Scrapping

We were invited to send a scrapbook page, or item for a scrapbook for old friends who will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. All kinds of ideas flooded into my mind and I let them "simmer" a while. I have recently bought a ScrapBoss and thought I might use that to emboss wedding and anniversary themes onto white paper, maybe chalking them....I sort of "tossed and turned" with possibilities. The other evening we ate at Cracker Barrel and I saw the perfect embellishment...a magnet in just the colors I realized I wanted to use. And it was on sale half price!

Yesterday we went to JoAnn's to pick up chalk daubers and I found some perfect paper. It matched the embellishment wonderfully.

I had very few pictures I could lay my hands on, and I had two letters from the "bride's" mother that I knew I wanted to use. I scanned some of the things I had and let Picasa collage them. I made them sepia and printed them to fit on the 8.5 by 11 size required.

And then the play began. I embossed wedding/anniversary themes. Cut them out, chalked them and hated them!

But I persevered - grabbing up bits of ribbon in my scraps, cutting....pasting....it began to take shape.

Using Cricut I cut out their names. and journaled our best wishes by hand.

Finally, to soften the look of the page, I riveted a parchment sheet over all that can be pulled up for ease in reading.

It is packed and ready to mail and I am pretty pleased with the results. Hope they will be.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is generally a sad day for me. All the advertisements leading up to the day...."just what your mother would love"...."get this (that or the other thing) for Mom on her day".....they are ads that I actually notice. There were many years I couldn't get my own mother much....lean years when a card had to suffice. Earlier there were childhood years when I would take on odd jobs to get up enough money (sometimes Dad had to add 50 cents or so) and I could buy her flowers....a couple of years my brothers and sisters put in some few cents too, and we could get her a potted plant. And now that I might be able to actually buy her something nice, she has gone on and there is nothing this world can give her. I can only offer up prayers that she is in a better place. And that she might know of my continued love.

But my sons and their families honor me, with their visits and their phone calls and their hugs and that helps to offset the sadness. And DH tries, too, to make the day a pleasant one.

I don't know if I am alone in the thought that "Mother's Day" isn't about me....I wasn't all that good a mother anyway....it is about MY Mother.....and she did a heck of a job. She raised five kids in what could pretty much pass for poverty....she hung tough, she passed on values, she was tough but her love was steady and sure. And I am certain my siblings miss her today too.

I love you Mom, thanks for everything, and Happy Mother's Day.

Day One Addendum Cozumel

A guard directed us to a parking spot, and immediately had a young man with a small tractor and wagon gather us and our bags on board to drive us the short distance to the house. Almost immediately I felt the warmth of the language and certainly of the sun. Despite the lack of sleep, we were energized and excited.
Deb had gotten to the house at almost the same time, so she was there to welcome us. She is such a wiry being full of energy and kindness. You "catch" it from her when in her presence. We are so blessed to know her. She showed us to our room, huge - with a view out to the ocean - and then showed us around the house. She rattled off plans for various days and activities, and our heads were whirling. We took a little time to unpack and slow down and then Deb's sister and her friend arrived.
Deb explained some of the details of life on the island - the one outstanding being that when using the facilities at many if not most of the locations on Coz, one is required to deposit the paper (certainly fits with my blog title!) into a trash receptacle, not the toilet. And then flush as often as is required. That, I admit, threw me for a second....but, well, when in Rome....as they say.
For about 20 minutes I kept reminding myself of the movie Sex in the City....don't get close to the water (!) don't eat things, don't have drinks with ice, wash things, but don't use the water....well, anyone who knows me, that whole confusing and cumbersome kind of thing just has no way to compute....I can't concentrate on matters like that for long. so I threw myself onto the kindness of whatever and enjoyed it all.
As evening descended, we all reported to the side of the pool, Nickie and I into the pool, Lar fully relaxed in a lounge chair and Deb delivered a pitcher of drinks. From chilly NJ and work, in about 24 hours to a warm pool with a delicious drink....ahem....I had arrived.
After relaxing and chatting non-stop - and remember Lar (DH) was the only man with 4 women, we were ready for dinner.
Deb had the perfect restaurant in mind, El Moro. We all piled into her car and off we went. To be honest, driving up to the restaurant I had a tinge of nerves...it is literally down an alley I would think twice about being in at noon, let alone about 9 PM! I had a bit to learn.


When we walked into the little restaurant, the owner rushed to us, hugged Deb and greeted her most profusely. We were stunned, but she chuckled and said, "who knows if he really remembers me or if he is just being nice." We came to believe he actually had remembered her!
Our meal was wonderful. The food was so good, and we each ordered something different and passed our plates...everyone got to try everything. And it was all delicious.

We could tell Deb was up to something as the meal wound down, and she had a few words with the owner. He brought us each a drink, and then the real show began.
He wheeled over a small table with an assortment of bottles, gravy boats, glasses, dishes, etc. The lights in the restaurant were lowered until the room was quite darkened. And then he began to tell the story of lovers of an era lost in time and as he did so, he put on this amazing presentation, melting sugar on the rims of glasses, heating the metal gravy boats, pouring blazing alcohol from boat down to boat, cascading flame, mixing, swirling, lighting the night, all the while telling the tale. Finally the drinks were ready in their glasses, a dip of ice cream added and we each partook of these delectable dessert beverages. It was magic. We were in another time and place. And we were so united in the sharing, with each other and with the other people in the restaurant.

The ride home filled the night with laughter, and I don't know how Larry held up with the 4 of us women, but he seemed to be right in his element. What an evening!

Cozumel Day One

Last evening I keyed the word "Cozumel" into the search engine and with the first picture that appeared on our monitor I got tears in my eyes. I didn't expect the reaction that arose within me. It caught me unaware and it swept me up.

Of course it was idyllic - our beautiful week there - it was vacation, it was in a house we could ill afford, it was with very special people who added so much to the experience. I am not self-deceiving, I do not think for a moment that actually living there would be the same as the week we had.

But Coz has magic. There is no denying that either. Coz has beautiful people, Coz has colors and music and a feel that hold magic. Coz was such a special, special experience.

The First Day: the van picked us up at about 3 AM and whisked us quietly and efficiently to the Philly airport. It is an other worldly feeling to be driving to Philly at that time of night. No one around - kind of like being plucked up and dropped into one of those spy movies....travelling place to place to reconnoiter with other agents.....well, maybe not, but with an hour of sleep, perhaps I can be forgiven for some drama!

The flight was really uneventful except for the fact that the seats in front and back of us contained families of sick and coughing children. I spent a great deal of the time breathing through the fabric of my sweat shirt! We landed in Houston TX after having a pretty decent airline breakfast. We had quite a hike to get to the gate for the flight to Cozumel, so the wait was short. I had really attempted to pack 48 hours of necessaries into our carry-ons - after our experience coming home from Scotland, I take that very seriously....not so worried about never seeing our bags again, but serious about what we might need for a couple of days.

Another flight, about an hour and a half or so, I think, and we stepped off the plane into warmth and palm trees and sun. O joy! Vacation had begun.

Once through customs, we stepped through glass doors into the reception area and were greeted by a virtual army of uniformed "tourist bureau" people. All bright eyed and smiles, they each called out "welcome to Cozumel!" We both thought that was exceptionally nice of the place to have people seeing to the needs of tourists. Ahem, read "naive."

After what seemed hours of being chatted up and at by our representative - cute little Oscar Lopez, the situation showed itself to be somewhat of a scam. They wanted to steer us to take the "opportunity" to be subjected to a presentation by a timeshare and by so doing, get a reduced rate on our rental car. Due to utter exhaustion and just to get it over, we signed up. During the indoctrination I was able to receive a text message from youngest son, wondering where we were and how it was going. I don't know if he ever received my reply as I no longer actually had phone service. As DH was signing contracts, I was able to get the phone to work long enough to call our rental house and connected to the manager who was awaiting us. He had had a driver come to the airport to assist us and to drive us, but we already had committed.

We were given an absolute giant jeep (hummer). Apparently Americans as a rule want huge cars. Lar drove it about 5 minutes, and around the first turn in town - with bikes, scooters, horse carts and crazy taxis flying everywhere - and knew he was going to exchange it next day for something smaller and more sensible. But as usual, he drove us safely and surely to the house. As we drove along the coast we couldn't stop saying OMG! and WOW! and variations of the same. The water and the sky.....colors you can't believe.....and if you painted it true to life, people would not beleive it could look like that.

We were in Cozumel....with lots of falling in love about to occur.

Here's Casa Linda....our home for a week.

There never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory

Of how they were answered

by you

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

(Jim Croce)

Boy, that's the truth!
I guess we all have that problem....too little time, too many things we want/need/wish/must do. But I do believe (because I've been told ! ) that I exacerbate that problem by having so many interests, so many things still on my "bucket list".
I sent an e-mail to a friend telling her that we have joined a gym finally, that I am in the process of taking T'ai Chi for 8 weeks, that I am planning on signing up for piano lessons, and she wrote back, "have you actually retired and didn't tell me? How else are you fitting it all in?"
Ha! Nope, haven't retired, tho' sitting at that desk all day - sometimes with little to do but be there for the phone, etc., I do resent not being able to get to all the things I want to do before I'm done. Then again, if I weren't sitting at that desk, I might not be able to afford those things. So there you are, on the horns of a dilemma again.
Yesterday at lunch I went to the Christmas Tree Shop and found an amazing book on scrapping...it sold for- and is worth - $23.00 but I got it for $2.99. And it has me so inspired to get some truly wonderful pages done using many of my mother's memorabilia. Things I wasn't sure what to do with.....it is just a wonderfully inspirational book....so full of other peoples' great, great ideas. So I want to be scrapping. For days.
Last night we went to the gym for the first time. DH saw the Dr. I am never good at starting out in new places....and this place is so big it overwhelmed me...which I expected. I finally found a bike, adjusted the seat, got on, plugged in my head set and found you couldn't change the channel...it was a definite "guys" machine...set to some red necks racing something and talking and spitting guy stuff....I stuck it out for almost 15 minutes...it said I had burned 75 calories, tho' I think some of that was because I was irritated!
Went to find DH and got him situated on a better bike and I went to shower and swim. I felt more in my element there, and it felt so good in the warm water.
So today I will resent my desk because I want to be at the gym!

Lesson: Be in the moment. I know this...it is a discipline with which I have so much trouble. My brain and interests are like hummingbirds. I flit from one thing to the other....and day dream about a third thing! Be in the moment. Feel this exact moment. Know that this exact moment is where God put you for His/Her very own good reason. And He/She will get you to the next, and the next and the next. And I can only hope He/She gives me enough time to get to them all! There is so much laid out before me.