Kansas K-garten Keynote

Here are the happy faces that greeted me for my early morning keynote.

These folks slid across a frosty, frozen sleet-covered, icie cold tundra to get here promptly and sit at the front tables. Whoo hooo kindergarten teachers!! Well, actually most spent the night in the toasty-zone of the Happy Hilton. BTW: those were the fluffiest, biggest, most-over-sized luxurious towels I've ever encountered on the road. What a special treat, for a tired traveler. These gals are full of "dreams" and don't you think they look "wonderful"??? And then the batteries died in my camera.... so that's all of the keynote you get to glimpse. Arggggh.

Goofy, Goofier, Goofiest!

You know you're in the Orlando airport when there's a larger-than-lifesize Goofy stuck in the pink bubble gum goo. I just couldn't resist having this picture snapped. I still wish I'd gotten that picture of me with my Elvis, back in Vegas -- I'm trying to be better prepared these days! On to Kansas. Watch out flying-monkeys..... here I come!! Kindergarten teachers needing a battery charge, come meet me at the Wichita Hilton.

Customizing Closets

The architect's renderings for our little house called for a corner, sunken jaccuzi tub in our master bath and a regular-sized shower set off by itself in it's own little room-ette, behind sliding doors. From the very beginning, we decided that we'd rather have a super shower and no tub. So we had them switch that out, right from the beginning. Wellllllllll....... after we spent the couple of nights sleeping in the walk-in closet I had a 'brainstorm' on the long drive north to Ohio. It dawned on me that space was highly functional. Well before we'd arrived back here I'd gotten my head all wrapped around using the walk-in as my STUDIO!!

Well that just left the question of what to do with our clothes. LOL.

Then the obvious answer presented itself: use the empty, originally for the shower space, as the actual closet -- rather than for 'extra storage' that we'd initially envisioned. With just a little bit of arm twisting I convinced Allen of all of the merits of this idea. He worked diligently this weekend and with hacksaw in hand created the customized closet above..... and there really is plenty, plenty of space for what we'll have here. So everyone is completely happy. When we get the studio space put together I'll show you how it ended up.

One Day Project #4

This was a super-easy, one day effort. When I fell in love with the set of bed linens at Kohl's the only stock they had available was the King size variety. Alas, we'd decided to stick with the queen size components..... so the coverlet is overly generous, which I am very fond of, but the bed skirt needed to be pared down to fit our set up. So, it was a very easy re-do..... compared to other projects I've tackled. Whooo hooooo bedroom!

Our first trip down here we slept on an inflate-able bed in our walk-in closet, since there were no curtains up at that point. On this trip we spent the first sleeps in the guest bedroom, awaiting the delivery of our new set. Then the mattress & box springs made their appearance, but they forgot to get the frame in the delivery truck..... so that led to sleeping on the mattress, directly on the floor. Finally we received the frame and then we got it assembled and VOILA, here's what the room looks like from one end. (Behind the big curtain is our sliding glass door out to the lanai.) All gussied up just in time for me to fly out to Kansas tomorrow morning. Next up, more about that walk-in closet.

One Day Project #3

Whooooohoooooo. Starting to get some color into our black and white living room!! Well, at least theoretically. Technically I 'kinda/sorta' did this project in a day. The first picture is the UFO that I mentioned earlier. I created that block as an exercise in learning how to "paper-piece" and did it some time ago, back in Ohio. The rest of the piecing was undertaken in a day's time, however. I even have the quilt bat and the IKEA frame upon which to stretch the piece. Unfortunately I didn't think to bring my free-form quilting foot..... so I've decided to be patient and do the machine quilting as another day's project. It will have to wait a couple of weeks till I can get back to Ohio to pick up the machine foot. Now who's gonna remind me to pack it and bring it on my next journey for returning down here??

I have two more IKEA frames. So this is wall hanging #1 in what will ultimately be a series of three, which will eventually hang above our TV set in the living room. My. I CAN plan ahead!!

Ocala FL BCO Luncheon

Here's just a little glimpse into a luncheon get-together of 9 BC suvivors who've met basically because of BreastCancer.org along with one very supportive mom. The first picture is of the early birds as we're getting organized and acquainted. Then the second picture is of all the women in attendance. Next is eating (Choca was kind enough to take the picture on my camera) and the final snap is the final-four-farewell in the parking lot. Notice the sunshine.

I will attempt to specify who everyone is..... so this relates to the second picture. The back row/standing from left to right: Choca/Elaine, TeriCarolyn, Aguri's mom Ann, Then Aguri/Kathy, then Kdeit/Karen, then me/faithandfifty, then HipChik47/Barbara. Seated in the front from left to right is Jackie, MarshaKB and CatFL/Cathy. I appologize if I have the names spelled wrong. We had gals drive all the way from both the Tampa area & the Orlando area, as well as Kissimee. Plus there were the five of us from in and around Ocala.

What a lovely opportunity to get to meet -- to connect nicknames and faces, to share stories and to offer encouragement to one another

One Day Project: #2

I'm just TOTALLY lovin' this whole idea of a project-a-day. Here's the dresser being re-claimed for yet another life. It started out as my parent's when they were first married -- over fifty years ago. I recieved it as a gift in my single parent/no furniture phase and painted it to go in my single girlie peach bedroom. Then it became Sarah's jr. high set and she adorned it with stickers. Then when Sarah & Scott set up their first house she took it away. Well, we pulled trump cards and snatched it back for this little place of ours.... but it was sadly worn from so much love. I figure in giving it a fresh coat of paint, we have saved the life of another tree. Doing my part to keep it green, folks.

I took it out to our garage yesterday and brought it back in today. TA DA!! Twenty-four hours later and it's got a whole new face lift. Awesome. I'm gonna keep on this plan of a project-a-day. It's such a thrill to get things done in a heart-beat and move on. Besides I have a fun idea for a project for today. It involves my sewing machine, an IKEA shadow-box frame, a UFO (Un-Finished-Object) and my traveling collection of fabrics. Stay tuned for further developments. Why didn't I think of this before?? A project-a-day!! I just love it.