Art Walk/Art Festival...?!

Good day to you all!  

  We have had the most glorious few days ever!  Warm (like summer) but, very little humidity!  It is the "ideal" summer weather for me!  This year has been very nice in my book.  Some people were complaining because Spring was so cool.  But I was good with that.  Because it was not humid!  And so far, this summer is really feeling quite lovely.  In fact this past Sunday I spent the afternoon with my artist friend and her husband P.E.  who invited me over for brunch and then we went to downtown Omaha for the Art Walk or was it called the Art Festival?  Anyhow, there were hundreds of vendors, artists from all over the midwest and loads of interesting art works!  And although I didn't have my camera.  My friends did!  Okay so maybe I asked them to bring their camera along.  And perhaps I was a tad insistent.  BUT it was for all of you!  Really!  

Okay, so anyhow.....  My artist friend and her husband P. E. and I went to the afore mentioned Art Walk/Art Festival on Sunday and it was gloriously warm and thousands of people roaming from stall to stall.  There were some really fabulous things to look at and I wish I had thought to have P.E. take more pictures, but I didn't.  I was so busy just looking at everything and checking things out and ooh-ing and ah-ing over all the amazing concepts that these artists were able to realize into cool and fabulous realities, that I totally forgot to have tons of pictures.  But, I did remember to have one photo taken and that was of the crowd.

  And then P.E. took it upon himself to take a photo of the wine stopper that his artist wife and I purchased.  Unfortunately I was so excited about the stoppers and the art walk that I didn't specify "how" he should photograph the stoppers.  So... he got me in it too and as most of my "old" friends know, I don't do photographs of myself well.  So...  Yes, I cropped it so that most of  "me"  was not in the photograph!  I did leave a bit o me just so the photo didn't look too bad. I wish P.E. had taken a better shot of the stoppers though because those stoppers were so cool.  

I got two Millefiori tops which I absolutely adore that style of glass work.  Although, I did pick up several of the Murano glass items from Italy while living in Europe... I didn't get any of these babies there.  Anyhow I picked up two of those and then I saw a stopper with a painted tile of two cyclists on it.  They looked like the cyclists my honey and I saw on our drive around Tuscany!  So naturally, I had to get that for him!  Oh my gosh!  You should have seen the demo of how great these stoppers function!  They stopped up a big champaign type bottle filled with liquid and then LIFTED the bottle by the stopper!!!  It totally freaked me out.  I was so nervous every time they did it!    So, this thing is not only very nice to look at but it functions and performs very well.  Beauty, form and function!  Awesome!

So, that was my fun Sunday!  I'm so lucky to have good friends who think of me while my honey is gone.  

I hope you all have friends like that as well.  Sharing your time is a great gift!  I know, because I just benefited from that gift on Sunday!

Summer time...

Well, summer time is here.  It's hot and humid and everything is beginning to wilt under it all.  Including me!  I don't do humidity very well.  Okay, not at all!  In fact, I've been trying to lose some extra weight so I don't show up at our (my honey and I graduated from the same high school) high school 30th reunion all chubby and old looking.  (seriously, I saw some pic's of some of the graduating class a few years ago and I was shocked!  Oh my!  That was not very nice of me.)  Well,  I was bound and determined not to look all chubby and terribly middle aged.  And I was doing pretty good until... Summer time!  Hot, humid and um,... oh yeh, HOT & HUMID!  It is nasty!  The ONLY saving grace is knowing that it will only last a couple months at the most maybe three months tops.  Unlike Alabama or Florida!  Both places that I've lived in the past so I know what I'm talking about.  So, back to the weight thing.  I've pretty much stopped running.  I have managed to go walking with a little run thrown in every now and then along the way.  But the humidity makes me feel like I'm trying to breath underwater and I HATE that!  Plus I was doing the extra fencing once a week on top of that. So I was feeling pretty good about my weight loss workouts!  But, the part that I hadn't done was limit my intake of yummy food.  So here I am, looking nearly the same as I had two months ago when I first started running again after winter.  BLAH!  So now, I am going to begin limiting my intake.  UGH!  I HATE that!  But, what can a person do?!  All my normal tricks just aren't working anymore.  Like wearing clothes with verticle lines or tops with princes seams or super high heals with dark jeans... so on and so forth.  I am still looking chunky!  ACK!  Gosh, now I'm hungry.  I'm thinking about all the things I can't eat and now I want it even more!  Maybe I can appease my belly by looking at Pam's blog.   WELL,  I can look can't I?  ;-)

Okay, so I'm going to think about flowers.  I have been a good girl and for the most part have listened to my honey and not bought a bunch of plants for our yard.  I'm trying to wait it out and see what I've actually already have.  One of the things that I've got are the Day Lillies.  They are beautiful!  We had a bunch of them at the other house but they were the dwarf variety and they were more  yellow-ish.    These are huge!   Tall and graceful and very orange!

We have them along the back fence and they look really nice.  Although, I think they may need more light.  I have a bunch more back behind the garage as well and that area doesn't  get much light at all so I may move those and put them in another area of our back yard.  And then I can move my compost container to that area behind the garage.  

Aren't these just so pretty?  I've already cut a bunch of them and have them in a vase in the studio.  Which by the way I've yet to do much in that room.  I really should do something in there besides take naps on the sofa.  ;-)

My hydrangeas are about done.  The ones outside anyhow, the blooms are looking a bit tired and droopy.  The ones inside however are doing brilliantly!  I thought for sure that the plant would eventually just die.  But my honey actually convinced me to re-pot the plant in another pot and suddenly it is just blooming fit to be tied!  I'll take a pic of that one some time and post it.  It's one of those hot house plants that you get from a grocery store.  Friends of our gave it to us as a house warming gift when we moved into the Locust street house.  

Anyhow, I can't take any photo's now because my honey took my camera with him to Ogallalla for the NUMB ride that he is doing for the UMM's.  He and another member from our church decided they were going to do the bike ride.  It's 270 something miles that begins in Ogallalla and loops around and returns to where they began.  I know, crazy!  But it is to help feed the hungry so it's for a good cause and he loves, no,  LOVES to ride his bike so he is very excited.  He left this afternoon and will be back on Wednesday night.  

Okay, that's it from here.  Not sure what I'll do while he's gone but I'll try not to get into any trouble!

Ya'll take care now and I'll be chatting with ya soon!

Engaurde...

I've been hearing this word for the past 5 weeks.  Do any of you ever listen to the John Tesh show on the radio?  Well, the other day he was talking about one possibility to living longer.  It was, to have goals all your life.  Having goals allows you to keep striving and thus prolonging your life.  HONEST, it's a scientific fact!  Okay, perhaps not exactly a fact, but it has been studied and this seems to be a possible conclusion...  So, I'm getting old, and this is one of the items from my bucket list, fencing.    I decided to take fencing lessons when I found out there was a class for it held nearby.  A friend told me that her son took fencing lessons and I had always wanted to take fencing lessons so...   She actually came to my house and picked me up and took me to the place where the lessons were being given (she may have done that knowing that I was a pansy and would probably have turned around and driven back home).   So, I've been taking lessons for 5 weeks now and it's an 8 week class.  Yesterday was my fifth lesson and the temp was horridly high!  The humidity made it feel even hotter!  Which makes the lessons that much more difficult for us "old" folks.   And there are only three of us "older" people in the class, most of the students are probably 10-14 years of age.  Which can be a bit  daunting at     

times.  Because of my age, I have to remove my mask more often just so I can wipe the seat from my eyes AND breathe in some air!  I also need to take a few more quick breaks just to give my legs and arm a rest.  The younger kids don't get it.  They take their masks off and look as fresh as a daisy.  I take my mask off and I look like a drowned rat!   But, it is soooo much fun!  Especially when I get paired off with one of the "older" guys.  (I am the only "older" female in the class)   They get it!   Not only do they understand that the foil is NOT used for constantly whacking your opponent as hard as you can, but that there is a finesse to the handling of the foil.  Also, they don't look at you like there is something hideously wrong with you when you call for a time out so you can take your mask off and try to remove all the sweat from out of your eye's and face, 'cuz they are needing to do it too!  The "getup" is interesting.  You have your sleeve protector (although I don't understand why we actually have to wear it since we don't use anything sharp or seriously pointy) then we (females) put on a plastic bra.  Yes, a hard, plastic bra.  Which I probably wouldn't need if I were just fencing with adults, but with those kids...  yeh, I need the hard, plastic bra!  So then the next item is the jacket, which zips up the back and it's nearly impossible to get that done up by myself.  And then there is the glove and last but not least...  the mask.  One thing I'd like to mention here.  You must understand just how badly I wanted to try this fencing thing.  BECAUSE, if you saw the equipment, you would probably turn tail and run!   Not because there seems to be some unnecessary stuff to put on or because of the young age of the majority of the class.  But because it is SO TOTALLY, disgustingly, gross!  There are dark, dirty stains on the neck and sleeve edges of the jacket, the gloves are all stained with I don't know what!  And the masks, OH MY GOSH!  I REALLY  try not to think about that item!  It's all pretty  ICKY and I don't generally do icky!  But there is actually, something kind of reassuring in the fact that they "assign" a jacket and mask to you at the beginning of the class and if you can get over the fact that it was originally assigned to you looking so horridly gross...  and you can still put in on...  Then from that moment on all of that grossness is covered with your own sweat so that the next time you put them on you only really think about how much you've sweated in it and you can sort of trick your mind into thinking that all that nastiness was done by you.  (Um, basically my stuff would NEVER, EVER look that bad if I were responsible for the up keep of it.  And generally, I try not to look at it much or even think about it at all or I'd never be able to take this class!)   So, have I grossed you all out totally yet?  Or are you impressed with my "stick-to-it-ness"?  I have had soooooo much fun so far, but one thing is for sure, I'm going over my bucket list and reassessing my list to see if there are any other potentially icky situations I could be getting myself into.  But one thing is for sure, my list is still pretty long so I suppose that means I have a long life yet ahead of me!  (The scientific research say's so!)  ;-)

Now that I've described the get-up to ya'll I leave you with this image!  Try not to think too much when you are looking at it.   It will only

give you the heebee-geebee's.  Oh, this is me, by the way, AFTER my work out!  That is all my sweat in that get up!  And believe me, I did some major sweating!!!  

I hope you all have a great day!  And just in case  you were wondering....   I'm smiling inside that mask!  

Kansas City Royals

Hello everyone!  This past weekend my honey and I drove to Kansas City and met up with the in-laws to see a Royals game.  I'm not much of a baseball fan.  Although, it's certainly more fun to watch when you are AT the game vs. watching it on the T.V..  But, it's much more comfortable watching it on T.V. than being at the game in hot humid weather.  And that is what we were doing!  It was HOT & MUGGY and every now and then there was a faint breeze but that was it.  I noticed that I had taken a boat load of photo's of the water fountain at the stadium.  I thought I had only taken one but evidently...not.  I suppose it was a subconscious desire of mine to be "IN" the water fountain.  That would have made the ball game ever so much more enjoyable.  Actually, the ball game turned out to be rather interesting. It was the Royals vs. the Cardinals.  I once went to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals play years ago.  That was fun too, more so I suppose because my kids were there and they were so totally enjoying being at the ball game!  While we were waiting for the game to begin, there was an Army Induction Ceremony on the ball field.

It was really very special to see.  It's nice to know there are still those who are interested in serving their country.  No matter what the reason is that put them in the position of considering this move, I still applaud them for doing it!  And as I stood there in the stadium with everyone else, I said a prayer that these men and women will stay safe and find satisfaction and happiness in their decision to join the Army.  And then the game began.  There was a grand slam that occurred at one point in the game.  And there seemed to be several home runs by both teams.  Although, I must say, the Cardinals won the game, not sure what the ultimate score was since we left a bit early.  (Trying to beat that traffic getting out of the parking lot...) So, that was one of the things we did while at K.C.  We also went shopping the next day, which was okay.  I'm not normally one of those shoppers that like to go to all the big name stores.  You know, like Pottery Barn or Chico's or Anthropology.  Although they are interesting to go through every now and then.  I generally like to shop at smaller mom and pop shops.  But, we did stop and eat lunch at a place called "810".  There was probably more to that name than that but I can't remember, I was half starved by then and barely hanging on to my sanity by then.  Anyhow, it was a sports bar type place that served some really good sandwiches.   I had a smoked club and my honey had the Ruben.  We shared with each other and I must admit, the Ruben was pretty darn awesome!  And while eating our delicious sandwiches, (there were a bunch of T.V. sets everywhere) I watched a little Rugby, which by the way is a seriously rough sport!  And then after lunch we did a tad bit more shopping.  I stopped in the HUGE Barnes and Nobles and found a nice journal made with hand made paper.  I liked the fabric cover which looked like something I could use for my new gardening journal.  I REALLY didn't like my old one.  It was very utilitarian and not so cute (besides, I live in a new house).   So I bought that and then found a book  "garden planning & design" which has 500 ideas & professional plans for fantastic, easy garden improvements.  It was on the sales rack and has lot's of neat photo's and easy to understand instructions on how to recreate what you find in the book.  I walked away with only those two books!  Amazing!   Book stores can be a VERY dangerous place for a book lover like me!

So, that is what we did.  It's a three hour drive from here to K.C. and the drive time is the same for the in-laws coming from Kansas.  Three hours isn't overly long, I think we should do it again only this time, maybe go and have some Bar-B-Q!  And maybe hit a few yarn & fabric shops next time...    ;-)

Hope you all had a good weekend!  See you soon...

Our porch...

Hello everyone!  Hope ya'll are doing well.  As you've all probably noticed, I am not so good at this "blog" thing.  I'm erratic and my photo's stink.  But, I hope you'll give me some points for trying.  

When I began this blog I had hoped to show all the cool artsy/crafty, foodie, garden tending, party hosting things I've been doing.  So far, that has been far and few between.  And although I don't blog nearly as often as I'd like, I am busy doing stuff,  just not stuff I think ya'll would be interested in.  

So, today, I actually have a day off from "doing" non-interesting stuff.  I thought I'd take this opportunity to post a photo of my front porch.  My awesome front porch that is perfect for spending a lazy day on.  Now, I took the picture yesterday and it had started out being quite wet and cloudy.  But, as the day wore on it got to be somewhat better, lighting wise.  Unfortunately, my picture taking abilities are still nonexistent so I just couldn't do my poor porch justice.   And now that I'm 

posting these pictures, I realize that I should have taken some while actually standing on the porch.  Then you could see the fabulous porch swing on one side and the cute wicker set on the other side.  Plus, you'd be able to see how wide the rail is around the porch.  Perfect for sitting on!  Imagine if you will, some cute little throw pillows sitting atop the wall of the porch, fresh squeezed lemonade in hand and multiple conversations going on all around you!  I just LOVE that imagery!  So hopefully I will be able to actually shoot a picture like that soon!  Next month is my honey and my birthdays.  The dates are only 9 days apart and most of the time there is always a weekend in between our birthdays.  We we celebrate by having a party!  We've had some fun parties in the past.  Parties with friends and their families and their dogs...  I remember one year our dog Molly jumped out of our kitchen window (a whole floor above the ground) and went wandering around.  Anyhow...  This year I hope to begin our party on the front porch and then ooze on over to the deck.  We have a nice deck too!  We had a small get together a while back and

we all gathered on the deck and enjoyed the shade and easy access to the kitchen.  I LOVE easy access to the kitchen...food...yum!  And now that we have this fabulous deck, I've used our grill nearly everyday!  I do love our alfresco dining evenings.  But, I digress.....

So, there you go.  A few photo's of the porch and deck and a few of our friends to boot!  I will try to put up photo's of the house.  I've taken a few but I just can't seem to do the house justice.  I suppose it's not really the house, it's the decorating... or lack there of.  Anyhow, I will work on posting some soon!  Honest!  ;-)

Hope you all have a great day!  See you soon!

Springfield Days

Oh my goodness, what a weekend we had!  This was Springfield Days weekend and it was so much fun!  It began on Friday with things going on at the Fair grounds and then Saturday all the really good stuff happened! 

Friday at 6 p.m. a group of us decorated the space we were going to be using for our Cake Walk.  First of all let me just say, I've never done a cake walk.  I have heard of it of course, I DO watch "Little House on the Prairie" you know!  But, I've never actually seen one in progress.  So all these years I imagined a bunch of people in Walnut Grove walking around their little town with cakes in their hands and never quite figured out what happened next.  Well, I found out this past Saturday!  The 1st United Methodist Church of Springfield held a Cake Walk in our local Beauty shop!  We have absolutely wonderful people in our town, for the most part anyhow.  We did have a bit of an "incident" where we ended up having to change venue's at the last possible moment because of someone who wanted a copy of the church "certificate of insurance of liability".  Which would not have been an issue for us at all except for the fact that he asked for it at the last second and wasn't going to give us a key until he had it.  And of course, the church office was closed and there were other issues that just didn't allow us to be able to get anything of that nature that day.  AND we needed to be able to decorate BEFORE the actual day of the Cake Walk!    So anyhow,  Sheryl (beauty shop owner) very generously let us use her space for our Cake Walk (and we asked her at the last minute no less, and she never even hesitated!)  So we went there on Friday night and began to decorate!  We spent over an hour decorating and then we went to the Fair Ground and had a Bar-B-Q dinner sponsored by the Platteview Booster's.  And it was  very yummy!  We then proceeded to walk around the Fair Grounds and checked out the Bugeaters Flea Market which had a great turn out!  Lot's of neat stuff!

So here is my apology in advance.  I nearly always, am having so much fun that I forget to stop and take pictures.  I know, it's bad.  I actually carry the camera with me, but forget to take it out.  I'm working on it though.  So, having said that.  I have NOT ONE good picture of the decorating, the eating of the yummy B-B-Q, OR the actual cake walk.  And with that disclaimer.... 

The next morning, we collected cakes, cupcakes and pies and took them to the shop.  Let me tell you, our church and community is FILLED with the most generous souls around!  We had SO MANY cakes and pies!  We had to set a bunch aside until we could get more room on the tables, which we did!  The Cake Walk was a HUGE success!  Thanks to all the people who donated the goodies and then all the people who came over and participated!  At various times through out the day, we had people crowded 

around the door and kids trying to peek through the windows to see what was going on!  So the way our Cake Walk went down is...  We layed out numbers 1 - 10 on the floor in a circle.  Everyone goes to a number and stands on it until the music begins.  Then they walk around until the music stops.  At that point we had a bingo ball that dropped numbers out and we would have a number drop and call that number.  If you were the lucky person standing on the number that is called...  You got to pick a cake from the table!  And let me tell you, there were awesome cakes to be had!  And those kids that won cakes!  OH MY GOSH!  They were SO proud of themselves!  They walked out with their cakes with HUGE smiles on their faces!  It was such a fun and festive place to be!  I wish you all could have seen them!  (I know, I know, I've already apologized!  Sheesh!)

So we also had the typical small town parade.  Local business's had their floats and such.  We had the local school bands going down the street and the fire trucks and tractors and we have a dance studio in town so the kids from the dance studio walked down and there was even a clogging group that clogged their way down the hill!   (I believe they were from a nearby town). That was actually nice to watch!   We also had the old cars and  the King and Queen of something (can't remember and no, didn't get a photo)  And then of course, at the very end of the parade... we had the horse and rider.  Only one this year.  But the rider was doing the whole lasso thing while going down the hill.

But I think the best thing I saw that day was the Plumbing business and their "float" of sorts!  The

guy, as you can well see (yup I actually took this picture!)  is sitting on a toilet and pulling his sign.  But the really cool thing was that he kept reaching his hand between his legs and into the toilet bowl for handfulls of candy that he then tossed out to the kids!  ;-)  That just cracked me up!  I thought that was the BEST float EVER!  Oh, did you all know that at these parades, the people IN the parades throw out candy?  I never knew that until we moved here!

So, this is what I did this weekend.   And had a great time doing it.  Although...  I had originally planned on sitting on my front porch to enjoy the parade which went down the street right in front of our house.  And you would think I would show you my wonderful porch that is perfect for sitting and watching a parade go by... but, alas I have no pictures.  I keep forgetting to take them when the sun is out and right now, it is so cloudy that a picture wouldn't do the porch any justice at all.  So, that shot will have to wait for another day.  

Anyhow, to end this blog for today I'll leave you with this.  Going to a Parade is fun and going to an event like "Springfield Days" is also fun.  BUT, being involved in the community and and the events... That my friends is the most fun of all!  I hope you all had a great weekend and if you don't have the kind of opportunity I have had, at least, every now and then, stop and smell the roses and thank God for all that you can do! 

 

Have a great week and I'll be back.....  ;-)

Craziness

So, I was going to take some pictures of our new house.  Outdoor shots of the house and the garden.  But, it's cloudy.  (oh sure the second I wrote that the sun started shinning through...)  it's too late for that.  I've started and I'm not stopping to take pics now.  So anyhow,  (I'll take pics and then post them tomorrow!) I decided that I would put a picture of the ride my honey did two weekends ago.  I suppose I should tell you.  My honey loves to ride his bike (bicycle).  He rides it to work as weather permits, which is most every day in the spring, summer and fall.  He works about 14 miles away and part of the way he gets to ride on a bike trail.  And when he isn't riding to work, he enjoys a nice 30-50 mile ride on the weekend.  This past Sunday he rode his bike before church because the weather was just beautiful AND there was no wind!  He went to the 8:30 service (we normally go to the 10:30 service) because he had to make an announcement concerning the NUMB ride (I forget what that stands for but its something like "Nebraska United Methodist Bike Ride" which I thought was silly because they don't use the initials for the "ride" part.) a 200 something mile ride that is sponsored by the Methodist Churches, this ride is to recognize world hunger and to try to raise awareness and end world hunger. Anyhow.... So the "craziness" is from my honey getting up extra early so he could squeeze in a 20 or so miles ride before early service!  Just to clarify, the NUMB ride is done over several days not all in one day.  I just wanted to make sure you understood,  my honey is only a little crazy, not insane!

So two weekends ago, my honey and four other men from our church and 4 kids all went to Norfolk, NE for the "Cowboy Trail" bike ride sponsored by the United Methodist Mens group.  The men from our church brought with them near a thousand dollars from our congregation in support of all the United Mens groups and their missions.  This ride was a one day, 24 mile ride and easy, peasy for my honey.  He had a great time with the guy's from church and he met others who would be doing the NUMB ride at the end of this month as well.  

Here he is with one of the men from our church that he rode to Norfolk with.   Normally my honey would be wearing his "bike" stuff, but since this was such a short ride for him... but he had fun spending time with his friends and supporting good works.

And below are the pictures of the kids from our church.   They along with their dad and grandpa went to Norfolk the day before the ride and camped out.  They also stayed an extra day camping and all had a great time!  The weather was absolutely perfect for camping and riding.  Although, my honey and one of the other guys got a nasty sunburn (I gave my honey sunscreen to put on but...) they all had a great time!

And the last picture are of the two guys my honey drove to Norfolk with.  They all came back looking red and happy.

Hope you all have loads of fun things to do and you are able to do them with your friends.

P.S. I spent that morning with my girl friends and that afternoon shopping and gardening.  The only thing missing was my honey but I knew he was out having a great time riding... and that makes me happy.   ;-)