So much has happened this year

Oh my I don't know where to begin.  I haven't posted since January.  The biggest news is that I now have a new little granddaughter.  She blessed us with her arrival in June.  The other big news is that my son and family moved from St Louis to Tuscaloosa, AL.  He accepted a position with the Univ of Alabama.  They are excited to be in Tuscaloosa, neither had visited the state before this position became open.  As for me I feel a bit lost with them so far away.  St Louis was 4 hours away and now they are 12 hours away or a plane flight.  I am sad.

But the brighter news is my granddaughter, who is a doll.  E her big brother was so excited when she came home from the hospital.

The cutest thing is he gave his new sister his favorite toy, Super Why.  What a moment to remember

On another note still working on getting into better shape.  Work has been absolutely horrid and crazy.  But starting a Simply Fit program that I will tell you more about soon.

Weight Management

I am going to use my blog to document my trials and tribulation with my weight.  I go down and then back up.  I can stay on a diet for a week or two, then gain it all back.  If I buy clothes after I lose weight, then I gain weight and can not wear them.  Why do I do this, why can't I stay on a diet.  I have more diet books than should be allowed.  Recently I have been tuning into Dr. Oz 11 weeks to optimum health.  I read to motivate myself, but it only last so long.  I can be encouraged, but what goes on that causes me to fail.  I know how to eat healthy, lean proteins and vegetables.  Protein with everything.

Thanksgiving 2010

My grandson came to grandma's for Thanksgiving.  What a joy to have a little guy in my home.  He explored every nook and cranny.  He is walking so well and talks up a storm.  He knows sign language for some of his words and he eats quite well.  I sure enjoyed having him around.  I also look forward to seeing him at his home for the Christmas holiday.

Exploring

Grandma, can I get in this cabinet? 

Look at that grin, he knows he is looking inside a cabinet he shouldn't be into.

Baby gifts

In preparation for my trip to St Louis next weekend, I made the above blankets for a friend's baby girl.  The fabric is a nubby fleece on one side and a poly satin on the other.  These two fabrics are difficult to work with, one is stretchy and one is slippery but not stretchy.  I made several similar ones for my grandson and have finally mastered the pinning and stitching.  These went real quick, but I have had to rip many apart and start over. 

These two pictures are the ring toy I meant to complete by E's birthday as seen here.  It is Heather Baileys Happy Stacker  I was just too busy during the month of August so now E has a present coming this week.

One week count down to St Louis

Gosh the last two months have flown by and that is how long it has been since I saw my grandson.  This weekend I have dedicated my time to create for my favorite grandchild and a friend of his, Violet.  I will update hopefully by Sunday some completed projects.

For now all I have is a photo from two months ago of Eli studying my Blackberry

Arbonne Independent Consultant

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My previous skin care routine involved using an upscale department store's brand.  It was expensive.  I thought getting those free gifts (lipstick, mascara, eye shadows) offset the price.  How wrong I was.  I still visited an aesthetician every couple of months.  She told me I just needed a little extra special care.  I realized I was spending a fortune and not getting the results when I was buying department store so called premium products and still needing facials.   Last spring I had a my first facial since starting Arbonne RE9 Advance.  I knew my skin looked good but I wanted my aesthetician opinion.  She was so amazed with my skin and wanted to know what I was using.  My skin earned the praise of my aesthetician and that was my evidence and reward.

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The Arbonne Experience

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Zona Rosa Art Festival

I meant to post this last weekend, but better late than never.  We had nice weather for this art fair last weekend.  Below people were relaxing by this fountain waiting for a young girls dance event.

Many people were drawn to the bright colors of this booth.

Jim Aden from Salem, Oregon  had beautiful unique glass work at his booth.  I wanted one of these vases he displayed.  The bright colors really drew people in.

Having been a silversmith in a younger life, I still play with jewelry and am always drawn in by someone with unique work.  Char Hunt crochet's her jewelry, her use of beads blend beautifully to create the below one of a kind pieces.  She has an absolutely beautiful turquoise piece on her web page.

Some of you may know I have knitted Christmas trees with silver wire and beads and I can attest to the beauty of Char's pieces.  Double click photo to see the detail.  

Reduce Reuse Recycle  I loved these Record Purses. They also had great license plate bracelets (including ones of my home state New Mexico)   The 3 Sisters Design Co. motto is 

Recycle-Reuse-Reclaim-Reinvent

 The below Graffiti Art was also a favorite.  I loved the tribute to John Lennon.  I looked but did not find a business card in booth???

The Plaza Art Fair is this weekend.  I sure wish I were an Artist.  But thankfully there are lots of talented folks creating art for all of us to enjoy.

Regina

Dippin Dogs

Sadie and her best friend Mattie (below) loved this end of summer tradition

Above Mattie waits for her toy to be thrown into the water.  Mattie loves to swim in the deep water, she could spends all day at that pool.  Sadie has a funny dog paddle and prefers to have her back feet on the floor of the pool and is not fond of the deep end of the pool.  Below Sadie keeps lookout as Mattie retrieves her toy.  It was beautiful weather and great fun with the girls.

Elliot's First Birthday

E's First Birthday Party was held in a park, the splash pool was a hit with E and all his friends.  The weather was beautiful and it was shared with wonderful people.  E was styling in his shirt and tie and had his hair done for the special occasion.

E knew this looked good and he wanted to eat it

E figured out how to taste it.

More fun at the Party

Opening presents

Happy Birthday E  Love you!!!!

Regina

Making a toy for Eli's upcoming birthday

I am making a Heather Bailey's Happy Stacker   Joining the rings together sounded a little tricky per instructions.  In fact Heather says to read twice before attempting.  She also said you will be proud when it comes together.  And I am proud, but it was easier than first thought.  Actually quite simply.  

I have a ring that needs more stuffing and I have 4 more rings to make.  I am still using scrap fabric that I have used to make his baby quilt, embellish pants and shirts and toys. As seen here.  One more week and I have a 1 year old grandson....  Can't wait to see him.

Regina

My Grandson's visit from July

I must say I look at this sequence of pictures a couple times a week, does anyone else look at pictures like that?  They were taken one day when E's parents were out on a walk or somewhere.  They tell a story.

E sees something he wants

What have you got Grandma?  How can anyone refuse such a look : )

I want that Grandma

What?

This sequence always cheers me up and brings a smile to my face.  Love that boy!

Regina

Weekend in St Louis

E is very conscious of what he is eating.  He wasn't so thrilled with his peas.  His parents have always said the name of the food they feed E, like apples, cheerios,  green beans, black beans.  E has started talking lately with Dad, Mom, duck, dog, ball, turtle.  While I was feeding E some black beans I said "black bean", E picked up the food, looked at it and said "black bean".  It was so cute.

I had a great time playing with E, listening to him laugh and just being around him.  It was a wonderful weekend with my son's family.

Sadie's ongoing training

As mentioned in a previous blog, my dog, Sadie hurt me a couple of times because she pulls me.  We are in our second month of training at The Dogs' Spot.  Sadie loves to go to school.  In fact she evens knows the day we are to attend and as it gets to that time of day she follows me around with anticipation of school.  Sadie is doing much better, when we pass people on our walks she usually doesn't pay attention to them.  She is so much happier attend school.  What a dog's life she has, day care and school : )

Sadie performing her stay.

Raj working with his owner

Regina

Green Fair at Work

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Green Fair at my work place.  We have lots of events at my office, but the Green Fair is one of my favorite.  My work promotes Green living throughout the 14 floors of office space.  We recycle paper, plastic, and compost left over food in our cafeteria.  Our cleaning crew uses green cleaning products.  We have a green team to identify and develop additional green options throughout our building.  Recently we had a Farmers Market in our cafeteria during the afternoon break hour.

Greenability Magazine was at last years Green Fair.  After learning about Greenability and previewing a couple of issues, I started to subscribe to this fabulous magazine!   I always look forward to the next issue.  The stories inside are about individuals and businesses sharing their green lifestyles.  It is a great resource for green products, how to become more green and events throughout Kansas City.  Today I had a wonderful visited with Mary Lynn Coulson and Janie Chen with Greenability.

I told Mary Lynn about my green projects I have posted on this blog.  I repurpose T-shirts for my grandson as in 4th of July T and although I didn't mention in the Dinosaur blog, I repurposed an old T-shirt to make the shirt of this dinosaur T.  In this blog I have lots of grandson pictures but I also display a Tennis T-shirt that was repurposed.  I have made toys from left over scraps of fabric and have also made napkins out of older button down Abercrombie shirts.  It has been fun to finally find a purpose for  clothing I felt was too good to give away.  I am constantly on the look out for additional ideas.  My best ideas come from my daughter-in-law.  

Our Green Fair

We had window vendors, home auditors, car dealers, foam insulation specialist, solar products, and Ripple Glass, plus many other Green businesses.   

After visiting the Green Fair, I decided I needed to add Green Links on my blog.  So will start with a couple but will continue to add more.

Sunday Morning Bliss

I sit here this morning being inspired by blogs, fashion, daily photos and crafters.  I wish I had more time or maybe it is more organized to accomplish everything it seems these bloggers accomplish.  How do they do it?

I work full time in an automation support environment.  I am involved with projects that will eventually downsize my position.  I hope once this next year and a half is completed, that I will still have a job.  The work pace is fast, I mean extremely fast.  I learn, write scripts, do test plans, am a tester, lead teams, take training, get certifications, attend meetings, develop and provide training and then all too quickly get involved into the next project.  My last project went into production yesterday morning.  Even though the last two days were my days off, I have worked from home.  I can't say that 100% of my time was working but my mind was on work 100% of the time.  I ran testing scripts (using QTP) and ran errands, went to dog training and attended conference calls.  Today is the first morning in over a month that I have not had many things about work on my mind.  I was going to go to National Tire and Battery for tires first thing this morning (to minimize the wait)  But I cannot think or make any decision this morning.

I took a 2 mile walk and started the laundry, but I am relaxing in a state of peacefulness with a cup of coffee.  As much as I hate sitting and waiting at a car repair shop, I am putting it off one more week and maybe another morning I will try to beat the wait.  I am exhausted.

I did the thing I love to do, browse blogs and am adding to my bookmarks and will update my blog list.

Regina

Liberty Memorial - Kansas City, MO

My drive to work each morning takes me right by the Liberty Memorial.  The National World War I Museum is housed at the base of the Memorial.  I am fortunate to work right next to the Memorial inside Penn Valley Park  There is a 1/2 mile drive up to the Memorial and trails all throughout the Park.  (Also a very popular dog park.)  During spring and fall I enjoy these walks during my lunch hour.  Summers are just too hot...  Speaking of heat, I will spend this weekend running around in the heat, but will try to beat it indoors.

Regina

Grandsons visit

Little E and his parents visited last weekend.  E has grown and matured so much since I last saw him over Memorial weekend.  He is such a happy go lucky fellow.  His eyes never stop looking at all the different objects.  He absorbs them all and quickly identifies which he wants to touch and feel.  He was a joy to have in my home.  He would walk between the tables, sofa, floor lamps and patio windows with such ease but always made sure he was holding on to something.  I would hold and lean the floor lamp so he could use as support (although little did he realize it moved with him)

These were my parents aluminum coasters, one of their wedding gifts from 1951.  They are dented and not used but I like having them around.  E loved the sound they made, they quickly became his favorite toy for the weekend.  

I love, love, love this little boy.  Just want to smother him with hugs and kisses.

Regina

Happy 4th of July

Today is rainy in Kansas City but the barbecues and fireworks will still liven up the day.  What a great day when our countries celebrates it's birthday.  For weeks the celebration has been under way.  All the communities around KC have their own festivals and celebrations.  We live in a great nation!

For my grandson, I repurposed a T shirt that was a bit baggy and sloppy on me.

 Using an Octobre pattern, I cut the flag out of the original T shirt, I reused the sleeves and ribbing also. I have fabric left over for another T.    I should have gone to the store and bought a lighter shade of grey thread.  I have been trying to use up thread I already have.  But the zigzag around the ribbing stands out more than I had hoped.

Regina