Memorial Day 2012

Thomas Campbell said, "A patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree." 



In memory of those who fought for the freedom that we all enjoy, thank you!   

The Start of the Three-Day Weekend

Ahhhh!!!  Saturday!! The beginning of a three-day weekend!  I got an early start in the garden (was it before 7 a.m.??) and my PG came out to help after he got up.  All we got done so today (so far) is weeding.  Because we had a warm spell in March this year, I think my garden decided to take off way early in providing the kinds of growth I don't want.  But now we're ready to dump the compost material on the ground and help make the soil easier to work with. 

So I can't say I have a whole lot of gardeny type pics to show you.  Well, except for the ginormous Mr. Lincoln roses.  They have never opened this big before.  Hmmmm...might it be the up side to last year's garage fire at the neighbor's? 

And I have this rosebush that seems to have all different shades of pink in its roses.  If I keep up with deadheading the old flowers, it will bloom all summer. 

This little guy is one of a whole family living under my hostas.  I usually see them in the morning as I leave for work.  But today, I think the weedless dirt was enticing.  He rolled around in the dirt before making a meal of my azalea that no longer has beautiful pink flowers. 

But most of my entertainment today came from our winged visitors.  Saw these house finches.  She was incredibly vocal with him.  Almost scolding him.

 Next thing you know, he's feeding her.  I guess nagging does work sometimes.

Then I caught these sparrows.  Hehehe...I know what they're doing!!! 

And Mr. Robin decided it was time to get ready for his Saturday night date.  Bathing, primping.  Oh, yeah!!

Amazing how we can take our human behavior and superimpose it on the animal world, don't you think?  Well, at least it's fun to imagine!!

Now, what is not lost on me this weekend is the reason for the extra day off.  No matter how you feel about the current state of our nation and the politics that seem to invade every inch of our lives, we are still a nation that celebrates freedom.  And that would not be possible without the sacrifices made by those who defend us.  Because freedom isn't free.  There's been a huge price paid.  And this weekend is set aside for us to remember those who paid that price. 

Say a prayer of gratitude for a soldier.  And one for his/her family. 

Before you bite into that burger!

TGITW (Thank God It's The Weekend)

What a week!!  I had a wonderful Mother's Day!  Spent some time with the kids and grandkids at my daughter's house.  And realized something...that it doesn't matter whether my kids are 3 or 33, when they are in a good mood I am in a good mood.  It was so much fun

to watch my son play with his nephew. 

And to listen to this little girl declare at the top of her lungs, "I LUB YOU". 

And to look over and see my PG taking it all in. 

And to watch as he showed Ava how to prepare corn for the grill.

And to look at this beautiful daughter of mine basking in this life she has.
 

It was a great Mother's Day.

And then came work!  1700+ manila envelopes stuffed with registration material for the 2012-2013 school year.  Yes, we start preparing for the next school year as early as February.  And these envelopes are the culmination of that work.  So it would be a true statement to say that if I never see another manila envelope for a long time, it would make my day/week/month. 

Oh, except the Pick Your Plum envelopes.  But they're padded.  So that's different.  Have you heard of Pick Your Plum?  Each weekday they have an offer that lasts til they sell out.  I've gotten a number of deals on that site.  Shipping prices are phenomenal when you buy more than one of an item.

Looking forward to a shorter workday starting later this week. Gotta love summer hours!!  Gonna make the most of that additional hour at home by getting my garden in shape.  All I've got so far is:

Lots o'work to do.  I'll take pics of the progress!!

Do you have any garden plans?

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day brings up mixed feelings in me. 

I am the mother of two beautiful, adult kids who make me so incredibly proud with the choices they've made in their lives.  Some of those choices might not have been what I would say were the best at the time they were made, but all turned out okay, and to this day they still blow me away with their awesomeness. 

On the other side, I have this memory of my own mother.  She would always say, "I don't want to be treated like a queen for a day."  What she wanted was a daily call to check in, even when I was an adult, married with children...you know.  Yet my mother and I didn't get along well enough for that to happen. 

As for me, I want to be recognized.  I don't need any gifts or a party and I really don't like going out to a restaurant for brunch.  I just want to sit and enjoy my kids and grandkids and hear a "thank you" from my kids because they realize that I really did do a good job and that they really did turn out okay. 

I truly am blessed.  

Throwing this one in just for the
embarrassment factor!! 
(Hey, that's what moms do, right??)

So to all who mother, whether or not you have kids of your own, I wish you a wonderful day.  And if you don't "hear" the thank you just know that, in their hearts, it's there. 

Randomness - Spring Edition

I joined the Wild Elephant Project over at Life Unity a while back.  Each week, we work on a mindfulness exercise.  A couple weeks ago we worked on a media fast.  And while I couldn't totally "fast" since

• my job requires that I am available via email, and
• I've been working on some genealogy with a couple of cousins so I needed to keep up with their findings, and
• my inbox would have been overwhelming when I returned so I would have felt all kinds of stress and that would have somewhat defeated the purpose of the mindfulness exercise,

I did do a good job of staying away from most of my personal emails and spent minimal time on other time-wasting sites.   What I realized was that I have way, way too much junk email.  So I spent a part of the Saturday morning after the fast going thru and unsubscribing to all the junk.  What a liberating feeling!

* * * * * * * * * * *
I had my taxes completed since about the middle of February.  Yet on April 15th I filed my federal and the morning of April 17th I fled my state.  'Nuf said. 

* * * * * * * * * * *
I went to a seminar a couple weeks ago.  Angels 101.  Very interesting!!  I learned some things.  That's always a good day when you can say you learned something, don't you think? 

Do you believe that angels are around us?  I learned about archangels and guardian angels and who to ask for help depending on the need.  And then I heard real life stories from a trusted friend who confirmed what we had learned.  And I said a prayer on the way home to the angel I didn't even know was with me when I was dealing with cancer.  And I realized that those I called angels on earth are probably more my "signs" or "guides" sent by one of my angels. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

My heart turns to mush when it comes to my grandkids!  (Yeah, I know that it's no surprise to you.  I guess it's just my way of expressing gratitude for them).  Little Miss and Mommy called Grandpa PG on his birthday to sing "Happy Birthday".  She was very proud of herself, according to Mommy.

* * * * * * * * * * *
Had a great conversation with a friend recently about attitudes and how we can choose to let go of some that are destructive to our psyche and hold on to the thoughts that will propel our lives into a better place.  I always walk away from those conversations feeling more enlightened.  Even if nothing new came from the conversation, it's more a reaffirmation of what I want my life to be.

* * * * * * * * * * *
Just got over my super busy, crash-when-I-finally-get-home weeks at work.  It's all good, but long hours and a lot less sleep because it's always on my mind.  I find that it's like that a lot with people who work for schools.  And my only answer to why is because it's an ever-changing environment when you work with kids.

I think it's probably a good time to visit my classes at 21 Secrets! 

* * * * * * * * * * *

At school this week, we experienced a tragedy.  One of our kids passed away.  We have around 1700 kids at our school yet when this happens, it is felt by all.  It's not just "one of our students", it's "one of our kids".  Because I work with people who realize why we are there and embrace the fact that each of our students are one of us.  My heart is heavy thinking about the loss to this student's family.  And my prayers are with them that they get thru this sorrowful time. 


At the risk of this ending up being another "draft" in my long list of posts, I'm posting this now, sans pics.  If I find some I want to use, I'll spice it up a bit. 

Happy Easter! - Happy Spring!!

  

I was raised Catholic.  We celebrated Easter big time.  Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, coloring eggs on Saturday, church and a big family dinner on Sunday.  But for various reasons, I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore.  Christian, but not Catholic.  That's as far as I'll go with blogging about religion.

These days, I celebrate spring.  I celebrate new beginnings.  The anticipation of things to come.  Last year, I took part in Big Picture Classes "Picture Spring" class.  And right now, I can't remember the photo prompts we had, but I just reviewed the pictures I took.  And they give me the same hope that spring always gives me. 

The promise of things to come.

The realization that there will be some pesty issues that will need to be addressed.

The reminder that I might be looking plump now, but if I stay busy with all the things I need to do to take care of myself and my family, I'll trim down quickly.

The thought that I'm starting with a clean slate in my garden and that it's up to me to provide it with enough care and nurturing to allow it to become its most beautiful.

The attitude that with a little perserverance, I can push thru anything

and the beauty of my efforts will come through. 

The comfort to realize that sometimes things take time to show us their

ultimate gift, and that patience is required on my part. 

I wish you PEACE on this Easter weekend. And always.

Are You a Morning or Night Person?

I have lunch with the greatest bunch of women.  We talk, we laugh, we have 3 conversations going at once and then somehow mix them up and get rowdy with laughter.  I'm grinning like a fool just writing this!!  I love my Lunch Bunch!!


Recently we were talking about whether we were morning or night persons.  You see, I'm DEFINITELY a morning person.  I wake up, my eyes are wide open, I get right out of bed and start my day.  It might be just having a cup of tea and reading a few blogs or catching up on some vlogs or TedTalks, but I get my day going right away.  Try to get me to function after 9 p.m. without caffeine and it's a major ordeal!

I realized that even in my picture taking, I'm a morning person.  I will stop my car in the middle of the street to take a picture of a sunrise.  Okay, not a busy street, and I do watch for cars behind me, but I will stop. 

Yeah, those telephone poles ARE pretty ugly! 
But all I could see was the sunrise.

Just before I walked into work, this is the sight I saw one morning.
Aaahhhhhh!!!!

I looked thru my picture folders for sunset pics and, I know I have a few but I can't find where I filed them.   

Sunrises, however, just tell me that a new day is starting, it's a clean slate, it's all this beauty in front of me.  Yep, I'll take a sunrise any day!!

It's A Green Kind o' Week!!

Okay, I need to ease into this return to blogging, I guess.  This is a crazy time of year for me in my job, but I still need to take some time to relax and blog, so I'm gonna try!!

The weather in the Chicagoland area has been so warm this week that I regularly let my Texas Sister know that I was confused on where I was because it sure did feel like Texas in March!

I had the wonderful opportunity to see our school's production of The Wizard of Oz, and I must say, our students are pretty talented.  To add to my enjoyment, my 4 1/2 year old grandson and his mommy came with.  He's very familiar with the story and was a little concerned that the wicked witch would be scary.  But he loved it.  It's always so fun to enjoy it thru a child's perspective. 

 

Well, still wasn't enamored with the Wicked Witch. 
Note the eyes looking elsewhere.





He met "Toto" too.


Made my heart happy when before the performance was even over, he asked if he could come to another one of "my" plays. 

And today, we celebrate his little sister's 2nd birthday.  It's a green theme (day after St. Paddy's, of course).  So I made these brownies in a cup,

And I'll make some shamrock shakes to go with them. 

Recipe and picture courtesy of http://www.sheknows.com/

I may alter the recipe slightly, so I'll let you know how it goes!

And I should have some birthday celebration pictures to post later this week.  We've got just this week left before spring break begins at school.  Unfortunately, I'm working for most of the week of spring break! :( 

Let's hope the weather stays as beautiful as it has been, giving us just enough rain to help those tulips come up. 

Hope your week brings you peace and balance!

Back in the Land of the Living

Well, I know I don't have a ton of readers who wonder if I fell off the earth, but those I do have have already pinged me about my whereabouts.  I can't believe a month flew by without me posting anything.  And to tell the truth, I haven't been to a whole lot of blogs lately.  This weekend will change that.  Time to catch up!!

So what have I been doing?  Well, last weekend was spent with my sister and her friend, scrapping at her friend, Jean's house.  We left Friday midday and it takes about 2 1/2 hours to cross the state to Elizabeth, which is just east of Galena.  No snow near Chicago when we left.  That changed big time during our trip. 

Long to short here: Driveway is long and steep, sister has front wheel drive vehicle, snow was very wet and huge flakes, we got stuck.  No boots, no traction on my gym shoes to allow me to get out and push.  We made some ruts.  Once we got into the house, there was no leaving for the weekend. (Not that there were any plans to...after all, it was a scrapping weekend.)


Not yet stuck, tracks heading up the driveway



Stuck...one of a few places

Friday night sunset was stunning.  I'm seeing it as reward for us getting the vehicle up to the garage.

 Saturday was a dreary day outside, so it allowed me to concentrate on getting some pages done.  Here's some that are complete:

And some that need a little work:



Yeah, first born girl always gets the photo package from Van Gogh!!
Sorry, Colleen!

 And then there's some I can't show you yet. 

Jean knows how to build a fire.  Another bonus!!

And Sunday, we were blessed with a most beautiful sunrise. 

And later that morning, a beautiful panoramic view of snow-covered farmland. 

Wow...this is the upside to trees losing their leaves.  You get a different view of the beauty of nature. 

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to visit my #2 grandson's school for a Pre-K School Sing.  After they sang, I went back to the classroom to meet his teacher and to enjoy all the things his classroom offers him.  I left with a very happy heart!!

Things have been pretty busy at work, and it looks like the next 2-3 months will be all that and more.  I am truly blessed to have a great boss and to work with a lot of great people.  And as we play musical chairs in my little work world, it should be interesting to see how things wash out. 

But my PG and I are heading out see Jeanne Robertson tonight.  I first found out about her through my Texas Sisters.  A former Miss Congeniality at the Miss America pageant.  Humor based on real life.  My kinda speaker!!  Here's a short youTube that shows you her stuff. 

I've been working on some mindfulness exercises offered by Lisa Wilson through her Wild Elephant Project over at LifeUnity.  I know I'm not alone in needing to be reminded to be mindful in everything I do.  And yes, it's difficult.  But just going thru her exercises is a great reminder. 

Okay, I've rambled on enough.  Time for me to put away all my scrapbook stuff from last weekend, visit some blogs, cut my PG's hair so he looks purty for tonight, and get some laundry folded and put away. 

I promise to work harder at getting a post in every few days.  

Zendoodling & More

It's been a busy week, but when I got a chance, I spent a little time creating.  Nothing specific in mind, just looking at how much time I have and figuring out what I can do in that time. 

I saw this super sized yogurt container on my kitchen counter and claimed it as mine before my PG did.  Mod Podge was close, so I grabbed some papers I liked and started the cover up. 

Right now, I think I might use this for my paint brushes after I toss a few glass pebbles in the bottom, but that's not in stone.  That's why I haven't finished decorating it.  But at least I'm doing something!!

And then, I found out about zendoodling.  And created this: 

It's not much different than doodling but instead of using it as an escape, you use it for relaxation.  And it is relaxing.  No erasers, just markers, go with the flow. 

What I really love about it is that you get a different effect when you flip it.  Turn it one way, it's peaceful.  Turn it another and you get the feeling something's not right. 

Hmmmm...Maybe I'm thinking way too deep on this zendoodling.  I think I'll just sit back and enjoy.

Have a happy weekend!!  Enjoy the time you spend creating!!