Shaina's Birthday

Shaina's birthday was yesterday. Of course I for some reason was sure it was the 27th. Her mom laughed at me and said...it is not for 2 more days. I said, are you sure? She laughed harder and said, yes, I was there. So...I said, ok, don't give her the e-mail cards yet and I will recall on Sunday. They both had a good laugh over the fact that Gma Patti got confused. I said, just think, in ?? number of years, you will be like me. That got more of a gulp than a laugh, but I got a good laugh from it! I did a quick layout of Shaina with the new kit. Ok, since you asked so nicely again... here it is.

The photo is actually 2 different ones. The background of it is from their trip to Paris at the terminal in Detroit...where it plays music and changes colors. The part of the photo with her was when they took the photo of her on her great grandma's bed after getting her hair all braided. I just extracted the 2 areas and put them together for the layout. Digital is so wonderful... no more pitched photos because they are not what we wanted or turned out badly. They can always be used for something!! There are 3 of us who are Taurus. Shaina, Michel and myself. My daughter is Aries. A bunch of strong wills there! Well...it is late and I am off to bed.
Night all!

We did it!!

Well, we actually uploaded our very first kit into the store today. Had loads of little bugs to work out but it is done! Yipee!! You want to see what it looks like?? Ok, since you asked :) here is the preview of it. You can look at a closer detail at the store at Deco Pages. We had a ball making it, must have said several times, ok, all finished. Only to have him come home the next day and say, I made a couple more things for the kit... want to see? So I would laugh, say sure, great, look at them, and they were... but the kit kept getting larger and larger. We are already discussing an add on as he was "thinking, oh, there are other things we could do for the kit also. LOL. Here is the link! We are both thrilled with it, hope you are too :)! Deco-Pages Store!

Trying my hand.... and now we try our hands together!

Big news!! Michel and I have been accepted as a design team at Deco Pages!! I have really not said much to anyone, but now it is official, I can say it. Interestingly I also entered a contest the same day I was put on the team, for designing the banner. My design is above. The voting will be after April 30. who knows, maybe it will win! The kit I used was Mary Ridgeway's January Club Kit, at Deco Pages. It should be in the store soon for sale separately. It was a big decision and step for us. Up to now I have been "dabbling" in design, and heavy into creative team (CT) work. I love that aspect, but as that is also needed, designing quick pages, doing CT work for for our own kits, I am getting both worlds. My list of things to do has just gotten much much longer with the acceptance to the team though. I am lucky my hubby takes an interest in design also and we can do this together. We can spend hours working on new items, papers, discussing colors, what we need, changes that need made. Now if we could just get a "wife" to clean the house and make the meals, life would be wonderful. This wife doesn't seem to do a good job of that, spends way too much time here in front of the computer (laughing). And with that you would think we would be loosing weight. Guess all of that setting does not help because that is not happening either! Keep watching... you will be some of the first to see our creations!

A Friend in Need

I have a wonderful friend. Well, I have many, but this one comes and goes to Paris periodically and we manage to have a lunch, a talk and lots of laughs. We always laugh together. She and her husband lost their dog a couple of years ago. It was a horrible time for them. I received a note from her 2 weeks ago I believe, said they had "adopted a new dog, it was time". When she told me poodle, I thought, no way... you see dogs with their owners and see why they go so well together. For me she needed an Airedale. Tall, flowing, thin... moves with a natural grace just like my friend. Well, I received a photo last week of just the dog and I though, hmmm... just maybe because the dog for one thing is obviously tall, his head is the same height as the back of her couch. Poof went the picture in my head of this noisy small toy poodle. (I have known many like that unfortunately!) This morning while trying to wake up I was reading my e-mail.

Side note here... for those of you who get e-mails from me in the morning, you should realize it is the very first thing I do with my 1st cup of coffee, so if it does not make sense at points within the body of the e-mail, you now have the knowledge of why!

Where was I? Oh yes, my e-mail this morning. She sent me a new photo of her with the dog that her husband had taken. She was taking a well needed break from cleaning before company arrives and was relaxing with the dog. Poof went the remaining photo in my head of them and the dog I had thought would be great. Nothing can beat the real thing! This is what I call a friend when needed.

OBSERVATIONS FROM RIVER RIDGE

Somewhere I have a sign that says: “Are we having fun yet?” I should have found it and put it in the window of the van as Terry left with a string of errands to do in town. Might have given people a chuckle as they struggled to keep their vehicles on the road and hats on their heads in the wind we are having today. The weather forecast was right on with the warning of high winds. It always fascinates me to watch the trees in winds of scary velocity. Amazing so few lose their balance or lose limbs. Last Sunday there was wind during a rainstorm. First-born son was helping Terry prepare an area for re-seeding. He was raking and about an hour after he finished a large white pine branch came crashing down where he was working earlier. Sure would have been a bad way to start the week if he had been beaned with that branch. Could have killed him.

I keep trying to equate the roar of the wind with spring because after all this IS a spring snow and windstorm but it sure sounds like winter wind. The last hurrah of winter I hope.

I wrote the words above on Wednesday. Today is Thursday and the blowing, drifting and snow accumulation is still with us. The roar of the wind has not diminished so on we go with this storm of Easter week. A friend emailed they were back in SW Michigan from their winter as snowbirds. “We returned to this mess” was the message. Then he made the comment they will be interested in what I find nice to say about this storm. Hmmm – let me see – I was missing the few days of not having the woodstove warmth and smell and now we have that again? How about the extra moisture is good for the water table? How about the birds are clinging to, underneath and nearby the feeders continually so we can watch them up close and personal all day long? Oh yes, I love the sculptured drifts the wind whips up for us? Plus the awesome power of nature is showing its strength? We are in the middle of it here in the forest and that is a sight to behold. Yes I know, I am stretching it but those are positive things. There are negatives of course. A drift on our hill has River Ridge Road closed. In fact a huge drift had to be shoveled out of the way before Terry could open the overhead garage door and get out the snow thrower. Reluctantly we are going to have the road plowed tomorrow. I say “reluctantly” because the ground is thawed and that means lots of dirt gets picked up with the snow. Our expert snowplow guy says he will just make a path, not push anything back on the sides so there should be a minimum of mess. We do need the road open for safety reasons though and currently we cannot get out. We are missing a dinner party tonight we had been looking forward to attending. The outdoor chores related to the coming of spring are certainly on hold. All are negatives.

Ten days ago the temperature was 71 degrees, the breeze was spring-like and the sun had definite warmth as I sat on the lower deck. Today the temperature is 22 degrees, I am saying; “what sun?” and the breeze has turned into the roaring wind of a snowstorm. However the good news is it is April and this is just a glitch in the countdown to spring breezes, the sound of peepers, the birth of baby birds and critters, and the end of winter. Really it is. Trust me on this one.

A weekly column

A dear friend of my mothers writes a weekly column and sends it out over the e-mail. Unfortunately she sends it as an attachment and my mom can't get it. So, now she sends it to me and I copy paste, take out extra spaces, make it smaller, and then send it to my mom. As I was reading it over this morning, I thought what a nice column it was...and that I should add it to my blog. I think this week I will put a layout I did, feels appropriate for the column.

OBSERVATIONS FROM RIVER RIDGE
by Ann Blakely

Because of a bunch of testosterone crazed tom turkeys I was up much earlier than I wanted this morning. When you hear them gobbling off in the forest it is muffled and actually is a happy sound because it is a harbinger of spring. However the happy part is not present when they are right outside the bedroom window. Unless you have heard a baker’s dozen of strutting toms gobbling all at once, you have no idea the intruding loudness. Terry can sleep through it, but not me, so I got up and started my day. I looked out and not only were they strutting and gobbling in the driveway, they were pooping all over - very rude of them.

This past week has seen many changes that herald the march toward spring.
The chippies are out. The raccoons are out. The geese have come back according to our upriver neighbors plus they saw a robin and a redwing blackbird. The snow pack is shrinking rapidly, the river is rising, the roof is nearly bare and even though the temperature is currently only 28, it is bright and sunny, so the remaining roof and deck snow is continuing to melt. The deer yarded up here to be near open water have started moving off to their summer grounds. Now we are left with trails of deer poop and the ever-smelly turkey poop appearing out of the snow and thawing to cause a barnyard like fragrance wafting through our clearing when the wind is in the “right” direction. Otherwise the scent carried on the wind is that of coming spring. Not yet the earthy smell of the forest floor, but a promise of it.

As the snow melts from under the feeders, a winter’s worth of seed shells is exposed. Squirrels are digging through them for missed seeds. Yesterday there were four black squirrels and two red squirrels so engrossed in digging into one of the piles they were paying no attention to each other.

We are into that annual ritual of the college basketball tournaments. March 2005 was the first time Terry could watch every single game if he wanted to as he had retired the end of ’04 – and mostly he wanted to. He still does and in-between games and at half times, he goes outdoors and does chores or gets something to eat and then back to rooting for his favorites. I will watch a game here and there but life goes on for me during March Madness while basically it slows to a crawl for Terry. He has wireless headphones so even if he has to do something else – of mild importance - because nothing could be more important than the game – he can wear the headphones without missing any court action. Makes him happy and that is good enough for me.

As the snow melts I am anxious to see what if any damage has been done to the trunks of various shrubs. The last couple winters voles have gnawed extensively on several of them. Plus this winter the red squirrels ate so much bark off the big lilac by our bedroom window that some large branches fell off. Not a good thing. Terry says the lilac is very hardy – I hope he is right because it is badly scarred.

I can hear both goldfinches and chickadees singing right now. Such cheery little voices. Are they serenading the winding down of winter and the coming of spring – or maybe just the joy of a bright blue sky and the precious gift of life. Sounds like something we should serenade too.

Another day another lake and family outing

This one was when we went to "the bay". It is actually Barnes Park, which is just at the whopping village of Eastport and is part of Lake Michigan. We have a choice when we head in that direction. We can swim and have fun at that park (Lake Michigan) or go to Torch Lake and swim and have fun there. We usually opt for the Bay because it has bigger waves and is normally warmer...but the walk out in the water is very stony. Another gorgeous day for this family time also. The left photo is Shaina, my grand daughter and the right photo is Shaina heading out to swim, float and play and Michel, my husband, looking for stones I would guess. We do that a lot there. There are no shells, only stones. We usually take our frisbee, noodles, a cooler with water and pop and our big towels and just spend a few hours in the water and sun. Some days when it is really windy the waves can literally knock you off your feet, and those are the fun days! That day the breeze was cool and Shaina asked if she could wear my t-shirt. It is a short dress on her, but it worked. She dried off and warmed up, then gave me back my wet shirt and said "thanks". Well, I hope you enjoyed our 2 days at the beach!!

Lets look at summer

I don't know about you, but I am tired of winter. The sun was out for a while today, on my way back from the grocery store. It is good it was because it helped me dry out from getting rained on going to the store. I have just decided that even if I am tired of winter, we can look at summer in some layouts. Think warm, think beach, think family picnics and relaxing. My daughter just sent me a note about this one. She was happy I did it for her. Guess that means she liked it. As she has been having a really tough time I am glad maybe she smiled when she saw this. School, bills, work, homework, winter, lots of snow and now car problems and a sick daughter...I guess I would be a bit at the end of my rope also. We were at Log Lake, a park and camping area just outside of Kalkaska last summer when this was taken. It is half way between where my daughter lives and where we stay when we are in Michigan, and close for my mom and brother. It is our annual birthday/family picnic with family and friends. We spend the entire day there, eating, playing games, blowing bubbles, swimming, talking and of course, taking photos. Knock on wood we always have good weather when we plan the day!

Beautiful sunrises, not beautiful weather pics!!

I cannot believe I have just misplaced how ever much time and not blogged! I did get a short, and I do mean short monthly letter out to everyone, and have gotten a few replies. I told everyone to watch here, this is where I am keeping things up and have done zero... 'bad toad'! It has been a busy week, I worked every day this week and but will only work 4 days next week, Monday thru Thursday. Friday Michel is taking off and we will have a 3 day weekend together. I also start French class next week, Tuesday morning, so will have to work in the afternoon that day instead. Eeek! French class is beginning again. And she said a test that morning to see how much we have "retained" or know for those who will be new in the class.

Everyone has been talking weather..so my last challenge for Gotta Pixel was on the weather. I did a layout, and realized we have hit every single kind of weather this month. You can see above that we had (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right) rain, fog...which was so think you could hardly see the building just next to us! Sunshine, a beautiful day, several actually, but I only took a photo of one, and that small one on the bottom right. The arrow is pointing to the snow which is piling up against the window. That was actually the 2nd time we have had snow since my challenge started the 27th of January, but only got the one picture that you could actually see we had snow. We used to say in Michigan that just wait a bit, if you did not like the weather right now it would change. As you can see, I can say the same thing about Paris!