And now for something completely different

This post is being typed on our 2005 computer keyboard.  You know the one — it is hooked up to our 2005  desktop computer — the one that is used by our high-schooler who is taking 6 AP courses. You know the one — the kid who has one more week before the AP exams begin.  This is also the computer my husband normally uses when I am hogging the laptop which happens to be mine but we do share it in the evenings or whenever he is tired of the old 2000XP with a tiny brain.

I’m finding it difficult to read posts on this screen despite the fact that it is newer than everything but the mouse in front of me.  Everything looks different on this computer, and not just because all of my pictures (the ones that aren’t on the external hard drive) are on my laptop which crashed at the end of last week.  Did I mention that all my photos since we moved here (nearly 2 years ago) are on my laptop?

I am hopeful that the photos can be recovered. I refuse to think anything but that!

I’m back safely at home again after an amazingly restful weekend (except for the 675 miles put on the minivan) and I have photos of the gorgeous place where I went on a women’s retreat but they are stuck in the camera (the photos, not the women).  Those pictures are going to have to stay in the camera until the laptop gets back from the doctor.   The planned My Town Monday posts will have to wait for a while, too, because my laptop crashed at the end of last week.   (Did I mention that already?)

If you need to find me, I’ll either be sitting in the corner with a dunce cap on my head crying over lost photos  or fulfilling the pressing needs of one of my other creative outlets.

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PS:   I use the word “typed” because this keyboard feels and sounds like the typewriters on which I honed my skills in high school typing class.

PPS:   Please  tell me you had typing class and not keyboarding or computer class!

And she’s off!

1. I find it funny that you all think MM looks just like his dad because in some ways, he looks the most like me of all of our kids. However, I’ve often said that I don’t know who the mom is [about each of them], so I know you’re right. SuperDad does have a foursome of mini-mes. 
2. I walked through the house just after dawn this morning. Everyone else was asleep, including the cat, and it was so peaceful. The furnace was humming, the coffee was nearly done dripping into the pot, the early morning light was bathing the street.
3. And then I looked around and saw clutter everywhere: the kitchen counters, the kitchen table, the coffee table! (Do you sense a theme here?) Nearly every flat surface was covered in clutter. Gah!! And do you want to know the worst of it? Nearly all of that clutter was mine.
   No wonder my kids’ rooms are such disaster zones! Pot, meet Kettle… Kettle, Pot.
4. Obviously the solution is to bring me flowers.
       What? Don’t you know that flowers cure every ill?
   ……….That is, unless you are allergic to them………..
   Seriously, when the daffodils around here finally get on with it and bloom already! — SuperDad will cut a few of them, put them in a vase, and voila! the impetus to make everything just as pretty will kick in and I will declutter every flat surface within 100 feet.
   At least that is the way it works in my brain.
5. I’m off for yet another weekend away from my clutter. This time I am attending a women’s retreat put on by my MIL’s church. It’s the second year in a row that all 6 women in the family (moms over the age of 21) plan to be there. Apparently the rest of the ladies think it’s a hoot that the clan of 6 of us all attend.  Unfortunately, there are a few difficulties that showed up in the past week, and not all of us can stay the whole time: one SIL (bless her) will leave early to host a birthday party for a boy whose brother has cancer, allowing his parents to focus on the kid who just had brain surgery (have I mentioned lately how much I hate cancer?) and my MIL’s aunt passed away this week at the age of 97 — a good, long life but she leaves my MIL as the eldest in that line. That memorial service is on Saturday so now we may well be attending a retreat with my MIL’s church without my MIL! 😦     Proof that life doesn’t always work out the way you plan.

*Hopefully Rapunzel (my DIL) will be able to attend with us after she graduates from college in 2014.

Too Slow Tulips

slow and hesitant
spring arrives in baby steps
waiting to open

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As it turns out, this post pairs nicely with Carmi’s Thematic Photographic this week!

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22 on April 22

Today’s Time Warp Tuesday post is brought to you by the number:

22

(and by Jenn at Juggling Life. Visit here to see the other participants and their photos).

Why 22?  No, you haven’t gone on a magic carpet ride to visit Sesame Street although that would be kind of fun for some of us! Twenty-two is the magic number for this Time Warp Tuesday post because this baby…

was born on April 22nd — Earth Day 1991 — and is now all grown up:

I’m so proud of the young man you have become. 

MusicMan is a married man

Happy 22nd Birthday to my firstborn son!

A Beautiful Mess

 

I purchased more Vintage Venetian seed beads recently. They are tiny.

Vintage Venetian seed beads, silver-lined, 11/0

Really, really tiny…

So tiny that when dropped on the light-colored carpet, it is extremely difficult to see these little gems… and yet I search and search* to make sure I haven’t missed one.

So tiny that I am having difficulty stringing them onto the jewelry wire… wire that measures 0.46mm (0.018 inches) in diameter. It might be easier if they weren’t silver-lined, which is creating havoc with my ability to poke the wire through their supposedly hollow tubes (sometimes they jump when poked… hence the searching on the carpet). These beads are one hundred years old but they are lovely beads and it will be worth it in the end, even if I am growling over the process right now.

And then there is the red/white/clear lanyard (see bottom of the picture to the right of this paragraph) that I’ve been working on recently. I’ve beaded and unbeaded it over the past 2 weeks, playing with the design to get the most pleasing patterns of color. Finally, I was satisfied with it on Thursday night and crimped the ends.  Saturday afternoon, I was picking it up to move it and photograph it and I noticed:

Arrrrgh!

I should never finish anything off right before bedtime.

I’d messed up the pattern on one end during the last inch of beading. It’s a small mistake, but it can’t stay.

Beading is a bit like life in that way. Little things count and they can make a big difference.

And people? People are often a beautiful mess.

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Sunday things on my mind:

“Jesus loves the little children — all the children of the world!
Red and yellow, black and white — they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

*Luke 15: 8-10 (parable of the lost coin)

I’m tremendously grateful for the Love that will not let me go. 
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Diving head-first into Spring

Do you have a caption for this photo? Look closely before answering!

About April

A few times a year, I step back from life online.
The entire month of April has turned out to be one of those times.

Grandpa with SnakeMaster and H-J

We’ve put a lot of miles on the ol’ minivan in April — about 3,000 miles.
The month started out with a long road trip to visit my dad. 

Sometimes a person just needs to take a little time off to deal with busy-ness in schedules and to pay attention to family and household needs.

And sometimes a person just needs to sit down and pet the cat, especially when the family goes away for 9 days! Cleopatra approves of this payment, even if she does not approve of family vacations. My visiting friend KCINNOTX was happy to oblige the queen kitty.

Psssst! Cleopatra misses you, K. 😦

I’ve also been gathering up photos to use for My Town Monday, thanks to KCINNOTX’s visit here this past week, so in May I will attempt to begin sharing those pictures on a regular basis. 

KCINNOTX in front of the lower falls on the Spokane River downtown

At the wedding of a mutual friend

over the weekend
we celebrated friendship
begun long ago

Now I have a plan!

Today, I am thankful

…for BEAUTY

flowers in the Nevada desert near Hoover Dam

…for WONDER

Superdad hiking in the Fiery Furnace, Arches National Park

…for FAMILY

silly siblings: me with my almost-twin brother at our Tucson hotel

…for BALANCE

Balanced Rock, Arches National Park

…that the storms of life surrounding us cannot erase HOPE. 

springtime desert storms at Arches National Park