Tiffany Tillman's Summer Edition of 25 Days of Templates

Go leave a comment on the link below for a chance to win a place in Tiffany Tillman's summer edition of 25 days of Templates. I took Tiffany Tillman’s December edition of 25 Days of Templates class and loved it. Her templates are awesome. Discover the secrets to making changes to templates, learn how to design your own, and find new ways to create beautiful, stunning layouts in this next workshop.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Simply-Tiffany/103835779657216

Mosaic Moments Page Patterns

Page Patterns

Just ran across Mosaic Moments Page Pattern blog. Great ideas for multiple page layouts.

It's Official--Ft. Des Moines is now a recognized neighborhood

Tonight the mayor and my city councilman was presenting the Fort Des Moines Neighborhood a certificate recognizing us as an official neighborhood. Roger and I was there representing the 'hood. I thought it would be a stand up front, smile, and listen while the certificate is read.
Smile, shake hands with city councilman, and take certificate.Listen to the Mayor, shake his hand, and sit down. What's this????
You want me to speak??? I wasn't prepared for this. I said a few stupid things, and ended up with "and stuff like that." Where did that come from? I'm sure I really impressed everyone with my great public speaking ability.

Winery Visits

Yesterday was a beautiful Iowa day and after the grand kids were picked up, Roger and I decided it was road trip time and headed out to visit some of the Iowa wineries we haven't been to yet. Our first stop was White Oak Vineyards winery near Cambridge. Overall, I would give this winery five stars on a scale of one to five. There wasn't one wine I didn't like. Beautiful building and event room for receptions, etc.
We next traveled to Snus Hill Vineyard and Winery near Madrid. Another beautiful setting and our server Diane, along with her husband John Larson, own the place. We joined up with two couples from north of Panora for our samplings. Diane made sure we had a good time and explained where the name of Snus came from. The Snus Hill Winery name is reflective of the family’s Swedish heritage and their love of cats. Snus is the name of the Larson family’s affectionate and beguiling tobacco brown Burmese cat. The cat got his name from an old Swedish chewing tobacco (Snus). I would give this winery five stars also.
From Snus we headed northwest, stopping in Boone for lunch and a look at the train tracks and depots before heading to Carroll, Iowa and the Santa Maria Vineyard & Winery. It is located right in downtown Carroll, Iowa (across the highway from the Carroll Train Depot building). This winery is in a renovated historic building along the Old Lincoln Highway (Hwy 30). It is a beautiful building with great wall murals. They have an outdoor piazza where in nicer weather you can grab a bite to eat at our bistro, or warm up in front of the fireplace. The piazza wasn't open when we visited. We wished we would have waited to eaten there as they serve food that looked very good. The wines, though, did not match those we tasted (and bought) at White Oak and Snus Hill. We really liked their Brianna. I had also purchased a bottle of their Swan Lake White last fall while at a scrapbook retreat in Clear Lake that I found very good. I would give this winery 3 stars.

In total we purchased three bottles from White Oak, three from Snus, and two bottles of Brianna from Santa Maria.

Sweet & Simple, March 2010, Part 2

Finished my March Sweet & Simple pages tonight. Mom is still in the Care Center but we've seen improvements in her awareness since being taken to the hospital on the 30th. After nebulizer treatments, and med changes she was sent back to the Care Center. Am hoping she can come home next week perhaps.

Fun with the grands

Had everyone over tonight for the Easter egg hunt. This was Jaren's first year and he had a blast. Had to re-hide eggs for him to find. We use a combination of foil-wrapped Nestle Crunch, Butterfinger, and Hershey's eggs along with the plastic eggs that are filled with either (1) jelly beans, (2) M&M's, and (3) money. Miss Mia focused her attention on the large plastic eggs bypassing the foil wrapped ones. We even got Keira in the game with her own bag and a plastic egg. The older grands got battery-powered bubble guns that were a big hit.

Easter egg hunts have always been a tradition in our family, and we continued to have them for our two kids well into their teens. They may have been embarrassed to be seen hunting them, but the competition was still very much present.

We held it tonight instead of Easter Sunday because part of the family will be traveling out-of-town for the weekend. I think this worked out better as the night was warm and beautiful. Actually it was HOT! Sunday sounds like it might be rainy.

Family of owls turned Web stars grows by one - SignOnSanDiego.com

Family of owls turned Web stars grows by one - SignOnSanDiego.com

If you haven't heard about this yet, you've got to check out http://www.sportsmansparadiseonline.com/Live_Owl_Nest_Box_Cam.html and watch this family of owls grow. There is still one egg to hatch; Wesley hatched yesterday.

Rough last month

The last 34 days have been pretty rough, with my mother becoming seriously ill, one sister with her own health problems, mandatory furlough days, two extra board meetings thrown in, classes I'm taking, and my neighbor calling the police on my dog barking because we forgot one was left outside when called to say mom was being taken by ambulance back to the hospital.

Things have got to get better. I got the following from my sister-in-law this morning and it brightened my day.

Inner Peace: This is so true


If you can start the day without caffeine,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment ,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!

Pool

Here's another layout from our Spring Break family vacation.

Supplies used:

Scrap Girls:
Christy VanderWall’s CVA_SSTools_Scripts_SupplyTracker (Scrap Girls)

Scrapable:
Tiffany Tillman: TNT_ScrappableSingleTemplate_042 (Scrapable)

Sweet Shoppe Designs:
Traci Reed’s Belly Flop Kit:
• treed-bellyflop-brackermat
• treed-bellyflop-button1
• treed-bellyflop-button2
• treed-bellyflop-button4
• treed-bellyflop-button5
• treed-bellyflop-button5 copy
• treed-bellyflop-pp1
• treed-bellyflop-pp7
• treed-bellyflop-ppsolid1
• treed-bellyflop-ppsolid2
• treed-bellyflop-ppsolid3
• treed-bellyflop-splash1
• treed-bellyflop-wordart-sh

Font: Georgia

Spring Break 2010

We spent four days and three nights at the new Honey Creek Resort at Lake Rathbun in southern Iowa with our daughter's family. Back in the mid-1970s we camped at this lake on a regular basis with a group of friends and our daughter, who was only a baby at the time. Traveling to the lake brought back many fond memories of our camping trips.

Things have changed over the years, including the new Honey Creek Resort that opened last year. This is a beautiful facility on the north side of the lake with beautiful views of Lake Rathbun. We saw many Bald Eagles from the resort and while driving around the lake.

We spent four days and three nights at Resort. The kids loved Buccaneer Bay indoor water park and had lots of fun.

Sweet & Simple

Here is my February Sweet & Simple project:

Thanks you City of Des Moines

Just heard from home and our street is being cleared. YEA!!!

Here is an Email I just sent Bill Stowe:

Bill,

Thank you for your prompt attention to my Email from this morning. My husband just called to say that they are out there right now working and moving huge blocks of ice. I thank you and my car thanks you. I was informed last week that I had broken motor mounts on my 2005 car and I can only guess it is a result of driving on this street.

Request for ice removal in _______ block of __________

(Email I sent today to Bill Stowe, Des Moines Public Works Director)

Bill,

I live at XXXXXXXXXXXXX. This is a relatively flat street with a gentle slope to the north and drains on both sides of the streets. We have had a problem the last three years with water coming up out of the ground and causing freezing on the street. The problem that arises is this water runs underneath the ice and melts certain areas causing huge ice "pot holes." Last year a school bus got stuck in one of these ruts, that's how deep they become. Driving on the street is an obstacle course trying to avoid these huge ice potholes. Because of this, the City has come out several times during the winter with the big boy blade and spent time clearing the street.

This year that hasn't happened. I'm sure this is because of all the snow we've had and the manpower hours it has taken to clear the main streets. One day in December I was out driving and saw trucks with plows on relatively clean streets plowing. I called asking to get someone out to our street. They sent out a sand truck. This does not help our problems. During a recent warm spell a couple weeks ago most of the neighbors on the street were out using our own ice chippers and power to break up the ice mounds left in the street. But it has built up once again. I called last Wednesday or Thursday asking if a blade could come out that day as once again I had seen a truck with a blade driving over streets that were already what I'd call clean. I was informed she doubted they could do that but would send out a sand truck. I tried to explain the situation to her to no avail. When I came home I saw that a sand truck had been down the street.





Although you can't really see what I'm talking about, I've attached some pictures to try to demonstrate what I'm talking about. All of these pictures are in front of my house. It is hard to tell from this photo, but my foot is inside the rut and it is at least 6 inches deep. The following shows how the water runs underneath the ice causing what I call ice potholes.

Is there anything that can be done about the problems on our street?

A Dog's Purpose? (from a 6-year-old)

I received the following Email from a friend and it hit close to my heart as many of you are aware I have a 14+ year-old Beagle that has some health issues and I know in my heart her time is coming to move on. So as I read the message the tears started flowing, but then I read the entire message and realized it contains some important life lessons we can all learn from.

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound. The dog's owners and their little boy were all very attached to the dog, and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined the dog and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for him and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, the owners said they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though he might learn something from the experience.

The next day I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.

The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusiosn. We sat together for awhile after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, "I know why." Startled we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation. It has changed the say I try and live.

He said,''People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?'' Te Six-year-old continued,''Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.''

Live simply.
Love generously.

Care deeply.
Seak kindly.

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you're not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!

Life 365 Upate

Finished up January without missing a day. All supplies are from Life 365 Sweet and Simple, available at Weeds and Wildflower Designs.

Neighbors form group following manhunt | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register

Thank you Des Moines Register for the great story. Let's hope it brings in a few new faces on March 2.

Neighbors form group following manhunt desmoinesregister.com The Des Moines Register

Life 365 Update

The latter half of the third week of 2010 turned out to be quite icy, but beautiful.

Happy 8th Birthday Girls

Happy Birthday girls. Hard to believe you will be turning 8. I love you so much.