43 years ago

Dear Hubby and I were married!!


A lot sure has happened in those 43 years...some good , some bad. I've been doing a lot of reminiscing(SP?) lately.
DH & I were high school sweethearts and we were married just a few weeks after he graduated.


OMG... we were so young! He was 17 and I was 16. The grandkids still don't believe that is us, LOL.


Things were a lot different way back then. You didn't get married, move into a fancy house, get brand new furniture & 2 new cars. NOPE.......I will never forget my first dream home.
We moved into an 8' X 24' travel trailer (half the size of our livingroom now) that we got to put on his great grampa's farm. His Aunt Marilyn and I went and bought some purple upholstery fabric and redid the sleeper sofa. The only other furniture I could fit in was a wooden rocker. I made some floral curtains for our only L/R window. Every appliance was "PINK". Yep pink sinks, pink stove, pink fridgerator (wish I still had that), pink toilet & pink tub. How cool was that! Isn't it funny how after 'several' different decorating styles, I've come full circle to this style again? Well almost anyway, don't think I want the pink toilet again LOL.

We were both to young to have REAL jobs right away, so I kept working in the concession stands at the racetrack(been doing that since I was 14) and DH worked cleaning and getting the track ready for the next week. My 2nd cousin owned the track and my Dad had been racing for a few years.

Hubby always said he married me cause my Daddy had a racecar (that and I had cute feet...hehehe) Racing is a whole other story someday.

As soon as DH turned 18 yrs.old, he got a job working at Kraft Foods making candy. Except for the free chocolate covered caramels that he brought home...I hated that job. I can still remember him coming home with that white uniform on (impossible to get that syrup cleaned out) and smelling "sickly sweet". That smell was really awful, especially when you're pregnant!! It wasn't long until the first child was born.

That was when......
THE FUN BEGINS !!!


I STILL LOVE MY HONEY BUNNY !!!

And these are supposed to be the golden years?

I must find out who came up with this saying about the older years of your life. There idea of 'golden' has got to be different then what I was thinking. LOL
It seems that ever since I turned 50, I have come up with different ailments. The arthritis is getting worse, the low thyroid levels has now turned into a high thyroid level, the side effect from this is a problem with my eyes and just last Friday I was told I might have celiac disease (which means I am to go on a gluten-free diet). I sure am hoping that these last ten years have been the 'melting down of the gold' stage and when I turn 60 in December, I will have gotten to the 'precious jewel' stage. Now about this gluten-free diet...OMG! No donuts, no homemade bread, nothing with wheat, barley, oats & rye. This is not going to be easy. I had a birthday party for my daughter Steph on Friday...couldn't have cake or the beef & noodles for supper :0(
Went to a graduation party on Saturday...couldn't have cake again! Bummer !!!
This will be quite a challenge!
Tammi & I get together at least once a month to make homemade pastas, so I'm going to get some rice flour and try making them with that. I've been looking up some recipes to try. If anyone else has some good gluten-free recipes they would like to share, I sure would appreciate it. I haven't been deprived of everything that I like (Chocolate, veggie omelets or ice cream), so that should be OK. I have to admit that after just 3 days I am not feeling as bloated. I would like to find a good bread recipe for sandwichs. The rest of the family is going to be put on this diet too, whether they like it or not. And they are big sandwich eaters. Wish me luck !
Steph had a birthday Friday. The grandkids spent over an hour punching out little dots & tearing little pieces of paper for confetti to pour over her head when she walked in. She was quite surprised and the kids even swept up the mess afterwards.
All of the rest of the family was able to come over and have homemade beef & noodles, mashed potatos and corn for supper. She requested some homemade angelfood cake with CoolWhip frosting for her cake. Then everyone went back to the lake to try out the new swing that they made.



The pictures don't really show you how high it actually swings you out over the water. But it is quite a drop. They had a blast till the mosquitos swarmed in.
The next day we had a graduation party for my granddaughter-to-be. It turned out lovely except for a little mishap with the cake. Tom calls me a couple of hours before the party & says they have a "cake crisis" and can I come see if I can fix it. They had opened the box when they got home and noticed that the company that made there big sheet cake had put the graduation caps, the names and Congratulations on it and on the bottom they wrote PROM. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?? (sorry, no pics) He tried picking it off with a toothpick but it left a blue stain in the white frosting, right in front in the middle of the cake.
Writing more words over it wouldn't cover the stain. This party was for Mandy (girl) and her cousin Kyle (boy), so they really didn't want to put a bunch of flowers on it. We decided that we could make some diplomas and cover those marks up. Tom & I made a quick trip into Walmart to get the supplies. We took some blank note cards and rolled them up to look like diplomas. One was tied with blue ribbon and the other was in gold. But it still had some of the stain showing! We were running out of time so I thought of making some tassels out of the ribbons. That's what we did. I placed them on the cake just in time. Guests were starting to come in the door as I was getting all the supplies picked up. Whew!!! Luckily I didn't live far from the Hall, so I snuck out the door to go home, freshen up and pick up the Hubby. The party was a great success! The cake was delicious! ((I didn't get to eat any of it, even after all that fussing)) And everyone went home happy.
Tomorrow should be a much quieter day!

My pillow for Kimberly

I don't think that she sees my blog posts, so I will show you what I made for Kimberly in our butterfly swap.

This pillow was quite a lot of fun to make. I think I'm addicted to Crazy Quilting now. I know that she likes 'redwork' & 'hexagons'. So I put some of that on it.

And I tried some beadwork too!




Now I would like to learn some more fancy stitching. Hope she likes it!

I've decided to enter this pillow in a contest that Melissa is having on her blog,
Lilac Lane. Lots of fun prizes to win! To enter you have to post an item that was handmade by yourself that has been trimmed, embellished or bedazzled. I think this qualifies!! :0} Click on her button on my sidebar to see all the other entries.

Got to get back to some sewing again! Later!

It's June already !!

I sure haven't been good at keepin' up on my posting, have I?
It sure seems like I've been plenty busy. So I don't know why I haven't had anything to say! Oh well♥

I belong to a quilt group on Flickr called Tea/Coffee quilt along. Besides the quilt block (coffee/tea related) that we are supposed to post each month, we have been having a specific swap each month for those that would like to attend. The May swap was to be something butterfly related. I thought I would show you what I received from my partner.

She sent 2 fat quarters of very pretty fabric and some butterfly buttons. She also sent some tulip, dragonfly & butterfly candies. They will be perfect for the cupcakes the grandkids want to make next weekend for a birthday party. The cookie cutter will come in useful too, the next time we make sugar cookies. But what she made for me is this cutest teacup pincushion!

Isn't it adorable...with the teabag label and all?

Next month is a tea cozy...hummmm! What shall I do? Think I'll do some blog hopping to get some ideas. Later!!