My Miscellaneous World

Little snippets of my world for a Saturday...

Fuchsia's on my patio, an applique potholder I made a long time ago for a quilt challenge, an amazing beaded necklace, bracelet and leather flower pin I found in London

This afternoon...going to do some yard work and check out the Oriental Trading Company catalog for more beads...I'm hooked!!!

Newcomers Dinner

I belong to a dinner group where, each month, one of the members of the group fixes the entire dinner for the other seven of us. Last night was a most enjoyable evening at our friend Nancy's house. She just moved and most of us had not seen her new home. She has done an amazing job at decorating!!! I loved these dimensional tea cups and her blue and white accessories.

Nancy's menu included borscht, homemade crab cakes, a delightful cabbage salad and a quite divine meringue dessert with fresh strawberries and blueberries!!! Amazing!!!

Now, to my boring dinner of fish and green beans...only 30 more days until the next dinner!!!

Beads, Beads and MORE Beads

I wanted to make a friend a patriotic bracelet and things just went berserk from there!!! I got out my stash of beads and here's what happened...I made the butterfly bracelet for ME!!!

The bracelet is so cute!!! I got the beads and bracelet from Oriental Trading Company. They included everything from Uncle Sam to flags to stars!

I made a bookmark (also from Oriental Trading Company).

Check out Uncle Sam!

Patriotic pickle fork, spreader and wine cork.

I'm going to a dinner party this weekend and a party on the 4th, so the spreader and pickle fork will make fantastic hostess gifts!!!

It's so much fun to get into beading again - I forgot how much I love it!

Happy creativity!

Joan

Butterflies and MORE Butterflies AND More London

I kept meaning to upload a few more pictures of my London experience...I hand carried these potato chips back for family and friends - I loved going to the grocery stores and seeing the 'odd' food. Check out the flavors of chips...my friends and family did not give them a thumbs up!!!

The lovely little box was a hand painted gift from a luncheon at the Ukrainian Embassy along with brochures about their country. I passed the brochures along to a friend who home-schools her children. Thought it was something a little different for them to learn about.

I bought these clear acrylic butterflies in London - just couldn't pass them up!

A friend and her husband stayed at my home for a week while I was gone and when I arrived home, there were butterfly gifts everywhere.

These beautiful feather butterflies hang in my bathroom.

AND, this butterfly I take with me everywhere to show friends and family (I'm thinking about taking it to the Journey / Heart concert next month) it's the cutest thing - it sings and has three different settings - it lights up, blinks...so fun!!!

I think that's it for my London trip!!!

Lemoore

Memorial Service and My Old Home Town
My sister made this fabulous memory board to honor my cousin Gary's life!!!

It was a sad day...my cousin Gary passed away last month and friends and family gathered today to say our goodbyes. It was very strange for me - my parents and my sister could not attend, so my nephew and I traveled over to Lemoore for the memorial. Gary was 10 years older than me and when I was about 6 or 8, he was the mascot at the high school - I had very fond memories of him coming up into the stands at football games and hugging us and saying 'hi!' - pretty cool for a little kid! The picture with the flowers is for my sister's wedding in 1975 - Gary is helping put together the bouquets and that's me with the goofy look on my face. Gary lived with us for a little while, he was there at most Christmas celebrations and was a big part of our lives. He will be missed!!!

After the memorial service, we HAD to go to the local hangout - Superior Dairy (even though I'd been there a week ago!) Then, it was off to my old high school - my friend, Kathy (the one who lives in London) asked me to take some photos of our school for the website in preparation for our class reunion next year.

Here's the entrance to town - the arch wasn't there when I lived in the area.

Here's the front of my high school - I'm very thankful they decided to retrofit it instead of tear it down years ago. My aunt was in the first graduating class back in the 20's and her picture hangs in the auditorium.

Other hangouts in Lemoore - Jolly Kone and White Top!!!

I met a friend of my cousins at the memorial service who is planning their class reunion for this October and we're going to exchange photos and she says she's getting a professionally filmed and edited DVD - can't wait to see them all!!!

Take a moment today to show appreciation to your family and friends...

Healthy Meatloaf Recipe

Here's a comment about Krissy Ball's healthy meatloaf recipe on Instructables. If you haven't tried it yet, here's the link - it's made from turkey and it's VERY yummy!!!

From: beadydaniDate: Jun 18, 2009. 5:11 AM

Subject: http://www.instructables.com/id/Healthy_Meatloaf_Recipe/

Thanks for sharing this recipe, I have heard (I am British) of Meatloaf for as long as I can remember. Having seen this recipe, I will definitely (I love trying out new recipes) be making it, I am particularly pleased it can be frozen which will really help with my busy schedule. I am so glad I stumbled on this page.

Thanks beadydani for your comment.

My Weekend

I am sooooo tired!!! It was a VERY intense and full weekend. Friday, I took the two hour drive over to my hometown, Lemoore. That night was fabulous - my sister-in-law, her sister and I got pedicures, went out for dinner, a movie and then dessert - nice girls evening.

Saturday and Sunday were work, work and more work - the objective of the weekend was for my brother to put in a step coming out from their front door and we succeeded along with pulling out an old almond tree that had decayed and some plants from a side area. It all turned out fantastic!!! I think all those exercise classes are making me stronger - I'm surprised my muscles aren't speakin' to me.

Sunday night was my high school class reunion meeting - it turned out that one of the committee members was out for a ride that day and his buddy's bike had trouble, so he didn't make it to the meeting, so Diane and I spent five hours looking at different options - we got so much done!!! We both went into the meeting with one idea and by the time we thought everything through, we're now probably going with a totally different option. Diane met with Mike (the guy who couldn't make it) this morning and he likes the option. We're going to let everything gel for a few days and then set the plan into action.

Here's my 13 year old nephew, Justin. Always an ipod in his ear!

I almost forgot, we went to my sister-in-laws dad's house for dinner Saturday night - I have always loved this cool plate display - the rack, grapes and plant are painted on!

I made this quilt for my parent's 40th anniversary - it's 18 years old now.

Beautiful Day in Morro Bay!!!

I can't believe I have lilies blooming - someone told me this is an amaryllis - I don't know, I got some bulbs from my mom's friend and planted them. It's a gorgeous day!!!

Some of my high school friends...

As if I didn't get my high school fix after spending two weeks in London with one of my best friends in high school, I spent this weekend with four more friends from high school!!! Here are my gal pals, Anita, Betty, Alena and me! Missing from the picture is Lisa who came and spent Saturday evening with us.

Anita and I had not seen or talked in 34 years and I saw Betty, Lisa and Alena back in December when we had Betty's Celebration of Life!

When you haven't seen someone for 34 years, there's a lot to catch up on. We stayed up late, shopped and lounged around out on the deck (the weather was awesome in Pismo!).

I am in awe of my friends - their trials, their tribulations, their heartache, but most of all, I am in awe of their triumphs and all are survivors!!! My friends, I honor your strength!

Next weekend I get to see two more classmates as we plan for our class reunion next year and I've invited another high school friend to lunch this week - we'll see if it works out!!!

Joan

Lemoore High School

High School Class Reunion

My high school class reunion is coming up next year and I've been finding and contacting my classmates the last few months. Just yesterday, I received emails from two guys from my class - one just moved to Big Sur (just a couple of hours away from me up the coast - I've known him since 6th grade) and another knew my cousin who just passed away. It was nice catching up with them and seeing what they're up to now. AND, Saturday morning, 3-4 of my classmates are coming to the coast for a girls' weekend. One, I haven't seen in almost 35 years (yes, I'm admitting to that!), another is Betty, who we had the Celebration of Life for in December, another is one of my closest friends in high school and hopefully another friend (we were fellow Senior Class Officers together) will join us for lunch or dinner. I'm taking my yearbooks to refresh our fuzzy memories.

When I was in London, Kathy and I worked on our reunion and then I had plenty of time on the 10+ hour flights to make more notes. My mind is already swirling with ideas for decorations - I'll share my ideas and projects as time goes by. We have a planning meeting in about a week, so I want to be ready with my ideas.

Meanwhile, I got home from London on Saturday and got tons of things done, but the last couple of days the fatigue has set in - it's been a week of meetings and putting out a newsletter, so I need to conserve my energy for late night chats this weekend!!!

Go Tigers!!!

High Tea at the Dorchester

What a fabulous way to spend an afternoon!!!

High Tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London!!! In celebration of my birthday, Kathy and I spent three relaxing hours eating, chatting and drinking tea. The Dorchester is the hangout for the rich and famous in London...

The pianist played Happy Birthday and I was presented with a yummy cake - we took it home because we'd had so much other yummy food.

Here's Kathy enjoying her sandwiches (and we had lots of other goodies too - including champagne). It was fun to play dress-up and I kept saying 'back in high school when we were sitting at the pizza parlor in Lemoore on a Friday night could we ever have imagined we'd be sitting in a fancy hotel in London enjoying tea???"

My Trip to London

More Miscellaneous Photos of London

We attended an English conversation group and this was the view from one of the windows. The object of the group is to give non-English speaking ladies the opportunity to practice their English in a relaxed atmosphere - the group is made up of women from all over the world. They choose a topic every week and talk about it - simple enough!!!

The hostess served a scrumptious cake - I loved the blue dishes!!!

Buckingham Palace - my friends actually live less than 1/2 a block from the back wall.


Beautiful horses and guards...


This is the entrance to a store - again, not in my world.

I thought this was funny - the boat is tied up above the water line. I hear that the river does go up and down many feet.

The London Eye and Us.

These are candles - love them!

I loved looking at the pastries in London. Everything was special. This cake is almost $40 in US dollars!!!

Stairwell at Liberty - a very old store.

A shopping mall...right!

Kathy and Ron went out one evening - here's their son, Alex, helping mom with some pearls. Alex is an amazing 17 year old. He brought his girlfriend over so she could meet me (Sophia's parents spent some time with The Prince of Monaco while I was there, so again, I was honored!). Alex even took me out on my birthday for dinner (his mom and dad had another function that evening). We went to Chicago Ribs and I was amazed that he knew the words to the 70's songs playing in the restaurant.

I love this display in a store. So chic!

These tiny baskets were in a store window.

I had to take a picture of this purse. It's folded leather.

Kathy showed me this cross-stitch I did 19 years ago to celebrate their wedding. I am VERY honored that she brought it to London all the way from Virginia. It and Alex's quilt is a reminder of how much I used to craft - I lost that somewhere along the way. Note to self...buy a cross-stitch kit to work on.