New Camper Birdhouse for Pink Saturday 5/30/09

This is the little camper birdhouse I made in January and sold. I didn't want to sell it because I wasn't sure I could find another one since this was the only one they had at the time. But I did find a couple more and am making another one for OUR camper. It will NOT be for sale. But I thought I'd show you how it came together in case you might want to make one for yourself.

I finished this one the other day and it will definitely go into the camper that I've named the Rose Cottage Camper.

Garland and rose on top along with the name of the camper.

I started with a good sanding first and then painted some parts pink since they won't be covered with fabric.

Wheels will be covered with fabric though.

Some of the fabric might be lighter than others so the pink paint will help the wood to not show through.

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Wordless Wednesday 5/27/09

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Making Paper Roses for Pink Saturday 5/23/09

I found these darling offices and thought I'd share them with you. Aren't they gorgeous?!?! Squeeeeeeeeeeal!!!!!!!!!!!

For the froufrou-y cowgirl.

For the high fashion chick.

For lovers of pinkKKKK!!! I love the backs of the bookcases.

For the lovers of "small" offices.

For the "gotta have sun" office lovers.

~*~

I've been purchasing paper roses on line for years and today decided to try my hand at making some myself. (Okay, so they aren't pinkkkKK.......adjust, chicks! So far I've made 3 and each one gets progressively better but looking at these photos you would not know it. The numerals over each one show the order in which I've made them. The first one looks best on the photos but in actuality the number 3 one looks best. It takes a lot of lemons to produce lemonade, chicks! I'm up to the task. However, I'll always buy some from my usual source because I just love the service I get from her. Service in this case matters a great deal to me, not the price.

~*~

Random Thought:

Why in the world do they call a seedless watermelon seedless?? It still has seeds in it.

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My Heart is Heavy Today

I am sorry to post this for Pink Saturday but things happened quickly here in the last 2 days. But read it and enjoy the rose garden.

My heart is extremely heavy today. Thursday my daughter called me frantically so let me tell you the story. It's quite long.

Her hubby, Bill, is a dialysis patient. He lost the use of his kidneys about 14 years ago now. His father donated a kidney and it worked for 3 days and then it shut down. So he then went on dialysis 3 days a week—monday, wednesday and friday for 4 hours each evening. He was a brave young man and didn't let it keep him from doing anything. He was very valiant, never ever complained and tried to never let anyone know his circumstances.

He had a hip replacement a few years ago because at the beginning the steroids ate his bone joints. March 9th of this year he had his right shoulder replaced and was looking at 2 more surgeries this year—a fistula on his left arm, which provided access to his veins for the dialysis and then after that healed they were going to replace his left shoulder.

The fistula grew so big on his arm it looked like the hulk only worse. It stretched the skin to its limit. The picture will give you some idea but his was on the upper part of his arm and was so big it hung down to his elbow. It looked like a snake wrapped around his upper arm twice. My daughter had to buy XXL white long sleeve shirts for him to wear to work just for that arm.

On wednesday when he went to dialysis his arm was black from the sores it had from rubbing against his chest. They think it was blisters from the rubbing and had gotten infected. They gave him antibiotics intravenously. They called his doctor and he was to go in thursday to see his doctor to get a schedule for the operation on friday to be performed by a team of doctors. He had a 4:00 appointment. This was a huge undertaking as they were going to replace it with a pig or cow vein. They were in fear of it splitting open.

He worked at home on thursday and at about 2:30 he went out to water his favorite roses in the back yard. My daughter was napping on the sofa in the family room. His arm exploded open, he ran in and asked her to help him. She tried to get the tourniquet on him but he was bleeding out fast and the blood made it so slippery she couldn't get it tied off. (He had been warned that if it broke he had MAX of 2 minutes to tie it off or he'd bleed out.) She ran out of the bathroom to the office phone and called 911. Then she heard a thud in the bathroom and knew he had fainted. She stood there watching her hubby die. I can't even imagine seeing that happen. Blood was all over the home as the heart was pumping the blood furiously out. He bleed out before the EMTs got here. Nan heard him take his last breath when the EMTs walked through the door. Blood was just pooling rapidly under his body. They couldn't get a heartbeat but rushed him to the hospital. A vast team of doctors worked on him for about an hour and then came out to tell her they couldn't get a heartbeat but would keep working on him if she wanted but that he would almost assuredly be a vegetable. She said no, stop working on him. They did. She and my grandson just broke down and they had to put them both on gurneys, administer her some valium and give him some albuterol as he had an asthma attack.

If Bill could have held out for one more day he would have had the operation to repair that valve. Bill's doctor called Nan friday morning and just cried and apologized for not getting it done sooner. He was devastated as he'd taken care of Bill for many years. It has been devastating to this family, especially with the other tragedy of our son being attacked recently. We're a strong religious family and know we will see Bill again. My heart is broken and I can't tell you how many tears we've all shed. Hubby and I are here now in California with our daughter. I truly cannot imagine how his mother is feeling as I almost knew what it was like, but my son was saved. My heart grieves for my daughter being a widow at 47. Bill was 46. But his mother loves him with a mother's love and that is also very strong.

The above photos are of Bill's garden that he was tending the day he died. He loved that garden. The first seven photos are of his favorite rose outside their kitchen. He just loved the fragrance of that particular rose. He will be greatly missed. The rose bush looks like it is weeping for him. I know we all are.

Bill
Nov. 1962 - May 2009
~*~

Okay, for an update on Keith.

He was called by the juvenile D.A. (never knew there was such a thing) on thursday. He was told they have 4 guys in custody now. One is a juvenile and the D.A. asked if he wanted to be in the court for the arraignment on friday. He said YOU BETCHA! They wouldn't let my daughter-in-law or my grandson, who is 20, in the court room. Since it is juvenile court there were privacy issues. Keith was assigned a police guard and was taken into a small room to wait. Then he was taken into the court room and put on one side in the back of the room. The guard stayed with in the whole time. The parents of the defendant were then shown in and put on the other side of the room. The 15 year old defendant was then brought into the room. He pled not guilty, of course. The police "found" him in the jail. He has been in jail for the last 30 days in solitary confinement lockdown level 10. He sits in that cell for 23 hours a day and is let out into a private yard for 1 hour each day. That's for the worst bad guys. He asked the judge if he could have a chat with his parents, who Keith said looked like the average hard-working parents. He felt so sad for them. He then asked the judge to lessen his confinement level down from 10. The judge looked at him and said "I see no reason to change that" [score!!] and will leave it as stands. He said he'd leave it up to the probation department to do something if they wanted to. The young man is one bad dude and was in a gang. Then it was over for that day. I cannot be happy for a 15 year old boy who will probably spend the better part of his life in a prison. I'd hope he would straighten out his life. It doesn't look good for his child. He's looking at a long time in prison. Sad............

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More Lights for the Patio

Love Bunny is eating those olives as fast as he can to get me more jars so he doesn't have to climb up into the garage attic and search for the old canning jars. I can keep that man on his toes! Anyway, I finished three more with simply saving jars from food stuffs.

I've added tulle netting to one, ribbon to another and then one has lace from a vintage pillow case that I cut off. I've added paper roses and silk roses to each one. Now if I can just get hubs to add hangers around the top of the patio cover for me to hang these we're in business, chicks!

~*~

I saw a sign board at a church the other day that had this title for a class or sermon that was to be given: Success over fear. Now, I don't know about you but I don't WANT to get over my fear of snakes or airplanes. Why would I ever want to get over a fear of something that isn't hurting me or anyone else and that I don't particularly want to get over. I don't fly or plan on any trips to the Amazon to pet snakes.

A woman in our church wanted some help with painting her son's room once and I went over to help. As I was painting the inside of the closet she just haaaaaaapppppeneddddd to mention that her son's pet snake got loose and was lost. What kind of a homemaker lets the pet snake get loose I ask you?! You have never ever seen anyone drop a paintbrush so fast and exit a house as I did that day!!!! I panicked and left. Why in the world wouldn't that Ditz tell anyone before they came into her house????? Oh, they found him weeks later when someone was sitting in the family room on one of those banana chairs and the snake slowly exited. Can you imagine what that room would have looked like if I had been sitting on that banana chair?!?! To say nothing of the Ditz. I went into her house only once after that and when the son brought the snake out and said it wouldn't hurt anyone and would I want to pet it, I told hubs I'm outta her and we left posthaste. Eeeeuwwwww..... Ooooh, and it was NOT a garden snake, it was one of those that wrap themselves around you. A boa constrictor I believe he was. Heavy sigh...............
~*~

Random Thought:

In our old age women "leak", but men "splatter" from the time they're toilet trained.

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Wordless Wednesday 5/20/09

Join me for Wordless Wednesday and go to Dixie's blog at Frenchlique to visit others.

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I've Been Seriously Negligent

Bit of eye candy for you. I've been redoing the dining room chandelier and took down the roses and pink chiffon. I think I'll do it in netting now. These are the little roses I had pinned up on it. I'll show you the result when I'm done.

~*~

I need to apologize to several bloggers who have given me awards and I've been lax in posting them. The last month or two have just simply gotten away from me. I didn't mean to let it go this long but it has. So now I'd like to list the awards and bloggers who have given some to me. I sincerely thank them and apologize again.

This one comes from a very dear friend, Lorena, of rosechicfriends. She's very dear to me.

This one comes from Ronda at apeachykeenlife. She has been a sweetheart and given me permission to use some of her photos for an upcoming blog. Stay tuned, chicks! LOL

Sisterhood award comes from Jannet. She lives in europe but has deleted her blog. I thank her anyway.

Star commenter and lemonade awards come from Bobbi Jo. She's also been a sweetheart and is quite funny also.

"If the shoe fits award" comes from Spenser. When I'm on her blog I just listen to Johnny Mathis and swoon! I love his music.

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Can We Talk, Chicks?

I was in the market for some new mascara last week. Grubbin' through WM I had so many choices it was amazing. I finally decided on this one because it's a new formula and touted rather boldly on the display so I thought, oh what the heck? Might as well.

Now, first let me say that the Bobbi Brown mascara is 3x the price of this one and I wasn't too thrilled about their mascara. But this one for $6.00 I thought I'd try. What did I have to lose? I'm here to tell ya that this mascara is the best I've ever used.

Remember, my experience with the 15x magnifying mirror. Whoooooooa, chicks, you don't wanna know how truly ugly it was! Not pretty at all, I tell ya. Sooooo after applying this Maybelline mascara I looked in that mirror and they were truly lush, long and NOT ONE clump on them.

First one is from about 2 weeks ago with what was then my regular mascara—Cover Girl. Nice, but not as thick and long as the last one. I don't know why but the first one looks better on here than the last two but truly in person the last two photos of my eyes are better. If it looks bad don't blame the makeup; blame the FACE! Oh, and there is only mascara on the top lashes, not the bottom ones. And the new mascara was black where the old one was brown/black. I think I need the brown/black and not black/black. *

Okay, I went back to the store and got the brown/black and it looks much better I think.

And with the eyes opened. For crying out loud, why are my eyes so red? I look like I'm on crack or something.....truly I have absolutely nothing on except for mascara!

*These photos could have been Photoshopped to remove wrinkles! :-)

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