Another Passage

My eldest grandson has finished the 4th grade. He has been with his teacher for 4 years and next year he will go to a new school and have a new teacher. This has been a hard time for him. He came over this afternoon to go through the steps to take care of the cat while we are gone for the month of June. I took some pictures out on the stump. I have pictures of him at the end of each school year since kindergarten. He was very subdued today but he will get over it as only children can.

We leave early tomorrow morning for our trip. We are driving to Bellingham, WA where we will board an Alaska Marine Highway Ferry for Sitka. We will stay with friends in Sitka for a week. On our way to Bellingham I will get to meet my cyber friend Heather in Nampa, ID. While in Bellingham I will get to meet my cyber friend Becky. This is very exciting. The internet certainly makes the world a small place. After our return to Bellingham on June 20 we will visit with friends near Olympia WA and then drive down to Yachats OR where we have rented a beach house for 4 nights. Another friend is coming to stay with us. My husband met him on line 10 years ago when they both started flying Red Baron and participating in cyber WWI combat missions. Something they continue to this day. We have met him in person before and look forward to seeing him again. It is sad, his wife died just over a year ago and he is now just starting to get out and about. We are so glad that we will be near to his home and that he is coming to stay with us. After Yachats we will go to Ashland OR for a couple days for the Shakespeare Festival. Then we will come home through Susanville CA to Reno NV and down to Tonopah for the night and then through Vegas and home the next day. Whew!! Can't wait, have been counting the days. I will have many great photos I am sure.

I leave you for awhile with these things to ponder:

One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets in their wallets.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.

Have a good one.

AWOL!!

Wow where does the time go. I have definitely been absent too long for this blog and my dear friends who read it. No excuses. I just am getting busy. Am tryng to finish up a scrapbook for my sorority and made some digi Mother's Day presents. I will post a couple at the end. My high school is having a reunion this summer. We have them when anyone is in the mood to organize one. They are great fun and they are always in Phoenix, which is only a 140 miles from me. But, I can't go to this one as it is June 6-8 and we are leaving on vacation on June 1 and won't be home until June 27. My high school friend, Linda is organizing this reunion and she sent this out to all of us.

OLD AGE, I DECIDED, IS A GIFT I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body; the wrinkles, the baggy eyes and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror, but I don't agonize over those things for long. I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, and my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avant garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver. As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong. I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

Here are a couple of the digi mother's day present's I made:

These are 6 by 10 story boards and they look so good framed. They are of my two youngest grandson's and I gave them to my daughter-in-law for Mother's Day.

So as you reach for that second cup of coffee remember this, non-dairy coffee creamer is flammable. Good excuse to use the real stuff. :)

Have a good one.

For Susan

My devine digi diva, Susan, asked me to post one of my layouts here so she could see it better. So here it is. I have been really busy but I can't for the life of me remember everything that I have been doing. One thing is that I am going back though all my Jessica class videos and making them again with my CS3 and that is time consuming. I went to a nice dinner last night with my Beta Sigma Phi ladies for our Founder's Day celebration. It had an Italian theme and I ate way too much!! This mornng I went to breakfast with DH before he had to go to his financial forum, and I guess my biggest news is that I bought a Wacom Intous Tablet 6 by 8 today from the Acadmic Super Store. I got a smashing price that I just couldn't pass up. It is refurbished with a 1 year warrenty and was told it is just like new. I trust the store so is ok. LOL will be here in a few days. Here is my lesson 4a that Susan wanted me to post:It is of my DH and we had a great time taking the photos. I think the layout is amazing and thank Jessica Sprague for the great instruction on this one. Here is another that I did for the Saturday photo challenge. We had to scrap around a word as the theme, mine was Focus and then do the layout in 30 mins. I used lesson 3 from my first class with Jessica, Up and Running and did it using my CS3. We took our 2 youngest grandsons to a city event at the park called Soar into Spring. They loved seeing the kites and playing all the games set up for the little kids. We had fun too!Another of my devine digi divas, Anke, has started a blog, link up to her over there---->

Since spring is here and summer is approaching here is something that you need to know:

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

Have a good one.

Honey I'm home!!! again

It is good to finally have my puter functioning. The good news I have to share with you is that I am now on the CT for Green Elephant Designs. I have linked our CT blog to this blog so that you can all go and check out all the great pages that we are making for Nicolina. Her blog is: http://greenelephantdesigns.blogspot.com/ check this out it has links to all her stores. I will be doing pages from the Black Tie Affair kit. (NO, it is not I who pirated it. LOL). Here is a page I made from a welcome mini kit that she gave to the CT. This is a cute kit and maybe she will expand it and put it in the stores. It is called: Frou-Frou.Here is another page I made from her great Black Tie Affair kit.

I will leave you today with two interesting facts:

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.

Which makes me think that we need to cross a dragonfly with a cockroach and either the roach will only last 24 hours or the dragonfly can cut its head off and live several weeks. Either way works for me.

Have a good one!

My computer is dying

My computer is taking its last breaths. I don't know if I should stand up and cheer or just sit here and cry. I need a new hard drive. I have used up all my C: Main space. I don't have enough left to run my photoshop program to do my scrapbook pages, that is the bad news. The good news is that I have a new hard drive waiting in the wings to have my DH install. It is 100 gig so I should be good and I have recently installed in my external bay a 300 gig storage unit. I have transfered folders to that unit and have exported my favorites to that unit and I think I've done all that I can to get ready for the hard drive move. But, it is still a scary prospect. We have WindowsXP to DL onto the new hard drive, hubby says he knows how to get my Eudora email back up and running. I will not have Word but I have information about a program like Word that I think I can use so as to not have to buy Word(Office Suite) again. It ticks me off that you can not just get Word, you have to buy the whole blasted program for big bucks. I have contacted my organizer (ACDSee) and will be able to re-install that with their help as it was a DL from on -line. I have my Photoshop Elements that I can re-DL. I will loose my photos organized in those nice catagories but that can be redone. All my photos are safely tucked away in my external. So, we are just nervous to do it. We feel that nothing can go wrong but that is the time to worry, right? I will take one last look at everything and see if I need to tuck away any other folders and then it's audios old 20 gig hardrive. Keep your fingers crossed for me ya hear? Here is one of my latest pages to share with you before I reach the point of no return with the transfer. This is a page for my Digi: In Deep (DID) class from week 2. ( I can't do week 3...not enough memory to run photoshop) These pictures were taken about 37 years apart. Infact, I am pregnant with Kristen in the first photo, although it doesn't show. She will be 37 in August....ummm maybe she is getting old enough where she doesn't want her age blabbed around. So, you didn't hear it from me OK?The following is a page I made from my own template..heck yeah! This is the first template I have ever made..thanks Jessica for giving me the skills to do this.

So before the day wanes futher I will do a final check "under the bed" as it were to make sure I haven't left anything behind on my old hard drive and bid it adieu.

I leave you with this thought: "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila"

Have a good one!

My Dear, Wonderful Bessie

My grandmother was indeed my soft spot to land. Here is a tribute to her. This page was made for the intentions challenge at http://www.jessicasprague.com/ Digi: InDeep class. I had no photo, so the journaling is an attempt to "show" her to you.

My Grandmother Bessie was always my soft place to land. No matter what the childhood tragedy she could wipe my tears and make me happy again. She was what we would call an old fashioned woman. She was always “presentable” even around the children. She would sit in her rocking chair and darn socks and hum a hymn. In the evenings she enjoyed her radio programs. It was such a joy to be allowed to snuggle up on her feather bed and listen to all the programs with her. We would listen to Mary Worth, The Green Lantern and The Shadow. I would sit quietly and wait for her to “rid” up the kitchen because I knew a story would be coming soon. She told wonderful stories of her youth growing up in Alabama. She told of going to see her grandmother on the old plantation, she told me of my mother when she was a little girl and she told me of her dear husband whom I had never known. Her great pleasure in life was going to church and Sunday school. She loved singing in the choir and I loved those old hymns. Today I will hear one of her favorites and just be totally lost in memory. My love for her knew no bounds. She died when I was a freshman in high school. My world stopped for awhile and I thought it would never begin again. It did though, but there is still a small hole in my heart that never healed and on chilly nights when I snuggle in bed with one of my grandsons and he wants to hear the “old” stories then she is there with me reminding me that as much as things change they remain the same. I am the grandmother now. I am the soft place to land and my stories are the “old” stories. Thank you Grandmother Bessie for being the world to me and for teaching me what it truly means to be a grandmother. I could not have had a better role model.

On the light side regarding granmothers (of which I am one):

A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween. -- Erma Bombeck

Grandmothers are the people who take delight in hearing babies breathing into the telephone.-- Author:Unknown

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you're just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. -- Pam Brown

Have a good one.

The Remains of the Day

Been awhile since we got together, hasn't it! I have been either incredibly busy or entirely disorganized or both. I will go with the "Or both". I have some Easter pages to share with you and a list of 10 things I love right now. Last Monday, March 31, I started Jessica's advanced class, Digi: In Deep and the ACDSee organizing class. No, I have not lost my mind it's backed up on a disk somewhere. But, it has been over-whelming. We went to Prescott this week-end to see Bill Cosby. He was preforming a one-man show at Yavaipai Community College. He was absolutely the best. I about wet my pants laughing so hard at his sketch about Stovetop Stuffing.

We made a week-end out of it and stayed at Prescott in the Pines B&B. The weather was nice but windy.

Here are the Easter pages:

The grandkids went to Camp Verde for Easter with their other grandparents so my girls had to take the pictures. I found some good ones to use on these two layouts. They are my first layouts for my Digi: In Deep class.

Here is a layout I made for a challenge at SugarPlumPaperie. It was really fun to do.

And so as this day wanes I leave you with a remark from Bill Cosby: "Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them."

I think I resemble that remark!!

Have a good one.