long, longer, longest!

Well this is the longest I have gone without posting. Please spank me! I stared working again on September 8th and although I only work two days a week it has slammed me. Then I got the flu and was sick for 10 days. Now, I am surfacing and hope to be more regular with this. I am also taking a digital photography class through the school district to get re-certification hours. It meets thursday night for three hours. Have just finished the 7th of 10 sessions. Oh, and speaking of sessions. I have been playing at a local Irish bar every Sunday night in "Sessions". Sessions is a group of community people who get together and play tunes much as they do in Ireland. I play the bodhram (Irish drum). It is a lot of fun. We also went to a festival in a town about 100 miles away to play for a weekend. So I guess I have been busy! So there! I m going to post one of the pages I did for both Type+Writer at Jessicasprague.com and for my digital class. The pictures were taken at the high school where the class meets.

This will be it for today. I hope some folks are still reading my blog and if so I leave you with this thought as it is my birthday month and tonight makes the third party I'm going to for it! Guess I'm just a party animal!

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but instead to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, and screaming WOOOHOOO what a ride!!!!!!! "

I sold a photo!

I went to the fair grounds to pick up my photos at the end of the fair and lo and behold one of my photos had sold! This is so exciting. Here it is:

This is the salmon that my hubby caught off the Sitka, Alaska coast. We were there visiting friends and we were on their boat. I priced it at $75.00 as I knew hubby would want to keep it and well the rest is history as they say. (BTW who is "they" ? Am thinking of doing a blog on the famous "they" or infamous as the case may be...but I digress).

I had lots of fun entering in the fair. My eldest grandson also entered in the youth division. He won a second for his black and white and a thrid for his color photo. I will post them here now. I think they are great.

He was excited to get the ribbons and see his work displayed. This will help him keep his interest up in photography. I gave him my digital point and shoot with I got my Nikon D40, as he has always liked to take pictures and seems to have a great eye. He is 10 years old ( 9 when the pics were taken).

I will leave you now with this thought:

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

Have a good one.

WOOHOO I Won!

This photo won 3rd place at our County Fair out of 57 in the category. I matted it and framed it and called it Farmer's Hand. I am really excited. I will give it to my father-in-law for his birthday which is September 5.

I entered three photos the other two didn't place. This is the first time I've entered in the fair. My grandson entered two photographs in the youth division and took a second and a third. He was very excited too.

The fair is over at 4pm on labor Day and I can pick up my photos then.

Food for thought:

Slugs have four noses.

Have a good one.

Rumors of my death are premature!

I am back!! Boy it feels good to be back home again. The best part of the journey is coming home and resting your head on your old familiar pillow. We spent the month of June on a trip to the Northwest and Alaska. What a great adventure that was. We drove up to Bellingham, Washington with stops in Idaho to have lunch with my cyber friend, Heather and Leavenworth, Washington to eat at our favorite restaurant, Andrea's Keller, visit the shops, go to Icycle Ridge Winery (we are members of their wine club) and stay in our all time favorite B and B, Abendblum Pension. We took the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to Sitka, with stops in Ketchikan, Wrangle and Petersberg. We stayed in Sitka a week with our good friends, Brian and Lois. What an incredible town! We had so much fun. After arriving back in Bellingham we drove to Keystone and took the ferry to Port Townsend to shop and photograph the gardens at Holly Hill House B & B where we stayed in 2005. Then on to Sheldon to have dinner with Kurt's old school friend, Toni Ann and her husband Mike. From there it was on to Yachats, Oregon where we rented a beach house for three nights and our friend, Kelly came over from Lebanon, OR and stayed with us. Then to Ashland, OR to take in a Shakespeare play and then on the road home. Whew! We then did our annual Celtic Festival, our week with the whole family at the cabin and then I went to scrapbook camp. What a great summer. The grandkids started school on August 14 so that really signals the end of summer for us. While in Sitka Kurt got his Salmon. He was lucky to get it as the fishing was really bleek due to the unseasonably cold weather and water. I'm posting the scrapbook page. Enough blather for now.

I leave you with this thought for the day:

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

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.