I Can Be Taught...

I missed my Countryside Homemaker's meeting this month because I was very sick. This year we have made a little craft project after each meeting. March's craft project was to learn a Maple Leaf quilt square. I had purchased my material and was very disappointed I missed this opportunity to learn a little more about quilting.

The meeting was held a Faye's home and she was teaching this craft. She lives down the street from me. She made a little bag for me with the instructions to make the square, a template to cut the square and a sample of some squares she made. Love her heart. I was so happy to find this in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago.  Faye said I could keep the samples until I had a chance to make my own squares. 

Today I made a square and then realized I had enough material to make two square. They turned out pretty good for a beginner. It was fun to make them and I would happily use this pattern again in the future.

Marx Mania...

We have four March birthdays in our family. One of those is Andie's.

Earlier Michael and I came across a notice that James Taylor was coming to Louisville. Andie loved James Taylor when she was a teen. One of my fondest memories was staying up all night on Christmas making a jigsaw puzzle with Andie while listening to James Taylor CD's. Great fun. I told Michael I would watch the kids if he wanted to take Andie to see James Taylor. Tickets were bought, plans were made and Andie got James Taylor tickets for her birthday this year from Michael.

Friday Claude and I journeyed to LaGrange to play with the Mini-Marx's. We arrived while Andie was watching a friends little ones. There had been a playdate with these kids earlier in the day, the mom wanted to go to a consignment sale, Andie suggested she leave her kids and enjoy the sale, the mom agreed. So we entered with three extra kids in the house just before time to go to the bus stop to pick up Hayden. I took baby Hazel and rocked her while Andie took the oldest boy to the bus stop to pick up Hayden.

Bailey accompanied Hazel and I upstairs to the rocking chair. Hazel was sooooo tired and not with her mom. She was crying and her little nose was running. I asked Bailey if she would help me and get me a Kleenex. Bailey found a Kleenex and brought it to me. Then she pushed the computer chair over by the rocking chair, brought the box of tissues and placed them on the computer chair by me and announced, "This a yittle table for you to put the Kleenex on." I just wanted to squeeze her for being so sweet.

Hayden got home, the mommy returned from the consignment sale and took her kidlings home to rest, and we began our evening with Hayden and Bailey. Hayden had Rocket, Bailey had an airplane and I was given the helicopter to play with. The pretend game moved in flying formation from the living room to the family room through the kitchen several times. We played under the dining table and ended the game by flying the aircraft down the landing strip (a.k.a. Bailey's ballet mat).

We had a cute moment occur when we were trying to determine what to do for dinner. Mention was made of this and Hayden overheard. He quickly chimed in, "Well, after we order dinner we can watch our movie."  There was no question in Hayden's mind that we would order and pick up dinner. Guess we have created a habit there. It was funny to hear him state is so matter of factly.

We did order a pizza and Claude picked it up. My grandsons are both pizza lovin' guys.

After dinner, Claude headed to the Louisville Temple to help with the youth in our home ward doing baptisms. Andie headed to Louisville to have dinner and enjoy James Taylor with Michael. Hayden set up the DVD player for Bailey, Hayden and me to watch Cinderella III.

Hayden and Bailey enjoyed their movie so much. After it was over, Hayden wanted to watch some of the bonus features. He was stretched out on the big footstool getting the TV to that point. Bailey strolled over and layed across her big brother and gave him a big hug. How sweet can life get? I never had a big brother and I think that may have been a lot of fun.

I curled up in the family room after getting Hayden and Bailey to bed. At one point I decided I would really like a treat. I got up and checked out the pantry. As I closed that door and started to go back to my Sudoku book empty handed, my hubby came in the door with McFlurries for us. What a guy!!!

We got a call from Katelyn in the evening. She was hired by Office Depot and was anxious to share her excitement. This is a great job opportunity for her. It is not too far from her home and will be a good work environment. I was very proud of her.

One of the things she did in High School was community service. Part of that was helping a man run for political office. She worked very hard and did a good job with this service. When she walked into Office Depot to put in an application, the manager of the store was the person she had helped with his campaign. He rememberd what a great worker Katelyn was and had to remove himself from her job interview because he was very biased in her favor. His recommendation of her personality and work ethic were instrumental in her success in getting this job. This is just good on many levels that end with her having a great part-time job this summer and during the school year to come.

Saturday morning I heard Hayden wake up early. He has to get up early for school and his body was ready to be up. He was very kind and played in his room before knocking on the wall. That is my signal he is ready to have me be awake and come in to play. Our day was about to begin.

Andie had a cake to decorate for Hayden's school carnival that day. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It is a Weber grill with burgers and hot dogs, onion and tomato slices. We would play with the kids while she finished her decorating process.

Hayden suggested we could clean the tadpole habitat. Andie helped us set up and Hayden and I cleaned Galileohopper Jupiter Marx's habitat. (I hope I got that name right.) The habitat was a Christmas gift for Hayden and the tadpole arrived a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to clean and talk with Hayden. Hayden is an interesting young man with lots of facts and ideas to share to anyone who will listen. He told Andie after we went home that he thought I really enjoyed cleaning the tadpole habitat with him. He was right!

Andie finished her cake decorating and needed to take the cake to school by 11:30am. Hayden and I would accompany her on this trip. Hayden entered a Lego Star Wars diorama in the display in the school library. We wanted to be able to see it, if possible. We were able to get in the library, found the diorama, got pictures of it and Hayden as the Buckner Bear mascot and with Darth Vader.

We determined a stop at Subway would be a great idea for lunch. Lunch was enjoyed and chips were shared. That Bailey does love her chips. She is like a little chipmunk when she eats chips. Very amusing to Claude and me.

The afternoon project was to make pocket planters to start seeds. Andie found these in a magazine and determined the kids would do that to create the starts for their garden this year. All you do is take baseball card holder sheets. Fill each pocket with potting soil. Plant a seed in each pocket and put a label on the pocket so you know what seed you planted there. Then you hang the pocket planters on the glass door or window. Water them with an eye dropper or syringe. Hayden and Bailey had lots of fun filling the pockets, picking what seeds they wanted to plant, writing the labels and watering their plants. They are hanging on the door for them to watch grow. I thought this was one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a long time.

Michael had soccer games to referee during the day. When he returned home we celebrated Andie's birthday again. Her family had a birthday celebration for her on her birthday. Claude and I brought our gift on this trip and I made Andie a special cake.

Andie has my father's genes coursing through her veins. She likes to have double-stuff Oreo's and milk in the evening. My father loves cookies and milk. When I was a kid, my mother would keep cellophane bags of vanilla wafers on hand. There were no microwaves to reheat dinner. If my father was late getting home, his favorite meal was to take a bag of vanilla wafers and a jug of milk and a bowl. He would try to even out the vanilla wafers and milk in that bowl as he ate. To this day, if I go to his apartment when he is eating his main meal of the day, he will have a bowl of milk with cookies in it soaking up the milk for his dessert. When Andie comes to visit, we always try to have double-stuff Oreo's for her.

I found cake pans in a catalog that were in the shape of a cookie. It just had to be done. Andie is always making cakes and/or cupcakes that are extraordinary for our birthdays and special events. It was time to return the favor. I ordered the cookie shaped pans.

I made the cake for her Friday morning, put it in the cake holder and left it in the car until Saturday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon we put candles on the cake, sang "Happy Birthday", opened presents and had a little party.

Quiet time for the Mini's was next.

After quiet time the Marx family prepared and headed to Hayden's elementary school for the school carnival. Claude and I got ready and headed to the Marriott near the Cincinnati Airport for the 4th Congressional District Republican Lincoln Day Dinner. We had enjoyed a fun couple of days together. Hayden told Andie we should do that every week!!

Boldly Barefoot...

Sunday I planned to visit my mom after Church services. Sunday I also wore my brown slingback heels. Slingback heels have always been my favorite type of dress shoe for me.

These slingback heels have a strap that goes around the back of your ankle. There is a buckle on the side of your ankle to tighten the strap so the shoe stays on your foot. The strap has a piece of elastic that one piece of the buckle fits in. On my brown slingback heels the elastic had stretched out and come loose. I had not been able to find a shoe repair place to fix this simple repair for me.

After several attempts to find a repair place, I just paused a while and looked at my shoe. I thought I could fix it myself on my sewing machine. One evening I carefully used my ripper tool and cut the old elastic free and opened up the layers of the strap. I cut a piece of elastic and after several attempts had a fix on my heel. I was very happy.

So Sunday I wore these brown slingbacks to Church. Everything was great until I left Church after choir practice to go to my car. I planned to drive to the nursing home first to visit my mom. As I crossed the parking lot, I realized my shoe would not stay on my foot. I checked out the situation and found my elastic fix had come undone. This meant I was 'shoeless'. Hmmmm....

I revised my afternoon plans and headed to Papa's to visit with him and put together a music program for Wednesday. We had a chuckle out of my being barefoot.

When I got ready to leave Papa's, I told him I wasn't sure how the nursing home would feel about me coming in without my shoes. Seemed like there might be some kind of sanitary rules against that. But I really wanted to sit with my mom while I was in Georgetown.

I drove to the nursing home.

As I parked my car, I thought about how interesting I must look in my Sunday duds and hose with NO shoes. I decided that, once again, I would hold my head high and walk like I knew what I was doing...after all...I did, didn't I?

I passed people leaving the nursing home, gave them a big smile and a cheerful "hello" as I walked past. Then I went to the nurses station. It was change of shift time. The little nurses station was full. Slight groan within.

Then I said, "My shoes have broken. I'm bare-footed. Is it still okay for me to come in and visit my mom."  There was a few seconds of awkward silence as they all digested what I just said, then the need to look at my feet, then the chuckle. It was that kind of chuckle that let me know it was not a problem to go visit my mom.

I continued down the hallway to my mom's room. I fought off the urge to do like we did when I was a kid. Our home had all hardwood floors. It was great fun in our sock feet to get a little run going and then slide across the floor in our sock. My mom used to put paste wax on these floors and then give us girls old towels to pull each other over them to polish them. Great fun!! I fought off this urge and walked to the end of that long hall to visit mom.

I had a nice visit and as I left I had to explain to a few others why I had no shoes on my feet. I am a Southern girl that loves to be barefoot anyway. 

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Claude...

Today we completed Christmas 2010...

For Christmas I gave Claude a one hour flying lesson in a Cessna airplane. He called and scheduled his lesson for this morning at 10am.

We were up and out the door by 8am. The lesson was at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky. After a quick drive-thru breakfast purchase a McDonalds, we were headed down the Interstate.  As we got further along, I realized I left my camera at home. This would not be a Kodak moment...it would be a Blackberry cell phone camera moment.

We arrived at Bowman Field and couldn't find where to get in the hanger. The address was right but the doors were locked. Hmmm...  Claude gave me the phone number and I called. James told us to go through the gate marked "No Authorized Entrance" and walk around the hanger. Okay...

Claude and I thought there would be some time for class study or orientation or something. We also thought there would be waivers or insurance things to sign. Nada!!!  They had him give them his phone number and eMail.

I pulled out my crocheting thinking there would be a few minutes before Claude was outside. Wrong. I heard Claude call my name across the room as he and James left the building. I quickly put my crocheting back in my craft bag and headed for what I thought was the door. Wrong...again. It was the glass wall I was supposed to walk around to get to the door. In my rush to catch up with Claude and James, you guessed, I walked right into the glass wall. Geez already!!! I could only laugh at how silly I must have looked. But I gathered my composure and walked around the wall, out the door and hurriedly caught up with Claude and James.

The fun thing was watching my not-so-petite hubby get into the plane. Once in he was quite comfortable but there is an art form to getting a big guy in and out of these little things.

It kind of reminded me of when I wanted this tiny sporty red car in Maryland. It was time to replace mine car and I was to get any car I wanted this time. Kids were gone and I could get something just for me. I found the perfect Honda CV something or other. It had a removable roof you could store in the trunk. The roof was hardtop and we didn't have a garage so it would be perfect for meeting my need to have something with an open top and very sporty. Claude took me to the dealer, I sat in it and fell in love. Then I turned to Claude and in a very hopeful and cheerful voice said, "You try it." After a bit of a workout, Claude was inside that little car. I said, "Would you really be comfortable driving this thing?" Claude, putting his best face forward and in a voice something like the little guy in Fantasy Island said, "Sure, it is fine." I knew right then it wasn't fine but he would go along if that was what I really wanted. We didn't buy that car. I became and 'Old Buick Lady' instead. But I digress from today's real story...

If you could only have seen Claude's face, it was some kinda wonderful. That grin went from ear to ear, even under his beard and mustache.

James spent some time walking around the plane checking things out, even on the top of the plane mind you. He appeared to be quite thorough. Claude sat in the pilot seat and grinned.

I expected this to take some time. Wrong. Just a few words, put the head phones on, tweek some switches inside, propeller twirls and they were taxiing away from the hanger.

James had Claude stop in an outer parking area to test the engine some. Then they went to the runway and they were off.

Claude's plane in right over the tail of the parked plane.

There was a covered patio area with table and chairs. I plopped myself down there and pulled out my crocheting again. A man pulled into the parking area in his own plane. He stopped and we talked for a bit. He asked if I was going to fly. I told him Claude was taking his lesson. He assured me we had just created a monster. We had a lovely conversation about his flying and purchase of his plane.

While Claude was still in the air another family came out to the patio. There was a mom, a daughter, a teenage son, a son about 4 or 5 years old, the gramma and the grampa. The teenage son was the one taking the lesson. Mom called the grandparents and asked if they wanted to come and watch. When they got to Bowman Field, they were told someone could fly with the son on his lesson. Grampa drew the lucky straw. I'm telling you, that Grampa was more excited than the teenage son.

Somewhere during all of this interchange with people, I missed the fact that Claude did one touch-and-go landing. I had the number on the side of his plane in my head but there was another plane that same color.

With all this company for me to visit with, it didn't seem long before Claude landed.

This is James the Trainer and Claude is on the right after their flying lesson.

Claude was very happy with his Christmas gift. We'll have to get him up again some time.

We headed to Chuy's for some lunch and he shared all the things he experienced and learned. It was great fun the enjoy his joy. There was even talk of taking the land that Doug Smith has not developed in Eagle Bend and turning it into a landing strip for the Sadieville Airport.

It was a great day to learn about flying.

We did a little shopping on the way home. And stopped at Papa's and set up his Lifeline alert system. We left him with his alert button hanging around his neck. I feel a measure of peace in that, in and of itself.

Now for a quiet evening at home. Needlework or edit computer files...hmmmm...

Simply Wonderful...

The last few days have been just simply wonderful. I almost don't want to rock this boat by saying that, but 'that's a true statement' as my father-in-law used to say.

Last Thursday we had Papa come out to the house in the morning. He received his lease from the real estate company and we needed to sign with him and get it notarized. He brought his trusty side-kick, Tiny, with him.

He sipped a root beer while we called the Lifeline people and ordered his Lifeline alert system.

Then Papa wanted to take his morning walk up on the hill beyond our home. He loves walking up there. It sort of reminds me of Jake going to Gettysburg. Just clears the head and gives one time to think and ponder the verities of life. I noted the time he left to be sure of the time I should start worrying if he didn't return. Papa enjoyed that walk but he came back puffing. I opened the door and he hurried in and said, "That hill has gotten steeper!"  We both had a chuckle.

Then Papa and Tiny left to go back to Georgetown so Papa could get to the nursing home to feed Mimi.

The rest of the day I worked on projects here and there. It was just a good day to get some things finished up at a leisurely pace. Sure felt good not to have to rush to get something done by a certain time.

Friday morning my new visiting teaching companion came and joined me to visit Linda. Linda lives further out that we do from Georgetown. This would be Debra and Linda's first time to meet each other. I love visiting Linda and her two little grandkids. We had a wonderful visit and enjoyed the time chatting.

Friday afternoon was another slower paced afternoon. I went upstairs to Claude's office and proposed that he take me into Georgetown to visit my mother and then treat me to dinner out. He was up for that idea. So we set the time to leave the house and then finished working on the things we both had started. I visit mom and Claude visited the CVS Pharmacy and the Family Dollar Store (I needed more Sudoku books). Then we went to Appleby's for my favorite dinner of Won-Ton Tacos. Yummy!!!

Rain came a tiny bit on our drive home. But we both commented on what a great day we were having. We ended the evening by watching TV in the basement. While we watched I worked at my computer editing some files I have saved there.

Saturday would be a day at home for both Claude and me. We slept a bit later, not much, just a bit. Then we both started our projects for that day. Mine was to finish my Sunday School lesson preparation. Claude had a talk to finish preparing for Sunday. We kept at it all day and in the evening we curled up in the living room to watch TV. I'm trying to finish up a cross-stitch project and that kept my hands moving.

We also wanted to watch the Super Moon that evening. At 8pm I went out and couldn't find the moon anywhere. Laura called to remind me to look. I assured her I had looked once and couldn't find the moon. Laura said it was just coming up over the horizon in Frankfort. I went out on the deck and looked again, no moon. Then I went out front and walked down the driveway, no moon. By now it was about 8:30pm. I headed back to the deck again with Laura still on the phone laughing at me for not being able to find the moon. When what to my wondering eyes should appear...wait...that's for a holiday in the future!! Behind a building in Sadieville proper you could see a bright halo starting to appear. That lovely moon was just starting to rise over our hills.

It was fun to watch it and go out every few minutes and try to get another picture, always hoping that at least one of the many I took might work out a bit. I did get some pictures that I'm happy enough with that I kept them. The first two are of the moon through the trees, then the last three are of the moon as it rose in the sky. It is not easy to get a picture of the moon with my little camera. But I'll share these because I'm happy with them as my best efforts with my little camera. I've tried on other moons and never had this much luck.

Today was a really good Sabbath. Claude had to be up and out of the house early so he was gone before I ever woke up.

Church was really good. The speakers in sacrament meeting were excellent. I enjoyed teaching my sunday school class. There was a combine Priesthood/Relief Society session about LDS Family Services & Child Services. We tried to have choir practice. I visited my mom for an hour. Then I visited Papa and we picked out music for this coming Wednesday. Claude and I are now home and doing a few restful things. We're going to enjoy the Eagles Concert tonight while I work on my computer files again.

I think I've enjoyed these days because I set the pace for my life and accomplished some things but didn't feel like I had to set the world on fire completing my 'to do' lists. I hope there are some more of those days in this coming week.