Marcel

Marcel Wolfer was our last exchange student to stay with us.  He went to Campus in 2011.  For the last year he has been going to graduate school in Chicago.  He stayed with u for a week and went to his ten year reunion.
Marcel was a very nice young man when he stayed with us, and he is a very nice young man now.  His area of study is microbiology and from what I understand he has done research that is important in his field.  Like all of our exchange students, I am so proud of him even though I didn't have anything really to do with their success.
The pictures are of Marcel playing with Wyatt and Andrea.  He showed Wyatt how to use the noodle as a megaphone. Sometimes you just don't want to grown up.

Getting My Act Together

Writing this post is just part of this situation I experiencing.   This is the second time I have written it.  My laptop is apparently not loading correctly and I lost it the first time. I actually think the first time was better, but I can't bring it back out of my head verbatim. I know why people use word and transfer over. Oh well, maybe next time.

I have been in a slump for a bit over a week.  It was a gradual decline until there I was. To be honest, it is not a Valley of Despair, but merely a Gully of Gloom.  The reason for the pity party is that Scrapbook Garden is closing.  I have taught classes there for over two years.  It was the perfect retirement job.  I got to do what I loved and got paid for it.  I was able to do all sorts of projects and learned a lot.  I had even reached the point where I was designing classes as well.

Bob and Kathy decided to close the store after not being able to get a lease with conditions they were comfortable with accepting.  As much as I hate to see the store close, their decision is a sound business decision and  I wish them well.  The closing is being very difficult for them, and it is made worse by the fact that there were no financial difficulties as a factor.  My personal feelings are trivial in comparison with how they are feeling.

Never the less, I let this gloom get me down.  I haven't scrapped and I have projects.  I was invited to participate on a design team for Amberink and I am behind on that.  The house is a mess and so on.  Well, enough of this.  Today, I am going to get caught up starting with the blog.  In spite of my slump, I have done some fund stuff and I want to share it in a couple of other posts.  Onward and upward into the sunshine of a new day.  Is that inspiring enough?

Ten on Ten for June 2011

I follow a blog called A Bit of Sunshine.  Rebekah has a challenge each month to take one picture for each hour for ten hours of the day on the tenth of the month.  It sounds simple enough, but can be harder than I thought.
This month I woke up with the idea that I would have a theme for my Ten on Ten.  I would photograph flowers or plants around the yard.  I also imagined that I might get a photo of the wheat being cut.  Well, I started out good and then went back to my old standbys of Ray and kids.

  7:45 A M   I love Hostas, I have been trying to grow them for years with minimal success.  This year every plant from last year returned, so maybe my luck has changed.

8:45 AM   Hollyhocks are a plant from my childhood.  I remember them growing in yards at farms all around my home in northern Oklahoma.  What I didn't know was that the one plant I bought would grow a lot bigger than I would remember and try to take over my garden.  Now we dig out all the extra plants and allow two each year back by the fence.  I still love them.

 9:50 AM  Day Lilies are another plant from my childhood.  We have the fancy colored ones, but the plain simple orange ones above are what I remember.  They have the tenacity of the hollyhocks and will also take over the yard if you don't pay attention.  The fancy ones don't do that.

 10:45 AM  My mother was an Australian War Bride and in my childhood, she pined for the tropical plants of Queensland.  When the world got smaller and exotic plants were imported as house plants the Kalanchoe was one of the first plants she bought.  I remember her saying, "At home these are weeds, they just grow by the side of the road."  I will always have a Kalanchoe which was a cutting from one of her plants to remember my mother by.

 11:35 AM  When my parents moved to Kansas from Oklahoma they bought a house.  Since my Dad was a farm boy and my mother was a gardener they planted things.  One of the things they planted was a southern magnolia tree.  These trees grow very slowly, but if you hang around long enough they are beautiful.  After Ray and I moved back to Kansas and moved into this house, Mom and Dad gave us a Magnolia Tree for an Anniversary gift.  I was never sure that it would survive, on year it froze back to the root.  But 30 years later it is a beautiful tree with beautiful flowers which will keep coming on until late July.

12:30 PM   Kokopelli,  we are addicted to yard art, that is all I can say.

1:45 PM   Wyatt is getting past the cheesy smile stage.  He still needs a little work on posing for me too.

 2:20 PM   I am still confused why such a sweet face is actually named Destructicon.

3:20 PM  One of the joys of being a rural mail carrier.  Getting to pull nails out of your tires and plug the hole at the end of your work day.

4:45 PM  These two are water babies to the utmost.  Wyatt would never get out of the water if given a choice.

Moving to Assisted Living

My Dad is going to assisted living tomorrow.  My brother, sister and I liked the Cherished Friends in Wellington the best of what is available.  The building is older but very well remodeled and the people who own it seem to be truly concerned about the residents.  Chris and I spent yesterday going around town getting everything organized so the transfer will go smoothly.  Now we can only hope that it will. 
My Dad has made a lot of progress since he got sick, but the nursing staff told us that it may be months before he would be close to where he was three weeks ago.  The very elderly are like the very young.  When they get sick, they get sick very fast and it takes longer for them to recover.  However, we are lucky that my Dad is going to recover from this infection.

Scrap Supply Caddy

We will be making this cute caddy at Scrapbook Garden on Tuesday evening July 12th.  The  caddy kit is from Kaiser Kraft and the paper is Gabrielle by BoBunny.  The flourishes are pieces of chipboard and cardstock diecut from a Sizzix  Bigz die and glued together. I think eveeryone will love it.

Kids at the Water Park Again

We went to Stillwell over the weekend to decorate for Memorial Day.  The Grand Kids went along for the right since their parents had projects to work on at home.  Ray and I had planned to stay in Tahlequah, the maybe Siloam Springs.  Then Ray said, lets stay at the Radisson in Tulsa so the kids can go to the water park.  Brilliant idea!  The two of them had been rambunctious all the way down to Tulsa.  We took them down about 6:30 and stayed till 9:45.  Neither of them were awake five minutes after going to bed, and we didn't have to keep telling them to behave.  Wonderful!  The down side was I only took pictures at the park.  I was going to do more but got distracted.  I just have to work harder to have the camera ready.

A Recent Layout

I did this layout a week ago.  I think I may have overdone the techniques but everything I did just didn't seem to be enough.  However I reached the point where I finally just told myself, Enough!  I used paper from Close to My Heart.  I am finally getting the hang of the pleated flowers too, so I would have to call that good.  This layout also finished up our vacation photos from last August.  Good thing too since we will be going again in a few weeks and I will have a whole new batch to scrap.

My Dad is doing better

Jeff, Chris and I went down to the family meeting with the hospital staff about my Dad.  He is doing so much better.  You can actually see him feeling better every day.  My Dad is normally a very good natured man, and he is getting cranky so I imagine he is tired of being in the hospital.  I am thinking maybe another week or two and he will be dismissed.

The question is where will he go when he is dismissed.  Jaunita would like him to be able to go home, we don't know if he will be quite up to that.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime.  We have been looking at places for him to go at least for the short term.  Chris and I have decided which one we like the best, now to see if everyone else will agree.