Five Shadows

I just had my first lesson on importing photos to iPhoto. DH showed me how to enhance and then save them in their proper folder. So here is a test run - with the photos out of order. I’ll have to work on that… The first photo is of two of the guys digging post holes. The second shows the pickets being screwed in place. Third,  the first picket going up. And the last photo is of a vertical post taken out while the post hole is dug deeper. The young man is acting as the “post.” We are such a funny group! The privacy fence is being built around an equipment yard at a camp for inner city children. My daughter wrote and won a grant through Youth as Resources. She used the grant money to purchase the materials for the fence. Each step through the grant process has been a wonderful learning experience for her. She is the young lady in the blue hoodie.

I keep hoping that I’ll have time to learn how to better manage this blog - and my DH has promised to show me a few things. So here is hoping that with the end of the semester his promise will come true! For the past several weeks we have been having phone problems. Lots of static on the line. The phone company sent out the service guy and he worked in the outside box and on the telephone pole. The noise on the line stopped …. for a few days and then was back in full static noisiness. Two more frustrating weeks and phone calls to the company later, we as of this morning have a new line buried out side and a phone that is once more working! All this time the internet connection was creeping along at slow speed and often we could not connect. That seems to be solved too!

The Prom was a huge success! I have pictures to share but as I said… I need to learn how to better manage this site and formatting the photos is one of the things I need to learn.

And I’m learning to use my DH digital camera! You may all be laughing at that, but I’m just not a camera person. That being the case, I took 75 photos yesterday at a service day for my children’s 4-H club. And I’m proud to say I think they turned out pretty darn well! Again - I promise to share them, here, soon. And I’ll tell you about that the project ‘cas it was made possible by a Grant my daughter won through Youth as Resources.

It is so pretty out today. After a week of rain it is warm and sunny. (Rain in the forecast again for tomorrow, Mother’s Day - bummer. We might have to miss our usual trek to a local State park where we search for the Lady Slippers blooming.) But, the Jack-in-the-Pulpit are blooming in our back yard! They are my favorite spring wild flower!

Prom, Prom, Prom. That is what is happening in my life right now. I’m pleased to say it is all coming together nicely. Food, chocolate fountain, servers, flowers, decorations, rented items, DJ, playlist, portrait photographer, chaperones, set up, tear down, security  - check them off the list, all taken care of! This is not a huge Prom by any means, but no matter the number of teens attending, the details are all still necessary! We guessed we would have 100 teens attend, and at the last count I heard we had 108 teens registered. Tickets sold to 100 teens pay the bills, so insert me doing a happy dance here! Today I worked on sewing up 15 black ties to go around the vases of flowers for our table center pieces.  I’ll have to take pictures of the decorations Friday night to post here after the Prom.  I have two daughters attending this year. Part of Friday involved shopping for the right accessories - shoes and jewelry. I still need to fix straps on their dresses.

Quilting - has not been happening here lately. But here are pictures of three of the five  6″ quilties I made for Lenna’s swap.  

Now that is a funny title for a post, don’t you think? I just have to tell you about the fun day we had on Saturday - a continuation of my last post. On Saturday morning the sleepover girls and several more, headed out with us to Cinderella Dress Day. It is the seventh year that The Boys and Girls Club has teamed up with Peerless Dry Cleaners to offer FREE prom gowns to local high schoolers. Out of the 8 girls with me, 2 did not find a dress they liked, but everyone else left very happy. Of the two not finding a gown, one already has a lovely one from a Purity Ball she just attended with her Dad, so she can wear that one to the prom. And the other young lady is graduating this year and really wanted a special gown. So she headed on to the mall with her sister and found a gorgeous black and white gown that fits this year’s theme to the “T”. The Prom this group of girls will be attending is “Black Tie and City Lights” and I’m heading up the planning this year! I’ll have more to share on that as the prom draws near! When my daughter signed out at Cinderella Dress day, she was #188! They must give away close to 300 gowns!

Tears. Have you seen the movie P.S. I Love You? Have a box of tissues handy if you watch it. The girls and I ate lunch and then headed to the dollar theater for the movie. It was good, but several of us needed tissues!

Circles! Here are two pictures of circle quilts from a class I taught a while back. We used the 8″ Rainbow Block Templates from Elisa’s Backporch. I taught the simple version on the left in class. While the ladies sewed up their blocks, I played around to add more pieces to the blocks, picture on the right. When I sent the quilts to my longarm quilter, she loved them so and she called to say she HAD to have them! So we worked out a trade. I just got them back to take a picture of them, as I had not done so before sending them to be quilted. The one I played around with at the class is the one quilted with spirals. Isn’t it cool!? Guess I’ll have to photo the other one once it is quilted. Perhaps hanging at a show in her vender’s booth.

No sewing yesterday, but I did pull out fabric for the white quilties I have to get cracking on for the swap at Lenna’s. She has several new swaps listed. So check out her blog and see if you are interesting in joining one!

I’m up and running again today - a continuation for yesterday. After running my daughter to work, I came home and baked to cream pies, brownies, and two pans of manicotti. I had help with the manicotti (thanks Charis and Noel!) as I was running out of time before heading back to pick up Anna. Then we met up with my ‘boss’ so to speak. I have a temporary job sewing for a company that makes items for autistic people called Sensory Critters. And I had items to deliver and new kits to pick up. Then Anna and I went out for lunch. It was her birthday and it’s a tradition that either John or I take each of our children out for lunch. Next was our monthly 4-H meeting and my youngest had a little report to give - she applied for and was awarded a $750 grant through Youth As Resources for our 4-H group to use to help a inner city camp we support. We will be building a privacy fence on the camp property this summer with the funds awarded through the grant!

Next was back to our house with friends for a birthday dinner. Smiles and laughs. And then out the door again for several kids heading to different parties. And finally back home with too many 15-16 year olds in tow for a sleepover. Why are they called sleepovers? No one ever sleeps, and the parents don’t seem to be able to catch much sleep either!

That was my busy day! And today I’m off running again to pick up kids, drop kids off to various places.

These are the pretty Valentines I received in the swap at Lenna’s. Sorry I’m so late posting them! The blue one is from Mercedes, the red one is from Lenna, and the white one is from Michele.

At about 6:10 p.m. my plans for the evening changed. I got a call from the Mayor’s Youth Council - my girls attend the monthly meetings - asking for volunteers to do sand bagging as the rivers are about to flood portions of our city. I made two quick phone calls, to two youth group pastors I know, to see if they could arrange to take their teens to volunteer. (It’s Wednesday night, teens are heading to church for 7 p.m. meetings.) Success! both churches sent their teens! I spent about an hour and a half with my girls, a church youth group, a boy scout troop, and a gentleman who just moved to FW - all of us sand bagging. We got cold, wet, sandy, but had a good time and hopefully our  backs will not be too sore tomorrow. I know the sand bags will be put to good use to protect homes in our area.   ….maybe tomorrow night I’ll get to do the painting on felt I was planning on doing tonight. (see previous post)