Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego?

My biggest project of the year came up in July. After an unexpected job offer, we made a sudden move, 1200 miles away from our family and friends.  This move has been taxing in so many ways.  I've been lonesome, tired, homesick, and sick.  On the plus side, I'm making new friends, developing a new life, and have a job I love.

To start off with, we loaded the absolute necessities for a month-long trip into my car. Summer clothes, since this was July. Computers & monitor, blankets, first aid kit, toiletries, and my sleep machine, (cpap) along with a good supply of snacks and bottled water, were included in this list.  Then we hit the road.

At the first night's stop, we discovered something I had overlooked, when we got to a hotel with a pool, so we headed to Walmart for an inexpensive swimsuit.  We found that swimming at night was the perfect way to unwind after a long day in the car--or even 2 hours, which is all we made the first day, after we finally got out of the house.

We stayed a few days in a Super 8 motel. Sadly, they didn't have a pool. They did have the most secure internet we found on the whole trip--and the lowest price.  We started apartment hunting, and went to church on Sunday. "We don't know if we're visitors or new members of your congregation; it depends on where we end up living!"

On Monday Anthony went to work while I used Ethel, our trusty GPS, to find my way around town and look at more houses and apartments.  That night the owner of this darling little house called, and on Tuesday we signed a lease with him.

It's a great little home for us, complete with chicken wallpaper in the kitchen!  I asked the landlord about changing the wallpaper, but he said no. He's kind of partial to the chickens, I guess. So I am sewing cute muslin curtains and hanging color-coordinated pictures.

I found this darling table and 5 matching chairs at Goodwill, to complement our country kitchen look. I knew there was no way our dining table would fit in the space available.

After a month, we went back to our hometown and loaded the rest of our belongings into a Budget truck.  That was an adventure in itself!  Two of our sons came along; one transferred to a state university nearby, and the other helped us drive the truck and unload before flying home and off to adventures of his own in a Master's Degree program.

While we were there, we attended a special event, the sealing of our son's family at the temple. We believe that when families are sealed in the temple, by special authority, they can be together, not just until death, but for eternity. 

We have visited historic Nauvoo, Illinois, including a couple of visits to the Nauvoo Temple.  We plan to visit other local sites as time goes by.  We have also been to Lake McBride and Bloomsbury Farm for the corn maze and other fun activities. It's a great place that I hope to take the grandchildren next summer!

I picked out this cute little giraffe and started the "Ginger Project" to help the grandchildren relate to our activities and, hopefully, feel closer to us.  We take Ginger all sorts of places and take pictures to send to the grandchildren, by phone or Facebook.  It's fun.  We bought a Ginger to send to them, but so far I think she has only visited one family.  In this picture, Ginger meets a new friend.

Pillow Perplexities

One day Missy L was at Dominic and Holly's house and she ripped the decoration off one of their throw pillows. She was in big trouble! And it was a random silly reason, not an accident.

I felt it was important to teach her about restitution, so with her mom's permission, I helped her sew a new pillow for Holly. She had to pay for the pillow form herself, out of her allowance. This pretty pillow is the end result. It's a bit Christmas-y but Holly didn't seem to mind, and it fits with the red chair and red accents she and Dominic have in their living room. I had the fabric, so we didn't have to buy more.

Missy also had to give the pillow to Holly herself, and apologize and admit what she had done. She also had to admit it to her parents. Confessing was probably the hardest part for her but she was a brave girl and told the truth. Holly accepted it graciously and the matter was closed.

I fixed the old pillow as well as I could, since it seemed to mean a lot to Holly. I think her Grandma or someone like that gave it to her. So now Holly has two pillows.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was in love with life, and with romance. One day she asked her mother if she could have a bride doll for Christmas. Her mother said no, because they lived out in the country, and a bride doll would be exposed to dust and dirt.  The little girl was sad, and though life went on, she never forgot the doll she dreamed of.

When the little girl was grown up, she became a bride. Her sister Sandy sewed a beautiful dress for her, and she was happily married to her Prince Charming.

About ten years after they were married, Prince Charming gave the girl a pretty porcelain doll she had admired in the store. She bought another one on a special trip with her mother and some of her sisters. As time went on, she began collecting dolls from special occasions. One is from Easter, another belonged to her mother, one was given to her by her mother-in-law, whom she loves.

One day, during a casual phone conversation, the girl and Sandy talked about her dolls, and she mentioned the bride doll she'd always wanted. That year for her birthday, Sandy gave her a very special porcelain bride doll. It had a name on the tag, and the name was Nancy, which they both loved because it was the name of another sister.

After a few years, and a few moves, the girl noticed that the doll was showing a bit of wear. The veil wouldn't stay attached, and the socks fell down.  One day she decided to spruce up the doll. She carefully hand-washed the dress and petticoat, replaced the petticoat elastic, and created a tiara out of some little pearly beads.

She made a bracelet to match the tiara.

The girl used tiny hair elastics to hold up the socks.

Now the bride is ready for her wedding. The girl was amused to notice that the doll had no bloomers, as most porcelain dolls do. That may be a project for the future, but the bride is headed for her honeymoon, right?

Little Squirt Birthday Cake

I am a woman of many talents...cake decorating just doesn't happen to be one of them.  However, my grandson T wanted a cake shaped like a squirt gun for his birthday. It's expensive to special order such a cake, so the parents asked if I could do it. It was easy to cut out the shape, but when I set aside the pieces for the trigger guard and cap, Grandpa ate them!  Luckily I still had the corner piece, but I re-cut it in a hurry so it's quite out of proportion to the rest of the squirt gun.

The frosting is stabilized whipped cream. I wish I had a little more whipping cream so I could have made it thicker and my corners didn't show through so much.

I did get teased about the "IV" when it means 4, not 5.  Oops. I meant to put five, and I know it's V. I just goofed.  Notice the five white candles forming the "squirt of water" at the left side. The blue sprinkles are supposed to represent squirted water drops too. I "glued" them on with egg white.

T seemed to like the cake--and after he blew out the candles, he reached right out and ate some of the blue gel from the tray. I'm glad it was from there and not the cake!

Roses

My roses are blooming in spite of the rainy spring.  I pruned them last year, and gave them rose food early this spring, since I happened to find a bag of rose food spikes when we were sorting the garage.  Kevin has helped a lot with the roses, especially enjoying keeping the dead ones trimmed off for me.

The first one to bloom was gorgeous but rather shy, 

peeking out from deep in the foliage.

After that the yellow bush decided to go wild 

and bloom with dozens at once.

And here's a closer look at one vivid yellow rosebud. 

Yellow roses are for friendship, 

so here's a salute to my friends.