The power of friends...

Think about someone you've known for a long, long time. Someone outside your family, that is. What would your life be like if you'd never met that person? It probably would be different; most of us would probably say that we would be worse off. I got started thinking about this while looking for shoes to wear in my best friend's wedding. That led me into thinking about the aforementioned best friend, and from there into "What might (not) have been..."

I've known Kate since 3rd grade when we started carpooling to school together. That means we've been friends for 27 years now. If we had never carpooled/never met, my life would be very different. Never becoming friends with Kate would mean that I wouldn't have someone to share fond memories of sleepovers at Aunt Rose's house - watching MTV Rock Blocks (and always seeing "Is This Love" by Whitesnake), and eating cold pizza and warm pop at 3am. It would mean that I wouldn't have had anyone to drive over the "bump" behind 7-11 with and bounce our heads off the top of my car when we got airborne. It would also mean that we wouldn't have been able to take Kevin (Kate's fiancee) over the bump a few weeks ago when they were in town. I wouldn't have "graduated" from U of M by wearing a cap and gown and sitting in the stands with Kate because she couldn't get any extra tickets. I would never have been exposed to most of my favorite music groups today - when Kate went down to Ann Arbor and heard XTC, she came home and we had to go looking for "Nonsuch", and I fell in love when I heard the first few notes of "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" emanating from the speakers in my car. XTC led me to listen to other music that I probably wouldn't have heard of if it weren't for liking their music, like They Might Be Giants, Yazbek, and Ben Folds Five.

If I hadn't met Kate, I probably never would have gone to Cancun or climbed Chichen Itza. I wouldn't have had anyone to go to the Olympics in Salt Lake City with, and there would have been no one to break up the two weeks spent vacationing with Aunt Rose in Arizona and California. I never would have visited Milwaukee several times while she was living there, and I wouldn't have gotten to go to Chicago the weekend they lit the Christmas lights with her and our other friends - I met them through her. I also wouldn't have anyone to be planning a trip to Swindon, England with for our "golden anniversary" in 23 more years.

If I hadn't met Kate, my life would definitely be very different. We have so many memories and in-jokes that would never have happened. I'm very blessed to have such a wonderful friend, and honored to have been asked to be part of her wedding. Aunt Rose was friends with "Aunt" Ginny, her best friend for over 60 years. Hopefully Kate and I will be able to beat that record - I couldn't imagine my life without her in it.

Getting there...

I realized on my way to Jackson this morning that I probably won't be having to drive back and forth much longer, which will be nice. Maybe another month, then I'll be a whole 'nother type of busy! I'll probably love it, too - that's just me.

Softball starts next Thursday - pray for us. The girls decided at practice the other night that our goal should be two runs per game, so that's what we'll aim for. It ought to be interesting, that's for sure. And if nothing else, it'll be a blast. We actually are turning out to have quite a large team this year, so that's nice. I'm cautiously optimistic - maybe we'll win a game this year.

Happy Memorial Day - Hug a Veteran

Happy Memorial Day to everyone out there. Although a lot of times we forget the reasons behind the holidays and just see them as an extra day off work, take a minute and remember our veterans today. They're the reason that we're able to enjoy this day off in whatever way we choose to do it. Thank you to all the veterans out there - we wouldn't be here without you! Have a great day!

Eggs...

Yesterday, we were out at the in-laws for some roofing and burgers and S'mores, pretty much in that order. My sister-in-law decided to take a walk around their path in the back 40 - it's a nice little path and kind of meanders around the back area that just kind of grows wild. While she was walking, she got dive-bombed by a robin. This robin was protecting a nest that was in a branch of a tree back there, and the nest was only about four feet off the ground. So Sherrie came back and told me about it, and we took my camera out there.

We figured, correctly, as you can see, that the robin would be protecting something - probably eggs. So, Sherrie and Cheryl (my stepmother-in-law) and I moseyed on back, and waited to get dive-bombed. The robin, probably guessing that she couldn't take three of us, retreated to the next tree over, leaving us to hunt for the eggs.


After pulling the branch that the nest was on down a bit so I could get in with my camera, I carefully extended my arm, with the camera still attached to it, over the nest and started shooting. The whole time, the mama robin was chirping at us, scolding us to leave her babies alone. I took several shots, not knowing which ones were going to be decent and which ones wouldn't. The top one is my favorite, the bottom two are a couple of the others that I took. Hopefully we didn't traumatize mama robin too much, but I almost feel like it was worth it to have the chance to see something like this.

Flower Power

Well, after much tribulation, I finally finished my May ATCs, and of course, who better to share it with than my loyal reader? This is a photo of either my aunt's or my stepmother-in-law's lilac bush from last spring. I added the quote in Photoshop, then printed it on textured cardstock. I distressed and inked the edges of the cardstock base and distressed the picture edges also, then put them together with a silver brad recolored with alcohol inks. I think I like the way they turned out - they're out of my comfort zone a little, so I'm not quite sure.

Have you ever...

... ridden an elevator facing away from the doors?
... when you were the only one in it?

It's a weird feeling. We're so programmed to face forward, that it takes a conscious effort to ride it "backwards". I did it the other night, and that one floor descent was about the longest 15 seconds of my life.

Have a great Memorial Day, everyone! If I don't get the chance to get back this weekend, please help remember all of our military men and women, both those currently serving, and all those that have gone before. We wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for them.

Musings From the Road, or The Perils of Giving Me Too Much Time To Think...

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's read any of my back posts that giving me too much time to think can have some... unpredictable results. After all, that's where the whole camera eyes and streets named after Clue and Scooby Doo characters thing came from. Lately I've been having way too much time to think as a result of my travels for work. So, I took off way earlier than any normal person should be traveling this morning, and, as is totally possible (really), got to thinking. The thought for today was this: What if it were possible to look at something and see the potential in it? For an easy example, let's say you could look at a dying tree and see it at full strength, blossoming, swaying in the breeze, whatever it is that healthy trees do. Let's make it a little harder - what if you could look at a kid in high school who, although smart enough, got hooked on drugs and has no ambition and see them graduating from college/tech school/whatever and successful in their life? Would that be the most awesome thing ever, or the saddest, to be able to see the potential there but not be able to do anything about it? Would optimists see the positive potential, and pessimists see the negative, i.e. see the tree fully dead and the kid on welfare, just looking to score his/her next fix? I think that having an ability like that would be beautiful and heartbreaking, in that the world you see would be wonderful, but you would have to go through life knowing that none of it was real. What do you think?

Fun stuff...

While looking at Jeanne's blog, I saw her link to The Daily Meme, and while stumbling around there, I found a couple of cool things. Here's the first:

There will be an RAK for the first person to name that tune...

Music Meme
Here's how it works:
1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist) **I had my iPod on shuffle, so I skipped 3 songs forward**
4. Post the first verse in your journal (blog) along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title

For a fabulous prize, name that tune (and the artist(s))...
"Back in high school I knew a girl
Not too simple and not too kind
We both grew up, but I heard she'd changed
From a new wave fan to another kind..."

The second one was also pretty fun. Over at World66, you can tell it all the states that you've visited, and it will show you a map like the one below. Clearly, I have some catching up to do as far as states I need to visit.



create your own personalized map of the USA

Oh, and I also took a geek test, which told me that I'm a "Major Geek". No big surprise there, right?

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week!

Happy Birthday to... someone!

Ok, it's not the best picture, but I just had to share the card I made for our birthday card swap over at Cropper's Cottage. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. We started out with a crew of seven who were supposed to be cropping tonight at one of the local scrapbook stores, and ended up having five of them cancel for various reasons, so it ended up being just me and my sister-in-law. We had a great time and I got a lot done, even though I was really upset that I left my supplies for my ATCs at home. :(

This is the first page of the layout I did using my two favorite butterfly pictures from Dow Gardens. I used the new KI Memories lace paper - love it! It's kind of a pain to get it to stick to the regular cardstock, though.



Here's page 2.










That's all for now. Have a great weekend, everyone!

I'm getting too old for this...

Well, our first softball practice of the year was last night, and as usual, I'm SORE!! Every year I swear I'm going to try to get into better shape before the first practice, and every year, I ache and "ouch" under my breath for a couple of days after practice. Our team this year should be about as good as last year - please understand that I'm using that term very loosely. Last year, we won 1/2 a game. That's right - 1/2. That was because both our team and our opponents had to forfeit. We may not have had a winning record, but we had a lot of fun. And I think that's what's important to remember. So, while we'll keep last year's goal of trying to score at least one run per game, in the end, if we don't score anything all season, we'll still have fun. Yeah, winning is fun, but being able to lose with dignity is important, too. And I think our team will have a lot of practice at that again this year.

Just a quick note...

Fact: I did not die of embarrassment from flubbing the solo last Sunday.
Fact: I am not, in fact, dead at all.
Fact: This has been an incredibly busy week so far, and it's just going to get worse before it gets better.
Fact: The three facts above combine to mean I haven't had time to blog.

I will say, however, that giving me too much time to think about things can be bad (after all, that is how I came up with my wish for camera eyes!), and that I'm discovering a heretofore very deeply buried sappy side that is surprising me. More about those later. Until I have time to breathe and sleep again, have a wonderful weekend!