Happy Valentine's Day

 I need another weekend.  It went too fast.

I took Leon to his mom's Friday afternoon and the kids all came over for their Friday night D&D game. We had spicy chicken and Mexican quinoa.

I sat in on the game for a bit, but decided to get some things upstairs done so left them to their mission.

Saturday morning, I did the BioLife thing and then met up with Maddy and the "girls" at Petco for the pup's manicures. ;)  On the way in, Maddy tripped and ripped her brand new coveralls in the knee.  She's ok but her coveralls had a big problem.  So after she dropped off the girls at home, she brought them over and I mended them for her.  They're not exactly like before but better than hitting the trash can. :)

She stayed for lunch and we watched another episode of Vicar of Dibley.

Then I spent most of the rest of the day working on a sample bodice again using the actual fabric.  There are pearls and glitter everywhere on this netting and it's super icky to sew with, but I'm getting it.

One side is lined with the satin all the way to the shoulder and the other is "kind of" see through above the breast area to the shoulder.  I'm not impressed with either side sample yet.  And after showing it to Meri, I don't have the vision correct yet either.  We'll see.  I've got more fabric to do it again if needed.

On Sunday, after church, Meri and I attended lunch at a friend's house who we'd dog sat for over Christmas.  We had a very nice time and the food was great.

Did I mention I gained 6 pounds over the weekend?

After that I unloaded groceries at the house and went to visit with Ada at the nursing home.

Then back home to get a little house cleaning done before Maddy and Matthew showed up.  They caught me vacuuming.  Oh well.  I don't remember the last time I'd vacuumed...  so I finished in front of them.

Is that bad that I didn't remember when?  Does that mean I'm getting old? 

Or that it had truly been a while?

Needless to say, it needed it.

I had picked up some snacky things and so had they.  :) Matthew wanted to watch the Super bowl while they did laundry and Maddy and I didn't.  So she and I cooked (Matthew baked the buffalo wings) and sorted through a very large tub of photos that Robb's sister had given to me.  We got the photos separated into the following sections.

1) life before college

2) college life and marriage before kids

3) early kids (just Ryan and Maddy days)

4) later kids (includes Meri) up to current.

5) all the negatives

I plan to purchase one of those machines that scan in negatives into digital pictures someday.

There is another tub that we got earlier sitting under my sewing table of more photos of Robb growing up.  I forgot all about that but at least we got through this tub last night.

The food was great!  I made jalapeno poppers and lil smokies.  Maddy brought chips and dip (my downfall), pizza rolls and buffalo chicken.  Whew!  It was good stuff!

Did I mention I gained 6 pounds this weekend?

They stayed until some time after the half time show.  Their laundry was done and we were done with the tub of photos so they headed home to watch the last bit there.

Regarding the half time show.  If I was sitting in the stands, I still would not understand what they were rapping and singing about.  SO much going on, too much going on and I didn't know the songs. 

It WAS refreshing to see actual instruments out there, like trumpets and a piano.  Somebody was in middle school band at some point! But they're not using it to their full potential...

And the outfits were just for gyrating.

Not impressed.

Ok yep...  I am officially old.

Enjoy and cherish your loved ones today!

Senior Photo Shoot

 Meri wanted to get some pics of Grandma and Grandpa for a 4H entry, so she brought along my good camera and took several until the battery died, then pulled out her cell phone for the rest.  

We drove all over the state park near the home where I grew up.  I reminisced about driving my moped through this park on many occasions and even pointed out where the pistons had seized and I had to push it home from there.  Checking the oil is important.

Meri spied a good spot with benches not too far from the parking area.  Dad has had some health issues lately and we didn't want to overdo it for him.  The temp was in the 90s.  80s in the shade.

Grandma asked that Meri sing and I encouraged her too.  I guess she said I MADE her.  sigh...  

Oh well, she sang great.

These were just from my cell phone.  I can't wait to see the ones Meri took.

We drove up to the overlook and enjoyed scenery that I hadn't seen for so many years! 

 Neither had they.

They're so cute!

And Mom was so funny!  "NOW let's get some pics of you two!"  

Ummm  But, Mom... this is all about you guys today...

They don't call it a Senior Citizen shoot for nothing!

BUT,  Meri and I took a couple.  

 

We left them in the chilled car and Meri and I ran down the path that I'd told her about from my memories.  The fossils were gone but the overlook was still there.  Grown over a LOT more than I remembered.  Selfie again.

AND I took some selfies with my mom too.  

She is more of a selfless person than a selfie person... 

We dropped Mom off at the nursing home, then took Dad back to my sister's, where he's living now.

Hugged just about everyone and after picking up the obligatory Canadian bacon pizza for Robb, we hit the road for home.

When we weren't too far away, Meri wanted to drive and she drove me down some country roads in the Des Moines river valley, where the only real hills in Iowa are.  Beautiful landscape!!!  

She and a friend had found an old deer graveyard where deer carcasses come to die.  But it was really flooded and we didn't see anything.  I did see the remnants of a past bridge over the river.

So peaceful and pretty down there!

We got back early evening on Saturday and spent all day Sunday with Robb.  Well, I did. Well, until he needed to pick up Leon.  But Meri and I made lasagna for supper that night and we ate on the china.

I hope you all enjoyed Father's Day!

As I Wish... and other weekend activities

On Friday night, as soon as I got off work, Meri picked me up with a few empty suitcases and we drove to one of her friend's house out in the county.  Meri is an awesome photographer and had been asked to take LinZ's senior pics.  The suitcases were for one of the poses.  We weren't running away.

LinZ sounds like a rapper...  But that's just her nickname.  Meri was studying Alliteration in middle school and Robb came up with this example.

A Little LinZ goes a Long way.

and she really, really does...

I took a few shots of the photography session in progress and hope I can get copies of the rest to show you when Meri is done editing them.

My favorite though, so far, is the one we took on a deserted gravel road.  I peeled out up and down the road, kicking up as much dust as possible while Meri hustled Linz into the dust and took pics before the dust settled or blew away.  In black and while, it's going to look fantastic!

I hope.

We spent two hours in several different locations, taking pics of Linz.   Those two girls know each other so well, that all Meri had to do to get her to smile and laugh was to yell SMILE!!!!  

and she'd crack up.

Sorry it's so dark!  Meri climbed up on the tall monkey bars and Linz was on the lower one.  

It made a great shot!

Meri appreciated my help and suggestions on photo scenarios, so I've been asked to join her on her next senior pic session for Perla this coming week.

We got home around 8 and Meri got ready to take off for a late movie with a friend.  Robb asked if I'd made pizza before I left and I hadn't...  So I said I'd open a can of soup.  As soon as I opened it, I noticed a Papa John's pizza box on the table.  Hey - who bought pizza??  He had.  

The can of soup got stuck in the fridge and I had pizza instead.

Saturday - Robb and I attended Meri's (LAST in that particular town's) marching band performance in their parade.  It was almost an hour away and as we were walking from our car, a woman came up behind us and I jumped to the side and said excuse me.  It was a lady from my sewing group!  

Well, what are YOU doing here?!  We told her why we were there and she just lives a couple blocks away so she goes to the parade every year after a pancake breakfast.  YUM!  We'd already eaten or we'd have joined her.  She knows Meri well and we found out later that some strang woman waved and yelled to Meri as the band passed by her.  Um yeah,  it was probably Joanne.

Anyway, we sat on our usual street corner to watch.  Kids swooped in all around us collecting candy.  Parades are great if you have a small child to take candy from, but it's frowned on if that kid isn't your own.  Words to live by...  

So I tried to track down kettle korn with NO success!  Just bought some old regular popcorn and some Mexican chips and we settled in to sunburn with lots of snacks.  My toes look really dirty now, but they're actually just really tan... in stripes...

Meri's band sounded great and I really don't even know if they won the competition.  I'm going to assume so.  They're good.

That's Meri in the front on the clarinet.

Afterwards, we did a little grocery shopping, had a date lunch at Ryan's pub but he wasn't working.  

We didn't order this, but I asked if I could take a pic of the cheese platter that a neighboring table was enjoying to make Maddy jealous.  They were only too helpful and wanted to know her reaction.  All she replied was YUM...   

Then we came home and I found an ad on the local swap page that someone wanted scrap metal as well as anything wood or electrical.  And boy of boy, have I got some of that!!!  I spent two hours in the hot garage, moving things this way and that pulling things out into the driveway for this group to take.  A couple file cabinets, a couple sewing cabinets, numerous bed frames, a lawn mower, boards, two large printers, a dryer and several other things too many to mention.  The driveway was cluttered. 

We had agreed for a 6pm pickup time.  When I went inside to clean up my filthy filthy self, I let her know that the stuff was in the drive way at 5 and they could come at any time to pick it up but I'd like it to be gone by 6:30.  That appeared to tick her off.  It sounded like I was being pushy I guess...  So suddenly they could ONLY take scrap metal. ...  Then at 6pm asked if they could come Sunday night instead. ...  Really?  Robb and I had to move everything back into the garage.  SIGH...  JUST when I thought there was hope for getting one car into the garage before winter hits...   

The next night they didn't come either.  So I guess I'll post all this stuff on freecycle and see if anyone else wants it.  OR we'll have a bonfire.

So on Saturday night, we knew Meri was coming straight home after work and we hadn't had her all to ourselves forEVER!!!  She's always rushing off to do things with friends.  We figured we needed to get penciled into her friend list too...  So we had a super secret steak night in HER honor.  Out came the china, good glasses and cloth napkins from the wedding, folded JUST so...  

Actually just like this but without the ribbon.

We even used the blue/white table runner and a vase with her bridesmaid bouquet in it.

She felt so loved.  But she was exhausted and couldn't even stay up long enough for dessert!  Well, we didn't tell her about it, she'd already gone to bed.  Robb and I just drove up to Casey's on our own and got some soft serve ice cream.  BUT she'd felt honored and that's what mattered.

Well, that was Friday and Saturday.   And the weekend just kept going!!!!

I wish...

NICK of time

On Friday, Meri got her photos finally glued to some foam boards and got done with her goals JUST in time for judging at noon.  I worked at my laptop while she got judged, then we went out for a quick lunch.

 Here are her submissions.  

I love this one.  We went for a drive out in the county one evening and she got lots of great shots.  

She lay down in the middle of road in front the car for this one.

If you go to our county fair, you just might see them!

I stopped on an underused overpass and she hopped out for this one.  A storm was brewing.

Then a few photos that she'd taken in the past with her VERY tall friend.

At an abandoned house out in the country.

On a rusty old bridge over a creepy creek.  Those girls are so brave...

Back at the abandoned house.  This old Edsel was parked behind some sheds.

Vintage is SO cool right now...

PLUS, the Edsel, above, might actually go to the State Fair!  It got an orange dot for consideration.  So we'll find out next Saturday.

On Saturday, Meri and I went to a parade with Robb to see him march with his bagpipe band.  Wool kilts and wool socks on a hot day is not a pretty sight...  But they sounded great!  

Since Meri and I were an hour early after dropping Robb off with his gang, we got our pick of any shady spot to plant our deck chairs.  We picked up some kettlekorn and drinks, then I read a few Burda mags, while Meri went through her phone and upcoming schedule.  THEN we still had 30 minutes left...  Robb had given me his cell phone to take pics, so we browsed through his photo gallery.  We found lots of photos from LAST weekend in Wisconsin.  

Apparently Leon found some cool functions of the phone.

TONS of selfies...  

And lots of panoramic photos of the backseat of the car.

I sent as many stills as I could to my email.

  

Also found some of the close ups I'd taken with his phone when Leon was playing in the fountain at the farmer's market.

I was just waiting for him to fall in.

Anyway, back to Saturday.  After the parade, I got to sew!!!  I need more items to take to the State Fair.  My goal is ten things.  And since I've missed a year or two in the past, I've got items from those years to take too.  But want to use up all ten of the tickets I've purchased.

I made the one on the right with a slightly shorter back than that from a silky, edge print, super long pashmina that I've never worn.  I think I found it on the free table at one of the sewing meetings. 

 I wore it all day on Sunday.  I'll take a pic and show you one of these days.  It's in the wash now. 

It's black with a white print towards the hems, so I wore it to church with black slinky pants, and then the rest of the day with shorts.  From behind it looked like a shorter dress.  And NO ONE asked if I'd made it!  So that's either a compliment, meaning that they couldn't tell at all.  OR that they were embarrassed for me and decided not to comment on it to spare my feelings.

My goal is to sew as good as a sweatshop worker.  Not sure if I'm there yet, but on Sunday, I started working on a sweater knit version of this pattern with longer sleeves and a cowl neck.  By the time I'm onto my 12th version, you'll never know it's the same pattern... ;)  It's stitching up fast.  I just have the cuffs and hem to go and it will be done.  The neck line is a bit larger too because I serged the cowl neck on backwards and had to cut it off and redo it.   I think Meri will like this one a lot for fall.

Anyway, enough teasers.  One of these days, we'll model our creations and I'll show you all my State Fair entries.  The wedding and prom garments have come back from the dry cleaners and are just about ready for the fair.  The wedding dress hem still has a bit of the farm on it.  I might have to locally bleach that...  We'll see.

Happy Monday!

Ponies, Blood & Randomness

My sister is a photographer as a hobby and a horse woman as a bigger hobby.  She could stand under our Shetland pony as a toddler and play with it's tail between it's legs.  If that Shetland saw me, he'd turn and kick me in the stomach... 

Kristin has a gift...

She posted some awesome shots of her horses yesterday and one of them very well may grace a tourism magazine!!

Who knew??!!  Tourism in Iowa???

Why?

The photo is probably not this one that was chosen for publication, but wow, it shows some character...  

Yikes a snake!

 School pictures came home!!!! Yay!  

And this is exactly the smile that Leon showed me that he did.  

What??!  No teeth?  Nope.

 Found out this morning that the cookie dough sales are supposed to be turned in on Monday, so I was scrambling this morning to find out deets from Meri on how much and what kinds.  She just sent me a photo of a friend's phone with the info on it...  

If anyone wants some, it's $15 a tub and if you don't pick it up by Thanksgiving, I'll be eating it a few spoonfuls at a time right out of the freezer...

She was also at the house yesterday with a friend making props for the Haunted House that NHS(National Honor Society) is putting on this weekend.  I can't tell you how many dead bodies made of black plastic table cloths wrapped around my blankets and pillows were laying on my table yesterday... Mainly because I was in a rush after work and didn't get a pic, but there were a bunch.

It was creepy.

I also donated about 4 sheets that she could paint up with fake blood out on the lawn.  They sit in a heap on my porch now and I found that they'd dumped brown paint in my sink...  I've got the sinks soaking right now.  I'm sure it will come out.  If it doesn't, those will be awfully gross sinks.

Anyway, have an awesomely spooky weekend!  

I've got a great one lined up and a lot of sitting involved!!  Yay!

Enjoying the Labor

On Sunday, Maddy and Matthew joined us for church and then we went out for lunch at our faves brunch place... HyVee.  HyChi for me thank you!  And for Leon.  He's a HUGE HyChi fan!  All the others went for the regular breakfast brunch with bacon, eggs, etc.

Then Robb and his mom drove Leon to HIS mom's and I went home with the two.  They packed up and left shortly afterwards.  I don't know the next time I'll see Maddy.  Not sure if it's in this month or not.  Maybe I'll plan a day trip and drive up.

So Meri was going to have some friends over so I rushed around the house doing a quick tidy.  As I carried a basket of clothes down the steps, I tripped on the last couple and fell.  I sat on my butt stunned that I could have been so stupid.  My back had hit a large metal post and my feet were twisted uncomfortably under me.  And then the phone rang.

Of course...

Still unsure of what had happened to my feet, I scooted on my butt over to a phone and answered it.  It was my sister, Ruth Ann!  I didn't tell her what happened until later.  She knew of my plans to spend Labor day with two other sisters, sorting all my mom's photos that she'd accumulated through the years and felt like she should be there too.  So she did!  She lives in Wisconsin and rarely has spare time to get away, especially without kids in tow.  But she's only got 4 little ones now under the age of ten or there abouts, so her hubs said, Go for it!  YAY!  She drove yet Sunday afternoon and got here in the middle of Meri's movie watching night.  But the kids were all way downstairs so she, Robb and I were able to relax and talk.

She and I left at 5:40am.  Ten minutes later than I had wanted to, but it was my own fault.  I kept forgetting something important and had to keep running back in the house.  We had a blast on the trip, talking and laughing.  Ruth Ann is just over a year older than me and has a zany sense of humor that tends to rub off on me.  Robb can tell when I've talked with her on the phone without me even telling him.  "So how is Ruth Ann?..."  He says I get snarkier.

Probably.

He told me not to talk to her on the trip.  Oops.

An important stop on our trip.  I'm not sure if we're SUPPOSED to use these porta potties, but when there are ten on the sides of the new highway just sitting there, they beg to be used.  No one was around.  It's LABOR day!  No one works on Labor Day!

We got to my home town and after buying a quick birthday present for a nephew, we met up with our sisters and a niece at one of their churches where we were going to be sorting.  Ruth Ann had insisted I keep it a surprise that she was coming along, and they were duly surprised!  I WISH I'd gotten a video of that.  Kristin's response was hilarious...

My dad dropped in unexpectedly and while Melanie went out to hurry him inside with the ruse of a snake issue, the rest of us got our cameras ready to see if we'd shock him.  "How's the heart dad?  Are we good??  Come on up here!"


He was surprised to see Ruth Ann.  He knew about me.  And I cut the film JUST before he said, "Now.  Where's the snake?"

There were just over ten boxes of pictures, documents and various other things that needed to be sorted out between the eight kids.  Dad kept a pile for himself too of special ones he wanted to keep.

 I thought by bringing Ruth Ann, we'd be out of there in a lot less time.

But nope, it took an hour longer than Melanie had guessed.  If she hadn't come, it would have taken MUCH longer.  Each of us eight kids got a large plastic bin of photos and whatnots.  Even sorted out several piles for various aunts and uncles that might want some of Mom's photos pertaining to their families.

I have a huge box of miscellaneous photos that are for historical purposes still in my van.  I'm going to pull a Sluggy whenever I get time and get to work on a photo based family tree.  I guess I need to pick up a scanner...  My camera did a not so good job with light glares.

Here are a few of the choice ones.

Mom and her calf that paid her tuition to teacher's college.

Mom and an old boyfriend...  That one sparked a lot of conversation!

Dad and we're thinking one of his brothers.  I do recognize my grandparents old farm house.  I helped Dad tear it down when I was young.

And PROOF that my dad kissed my mom!!!  He always swore they didn't even hold hands until years after they were married...

Most of my insane gang.  I'm the one on the far right.

Ruth Ann and me.  I'm the one on the left.  I'm guessing they bribed us with chocolate to appear that we liked each other then.

 After the sorting got done just before 2pm, we all went over to surprise my mom too.

We visited for roughly an hour, then Ruth Ann and I needed to head out. 

 We stopped for the obligatory pizza at Robb's favorite college pizza joint for a late late lunch and to take a pizza home to Robb.  A little nostalgia for dinner...

She and I drove to where we left her car, transferred all of the boxes that Ruth Ann was taking to her car and then she was off for her last leg of the day's trip.

After getting home, Robb had just gotten there with Leon and I was dead.  My feet, leg and back were hurting still so I lay down and watched a little tv before getting the boy down for bed.

It was the most enjoyable laborious Labor Day ever!

Where's Weekend?

 If time could stand still for just a few moments at a time, the weekend would have been a lot longer.

Here's how I filled it in...

Friday: I took Meri's photos down to the 4H judging and on the way got mixed up in a mountain top fight with the girls.  Yeah...  Maddy had taken Meri on a mountain hike on the only free day they had before driving to even bigger mountains for Bible camp.  Three miles into the hike, Meri tripped and hurt her foot.  Meri was determined to go the last two miles to the peak but Maddy kept trying to turn her back.  How would THAT be to arrive at camp but not able to walk??...  So Meri was Pro-hike, Maddy was Anti-hike.  Both of them were calling both Robb and I begging for validation in their concerns.  Well, I was busy getting Meri's tags on her photos and missed a couple later calls.  When I got done, Meri had already conceded and they were on their way down the mountain. WHEW!  They iced her foot at a movie with friends and it's much better now.  

One of Meri's photos might be disqualified because it was taken at a brewery.  dang.  It was a good one too.  We'll find out next weekend.

After work, I picked up the boy and on the drive back promised that I'd make him a penguin costume.  How did he DO that?  So after he and his dad started getting caught up on their video game playing

, I gathered up all the fabric I'd need to make him a penguin sleeping bag.  I was determined to only use stuff from my stash, so it's not perfect, just a prototype I guess.
Oh... I had told him that I wanted to make him a Shark bag like this.  

He didn't want that but wanted the costume.  After I showed him variations on Google, he decided the penguin snuggly would be perfect.  WHEW!  I didn't really want to make him a costume as that would take too long and need too many measurements.  

After supper, Robb talked me into relaxing and watching a movie so we did.  If you get the chance to see Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Larry Crowne, do.  It's a good flick!

Saturday: Robb and I headed to a parade and was only the 8th in line after about three dozen fire engines.  PERFECT!!!  I picked up some kettle korn, because HELLO!!?!  

and munched on that when people started looking at me weird because I had a scissors and trimming lace and a wagon loaded down with a cooler full of water for the pipers for later.  I had to sit for 45 minutes for the parade to start, with no kids, so that's what I did.  Trimmed lace and ate.

Eavesdropped on the conversations around me.  "If you argue with your sister ONE more time, we're leaving!"  same family, "If you do that ONE more time, we're leaving!"  same family, "If you do that ONE more time, we're leaving!"  or from behind me, "MY kids never had a candy bar until they were ten or pop until they were teens, but I fed my grand kids Mountain Dew and Puppy Chow mix for breakfast this morning."  LOUDLY telling everyone around them.
See if THEY get to babysit again!

I eventually couldn't stand being submerged with people and hearing what they obviously wanted everyone else to hear so I moved to the tail end of the parade route and sat there.  Got a great shot of the pipers in front of the porta pottys.  

I cropped the pottys out.

Unfortunately or Fortunately, Fareway stores had an entry just ahead of the bagpipe band and were giving out cold waters and frozen flavored sticks of something sugary and offered them to the band.  Ok doke...  No one needed our water after all.  Oh well, we'll drink it.  If pop isn't available I mean...

I spent the afternoon binge watching Wallander and finally finished it while sewing on the wedding dress.  

Took Leon swimming for a little while and then after I'd made a bunch of buns for homemade burgers,

he and his dad ran off to a cookout with friends.  So I worked on his penguin snuggly.

More on that tomorrow.

 So far at camp.  We've been playing "Where's Waldo? Maddy? and Meri?  Found a few snippets of them from the camp photos posted on FB and it's evidently turned into a game with Robb and I as to who finds her first.  Robb found half of Meri this morning 

and I found the more obvious photo below.  What's THIS??!!!  We didn't send her to camp to play hand jive with BOYS!!!  But she's having a great time and making lots of friends.  Maddy called to let us know so we wouldn't be worrying.  Thanks Sweetie!

Gotta run.  Have a great Monday and remember,  Friday night is only five short days away!!!