Old photos

I am in a bit of cleaning frenzy today and found these old photos.
Between my divorce, my mom's divorces and moving around
a lot, I don't have many pictures of myself growing up.
The first two are of me about 6 or 7 years old when we lived
in Florida. They are all grainy because I just took pictures
of the pictures.

Me (8 years old) and my mom in Florida. Early 60's

About 9 years old, living in New Mexico.




10 years old at the Yucca Motel pool in New Mexico.

Surly teen years. I think about 14 years old. We had moved

to Bellingham by this time. I hated it here.

My 19th birthday (New Years Eve). Still looking kinda surly.

Gotta love that brassy blonde.

19 years old on my wedding day (1973) with my

brother, Sean, and sister, Megan. The blonde is

looking better.



21 years old. This was taken just after Brooke was born.

I look like crap!

Well, back to the cleaning!

San Antonio in November

Another lovely trip to San Antonio to visit Kari.
My friend, Hope, also went. Our planes left and
arrived about the same time, but we were on
different flights. I decided at the last minute to
go with her and it would have cost me a lot more
to get on her flight. Worked out great though.
The weather was perfect....sunny and 70 to low
80's. I now have perfected the Xanax dose for my
fear (sheer terror) of flying. The plane rides were a piece
of cake, although I don't think I could have passed
one of those police sobriety tests when I got off the plane.
I would fall on my face if I had tried that heel-toe walk
in a straight line thing. Generally I do not sleep on planes
or shuttle bus rides, because I am afraid I will snore.
Didn't care and I happily snoozed away on the 3 hour
shuttle bus ride back to Lynden.




Vineyard just outside Wimberly Texas.









Not a very good picture, but it was a beautiful spot.


We did some wine tasting here, but their wine really


wasn't very good.

Crafting at Michaels

On Saturday mornings from 10-noon, for $5 per kid, Michaels
has a crafting session for kids. Mom's can shop while the kiddies
play. This kept them quite entertained for an hour. The older
kids could have stayed longer working on projects, but Dane
was DONE and HUNGRY.


Maia making a scrapbook.


Davis getting ready to paint his initial on canvas



Dane creating design for his mask.




The happy grandkids with their creations!

The biggest hit though were the containers of Flarp I got them.
I heard flarping sounds and hysterical laughter all the
way home! For some reason they kept dedicating the especially
juicy flarps to me.

The love of my life!

Many years ago, shortly after my husband and I divorced, I met and dated a man that I thought was my soul mate. I was completely swept off my feet, head over heels in LOVE. He was........beautiful! Unfortunately, he was also commitment phobic. We went back and forth for several years. I finally realized I was ADDICTED to this man and cut off any contact with him. I did not allow friends to bring up his name. I even wore a rubber band on my wrist for while and snapped it every time I would start thinking about him.

It took a long time, but I did get over him. It helped that he also moved far, far away to another state. I did hear several years ago that he finally did get married......to someone MUCH younger of course. I then found out a couple of years ago that he and his wife had moved back here, but we live in opposite ends of the county. I avoid going to the part of town he lives in or any stores in that area for fear of running into him and his probably gorgeous young wife.

Okay. Today I was standing at the counter talking to a coworker. A man walked in, with his face sort of turned away from me, and I immediately put on the greet the public smile and said "Can I help you?" He turned towards me and I thought that looks like........... then he started to speak....OMG, IT IS HIM! I just turned around and walked right to the back, out of sight. I actually hid out in a back office until he left. I had to hide for about 40 minutes.

Why did I do that? I have gained a LOT of weight since I saw him last many, many years ago. I have no idea if he even had time to register who I was I left so quickly. He only got about two words out. Fortunately, my coworker said he hadn't noticed that I had walked away.

When you run into an old boyfriend you want to look really, really good. You want him to think "Damn, she looks hot. I should have hung onto her." not "Damn, she looks like shit. Glad I didn't stay with her." Although I was having a good hair day, the weight, wearing my Disney sweatshirt and big ole clunky Keen sandals (with white socks) did not make me feel at all old boyfriend worthy.

He, on the other hand, looked fantastic. I now have to quit my job and move to another state.

Winter Blahs

I really have a problem with winter. I HATE IT! Starting September 1 I start feeling the blahs coming on. I am now in my full-blown winter funk. I guess that is why I have not written on my blog.

To help myself out of it, I decided to go to San Antonio with my friend Hope to visit our friend Kari. Thank you Kari for moving someplace warm and sunny for me to visit. I got a great airfare deal, only $216. Couldn't pass that up. We are leaving Nov. 13 for 5 days. This will be my third visit in less than a year. I suspect my next visit will be February the way I am going. I have some sewing projects to finish up before I go. Since Kari reads my blog I can't be more specific.

Weight---*^&($#*)@#!!!! I have been very good at diet and exercise for the last week. I have been weighing myself every day. I have found I stick to diets better if I do this. The scale has been going up and down all week, but according to yesterday's weigh in I lost 3 pounds. This morning I got on the scale and it said I GAINED 0.2 pounds. WHAT!!!! I went for a long walk first thing yesterday morning, very good about food intake, made and ate Zero point Weight WAtchers soup, etc. NO WAY I didn't lose weight. So, I got back on the scale, now it said I had lost 2 pounds. Huh? Got on again, said I had gained 0.8 pounds. Got on again, said I had lost 1.5 pounds. Got on about 3 more times, every time said something different. It is a digital WW scale that I got about a year ago. I think the battery must be going, so who knows what I have lost or gained, or really what my starting weight was. Before I weighed last Saturday, I hadn't weighed myself in about 5 months. Will get new battery today. If I find out that weigh even MORE than I do now, I will beat my head against the wall. I tell ya, stomach stapling is starting to sound like a good idea.

Well, I am off to RiteAid for a new battery and hair dye. I need to cover up the horrible highlighting job I did to myself a couple of weeks ago.