Happy Birthday, Papa Tom

My father, Tom Russell, Duncan's Papa Tom. Today he is 62. Yesterday we took him a few dozen eggs from the chooks. It is such a weird gift, but he is difficult to buy for.
Dad's birthday always makes me a little sad. He is a life-long smoker and I lost my own grandfather at 67 from lung cancer. Each year sneaks a little more fear into my heart. We don't have a perfect relationship, maybe too much alike, but I love him and Duncan adores him!

Duncan's middle name is Thomas and I prayed when I named him that he would earn some of Dad's finer qualities.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy V-day to my fellow bloggers and friends. I did very little decorating for the Holiday, but I did cute these silly letters out of scrapbook paper and hang them in my shop. I would like to redo it in different colors next year.

I promise

I will be back soon. I printed over 200 pictures from my camera at Walgreens so I can EMPTY it and start snapping away.

Tonight I have to find my son's Valentine cards and get them addressed/ready and also get goodies for my 'out to dinner' pals for our night out tonight.



Hugs to all my blog-pals.

EXCUSE ME?

I am laying an egg in here!~

ACK

Yes, Ack. I am sitting in the Starbucks parking lot, using their internet to pay my bills. My aunt added "U-verse" to her part of the house, knocking out my DSL and they can't get me back until Tuesday. ONE whole week total outage! I am losing what is left of my mind.
On Thursday I typed the following in a word processing program to let out my angst.

I will see you all again Tuesday and I am SO missing my cyber pals!

---
I am having internet issues. You don't realized just how 'addicted' you are to your internet access until it is denied to you. After moving in November I have been only able to use the internet when I am ‘in town’ at work. I can get only dial-up at the new house. Granted, I used to adore Dial Up, I thought it was the Bee’s knees. However, much like driving a NEW car makes you unhappy with your old one, so does DSL make you malcontent with dial-up.
Worse yet, I am experiencing random ‘outages’ at my shop. So, I am here, with a few spare moments in which I could read blogs, post to my blog, email, facebook and all my other weird addictions and ALAS, no internet. I am forced to type on a word processor and copy to my blog later. I have been ‘on the net’ since 1993, or so. 15 or more years of addiction! I remember how cool we thought ourselves when “IMing” with our friends overseas from the college computer labs. Those days it was nothing like today, less user-friendly, no applications, no animated smileys and so on. I went for a brief spell after college with no internet at home, but VERY brief. Now I can’t even imagine a world without the internet as my ‘sidekick’. I could give up many modern conveniences, even GOD FORBID, our TV, but the internet is my social network.
I didn’t come to town yesterday, choosing ‘going without’ and it was fine, but being HERE looking at my keyboard and wondering what all my ‘web-friends’ are doing is killing me.
Do I think a little less online time would be good for us all, yes, but for the love of God, AT&T get my DSL back up before I blow a blood vessel!---

I am out of control with this card thing...

So I went to Hobby Lobby and looked at 'card stuff' yesterday. Lo and Behold I can make TAGS too! :D This is my first attempt at a tag, it is kind of fun and seasonally appropriate.

Then today I made a birthday card for my friends baby. She turns one this weekend. She is making a Butterfly cake and so I did this.

Inside!

Here is the tag I made to go with it. For some reason it refused to be photographed without becoming fuzzy. The grass at the bottoms is ruffle and away from the paper and it was FUN!

None of these are perfection, none are expensive, but it is fun and I think she will like them.

I am sure, though that this may become an 'out of control' sort of thing.

I quite like this flower/butterfly combination, though and am picturing some little bunnies and such for Easter cards! One holiday at a time!

Weird weather

I got an excellent ride in yesterday. We had mid forties and melting snow!Tonight we are supposed to get more snow....wonder what will happen to the above 'slide'?