lives 6 miles away and we see them very often. my son, at 21, still lives at home while working and working on college. our relationships have changed, but they are still there and still very strong.

now, i first started looking at the time that they would be grown when i first divorced from their father (in 1992) when they were 6 & 8. that was a lot of years and a lot of responsibilities for a single parent to be facing alone. i put parenting and family time as my main priority, thinking that at some point these responsibilities would be lifted from me.

almost as if . . . magically . . . my children would no longer require parental attention after the age of 18. i was terribly disallusioned in thinking that "my job" and "my purpose" would end abruptly then. the disallusionment did give me hope and did help me through some really stressful times. to fill that void, i was planning to purchase a street bike and travel for the summers. since i'm a teacher, i could leave the day after school was out and return the day before school started.

i would have the freedom to just meander from here to there, not worrying about who needed a ride, a doctor appointment, a prescription, a teacher conference, a new outfit for a special occassion. i thought that these things would magically be taken care of by my children who would both be legal age. having had my children young, i had never had the freedom to just come and go as i pleased.

when i first told the kids of my plans to just ride for the summer, my daughter's first response was "well! how will i know where you are?!?" this from the girl who thought i was being too demanding if i wanted to know where she was, what she was doing, who she was w/, and when she would be home. i assured her that i would have a cell phone w/ me and would check in w/ her every single day.

then her next question was, "but what are you going to do?" she didn't understand the concept of just riding for the pleasure of riding or meandering just for the adventure of seeing what i could see. that had no purpose in her eyes. after trying to convince her that it did have a purpose and a meaning to me -- i saw that i was getting no where.

so, as seriously as possible, i looked her in the eye and told her that i was going to ride from florida to alaska and count/document the number of pink flamingo yard ornaments that i found. i would take pictures and make notations about where they were and then bring that back home to show what i had been doing. she thought about it for a bit . . . and then said, "oh, ok."

it's still my plan to buy a street bike in the near future and to ride as much as possible, but i did sort of mess up my plans on that by meeting/falling in love/marrying jerry. his presence does sort of complicate my plans of being "carefree" for months at a time.

although, there are other complications as well -- as i couldn't go more than a week w/o seeing the superspecial little people in my life now. of course i wasn't planning on having them so soon in my life, as i was looking for time off from being a parent before becoming a grandparent -- but life doesn't always cooperate w/ our plans, huh?

since then, pink flamingos have held a special place in my psyche. the people who know me and who have known about this "plan" make it a point to show me things about pink flamingos or send me pictures of pink flamingos. no, i don't want pink flamingos of my own -- i just want to see who has them and where they are located!

our first date -- 2 years ago

2007-03-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

jerry and i "met" on match.com back in january of 2005. he was in the process of a divorce, so we wouldn't be dating until his divorce was final. i felt safe giving him the promise that i would go out w/ him when his divorce was final, thinking that it would be several months before it was finalized.

well, it was much quicker than i figured -- finalized on march 14, 2005. our first plans were to go out on easter weekend. i worked the night shift on both friday and saturday night, so he suggested sunday evening for going out (our first date was 3/27/2005. i put him in charge of deciding what we were going to do on our date.

my family all got together for easter dinner, but it was rather a subdued occassion because little raven was sick. she had been to the emergency room late the night before, but they sent her home and said she probably just had the flu and to give her lots of liquids. she still wasn't feeling well at our get-together and was perfectly content to crawl up in memaw's lap and snuggle.

with her not feeling well and me tired out -- it wasn't long before we were both sacked out on the couch. i should know better than to ever leave my camera lying around w/ my family present, but this wasn't too bad of a picture to have.

later that afternoon, raven went back to the emergency room. this time she was admitted and her parents were told she had rotovirus. that's like the flu from hell. if you've never experienced, thank your lucky stars!

i was to meet jerry at 6 that evening. i thought about canceling and going to the hospital to spend the evening w/ raven and her parents, but summer encouraged me to go on w/ my plans. there was nothing i could do at the hospital to make raven or them feel better.

jerry and i met at riverton, where i parked my car, and then went on to buffalo run casino in miami, oklahoma. i felt like i already knew him when we went out because we had chatted on the computer and talked on the phone so much.

we played video poker for a while and then decided to go to town to montana mike's to get something to eat. we had no more than sat down for our meal when jerry's phone rang. it was his son, jacob, wanting to know where we were. jerry explained that we were getting something to eat -- and then found out that jacob and amanda were at the casino looking for us. they had decided to "crash" out first date!

we finished our meal and then headed back out to the casino for a few hours more play and to meet jacob and amanda. we said our hellos and chatted a bit and then moved on to our own thing.

i told my kids about jacob and amanda "crashing" our first date, and i could tell summer was really irritated. i'm sure she was upset because jacob got to see me before she got to see jerry.

so, amazingly, summer and lucas decided to eat out at olive garden the next week -- just so happened to be the evening that jerry and i were going out to dinner there. lucas was manipulated into it and didn't realize it until they were leaving, but summer had chosen to go there in the hopes of "bumping into us"!

well, we didn't arrive until about 10 minutes after they left. i guess summer didn't realize that we were going to go walk around the mall a while before going out to dinner! if we had done this to our kids -- they would've accused us of spying on them! but i guess it's perfectly fine when your parents are dating to spy on them!

obviously the family has all met now and most of them have spent lots of time together. we feel really fortunate that my kids and jacob's family all get along great and enjoy spending time together -- as we so much enjoy spending time w/ all of them.

i guess you know where we'll be on the night of our "2nd anniversary" -- back to buffalo run casino and montana mike's for dinner. who knows -- maybe this time we'll win some big money!!!

summer and raven == cool girls on trike

2007-03-23T17:07:00.002-07:00

i spent some time the other day looking through old pictures stored on the computer looking for examples of altered book artwork that i had done. i ran across some pictures that i had forgotten i had even taken. obviously, things around our house are not always conventional -- but they usually ARE fun!

sharing usually wasn't raven's strong point and she doesn't look too happy here in these pictures -- although i'm sure the look on her face is more from terror and possible stomach upheaval as mommy was tearing through the house on the tricycle. i saw a strong connection between her tricycle driving skills and her regular car driving skills. if i were raven at that point -- i would've been scared too!

summer and raven -- june, 2005.

i think the pictures are rather self-explanatory, but someday . . . summer will look back and these pictures and say to her kids (who will then think she is so old and so uncool) . . . "see, i was young and cool at one time!"

so glad it's gone!

2007-03-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

in looking back over the events of 2006 and looking forward to 2007, one of the most important events to happen for us was the sale of jerry's home in webb city. we had put the house on the market in august of 2005, knowing that we were making plans to marry and combine households and also knowing that houses don't always sell immediately.

well, it was almost exactly a year from the date of listing the house to the date of closing on the house. i was actually sick to death of the house, myself. we spent hours and hours and hours painting layer upon layer upon layer of kilz and off-white paint over the atrocious and offensive sponge-painting throughout the house. when the realtor first saw the house, she just laughed at the paint and color schemes throughout the house and said, "that HAS to go before i'll even show it!"

i know it's hard to believe, but one particularly ridiculous room actually took 7 layers to cover up the horrid sponge-painting design. it was one of those things that was just so ridiculous and idiotic that it becomes hilarious in the process. we laughed and laughed at that room, the design, the idea, and everything -- all as we continued to paint layer over layer trying to hide it from the rest of the world.

there was one particularly good point about this house, though. it had a beautiful deck on the back, leading from the kitchen upstairs to the pool downstairs. it was brilliantly designed and built, with gates at the top of the stairs, at the bottom of the stairs, and before the pool area -- insuring that the small grandchildren couldn't sneak into the pool area. i was amazed when i found out that jerry had designed and built the deck himself -- all without a printed pattern but from the picture in his mind!

there was nothing more exciting than getting the call that said the deal was final. we were closing on the house and moving on in life. yeah, we had some good times there -- but there were many more bad times there than good times for both of us. now we could dump this albatross from around our necks and move on in life toward more good times and good memories.

this was the absolute most exciting piece of mail that we received all year of 2006! the feeling of freedom that this gave us was almost unbelievable!

daffodils -- spring has truly arrived!

2007-03-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

well, we know that spring is truly here when daffodils are growing and blooming everywhere we look. we went up to nevada, missouri, the other night to see jerry's mother and family and saw that her daffodils in the front yard were just on the verge of blooming.

as we traveled up there, we stopped to take pictures of these beautiful daffodils blooming in the ditches near nevada. i needed to get some good pictures at different stages and different angles, too, because i promised to post some for my online groups when they started blooming here.

even more upclose pictures for people to see the details in the actual flowers. these daffodils were absolutely beautiful as examples!

more details and more angles of these blooming beauties!

we did have a few wild ones growing in our yard near the garden, but when raven went outside the other day and saw that they had bloomed -- she gladly picked them and brought them in for me! she was very proud of the little handful of 8 or so daffodils that she brought in, so i quickly got out a glass of water to put them on display.

the botanicalart yahoo group that i'm in has a monthly challenge, and the daffodil (narcissus) is the challenge for march. i'm going to try and get some daffodils drawn/colored and posted to the group for the challenge, but i'm not sure that'll happen. while this is spring break, it's not much of a break for me as i'm working extra hours at the 2nd job to cover for others who are off for spring break.

anyway, i sure am happy to see the arrival of the daffodils, as i was definitely ready for spring/summer after the winter that we've had this year! i heard it was the worst winter here in 50 years, and i could go another 50 years before having another like it!

all by myself -- the full story

2007-03-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

life is not always fair and it is not always fun, but it does always work out. maybe not like we would like it to, but it does always work out. this last holiday season was the worst time of my life -- dealing w/ a back injury and dealing w/ missing all of the important holiday activities that i do w/ my family.

i was in such terrible pain that it was almost unimaginable. i would've never believed it if i hadn't been experiencing it myself. the only way i could exist in any comfort was lying on my stomach. after a while of that, then other parts of my body got terribly sore. i spent hours reading, coloring, emailing, surfing -- anything trying to keep busy. when i couldn't stay awake, i would sleep off the pain pills. further details revealed in night mares and charlie horses.

throughout this time, we were also bombarded with interference from certain "family members" that were not positive experiences. these people are people-users, people-abusers, hypocrits, liars, and worse. i was sick of dealing w/ them. this input or attempted influence in my life was not wanted and not welcomed at any time -- but especially not wanted and not welcomed now. the holidays were rough enough in not happening the way i wanted, but i definitely didn't want any "help" from these other people.

the picture on this page was taken from a national geographic magazine and glued on to the page after it had been painted w/ acrylic paints. the picture always amazed me that someone put that much effort into building such a beautiful place so far away from civilization -- obviously for a reason! probably the same reasons i have . . . b/c people get on my nerves and i like the quiet of being away.

some people can't understand that i have realized my life is better and will be better w/o them in it. i can choose who to allow to be a part of my life. just because someone wants to force their way into my life and my activities doesn't mean i have to allow it and doesn't mean i have to make arrangements for it. i decide who i'm going to let into my life.

a relationship is a two-way street. when more than 1 person is involved, then it takes more than 1 person to decide to work on a relationship, more than 1 person to decide when to work on that relationship, and more than 1 person to decide IF that relationship will be worked on or not.

i'm not just sitting here waiting on someone else to decide he's ready to work on our relationship as if the universe is revolving around his wishes. maybe that's the biggest problem -- he hasn't realized that the universe doesn't revolve around him. some day, when he's a real adult and gets out in the real world, he'll either realize that the universe does not revolve around him or the world will eat his lunch.

either way, things will work out!

cat's new haircut

2007-03-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

well, the cat finally got her haircut. although she did outsmart us the first time -- details here -- the next time we went in to the situation a lot more prepared. we looked like we were building barracades, as we used furniture to block all the service doors under the jacuzzi to prevent her from hiding there again.

summer came out to help, as she's the one who can handle the cat the easiest w/o getting mangled or losing a limb. she gave the cat a dose of "calmer downer" and left her in the bathroom for 15 minutes for the medicine to take effect. as summer walked out, she drug a bookshelf across the bathroom door. believe it or not, the cat CAN open the bathroom sliding door.

summer went back to check on her in 15 minutes and gave the cat another 1/2 dose of "calmer downer" (as the instructions state) and then left her to chill a few more minutes. again, blocking the closed door with the bookcase. when we judged the time was right, we headed into the bathroom to get this job done. we had the cat drugged, our game faces on, the supplies out and ready to go.

only thing -- we ran into another problem. the clippers weren't working! we started into this haircut process and the clippers were barely running and hardly cutting any hair! we started to laugh hysterically, which upset the cat, because we thought we were going to have to admit defeat again on getting this done.

jerry came in to check on us, and i told him about the clippers. we had just bought a new set recently, and i couldn't believe they were already not working. he went up to check scott's room, and he found the clippers up there where "mr. clean" had been using them for his personal hygiene regimen.

now rescued from the "bad clippers," we were off and running on getting this haircut done. once we had our appropriate supplies, it was quick clipping as the "calmer downer" wears off on the cat fairly quickly. we were shearing as fast as we could go, but we weren't going fast enough. we had to take a break for her to have another 1/2 dose of "calmer downer," and then we moved on.

we cleaned her up and trimmed her up as neatly as we could. for those of you who have comments about the missed spots or uneven spots -- i would invite you to help hold her down next time! i think you would then agree w/ me in that she looks just wonderful like she is! we're all about getting done as fast as we can as neat as we can -- but the fast part is the most important.

as soon as we got done shaving her and cleaning up the mess, summer started the shower running to rinse her off. well, she had had enough of our grooming -- so she ran as fast as she could and we decided it wasn't worth the effort to catch her. or maybe it wasn't worth the reward of catching her? anyway, she got her haircut and checked out before she got her bath!

the funny thing of it is, though -- after she has a haircut, she's the friendliest cat! seriously!! not to strangers, of course, but to us she is. that's totally out of character for her, too. when she has short hair, she's friendly and likes to snuggle and likes pet. when she has long hair, if you try to pet her, she'll start scratching you. weird, huh?

so, she hates the haircut part but loves the after-effects of it. we hate the haircut part, too, but love the after-effects of it enough to keep up the major family event. here's a picture of her after the shearing where she looks more like a big white rat than a long-haired himalayan. while she's not near as prissy looking now, she's definitely a cuddler now.

lady in training

2007-03-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

raven is definitely a girlie-girl, even though she likes to play rough and tumble and get dirty at the farm. she loves to be dressed up, have her hair done, have her nails (both fingers and toes!) painted, and wear lipstick (my bonnie bell lip gloss)! one of her favorite things is to get a set of high heels out and walk up and down the tile hallway, hearing the click-clacking of her heels all the way. she is very proud of her ability to walk in such "big shoes"!

this picture was taken in june 2006 at her house when memaw and grandpa jerry stopped by to visit for a bit!

ogre achiever

2007-03-11T00:19:00.000-08:00

this sign is near joplin, and every time i see it -- it just makes me smile. of course, my family has a special history w/ the shrek movies and characters.

now that little raven is here, she loves "chrek" as much as we do -- maybe more. shrek is just a movie that i don't get tired of, and each time i watch it, i see something that i hadn't noticed before.

i'm continually amazed at how many things the creative minds can think of to tie in together in the theme of the movie -- so many jokes that the adults get that go right over the heads of the kids.

scrapbooking w/ memaw

2007-03-10T23:38:00.000-08:00

as you probably know, wednesdays are typically my day to have the girls. raven loves to do creative activities, such as painting, drawing, writing, and "scrapbooking". she didn't call it scrapbooking until she heard mommy talking about going to the scrapbook store and scrapbooking w/ her friends and stuff -- but once she heard that, she's called it scrapbooking ever since.

for us (raven and memaw), it's really more of a combination book. we paint, draw, color, trace our hands, and paste pictures all in the same book. well, after mommy had gone to a scrapbook class and left raven at home (crying hysterically because she knew she was being left out of something really spectacular!), we had to make a special scrapbook page at my house.

we had to have everything, too -- colored paper, tape roller, stickers, pictures => the works. we sat down on the living room floor to start scrapbooking, and raven knows right off what she wants and doesn't want. i can make suggestions and help her, and she's fine w/ that. but if mommy joins in the activity, raven turns into a miniature hitler. mommy doesn't get to choose her own colors to color w/, part of the picture to color, or nothing! then if she does something, raven usually colors over it. it's really quite comical to watch, but terribly frustrating for mommy!

raven chose to use a picture of herself from clay cafe from thanksgiving weekend 2005. she was intently painting her ornament for the christmas tree. she chose the stickers and the colors on the page and even placed the things herself. the only thing i "helped" w/ was getting the borders on in a close-to-straight manner.

after finishing our scrapbook page, then we had to trace our hands on the other page. that's something that we do to entertain and fill time while waiting (places like church), but it has gotten to be quite a family tradition as we stamp our hands every new years day. she's explaining to me why a couple of my finger are really fat, but in reality -- she just got in a hurry.

also, as you can see, raven is "maked" (translates to "naked" in adult language). she's not at my house more than 10 minutes before she's "too hot" and starts removing clothing. since i'm wearing a t-shirt w/ a sweatshirt and sweatpants -- it's obviously not TOO hot in the house. it could be 40 degrees, though, and she would want to run around in her underwear. i'm ok w/ that because i'm memaw and those things just don't bother me.

we have a great time together and look forward to our days to do special things. these are times for "just us girls" to do our thing. it's a great opportunity for me to spend 1-on-1 time w/ the kids w/o the stress of doing something big! now that the weather is getting nicer, i'm sure we'll spend much more time outside, playing and walking and looking at the garden and more. lots of pictures in the making, i think!

night mares and charlie horses

2007-03-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

this piece represents the time i spent in december and january dealing with a pinched nerve in my back. i continually had charlie horses, running from my waist to my toes on my right side.

the pain was unbearable most times, and there were times i would just lie in bed, curled up in pain, and cry. i couldn't get up on my own, couldn't take care of myself, couldn't sleep without pain. when i couldn't stand it any further, i would ask jerry to take me to the emergency room.

the only thing that helped was a shot of morphine and tordal. the real problem -- these "quick fixes" didn't last even 24 hours. after several trips to the emergency room, they basically told me to learn to deal w/ the pain on my own.

what? i couldn't walk, couldn't stand, couldn't sit, couldn't do anything except lay on my stomach on my bed -- and still hurt. yeah, deal w/ it! i was referred to a pain management specialist, but they couldn't get me in until february.

what??? i couldn't live like this for 2 more months! when we called and asked why it took so long, the reception said, "well, you have to understand that we only do pain here on tuesday and thursday." that was about the most assinine thing i had ever heard, and my response to her was, "well, that won't work, because i'm doing pain 24 hours a day!"

jerry got on the phone and found a pain management specialist in joplin and got an appointment for 3 days later. it didn't take them 5 minutes to diagnose the problem w/o ever looking at the mri report. they scheduled me an appointment for 2 days later to come back and have steriod shots into the spine.

the idea that i had to go back home (an hour in the car where every bump, curve, swerve, or stop was extremely painful) was almost more than i could take. by the time we got there, i was in such pain that i was just curled up and crying.

it was a scary thought, but the pain was just unbearable and i had no life at the time -- so we went w/ it. i went in for the first shot, watched the people before me go in, be gone about 20 minutes, and then walk back out. i warned the doctor and nurses ahead of time that i had a tendency to vasel-vagel (which is the fancy term for fainting or passing out), but they seemed unconcerned.

so i'm lying there on the table on my stomach, talking about this and that w/ the nurses and doctor. they were quite amused and shocked at the tattoo on my backside -- definitely something to talk about. they wanted to hear the story behind it and all, so that took up some time and got some good laughs.

there was a machine right over my back so the doctor can see the individual nerves to make sure he gets the shot exactly where it goes. first there was a little pressure and then the shot. it felt like there was a guitar string that ran from my waist to my toes, and he just twanged it hard enough to reach my knee. i let out a yelp and he asked where it hurt. i told him, and he said, "that's good. that means i have the right nerve." then he moved the needle to another near spot or something, but the guitar string twang went all the way to my toes.

oh man, that was painful! i was starting to feel really hot in that room (first sign that fainting is possible). the procedure was done and i was lying there a few minutes while they took blood pressure and checked things. then the nurse asked me to start to stand up by just putting my legs over the side of the bed and touching them to the floor.

i knew i was going down, so i said, "can i just lay here a minute?" at this point, it's usually the imagination that makes things worse. i was picturing what i had felt, what it must have done, whether it had helped, what if my life continued on as it had, etc. it was getting really, really hot in the room now. the doctor had already left the room to move on to the next patient since my procedure was over.

the nurse gave me a bit (felt like about 20 seconds to me!), and then said, "can you try standing up now?" i told her that i needed to just lay there a bit more. we went through this routine a couple more times before i tried to stand up, knowing that this wasn't going to work out very well.

i put my feet on the floor, as instructed, and kept my upper body on the bed. i stood in that position a few seconds and then looked across the bed at the nurse standing there and said, "i'm going to pass out now." i knew it for sure when the edges of my vision started to turn gray and the gray started quickly progressing toward the center.

at that point, they called some sort of code and people came running from everywhere. jerry, seated in the hallway, knew something was wrong, and it had to be w/ me because i was the only one back there! one of the nurses got a wheelchair under me just in time to sit me down as i passed out.

the most horrible thing about passing out like this is that when i wake up, i have a roaring sound in my head (worse if i have hit the floor!) and then there are usually a bunch of people in my face. i assured them all when i awoke that i was fine, but the charge nurse wanted to send me to the emergency room.

the doctor disregarded her suggestion and sent me to the recovery room. other people were there as they got out of knee surgery, shoulder surgery, etc -- and i'm there for fainting! not exactly something to brag about!!!

by this time, jerry is right there next to me and my mother has shown up at the hospital. i was fine and i felt fine, except really tired feeling -- typical from having the quick drop in blood pressure that allows the fainting. of course, my mother is worried that i'm in the recovery room instead of walking out on my own after the shot, but what can i say -- she's a mom!

the doctor decided that i needed a shot of something to up my blood pressure and speed up my heart rate -- so i got that shot. after being "monitored" for the next hour by a nurse that was totally pissed that the doctor didn't send me to the ER, i was allowed to leave for home.

as i got up to walk to the car, i was still sore from the charlie horses in my leg -- but i didn't have the pain that i had been having. the shot is supposed to have its best effect after 48 - 72 hours. that was right on, too, as it was about 2 days before i felt much better.

the worst part about this whole thing is that we didn't get to celebrate the holidays like we normally do -- no christmas tree, no cookies to decorate, no gingerbread houses, no christmas shopping, no gifts, no precious moments chapel and vietnamese lights trip, no shopping at the plaza and other kc favorites, no valuable family time w/ the kids.

it was horrible. christmas is my favorite time of the year, and i so love to do all those activities w/ my family. this year, we had none of those memories together. i couldn't hold riahna, i couldn't hold/hug/lift raven, i couldn't do all the things that are so important to me. i couldn't even spend time w/ my family at all b/c i was just in too much pain.

we had about 2 hours of christmas shopping on the 23rd and about 2 hours on the morning of the 24th. we got gift cards for some (which i hate because it's so unoriginal) and presents for the 5 grandchildren. i just told my children that we would have our christmas for them in a few days.

i don't think anyone truly knows how miserable i was during that time, but it did give me plenty of time to come up w/ a list of things i'm going to work on and/or accomplish this year. that time of "thinking" also gave me some new ideas and more inspiration for some ideas that i already had.

so, summer (my daughter -- the pollyanna in the family), if i had to find a "bright side" to this situation, it would be that i have a much deeper appreciation for living and much more inspiration to get some of the projects done that i've only be thinking about up to this point.

after 2 more shots to the spine (which were both uneventful as far as the vasel-vagel thing), i was well on my way to recovery. now we'll see how everything else goes! i certainly have a new understanding and respect for those people who have serious back injuries.

and to those people who offered such consoling words as "well, there will be another christmas next year . . . ". you have NO IDEA of what i missed this year. never again will riahna have a 1st christmas and never can i replace that time and the memories that i didn't get to make w/ my family.

yeah, there will be another christmas next year -- and i'll be doing the holidays up double time to make up for what i didn't get to do this year. jerry and family better just watch out!

for you, jerry -- that means that we'll be AT the plaza on thanksgiving when the lights come on just so we can say "ahhhhh" and then load up in the car and head toward the hotel! for you grown kids -- that means we'll be spoiling the little kids w/ as many activities as possible!!!

our first tulip sprout!

2007-03-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

the last saturday of february was a beautiful day, and we decided to hurry up and get the bulbs planted that we had purchased at powell gardens last fall on our trip there. jerry was really going stir-crazy from so little activity since his shoulder surgery and being trapped in the house -- so this gave the perfect activity to go out and do! it didn't take long and it didn't take much effort!

the next time raven was out and trying to play in the flower pots, i told her that she couldn't dig in there anymore because we had planted flowers in there. from that day on, she checked each time she was out to see if there was a flower growing.

after 10 days, she came running back into the house yelling "memaw! memaw! you have a new flower growing!!!" then she had to take each person out there and show them the new flower. after that, each day she would go back out to check on the flower and see if there were any new ones. we can always count on raven for a "flower update" when she's here!

made me laugh

2007-03-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

i parked next to this car on campus the other day, and i have to admit it made me laugh. of course, i guess you have to be the right age to have played this game. probably the same people who were on a long trip with their parents, laying in the back window waving at strangers, protected by "mom's seatbelt" while jumping on the seats, stopping at rest stops, and begging for more pit stops and more munchies!

of course, it's spring time and i feel the urge to travel coming on strong. the sense of wanderlust hits me hard in the springtime -- especially if the weather is warm and i can hear the traffic of the highway. only thing that makes that more tempting is the rumble of fat pipes chanting "blub, blub, blub, blub."

yeah, i feel that day coming on stronger and faster all the time.

in case you can't read the license plate, it says "SLGSUM1".

young up-and-coming artist

2007-03-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

ok, now while this may not look as impressive as da vinci or raphael or rockwell -- this is the picture that raven, my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter, drew for me yesterday while staying the day with me.

wednesdays are typically my day to have the girls for the day. i was trying to check my email and do a couple of things on the computer, and raven wanted some paper. she got out a couple sheets from the printer, scootched up in my lap, and began drawing. trust me, i get very little done these days other than playing, coloring, scrapbooking w/ raven, rocking riahna, etc. it's tough work!

she quickly filled the front and back of 2 sheets, and then held this up to me and said, "look memaw. i drew this for you. this is you and this is your house." she did all of this w/o any coaching.

now i know i'm a grandparent and sometimes we're just sickening in how special we think our grandchildren are -- but i have to admit that i think this is just pretty darned good for a 3-year-old.

granted, memaw only has 1 arm and no torso -- but it's definitely an identifiable stick figure. of course, if i just had a head, 1 arm, and 2 legs -- that would certainly help me on when i step on the bathroom scales!

the house is a little cockeyed -- but again, it's a recognizable house structure. who knows, maybe raven just thinks things are a little cockeyed at my house anyway!

after all, it's always better to follow the rules at memaw's house than at home! maybe that's because it's so much easier since there are fewer of them? or maybe it's just because memaw thinks the kids are perfect on their own?

cat - 1, girls - 0

2007-03-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

yeah, that's right. that was the score from last night, but we're up for a rematch on thursday night!

that's how our evening turned out last night. summer and i were going to give the cat her twice-yearly haircut (otherwise known as "shaving the cat"). it's usually quite an ordeal and if you've never experienced it -- you have NO idea of what it's like! if you've ever read the joke email about "how to give a cat a pill" -- you could multiply that by 10 and you've have an idea of what it's like to give a cat a hair cut.

so this was what we had planned for our evening last night. grandpa was going to watch the girls while summer and i shaved the cat. we started the movie for the grandpa and the girls, and then started prepping the area for the cat make-over. summer measured out the cat drugs (a little calmer-downer to keep her from killing us in the process) and then caught the cat. amazingly, summer managed to give the cat the medicine all by herself -- and that in itself is quite amazing (reference back to the email on "how to give the cat a pill"!).

the instructions on the cat "calmer-downer" says to give her 10 drops and wait 15-20 minutes and give her another 5 drops. so, summer shut the cat in my bathroom while we waited for the 15 minutes to pass, knowing that it would take time to measure out the next drop of medicine and also time to catch the cat -- even in a closed-in and fairly small area (10 x 14).

when we went back in there and opened the door -- the cat was gone! now, we know that she can open the door, but the door was shut when we got there and we know she isn't smart enough to open the door, walk out, and then close the door behind her. we were beginning to wonder, though, because we could not find her anywhere. there are just not a lot of places to hide in the bathroom, other than the covered litter box and she's much too stuck up to hide in there!

we looked and we looked, and then we started looking other places in my bedroom like in the closet, under the bed, behind the laundry hamper, and more. we double checked the bathroom, double checked the closets, and still couldn't find the cat.

that only left one place for her to be -- under the jacuzzi! after summer had shut her in the bathroom, the cat had opened one of the service doors to get under the jacuzzi and crawled under. the doors fall shut behind her unless opened all the way -- so we had no idea to look under there. after getting under there, she had crawled back to the furthest spot on the other side -- just out of reach of a broom handle or anything else!

all we could do was shine the flashlight under there as see her watching us -- and growling every time she thought we were going to try and touch her! summer tried calling her out, enticing her w/ food, going off and leaving the doors opened (like we weren't interested in what she was doing!), calling her some more . . . . but nothing worked.

jasmine stayed hidden under the jacuzzi until summer had left and the drugs had worn off. then she came out and plopped down in the middle of my bed just like she was the queen of the nile. she had won the battle and she was feeling rather smug about it. what she's doesn't know is that she hasn't won the war! she'll be getting a haircut on thursday and we now have child-proof latches on our grocery list to prevent the cat from getting under and/or hiding under the jacuzzi this time!

here is a picture of what jasmine looks like. this picture was taken in december, 1997, so summer has changed quite a bit and jasmine hasn't changed much in looks but her attitude has taken a fairly constant downhill turn since then. at that time, she thought she might be a princess. now she's fairly sure she's the queen and willing to teach anybody a lesson who might think otherwise! unfortunately, she is fully clawed and has a full mouth full of teeth -- so be forewarned!

i post this now so you can see how much difference there is when we get her shaved. she goes from looking like an elegant princess to more of a drowned rat. it's kind of like cat-grunge! amazingly, though, her attitude and personality are much more pleasant when she looks like a drowned rat! must support my theory that some people are nice because they have to be as they can't count on their looks to get them through life.

after we get the cat-grooming done -- i'll post another picture for all to see the difference. if there are any injuries to any of the workers, i'll post pictures of those, too. just so you know what a dangerous job this is!

paper anniversary

2007-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

that's it -- we just had our "paper" anniversary. that means we've made it through 1 year and the traditional gift for that is paper. now, what can you give someone that's paper? that takes some thought. especially if i didn't want it to be "something scrapbook" because that has a very negative connotation to jerry.

so, h-m-m-m. something paper. i knew of something paper i wanted, but i wasn't sure that jerry wanted that. of course, i could always just get it "for us" because that was what i wanted.

with my back injury and his shoulder injury/surgery, we haven't been very good about getting each other presents. we didn't get each other birthday gifts, christmas gifts, valentine's day gifts, and now anniversary gifts. what next? we'll be buying our own gifts and just saying it's from the other person?

well, jerry knew the really neat thing i wanted that was paper, and after we got home from dinner on wednesday night (valentines day) we decided to go with it. of course, my piece of paper will have a matching piece of paper for him -- so that way we each fulfilled the requirement of getting the other one something paper.

what is it, you ask? if you know me well -- you'll already know. if you don't -- then you'll just have to wait and find out when it happens!

after all, there are some people who read this blog just to find out what we are doing in our lives instead of being a part of our lives. there's no need for them to know our business until after it's over. . . when it's too late for them to try and mess anything up or interfere in any way!

it's official!

2007-02-19T07:32:00.000-08:00

it's official and here's the new logo! we've been talking over the last year of setting up a business to do picture restorations and more. on the back of the card, i've listed the services available and can easily discuss with people what options and price ranges are most beneficial for their individual situations.

Services offered include –
· Scan pictures, slides, journals, or documents to digital files
· Store file back up for emergencies
· Restore damaged or aged photos
· Provide photo cleanup on current photos
· Create slideshow presentations on CD or DVD
· Original farm photography
· Silhouette photography, painting, or drawing

Prices vary depending upon assignment. Contact me for an estimate on your job!

this all started since our experience w/ jerry's mother's 80th birthday party last year. at that time, what we found was a huge box of photos that she had taken (torn) out of her photo albums and was dropping into brown paper baggies that were labeled w/ her kids' names. this was over a hundred years of family history!

i was horrified when i saw that because i knew that once those pictures were handed out to the different siblings, no one would ever know who had what pictures. important pictures to someone might not be the important pictures to someone else. or, if there is more than one child in a picture, how do you decide which bag to drop that picture in? what if all the children want that picture?

I've scanned in his mother's complete collection of pictures. i've labeled and dated them, identified the people in each picture, repaired damaged pictures, and cut out people who weren't wanted in the pictures. this way, they can ALL have a copy of ALL the pictures. no one ever has to worry about a special picture not being available!

once people started seeing the changes i could make in a picture, they started requesting that i fix a picture that was important in their collection. we knew that there had to be a market for this type of service, but so far we just hadn't had the time to take care of getting it off the ground.

well, it's off the ground now. the logo is designed and copyrighted, my business cards are printed and getting out, postcards are printed to mail out to special people, and i donated 3 certificates to the KKOW radio auction for promotional purposes and advertising is set up for the next 60 days.

more and more people are hearing about the business and what i can do for their picture collection -- which means that more and more people are checking into their personal collections to see what they need to have done. more questions/inquiries means more answers and more curiousity means more business. it's SO exciting!!!

i'll be doing some major networking in the near future and attending a couple/few very large trade shows and business expos -- so that should also help the business get started. now we'll see what works out!

we all had input on the logo and the business card, but lucas is the one who did the actual hands-on creation of the logo and card. looks great, lucas!

stan herd -- the landscape artist -- emailed me!

2007-01-29T12:17:00.000-08:00

i have attached a picture of the global flyer landscape art that stan herd, the landscape artist, did for display when the global flyer took off and landed from the world record flight in salina, ks.

this is a picture from the drawings of leonardo da vinci, who actually drew plans for a flying machine in the 1500s, to celebrate the long-desired need or urge for flight.

i had written about stan herd and his art way back on my personal blog at world record flight and kansas art . he recently saw that posting, and he sent me a personal email with this picture attached to it.

i was quite impressed that he took the time to thank me for writing about him and his art on my blog. since then, i've checked out his personal web site again, just to see what all he's doing and i've posted the notice to all my art groups to check him out, too.

hopefully, he'll be doing art for a long time to come and will continue to create many famous pieces that will make an impact on people worldwide. i'm so much more impressed with him after the email that he sent, just to see that he's still approachable and caring as a human being while still being a famous artist! impressive!!

time to start blogging again

2007-01-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

that's right. you read it correctly. it's time to start blogging again. the reasons i had for NOT blogging no longer exist, so it's time to start posting. several things have been going on, although not ALL of them will be discussed here. those of you who KNOW me, really know what all those things are anyway.

the new year is off to a bang and we've got SO many things going on here. i've created a list of things to start working on for myself -- a list of goals that you'll soon be hearing about b/c you'll know whether i'm making any progress on any of them or not. hopefully, if i keep motivated, some of these things will start happening and start to fall in place very soon.

happy new year to everyone and i wish you all the prosperity, success, love, and happiness that you deserve. for those who are living "the good life" now, i hope you live it up and enjoy what you have. for those who are struggling and things are not looking so bright, remind yourself that "this, too, shall pass."

2007 is going to be a great year. check back to see how wonderful it is here and for all of us in the family. there are great things ahead for us and we intend to live them to the fullest!

"revised" jimmy on the pumpkin patch train

2006-12-10T01:47:00.000-08:00

okay guys -- after several great suggestions and ideas on what to do to make jimmy's picture better, here's what i have to show for it. i darkened in the background and created it over completely behind jimmy's face. that seemed to make a huge impact on seeing exactly where his nose and chin ended. overall, i'm MUCH happier w/ this picture now that the change is made.

summer took this picture on the way to the pumpkin patch, but i've alwasy been drawn to it as if there were some ethereal feeling to it. trust me, though, there was nothing any more angelic about this little demon today than there was any other day -- making him fit right in with the other little demons present!

jimmy on the pumpkin patch train

2006-12-02T21:13:00.000-08:00

i drew and colored this picture of jimmy, riding on the train to the pumpkin patch w/ us. the picture is actually darker in person, but colored pencil seems to lighten up during the scanning process.

anyway, the pictures was taken of jimmy as he watched out the window on the train, so just the side of his face (hardly even any silhouette of his facial features) is visible. i had a hard time doing his skin, as he is so pale-complected that i didn't have pencils that light to work with!

i was happier w/ some sections of the picture more than i was the overall picture -- but it was definitely a learning process.

this drawing was done in a 9 x 12 sketchbook w/ 70# white paper and prang colored pencils, sprayed w/ matte finish sealant to keep it from smearing.

our front porch looking out

2006-12-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

here's what today brought us -- the after-effects of 1" of ice covered w/ 10" (and drifts) of snow and a night of fog that froze in the tree limbs. just beautiful this morning!

this is from the kitchen steps looking out on the front yard. the sun was up, but not past the clouds so it still looked fairly dark outside.

these are the trees down the east side of the yard . . . .

jerry took this picture, and i'm so proud of his creative photography! he's really branching out in his interests! this is our front porch looking straight north into the trees across the road. this was a little later, so the sun was up and it was brighter out.

same tree out the kitchen door, but it looks more fabulous with more light shining on it. as i was cropping pictures and stuff, i asked jerry what was that blob on the picture. i figured there was a dot of moisture on the lens or something, but when i zoomed in we saw that it's a beautiful redbird flying over the tree. i feel like i should "touch that out" for the picture to be more pleasing to the eye, but then i think "if that redbird was out flying today, he deserves to be in the picture!"

the last couple of days have been marvelous, starting w/ ice coming late on wednesday and into thursday morning. then late thursday afternoon, the snow started falling, but once it started -- it flat-out got with it! we had 10" of snow by friday morning, w/ drifts up to 2 ft deep. all that on top of about 1" of ice, so travel was practically at a standstill here. the main roads got cleared off quickly and town was clear -- but that's nowhere near where we are.

we were just trapped at home for the last 3 days, and it was wonderful. jerry and i stayed home from work and scott stayed home from school. we could've gotten out in case of emergency, but sometimes it's just nice and peaceful to just "be home". i absolutely love being trapped at home in situations like this. i love to cook. we spend lots of family time watching movies and playing games. it's better than vacation, b/c at least we're not all exhausted when it's over!

jerry had to make a grocery store/pharmacy run today, though, and found out that once he hit the main roads everything was just fine. it's still a little slick here and there, but nothing like it is still at our house!

our back door looking out . . .

2006-12-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

the view out the back door is not quite so pleasant as the view out the front. the boys were intending to sled thru the front yard, but jerry nixxed that idea.

after the round of sledding, the boys came up on the carport and collapsed -- too tired to even make snow angels. jacob was in the drift between the car and van.

scott fell on the smaller drift sount of where jerry parks his car.

when they recovered from sledding, then they decided that they should throw snowballs. that was easier said than done, though, as this snow was still too dry to pack a good snowball -- but it was good enough to get so-so snowballs. after pelting each other a few times, they turned on jerry and plastered him good. he was standing there griping about how they got his clothes all wet and he had been so careful to not get wet already . . . . . as he took his sweatshirt off to shake the snow off of it. uh-oh -- that just made him a better target -- a jerry w/ no shirt on. so they pelted him again. he had a few choice names for "the pups" as he was coming in the back door. fortunately, they were kind enough to not pelt me b/c i was taking pictures and i might hurt them!

they came in the house and thawed for a while and snacked until their body temperature and blood sugar levels were back up to normal, and then they needed something else to do. the conversation sounded something like this . . .

"what do you want to do?"

"i don't know. what do you want to do?"

"oh, i have an idea!"

"oh yeah? what's that?"

"let's shoot something!"

"yeah, that sounds cool. get the guns out!"

(loose translation, of course, but you get the picture!)

so, a few minutes after getting bundled up, this is what our back porch looked like. jacob had snow-shoveled a place to set up his lawn chair where he could "sit and shoot" in comfort. how redneck is this???

while scott was standing at the corner of the house, ready to get the jump on anything before jacob had time to level his gun.

throw in a few games of lethal and agressive monopoly, a couple of movies, some food -- and that pretty much sums up the day for us on friday. jerry was just knocking them dead at monopoly, though, so it just got that much more dangerous and competitive.

the weather was too bad to go to school or work, but just right for some great family time and fun together.

no more snow fun

2006-12-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

ok, that's it. i'm done playing in the snow and i'm going in the house!

raven was soon wrapped up in her fuzzy blanket, getting ready to watch some cartoons.

now that she's in the house and bundled up w/ her blanket to watch some cartoons, a piece of fuzz will make the whole world better. for those of you who don't know raven, she likes "fuzz" like some kids like blankies or that special toy. she just likes a piece of polyfill to rub on her face. i can't for the life of me understand what is soothing about having the piece of fuzz tickle my nose -- but she likes it and keeps fuzz hidden everywhere!

mommy and daddy are hoping that raven gets tired or the fuzz or gives up on the fuzz before riahna is old enough to pick up on the same habit! i guess it could happen . . . . but probably not!

snow - with big boys and big toys

2006-12-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

funny how weather creates situations that make it too difficult to travel to work or school, but these same situations present totally different and fun circumstances for play! jacob came over on friday to go rabbit hunting, but ended up waking scott up "to go play in the snow"! it's been a long time since scott was drug out of bed to go play in the snow, as snow hasn't really been an issue here for several years. mostly, we've just had ice storms and those aren't much fun to play in.

so now we had 2 big boys w/ a sled, a ski rope, and a truck. sounds like the makings of a good accident to me, but they were determined to go out and play in the snow. while they might have been having a great time, it looked to me like they were intent on killing the other one. it was like a game of deadly "chicken," and neither one was willing to be the first one to give out!

scott was the first one on the sled, w/ jacob driving the truck.

it wasn't long before scott was tired and cold and ready for his turn to try and kill jacob, so they switched places. now jacob is the potential victim.

looks like they are stopped here -- negotiating, probably. or planning some better way to carry out this long form of fun/torture.

scott looks like he's saying, "now what was that?"

here's a long range shot taken from about 300 yards away. they drove all over that field at speeds topping the high teens. scott swears he was only going about 17 at the fastest, but i'm sure he meant 70 (seventy instead of seventeen). as if that old "slur the syllables together" will fool mom!

i don't know how many miles they sledded this morning, but they sure had fun and they were definitely worn out after that escapade. someone flying over our place would probably be sure that we were the victim of a ufo and crop circles, but it was nothing more than the boys having a little fun.

snow angels

2006-12-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

this has really been the first time raven has gotten to play in the snow. we haven't hardly had any snow since she was born! just ice storms!! she got a sleigh-shaped sled for her 2nd christmas, when she was about 16 months old -- and we had to pull her thru the house so she even got any use out of it!

she was so excited when it started snowing. she would open the door and snatch a handful of snow and eat it, but suddenly her hands were cold beyond her tolerance. she was suddenly crying and they had to run warm water on her hands to get them warmed up. i guess she just didn't notice they were cold until they were too cold -- all in excitement over the snow.

friday morning, summer and lucas got the girls all dressed up to go outside and play in the snow. yeah, riahna is not going much playing -- but they wanted her to be a part of it. so they dressed her up in her little snow suit and took her out on her blanket. she slept thru their whole play period, which was probably only a few minutes.

here's daddy (lucas), making a snow angel and trying to convince raven to stay outside and play with him. shortly after they got outside, lucas and raven were throwing snowballs at each other. right as lucas threw one at raven, she fell . . . which put her face right in the path of the snowball he had thrown. so, daddy hit raven in the face w/ a snowball, and she was done playing. it wasn't fun anymore!

here's daddy and raven, posing together to get their pictures taken in front of their house.

now here's mommy and raven together, posing for daddy to take the picture.

ok, that was 30 minutes of work to get them ready for 5 minutes of fun and then whatever other time they had to stay outside for pictures before they could go inside and get warmed up! probably an overall exhausting experience for everyone involved, but a definite memory maker as raven hasn't forgotten that daddy threw a snowball and hit her in the face!

new chew toy

2006-11-30T20:20:00.000-08:00

riahna also got a special christmas gift from aunt andrea and uncle chris -- a big chew toy! it's a big stuffed dog, name mursery w/ all kinds of learning things on him. what riahna saw . . . ah, a shiny, blue ear!

grab it!

pull it closer!!

almost got it!

there we go! got the ear in the mouth. m-m-m-m, tastes good. tastes just like shiny blue should. this gift was a great hit!

budding artist

2006-11-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

raven and riahna got their christmas presents early from aunt andrea and uncle chris, so summer and lucas let them open them up early so they could be enjoying them and they could get pictures posted and sent to family.

summer sent me this picture so i could see raven w/ her new toy and also so i could see what a good picture she had drawn. the instructions for drawing a cat are across the top, so raven did each step and this is what she came up with . . . . .

a close-up picture so you can see more clearly that this is a cat, drawn by a very enthusiastic and proud artist.

really i thought it was pretty good, considering that raven just turned 3 at the end of august. pretty good motor skills for one so young. hopefully, she'll continue her interest in art!

putting lights up for grandma evelyn

2006-11-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

well, thanksgiving weekend was over and we were headed back home. jerry wanted to come down 71 hwy and stop at his mother's house on the way home, so that was our plan. sunday, after breakfast and chit-chat, everyone went their own way from our group. after spending the whole weekend together, we were all ready to get home. as we were getting ready to go, raven said, "i want to go w/ memaw and grandpa!" funny thing was, she had complained about riding w/ us all weekend and now it was time to get in the car w/ mommy and daddy and go home -- she wanted to be w/ us.

evelyn and jeff had gone to jefferson city to spend a couple days w/ joleen after thanksgiving dinner is kansas city at cindy's house. joleen was just bringing them home to nevada on sunday as we were leaving kansas city. we arrived at evelyn's house around 2 and they weren't there yet, so we walked down the street to janie and dennis' house to visit. janie was very proud to show off the rag rugs that she and dennis have been making and they are really very pretty.

before long, they were all home at evelyn's house. we walked back up to her house and talked for a bit before joleen got busy getting out the christmas lights. jeff and kim were also there, and jerry was going to help put the lights up. an executive decision was made and the decorations were limited to putting lights and greenery on the porch and putting the lighted deer up in the yard.

joleen and jeff were working on the porch.

jerry was on the ground next to the porch, untangling the lights.

raven was pretty much right where the action was as long as it was interesting. here she is checking out what makes the deer move like that, and she wasn't real certain if she liked that or not.

she had a nap on the way down from kansas city, but i think she would've slept much longer if given the opportunity. it had been a long and tiring weekend filled w/ fun times and great memories, but she was a tired little girl.

when things got boring where the adults were, raven headed out to play in the rocks of the driveway. i know . . . poor little girl doesn't have any toys or any friends! yeah, whatever! she just likes to play in the dirt, in the gravel, in the grain -- she's a farm girl.

the end -- what else is there to say?

the plaza lights

2006-11-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

something that i really enjoy doing (and have done for several years w/ my kids) is going down to the country club plaza in kansas city while the christmas lights are on. yeah, i like going down there any time, but it's always special at christmas.

last year, we were down on the plaza for when the lights came on thanksgiving evening at 7. this year, we didn't even try to go down there b/c we had the little girls w/ us and the chiefs game was on at 7. jerry's priorities -- not mine. but that's ok this year, b/c my back wasn't up to carrying one of the girls down to see the lighting any more than jerry's knee/foot/back was up to it -- so . . . next year.

anyway, we weren't down there for the actual lighting this year, but we did make it down there saturday night. jacob wasn't interested in trying to go down to the plaza w/ the boys, and lucas wasn't interested in going, and jerry was happy to stay and go swimming at the hotel -- so that left me, summer, scott, and riahna for the adventure.

the weather was beautiful -- almost 80 degrees today. almost unbelievable for thanksgiving weekend. it made great weather for walking the plaza, except that everybody else was willing to walk the plaza in those conditions, too. that made finding a parking spot even more crazy than it normally is, but we finally found one after about 20 minutes or searching.

we only had a few stores that we really wanted to hit, so we made a quick run for discovery store, sharper image, and the body shop. we probably spent about 2 hours down there, drove through mcdonalds, and then went back to the hotel -- but it was a great time to spend w/ my kids. something traditional that we've done together for years, so it just felt right.

i asked a guy who was taking pictures at the plaza to take one of us for me, but i didn't realize that he cut little riahna totally out of the picture. the only evidence that i have that she was with us that night is the stroller handles in summer's hands. shucks! oh well -- next year we'll do better!

jill, scott, and summer at the plaza. little riahna was present, but not included in the picture, thanks to the guy taking the picture for me!

rainforest cafe

2006-11-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

part of our weekend in kansas city involved going to rainforest cafe for lunch. it's good food, entertaining atmosphere, and extremely amazing for little ones. here's a picture of the whole gang from this thanksgiving weekend in kc -- jerry, scott, riahna, jill, lucas, raven, summer, jimmy, johnny (can only see top of his head), jacob, and joey. amanda didn't go w/ us b/c she had to work and it's their busiest time of year.

we left the hotel around 9-ish to head to jc penny outlet to shop a bit. we were a little late getting started, but that's not unexpected when trying to get 6 adults and 5 children out the door in the morning. we shopped for a little over an hour or so and came across some great bargains. too bad money is such an issue right now, but oh well -- such is life!

scott and lucas opted out of shopping at jc penny outlet and headed to kc creations, a custom motorcycle shop across the street. jacob had never been to jc penney outlet, so he shopped for a while and then skipped across the street to the motorcycle shop to see what the boys were in to. after we met back up, we found that each of the big boys tried on bikes to see "how they fit" and even picked out some in "my size" (according to the individual!), but no purchases were made as the size of the price tag didn't fit any of the guys! oh well -- add it to the wish list!

next stop -- rainforest cafe. our routine has changed a little over the years as we have added small children into the equation, so a nap time is now figured in after the rainforest cafe visit. we had a great meal, the kids were totally enthralled at the thunder and lightening during the "rainforest storm" and the gorillas whooping it up during the stampede. it was a blast and a total ton of fun. it was so cute to see their eyes light up in excitement -- a definite do-again activity!

clay cafe

2006-11-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

this is one of our traditional holiday things that we do while at the mall of the great plains in olathe, kansas. we go to clay cafe and paint something. the funny thing about it -- it's amazing how relaxing it is to just sit and paint. you don't have to worry about making a mess, having the right colors, or anything else. you just purchase your piece and then pay a fee ($3) to sit there and paint.

raven loves to paint, so she was right up there at the table w/ summer and lucas. raven had a little mouse on skies ornament to paint this year. summer and lucas both chose old world santas and coordinated their colors so they would look good together.

little riahna was happy sitting here in her stroller. it was rather peaceful there until it got tipped over, but she survived w/o much fuss at all. that's a bad things about these umbrella strollers, as they tip over easy if there is too much weight on the back of them.

scott chose a dragon to paint and opted to sit at his own table where he wasn't fighting for room or to keep the table from shaking or anything. he's going to dry brush it, so i'm sure it'll look real good when it's done.

amazingly, jerry found out last year that he really likes to sit down and paint something. last year i had the impression that he thought this was about ridiculous, but after sitting and watching other people paint . . . he got up and got himself something to paint and this year was looking forward to painting. last year he painted a cross that sits on his dresser and this year he painted a snow man.

jacob and the boys were there w/ us, too, but their pictures are not shown here for obvious reasons. i'll have them posted this next week to my other blog, and that way i won't have to blur their faces out.

in case you're wondering, i didn't paint anything and i never do. i know it sounds weird, but i would rather do something like that when i'm alone instead of together in a group. fortunately, though, that leaves me free to take pictures of everybody else having a great time. besides, if i were trying to paint something, i wouldn't get anything done on it because i would be trying to see what everyone else was doing on their projects!

after rearranging some things at home and seeing how many things i have accumulated to paint, i think we might start having "paint night" at our house every once in a while. everyone enjoys painting so much that we could do some projects and spend some time together while working on them. that might be a great idea for some of these winter nights where it gets dark so early. after all, we (meaning the whole group of adults) can only watch the same cartoon for so many times. it's bad when we go to put on a movie for the kids and the adults are arguing for or against the movie!

little girls and santa

2006-11-24T21:02:00.000-08:00

one of the reasons that we like the mall of the great plains so much is because of this santa. he is so cute and such a nice person. he has such a pleasing personality that kids just love him. in the last 4 years, i haven't seen a kid that has been the least bit afraid of him or has misbehaved while being w/ him. he's just so calm and happy and easy to be around.

here is santa and raven . . . . .

here's santa and riahna . . . . .

here's santa w/ both girls. when i asked summer if she told santa what she wanted for christmas, she said she told him that she and riahna wanted a bike "like mitchell and maxwell have". somehow i don't think riahna cares too much for getting a bike for christmas, but raven is convinced that riahna wants a bike, too.

what an imagination!

2006-11-24T20:18:00.000-08:00

it is amazing what a little imagination can do for a little one. we had quite a time laughing at this situation ourselves. we had been to the mall of the great plains in olathe, kansas, shopping for the day. after painting for a while at clay cafe, all the kids were tired and needed naps. (so did some of the adults!)

summer and lucas weren't done painting yet, and they had chosen some really nice old world santas to paint, so we brought the girls back to the hotel w/ us for a while. riahna went to sleep just fine, but raven wanted to play for a while. we didn't have any toys w/ us for either of the kids and their own things were down in their own room. we probably could've gone down there and gotten some stuff, but raven started playing "maple leaf" -- using her sock as her little dolly, name "fussbutt".

here, you can see "fussbutt" snuggled up next to memaw as we're getting ready to take naps. raven just handled little "fussbutt" so gently and tenderly -- it was terribly comical overall.

after my snuggle time w/ "fussbutt," raven put her in the carseat to go night-night. she pulled the blanket up over her and then told me to "sh-h-h-h-h, fussbutt's sleeping!" i was just about to die laughing -- the kind of laugh where you want to laugh but know that you can't so you're trying to squeeze it out your ears. i knew raven would be upset w/ me if i was laughing at her -- but i just wanted to know (b/c inquiring minds want to know) how can you tell when a sock is sleeping and when it is awake. it looked pretty much the same to me!

but raven is such a good mommy, she knew just what fussbutt needed and when she needed it. it was so cute to see how gentle raven was handling her sock while she was playing pretend.

here you can see a pictures of fussbutt on the phone -- she's calling her mommy to see when she's coming back.

it seemed like it took forever for summer and lucas to get back to the hotel, but it probably wasn't but a couple hours. amazing how time slows down when in a hotel room w/ small children!

at least it was entertaining, as jerry and i laughed and laughed over the "little fussbutt" situation. i commented to jerry about how raven came up w/ that name, but that mystery was solved soon after summer and lucas arrived at the hotel, as summer looked at riahna and said, "so how if my little fussybutt?"

crash and burn - thanksgiving night

2006-11-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving was a full day, w/ dinner at mickie's house and family time, packing suitcases at memaw's, and loading up in jerry's car to go to kansas city for the weekend. summer and lucas were gone to the chiefs game, so the little girls were w/ us for the day.

family time at mickie's house was great and we stayed there until around 4 or so. then we went back to our house and got our things ready to be gone for the weekend. we didn't try to get the little girls down for nap as we figured they would sleep in the car. i was just about exhausted by the time we got in the car, but no naps were in our near future.

the ride up to kc w/ the girls wasn't bad, but riahna really needed a nap and was determined not to take one. we even stopped at a gas station to give her a break out of the car seat and have a bottle, but no nap was oncoming. she was just pumping her little legs for all she was worth -- her latest nap-stalling technique . . . i can't sleep if i'm still moving.

raven couldn't wait to get to the hotel b/c she wanted to go swimming w/ memaw. she was so anxious and excited and she kept forgetting not to put her feet out into jerry back of the seat, so she kept poking him in the back. after a while, he said, "raven, remember not to put your feet up into jerry's back, ok?"

she sat there for a little bit and then said (in a very pathetic voice), "jerry, you don't have to yell at me . . . i'm just a little girl." it was so comical because jerry is about the last person on earth who would be yelling at her. he wasn't even talking in a loud voice or sounding impatient. she's just learning how to use things to her advantage. i just about choked to keep from laughing at the face jerry was making after being admonished by a 3 year old -- it was really quite comical overall!

jerry was very anxious to get to the hotel b/c he wanted to watch the chiefs game at 7. we were just getting to the hotel at 7, so by the time he got our stuff up to the room, the game had started. raven wanted to swim and riahna needed a bottle and a nap, so jerry got to keep riahna while i went swimming w/ raven. i'm not sure what happened w/ jerry and riahna, but jerry was quite tired out by the time i got back from swimming as riahna was still determined not to take a nap and had cried most of the time i was gone. she was asleep as i entered the room, so i got the "don't make a sound or i'll strangle you" look.

after swimming, raven and memaw had a nice, long, hot shower and got ready for bed. it wasn't too long before summer and lucas got back, but they were quite wound up after the game and all. they came in a talked for a while before going on to their own room

it was probably about midnight by the time they got to their own room, their things carried up and the girls moved over there -- the girls didn't take long at all to just crash for the night. as you can tell, these are 2 tired little girls. the 2 tired grandparents are not pictured!

summer and lucas at the chiefs game

2006-11-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

well, again, it's chiefs game time. when told about the possibility of chiefs tickets this year, lucas jumped all over the chance to see the chiefs play the broncos. neither of them had ever been to a pro-football game, so i was sure it would be an experience. summer wasn't too thrilled at the idea of going on thanksgiving, but w/ dinner being at noon and the game being at 7 pm and w/ us spending that weekend in kc anyway -- it all worked out just perfect.

here is the happy (and adorable) couple at the game. again, they were threatened upon pain of death to take pictures for me to show on my blog and to scrapbook -- so they did a good job, too. so far, i've had success w/ 2 out of 3 kids, so we'll see if scott can live up to the standards set when he goes on new years eve!

h-m-m-m-m, these pictures are very reminiscent of the days when summer used to take pictures of herself all the time. i bet i have about 100 pictures that look almost identical poses at just different ages. i always knew when summer had held my camera for me when i got the film back from developing. now w/ digital cameras, i don't have to wait to see who was holding the camera!

almost, but not quite good enough . . . .

there, that's perfect. that's the one that mom's going to want.

here i guess they imposed upon their neighbors at the game to take their picture for me. to hear them talk about the game, it was obvious that lucas had much more fun than summer did and he probably would've had even more fun if he had gone w/ someone else -- but that wasn't an option.

i thought summer would have fun if she would just go w/ the flow and enjoy watching the crowd, the people, and the game. there is usually plenty of action to keep a person busy, even if you're not a football fan. according to summer, she would've had more fun if they had left at half-time. that way, she was still having fun. but after half-time, the crowd had too much to drink, it was terribly noisy in there (hello? the noisiest stadium in the nfl!), and she was ready to leave.

lucas, though, was probably NOT ready to leave, so that's where the problem came up. i had told them not to worry about trying to hurry out of there, b/c no matter when you leave you're not going to get out of there in a hurry. a person might as well just wait on the game to be over and let the crowd clear out a bit before trying to get out. i find that it works much better for me/us to just wait it out rather than trying to make a run for it.

for the future, i'm sure that summer would probably not care to go again but that lucas would jump on the chance for tickets should they become available again. who know, maybe scott and lucas could make each other a deal or something -- after all, that way they could each go to 2 games. that is if we get another chance like we did this year!

thanksgiving w/ my family

2006-11-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving was with "my family" this year, as we are in the habit of trading off on thanksgiving and christmas. we are together and celebrate both holidays, but it just depends on what day and time that we're together. last year, we had dinner w/ jerry's family in nevada and then left from there to go to kansas city. this year, we were hosting dinner at our house . . . except that with my back problems and physical therapy -- i was just too miserable to have everyone at my house, so dinner was served at my mother's house. we still did most of the cooking, but just ate and hung out at my mother's house at the farm.

holidays with my family are usually loud and rowdy, but everyone has a real laid-back routine. we eat, we talk, we play games, we eat, we nap, we play games, we laugh, we joke, we make fun of each other and other people, we eat some more, we laugh, we have a great time.

so far, this year has been no exception. we had a great dinner, talked and laughed, raven rode the motorcycle, riahna played on the floor and napped -- fairly typical, except for a couple a new guests this year. summer brought her friend ina, from russia, who was very quiet and seemed fairly overwhelmed by so many talkative and curious people. we invited jacob and the boys to join us, as amanda was getting ready to have company at their house in the late afternoon. i'm sure that gave her a nice break to have the little ones up and out of the way while she was getting ready for dinner.

above is 1/2 of the family room at my mother's house, showing everyone here except for stormy, riahna, jerry, me b/c i'm behind the camera, and my mother (who is no doubt dithering about something in the kitchen). summer is hidden behind galen's head.

jacob is taking a dose of good-natured razzing here, it looks like. joey was quite interested in that spray bottle of hair spray of raven's and the turning coffee table. enough to keep a kid entertained all day!

here's jerry, who was on the other side of the 1/2 circle pictured above. joey had been over to get some hugs and kisses from "gra-pa" as he explored this new place and the people/toys there.

stormy had a good hold on riahna, who really needed a nap but was determined now to take one. she has now reached the point of fighting naps by singing until her little tired eyes close anyway and then she kicks her feet to keep herself awake. to get her to take a nap now, a person has to hold her where she can't kick her feet!

just a picture of summer, since she wasn't shown in the previous group picture. she and lucas were getting ready to head out for kansas city and a football game and we were going to come up later w/ the girls and meet up at the hotel. it made for a long day, but was lots of fun.

another year, another thanksgiving, another round of things to be thankful for. we have been very blessed and we are truly grateful for what we have and who we have.

surprise riahna!

2006-11-23T20:25:00.000-08:00

sorry sweetie! watch out -- raven has the camera and she's looking for up-close and personal pictures of everyone in her world.

this is riahna mae on thanksgiving day, laying on the floor and rolling this way and that or trying to scooch and scrunch because she hasn't quite figured out how to crawl yet. they keep prompting her by putting little toys and things out in front of her, but i just think of the times they are going to wish she didn't know yet how to crawl when i see that!
those days will come soon enough! already she can get wherever she wants in the walker, so it won't be long now! watch out world!!

jerry takes a ride during harvest

2006-11-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

while jerry might have been raised on a farm and spent quite a bit of time there, things have certainly changed over the years. when my brother was harvesting beans next to our house, jerry said, "you know, i've never been on a combine w/ a cab." i convinced him that he should go out and ride around for a while and he jumped on the chance.

we walked down the lane and down the road a bit to where kirk was parked. he had no cell phone signal in the field, but could go to the end and talk. we stood around a talked for a bit, and then i told kirk that jerry would really like to ride in the combine. kirk easily agreed, and he's usually really good to give rides and talk about what's going on. he has a john deere 9650, so it's pretty big.

i think jerry thought that it would be a fairly tight fit in the cab as he probably wouldn't have a place to sit, but he was surprised to find out that this combine has 2 seats in it. much better for men, who seem to have a fear of being too close! i went ahead and just walked back to the house, as jerry would be like a kid in a candy store w/ too much money to spend and i wasn't sure how long he would ride. i didn't want to just stand down the road "waiting" so he could enjoy his time riding and talking.

there is no secret of when this is moving along, as the fog of dust and the hum of machinery warns a person well in advance. i stood on the carport on the east side of the house and took this picture from about 300 yards away. i just thought it looked neat to see the combine making headway through that cloud of dust w/ the sun shining on the side of it.

jerry didn't know i was out there taking pictures (probably because he was so absorbed in riding in the combine and talking) i was amazed that i could actually "see" him in the cab in this picture as these were taken from so far away and then zoomed in. he only rode a couple rounds, but he was gone a couple hours. they had a breakdown, and jerry being the mechanical-minded guy that he is . . . just couldn't help but stay and help see what the problem was and find a solution.

for this day, the solution was to put the combine in the shop, order parts, and call it a day. while they intended to be harvesting on thanksgiving, that option wasn't an option after this afternoon. nothing like a "forced" holiday for family fun time!

jacob's chiefs game

2006-11-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

this year presented us w/ a fairly unusual circumstance -- we had the opportunity to buy 1/2 of a set of season tickets to the chiefs games. now, these aren't just "any tickets" -- but tickets at a good location in the stadium. the deal was just too good to pass up, but jerry and i didn't really need and couldn't really afford to go to 5 chiefs games.

the solution? some chiefs tickets as christmas gifts! great idea! everyone was happy, we all had some adventures, and the games were all spoken for. with 5 sets of tickets and 3 kids, we planned to keep 2 sets for ourselves and then give 1 set to jacob for christmas, 1 set to summer and lucas for christmas, and 1 set to scott for christmas. we talked to the kids about it ahead of time and they picked the games they wanted to go to and it all just worked out great.

jacob jumped on the game between kc and the oakland raiders, the sunday before thanksgiving. he was pumped for the game, and obviously had a great time. he went up to kc the night before the game and stayed w/ derek, his best friend for years, and then went to the game on sunday. he had an absolute blast!

jacob at the game . . .

derek at the game . . .

jacob and derek together at the game, threatened upon pain of death to take pictures for my scrapbook. i must have been convincing, as jacob did a great job on getting me some great pictures to post and scrapbook. they had a great time, the game was really good, and everyone was very happy!

there was a little girl . . .

2006-11-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

raven marie -- november, 2006

there was a little girl
who had a little curl
right in the middle
of her forehead

when she was good,
she was very good.
but when she was bad . . .
she was horrid.

need i say more?

it's a 3-fer!

2006-11-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

well, as you know, deer rifle season started saturday morning (11/11/06) at sunrise, and jerry got his deer at around 6:45 am. not even much after deer season had started. that led to quite a bit of good-natured testosterone smack-talking going on around here about who was where in the line of manlihood.

jerry said, "well, come on, pups. i've shown you how it's done." i would say that was the challenge issued and scott wasn't about to let a challenge issued like that get past him. so he definitely had to go out and show jerry up!

sunday evening, after the deer campers across the road had packed up and gone, scott and jacob went deer hunting while jerry and i went to town. we stopped by summer and lucas' house after grocery shopping and scott called while we were there. he said, "tell jerry to be prepared to be shown up. i shot 3 deer tonight within 10 minutes!" (and yes, for those wondering, scott DID have 3 deer tags, so he's legal to do that). he got a 6 point buck, a button buck, and a doe.

summer, lucas, and girls loaded up to come out and eat taco bell for dinner and see the deer, so lucas started snapping pictures before i got home.

this is scott w/ his tongue hanging out to match the buck that he shot.

here's a better picture of scott, but pretty much the same pose from the buck.

here's scott w/ the pose of "king of the deer hunters." here's where i started taking pictures and jerry was in the audience for scott to tell the story to while i was trying to take pictures.

here's scott posing w/ all 3 heads of the deer instead of just the buck.

obviously he was pretty revved up as he started telling the story of how he ended up w/ three deer and it sounded something like this . . . .

"well, this deer right here . . . "

"and then this one came out like this but i couldn't get a good broadside shot at it . . . "

"and as i reached to get my gun . . . "

"and then this one came out . . . "

"and i just went . . . "

"huh-huh, did she just take my picture?" well, duh, what did he think i was doing there w/ that thing that kept flashing every few seconds?

"anyway, i only had 6 shells (as he holds up 5 fingers)"

here's a shot of the enthralled and helpful audience that watched him clean his deer.

no, raven didn't get to stay out there and watch (much to her disdain as she thought she must be missing something spectacular!). thankfully, though, jerry was kind enough to help scott finish up as there was a good storm moving in and it needed to get done much quicker than the 1-man show was working.

leader of the pack

2006-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

today was the opening day of deer season, and the 3 boys have been planning their season logistics for quite a while. first off, they had to secure guns for everyone, as jerry and jacob didn't have their own rifles. then they had to decide who was hunting where. the day that i went out "turkey hunting" with jerry was really more of a "deer scouting expedition" since jerry had already gotten his turkey, and we found a great place for him to hunt.

but, when it came down to the day to hunt, he gave that spot to scott and jacob to share and jerry decided to hunt along our back fence row. he had been meaning to get back there and scout it out better (since he hadn't been back there at all) but just didn't get to it. when he walked back there this morning, he found deer tracks and rubs all over the place -- so he ended up in a good spot.

i was still at work this morning when the phone rang at 6:45 am and jerry said, "i just shot my buck!" i waited on the phone while he trekked over to the deer to hear what he had. he wasn't sure which points counted, but the guys at deer camp across the road called it a "small 6" as there were 2 points that were not very long. the deer was good sized, though, so jerry was happy. judging from the size of the rack, jerry thought this buck was probably just 2 years old.

ok, now the "fun and games" is over and something has to be done w/ this deer. jacob had brought the lawnmower and wagon down to help jerry haul the deer back to the house. they needed to get it pulled up somewhere so they could work on it, so they chose a tree rather close to my bedroom window for this commotion (as i was trying to sleep this morning). jacob was elected to climb up in the tree and place the pulley into position.

after quite a bit of encouragement and giggling, he finally got that part done. as the were pulling the deer up into the air, the pulley thing broke and dropped the deer right back down. this led to another overwhelming attack of the giggles for this group of boys. scott was the photographer -- that's why you don't see any pictures of him, but his voice was sure a part of the noise out there.

they finally got the deer up and field dressed before the younger boys headed over to hang out at deer camp across the road. jerry was too tired to do much else for the day, so he just hung out at the house. he was telling me how jacob came up w/ the idea to purchase a meat grinder and how they could process all their own deer meat at home. i quickly nixed that idea and gave jerry the information on a butcher shop near us that is more than affordable. i knew how that job would go -- jacob would be all gung-ho about it, scott would be gone somewhere else, and jerry would get stuck cleaning up the mess. no thanks!

so jerry hauled his kill off to the butcher shop for processing today and then spent the rest of the day resting from such a strenuous workout. the 2 boys spent the rest of the day hunting and hanging out at deer camp, so i'm not sure they'll be worth much tomorrow for hunting or anything else.

oh well, jerry has already shown them how it's done and now they just need to get to work and try and out-do him. jacob tried all through turkey season to get a turkey and out-do jerry, but he didn't ever see any turkey to take a shot at. now that it's deer season, jacob saw turkeys but no deer. looks like he has his work cut out for him and he's only got a few more days to get it done!

special pictures for scrapbooking

2006-11-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

recently, the scrapbook store here in town had a photographer come and take the vintage photos. summer signed the girls up for it and wanted me to go w/ her, but it just didn't work out that way that day. instead, she loaded up the girls and went for the pictures.

i was thrilled to see how they turned out! i'm not supposed to know about these, though, because it's part of what we're getting for christmas!

here is raven "playing tea party" . . . . .

here's riahna just being her typical happy self . . . . .

finally, some pictures of the 2 girls together. i was really happy w/ the pictures, though, as it's often hard to get multiple kids to look happy and BE happy at the same time sometimes! can't wait for santa to come so i can have mine!!!

big news - johnny is on the cover!

2006-11-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

last thursday when amanda dropped johnny off to kindergarten, she went out to pick up treats and then went back to the school. she was stopped in the hallway and the principal asked her how come she hadn't told anyone that johnny was on the cover of the pitt state magazine. amanda was surprised and said, "i didn't know!"

during class time, the principal and superintendent came to johnny's class with the magazine and made a big deal over johnny's picture being on the cover. johnny is a HUGE pitt state fan and has attended almost all football games since his birth (both home and away games), so he's a loyal fan and well-known there.

amanda called jacob w/ the news that johnny was on the cover of the pitt state magazine, so jacob called me to see how to get some of these magazines or if i could get them for him. after a few calls, i had secured a stack of these magazines and lucas was kind enough to pick them up for me while he was running around on campus. this magazine is a production of pittsburg state university and is mailed out to the alumni, sponsors, and prospective clients/students/faculty, etc. it really is quite a big production, and a fortunate coincidence that someone saw johnny's picture on the cover and let us know to grab some!

getting the little girls ready for bed

2006-11-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

well, we had spent most of the day together on wednesday, as that is the day i normally have the girls. we went to nevada to see grandma evelyn and jeff, then home to change into dance clothes, then to dance class, and finally home to raven's house -- where mommy had a wonderful dinner sitting on the table for us all.

jerry had been out of town since monday, and i wasn't sure when he would be back b/c he was going to the webb city/carthage game in webb city w/ jacob on wednesday night. i was planning to go to see a famous photographer presentation at the psu tech center that night, and lucas and scott were going w/ me. the presenter (rick sammon) was very interesting and entertaining as well as giving lots of tips and tricks on how to get better pictures. since you all probably know that i love to take pictures -- i found it extremely helpful and worthwhile.

after we left the presentation, we walked back across the street to summer's house to get our cars and the girls were just getting ready for bed. raven was busy trying to brush her own hair while she sat on the couch wrapped up in a towel. riahna was all snugged up in a sleeper and just as happy as could be -- and she doesn't look the least bit tired to me!

summer had little riahna's hair up in a "topknot" for the day, so it was still a little wild after the ponytailer came out. didn't matter to her that her hair was sticking curled up on end, as she was just as happy and giggly as usual!

nope, before you even ask it, scott is NOT one of the little girls getting ready for bed. but he is a very popular uncle and wanted his hugs and kisses from each of them before we left for home.

bedtime is just the best time for hugs and snuggles. it's the time that i most miss raven not living here, as there were many, many nights that we rocked us both to sleep before summer would take sleeping raven and head upstairs and i would move into my own room. nothing beats snuggling a tired and/or cuddly little one!

surprise trip to grandma evelyn's in nevada

2006-11-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

wednesdays are my usual days to keep the little girls while mommy and daddy go to school/work, so i decided to take a little field trip today. we packed up and went to nevada (nebada, bissouri in 3-year-old speak) to surprise grandma evelyn and jeff w/ a visit. we didn't stay long, but enough for grandma evelyn to hold and love on riahna and for jeff to color and play w/ raven. if i had to choose, i'm not sure i could tell who was really having the most fun!

raven was so tickled to see all of the postcards up on grandma evelyns entertainment center and she was glad to see there was another one that needed put up. grandma evelyn was telling her that she was running out of room for the postcards, but raven was making sure that she knew one would fit right here. uncle jeff went and got some tape for raven and she took care of putting the new postcard up for evelyn. i try to get a postcard of some picture sent out to our family members about every other week, so the window here is starting to fill up -- that's for sure!

raven loves to color, so it wasn't long before she had jeff down on the floor there coloring with her. amazingly, when her mommy colors with her, she acts like a little hitler. but she and jeff just colored and each did their own thing and that was fine. i just knew it would torque summer to see that raven doesn't boss everyone else around like then when they are coloring with her!

raven wasn't feeling too good that day, but she felt good enough to color w/ jeff on the floor for a while. it was obvious by the look in her eyes that she was starting to really not feel good by the time we packed up to go home, but she insisted that she was fine -- she just didn't feel very good. she definitely wasn't feeling bad enough to miss dance class!

jerry takes a break

2006-11-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

well, just like it says on my art work blog --

this is a drawing that i did of jerry, my husband, from a picture taken late in the summer. while he might look like he's in deep thought, he's really just checking out the flower garden right below the front porch. he was leaned there on the railing taking a break from playing w/ the children (22, 22 & 26) and the grandchildren (5, 3, 3, 16 months and 4 months) in the front yard. after a good deal of kickball/soccor, tag, chase, ride/pull the wagon, and ride the lawnmower (or in the lawnmower wagon) -- it's exhausting for everyone!!!

we specifically keep sundays open for family time, with an open invitation to whomever in the family wants to come to our house and eat/play/hangout to be there. almost every week, we have a house-full of kids and grandkids, enjoying each other's company and doing special activities or just playing in the yard/garden/pool -- depending upon what time of year it is.

of course, we spend as much time throughout the week with our families as possible, but sundays are definitely family days and our kids and grandkids can all spend time together, too. it really is something special about little kids that just attracts more little kids. the nice thing about our kids/grandkids is that they are so comfortable being around each other that an outsider would have a hard time telling which kids belong to which parents. when a little one needs something, whomever is closest at that point takes care of it. it really makes for great times.

add that amount of kids (both young and older) to the fact that we have a big front yard and that leads to running, chasing, tickling, tagging, laughing, playing ball, and blowing bubbles. summer and lucas were both running around the yard with the kids at the time that jacob was chilling on the porch holding little riahna. it gives everyone a chance to have a break, too! all the little ones play very well together, but joey has a hard time keeping up w/ the bigger ones and riahna doesn't know that she's supposed to be trying to keep up!

about the time that everyone is completely worn out, it's time for dinner. many nights we just order a stack pizzas and other times we grill "burgers and dogs". something quick and simple because everyone is tired and hungry. after the kids have run a few laps through the house, someone grabs a handful of popsicles and sends them out to the porch to have a little snack while waiting on dinner. it keeps them busy and helps sustain our sanity a little longer -- or at least as much as we have left at that point.

if the popsicles aren't enough to keep them entertained for too long -- then grandpa jerry gets the lawnmower and yard wagon and takes them on a wonderful ride around the yard, over to the trees/meadow across the road, and around the pond. i bet he could drive for 20 miles w/ them in the lawnmower wagon and they would still be having a great time and think they were on a wonderful adventure.

while you can't see it here in the picture, little joey is sitting in grandpa jerry's lap, helping to drive the lawnmower. i guess he figured that was much safer than putting the little guy in the wagon w/ the 2 little demons. it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out what would happen in that scenario!

just have to quit living!

2006-11-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

that's it -- i'll just have to quit living. now before some of you get your hopes up, that doesn't mean that i'm intending to get dead in a real quick manner. the problem is that we're so busy in life, living our lives/dreams and enjoying our kids and grandchildren that i don't have time to blog it and keep it up to date. as it stands right now, i'm 2 weeks behind on blogging the events of our lives and posting appropriate pictures.

hopefully, though, i'll have time to get caught up some time this week -- depending on whether i'm having too much fun in life or not. at this point, i've got 21 events w/ pictures to post, so that'll take some time and effort. i'll send out notices to the important people when i get updated!

how ghetto is this?

2006-11-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

well, jacob finally got a turkey. it wasn't a legal shot, though, and no bird to show for it. but this is what he does have to show for it . . .

a cracked grill on his expedition. he was driving out to our house and a bird flew up in front of him and he didn't have time to stop -- so he got his turkey. he was so ticked that it cracked the grill on his expedition that he had the duck tape out there taping the plastic back together. i haven't really figured out whether he was more irritated that he hit the turkey, that the grill on his truck was plastic, or that the bird cracked the grill -- it was all rather a blur.

when i was teasing him about his duct-taped grill, he took my camera out there and took pictures for me so i could razz him long-term about it . . . i mean blog and scrapbook the event. he's getting much better about taking a good razzing without letting it get to him, and that's making a huge statement . . . especially if/when you read the post about having a flat tire . . . the one about him having a flat tire.

just happy whenever and wherever

2006-11-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

little riahna has the sweetest personality and is so happy all of the time. it's so much fun watching her as she takes on her own personality and her own attitudes, but you can always counts on her for the biggest smiles n omatter what!

she loves watching raven do whatever she is doing, she usually loves any attention raven gives her, and she loves to be talked to (where she now begins to talk -- gurgle, coo, and squeal) back to you. she also gives kisses if you kiss her on the cheek, but she turns and gives open-mouth wet kisses. but hey, they're kisses and she's quite happy to give them.

this particular day, raven was painting at the table in the kitchen and i had put riahna in the "baby hanger" (my name for this contraption meant to hold kids and keep them out of trouble but it's not a walker) so i could keep up w/ the 3-yr old who was swinging a paint brush around. i kept up a running conversation w/ riahna, and she was just cooing and gurgling and squealing back.

she was obviously having a good time, but her personality makes her so enjoyable to be around. until it's time for her bottle, that is. she gives you about a 3 second warning that she hungry and if the bottle is not prepared in the short amount of time -- she cries and has quite a temper tantrum until it is!

h-m-m-m, she must get that temper tantrum stuff from her daddy! maybe we'll get that worked (or beat) out of her over time. maybe on him too!

trick or treat -- halloween 2006

2006-11-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

we were all ready and waiting on the little spooks to show up, as jacob/amanda had talked w/ summer/lucas and planned to have all the kids there at the same time. grandpa jerry had the picture spot all ready for the kids -- if we could just get them there and corralled in the same spot long enough to take pictures!

here's the final product from the picture time -- all of our grandchildren dressed up for halloween, w/ uncle scott helping to hold the littler ones. scott, dressed up as mr. clean, was holding riahna (as toto) and joey (as a spider) while seated next to johnny (as a vampire), raven (as dora dressed up as dorothy -- but that's another story!), and jimmy (as chicken little). they were all so adorable and cute -- their parents did a great job on their costumes!!! we were so proud of all our little spooks that i had postcards printed up of them and sent out to all our family and my postcard swap friends.

-- don't worry -- i'll insert picture here when i get home and scan the postcard that i send out --

here, grandpa jerry and memaw get some special hugs and kisses before raven and riahna (i mean dorothy and toto) headed off to surprise other people with their trick-or-treating!

uncle scott grabs whatever hugs, kisses and attention he can while the little ones are around. he's really good w/ kids, so that also makes him more popular! raven just thinks he's pretty special and especially loves to wake him up when she comes out to our house!

giggle, giggle, dodge the dripping drool. uncle scott holds riahna up and gets her ready for a good kissing match!

rough bunch

2006-10-29T03:08:00.000-08:00

this was a command performance -- and any of you w/ family knows what that means. that means that you show up ready to have fun and show off your family and kids, regardless of whether you want to be there or not. i guess that's one of the privileges of growing old . . . you can now host "command performances" and know just exactly who will be there.

this is all of "my gang" -- w/ lucas holding raven, then me, then summer holding riahna, then jerry and scott. we are all pretty close and spend a lot of time together, so it's nice to have a picture that shows everyone together in 1 shot!

serious artist

2006-10-29T03:05:00.000-08:00

well, as you know, wednesdays are my normal day to keep the little girls while mommy and daddy go to school/work. so they usually arrive out here around noon, play, nap, play, get dressed for dance, and then go back to town.

taking a nap isn't raven's favorite activity, but one that she definitely needs if i want to make sure she lives through another day. although sometimes trying to get her to take a nap almost insures that she's not going to live through another day!!!

so, i usually end up promising her a special activity IF she takes a nap. she LOVES to paint (and draw and color and otherwise create), so a special treat is to get to paint. you can see from her facial expression that she is very serious about what she is doing and this is very important to her. she is very careful and very precise -- as if she knows just exactly what she wants to do.

while is may not be obvious to the "unexperienced eye" -- in the picture above, she is creating a circle. but after some careful consideration, she decided to make her circle much larger (as shown by the outline in the picture below!)

after she got the larger circle drawn around her previously painted part, she decided that she should go ahead and paint it as if it were a pumpkin -- regardless of the mauve color of paint. of course, this is a work in progess, but it also shows a very happy artist working on her pumpkin w/ a face!

we keep her sketchbook/scrapbook out here for her to work on and save things for much later. i always put dates on the pages so that some day she can look back and see what she was doing at what age. i always thought that was so interesting myself to see how the abilities changed!

our quilt is taking shape

2006-10-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

well, it doesn't seem like that long ago that we were just picking out our material for jerry's quilt, but when we came up to see evelyn -- she already had some blocks about ready to sew together. she said she always does a practice block to make sure that she can do the block, but then she moves on to the actual sewing of blocks.

here's what out quilt blocks will look like. the material that separates the blocks will be the navy blue and that will also be what goes around the edges of the whole quilt, too. the maroon color will be what is used for the backing of the quilt. it was really neat for me to see it pieced together. when we were picking out the material, i "thought" it would look good together like that, but seeing it just made it look that much better.

evelyn told us not to expect it to be done until mid-spring, as she has been in a rag-rug making mood lately. she's made several sets, but wanted to have our material to work on our quilt for those days when her hands were sore from and/or too sore to work on the rag rugs. i have to admit, i can't wait to see it finished!

shopping for quilt material

2006-10-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

that's been the order for quite some time -- pick out some material so jerry's mother could make us a quilt. the quilt is actually for jerry's 50th birthday, which was last december, but she was running a little behind. then she started the quilt with some americana material that had already been picked out and jerry didn't like it at all -- so his mother told us to go pick out the material that we wanted.

we've known for quite some time that we were supposed to be getting this done, but we just hadn't gotten to it. when we went to kansas city and stopped to take evelyn out to breakfast, she also wanted to show me the quilt pattern that she had picked out for us so i would have an idea of what to expect and maybe make a difference in what colors we chose.

she had chosen the "jacob's ladder" pattern, which i thought was perfect since jerry's son's name is jacob. she gave us measurements of the amounts of material to get and then gave us the speech to get on it. she had been making rag rugs for quite some time, and her hands were really getting sore from that and she was wanting to start quilting again.

so, after the soccer game, we made a trip to famous barr (now macy's) to buy a deep fryer and then out east of joplin so we could head north on 71 hwy to find the sign advertising the quilt shop. it was just off the interstate in carthage, so it was easy to get to. jerry's favorite color is brown and mine is blues and purples, so we were trying to work those together somehow. that way we could both have something that we liked.

we ended up picking out 3 materials from the same line and are made to work together easily -- dark purple, navy blue, and tan. these colors then have all the same colors worked into the patterns on each one. i can't wait to see how it comes out. the didn't have enough material for the backing, so we had to order that and will pick it up soon. that's ok, though, b/c it'll be a little while before she gets the quilt done and is ready for the backing.

i'll post a picture when it's done, but i'm not sure when to expect that to be. she has started working on it already though, and showed me a practice block when we were up there last week. that made me even more excited to see the finished product!

draw a sign challenge

2006-10-23T15:19:00.000-07:00

as stated on my art blog, this drawing came about because of a challenge in one of the groups that i'm in -- to draw a sign. well, i have a friend who lives near the junction of highways F and U and i have always thought that was rather funny -- so that's the sign that i have chosen to draw.

looking at this sign reminded me of the children's disney cartoon "peter pan" where peter pan gives directions to neverland as "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning." sounds perfect.

i thought this sign drawing could also serve as a message to those people who seem to interrupt our lives long enough to try to make us miserable or to try to manipulate and control us. "at the junction of FU - take a right and keep on going."

now not only can you think the world is all about you, you'll be traveling on U highway and you can think the road was named for you as well. see how perfect that is?

janie and dennis have birthdays

2006-10-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

the perfect excuse to get together and go to chicken mary's for dinner == janie and dennis had birthdays. as you can see from the bunch assembled, we had a great time and got to spend some good quality time together. during dinner, i was at the far end of the table from janie and dennis, so i didn't get to talk w/ them very much but did get the chance to say happy birthday and give hugs.

just in case you might not recognize people or know certain ones --
back row = jill campbell, dennis thomas, jeff friel, justin thomas, jerry friel (my hubby), regina thomas, jacob friel, chuck thomas.
middle row = evelyn friel, janie thomas and jessica thomas.
front row = raven warren, summer warren, and riahna warren (my granddaughters and daughter).

pittsburg state homecoming parade

2006-10-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

this is how the day started out. for those people who don't tend to notice or see sunrises and sunsets, i had the advantage this morning in that i was driving home from work into this sunrise. it was so beautiful, but i didn't have my camera with me. i was really pushing the speed limit to get home and capture these pictures. days like this just make it all worthwhile on getting up (or staying up!).

we had a full weekend planned, as usual. we had been to see raven perform last night at half-time of the pittsburg high school football game -- but this morning, she would be riding the float with the jodi phillips dancers in the pitt state homecoming parade. it was quite a big deal in her world and we were all excited about it. especially after seeing her last night in her first public performance. even daddy was so swelled w/ pride i'm surprised he could get his big head in the car to go home!

the float was actually a semi and flatbed trailer, which made it very nice for the little ones to not have to walk the parade length. i wondered how raven would do being left to ride the float "alone," but she hooked up with some friends of our from church and seemed to do fine.

here is a picture of the float as it came down the parade route . . .

here's a little closer shot of the same picture, so you can get a good view of raven and friends . . .

right now, the float is right in front of us and raven has just spotted her family in the crowd and is pointing out and yelling to "grandma" in the crowd (that's my mother). she yelled out other names, too, but that one was the only one i heard. i got a real kick out of the look of excitement and surprise on her face when she saw us -- like maybe we wouldn't be there!?!

same picture, but closer view . . .

even closer, to truly see the excitement and surprise in her face as she points us out in the crowd. this was really a "big deal" for her, especially after the performance last night.

by this time in the parade, those lovely clouds from sunrise were dumping very large sprinkles on the crowd. some times we had our umbrellas up and using them, and other times we didn't need them. add a little cold weather to that, and we were all ready to run for the cars as soon as the parade was over. murphy's law states that raven's float was almost at the end of the parade, too!

we really had a nice sized group there, as jacob and boys had joined mickie, summer, lucas, riahna, scott, jerry, and me to watch the parade. the nice thing about the psu homecoming parade, too, is that so many people/groups throw candy and prizes for the kids that it really keeps the kids interested in watching the parade. we had to start hiding the candy, as the kids had picked up so much candy that it was falling out of their pockets every time they moved. the box of "overflow" candy sat on the cabinet at home for munching by the adults who needed a little sneak shot of sugar!

the homecoming football game, later in the afternoon, was so cold and wet/rainy that even the die-hard fans were leaving at half-time, as they weren't prepared for the weather. jacob, amanda, and the boys went to the game, but jacob and the boys left early, too.

beautiful day -- beginning to end

2006-10-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

for friday, 10/13 --

what a beautiful beginning to a perfectly wonderful day! we left the house around 7:15-ish to head to nevada, missouri, to take jerry's mother out to breakfast as we headed to kansas city. this was the view as we left out house -- just amazingly beautiful!

we went out to breakfast, had a nice visit, looked at quilt patterns, and then headed off to powell gardens in kansas city. evelyn has been making "rag rugs" but is tired of that and ready to make a quilt. she had material at one time for a quilt for jerry, but it was material that jerry didn't like so evelyn asked me to pick out some new material. she thought it would be easier to pick out material if i could see the pattern that she wanted to make for us.

here's a picture of jerry and me at powell garden, about 25 miles east of kansas city on highway 50. i had driven on a bus trip up there for the garden club and knew that i wanted to take jerry back there so he could see it. after my trip there, i suggested the gardens to an online group that i'm on for botanical art. now that we had time off and had wanted to go here anyway, i found out that an online friend, cynthia padilla -- botanical artist, was going to be there teaching classes. we decided to make the trip to coincide with her visit so i could meet up with her and say hi.

when i went in to look at her class, cynthia was talking and everyone was watching intently, so i left her a note that said i would be back later to say hi and jerry and i went on exploring the grounds together. it is an absolutely amazing place, even though i didn't think it looked that impressive when i first walked in last summer. it is much larger than a person thinks.

my favorite part is the water garden area, which just has so many things and parts to look at. i loved the water lilies and the huge lily pads. the peacefulness there, with the sound of the running/bubbling water combined with the sunshine and the breeze, felt just perfect. at first i was afraid the day was going to be cold, but it turned out just perfect. i was glad to be able to share that with jerry.

on the garden grounds, there is a beautiful chapel that overlooks the lake. visitors can walk over to the chapel and even go into the chapel and look out at the scenery. the view is breath-taking. as we were walking over to the chapel, i thought, "i wish we could've gotten married some place pretty like this . . . " and then i realized that we got married somewhere even prettier b/c the people we loved we there with us. once we were in the chapel and looking out, jerry said, "wouldn't it be neat to get married some place like this?" and then we just started laughing. while the chapel was beautiful, the full glass front letting the sunshine in or reflecting the flash at night would've made taking pictures a horrible nightmare.

after we had walked around the whole gardens and looked at the things we wanted, we headed back over to the main entrance, where cynthia was teaching her class so i could meet her. they were in the last 1/2 hour or so of class, so students were really immersed in their projects and she was free to chat a bit and take a picture together. if you want to see those pictures, you can find them at meeting at powell gardens.

after we left the gardens, we were planning to go into kansas city for some shopping and dinner but our plans changed. jerry looked at me and said, "you know what sounds good for dinner?" which at our house means that you are supposed to say "chicken mary's?" like you're just guessing. he just laughed and said "that's right!" so we just headed home instead of into the city and fighting the traffic at rush hour and all. a few minutes later, i said, "hey, why don't you call your mom and see if she and joleen want to meet up w/ us for dinner?" that's what we did and how we ended up having breakfast and dinner w/ jerry's mother.

joleen, jerry, and evelyn pose together outside of chicken mary's, wondering why i needed a picture of the event!

we couldn't have planned a more perfect day if we had tried, so we were very happy w/ our day off together. it was amazing to realize that we hadn't even used up 1/2 of our time off yet! so much to do, so little time. so many pictures to take and blog, so many things to do, so little time!

jerry's proof

2006-10-19T23:03:00.000-07:00

i know that no one would believe it without this picture, but i went hunting w/ jerry last thursday morning. we were making plans for our 4 days off and jerry said, "hey, you want to go turkey hunting with me in the morning?" and i was thinking "oh yeah, about like i would like to yank out my own toenails!" silly me thought he was being sarcastic!

of course i didn't have any hunting clothes and there is nothing camo in my closet, so i had to borrow clothes to wear. i did have hiking boots, though, thanks to being a prom sponsor when the theme was "jungle" and we all dressed like tour guides. i borrowed jacob's bibs and jerry's sweatshirt -- and then was fully dressed in 2 layers underneath all that. it was a chilly morning out there.

it was really more like being on one of those wildlife shows, as i wasn't hunting and jerry had already gotten his birds. in our house, if you kill it, you clean it. since being elbow deep in animal blood and guts doesn't really appeal to me, i'm not really too thrilled to kill anything. the only things i would be interested in shooting don't have a hunting season, so i just don't bother.

we trekked out into the woods, sat in the cold, drank coffee and waited on the turkeys to show up. all i could think of during this time was bill engvall's routine about taking his wife hunting and she asked "what time will they be here?" obviously these turkeys didn't answer the invitation either, as they never did arrive.

we sat out there in the woods for about 2 hours waiting on them, but no luck. jerry had a turkey call and got one to answer back a time or two, but that was it. as we left the house, jerry had made me a thermos of coffee for the expedition, which was very nice and warm. while we were sitting out in the woods, jerry said, "i'm surprised you made it out of the house this morning without a coke." i just looked at him like he had lost his mind and pointed to the bulge sticking out of the front of my bibs that didn't match up w/ any body part.

what is he? totally nuts? yeah, i'll go out and sit in the woods and watch for a turkey with you, but do that without a coke in reach in case i need it? whatever!