18 hour bliss

Back in October I went into the whole searching for a new bra adventure. Until yesterday the perfect bra had eluded me.

While I was in the PNW, one of my 4 month old bras disintegrated on me like they always do, the under wire snapped, 3 days ago another relatively new bra followed suite. Crap, I hate shopping for bras, same old story every time. No love from the "pretty" bra industry.

I purchased a "quickie" from Wally world so I could go bra shopping, $15.00 for a damn quickie!

Yesterday, I went to the our local Kohl's store, determined to fine the perfect bra.

I looked and looked, very little in my size, and all of it on the bottom shelf, ostrich butt strikes again!

As a little girl growing up I always thought my mom wore the ugliest bras on the earth, but she never complained about having to hand wash them, washing machine perfect, the under wires poking her or the under wires snapping. So I say to myself, self why not give it a try. Hmmmmm! They were all neatly placed in drawers, just pull them out and look for the right style and size. I pull out 2 in my supposed size, and along with along with 2 "pretty" bras , head to the dressing rooms. The "pretty" ones were a no go, no comfort there. I tried on the 18 hour job and found that I wear a smaller size all together. I got dressed, exchanged for what I thought was the right size and tried it on. Oh my God! Such comfort, no binding and no WIRES! I bought 2, it was my day they were on sale for 45% off. They cost less then the fancy ones and the non-exsistant wires will never break!

Today I cautiously dressed, knowing that it had all been a wonderful dream, and I was about to wake up . Guess what? They are more wonderful then I remembered. Three cheers for Granny bras and panties, I am a convert.

A Hole In One!

If any of you have a golfer in your family you will understand the significance of the symbol under hole 18. If not, this means that the player (DaddyKaos) got a hole in one. This is a fantastic thing, the only problem is, nobody saw it. Damn! If you want to hear the particulars of this event, you have to go to DK's blog spot. There is a link up there on the left.

I get to tell you the hilarity that ensued when trying to quasi-document this "Happening". Well, I think it was funny!

Since I just got back from a 6 week long visit to the PNW,(I'll tell you later) I was up here in the computer/craft room trying to get all of my crap into some kind of order.

I hear the garage door open, and then close, the "Are you up there?" "yes" " Come down and bring your camera."

I go down the stairs grumbling "This better be good, I was just out side and nothing was wrong then." "Just bring your camera." I'm thinking," He didn't drive my car so that is okay, (he totaled the last one), but I sure hope his car is okay. ( it's only two years old.)

I get down the stairs and around the corner and that card is shoved in my face. DK says, "Do you see what's in the last column?" "Yes." "Do you know what it means?" (I have lived the last 40 years with a golfer,duh!) "Yes" "Well nobody saw it but me! We need to go take pictures."

We climb into my car and head out to Bent Tree Golf Course, find a cart, climb in and head for the 18Th hole. DK measures the distance, makes note of it and is ready for me to take pictures.
I turn on my camera, and NOTHING! The battery is dead, not even a hum. "Well that happens, the hole isn't going anywhere." So we climb back into the cart , then the car and go home for DK's camera. Not that funny you say? Wait!

We get home, put my camera to charge, grab his camera and we head back to the golf course, same routine until we get the Tee Box. DK gets out of the cart, turn his camera on and say, "F**k! I knew the memory card wasn't in there!"

I am trying really hard not to split a gut, only in my house, where Murphy is a full time resident, would this happen. By the time we get back to the car we a both laughing about it. We decide to go home and fix lunch,(yes, all of that happened before noon!) and then go see the new "Star Trek" movie.(my second time.)

We enjoyed the movie, went back home, grabbed DK's camera and headed back to the golf course. Everything went off without a hitch, and the photos were taken.

Proving once again that, "The third time is the charm."

Back in the PNW

I coming to you from Portland for awhile.

CK and The Doctor are very busy with busy stuff , so, they lite the SuperNana signal, and here I am to help. What do I do to help. You name it, plus my fair share of getting in the way I'm sure.

Where is DK you ask? He is at home, trying to sell the house and playing golf from sun up to sun down. Partly because he is lonely, but mostly because that little white ball is his passion and he nemesis. He did show the house yesterday and will show it later today. All showing the house requires of him is that he clean up after himself and go out and chase that little, round, white villain around a cow pasture full of holes, not cows or cowflop. I wish him well, hopefully it will kept him out of trouble ?

It is about time to go to CK's aid and keep the small one entertained, she is home sick today. There is always laundry to do,a meal to help with ,or a kitchen to clean.

Later.

April showers bring May flowers,and birds,and weeds

I must apologize for the nature of some of my blogs lately. They have been dark and depressing,
not without value, just depressing. I will try to do better.

Over the past few weeks a miracle has taken place. Yes it happens every year about this time, but I continue to be awed by it.

The world outside my door comes to life. We live in a lightly wooded area, so when spring come we get to watch each little budding beauty being re-born. We waken to the cacophony of birds calling to each other every morning and get to hear their good-nights in the evening.

For a few years I feed them, but it got rather expensive, they liked the good stuff, and wouldn't eat anything else. Now, I'm not saying they are slobs, but as much seed went to the ground as their bellies. I finally stopped when the sunflowers had reached the top of my deck railing, and was so thick that you couldn't see the ground. I felt guilty, but I find it very difficult to do yard work, and tho DK does everything else, he said it was my mess, I had to clean up the results.

That was about four years ago, I still miss their company, some of them still haven't gotten it right, they come looking at the beginning of each spring. They stop by to sing to us and bathe in the birdbath in our backyard.

I know the call of the cardinals, the woodpeckers, and others. This morning I heard a woodpecker that sounded very close. Sure enough he was out on our fence, what a beautiful color scheme, A shocking red head, a soft white chest, and I swear to god, a black and white hounds tooth check back.

We have seen three types of finches, several types of sparrows, two or three kinds of woodpeckers. I have pictures of all of them, but can't find the disc, darn it. They are beautiful.

There is also a family of deer that live in our neighborhood . The only problem with them is, that we have had to figure out what they won't eat to plant in our front yard, they'll eat almost anything.

We have also seen raccoon, opossum, and red fox, not to mention owls, and other raptor type birds.

I just got back from running an errand, not easy feat with all of the spring road construction that is going on , and almost ran into another of our local resident , there are flocks of wild turkeys all over the Council Bluffs area.

Across town we have a lake, were every years the American eagles come to breed, they are beautiful, later in the spring the white pelicans come for a visit. We even see the dreaded Canadian Geese.

I do have one small weed to pick with the People of Iowa. California has it's poppies, Texas has it's bluebonnets, Colorado has the columbine,and other states have their protected species of flowers as well, that is great. But why do these people seem to think that a dandelion is a protected flower. Every year we battle these weeds, to keep them from taking over our yard, and every year all public land and many private yards are left to go wild with dandelions, The school around the corner doesn't mow it's lawns until the dandelions have all gone to puffs.

Sorry another time , I was talking about the beautiful spring. And it is. Happy May!

Pink Ribbons

Next week I am doing something that all women over the age of forty should have done each year.

I am going to our community hospital hospital for my annual mammogram. You all know why, and I hope that you have yours planned for this year.

Again you wonder why she is bringing this up?

1969

I'll tell you: This beautiful young woman did everything she was supposed to do to protect her health. She ate healthy, she exercised regularly, she didn't drink or smoke. But she did hate to have her annual mammogram. She complained, but she did it, but not as ofter as she should have.

We lived across the street from each other, for a short time, as very young children, we attended the same church. Her family moved out to a more rural area, her Dad was our Vet. We graduated from high school together, we weren't good friends, just to say hello.

Many years later, after one of our many moves, a miracle happen. I call it a miracle because only God could have arranged such a coincidence. We moved in next door to her family. Our daughters grew to be best friends, we swapped child tending duties, so we could do things, separately and together. We did all of the things that good friends do.

Then we had to moved. We made contact for awhile, then stopped. We moved, again, no word ever came.

DK returned to that town on business, and at my request, found her. She had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, she was on her last treatment series, she had been told that even a miracle would be too late.

On August 15, 1998, she lost her battle. So, every year in her memory I go in and do the thing, not because of her death, but to honor her life.

I hope all of you have had such a good friend in your life, but I hope their stories don't end as tragically as hers. It is a terrible, bitter thing, and you never forget it, I'm sure that she knows that she is not forgotten, every Technician I have meet on my annual visits know her name.

LarrySue.

What do you do with birthday cards?

As I have said before, I missed MissK's first two birthdays, it made me sad but, what was, was.

After her third birthday, I noticed how many cards she received, and ask Cami what she had planned for them. She was going to put them a box somewhere and forget about them.

Now, MissK loves to look at her cards, but they do get spread out a lot, so I thought to myself, "Self, maybe she would like to have the cards put into a book so she could look at them whenever she wanted?"

I asked her ," Oh yes Nana that would be great." So began the Birthday Card Book series.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and we try to do things from found object as often as we can. Each year the binding has been different, trying to find the best way to keep it all together.

This year, I get to use my "Zutter Bind-It-All. This one should be easy. I'll let you know the results.

A week later:

Here are the results:
I used a piece of repurposed cardboard for the back. I covered it with a piece of scraping booking paper that was used for other party things, the inside pages were made from the same paper that was used for invitations and Thank You notes, and other items that were made for the party. The cover is a photo from the party, I used a piece of transparency film that I bought for use with my Zutter Bind-It-All. You can by transparent plastic through Zutter for covers but it is size specific. These I can cut to size. The Monkey Mike signs were incorporated as pages, they were bound for the trash, pictures that were printed on the same paper as party decorations were also used as pages. Then I bound it all together with my Zutter,as if by magic a birthday card book was born. Do you think she will like it?

We'll know in a few weeks, it seems that I am needed, so I'll be taking another trip to the PNW very soon.

"Stop" in the name of Love

Shelly
July 4, 1973

I have much on my mind lately. Some of it keeps me from putting two sentences together in a coherent manner. Sorry if you keep looking for for something to read.

Of course our house hasn't sold. But, believe it or not, that is not the biggest thing on my mind.

I don't get to spend as much time with my "kids" as I would like, that isn't it either.

The state of the economy? No. The state of the world? No.

What is doing it to me is that someone that I love very much is very ill, and I fear the outcome.

My baby sister has COPD and emphysema. And it does not look good.

My niece has taken time out of her life to find information for us, to explain what is going on. God bless you! I had no idea what was happening to my sister, the article explained a lot .

Now, why am I sharing this with you?

One of my "adopted kids" stop in here to read me sometimes, and this is for you. You know who you are.

If you are still smoking, please STOP. I know you are dealing with a lot of stuff now, but "baby sister" smoked for years, and just couldn't give it up. She is dying. I finally said it. Please people, if you can't stop on your own seek help. My sister is only 54 years old, she weighs one hundred pounds on a very good day, she doesn't have many of those and she is 5'8" tall. She lives in her bedroom, a trip to the bathroom wears her out, she can't spend much time with her family, they are busy and her bedroom is upstairs, she doesn't do stairs either. She is on oxygen 24/7.

This week she sees a doctor who might be able to help her.

If you believe in prayer, remember my sister. If you believe in positive vibes please "vibrate" her way. Positive thoughts? She is more then worth your thoughts.

So the next time you start to light up, Stop, in the name of all those who love you, but mostly for yourself.

I'm stepping away from my soapbox. Later!