Sunday, August 24, 2008

I've been tagged

My friend Charlee, tagged me. I'm supposed to share, with the world, 7 strange things about myself. I don't think I know five people with blogs, and there is certainly NOTHING strange about me. I'm practically perfectly normal in every way! *snickergiggle*

Here are the rules:* If you are tagged, you must firstly post the rules:* Write 7 strange characteristics about yourself. They interest us all!* Tag 5 other people at the end of your Post.* Visit everyone that you have tagged and leave a comment on their blog to let them know that they have been tagged.

ok, here' goes...nothing strange here:

1. I collect Winnie the Pooh stuff. Started with a wrist watch that my Grandparents bought me at Sears when I was 9 years old. Back then, Sears was the only place licensed to sell Pooh (besides Disneyland/World). My Grandparents thought I was weird (ok strange) to want Pooh. Didn't I want one of the princesses? NO! I wanted Pooh. So now, after a few years (ok, LOTS of years), I've amassed quite a collection of Pooh stuff. A whole houseful! That doesn't make me strange...just weird.

2. My first car was a 1965 Mercury Comet. I named it Clyde because there was a little "mercury man" emblazoned on the steering wheel. My Dad bought it for me from my Uncle. It was supposed to be a "good little car." Ha! The first time I drove it any distance (like off to college), the water pump broke. Every time after that, another weird (not strange) thing broke. The right front wheel fell off one time, the tie rods broke another time. I had to change the spark plugs frequently. If it wasn't one weird thing, it was another. I finally got rid of that car and bought...guess....another COMET! This one was a 1964 Comet. I named it Claude. Ok, so I didn't learn from the first time. Go figure.

3. I love going to the beach and hunting agates. Hate the wind. Luckily, I've found a place reasonably close to home where I can hunt agates and stay out of the wind. Bandon Jetty. My family thinks this is a strange hobby and usually refuse to go with me anymore. I can literally sit for hours sifting for rocks, looking for a prized agate that is the size of a pinhead. If I'm lucky I'll find one the size of a thumbnail, but those are rare. I just love being at the beach and photosynthesizing. The dog goes with me. She doesn't mind sitting on the beach with me!

4. My daughter will disown me when I admit this...but I love John Denver & Barry Manilow. Now that's music you can sing to and understand all the words!

5. Nothing strange about this, unless you ask my husband...I love to camp but HATE sleeping on the ground. YUCK. Who wants to do that? I remember as a kid, I'd tease my mom about "camping" in a motor home. "That's not really camping," I'd say. Now I have to laugh at myself, because I'm thinking camping in a motor home would be perfect....though I do settle for tent camping if I can bring an air mattress with me!

6. My husband says this is strange (only because he has NORMAL knees)...I've had 2 knee surgeries on the same knee in less than a year, and it still hurts.

7. Ok, I guess the last thing would be...I so want to be creative. I look at other people's scrapbook pages, their art, their creations and I want to do that. I want to be that. I want to create like that. And try as hard as I can...I just can't. I'm not. It isn't there. The desire is, but the talent isn't. And the strangest thing of all is...I keep trying.

So thereya go Charlee! Now I've got to go see if I've got 5 bloggie friends I can tag and hope they haven't been tagged already! Here's who I've tagged:

1. Rachel. She just took a photo walking tour of Portland. Her photos are awesome!
2. Anne-Marie. She has the most amazing blog! Her artwork is beautiful!
3. Kathy. She took a trip this summer on Route 66.
4. Shirley. Hoping this "tagging" will inspire her to get blogging again!
5. Becky. I've "known" Becky for a long time. She is one of the most amazing scrappers I've "met". Someday I want to grow up and scrap like her!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Home again, home again. Jiggity jig.

We dropped Cory off at school on Sunday morning. We had driven up to Kennewick on Saturday (an 8 hour drive) and then another 2 hours to get to school on Sunday morning. The dorms opened at 10am and we got there right when they opened. There were already dozens of families there before us.

We managed to snag a hand truck to haul most of his boxes & fridge up to the 4th floor. We didn't have much time to spend with him once we got him unloaded...1) because the parking police wanted us out of there as soon as possible (to make room for others; 2) because I think Cory was ready for us to go. He's not much of a decorator, so really didn't want us to spend time getting his room put together and 3) because by the time we got him unloaded it was close to noon, and he had to have lunch and then dash off to band practice. It was hard for me to leave him there. I think we all had a little cry before we left.

We had a long trip home. After we dropped Cory off, we had to drive another 10 hours to get to Daddy's house, where we spent Sunday night. Monday morning we headed down towards Eugene to do some school shopping and then finally made it home today (Tuesday). I still don't know when Grandma's service will be, so I may be driving back up to Portland at the end of this week.

We've talked to Cory on the phone a few times already. In fact, he called me about 30 minutes after we'd dropped him off to let me know that he'd had his first PB&J sandwich as a college student! I couldn't help but laugh through my tears. Today I woke up missing him a lot. The hardest thing about him being at school is that I won't get to talk to him every day or hug him every day. That makes my heart hurt.

Megan and I had a great time shopping. Once again, spent way too much money, but I think we got enough clothes for her to start school with! We both decided we're going to work hard this fall to lose some weight because we like the clothes that are offered in the smaller sizes better than those in the larger sizes! hahaha...

Friday, August 15, 2008

Off to College and other stuff

Cory's all packed up and it's everything I can do to keep from crying. I'm excited for him, really I am...but I'm going to miss him like crazy. We leave tomorrow and will drop him off Sunday morning. I think I'll be a basket case by then. I know it will be hard for Megan as well. Thankfully, I'll still have her at home! *happy smile* Cory's going to have a busy week besides getting moved in. He starts band camp on Sunday afternoon, and that will keep him busy until school starts. He's got a heavy schedule (chemistry, calculus, economics and a gen ed course). I think he is in for a big surprise...this isn't high school anymore, where you can get away with no studying and waiting until the last minute to turn in your assignments! Hopefully, he'll realize that early on!

Megan's been busy this summer. She went to church camp as a camper for a week, then back to camp to be a counselor for the younger kids, then she volunteered with the Spanish Club at the county fair - cleaning toilets. YUK! After that, she, Cory & I went to Corvallis for a Christian youth conference for a week. It was a crazy July. She's also babysitting twice a week. She's earned a bit of extra money for new school clothes. I think it's burning a hole in her pocket right now! Cory also had a job and earned about $1500 for school! I think we're all looking forward to school starting again.

I've been busy clearing out the clutter in my scraproom. That room seems to be the catchall for all things we don't know what to do with! I also have boxes of old photos & stuff from my mom that I have to go through. I ran across some old family Bibles from her side of the family that have details of our family tree in them. Very interesting stuff. I gave the info to Daddy to put into his family tree program. I also have a bunch of old/heritage type photos. I've gotta figure out what to do with them. Maybe I'll post a few here from time to time! For now though, my scraproom is a huge mess and I haven't been able to scrap in about a month! YUK! Gotta get that cleaned up so I can scrap again....SOON!

Grandma

I created this layout earlier this year for my Grandma. It was from a challenge at tallyscrapper.com to use the lyrics "Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes is how we measure our lives with love." I gave it to her as a belated Christmas gift. I knew she was missing Grandpa and I wanted her to know how much they both meant to me. I have so many great memories of spending time with them.

The journaling reads "There are 525,600 minutes and moments in every year to remember the love of my Grandparents. I remember listening to Grandpa's stories; having breakfast at the kitchen table and dinner at the dining table; watching Grandma cook; Grandpa reading the Bible on Sunday mornings; Grandma taking me to the library; Grandpa's fudge; Grandma's Holly Hobby plates; watching Grandpa work in his shop; how they called each other mama & daddy; picking lemons & tangerines with them in the backyard; Grandma's quiet yet strong voice; the way Grandpa would pick me up when I was little. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes is how we measure our lives with love."

Grandma passed away, peacefully,in her sleep yesterday morning - August 14th. I miss her.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

My Wordle

The kids & I just got back from a Christian youth conference and are still on an emotional high from the event.

At Tallyscrapper, Minda posted a link that does some cool text formatting. I took some of the words & phrases that were important to me from this conference and created a wordle (that's what it's called) for it. Here it is. Wish I could figure out how to make it a bit bigger. Check out the program at Wordle.net