Brother & Sister

Here's a recent photo of beautiful Hayden. Isn't her grin cute?















Here's a photo of Noah when he was about the same age. You can sure tell they're brother & sister can't you?

First day of school

School started here today. In honor of that I'm answering Deb's meme about school.

1. Who was your best friend? I had a group of best friends. Pat and Linda and Cheryll come to mind immediately. Unfortunately we lost Cheryll to cancer earlier this year.

2. Did you play any sports? Not really, although I did join the field hockey team one year. I don't think the coach ever let me in a game and I still don’t know the rules of the game.

3. What kind of car did you drive? I didn’t own a car in school, but my mother drove a 65 Mustang which was kind of cool. It’s the car I learned to drive in.

4. It’s Friday night. Where were you? Probably baby sitting – or sitting in front of the TV at home.

5. Were you a party animal? Nope. I was clueless in high school and didn’t even realize that others were doing a lot of partying. I made up for it in college though.

6. Were you considered a flirt? I highly doubt it.

7. Were you in the band, orchestra or choir? I was in choir all though high school. I can’t sing very well now (probably too many years of smoking) but back then I wasn’t too bad.

8. Were you a nerd? Oh yes. You should have seen me in my attractive cat eye glasses – sigh.

9. Were you ever suspended or expelled? The closest I got was being called into the assistant principal’s office once for doing something stupid at lunch.

10. Can you sing the fight song? Are you from Redford? Yes I’m from Redford. True Red and Gray. We are together fighting forever …. That’s as far as I can get, but I can hear the tune.

11. Who was your favorite teacher? My English teacher – Ms. Epstein. She was young and hip and I was lucky to have her for several semesters in a row.

12. What was your school mascot? The husky. Someone owned a husky and would bring it to football games.

13. Did you go to the Prom? Yep – it was held on Friday the 13th. Our prom was officially the last event in our senior year. It was held 2 days after graduation.

14. If you could go back, would you? Hell no, but I wouldn’t minding being the size I was then (and I thought I was fat then!)

15. What do you remember most about graduation? I don’t really remember it at all – it was a loooong time ago.

16. Where were you on Senior Skip Day? I was such a nerd that if our school had one I didn’t know about it! I skipped a lot of my senior year without it being a special day.

17. Did you have a job your senior year? I worked part time at Ford Motor Company in the same office as my mother.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? Nobody left school for lunch so if I had a lunch hour I would have been in the cafeteria. By the time I was a senior I only had classes until noon – the school was overcrowded so upperclassmen had a short day schedule – so I didn’t do lunch at all.

19. Have you gained weight since then? Oh yeah!

20. What did you do after graduation? The day of graduation my mother made me go to work. I wanted to attend the senior luncheon, but she wouldn’t let me take the day off. By the next week I was working full time at Ford and continued there for a year until I left for college.

21. What year did you graduate? 1969 – the summer of Woodstock.

22. Who was your Senior Prom Date? Gary. I have no idea where he is now.

23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? I did attend my 10 year reunion. Haven’t been to one since then though. (although I’m not sure they’ve done anything since 20 years anyway.)

I learned recently that my old high school is going to be shut down. Since portions of the building were built way back in the 1920’s I expect the place is looking pretty shabby.

Birthday Party

Noah had his birthday party today at the local water park. (these photos are not from today - they're from the park's website)

It was fun playing in the various water features. I even went down the big slide once (and only once). I guess if the 6 year old kids can do it so can I! I think the best part was the floating down the lazy river. Jerry and I got in a double tube and just rode the current for about half an hour.

I'm a bit sunburned, but it was a fun day.

A Quilt for Hayden

I actually started and finished a project while at the retreat this year. This cute little quilt for Hayden measures only 20 x 20, so it was fast to construct. I don't know why I never thought of it before, but the others there recommended that I use a decorative stitch for the quilting. It turned out really well. I delivered it to Hayden today. She's too young to express an opinion about it, but Chrystal seemed to like it.

More on the Beach Retreat

Here are photos of my table mates at our Beach Retreat. In the green is Jolene. She does fabulous applique work and worked on several pieces during the weekend. Frances has on the tie-dye shirt. She did that cute train quilt on the wall behind her. She also did a darling sailboat quilt, which unfortunately I missed getting with the camera.



















This is Karen decked out in her flamingo attire for our Saturday night event.













This is also Karen after spilling a cup of (thankfully cold) coffee all over herself. Luckily there wasn't much damage to her fabric! Much hilarity ensued while she was on the floor trying to clean up the mess.

Beach Retreat 2007

I'm back today from my guild's annual retreat to the beach. I'll post more later, but here is a photo of the entire group. Every year we have a theme, and I think it's obvious that this year's theme was the 60's. Our tie-dyed shirts were so bright that we decided the space shuttle could see us.

(photos are clickable for larger version)















Here's a shot of the two cute boys that very kindly took our group photos for us. We must have handed them 8 cameras for photos and they did it all with a smile.

First Cars

We were talking recently about first cars. My first car was a 1961 VW Beetle. It was like this one except for the white paint on the doors. (clickable photo)



I bought the car from my Aunt & Uncle for $200 and had to learn to drive a stick for it.


The only other car I've purchased on my own was my 1990 Miata.


I had 10 good years with my Miata and it still looked great when I traded it in for my current car (another convertible!)







I leave in the morning for my guild's annual beach retreat. We'll spend the weekend sewing and socializing. I'll be back on Monday.

Too much time on his hands?

Jerry gets a magazine called "Make" that contains a bunch of odd projects.

One project he decided to try was to make "The Brain Machine" a sound and light machine that produces sound and light pulses at brain wave frequencies. This is supposed to help a person sleep, wake up, meditate or experience a pre-programed state of consciousness. (huh?)

He finished the contraption today and tried it out. He puts on the special glasses and an LED light pulses and a constant sound comes through the earplugs.




It must work because he fell asleep on the couch when he tried it out! Looks kind of odd though don't you think? If you click on the link to the magazine (click on the highlighted word Make above) you'll see the cool looking glasses the author of the article made.





Here's what he looks like without his funky glasses! He's much cuter without them!

Cute grandkids!

The kids were here last night for dinner. We think Noah and Hayden are the cutest, but I suppose we're a little partial. Hayden will be 7 weeks old on Monday and Noah will be six in a couple of weeks. He's looking forward to his birthday party at the water park. (photos are clickable for a larger view)














I like this photo of Hayden better than the one below, but I like Noah in the 2nd photo better than in this first photo.















We just couldn't catch Hayden with a smile. She is just so sweet when she smiles at you.