Slowing down a little

I'm having trouble with some of my software. One problem came when I did what the message said and clicked on the fix. Now my scrapbook program is gone. Luckily I had an older boxed version of it so I've been using it for a couple of days until I get the new boxed version I just had to reorder...

All of the Christmas parties are over and the kids still have another week of vacation left. Good thing they all got some neat things to play with or some of the mothers will be going crazy with "I don't have anything to do" ringing in their ears.

We've had biting cold winds up here in the high desert but no snow. At least no snow until maybe this morning or this afternoon. I can hope but I'm not holding my breath. There is a large dark cloud hanging over my area of the world but I can't tell if has snow or not. I'm not a scientist, I just wait till it starts and then I say "Look it's snowing".

Not many new scrapbook pages but I did make some neat Christmas cards with a pkg from Studio Manu that included premade cards that all I had to do was pop in a picture, and print them out. I've sent them to all my best friends. I'm slipping them into the latest calendar from the "Cold War Patriots". I happen to be Ms September. I entered the contest to send a favorite family recipe and I got picked to be featured in Sept. and I picked the picture they used. It's from 1984 when I was the "XO" of the local Sea Cadet Unit. One boy couldn't hit the bulls eye so he just ran up and hit it so I'c get dunked.

Cold War Patriots is an organization to help former Nuclear Workers get the resources they need to take care of the health problems associated with working in a hostile Nuclear environment. One of the bldgs. I was housed in for two years has a 15 page list of the previous chemicals used in this "former chem lab". It was hosed down, painted and some office furniture moved in and then they moved us in there. It's no wonder I have asbestos in my lungs along with other nasty stuff and I'm on Oxygen pretty much 24/7.

Now here's some of my latest creations.

The cookie exchange at the Senior center. Olivia & Marv enjoyed some cookies together.

A montage of all three of our pets. Mrs. Beasley is mine, while the two dogs are Charlie's.

Charlie and her new boyfriend Kelin.

Charlie's latest card.

Olivia in one of my 'Red Hats' and poor Chazz suffering with the reindeer antlers on her head.

Junior found the pile of my bears and thought it a cushy place to nap.

Junior's Christmas card. Kit is from Tooty Pup Designs.

I had to pick this one for my two 'little people'. As elves they don't work much but they enjoy the cookies.

Marv is one of my best buddies. He has the same problems with the lungs as I do only a lot worse.

A lovely lady with her first Grandchild. Moe and Margaret (aka Maggie).

Phil's newest grandchild and the older brother. Now Moe has more babies to hug on and spoil.

My Christmas card with my Patriotic Bear and a monkey in a santa hat.

Waiting for Snow but I don't think we're going to have any at all this year.

Time to fix some breakfast. Have a nice day and God Bless you all with a special Blessing on the Men/Women in Uniform and in harms way! Keep them Safe and bring them home soon.!

A Birthday Party & a Surprise on Sunday

Saturday was the birthday party for our Olivia. Since the family adults (at least most of them) work we had the party on Saturday at the apartment complex clubhouse where Bridgit & Olivia live. It's a really nice club house with a pool/ping pong room, an entertaining room and a small kitchenette with openings into both areas.  Naturally the big boys went into the pool room to play pool and some of the kids gave the ping pong table a whirl. Not saying they did any good, they were so noisy I stayed in the other room with a buffer in between.

The Birthday Girl sees herself as a 'Nerd' and requested a Star Wars party.  So both Bridgit and I went on the internet.  We found loads of stuff and I even found a blog by a "home school" teacher/mom where she uses the items for the kids she's teaching numbers, game skills, team play and whatever else it is they aren't teaching in the public schools. I printed out 14 'Jedi' completion certificates and after the kids at our party had done the obstical course of crawling on the floor between floating baloons (Helium of course) and some sparing (I think) with the light sabers we found at the $ store they got a certificate with their name on it signed by Obi One himself (tic). They are the latest members of the force of Jedi.

Food was particularly interesting. I had made a recipe of cookies a friend had posted on FB called Italian Christmas cookies which I renamed and labeled "Wookie Cookies", the punch and the soda was renamed Yoda Soda, and the veggie tray was renamed Vader Veggies. Oh, and there was a couple of bowls of check mix promptly renamed Chewbacca chews. It was quite a festive party and all the kids had fun. I had found all these names as tags for the dishes and printed them out here at home, put them on the bowls, dishes & bottles with tape.

Here are the pictures from this party. The pictures I made of the Wookie Cookies just couldn't be made into a scrapbook page so they are just as is.

Olivia with her new soft blankets on her head and lap. Mom and cousin Kaddie are looking on.

All of the kids who were there.  Some related and some not.

Two star war figures on the table in front of the Wookie Cookies and the Space Puffs.

Blue & Green Helium filled balloons from the $ store.

Close up of the Wookie Cookies.

Wookie Cookies done in regulasr frosting when I ran out of the stuff made from the recipe.

Sweet little Kaddie crawling the obsticale course.

They had fun and that's all that matters. The adult head aches are just collateral damage.

I almost forgot to tell you what the surprise was. My daughter Charlie got 3 tickets from her friend Greg and she and Kelin took me to the Regal theater Sunday afternoon to see the BIG screen version of White Christmas. I took Olivia along since she had never seen it at all. I've seen it many times on TV but this was the first time I'd seen it on the big screen in VistaVision. WOWie. It was great, colorized and we wern't sitting too far back so it was really big.

Hugs from Grandma Sarge! And thanks to the ladies who made the kits I used and will continue to use. I've put the names at the bottom of the picture I made so you have to blow them up a bit to see which one I used.

Much 'ado' about Nothing

It's been strange these last few weeks. I've been to the 'clinic' and one changed one of my meds from Zocor to Lipitor so now I can jump around in everyone's face and say "I'm down with Lipitor are you"?  Deleted a med and replaced it with something else.  I guess they know what's right or they wouldn't be able to send out the big bills they do. One thinks I should apply for a "Military Disability"  for the asbestos that has shown up in my right lung. I know back in the early 60's I was housed in some pretty old barracks and then in the late 60's we lived in base housing which wasn't all that modern. Cinder block buildings and ancient piping wasn't leaking but it was old.  I have to talk to a few more people before I jump into that muddy puddle.

We have my Christmas decorations up and just minimal ones on the outside. My little choo choo train is on the front rock garden looking like it wants to go over the little 'oriental bridge.  My solar lights aren't very bright yet because we haven't had very much sun in the last two weeks. And it's overcast again today. No breeze but it's cold out there. Mornings bring some frost and sometimes you can see it falling to the ground. It's what I'd call 'substantial rain' meaning it isn't completly liquid nor is it solid enough to be snow. It's at the tween stage. Makes for some slick driving early in the mornings I'll bet (I wouldn't know, I'm up at 4:30am but I'm not out and about at 4:30am).

We had a sort of Christmas party on Thursday nite and it was almost the whole gang. A couple of families were missing but we had a great time anyway. I tried a recipe that had been posted on FB and it didn't turn out bad at all. People really liked "Cream cheese stuffed, Bacon wrapped, Chicken breasts". That's a big mouth full to say but it tasted really good. A couple of the younger set had birthdays. Thursday the 11th was my Olivia's 10th birthday, and the 13th was Jeweli's birthday so we had cupcakes and sang to embarass the young ladies. It was a really great evening so I'm going to post a couple of pictures made into scrapbook pages.

Charlie & Kelin hamming it up.

Marie & Charlie and I wa playing with some new kits from Tooty Pups Designs.

These just show you how many people you can really fit into the kitchen.

Kelin's mom Geri and I staying out of the way and watching it all happen.

See how crowded the kitchen was, and at one point I was trying to roll up chicken breasts in partially cooked bacon and stick them together with tooth picks right about where Charlie is standing now with the finished product.

This is almost everyone, minus Ann behind the camera, and Dave with his kids absent,  &Tiphoney off singing with a new choir.

Aren't we just a happy bunch of friendly folks. It was noisy but they all left about 8:30p,m, or should I say almost all left. 

I'm going to eat breakfast now and then I'll make another blog with more pictures.