Celebrating 60

We had a birthday party at Rob and Cindy's place tonight to celebrate my birthday. The whole family wasn't there - even Lloyd had to be travelling back to High Level today - but it turns out that that's all right. My main birthday gift was the announcement that they've organized a family reunion for my birthday to be held on June 7th. Sara has spoken to the out of town kids and they've all agreed to come. We'll have a picnic party at one of the city parks (already reserved), and one of Sara's staff will come for half an hour or so to take pictures. Hopefully we'll be able to get a fairly decent picture of the whole group of us (Lloyd and I, seven kids, seven spouses, and 16.5 grandchildren). It won't be an easy feat, but we'll make sure lots of pictures are taken. Sara and Emily are whizzes at Photoshop so we'll be sure to get at least one good picture of the crowd.

Cindy and Rob had their dining room decorated with streamers saying 60...60...etc., and presented me with a necklace with purple beads, disks saying 60, and a medallion in the center saying "Clearly a Classic". The cake had sixty candles on it, which took two of the men to light. The heat from the candles was so hot that the icing roses began to melt. It took several grandchildren to help me blow them all out.

It was a fun evening. Thanks kids.

Freedom 55, I mean...60

Today is the day I retired...I am no longer a secretary. It's a strange feeling. There was a large coffee party for me at work, lots of food and people, cards and gifts...and tears. Both my boss, Sandi (that's her with me in the top pcture), and I broke down. Sandi and I have a really good relationship...besides being so close in age. Her birthday is today...mine's tomorrow. She's less than a day older than me. I'm going to miss her...and the rest of the bunch at the hospital. It was a lovely place to work.

Our house is finally back in order now too...sort of. The carpets were reinstalled yesterday and cleaned today, so we're in the process of putting furniture back in order. Things are looking up. It's nice to be able to blog once again. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

My Place is Humming...

My place is humming like three washing machines, all on spin cycle at the same time. All thanks to three super strong fans with extensions that sit under the wet carpet and blow great blasts of air under the carpet causing a remarkable billowing affect...not to mention blowing any dust that was in the carpet at the time of the soaking into the air. Not the best environment right now, but at least it'll be dry and habitable again....in four days! Meanwhile, we have no place to sit, except for the computer chair and the bed, we're reduced to watching the tiny televisions because the 46" one is lying face down on our leather couch because it was in a wet spot. You'll notice the updated picture of the kitchen - no access to most of the cupboards, the stove, table, or microwave. Guess who's not cooking this weekend.

All of this would be really depressing except for the fact that tomorrow afternoon I'm off to a weekend crop, just coming home to sleep before heading out again on Saturday and Sunday...by which time the fans will be gone and the furniture moved back into position....hopefully. Lloyd is escaping the carnage by heading down to Phoenix with our nephew to take possession of the house, installing light fixtures, checking on the pool construction, etc., and won't be back till Thursday. So the end is in sight and we'll be constructive in the meantime. But, man, this roar is tiring. Luckily the bedroom is safe and the door can be closed.

NOT a Good Welcome Home

Lloyd and I live in a lovely basement suite Amy and Curtis built for us in their new-to-them house. For the most part it's working out really well for all concerned.

And then today I can home from work and my feet squelched on the carpet...not a pleasant feeling. Turns out, all the melting snow, more snow, and rain today decided to come in through a pipe under the carpet in our large front closet. The more Amy and I walked on the carpet, the wetter it got. The water ran under the carpet along the wall of the alcove where most of my scrapbook stuff was stored (nothing is ruined because it was in cases on casters and the big shelving unit is protected by a couple inches of wood at the floor level), and along the wall in the living-room, clear to the far wall of the house.

Curtis came home from work, having cancelled the last two hours worth of chiropractic patients and managed to unplug the drain and get the water flowing out. Then we had to move all of my sb stuff off the carpet. I lost track of how many times I heard him say "you have too much scrapbook stuff".

Lloyd is on his way home from High Level as planned and will be here in a couple of hours. I called to let him know what to expect when he got here. He's getting us a motel room - I didn't think we'd have to, but I've put my sb stuff in the spare bedroom, the main bedroom, and the kitchen (see picture). We'll probably be working on this all weekend, and I'm supposed to be at a weekend National Scrapbooking Day crop from Friday to Sunday. Guess I won't know if I can make it until tomorrow.

And this is my life today.

Elly's Feet

Elly and her family came over to visit me for awhile this evening. She looked so sweet in her new pink outfit. Sara always dresses her kids so nicely. Just don't look too closely...




see her sweet little feet...mismatching socks, neither one of which matches her new pink outfit. As Sara says...baby socks are just so hard to match up after they've spun around in the washer and dryer. She's got a point there. The kids will be free spirits.

Ribbons

I love using ribbons as embellishments on my scrapbook pages. I got a bit carried away though with stocking up. Organizing them became a problem - taking them to crops even more of a problem. Then my dear friend Mickey showed me the coolest ribbon organizer ever. The vinyl sides of this bag are full of holes through which ends of multiple ribbons are threaded for easy access. I have over 100 spools of ribbon (minus the spool) stuffed into this handy-dandy little case, each one with the end sticking out. Now I can see and choose the ribbon I want to use easily and carry them to crops with me. The picture may be a little out of focus but it sure is colorful!

Another Bird Card

I forgot to post last night - I also forgot to take any pictures, in spite of having good opportunities.

My wireless mouse stopped dead on me yesterday in the middle of an on-line crop so I went in search of batteries. Not finding any here, I went to Amy, who was watching Sara's two oldest (4 and 3) as well as her own three. She didn't have any batteries either and was frazzled after taking care of five under 5's for several hours so I took the four who can walk with me to the "slurpy store" for batteries...and slurpys too of course. They had such fun and were so excited about getting slurpies (banana and pineapple flavors). I really should have taken pictures. It was a happy day though and this card that I made for the on-line crop reflects the fun we had...I love the bright colors.

I had bought a new stamp on Friday when Mickey and I were out and stamped it on four different colored papers, cut the bird's body out of blue, the wing out of green, and the flowers out of orange, and pieced them all together. They're attached to the body of the card with pop-dots to make it look three dimensional, and the bird is attached to the square with pop-dots too.