Recollections

I am one of 4. My dad, at times, affectionately called us Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three and Thing Four (go read The Cat In The Hat) and I am Thing 4. It wasn't always easy being the baby of the family (although my sisters seem to think I was spoiled).

We were pretty poor when I was a kid. I remember we sometimes got hand-me-downs from a family with older girls. I was the smallest so I got the hand-me-downs that my sisters had grown out of. My mom was a great seamstress so quite often she made our clothes.

If you'd ever spent time at our house back in those days, this was a common site to see....

Holly, sitting at her sewing machine. And if you are curious about what she is working on, then the next photo is for you.
She made each of us a Holly Hobbie doll and our very own Holly Hobbie dress. As you can see, we were very happy.

I wasn't always happy to have sisters. We had our fair share of fights growing up. Of course if you were the one caught being mean, you had to say the family prayer that night. Have you ever tried to pray when you are being a meany? Not an easy thing to do.

Now that I'm a mom, I look back to the days of my youth and can't help but ask, How in the world did our parents not kill us? I have only 2 and there were days that I thought they might not make it to their teenage years. My mom and dad had 4 girls in 4 years.

I really love these sisters of mine and I treasure every memory of growing up in that crazy house. BTW, I think we are overdue for a get-together.

It's OK to scraplift!

I've been feeling kind of down for a few days so I thought maybe if I did some scrapping I'd take my mind off my troubles. Here are a couple of pages that I scraplifted* today.
My page of Jacob is scraplifted from this page.

My page of Jared is scraplifted from a layout I saved in my ideas folder, but I have no idea who did the original. It was a good way to pass the time.

*scraplift: the act of copying ideas and designs from another person’s scrapbook page to use in your own pages.

Yeah, something is wrong with me

Ever since I came across this website, I have been totally addicted. I spend way too much time drooling over the photos and having fantasies. You'd think that I would be smart and stay away since pretty much everything I see is forbidden to me. My family is shocked that I torture myself in this manner. Why? they ask me.... I tell them that soon, although not soon enough, I'll be fulfilling my fantasies. Ah, I am counting down the days.

You Might Enjoy This

I'm finding myself singing this song and it's making me hungry.

Sometimes I Wonder

On any given day, I have many questions that go through my head. Today I will share just a few with you....

If I am running the air conditioner at 78 degrees (with the thermostat upstairs), why is my loft 82 degrees?

Have you ever seen such a cute little USB memory stick? (compare it to the regular memory stick above it)

Why do I take so many pictures of my cat? Does he even care that nobody can resist his silkiness?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this? Wait, I'm beginning to repeat myself.

Is ther an unwritten rule that says at least 85% of boxers manufactured should be plaid?

Why didn't we take the cute cake off the outside box it came in before we took pictures? Why did we leave it there for the whole party?

If anyone has some answers, I'd love to hear them.

Ingenious...Totally!

I was in a bit of a dilemma today. I've got this old pair of worn in Levis. They are at that stage where they are soft and the denim is thinning a bit. Well, they had a small rip in the seat that became larger from wearing them over my growing behind. Because I am cheap cost conscience, I decided to repair them instead of replacing them. So I got some cute flower iron-on patches to repair them with. Unfortunately the iron has been missing ever since we moved. I really wanted them fixed.

And then it came to me. We had another iron in the house. And I knew exactly where it was. Only this iron isn't usually used for anything remotely like this. It was my step-daughter's flat iron for her hair. I said to myself, "It gets hot...just like a clothes iron." And do you know what? It worked GREAT!
I just kept moving it and squeezing until each little petal was fused tight to the jeans. Ingenious! In fact, I think it worked even better than the times I've had to iron on patches for my kids clothes using a regular iron. I don't think I'll tell her that I found another use for her flat iron. We'll just keep this our little secret.

Science Fairs and Camping Out

Just last week my step-daughter Olivia participated in her school's Science Fair. Unfortunately we got some bad information about what time it was happening so we got there as it was ending. We went in anyway so we could check out her project.

Her daddy is checking out the eggs that she did her experiment with.

She had 4 eggs in different substances and recorded what each did to it's egg.

Olivia is showing us one that was unaffected. The most odd thing I see in this picture is the sweatshirt she is wearing. I'm telling you it was about 95 degrees outside this day.

Had to get a close-up of her eggs during the experiment. That egg in vinegar is pretty gross looking.

As that week came to a close, we were ready for our kid free time. Only those moms and dads who are on their second marriages would know what these are all about. (As much as we love our children, we still enjoy the time they spend at the other parental unit's home.) We decided to load up the truck on Saturday and head up to the cooler climate of Payson, AZ.
It takes us less than 2 hours to get there. We love to drive around....even when we have no place to go. It's a stress reliever for us and we always enjoy each other's company and conversation.

Saturday night we just sat around by our fire talking and playing Farkle. I thought it was chilly, but Jason thought it was great. I was feeling a little sorry for myself because I'm on a diet and wasn't able to eat the pizza he brought back to our camp site. Yeah, yeah, I know pizza is NOT a camp food, but we didn't plan in advance and the impromptu adventure is more important than what you eat.

In the morning, Jason lit our fire back up and we put our percolator on the hot coals. While waiting for it to get hot, I snapped a few pictures to show you why I really don't mind camping out.

Jason found this super duper cool truck tent at Cabela's. It sets up super fast and then we hook the opening around the end of the truck.

Standing inside the tent (and yes, it's tall enough to stand upright in) you can see our very cozy bed set up in the bed of the pickup. Jason bought an air mattress that fits the pickup bed and we throw a thick foam pad on top of that. Then I put some king size sheets on it with some blankets and VOILA! Comfort at it's finest.

I can't wait to go again while it's still cold enough to have a fire going. Too bad most of our kids don't enjoy camping.

Get Ready

Mother's Day is just around the corner...

I'm In A Funk

On Easter Sunday, my hubby's brother-in-law passed away. Keith was only 50 years old when his heart totally gave out. Just this past Monday was his funeral.

My kids went to their dad's house for that weekend we were in Montana. The house should have been locked up tight...I even left a note for the boys telling them to not forget to lock all the doors and window. Great plan! Except for one deviation. Jacob (my 15 year old) forgot how to use his brain and conveniently left his window open for his buddies to come in while nobody was home. And those "friends" threw a party. In my house.

So I'm about 1000 miles from home when my youngest son Jared calls me and tells me that someone broke into the house. They were getting dropped off by their dad. I was totally freaked out and couldn't do a thing about it.

But after we got home, we realized that Jason's laptop, all our stuff that usually sits on the counter top and on my entry way table had been hidden in closets and drawers (and the cops my ex called said that it was one of the boys' friends) So we forced a confession out of Jacob. I just wonder how he thought he could get away with that. He wasn't even here to enjoy the party with them!

We actually feel very lucky that the worst that happened was they ate lots of food out of the fridge, ate all our candy, dirtied every cup in the house, spilled booze on my tile floor and left it very sticky so I could spend an hour mopping it. Oh, and they stole the boys' Wii and my totally cool aprons that Suzee made for me! I mean, we aren't glad those things happened, but we could have come home to something like this.....

(this is the Pair-A-Dice Bar that had recently burned down in Paradise, Montana.)

I'm hoping that very soon I'll just snap out of this funk. It's hard when you are grieving the loss of one family member and wanting to kill your kid at the same time. Well, I don't really want to kill my son. But I would like him to suffer a bit. I've been told more than once this week that this too shall pass. I just wish it would have passed me completely.

A Weekend In Montana

Friday afternoon Jason and I flew up to Montana. His grandma had passed away and Jason was going to be gone for more than a week. He asked if I would like to at least come up for the weekend. Of course I did! I hurried up and put together a small scrapbook album for his mom so if she felt lonely in the days ahead, she could look at the family photos and know she's loved and appreciated.
Since meeting Jason, I have been to Montana 5 times in 3 years. I absolutely love it there. Being an Arizona native, I'm used to brown. So for me, being there is a feast for my eyes. Everything is different than I'm used to

This is a view from the airplane window. I love the snow on the mountain and the winding river down below.

Look at what is in the Missoula airport waiting to greet new arrivals. This bear is HUGE! (Don't worry...I'm not really scared!)

Jason was on the Plains high school football team, so I snapped this picture of the scoreboard.
I just can't imagine growing up in a town where the grass is green and the views of the mountains are regular features.

I was trying to get a shot of the football goal posts in the distance. I didn't notice at the time, but the local businesses seem to put up advertisements on the fence. Do all small town funeral homes advertise at schools?

Just beyond the grocery store is this little old jail. I love that it's still there. The sign says it was built in 1904. Jason tells me that the town would have a day when they'd lock people up and then they have to raise "bail" to get out. Then the money goes to benefit something (I wish I remember what).

Just up one of the hills is a new development for home sites. This is the view from one of them.

And this is just some of the forest just outside of the main part of town.

Something else that I think is wonderful is this natural mountain spring. You can just pull off the road and fill your bottles up for free. That water is really cold! I hope you notice the University of Montana logo on that bottle. Yeah, I'm such a tourist.

Something else that anybody from the greater Phoenix area would find amazing is that EVERY bridge you go over has WATER running under it. I'm not kidding you.

Easter Sunday, my last day, Jason drove me back to Missoula for my flight home. But first we visited the grounds of his Alma Mater. I know you probably can't tell, but there is an "M" at the top of that hill. (Jason tells me it's a hill, but anyone from my neck of the woods would know it's a mountain.) I thought it was cool that there is a trail that zig-zags it's way up that folks were hiking. If I lived near it, that's what I would do.

It's all about the GRIZ. These folks take their football seriously.

There are Griz claws everywhere. Trash cans included.

One more picture before we leave...

The time had come for me to board my plane and head for home. My boys were waiting for me and nail clients were on the schedule for Monday morning. My heart was breaking as I was leaving because we had just gotten the worst news. Jason's brother-in-law had passed away that night. I wanted more than anything to stay. I love this new family of mine and I hurt for their loss. May God bless and comfort them.