Ravenwood Cottage

'Ms. Prepared' was not so well prepared!

When Gretchen and I got home and came inside, I wondered why Mother was sitting in the dark. Dusk was near and we usually close the draperies and turn on the night time lights. “The electricity went off right after you left”, Mother called out to me. Not knowing how long the power would be off I began to scurry around for candles and such. “I don’t like candles burning in the house” Mother’s voice trembled, “I am afraid of fires”. I reassured her that the candles were temporary to help me find my oil lamps and flashlights as it was very dim inside.

I went to the Emergency Supplies closet and pulled out small miners’ lamps and several larger oil lamps. They had sat unused for so long that all the fuel had long ago evaporated and I was required to refill the lamps with oil in near darkness. “Rats”, I thought to myself, “I rather pride myself on some degree of preparedness and this is not being prepared”! The tank less water heater would not work as it has an electronic starter switch so Gretchen was disappointed she couldn’t shower. I did however pull out our butane cooking stove and set her to warming the leftover soup from yesterday for her supper.

This was an excellent forced run to show me how much better I need to be prepared. None of the flashlights save one functioned well. I luckily had the hand generated flashlight that Beth had given me years ago and cranked it up and could see to get from room to room. It was totally dark in the house now except where small pools of light provided by the lamps shown. My biggest concern was that the heating unit was out and temperatures expected to go down into the mid 20’s tonight. We all checked out beds and added extra covers as needed and I kept the fire burning brightly, never the less the temperature fell quickly in the house to the low 60’s.

About 9:00 pm the electricity came back on. What a relief! Gretchen quickly showered, the house warmed up and I made grilled cheese sandwiches for those hungry. Through all of this I began writing a list of things I needed to get as soon as possible so we would be better prepared. Then shortly after 10:00 pm the power went off again. At this point we all decided to head for bed. Needless to say, I slept very poorly that night what with worry about the heat being off. Sometime towards morning I heard the heat kick on and finally drifted off to a sound sleep. Oh how we take modern conveniences for granted!!

It's Snowing!

Sunday morning we woke up to gray skies and colder temperatures, but no snow. Our morning routine went unchanged and at 11:00 am Mother picked up her purse and keys and prepared to take Gretchen to work at the Hospital. What...What is that we see as they prepare to go outside? Snow...big fat wet flakes coming down fast! I knew the ground was warm and guessed that the snow would not really stick but would melt. The first photo is looking toward the Garden area, see how big the flakes are and how fast they are coming down!

By the time Mother got back from taking Gretchen to work, the ground was covered! How beautiful it was! We don’t often get snow where I live and how grateful I was that it was snow instead of ice. Temperatures continued to fall and the Cottage felt cold despite the central heating. So Mother and I retreated to the living room and I built a fire in the fireplace. I stocked up the wood supply inside and filled the kindling basket. We pulled the blinds up all the way so we could see outside and enjoy the snow falling.

By 2:00 in the afternoon it was a wonderland. The middle school aged children across the street were having a delightful time running and shouting to each other. I knew they must be nearly frozen playing out for so long, but they were having too much fun to retreat into the warmth of their homes. Mother and I had warm cocoa by the fire and relished the peace of viewing the mantle of white everywhere. It is as if Nature covers up all the ugliness and pain of the world and all is pristine again.

As it neared the time to pick Gretchen up the roads were full of slush and I wouldn’t think of letting Mother drive; in truth I was scared myself. I had hoped that security or maintenance at the Hospital would volunteer to bring Gretchen home, as in days past when I worked at the Hospital, but no such luck. Bundled up I headed out to fetch her. I must have rarely got over 30 miles an hour and allowed plenty of time for slowing down and stopping. Thankfully I made it there and back home safely without incident.

Don't like the weather forecast? Just wait 24 hours!

Mother had a visit this week with Dr. Hall who is internist to us both. Mother just loves him; he is very kindly and takes time to visit with Mother and ask her what book she is reading and “Are you having any fun?” For her age, Mother is doing very well except for general weakness especially early in the mornings. I do wish that she would go to the Senior Citizens Club to play cards, make a few friends and go out to lunch with other ladies. I know she feels cooped up staying home all the time. As much as I love being home, one does hunger for companionship at times.

I have almost finished cleaning off and re-organizing the cookbook shelf in the kitchen area. I honestly don’t know how things get so jumbled except one tends to put ‘junk’ one place to get rid of it from another place and then that place needs redoing. I suppose I really must find new homes for many more of my belongings. That old saying about spending the first 40 years accumulating things and the next 40 years trying to get rid of them is true!

Friday, February 27th we had very heavy rains all afternoon and into the night. We finally received about 3 ½ inches of rain per the rain gauge in the garden. I was horrified when I looked out the window in my Studio early Saturday morning and saw that the gutters had drained all of that rain into my garden area! The whole garden space was flooded. Thankfully within a few hours all was soaked in and no longer under standing water. If we continue to get rains like that then I think I will be forced to dig up the drain pipes the gutter installation crew placed there and relocate them. I wasn’t very happy when they originally place them so close to where I garden.

Spent part of Saturday morning browning ox tails and beef shank to make homemade beef broth. I deliberately planned on making too much as I wanted to can some broth so that making soup was not a two day job. It takes several hours to make the broth and then I like to cool it overnight in the refrigerator so that I can skim off the fat. Then the second day I prepare all the vegetables and chipped up meat from the bones and finish off the soup. I love to add a handful of barley to cook in the soup as well; I just love the nutty chewy texture of barley in a soup. With crusty garlic bread and brownies for dessert we ate like kings for our supper.

Completed a layout for the Product Pizzazz class at Get It Scrapped website entitled “Don’t Give Up”.

Journaling reads: I am about 5 years old in this photo. Mother says that I was tired of having my photo taken when this grumpy face was captured. I still have this feeling at times as an adult; one of total exasperation. Things don’t always go the way I want and feelings of frustration are difficult for me not to show in my body language; with total disgust I just want to give up. It is in this moment that I remind myself that challenges come to foster growth, to spur us to be better than we think ourselves capable of and just because bad things happen. So when I feel ‘this look’ creeping onto my face, I mentally tap myself on the shoulder and shout “Don’t Give Up.” Photo made at family home Donaldson, TN circa 1955 Layout & Journaling Created February 27, 2009

Watched 4 episodes Saturday night of “West Wing” with Mother. The weatherman is forecasting snow for us tomorrow. 65 degrees yesterday and freezing tomorrow, what crazy weather!

My Slice Machine is Here!!

Today my order came from QVC! What a dear little thing the Slice machine is. It took me a couple of tries to learn exactly how much or how little of the adhesive to use on the glass mat, but when I did understand the adhesive held well. I am posing a shot of the storage cabinet as well as the tool holding pouch and memory card storing pouch. Now I am in business as far as cutting images out and will only purchase memory cards as needed. In the long run I hope I save money by not having to purchase alphabet letters nearly as often.

Staying busy...

Saturday February 21st I helped Mother organize a bit in her suite. Poor dear just doesn’t have the strength or energy to do the things she would like to do. Mother is correct when she states “getting old is not for sissies”. It is most frustrating that I can’t do the amount of work I once could. I rearranged several shelves to configure them lower so she could reach things for herself easier. Next I organized all of her blouses, shirts, jackets, slacks and casual wear. Now if she requires a sweatshirt or linen blouse they are all grouped together so she can see what is available to wear. A good dusting to the floor and now she can get into the walk-in-closet better. Next we need to move on to her crowded bookshelves, Mother loves reading so. I think she wants to purge some more of her tomes and find new homes for them and keep her most beloved stories.

Sunday, February 22nd Beth called and I could tell she wanted company while running errands at the mall. We went to Sam’s club and B.J.’s comparing prices of staples and purchased a few things. At first we were trying to record the cost of items on a scrap of paper, when I suddenly had an ‘ah ha’ moment. Take photos of the prices and jot them down later at home, this made price comparison easier. Beth bought several boxes of Instant Oatmeal as she and her Mother enjoy that daily and I picked up two large packages of toilet tissue as one can never have too much on hand. I was starving by now and we treated ourselves to lunch at Red Lobster. Fried shrimp, shrimp scampi and a small serving of broiled fish for me, yummy. Recharged, we then hit Pet Smart for cat and dog food then looked around at Michael’s Craft Store. Found a new EK Success punch that I had been wanting for a while, it punches paper to look like you tore it out of a spiral notebook.

Neither of us really wanted to go home as we were enjoying being out and about so on a whim we decided to drive to Decatur and see the Paper Source shop that our scrapbooking friend, Marsha, works in. Never have I seen so many beautifully colored papers and envelopes; every imaginable hue! We received the ‘grand tour’ but I was too overwhelmed to buy anything. A day or so later I emailed Marsha and told her a couple of items to pick up for me...definitely some Stickles and some felt flowers on mark down. As the sun was going down the wind became stronger and the temperatures fell quickly. I was so tired and glad to get home and snuggle into my flannel gown, had a great time however.

Paper Source Store Link

Monday February 23rd Windy and Cold! I was on my feet so much yesterday that today my legs and bones in my feet ached dreadfully. Just felt miserable. I took it easy today but did organize by decade all the photos of me as a child and into adulthood; part of my homework assignments in the Library of Memories class. Can you believe that I have no photos of my life at all from 1963 to 1970? Didn’t go to the crop tonight because I felt so bad. Amy picked up Gretchen from her evening class and she went home with her Mother to spend the night. Both of them have been so busy it has been nearly impossible to co-ordinate time together lately. So Mother and I had a quite evening and went to bed early. Sleep...glorious sleep.

QVC Shopping & Thunderstorms

On QVC Wednesday they sponsored several scrapbooking shows. Of late there have been less & less shows with Lisa Bearnson; don’t know whether it is the economic situation, her schedule or just why. Anyway...there wasn’t much to tempt me to shop...except I did decided to purchase an electronic die cutting system. Last fall Making Memories debuted a small, less than 2 pound die cutting system called the “Slice”. It doesn’t require replacement sticky pads to hold the paper for cutting as does the Cricuit and the cartridges are about 30.00 compared to 90.00. I have really been hesitant about purchasing a die cutting system of any kind. Numerous different hand held, roller style and then electronic die cutting machines have been on the market for 8-10 years but I never felt I could justify the investment. This machine has received very positive feedback from scrapbookers online as well as at the Craft & Hobby Association trade fairs. I can try it for 30 days and if I don’t like it, I can send it back. The investment is much less than any machine available at present.

We had severe thunderstorms tonight starting about 9 pm. Naturally the satellite TV goes off just when you really need weather information. Tornado warnings were in the Brooks, Georgia area; which is on the other side of the county from us. We did not lose electricity and I was able to have live updates via computer from Channel 11 Weather news. Conditions warranted that we make ready our closet set aside for sheltering in. We put our purses, pillows and other last minute things in the closet and gathered the flashlights should we need them. Once again it does illustrate that one needs to plan before the crisis occurs. My flashlight situation is always lacking! Mother, Gretchen and I sat in the Studio and listened to the weather till the worst had passed us by. Brooks did have a good bit of damage due to the tornado there. We were mercifully spared, still it made for a poor night’s sleep with concerns more storms might come.

After I picked Gretchen up from college Thursday I decided the time had come that I start trying to teach her to drive. We called a local driving school for prices in the hopes that she could attend professional training, but alas the charge was $400.00 for one day’s instruction! No one can learn to drive in one session! So it fell upon my shoulders to try to begin teaching her to drive. I took her to Walker’s Mill Road near the Cottage and she drove a mile or so, turned onto another road and made the return drive. I want to go slow with Gretchen so she won’t become fearful of driving; it is such a big responsibility to power a vehicle. Baked some lovely chicken quarters for dinner seasoned with garlic & thyme; the meat was moist, tender and the skin crispy brown. Sadly one doesn’t eat that now with concern for heart healthy foods. Served with some stir fried vegetables it made for a nice warming dinner.

We are having another cold spell; temperatures will be in the 20’s tomorrow morning. And the wind has been unmerciful howling round about. I must make myself fashion some draperies to pull over the entrances to the house. Even with the weather stripping air just pours in around the doors! We draped a coverlet over the door to lessen air infiltration. Burr!

Mother & I watched the recently released movie “Body of Lies”. The story line revolved around a CIA operative in the Middle East and attempts to infiltrate terrorist organizations or gain information pertaining to their plans. Very depressing movie...all the horrible unknown things that go on while we common folk are just trying to ‘live our lives’. I am grateful for all that our leaders do to try to protect our country and wish nations would just live in peace, channel their aggressive energy into things to enrich people’s lives and express concern for all mankind’s welfare and freedoms.

Official synopsis from Moviefone Website:

When CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) uncovers evidence indicating that a major terrorist leader may be operating out of Jordan, he enlists the aid of CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) in infiltrating the elusive saboteur's vast underground network. During the course of his dangerous mission, Ferris gradually comes to question how much he can trust his presumed allies -- who include not just Hoffman, but the outwardly helpful head of Jordanian intelligence as well. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Fun with 'Stickles'

Happy Valentines’ Day!! My holiday sugar cookies are still waiting to be baked in the freezer, but they will be just as good when I do get a chance to bake them...and take photos for scrapbooking!

Took a big plunge and submitted 5 summer themed layouts to ‘Creating Keepsakes’ magazine today, Sunday February 15th. A request post for submissions was at their website and I decided to try. Secretly I dream of being published in that magazine as it is the ‘industry standard’, but if I don’t it isn’t the end of the world; I really scrapbook for my own pleasure in the process of creation and telling stories.

Did make it to the Monday night Stockbridge crop this week. It has been difficult to do so since Gretchen has had an evening class this quarter. She doesn’t get out of class until 9:30 -10:00 pm and I really dislike imposing on Mother to fetch her while I am at the crop, so I have only attended sporadically this quarter. Met two new ladies there, Darby & Susan. Marsha invited them to come when they came to the ‘Paper Source’ store that Marsha works in located in the Virginia-Highland area in Atlanta. Darby is a Registered Nurse too, so Beth & she were able to swap ‘war stories’ while we all scrapped. Very nice ladies, I hope they become regulars.

Marsha loaned me a bottle of her crystal ‘Stickles’ to try out. The latest challenge class in the ‘Product Pizzazz’ class I am taking at “Get It Scrapped” online encouraged us to add glitter or sparkle to a layout. I dreaded trying to embellish sections of a cutout flower with glue and then sprinkle glitter on it...messy to say the least. I appreciated Marsha allowing me to try the Stickles before I invested in a bottle of my own and they are splendid! So easy to control the flow of medium and it really adds a special touch to your layout. You can’t really see how sparkly the layout is, but just the touch of glitter on small areas of the decorative elements I cut out certainly enhances my work. P.S. Mind the fussy ribbon border with embellishments...another challenge from the class I am taking. I am learning so many new ways to use all the beautiful embellishments I buy more effectively. The technique is called 'clustering'. Just love it!!

Journaling on the Layout Reads:

I don't remember how Gill found my Blog, but she & I have been corresponding for two years now. She lives in a lovely small English town called Ilkley in West Yorkshire. The photos shown here are of Gill in her garden & back entrance of her home. The post card shares local points of interest. The church is the one Gill attends. It is mainly Victorian: however the towers are 14th century. 'Cow & Calf' rocks are a famous local spot which overlooks Ilkley proper. Each fall Gill & her husband travel to America on Holiday & she always posts Mother & I a parcel full of local treats for us to treasure. I hope that sometime I will get to meet Gill in 'real life'. Photos from 2008

Bits and Pieces of my days...

My oldest friend, Beth, & Amy, my daughter had to drive to Covington, GA for their Master Gardener class today. Years ago Beth & I discovered an old fashioned store there; one side was a feed & seed establishment & the other side contained a quilt shop. I am sure that this was a very handy arrangement in days gone by for farmers & their wives on market day. Long story shorter...Beth picked us up some red seed potatoes, cabbage, broccoli & onion plants. I can hardly believe it is time for gardening again. How I miss Handyman at times like this; I still enjoy gardening, but it is hard to do it all myself. Oh, for a kindly in residence, middle aged, English fellow whose passion is gardening.Tuesday February 10

Ran a few errands today and boy is the wind kicking up. It is really nice to have the automatic emails sent to me from NOAA about severe weather conditions. I get the weather alerts at the same time the TV stations do. Unfortunately the NOAA severe weather alert radio that Beth & I purchased several years ago never seems to alert us in a timely manner. It usually alarms ‘after’ the worst of the storm has passed. What’s with that? I have the correct county codes programmed into the device so I don’t know. May need to track down a phone number to call & talk to some one...we will soon be entering our tornado season. Took some rental movies back to Movie Gallery and dropped off a library book I had chosen for Mother. I often find good recommendations for reading visiting the round of blogs or message boards I frequent. I also ordered some long term storage items from Emergency Essentials; most notably their Gourmet Hot Chocolate Mix. Mother has taken to drinking coffee in the mornings again rather than tea & has created her own homemade version of lattes’. She makes a cup of fresh coffee, adds it to a scoop of Hot Chocolate mix & finishes it off with a glug of milk. How much she seems to enjoy that cuppa. Wednesday February 11

Today marked the beginning of a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking that I have anxiously awaited, “Library of Memories” taught by Stacy Julian, past editor of the soon to be out of publication, ‘Simple Scrapbooks’. Last year I found bits & pieces online about this philosophy & system of processing ones’ photos & memories. I purchased her two books which referenced this system & was amazed how much better this idea works than just scrapbooking chronologically or event based scrapbooking. Yahoo had a group of Library of Memories (LOM) beginners & we began working with one another online to implement this system. All of us hoped to gain admission into the class when we heard it announced that Stacy would teach again in February 2009. I registered the day the class was opened for students. Even though I had a pretty good handle on the philosophy of LOM, past students assured me that the extra attention, details & handouts were well worth the investment of time & money to take the actual class.

Our first week’s assignment is to gather all the photos in our possession and organize them by decade, then year, then season. I supposed I am lucky that I don’t have the thousands of photos that most people do...but I do feel limited in not having a lot of photos to assist me in documenting memories of our family. In conjunction with organizing actual photos we were challenged to review, delete where possible, organize into seasonal highlight folders & upload for printing our digital images languishing on our computers. I only went digital about a year ago & have kept things arranged pretty well thanks to the free download of Picasa software. I also try to upload for printing my photos monthly or bi-monthly depending on volume. I am taking many more photos now so I can sympathize with ladies who have thousands of digital images to view. Thursday February 12

Here is the link to Big Picture Scrapbooking. Sadly the class is closed to new registrations, but there are lots of good classes there to take while you wait for next year. Enjoy!

Big Picture Scrapbooking

Page Map Entry

 

This layout did double duty...I entered a Page Maps Contest/Challenge and fullfilled the first assignment in "Product Pizzazz" taught by Doris Sander at Debbie Hodge's website "Get It Scrapped". I always feel I do some of my best work while taking a class there. Thanks for looking!

Journaling Reads:
A solitary moment by the fire;
Counted thread embroidery;
Olivia sleeping nearby;
Cups of hot chocolate
While listening to the winds blow.

Road Trip, Rubber Stamps and Doughnuts!!

This morning was glorious, sunny and balmy, 40 odd degrees. Our temperatures are expected to be in the mid to upper 60’s for the next week. This is ‘my’ kind of weather!

My scrapbooking friend, Marsha, invited Beth and I on a ‘road trip’ to Atlanta to attend a Rubber Stamp Exhibition and shop hop at other scrapbooking stores. I don’t use the rubber stamps that I already own very often and doubted that I would find too much to tempt me, but with the promise of a side trip to Archiver’s I was on board.

I picked Beth up about 9:15 and we drove to Stockbridge to Marsha’s and then headed north to the ‘big city’. On our way we took a brief detour to check out Scrap Chic Boutique, a small shop in the Decatur area I had never even heard of, Marsha knows all the shops; she gets out more than me. It was a nice shop with many small items I had been looking for. We also picked up our Convention tickets and saved ourselves $2.00 on the price of admission.

Back on the road we drove up I-85 towards Greenville, South Carolina to the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds where the exhibition was held. The show was small but shoppers buzzed like bees around the hive as they viewed demonstrations of techniques in stamping and paper products for creating cards and such. Beth and Marsha each did a couple of ‘make and takes’ while I wandered around in awe of so many different methods of creating cards and scrapbooking accents. I drooled over several arty stamps that I could not resist and vowed to include stamping more in my scrapbooking pages.

When we finished at the show we were ravenous! Beth remembered a Mexican restaurant in the area towards Archiver’s that she and I had eaten at before so we went there. Fortified with chips, salsa, iced tea and burritos we made our way to Archiver’s to shop. I told the girls I hoped I wasn’t so full that I couldn’t bend over to look at the papers on the bottom shelves. Ha Ha!

Archiver's had a great sale in progress, probably to make way for the new products coming from the Craft & Hobby Show that occurred two weeks ago. I got some great mark downs on items as much as 50% off. Thankfully I wasn’t as over whelmed on this trip as the last one we made where I could barely breathe I was so excited, silly me.

Archivers Memory Stores

In route to the Interstate Marsha quickly pulled into the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop squealing, “The ‘Hot’ sign is on”. We dashed in and bought doughnuts that melted in your mouth!! No words can describe that delicious burst of sugar and yeast bread warm from the fryer! Shear Heaven!

We stopped at a couple of more places to see the offerings and then headed home. In total Beth and I were gone nearly 12 hours on our adventure. All three of us came home with aching knees and tired faces but had such a nice time. Nothing is as much fun as time spent with Friends!