Happy Easter!

The year is 1965. I am 13 years old--in the 7th grade--in the blue & white striped dress. From the back--Grandma and grandpa Preli holding Joyce--she's 6 months old in this picture. The next row starting next to me is Ronnie--12, Janice & Jennifer--11. In front, Jeanne--8 and Matt--4. 

We are all in our Easter finest. We always got a new Easter outfit and a Christmas outfit down to the shoes, purse--and spring coat and gloves.

We are at our Uncle Al and Aunt JoAnn's house--my mother's brother. We had an Easter egg hunt and good food! We didn't get to go to too many places. When you have 7 kids, you don't get invited much. 

I am thrilled to have this photo. It is only one of two that we have with all of us kids together. 

Happy Easter to you and your family!

Scrapbook Saturday

We had our AYM meeting for March. The topic for the month was "the bedroom." As always, everyone can focus on anything to tell a story about. As for me, I decided to go with "Lucky" in honor of St. Patrick's Day. 

I was thrilled when I found this shamrock paper--green shamrocks on a robin's egg blue background. That's the exact color of my bedroom. It's kind of hard to read my journaling so here it is:

I have so many fond memories of my bedroom. It’s where the girls all piled in as we snuggled and watched the school closings over and over again. When Sandy was a baby, we brought her in with us just to cuddle and look at her. She was such an easy and happy baby. When Stephanie was little, she came in every night to climb in with us. Every. Night! If we let her, it continued over and over. She never gave up. She ended up sleeping on our floor. When we moved to Nashville, I remember saying to her, “Steph, I don’t care if you want to sleep on the cold, hard floor instead of your nice comfy bed, but you’re 8 now. Are you going to be doing this when you are 18?” That’s when she finally stopped! As for Mindy, she started climbing in at around two years old and wanted to know everything about her day—including all her meals! 

Now, my bedroom is where I go around 8 or 9 p.m. to relax, read, and listen to podcasts while playing games on my iPad. I never watch tv in bed unless I’m sick. In the winter, I love having a fire at night or in the early morning. It’s a cozy place for me and I’m glad for it! But truth be told, I’d go back in a heartbeat for more time with my babies!

What’s on my nightstand:

Nightstand. Isn’t that an odd word? I think in today’s world it’s called a “bedside table.” In my case, it’s a little chest of drawers. My nightstand contains nothing but practical stuff: a lamp, a bottle of water on a coaster, my book (Kindle), phone and charger and my iPad. The top drawer contains kleenex and Blistex in case the need arises.

This is Susan's layout.

Here's her journaling:

Nancy's layout:

Her journaling:

Nancy based her layout on dogs in the bedroom. 

This is Susan's February layout.

I love her pink and orange color-scheme.

That's it for now!

Friday Frustration

By now, you are probably pretty sick of hearing about my sewing problems. You are probably thinking..."Here we go again! Why doesn't she just quit with the sewing machine already! It's beyond her. Just give it up!"

Well, that's not in my nature. I've been plugging along and actually doing pretty well lately. Until...yesterday. Then it happened! The bobbin ran out! OMGosh! My thoughts immediately turned to my friends who always rescue me. 

When Nancy told me to just change my thread color by "tying the new one to the old one and just pull it through”—that was a game changer for me! GAME CHANGER! I’ve done it many times with complete success. I'm no longer afraid to change the thread! Win!

But yesterday, when my bobbin thread ran out. I kinda’ freaked, and was going to call her for emotional support. Instead, I took a deep breath and told myself I could figure it out. I pulled out the “quick start” card, but there was nothing about the bobbin. I had to go to the “book.” I wasn’t sure what to call what I needed to do—change the bobbin or replace the bobbin. My friend, Karolyn came over and replaced the bobbin the one and only time it ran out. 

Everything takes me longer, but I found the page. I opened up the bobbin door and pulled it out. Then I panicked because I didn’t pay attention as to which way everything was pointing or how the thread was coming off. Luckily, I had also taken Nancy's advice about buying the pre-wound bobbins. So, I followed the pictures carefully and put everything back in. But then, the thread was sticking out towards me and I could not figure out how to get it to go up and come out towards the needle! I looked everywhere in the instructions and couldn’t find anything about that. I decided to close it all up and see what would happen. I rolled the big wheel and it seemed like a miracle—a tiny little loop came up. I carefully grabbed my scissors and pulled it out. OMGosh! I couldn’t believe it. I took a scrap and practiced and it worked!! I cannot believe it! I actually did it all by myself. I felt like a proud little kid—even if it took me 30 minutes to do it!! I actually like that little kid feeling--all giddy--even if I'm 74!

 I couldn’t have done it without my friends!! 

So, this post isn't exactly a frustration at all. Perhaps I should call it "Feel Good Friday!" Because when it was all said and done, I felt good!

This is what I was stitching--for Jordan's wedding album:

Five Things Thursday

Just for fun, I have a few vintage finds today.

I loved the turquoise of the 50's. My Aunt Marie's first car was a 1957 Chevrolet convertible in turquoise. 

That car was slick!

I really liked this shade of green--much pretty than the avocado of the 1970's.

My grandma Z. had dishes that were the green glass. 

This has always been a controversial topic. 

In the 70's when printed toilet paper came out, if you hung it the other way, the pretty print didn't show as well. I do understand why people with pets or babies hang it the other way.

This is so clever and a great use of old globes.

This would be so cute in a kids room over their desk on in a library. Actually, I would want a few like shown here. 

What a clever way to show a collection of vintage pins. It's a great way to display inherited pins from your mom or grandmother.

As for me, I have a collection of rhinestone pins and jewelry. Now I'm thinking I'm going to have them framed to enjoy myself. 

What I Buy Wednesday...

or rather, what Butch bought. 

This is what $60 bought. The ground chuck was on sale for $4.99 lb. Normally, it's been $12.50 lb. 

This was my $20 purchase last week.

Next week, I'm going to shoot for $100 to see what that buys. 

PS The same apple in both pictures was not part of the purchases.

Tuesday Thoughts about...

...math.

When I was a kid, I did well with basic math. Now algebra was a different story. Geometry was okay because that was logic. But the math in physics--impossible. Luckily, I had a lot of help.

Anyway, when I see these kinds of problems, they seem simple enough. But, by the end, it's all confusing.

I wasn't exactly sure when I went over it again and again. I used AI to get the answer: the store lost the $100--even after all the rigamarole--it was still just $100.

Okay, so this one really baffles me. This seemed like a really easy one. You do it and come up with your answer. I don't even know why it says you can't use pen and paper--who would need to?

If you came up with 22.5 then we matched and that would be wrong. The correct answer is 60. Yep, hard to believe. I worked it straight across but apparently, you have to do the inside part first (20 divided by 4). That makes no sense to me. How are you supposed to know that. I don't ever remember learning anything like that.

So this is some pretty easy math--although I'm not sure I quite agree with it.

I agree that if you can't afford to give a good tip you shouldn't go out to eat. But 30% might be a little much. I am a really good tipper--usually 25%. Sometimes more as I pay attention to things--like are we using a table for too long which prevents the server from turning it over. If that's the case, I'll double the tip I was giving. 

I also pay attention to the fact that I might not be buying a drink. I'll usually get an iced tea but sometimes I'll just get water. I don't do it to be cheap--more because I'm particular about my tea and some places have terrible tea. So I always add a little extra for that. I add extra if I'm sharing a meal. Mostly I prefer to get my own so I can take half home. It was Mitchell who called my attention to this. He said that it's frustrating as a server who really needs the money for old ladies (and, according to him, it's mostly old people) to come in, share a meal, order water and then keep the table tied up for too long.

The easiest way to add a really good tip is to take the total and divide it by 4 (25%) and add it to the total. Yes, that means I am paying tip on tax too. I can afford it. 

Me on Monday

I came across something kinda' cute--my Camp Fire bead log. It was a 3-ring binder that was divided by categories and used to keep track of all the beads I earned. 

Binders weren't cute when I was a kid--no nonsense, ugly blue with a texture. I dolled it up with a Camp Fire Girls sticker.

Here are a couple of pages taken from the binder:

I was 11 years old when I made these entries.

Apparently, my mother--who had to approve my entries disagreed that I had kept myself neat and clean for a month. 

I guess I did better this particular month because I earned the bead!

Uh oh! I must have slacked off again! One thing's for sure, I didn't get the bead if I didn't earn it. But come on, I was eleven. What does neat and clean even mean at that age?

My mother sewed the beads on to my vest:

I can still remember some things: the patches on the left were for selling candy--hence my love for Russell Stover chocolates. The boxes were $2.00. I wanted it so bad that I figured I'd use my allowance to pay for a box. Well, the problem was that my allowance was 25 cents a week. That means I needed 8 weeks of allowance to pay for it. My math wasn't so good back then--I was about in 3rd grade. The candy sale was only two weeks long. I got in trouble and learned a valuable lesson--as what I did was considered stealing--taking something when you don't have the money to pay for it. You can bet they kept my allowance for 8 weeks! I don't remember the quantities, but each color represented a different level of sales. 

The red, white and blue beads were earned for "citizenship." I still have my book and could probably look up what were some of the things I needed to do to earn them as I can't remember. Those purple beads were for something special, but I have no idea what I did to earn those. I still have my beanie and scarf. 

The blue ones were for "frontier" and I have no idea what that meant! Orange was "home" which were earned for home chores, babysitting, cleaning, cooking, etc. I don't remember many more. Brown was "outdoors"--I earned a lot of those raking leaves at the convent and washing windows for the nuns. The large beads represent every ten beads you earned. 

There were 3 levels: blue birds, then you "fly up" to a Camp Fire Girl and end belonging to the Horizon Club. I have no idea what it's like today except I think there are boys included. 

Okay, I had to stop and look it up:

Camp Fire Girls still exist, but they rebranded to simply Camp Fire in the early 2000s. Founded in 1910, the organization evolved into a co-ed, inclusive youth development program that serves boys and girls, focusing on outdoor education, camping, and after-school programming. 

This is my Horizon Club--dress. We had Indian names as did our group. My Indian name was "Zah-rah-nee-hee"--I have no idea what it stands for now. Our group was "Tambi-bi" which stood for "busy bees!" I'm sure that's all gone now as politically incorrect.

My mom took some beads from my vest to decorate this. Those yellow/black patches are swimming badges. The first one (at the bottom) is the first you earn: polliwog, frog (middle) and then fish (top). There was one more--"flying fish" but I must not have earned it! 

Okay, that's it. That's all I remember. But, I could seriously fill a scrapbook with all of the fun memories, camp outs, charity works, parties and field trips we had. Camp Fire Girls was really fun. After all, when you grow up in the country with one car, there's not much happening! Or I should say, it didn't happen if it wasn't walkable!

PS OMGosh! How could I forget? I committed my first crime at a Camp Fire meeting. I was in the second grade and "stole" a piece of candy out of a bowl sitting on the table of the house where we had our Halloween party. As an adult, I can see that they were probably there for the taking anyway. But on the way out, I took a Butterfinger. My conscience got the best of me. I had to go to confession. Once I did that, I had to make reparation. That meant that I had to pay 2 cents (the cost of those little candy bars.) I came up with a plan--I told the girl whose house I stole it from--Mary Beth Newton--that I owed her 2 cents for milk (that's what milk cost in the cafeteria) which was stupid because she and I both knew I never borrowed money for milk. Of course, that meant another trip to confession for lying! Sheesh--sometimes it was hard being a little Catholic girl!

Just goes to show, you never forget your first crime! I guess the stolen box of Russell Stovers came later. But I'm proud to say, I have never stolen another thing in my life!!