Floss, Wire, String, Eyelets and Fibers

For those of you that scrapbook, you know how many different types of items there are to use in scrap booking. I was at a loss as to how to store these items so they would be readily available for use and be easy to store and see. I find that if the scrapbook items I have are out of sight, they don't get used.

A few years ago, I cut up some stiff cardboard I got from the back of the girls notepads. I made it about 2 1/2 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches wide. I then started winding all my larger pieces of different laces, cording, edging and ribbons around them and stored them in a large clear plastic bin. It is the size of bin just larger that the shoe box.

I did this with all the rick-rack and any other type of lace or ribbon. I placed them by color and type. I ended up with three of these bins allowing for eyelet, edging and ribbons.

For the smaller fibers, wire, colored string (I use for tatting flowers etc) and floss. I use the small embroidery floss plastic containers you can get at any craft store. They are $2 at WalMart and have little plastic cards you wind the thread around.

For eyelets, rivets, glitter, gems, brads and any other small confetti, I use the same type of embroidery floss holder but it is the larger size. I go to the craft section in WalMart and buy the 100 count of small bags (which I also use for my homemade suckers and jewelry findings and bead storage.) These bags cost $1 for 100. A penny a piece is a deal in my book. The sucker blog is here: http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2010/10/suckers-lollipops-and-flavorful-treats.html

The jewelry blog is here:http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2011/02/making-jewelry-beading-part-1.html

I place all the small items by type and then color in the different sections. I have really enjoyed using this method as everything I need is very easily seen and used. I only have to open the top to remove the needed item rather than digging in a file or bin looking for it.

I cut off a small piece of fiber from my yarn and wound it on the plastic bobbins at first but now that I have my yarn so easily available, I don't need to do that anymore.

I keep my eyes open at yard sales, second hand stores, discount sections at stores and clearance bins for cute ribbons, bindings and lace. All the rick-rack you see in the pictures and most of the lace and eyelet was purchased that way. I used to use eyelet ribbon lots on baby quilts so most of that I bought on sale new but the rest came from always checking the discount places.

I like having this on hand for any project. I never know what I will need and it was fun having all the items available and organized for when I made the aprons last week. Apron blog:http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2011/03/overall-cutest-aprons-part-2.html

How blessed I am to have the place to store it and to have found it all at a discount. I rarely have to go to the store when I am doing a project. I usually have everything I need at my fingertips.

Happy organizing.

Filipino, Indian, Turkish Rice - Shawarma Rice

My oldest decided she would share something she ate in the Philippines with us. She went out and bought the ingredients we didn't have on hand and started making this dish.

Shawarma Rice

4 cups cooked white rice

2 lbs hamburger

1 package frozen veggies of carrot, peas and corn

half a cucumber chopped

2 small tomatoes chopped

1 cup cheese grated (we used two kinds)

1 egg per person

small container of plain yogurt

1/2 small onion minced (purple onion is best)

chopped garlic

Olive oil

lemon juice

salt, pepper and season all

Tamari soy sauce

First, Mix yogurt, a splash of lemon juice, a small spoon of crushed garlic, about a tsp of olive oil and salt together. This is the sauce.

Brown and drain meat. Heat large fry pan on the stove and put olive oil, garlic and salts in the pan and saute onion. Pour in rice. Once that is mixed well, stir in veggies and soy sauce. Next pour in the hamburger and mix it all well.

At this point, start frying one egg per person. While the egg is frying, scoop some of the rice mixture into a dish. Cover with cucumber, tomatoes and cheese.

When the egg is done, place the egg on top of the cheese and cover with yogurt sauce. Mix the egg and sauce into the rice and eat. She said that they don't always cook the egg but they crack it over the hot rice and meat and it cooks in the bowl. She also said they use roasted beef for the meat but she wasn't sure how to get that so she used hamburger.

I had a bit of a hard time with the raw garlic in the yogurt sauce but if it were roasted a bit first and then add the yogurt, it would have been a warm sauce and would have been just as tasty. The family enjoyed it.

I was hoping for something a bit more spicy but she explained that the recipe really isn't Filipino, but, it is something they enjoy there. Any way I look at it, I enjoyed not having to cook. I helped with the dishes and it was a good night. Thanks Darling Princess number 1 for all your cooking and giving me the night off.

Scanning All Photos For Cheap and Quickly

I had some pictures that have all of my girls in them. I wasn't sure which child to give the original copy. I wanted them all to have a copy but didn't and still don't have the time to "scrap" them.

The other day, I went to WalMart to scan some items from my mothers life and took the piles of family photos that I have been holding so I could "scrap" them and color copy them and give them to each girl.

I had my oldest come with me and she worked on scanning the family photos and I worked on scanning all the newspaper articles and photos of my mothers life. It doesn't begin to touch all that my mother has but I had pulled out a few things from each "pile" so I had a good covering for a few main years.

We went to WalMart and they have 3 scanning "booths" and two other machines to order from different media. We were there for over 3 hours scanning and cropping the photos. I liked that they had the program to scan many items at the same time and it for the most part captured them and we just had to flip and sometimes move a border and it would save them and then put them all on a disc.

I used one machine and she another. She scanned almost 600 family photos while I scanned almost 200 photos and news articles. Here is my favorite part. It burnt them all onto a cd and gave us thumbnails all for $3.15 each disc. Now, all our family photos before we owned a digital camera are on one disc.

The next day after going and picked up the discs, (we had to order them because it closed while we were still working on scanning.) I had the thought, "If the house went, flooded, burned or after they move out and something happens to their scrapbooks, we have nothing."

So, I thought to myself, if we take down each girls photos/albums and scan each girls stuff onto its own disc, we will have all the photos we would need for a wedding album, etc on one disc. Then, I can put them all onto our backup drive that I store off site and if anything happens to our computer, back up drive, etc, we will still have all their pictures available from their life. All for $3.15.

We are going to go down this week hopefully and get started on my eldest daughters albums and take down the pages that she has already scrapbooked and get those scanned also.

I can't tell you how many times I wanted to add photos about something I was blogging about but didn't want to take the time to go sorting through their bins and albums looking for it just to have to scan it etc. This way, I will load them all onto the back up drive and I can search and pull them out easily.

I think I am grateful that WalMart is in town and that they don't charge for scanning. If you are going to do this, take a clean t-shirt rag to clean the scanner every few scans as your fingers leave oil marks which can mar the photos or scans.

Try going early in the morning rather than after school or after work hours /evening when the scanners and photo booths will be busy. Make friends with the workers and they will help you figure things out. Lastly, take a few sheets of white printer paper so if you are scanning something smaller, you don't get the top of the scanner in the shot as it makes you have to "crop" the items.

Some people said they would rather scan at home but that leaves one person doing it. If you go to Walmart on a slow morning, you can have three scanning 5-6 photos at a time. It goes VERY quickly compared to doing it at home. Plus, if anything goes wrong, Walmart can reprint your order. They ended up printing mine again as we thought there were two Cd's on one order and 4 on the other when they all actually fit onto one CD. So, I ended up getting a copy CD for free with the thumbnails so I can share the CD of my mom's stuff with my sister. Another thing to be Grateful for in my life!

I am looking forward to being able to post more "older" photos soon.

"Overall" Cutest Aprons Part 2

So, I got busy this weekend and finished the "Overall" aprons for my girls for Easter. I may have a fight on my hands for the turquoise blue one however. I think I will just have to have them draw numbers or something. If you click on the photo, it will make it larger so you can see them better.

I used three different types of overalls. I used an overall skirt, overall shorts and regular overalls. The skirt/dress one was by far the easiest and is the widest apron. The shorts made for a little shorter apron but worked about the same as the regular overalls.

I liked the look of the rick-rack on the pockets and liked the more "fringe" looking lace or findings on the bottom. Here is a photo of all the bottoms so you can see the variety that I used.

I also liked the look of the larger rick-rack for the tie but don't think it will tie as well and the larger rick-rack is quite expensive so I would suggest using ribbon of some kind.

I also liked the look of the "character" overalls. It gave it a bit more color and didn't need as much decorating. However, you are then limited to the color of the character. If using a solid overall, you can choose any type of decoration you want. You could even use an iron on decoration of some kind.

The possibilities are endless. I made the black one for my older girls thinking they would like something not so "colorful" and "child like" but was surprised that they liked the more "bling" looking and colorful aprons.

It did end up taking me over 2 hours to cut, pin, sew and decorate each apron. I broke a few needles on the overalls that had side pockets and carpenter loops in them as they had rivets which I hit a few times. Also the thicker pockets on hemming the sides cost me a few needles. However, the girls are excited about them. They didn't see their own but did see me working on "Something" which they kept wondering about.

I am going to keep my eyes open for a few more pair of overalls at yard sales so I can make them for gifts. Wouldn't it be cute to make one and give it with the recipe book "shower" I posted about a few weeks ago. You could scrap the front to match the apron. That would be a really cute cover picture for the recipe book. The bride in the apron you made for the front picture! Very cute indeed! Here is that post if you missed it. http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2011/03/recipe-binder-briadal-shower-gift.html

I think peeling the vegetables for our Sunday roasts is going to be a much more colorful event after Easter. I'll have to get a photo of them all wearing their aprons and post it after Easter.

"Overall"..... It has been fun making these aprons. :-)

"Overall" Cutest Apron Part 1

My sister told me a few months ago about a really cute pattern she had seen for an apron made out of jean overalls. I was just starting to work on my quilts and was going through the scrap jeans. I had many pair of overalls in the bin because they really aren't popular anymore and was going to use them as a square on the quilt.

When she told me about the apron idea, I pulled out the overalls and put them aside. I then got online and looked at some that others have made. I looked at what I liked and didn't like about them and got some ideas.

Last night I thought I had better get going on Easter presents. Trying to save money, I thought I would try the aprons. I pulled out the one for my fourth daughter who collects "Sesame Street" items and it was a pair of Elmo overalls I wore several years ago. (I am embarrassed to admit that.)

I pulled out my bins of lace, eyelet, rick-rack and ribbons and was happy to find what I had in my "stash" of things. I started by cutting the back off leaving a 1 inch side seam that I could hem on the sides. I then measured how tall I thought she would be grown, (she is almost as tall as I am now) and cut the legs off at the front around the knees.

I then pinned and sewed the front center of the legs from the crotch area to the bottom of the apron. I used dark blue thread for hemming the sides and doing the seams. I also used the dark thread when I was sewing the back of the neck part together. I tried first making arm holes and leaving the whole overall part front and back but they were falling off unless I had a ribbon to tie them around the neck.

What I came up with was just cutting the overall just below where the straps come together at an angle. I then sewed right sides together and surged or zig-zagged the raw edge so it wouldn't fray. I was worried it wouldn't be comfortable but was pleasantly surprised at how it felt. I worked on another today and I had to actually cut the straps a bit shorter than that so it wouldn't hang so low. Just measure your straps and pin it at different intervals before cutting or sewing making sure it is comfortable and at the right height.

I decided to keep all the original buttons on since they were "character" buttons and even though the side one's aren't really functional, they looked cute when I cut a slit into the bow ribbon and slid the ribbon over the button like it was a button hole. I pinned on the ribbon and sewed it on both sides with a large zig-zag stitch so it wouldn't pull away or rip from the ribbon if the bow was tied tightly. I also sewed the top and bottom of the ribbon. I used the same color thread as the ribbon to help hide the seams.

The pockets were a bit more difficult as I had to use the sleeve arm on the machine to get the needle into the pocket to sew the ribbon or rick-rack on the edge. If you don't want the pockets usable, it would have been easy to stitch but I kinda like the pocket as I know my daughter will keep the cell phone or ipod in them. You could stitch them by hand if you couldn't get the needle right. Just experiment with directions. I got further stitching going one way more than the other.

I used large rick-rack for the apron string on the one I made tonight and just thick ribbon for the one I showed today.

The thing I like the best about these is that the overall straps make it adjustable up and down. The buttons let you take the apron off around your neck rather than over your head. I hate when my hair is done and I have to pull the apron over my head. The straps with the existing button make it so I can take it off without going over my head.

I showed this to a few of my other daughters and they all thought it was really cute. So, I know I am safe to make the rest for Easter. I started with this one because her birthday is in a few days and if it was hard or not worth the work, I would have skipped doing the rest.

However, I finished another tonight and it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to make. Part of that time is me figuring out what to put on as accents. I think they will be quicker and quicker now that I have made two. However, the one I did tonight was a dress so it was even easier.

If you are going to buy some overalls to do this, I suggest you go to the dress section of a used clothing store and look there. Then, take the overalls with you to the store and buy the notions you want to decorate it.

There are so many options..... It will be fun to get them all made. I'll show you the finished products. The best thing is how sturdy they are. I have a few flimsy one's that have gotten stained and ripped. I doubt that will be a problem with these. It may just be fun to be cooking in the kitchen after Easter!

I was thinking how cute this would be made out of Dad's or Grandpa's work overalls. It would be functional memorabilia. I have a pair of actual train engineer overalls I bought at a yard sale in San Fransisco when I was 16 on vacation that I wore through each of my pregnancies. It would be fun to make one out of those with a red bandanna for the neck tie or something.

If you make some, share your ideas with me!

Dream Believer Part 3 & Valentines Again Part 4

It was January 2010. I had a dream and it was in color and was so vivid I told my older sister about it. She thought it had meaning in her life because she was working with someone whose name was the name of the person in my dream. I wasn't so sure but it was just a dream so I didn't pay much attention.

I was driving 5 hours back from a wedding and got a text message. My phone screen had cracked being set down next to a power plug for our printer. I didn't have texting, hated texting, usually didn't read or reply to texts and at this point, couldn't read but 1/2 of the text because my phone screen was cracked.

I had a new phone in my bag that someone had given me at the wedding that I needed to charge before changing it over. So, this would be the last day on my old phone. Being alone without any of the kids in the car I actually looked at the text. Usually being busy with the kids, I didn't even open texts.

I couldn't make out much from the text other than something about AZ friend. I really couldn't think of anyone in Arizona that I knew and couldn't read enough of the text to get an idea of the content so being alone, I called the person. A man answered and I said, hello and told him who I was and that I couldn't read his text because my phone screen was cracked but that I couldn't place the number and asked who it was.

He said he was with his grandchildren and needed to go into the other room so he could hear. He said his name and it didn't ring any bells. He told me that we had gone out about three years ago and that at the time, I told him he wasn't ready for a relationship only being out of his divorce recently and he now had realized I was right.

Well, I used to date tons and have told quite a few men something similar to that so I thought it was someone I went out with a few years ago but I couldn't place him so I questioned further. We talked for 20 minutes before he mentioned snow. I told him we didn't have any and it depended on where you lived in the state. He said, "I know where you live."

That was the clincher for me. I am so protective of my kids that I knew I didn't know him. I told him I thought he had the wrong woman. He told me he didn't think I remembered him. I asked him who he thought he was talking with and he said, "Susan." I laughed and laughed. That isn't my name. We kept talking and found out we were both on the same dating site. We were both the same religion and had both been single for some time.

I guess he put my number in about 3 years ago thinking it was Susan's number. If he had called one day later, I would have texted him back saying he had the wrong person. Or, if I had called at a different time and he could have actually heard me say my name etc. So many weird situations had to come together to have that happen.

We both thought it was weird so decided to continue talking. We spoke often and one night I was talking to my sister and she said, "Oh my, he is the guy from your dream." I had forgotten my dream but she was right. I first saw his photo on the internet on a newspaper, he was in the medical field, but the rest was stuff I wasn't sure of. So, that night, as I was talking to him, I read him my dream. (I keep a dream journal for really vivid dreams now.) He was silent and changed the subject so I thought I had weirded him out.

He told me later on the call that he was getting his house ready for an open house. We talked further and I found out that he owned his house but didn't. Someone he knew was losing it to the bank so he stepped in and was making the payments and when it sold, they would split the profit. He said his kids didn't even know that.

Next day, he calls and asks if I can find a way to meet him the next day in a major city. He would fly into my state. I found a ride up and on the way up, I realized that in my dream, the guy owned but didn't own a REALLY nice house. We met and while at lunch, I commented that my dream was right about a few things like him owning the house but not owning the house, his job, the newspaper etc. He then explained why he went silent on the call. He said my dream was right on and asked me to give him details about my dream. He asked me questions down to the type of shrubs by the house.

Turns out, my dream was 100% accurate about everything down to the shrub type, car type, colors, everything! He sent a few text pictures of things that went along with the stuff I had seen in my dream.

We were both weirded out by the whole thing. It was Valentines weekend. He took me home. He bought me diamond 1/2 carrot each solitaire earrings and each of my girls a 32 gig Ipod touch and $30 in iTunes money. (Yes, he is extremely wealthy!) I told him we couldn't accept the gifts as they were extravagant.

He asked "If he were a regular guy and took me to dinner, a movie and brought me flowers and a small gift would I take it?" I told him I would. He said, "To me, this is about the same amount percentage wise and it is something I wanted to do for you and your girls. I also wanted you to know where the diamonds came from and that they were perfect. No flaws, that is why I took you to the store to buy them."

In our past conversations, it had come up that my engagement diamond from my marriage was one bought used and that it had flaws. Knowing this, he wanted me to have something perfect. Also, he said he knew that I couldn't afford to get my girls the iPods they wanted but that for him, it wasn't a big deal.

I really appreciated what he taught me with that and something else he taught me. That night when we were driving to my town, he said he bought gift bags for the iPods and would I put them together. He said he bought different types of tissue colors because he knew that was important to girls as he has four daughters of his own. I thought that was silly. I put the bags together with different colored tissue and colorful ribbons.

We gathered the girls around, (I was still having a hard time accepting his gifts as I had rarely let them meet men, let alone get gifts from them) and the girls each chose a bag. When I asked the girls about it later, he was right. The girls each said they picked the bag they did because the like the color of tissue. He was very observant that way.

Anyway, long story shorter. I was cooking dinner the next day when he came for lunch. He was on the computer helping the girls download iTunes and songs etc. I was in the kitchen and was really having a hard time dealing with the gifts and this song came into my head, "This one's for the girls."

I started crying. I knew that all the other Valentines Day gifts, prizes and winnings were for me. This Valentines Day, our Heavenly Father wanted my girls to know He loved them and gave them the thing they wanted most. Something that would have been out of my reach financially but for this man, it was pocket change. My Heavenly Father also wanted me to know that I was worth more than a flawed diamond.

I know that this man wouldn't have flown out to meet me or spend that type of money had I not had that dream and been able to tell him things about his life that even his children didn't know.

I believe my loving Heavenly Father will use many different ways to show his children that He loves them. If you have read my posts about my big Valentines wins you will see how He has shown me for years He loves me. Here are the first two and I have yet to post the biggest win but perhaps I will get to it soon.

http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-first-big-win.html

http://thesecretisgratitude.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-second-big-win-valentines-again.html

The relationship didn't work out as long distance and other factors made it hard. However, I know that the dream and the following gifts were all Gods way of taking care of my family.

That was a year ago and I can't tell you how many times I have thanked my Heavenly Father and his angels for orchestrating such a wonderful melody of events. The phone breaking, his wrong number and text, his grand kids being noisy, my weird dream, both of us being single and religious, his generosity....

My girls still use their iPods daily. They have been a blessing in my life so I can actually get on my computer and they use their iPods saving me from having to share.

Yes, we are Dream Believers!

Dream Believer Part 2

My sister got my mother to the hospital by way of ambulance. She was extremely dehydrated and in shock. It was late at night and my sister called me telling me of what she found. I asked if she wanted me to come up and she said "No, they are doing a cat scan and I will call if you need to come." At this point, the dream hadn't come to my mind. I waited up until late but she never called.

The next morning I got a call waking me. My sister said that they had given my mother fluids and that she thought she would be OK. I asked if she wanted me to come be there for her so she could go home. She said she would be fine. I had warned my oldest daughter (She had just arrived home for a break between switching colleges after getting her associates before starting her Bachelors degree.) that I may have to leave.

The dog was barking when I finished my call. My daughter went to let the dog out and came back and said, "If you are going to go to help grandma, you want to leave now it is starting to blizzard." With a huge rush, the dream came back into my mind.

I called my oldest sister back and said, "Do you remember my dream last week? It is starting to snow here." We both started to cry and I rushed to pack and get out the door to get to my mother.

My mother had septic shock and almost died several time. The MICU staff messed up three times for sure where she would have died had I not been there. Once they transferred her to another unit where she was almost comatose after I kept telling them something was wrong. I got another doctor involved on that unit and he ordered a cat scan and found out that she had a secondary infection on the brain stem and because of that she needed a brain shunt.

They took her in for emergency surgery and within seconds of getting the shunt, she was awake and talking. To my frustration, they put her back on the MICU unit. They gave her every antibiotic available. They called my brother and I into the hall and told us to plan the funeral.

I gave her grapefruit seed extract 15 drops in water three times a day, 10 sprays of 100 ppm colloidal silver every hour and rubbed "brain power" and "Thieves" oil from "Young Living" oil on her feet as I reflexed her head points on her feet.

Within 12 hours my mother who had been non verbal for a day or so was sitting up in bed answering the Dr.'s questions.  Within a day or two, the Neurosurgeons and the MICU Dr.'s were having a war involving internal affairs at the hospital as to whether they should take out the brain shunt yet. MICU Dr.'s wouldn't let the shunt be removed unless my mother had a new MRI showing no infection.

During this time there were two other incidents where my mother could have died dealing with a student nurse moving her head low with a shunt. I was grateful I was there to stop this from happening. The was also another issues with a feeding tube that the Dr. wasn't aware of and was sending her to get an MRI having had constant food.

The MRI showed no infection and no swelling and NONE of the Dr.'s could believe it was her scan. The neurosurgeons were in shock. She recovered so well that within days she was transferred to another facility. There she recovered more with physical therapy and other help with feeding tubes before she could be transferred to a third place for rehab. She couldn't move her left side having laid on it for the two days before we found her and being in bed for over a month dealing with the MICU.

The new hospital wouldn't accept the MRI from the old hospital saying it was impossible for her to recover so quickly. The new scan was perfect and the Doctors had no explanation for it.

She did well and a month later went to the last hospital. In my dream, I had to get her around two corners. She was at a teaching hospital so she was at a school. I drove up in a storm and I saved her life a few times while there. There was a few things at the end of the dream dealing with things in my life that haven't occurred yet but in the dream, they were off in the future.

Since that time, I've had a few other weird things happen with dreams so I will write about that tomorrow. Weird life I have but there is never a dull moment!

Dream Believer - Dream Interpretation

I don't know if any of you have ever had a dream come true but around our house, that is becoming more common. I don't remember many dreams from when I was younger. In fact, I can only recall once ever waking up with a nightmare.

About 12 years ago, I had a dream that was in color. It was the first time I had ever remembered dreaming in color and the dream was so vivid, I remember every detail. I wrote it down. I asked a friend who is similar to what I believe an Indian medicine man would be like. He just "knows" things. He gave me some suggestions of what he thought the dream could mean. Flash forward a few years.

I was going through my divorce. My oldest daughter comes home from visiting with her dad. She said, "Dad told me today that you won't make it. He said you "can't" make it because he has figured it out financially." That may seem like an odd thing to be writing about but in my dream, he told me those exact words as I was struggling to try and "Make it." I stopped what I was doing and went to find where I had written down that dream. Because it was so vivid, I recorded it. Not that any part wasn't still embedded in my brain but I was in shock. As I reviewed the dream, I realized everything to that point had actually happened but the dream still had an ending which hadn't happened.

This was new to me and I started having vivid dreams a bit more often. There were some in color and those were the dreams that were the one's that started coming true. Of course everyone has weird dreams and we don't always know how to interpret or understand them but I believe now after years of doing this that many dreams do have meaning but we just need to learn to understand the symbols. Not very often in dreams do we see letters or words. The impressions come in pictures.

Flash to about 10 years ago. My daughter had a dream that a boy she liked died. He did. She had another dream a few years ago that a boy died, and he did. Over the past two or three years, she has had about 5 dreams come true dealing with others in her life. Some have gotten sick. Some have left school early. Some have moved. All this was without seeing the person recently or talking with them. She wouldn't see them for years, have the dream and find out within a week or so that what she dreamed had come true.

Four years ago last month, I had a dream that was the most intense dream of my life. I dreamed that my mom was going to die if I didn't get to her city during a blizzard. I had to be at the hospital because there would be something only I could do to save her. I was sobbing in the dream. I never have before or since remembered crying in a dream. I stayed with my mom until she "turned two corners and was walking on her own." She was at a school while all this happened.

This dream was so vivid that I called my sisters and told them about the dream and also told my children and my sister-in-law who lives down the street from my mother.

Flash forward a week. My sister called me and asked if I had spoken to my mom. I told her I tried a few times and it was busy and she wasn't answering her cell phone. My sister had been trying also. She called another sister and asked about her. This sister had visited with her on Saturday and said my mom had a fever so she gave her some fever reducing pills and juice and put her to bed. None of us lived close to my mother. My sister called my oldest brother who lived down the street and asked him to check on my mom. He was busy but said he would later.

My sister felt stressed and something told her she needed to visit my mom. She drove with her husband the hour drive and used the hidden key to get in. My mom had fallen in a fever while getting dressed and way lying stuck on the floor between the dresser and her bed on her left side. She had been there for two days.

The two books pictured are the ones I use if I have a question about a dream. The one at the top is my favorite. It has been chewed on by our dog, the pages have fallen out and I had to take it to be bound recently. I have bought others but didn't keep them as these two seemed to be more accurate in my life. Many people have asked me to interpret their dreams using the books and they have also agreed with the interpretation. If you decide to get one, I suggest Betty Bethards, "The Dream Book."

To be continued.....

Fairy Tale Evening - Jr. Prom 2011

Prom was Friday night for darling number three. Once again my wonderful father came driving 6 hours for one dance but who wouldn't want to dance with this princess?

We were so blessed to be able to get her dress for under $100 new because it needed a new zipper. I fixed the zipper and altered the shoulders and took in the top and she looked beautiful.

She was voted first attendant to the Prom Queen who ended up being one of her best friends so we took lots of fun photos of the two during the evening.

She enjoyed her date and went to the breakfast put on by the school after. It was a wonderful night. Thanks to my sister and our girls who did much of the work putting everything together, it was beautiful.

Three down and two to go. Such a wonderful time in a teenagers life! I had a fun night getting to dance with her for a few minutes and my sweet father stayed a little extra and danced with all my girls. The smiles were huge knowing their grandpa wanted to dance with them.

The funniest moment was when I took over dancing with my daughter for a minute and my father started dancing with my brother-in-law. We got a few funny photos and all had a great evening while creating wonderful memories. I am so grateful for the blessings in my life.