10 Years and a Speech

Diana has been a Girl Scout now for 10 years. On Friday evening, there was a ceremony to acknowledge the girls with their 10-year pins, as well as honor the girls who had completed their Bronze (Junior Scout), Silver (Cadette Scout) and Gold (Senior Scout) Awards. The Girl Scout Gold Award is comparable to the Boy Scout Eagle Award. My troop are all working on theirs...

On Saturday, the Annual Meeting for our Council was held at our local community college. It moves around to different locations every year, and it was our turn to host it. I had Renee spend the night, so she & Diana could help with setting up the tables & decorations. They were also supposed to serve the cake later on.

Besides the other hats I wear in Girl Scouts, I'm also a delegate. That means I'm supposed to attend these annual meetings, vote on changes in policy and leadership, and then report back to my Service Unit with details. This year was exceptionally long and boring, because we are being "realigned" from 4 councils into one for the whole state of Oregon. This should help with things like the price of cookie boxes staying consistent throughout the state (instead of our boxes costing $4.00, and Portland's only being $3.00). It's also supposed to help keep the training for leaders more consistent, and we should have more use of different facilities throughout the state, vs. just the 2 camps we had for our council.

Every year at the annual meeting, there is a flag ceremony (of course) and a girl scout does a short speech. Diana was chosen this year to be the scout. I knew she was supposed to give a speech, but I thought it was for a different Girl Scout event, later in May (and she is supposed to speak at that one too). Don't ask me how this slipped my mind, but poor Diana only found out at the girl recognition ceremony on Friday night that she was giving a speech on Saturday morning! Whoops! My bad!

She did great though. The topic was "What Girl Scouting means to me." In part of her speech she said, "Girl Scouting has also taught me to be prepared for things I don't expect, like being told I have to give a speech the night before I'm supposed to give it!" She did credit Girl Scouting for giving her great skills to work at her current job - the lawyer she works for was impressed by her long history with scouting, and figured her integrity, honesty and responsibility would be a good asset to his office. She talked about learning to make friends with people she didn't expect to be friends with, and about being confident and teaching others. Diana also asked, "Will Girl Scouting help me to become independently wealthy and never have to pay taxes? No." That got a good laugh :)

When she left the podium, she got a standing ovation, which was really cool, but just embarassed her. The president of the council came over later to shake her hand and tell her what a great job she'd done. Other people congratulated her as well. I was happy that she enunciated well, and didn't speak too quickly. Plus, she kept it short. The leader version of the same thing was nice, but was pretty dang long. I think that lady had 5 sheets of paper to read from!

Diana & Renee hung out in a break room watching TV while the meeting went on, waiting to serve the cake. Around 3:00, I didn't see anyone putting out cake, and things were starting to wrap up, so I located some of the ladies in charge. Turns out the cake was supposed to be served at lunch! The staff at the college had forgotten to put it out - and now it was locked in the kitchen, since the staff had already left! Whoops! If someone would have told either the girls or me when they'd be serving, we would have reminded them - but no one did, so there you go. I guess they'll just have to freeze the cake somewhere and bring it out at the bridging ceremony. I don't know what happened later, I had to get the girls back home.

Most likely, we'll have to attend Annual Meeting next year, just because I *should* have 4 girls getting their Gold Awards. They should be presenting at the Annual Meeting besides getting the award at the girl recognition ceremony on the night before. Hopefully, that one will run a little more smoothly next year.

Getting ready for Talent Show

Our Girl Scout Talent Show is May 6th. I'm not in charge this year (yay!).
My troop has decided to do a dance to a mix they created of various songs. They are still working on the dance, but yesterday, they decided to make the backdrop for the act. Each girl decorated a sheet, which will be hung behind them on stage.

So each girl wanted a different color. We went to Goodwill & Salvation Army in search of the sheets, but they only had white ones. So we got some RIT dye.

Somehow, the dye never does quite what you want it to do. RIT dye is great for making a faded red shirt back to a vibrant red shirt. Not so good for making a white sheet red. The best you get is a dark pink - I knew that though. Renee wanted a pink sheet. Amanda wanted an orange one. Since I didn't find orange dye, I figured we could dye Amanda's sheet in the red for a bit, then in yellow to make the orange.
Mary wanted a green sheet. I did get green dye, but I was worried it would be a blah green, so I figured if I dyed her sheet in the yellow too, it would be more of a lime-green.

Well, the yellow on pink made more of a bright salmon than true orange. And the plain yellow turned out to be a "golden yellow" which is essentially light orange. So now I had a dark orange and a light orange. Amanda was happy. She's keeping the dark one for her bed, and the light one to decorate. But that still left us short sheeted (hee).

Mary came over early yesterday, so she & I went with Connor to Wal-Mart. Turns out Diana was fine with white sheet, and they sold green sheets! Best of all, the Wal-Mart sheets were only $2.98 each! The Goodwill ones had been $1.99, and I also had to buy dye! Same time & money & just go to Wal-Mart first next time (tho there won't be one, I hope).


The meeting yesterday was pretty much setting the sheets out on the front lawn, weighing them down in the corners with rocks/bricks, and painting their names & designs on with tempra paint. Each girl did their own thing - and I'm sorry Amanda, I didn't get a photo of yours :(

The sheets are all drying in my daylight basement right now. Tempra dries slowly in damp weather, but at least it didn't rain on us!

And yes, Renee is wearing my old sweatshirt from when we went camping at Joshua Tree to see Halley's Comet MANY moons ago!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sunday, April 22nd - Lee made me a nice breakfast with an egg mcmuffin-type sandwich & hash browns, orange juice & coffee - yum! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.

Lee got up early to do the paper route with Trevor, so I was able to sleep in (I usually do it). I got to read the paper between Happy Birthday phone calls - which was nice.

Diana drew me this lovely picture. I also got a couple of DVD's, an MP3 player, and of course, my bike & accessories.

Lee went to get the kids' bikes ready to ride - they hadn't used them in a long time. Their helmets didn't fit either, so we also took a little trip to Wal-Mart to get new helmets (and a purse for me, and some fish for Trevor, etc.).

The weather was iffy, so we decided not to go too far to ride. This was my first time using the trail-a-bike with Connor on it. I didn't trust myself going down our steep hill, so I asked that we load up all the bikes into the truck & go over to the school to practise. That worked out great.



Besides riding around the school, we also went through the new neighborhood next to the school grounds. While we're going along, Connor is calling out to people, "Good afternoon!" "Hi!"

We passed a group of kids playing in someone's front yard. After Connor called to them, they all called back, "Hi Connor!" "Have fun on your bike!" And stuff like that. They all knew who he was. Cool.

For dinner, we went to our new Red Robin. Diana always knows a bunch of people working there (but she likes her job better). We also went into the mall next door, and I got a couple of shirts :) Diana got a summer jacket/windbreaker for when she goes to Germany.

I don't have a picture of it, but this afternoon at work, I was getting ready to do the crossing guard duty I have this week, and in walk Amanda, Mary, Renee & Diana with a carrot cake for me! Surprise! I had enough time to eat a slice and they all got one too. They couldn't stay very long though, because they had to get out of the parking lot before the busses got too busy in there.

Fun!!

Truth, Lies & Videotape

Diana was involved this year in a video production class. All the students were assigned to do a Public Service Announcement to participate in the 4th Annual Truth, Lies & Videotape "competition."

Friday night was the Premiere of all the PSA spots that made it to the final part of the competition. This is put on by DC CAPS, which is trying to bring awareness of substance abuse to the area. They are teaching teens to make their own PSA spots, and then some will be shown on TV - Actual PSA's for the county. Pretty cool, huh?

In order to make the Premiere night a little more fun, the DC CAPS folks put out a red carpet, got a caterer, and rented a limosine, so the students could come to the event - kind of like the Oscars. There were paparazzi & screaming fans as well. It was open to the public.

Because we were doing Girl Scout stuff, and they love this sort of thing, the girls accompanied Diana along for the evening. They were allowed to ride in the limo too, and I think they hammed it up on the red carpet more than anyone else I saw (wherever would they get THAT from??).

I think there were about 10 high schools competing with the theme of "Stop it before it starts." Because of the high number of entries, this was the first year our high school had to vote on which PSA's could go to the competition (although ALL the students were invited to attend, ride the limo, etc.). Diana's PSA was a bit too "up" I think - she didn't make the final cut. Most of the PSA's we saw had some shock value, were in black & white, or used animation. The quality of our PSA's from our school was pretty high. If she'd been at a smaller school, her PSA would have been shown.

That being said, she thinks she can do a better job next year. She's already got her schedule, but you don't have to be doing video production class to compete with an entry. Now that she's seen the more hard and shocking angle you'd need for this kind of PSA, I think she can put something more appropriate together for next year.

She still got her little "Dougie" statuette - all the students participating got the same prizes - no matter where they landed in the competition. The only difference will be which ones are shown on TV.

We told Diana she should tell her teacher to post their PSA's on YouTube :)

Protect Yourself

Our kids are taught at school to use "Kelso's Choices" here. There's a whole cirriculum developed about making good choices at the playground and in school. When someone does something you don't like, try a couple of the items on the Choice list unless it's a big problem & you have to tell an adult.

Walk Away
Ignore it

Talk it out
Go to another game

Share & take turns

Tell them to stop

Apologize

Make a deal

Wait & cool off

This works pretty well for keeping a playground or classroom disciplined & easy for teachers. It does absolutely nothing to teach a person to protect themselves. Kelso's Choices don't work so well in a terrorist situation. None of those options will save your life.

In self-defense class, I was taught to avoid dangerous situations as the number one way to defend myself. You can't really manage that if you attend school & a shooter shows up. We were also told in self-defense class, if the attacker has a weapon, do what he wants. This mentality won't help you either in a school shooting.

If a lone gunman is going to try to kill you, you have to fight back. Throw things at his head (cell phone, keys, books). While he's trying to avoid projectiles, tackle him. You can't wait for someone else to save you - you may have to be the one to shout, "Get him!" to spur others to action.

What have you got to lose?

My Sunday Project

When we finished our add-on last year, we had to make sure we had enough drainage around the new room. When it was still a carport, there used to be a puddle of water at the outside corner any time we had any rain.

We have some bigger rock around the cement foundation to help let the water drain correctly. We still need to get a decent load of river rock and dump that all over the driveway, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

We did have some extra wood left over from the add-0n though, so Lee made us a little porch for the front of the room. As you can see from the first photo, it's not even with the walkway. Some neighbors & older folks were having a little trouble navigating the changes in levels.

I thought it would be cool to do a little stepping stone path. It kind of breaks up the front walkway a bit, and I was able to use the stepping stone my dad had made with stained glass. If you click on the picture with Connor, it's the one between his legs.

In any case, that was my project today. I guess it took about 3 hours to do the work. I had to save my bulbs before I accidently covered them up (on the Rubbermaid box). Lee got me a little shovel to dig the trench. I laid a base layer of small rocks & sand, and I got it as level as I could. It's actually at a bit of a slope, since the walkway is higher than the retaining wall. Plus I had to redo it once I got to the top row, since the retaining wall leans a little and I ran out of room. I had to go back to the bottom and that's why there are gaps in the bottom & middle layer of bricks.

I used some old chunks of cement we have left over from the room addition to fill in some of the space, then poured in river rock, and finally pea stones.

Hopefully this will help people when they come to visit! I think it came out pretty neat!

Thanks Aunt Donna!

(click the photo to see a larger image) Early yesterday morning, Lee's sister, Donna, was on her way to a conference. She stopped by on the way to drop off some important stuff.

Since Connor was wearing snow boots to ride horses, Donna thought he should have some real cowboy boots. She has friends that run a western wear shop, so she hopefully gets a good deal or at least knows when they have sales!

She went ahead & got Connor a hat as well, and brought all three kids western t-shirts.

Trevor & Diana were dragged out of bed for the photo, since they had Thursday & Friday off from school for conferences. Connor didn't wear the boots to school, since we want him to get a chance to break them in a bit first. He wore the shirt though!

Thanks Aunt Donna!!!

More Easter

Yes - they hunted eggs inside. It was raining by the time we got the eggs dyed and all (even though they didn't hunt the real ones.


I am going to go ahead and let my kids hunt eggs until there are grandkids. That's what we did at my house. We like the tradition.
Connor got first dibs with the "easy" eggs. But he kept opening them to find out what was inside. That takes too long.

Trevor & Diana let out little "yay!" and "Cool!" noises as they found the hidden eggs.

Fun stuff.

Happy Easter :)

Quick & easy egg decoration...


Hard boil the eggs - we only did nine of them, since Diana & I are the only ones likely to eat cold hard-boiled eggs in our family.

Draw pictures, designs and/or words on the eggs with crayons.


Dye the eggs with hot water, 10+ drops of food coloring and vinegar.


We left them in for about 5 minutes each.


Enjoy your cool eggs!






Happy Easter from Tina, Lee, Trevor, Diana & Connor!

Cool New Bike

Lee figured out a good birthday present for me.

He knows I like to ride bikes. I use my exercise bike very regularly at home. We also live in a very scenic area, which lends itself nicely to bike riding. It's a bit hilly, but after I get used to that, I'll be okay.

This is the website for the bikes: Electra Townie bikes Look under Townies, Ladies, 3-speed. I just got that in Pink Pearl. The pearl finish actually shines purply in the sunlight :)

Typical of Lee, he researches everything first. He decided the Electra Townie would be a good choice. With my old ten-speed, I used to wear gloves to protect the heel of my hands, and I'd have to ride upright now & then to cut down on the low back pressure. These guys use "flat-foot" technology in the design of their bikes, so you're not hunching over for the whole ride. You sit upright, and you can put both feet flat when you're stopped. This is especially helpful with the add-on we want to do for Connor.

Since he's not really able to safely ride around on his own, we're going to attach a trailer seat for Connor. This way I can bring Connor with me when I bike around town, and he'll still be able to "help" with the biking. He just can't steer...

This is what that will look like.

Lee can also move the trailer seat to his bike if we want to ride around town together.

We're thinking Connor's going to get a big kick out of doing this. He already loves driving around just to look at the scenery. Ours will be black.

:)

Flowers

Tulips. I love tulips. I ordered them from Breck's a few years ago, and they just keep coming up with more flowers every year.
The purple ones are wood hyacinth. They grow wild around here everywhere, although these ones came with the tulips.


The red & yellow tulips usually come up first - pink, purple & 'black' will be later.

Suit of Armor?

I managed to get Diana's participation patches sewn on her vest. This isn't all of them. Older girls wear the same vest for 6 years - it used to be longer, but then they shortened it, and so we kind of fill them up.

The patches that didn't fit will go on a canvas bag she has for Girl Scout stuff (planning folder for her Gold Award..).

This is Diana's 10th year as a Girl Scout. Our Annual Meeting will be held here in town this year, so there will be a recognition ceremony for those girls with milestone years, bronze, silver & gold awards. I figured I should get her vest up to date before she's standing up in front of everyone to get an award.

Go Diana!

A visit to the Ranch

Lee needed to do some computer work for Jim at his shop, so we dropped him off & then headed over to Kraig & Nancy's place to visit.

Nancy had let me know that one of the main reasons she even keeps Trinity, the white horse, is for the kids to ride. He's older, and prefers to walk slowly. He's perfect for new riders or smaller kids.

He's even safe enough to let Connor lead with someone else riding.



This time Diana was allowed to take Tia, the brown horse, out of the corral & arena areas and let her ride around the stables. Tia was nursing a hurt knee, so Diana was going nice and slow with her. Maybe next time when she's better, Nancy can lead Diana out along some trails further from the stables.
We got to go riding twice this visit. First in the morning before lunch, and then after lunch when Lee was with us.

Trevor had miscalculated how long it would take him to do his project for science, so he stayed at home and worked on that all day while we were gone. He learned doing research takes a lot longer than writing the paper.

Thanks Kraig & Nancy for a fun day!

What about a goat?

It's Friday of Spring Break now. We got Diana's passport stuff done on Monday. It should be here mid-April. Glad that's done!

The girl scouts were here from noon Tuesday till 4:00 on Wednesday. They spent most of the time working on their music for their act. The dance part didn't get started until Wednesday. That's okay - they have it pretty well fleshed-out, and they just need to practise it a lot now. We also went to Taco Bell & got ice cream as promised. They also watched "V for Vendetta" and "Monty Python & the Holy Grail."

I got some of the sewing done. I still have more to do. Today I have errands to run.

I didn't get into the yard at all. Actually, as I said, it's a pretty big job. So now I'm wondering, how hard would it be to just get a goat, put it on a chain and let it graze everything away? They eat everything - including the poison oak. There's nothing on the slope except trees & shrubs and a ton of weeds & grass. If it were cleared, we might actually be able to do some landscaping.

If you use a chain, the goat would graze everything in a semi-circle from the fence to the edge of the chain. I asked our neighbor, and he said it's a great idea. If we call it a pet, it's not illegal to have it in the yard. Then, at the end of the growing season, we take it back to the livestock auction where we got it, and sell it again - recouping our original cost for the goat. I'll bet the goat poops would be better fertilizer than my compost. I don't take the time I need to do that right at this time.

We can name it "Billy."

Spring Break

I liked it better when it ended with Easter. At least then you had a clean house to celebrate in.

My plans for this week are:

Get Diana's passport ordered. Get Lee's & Connor's passports ordered. Order a copy of Trevor's birth certificate from L.A. (we had to do the same for Diana, and it just came last week). Send away for my Canadian passport.

Outside:
Weeding the yard. This could take an entire month, so I'll just focus on a small area at a time, and see where I wind up. We have rain in the forecast for the week, and I'll just do this as I can.

Prep the strawberry/tomato garden. I had some chives growing in it, but some sawgrass got in there, and I just have to yank the whole thing out now.

Cut back the blackberries all over the yard. Then spray with Crossbow. Crossbow is the only thing that will kill the poison oak and blackberries. Even then, I'll have to do it again next year.

Inside:
Reorganize the laundry room. Lee's dad made us a new cupboard & he included a drawer. An empty drawer! What should I put in there?? Should I buy my own tools in fushia and store them in there? Whoo Hooo!

Sew & mend clothes. Diana's pants all need to be hemmed up - she's a "petite" and her legs are shorter than mine. I will show her how to do the blind hem & let her take it from there. Trevor needs stuff fixed and I want to make myself a bag out of an old jeans skirt. I also have 3 years of girl scout patches for my shirt & Diana's vest. I will probably have to put some of Diana's on a bag for girl scout stuff. The vest is the same for 6 years, and there's not much room left on the back now. I will focus on earned recognitions, vs. event patches to start.

Bake cookies & stuff. Maybe can some jam. I have fruit in the freezer from last summer.

Girl Scout sleepover. They will work on their Talent Show act. There will probably be Taco Bell & Ice Cream eaten. Papier Mache could be involved. Costumes. Who knows?

I don't think we're going to go anywhere. Diana still has her job at the law office, and Trevor will be delivering the papers in the afternoons. If we have good weather & I feel up to it, maybe we'll do some geocaching...

Connor Fun

When someone tries to contact me on IM, there's a good chance it's not actually me. It's possible that Connor is on my computer, watching one of his Favorites. He knows how to log in my MSN account, click on the little star, and find "Connor Fun" under the favorites. He's got 32 things saved there.

Currently, those include 13 Weird Al videos (both regular videos and some people created using his songs, like the Warcraft "Hardware Store" song).

He has 6 movie trailers.

He has 2 Barbie Girl karaoke videos - one is in Portuguese.

The rest are quirky ones like "Wicked Christmas Lights" and "Crazy Frog."

And now he wants to go look at Virus Alert again, so that's it for today!

:)

Per Keeka's Request

On the post below, her comment referred to my dad's love of close ups of flowers.

These aren't as close as my dad's, but close enough for me.

These are violas I planted around tulip bulbs.




This doesn't want to die. We keep trying to kill it. It has roots like bamboo - it keeps coming up all over and we keep cutting it back & digging it up to no avail.

Double & regular jonquils or daffodils with grape hyacinth in my front walk planters.

I took these photos the same day as the post below. Isn't it funny how Keeka knew I would take them?

Once the tulips and gladiolas come up, I'll have some shots of those too.

And I took a "before" shot of Diana's bedroom window where the snowball flowers will be in a month or so too.

Spring things

We have gorgeous weather today (and yesterday). After all the temperature extremes, it's nice to have pretty days on the weekend, when we can actually have the kids help in the yard! Don't worry, they get paid in ice cream & candy bars...

Trevor usually does the mowing & Diana does the weed whacking. Connor digs holes. I didn't need any holes dug today though.

I'm not sure if it's my european upbringing or what, but I just love seeing the seasons change. I love the bulb flowers coming up (hyacinth & daffodils/jonquils now - tulips & peonies are on the way). I love the flowering trees - ours is an ornamental cherry out front - the fruit trees are still budding.

Trevor has to dig into the grass already - if it's not cut down soon, it will grow taller than Connor. Makes it really REALLY hard to find the Easter eggs!

Yay Spring!

Peanut Butter

Back in '86, Lee & I had been dating around 3 years, and I wanted to go to the Exposition Fair in Vancouver, Canada. Lee, having never been out of the country, agreed to accompany me. We would get to visit his sibs in Sacramento & Medford on our way up.


We got an extra rider in Marla, who was going to stay with her Aunt Karen, who had a new baby girl, Collyn.

Lee picked me up from my job, sometime in the later evening, because I worked 8 hours after I got out of school. Marla was all wrapped up in pillows & blankets. I don't remember much about the ride up to Sacramento - we got to Karen's in the early morning & went to sleep.

We spent a few days in Sacramento and then headed up to Medford. We stayed at Myrna & Doug's a bit, and then at Kraig & Nancy's place in Butte Falls. I recall very small Crystal & Jon peeking out at us in the morning, a big electricity outtage at Abby's Pizza during a sudden thunderstorm, Nancy showering me with rain left over on a tree, and slip & sliding down the hill at Myrna & Doug's.

We got up to Vancouver at night, and found our campground. It was a long drive from Medford, and Lee & I talked a lot & listened to music. But by the time we finally got to our site & started setting up, we discovered the tent we'd borrowed from Byron had been peed all over by his cat. It wouldn't have been so bad, except it was raining lightly, and it really smelled.

We decided we should sleep in the back of the Ford Escort instead. He was going to set that up. I was pretty hungry, and since I couldn't help much, I went to the little market in the campground & got some peanut butter, jam & bread. When I got back to our site, Lee was pretty frustrated. When we'd given a ride to nieces & nephews in the back of car, someone had discovered the little string pull to flip down the seat, and had somehow managed to wedge it between the back & the seat. Lee's meaty hands couldn't get it out again, and we couldn't put the seat back down to be able to use the car to sleep.

I discovered at this point that I can take Lee just fine when he's pissed off. This was a good thing, because he doesn't get all that mad very often (that I see), and when he does, I pretty much leave him alone to work it out. At this point tho, I'm right there in the car, trying to make a sandwich while he's cursing in the back seat. I kept my questions to a minimum like, "Do you want a sandwich?" I don't recall his answer - but I only made one for me.

Well, I started to make one for me. I'm working with the handle of a spoon, since I don't have a knife, and I open the lid of the peanut butter. In the dim light of the Escort's interior dome, I can see there's something on the top of the peanut butter. I hold it up, but the light is pretty dim. Is it a cockroach? Is it a beetle? What the heck is that thing? Should I go back to the market? I think I'd just gotten my stuff as they were closing for the night... I'm starving and I'm gonna eat. If it *is* a bug, it's dead anyway, so I carefully collect the peanut butter from the outer edges of the jar, and make my sandwich. It tastes fine.

Ordinarily, I'd have asked Lee to figure out what that was, but he wasn't really in the mood :/

The next morning, I opened the peanut butter jar to find out what that was.

Peanuts.

The logo of this Canadian brand of peanut butter is: Squirrel Peanut Butter - the one with the peanut on top!

*sigh*

Baby Joshua

Lee's niece, Karrie, has a new baby. His name is Joshua. Daddy Shane & brother Benjamin are very excited about the new addition to the family.

Karrie did a water bath for the birth, which sounds like a good way to go (if you can avoid c-sections). She made it sound almost *comfortable* (?!?)

He's only 2 days old here, and will probably look completely different when we see him again - maybe Easter.

Joshua makes the 5th great-grandkid for Lee's folks. Happy Birthday Joshua!