missing pieces of the past

I miss my address book. The kind where you wrote names in pencil because some people moved so often. All I needed to do was grab the lovely little book and it had all the important addresses I needed. There is the church address book, but not all the addresses I need are in there. 

I went to mail some cards and a package last week and the package was no problem. That one I have memorized. The cards? Serious problem.

I've done this before. I head to GroupMe for the latest address updates. Then to Facebook family pages to see if the one I need is located there. Still nothing. Like serious! What am I suppose to do?! The file of Christmas card addresses isn't on the computer as far as I can tell. Must have moved it somewhere. Out comes the external hard drive.

Prayefully, I hook that thing up and see what I can find and voila! A Christmas card list from 2011. Okay. Not so up to date but the addresses I need haven't changed since then.

Serious. I was missing that little book so much. I do have an address book. It is full of passwords because that is what life is now. Maybe I should get a new one and fill it with family addresses and passwords.

Instead, I went to google to see how easy it is to print labels from Google Sheets. Looks fairly easy enough. So, I printed that 2011 list and transferred all the addresses off that thing onto a Google Sheet. The bright side is that it is accessible on my phone or computer or wherever I happen to be.

Now I just need to add about 100 more addresses to that thing and I'll be golden!

Until someone moves again and I don't update the list.
Then I'm back to square one again.

Can you believe we are saying goodbye to April today?
I might be in shock.

chillin' at the lake

I don't have a backup camera in my car so I'm not accustomed to this view.

Bartlett Lake is only 48% full of water.

We needed some lake time.

That adds up to myself backing in the boat ... which looks like a bloomin' ship from this angle!

It IS only April. I know. But it was over 90 degrees on the way there.
Gets kind of toasty in the sun. However .... not nearly toasty enough to take a plunge.
Not even close.
My toes were numb after only a few minutes.
Yes ... I'm a wimp.
I dunked my shirt in the lake and then had to wait for a good long while to put it on.

Mr. Hubs got a hold of my phone while Tia and I went for a walk. Seriously, I regret not saving all the selfies my young children took of themselves. They would have made the best little flip books. If you have young ones who do that with your phone ... save them in a file someplace. Just for me. Sometimes I think I should make one of this guy. The grandkids would love it.

We have had a cheap metal detector for years. Once in a great while it comes out of the garage and gets turned on. Probably once every 5 years or so. Being as Bartlett has so much beach right now, I've been hankering to get out there and see if anything turns up. Things turned up today ... soda cans, soda can tops, barbed wire, more cans, nails, long pieces of some angled metal. That's about it. We didn't find a treasure that will secure our old age retirement, but we did have fun looking. In fact ... I've left said detector and the shovel in the boat. Mindless treasure hunting that is totally relaxing together time.

Mr and myself.

Us. Enjoying a perfectly beautiful morning.

This weekend all of us are traveling. Some of us to different states ... all of us seeing dear family.
I'll be here with pictures soon!

nana nana nana papa papa papa

there is nothing

there is absolutely nothing 

like little boys calling for you

the sweetest little "papa" you ever did hear in your life

crafting season is here!

I love this time of year. The time where it is getting warm, although I really am not a fan of the heat. The sun is up earlier and within a couple of months my crafting will start bright and early and I have to move inside by 11 a.m. to take a nap. The excitement builds for market and my husband ... well, I promised to lay off a little bit this year. It sort of gets all consuming. 

So I start with the lists. Why I make boxes when I love to highlight and add color is beyond me. But I make boxes and highlight as I finish. I'll probably start with new lists every week. Need to order this or that. I have these specific supplies? Great ... they can go toward making some fantastic Pinterest find. We all know that crafting is my sanity. Lately though .. even that has been too much for me to handle. My mind has been stuck in the numb that is a part of grieving. Sometimes I've been capable of doing nothing but staring into space without a thought in my mind. It has been beyond thought. So mired in the muck that even a spark of creativity hasn't been in evidence. I think I am on the upswing. I have started making lists and adding post it notes to journals.

I watched these spools listed on a swip swap site for weeks. I wanted them almost as bad as I sometimes want chocolate but more stuff?? What on earth was I going to do with them? And when would the truck be home to go pick them up? And when ......

Saturday we went and filled the back of the truck with spools. My initial thought was using them for display, but I've been on Pinterest since picking them up. Oh my. I want more of them. I see tables. I see a bar height table. I see a coffee table. I see a clock. I see ...

On my list for this weekend was "sand cabinet doors". I don't know how many there are in this pile, but they all got sanded! Highlight that bugger! I also managed to get a coat of paint on about half of them. Signs of some sort or other are going to be happening. None of these doors have a thick panel .. they're all thin inserts. I do have a few other ideas for them but nothing that requires weight bearing. Can you feel the progress??!!

Not only do I have piles of spools and cabinet doors ... I have piles of other stuff. Craft stuff is spread hither and yon around here. I had 2 kitchen towels left over from making some gifts and a stamp that I am sort of in love with. Towels are stamped with fabric paint and waiting to be heat pressed and packed away. I really need another package or two of towels so I can use up that paint. I should make a book about if you give a crafter a brush then she'll need paint to go with it and then she'll need something to paint which means another trip to Hobby Lobby or Home Depot. That kind of book.  This is so fun and fast ... and who doesn't like a fun towel in the kitchen?

I painted every bead I had left from last year (well, maybe not every bead but the size I was wanting) and it looks like I have an abacus going on here. More beads are ordered (1,000 or so of them in different sizes) and many will see paint before being sealed. Do you ever have visions of sugar plums that turn out to be raisins? I'm hoping the bead ideas I have work out to be sugar plums. Seriously ... fingers are crossed with hope.

That's the crafty for right now. We have some fun stuff in our world for the next few weeks so crafting will take the back burner ... unless I stitch or crochet while I travel and visit.

Get creative. Hop on Pinterest and dig around until you're so overstimulated and exhausted that you just take a nap. So totally worth it!

might win a game

If I was to play one of those "one point for each thing in your bag" games,

I might just win.

Do you carry a separate bag to work with you?

I do. I move things from my purse to my bag on Sunday night

and back to my purse on Thursday night. 

Not everything gets moved. 

None of this stuff.

I just carry it around and call it weight lifting.

it might just be time for a road trip

sometimes i measure that need by the size of my country living magazine stack.

when it starts to get out of control, it is time to get on the road

and drive hubby nuts.

cuz that's when i read and rip pages.

i only tear out the pages i want to keep.

he doesn't get it but he's a guy.

he doesn't have to understand ... only tolerate me.

we fly more than drive anymore tho.

what do you suppose my next flights seatmate will say when i start the demolition process.

they'll probably have earbuds in anyway.

my carryon bag just got bigger me thinks.

wedding weekend

We had a few days of company the end of the week. My (let's see if I can figure this out) first cousin once removed Trisha and her new hubby Pepper came and stayed. So fun to get to know these young folks. Although I've seen their wedding pictures online and in Christmas greetings, it is fun to put voices and real faces to names. Welcome back anytime!

They were here to celebrate the marriage of Ashley and Logan. Our nephew married a special friend of ours. The wedding was so very touching and beautiful.

Being as it is spring time (whatever that is in each climate these days), they held the reception outdoors. The wind that was ferocious on Friday behaved itself and led to a perfect evening outdoors.

 The new Mr & Mrs Marjanen radiating joy.

Wishing them both a lifetime of blessings and happiness.

payson

we packed our bags

jumped in the truck

and drove up the hill

we spent the night and half of sunday
in the middle of pine trees
where the lawn chairs had to keep moving spots
because the sun was warm

the company delightful

segregated though it was

the gorgeous landscape that i can never capture

why is that the camera lens cannot capture what the eye can see?

perhaps at other times it captures even more than one is able to see
yet as often as i try
it eludes me
instead i have to get out there and just soak it all in myself
personally

have a beautiful weekend

a day for sunshine

Last Saturday Jari and I joined Frans, Jenny and some girls out in the desert to do some "plinking".

I've kind of decided that I need to learn how to shoot.

I really couldn't load a gun, didn't know what a "safety" was .... pretty much didn't know nuthin'.

So we spent 3 hours out in the desert hitting targets.

This is Helmiina ... visiting from Finland for 3 months.

She has in her hands a little thing that was actually my grandfather's pistol.

The thing spits like crazy but she has pretty good!

A few pieces of metal that were just a little bit bigger ...

Jenny was in the same boat as I.

We both wanted and needed some basic instruction.

Kierstyn was giving intructions that went like this: "are you even aiming mom?!"

My girls would have been saying the same thing to me had they been there.

Yup.

One shot at a time.

Seems I sort of like 'em that way.

I'm ready to go again!

Home to do some laundry and then the hubby had an idea .....