Father's Day

Gosh, it's already upon us! Happy Father's Day, Deni, my wonderful hubby, father of our duplicate daughters. I am remembering what an involved daddy you were when the girls were little, always willing to get up in the middle of the night, changing every sort of diaper they presented, teaching them how to play tic-tac-toe at the age of two-and-a-half, allowing them to put your hair in little ponytails (not just one or two, but a whole head-full!), helping them with their math homework, teaching them how to swing a hammer. So much of you are in them.

My own father passed away 26 years ago come the 18th of July, cancer, first of the throat then it spread to his lungs. It was difficult for an old 1st Sargent to lose his voice, yet he was humbled by this and rose to the occasion. I was blessed to be able to come home and fill in to help my mother and brother out with the foster boys while he recovered from his first surgery at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. During his first hospital pass home, I was amazed at his new outlook on life. Instead of being depressed and withdrawn he was light on his feet and so happy to be alive! He was anxious to get back to living his hectic life, what a man. At this point, I thought there wasn't anything he couldn't overcome.


There wasn't much my father could not do for himself, which always made it difficult to surprise him on Father's Day and other holidays. So I was thankful to be able to sew him a variety of stoma covers (to cover the opening in his throat when he was out and about...he didn't want to startle anyone). It is something that sounds like nothing, but it brought him much delight.

My dad was nearing his 5th year of remission when cancer was discovered in his lungs. After the removal of one lung he was never the same. It was a tough surgery, even for an old dog-faced soldier like him. He'd had enough and went home to be with the Lord, surrounded by my mother, my sister Martha and her husband Larry. They sang hymns and prayed, and then my mom finally let him go.

When all is said and done, if I have been loved and respected half as much as my father, then I will have lived a full and honorable life. Happy Father's Day!

Mother's Day

This has been a tough one since losing my mother 6 years ago. I can still smell the beautiful long-stemmed red roses my dad would send my mom and see the sheepish smile on her face as each of us discovered them in all their glory.




While browsing Mother's Day cards for important women in my life, without fail, I end up with something in my eye. By the time I've read cards for every imaginable form a mother can be portrayed, it's all I can do to make it out of the store without an audible sob.

That said, I am gratefully blessed to have women in my life who have filled the empty places that still need a mother's nurturing and/or another woman's attention: Twila, Phyllis, Carol, Virginia, Velma, Jackie and...

JOYCE, my mother-in-law, a gracious woman who has never been one of those meddling in-law joke-types people so often laugh about. When we visit, which doesn't happen as often as we'd like as she lives more than 5 hours north of here, we just about shop till we drop. We are thrift-shoppin' buddies and do a good job at attempting to make up for lost time. We fill her van with all of our finds, stuff our faces at the local Chinese buffet then head home and melt. For all intent and purposes, I am her daughter.


MARTHA, my precious sister, best friend, teacher, mentor, confidant and prayer warrior. She is a major source of emotional strength and one of my biggest cheerleaders. I need not explain things to death for her to understand. Her wisdom comes, I'm sure, from her close relationship with the Lord. She is a living example of grace under fire, health-wise. Three kidney transplants and all that goes with it (including the meds that are meant to help), well, all I can say is that something hurts every day. Her faith and belief that God will heal keep her keepin' on, and I constantly stand amazed.


LAURI, my bestest friend in the whole-wide world! Although we live in different states and are lucky to see one another every few years, we talk almost daily. It is quite wonderful to have a friend of over 40 years, very uncommon for Army brats as military families tend to move around a lot. Her mother is the closest thing to an aunt I had growing up, something Martha and I have always treasured. I admire how much Lauri's three sons love and care for her, what a great relationship they all enjoy. The fact that we both have twins still blows me away...but I had mine first!


DAWN and VALERIE, my duplicate daughters, my fountain of youth! They keep me interested in life, always pushing me to learn new crafts, make new friends, and even got me off my butt and back to work part-time. They actually like to spend time with me, imagine that. Their love for me is constant and without it, well, let's not go there. I only dreamed I could be such good friends with my own adult daughters, it's almost, I say almost, more than my heart can hold.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

Gotta get this blogging thing down pat

My daughters keep reminding me that I have a blog, thanks, girls!

I have discovered that blogging is like crafting, you don't know how much goes into it until you try it yourself. I so admire people who update their blogs on a regular basis. Of course, it helps if you have something to say that others will actually find interesting. My life is on the ho-hum side, witnessed by my only two followers here, and they're following just because I'm their mom. Gotta work on getting more of a life, I guess.


Other than working and piddling around the house, there's not much going on. I've done a bit of crafting for an Oz swap on Craftster (the pendant you see if from my last Oz swap, I love it!), but even that has tanked. My swap partner, who lives in Spain, flaked, haven't heard hide nor hair of her since the end of February. I was just about ready to mail the stuff anyway (because I'm like that, yo), when I decided, no, dern-it, I'm not gonna do it. So I posted on Craftster to let everyone know I was flaked on and was just gonna keep the stuff I made. The organizer stepped up and volunteered to do a personal Oz swap with me, so I'm stoked again, yet still a bit cautious about the whole thing. I'll exhale when I receive in about a month.

I had a pretty good week, made better by the fact that I was able to enjoy lunch with my sister Martha (and Dawn, too!). AND I got paid on Thursday, so that's always a day-brightener. Dawn and I attended her church's Easter service last night and I really enjoyed it. I sure miss hearing and singing those good ol' hymns from real hymn books, though. Got to see Martha again along with her hubby, who sang his heart out in the choir.


Oh! And I had a wonderful conversation with my best friend Lauri's mom who lives in Missouri. (Picture is Lauri, her mom and 3 boys.) She's the closest thing to an aunt that we had growing up, more like a second mom now that mine is gone.




Hoo-kay, That's it for now. This Easter bunny has to hop to it and find something to feed the family. I'm sure enjoying the sunshine!

Butterflies and Craftster

Some of you know about Craftster, but for those who don't it is a
place where people gather to share what they've crafted, be it sewing,
jewelry-making and everything in-between. We even do craft swaps,
where people makes things (such as Oz stuff, that one was fun) and
swap with a partner that's assigned to you. Anyway, according the
Craftster.org, there are, literally tens-of-thousands of projects posted
each year on this site, so you can imagine how excited I am about
sharing this with y'all.

The big news I'm soooooooo excited about?!





One of my projects was amongst Crafter's Best of 2008! I posted
pictures of a butterfly coil pot and a couple of pinch pots I made in
a ceramics class I took a while back, and low and behold it was chosen
as one of the top 5 projects amongst the "POTTERY, CERAMICS, POLYMER
CLAY > Pottery, Ceramics, etc: Completed Projects" category.

I'm not sure if this link will work, but here 'tis. Scroll down until you reach the pottery category and you'll see my butterfly pot. I am so excited that one of my pieces is worthy of this honor and I am giddy as a little girl!!!


This the award Valerie made for me, isn't it the bomb?! It's a replica of the little icon on Craftster and it's spot-on! Thank you, Valerie, for making me feel so special!

It Really Does Happen in Three's

First it was Dawn's dog, Winnie. She was throwing up pieces of a dog toy, a squeaker ball both she and our foster dog Mister Artie love to play with (he especially liked to simply hold one in his mouth). Winnie began to look droopy and then felt like she was running a fever, which Deni discovered when he felt her furry little forehead. Dawn brought her to the vet and sure enough, her intestines were inflamed from the pieces of the ball and she was quite dehydrated. The veterinarian recommended that Pet's Mart be notified that the balls are defected so other dogs won't go through what Winnie did. She's all better now (almost $400 better!), but it was sure scary there for a while.

Then it was Valerie's turn to give us a scare. About a week ago she began feeling a pain in her lower, right-hand side and it just kept getting worse and worse. She was examined by a physician's assistant on Monday, had labs done early Tuesday morning and then was told they would call her with results as soon as they got them back. The next day she got a message from the doctor's office (she just missed 'em), said their office would be closing at Noon, so she called them back immediately (11:50) and the answering service picked up so she couldn't get the results. She called them again on Friday and was told no one was there with the authority to tell her what was wrong with her. Ugh. To make a long story short we ended up at the emergency room last night around 6:30, was brought into the back around 8:30 and was on our way home at Midnight. Yep, it was packed, but it was worth the wait. We found out a cyst was the culprit and she's feeling hecka better knowing it wasn't her appendix, whew!

The third emergency of sorts happened shortly after the girls left to pick up Val's prescription. I found a spot that looked like someone had thrown up another piece of one of those derned balls and was just about to clean it up when I noticed Mister Artie by the couch. Mister Artie's toys seem to end up underneath things like the coffee table or couch, so I didn't think much of it when I saw him on the floor, facing the couch and making a noise. It looked like he was after an Eeyore slipper (he likes to sneak out of Val's room), but when he began to make more noise than usual I ran over to him and found him in the midst of a full-blown seizure! Deni and I both began to talk him through it just as we do when Thistle, our 14-year old half-toy terrier/half-chihuahua has them. When I saw this wasn't ending any time soon I called Val and told her to come home as quick as she could, that it was a biggie and wasn't ending.

Deni told me to grab a towel, so I put one under his head where a puddle had formed from his drooling and used the another to gently wipe his face and paws. There we were, the three of us on the floor, Deni on one side of Artie talking him through this doozie of a seizure, me on the other, holding Artie's head, soothing him and cryin' like a baby. It must have lasted at least 5 minutes, it just kept going on and on, poor guy. It finally stopped and he was left looking confused and shaky. Winnie sat on the couch just over our heads, looking down on us like she wanted to help. Afterward Artie followed the other dogs (Thistle, Winnie and Clover) outside to the back yard, legs weak and a bit wobbly. He seems to be fine now, but we'll get him checked out after we speak with an AFRP (dog rescue) rep. to let them know what's going on.

I don't know if this old boy will become a permanent part of our family, but for now he's got a home where he's bloomed into a lovable mutt who's slowly stealing the hearts of those who abide within a hop, skip and a jump of the little house out back.

Happy birthday to Deni!

My hubby is one of those people who has gotten a gazillion birthday gifts with a "BTW, this is for your birthday AND Christmas." Poor guy. So anyway, I always make sure we celebrate his birthday (the 22nd) separate from the holiday hustle and bustle. Since we all have to work tomorrow, two of us work swing and the other two work days with no way for all of us to be together at once, we gave him his gifts a day early.

I picked up several Hallmark ornaments from his favorite Christmas story (Rudolph, the stop-action version from eons ago) and a refill kit for his rock tumbler. The one I was really excited about giving him was the two San Jose Sharks tickets and he was mondo happy to get them! They're a set of tickets I bought from a season ticket holder a while back and I've been bustin' at the seams to tell him about them, they're fantastic seats! Since Valerie and I both have to work the night of the game Dawn will be accompanying him to help him cheer his favorite sports team on to victory, lucky duckies.

The girls spoiled him rotten with gifts like add-ons for his World of Warcraft game (from Dawn) and some awesome Bose speakers for his computer (from Valerie, they sound fabulous, dalink!). We all got a kick out of the Hallmark Star Trek ornament Dawn gave him, a communicator that makes that neat-oh noise when it's opened. There's also buttons to push to listen to phrases from The Captain, Spock and a few other cast members, all original recordings. I know, we're dorks, but it's pretty cool. Deni and I have been rockin' out to the sounds coming from those speakers and let me tell you, I'm gonna have to get me some of those, too, wow!

The weather is cold and wet, and the hot tub is screaming for me to jump in so I'm off to warm up these ol' bones.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

A Rainbow of Hope in Indiana

Everyone who knows me has watched my Wizard of Oz collection grow by leaps and bounds the last few years. I collect anything and everything related to this classic movie and then some. With a name like Dorothy, how can one NOT collect such things?!

The other day it was announced that the Wizard of Oz Festival held each year in Valparaiso, Indiana (formerly held in Chesterton), had seen its demise. Throwing out the bathwater with the baby, so to speak, was the closing of The Yellow Brick Road Shop, opened by Jean Nelson (who also founded the festival), presently owned by Marilyn Zengler. I cannot tell you how sad this has made Oz fans.

Where there is rain there are rainbows, and one may be appearing soon! There is hope for saving the shop's museum, which holds many Oz artifacts relating to both the movie and books: http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2008/12/02/columnists/offbeat/doc0ddaf3307127d8658625751200629a1d.txt

The reporter, Philip Potempa, is not just any reporter, he truly loved this festival and all that went with it, and he's been wearing his heart on his sleeve when writing about this latest news. Thank you, Mr. Potempa, for being the voice of so many Oz fans throughout the world.

I've been a member of an on-line Yahoo! group, The Everything Oz Club, since early 2000, which has met at the festival in Indiana since the early 1990s. http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/everythingoz/

We live all over, California, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Alaska and even England! EO is a diverse group of friends who have gotten to know one another simply because of our love of anything and everything Oz.

I attended the festival in 2007 and was gobsmacked to meet several of the remaining Munchkins who were in the 1939 movie as well as other Oz celebs (including Jean Nelson, L.Frank Baum's g-grandsons and John Fricke), and most importantly my EO friends.

We met up again in Hollywood, California, in November of 2007, to watch the Munchkins receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was that ever a trip to remember! My husband and I drove down and spent several days with EO friends and schmoozing with celebs, something I will forever hold close to my heart.

I'm holding out hope that the Oz fest will be saved and will keep you posted.