A little catch up

I'm SO sorry I have been so neglectful of my blog. Life just got so busy and when I did have some free time I just didn't think to blog.

Where to start? April 16th saw me lose another dear friend to that evil bastard, cancer. That was hard to write about at the time it was all happening. My dear friend, Lucille, had come down from Ferndale to be here when Michael passed. She was here for 5 weeks and went home the day after his service. It was such a blessing to have her here....she was amazing with my mother-in-law and my mother-in-law just loved having Lucy here. She followed her around like a puppy dog. Lucy would go outside to smoke and Dottie would be hard on her heels. It was pretty funny.

Lucy is coming back on the 19th or 20th of July to keep an eye on Dottie while Patrick and I get away to Reno. We are going to see Il Divo and just spend some time alone together! Not since our annivesary almost 2 years have we been away together - and that was just for one night!

Martie and her daughter, Corianne, came over last Saturday and helped me start getting all my cardstock sorted. I have thousands of sheets of cardstock and it was not sorted by color. That was a major project that I have been putting off for a long time. We worked that day for just over 2 hours solid. In that 2 hours we got the cardstock sorted into basic colors....blue and greens, reds and pinks, black and whites, grays, browns and creams, and yellow and oranges. AFter Martie and Cori left I got the grays, blues & greens done. They came back Thursday morning and we probably worked about 4 1/2 hours (we went out for lunch). Most of it was done by time they left at 3:30 and I FINISHED IT UP THAT NIGHT! I'm just SO proud of myself for getting it done.

Jake (my baby) and Elizabeth's wedding plans are coming along beautifully. Martie has been a Godsend by helping design digital wedding invitations. I think we MAY have our design picked out. Yeah!!!

Dustin, my oldest, is doing well. My precious grandson, James, turned the big 4 on June 21st. I can't believe how big he's getting and I'm missing most of it :(.I just wish they didn't live so far away!! Dustin bought a new truck and a Harley Davidson recently so he's pretty happy....though he did get a speeding ticket yesterday (14 miles over the limit - oops). Dustin and James will be coming out in October for Jake's wedding...James is a ring-bearer - how precious is that?!!

Kyle (the middle son) got out of the Air Force in April but remained for awhile in New Mexico working at Applebee's Restaurant until he almost starved to death!! The wages in NM are pretty appalling when compared to CA. He came home about a week after Mother's Day and I was SO glad to wrap my arms around him. He spent a month job-hunting and then ended up getting hired by Applebee's not far from our house. While he was out of work he did some chores for us - he scraped and repainted our back porch/patio cover and it looks so much better! It was truly time to be replaced. Here is a picture of his work. I think I forgot to take an after photo! lol. I'll have to take care of that soon.




On June 13th & 14th I was fortunate enough to attend 5 workshops conducted by Tim Holtz. They were great!! He is truly a wonderful teacher - so VERY patient! Each class held 50 students and there were 12 of us who took all 5 workshops. Here are some photos from that event:













Today I got my annual 4th of July manicure and pedicure. I will have to share photos of that soon. I haven't taken the pics yet.

Well, I will write more later and I promise not to wait so long!

Hugs!