Grandson's Team WINS!! On to Super Bowl!!

Our grandson, Jake (age 8) is on the Cougar's football team this year, they had their playoff game tonite and WON!! So they now move on to the "Super Bowl" game on Saturday... Way to go Jake and teammates!! We're proud of you!!

Jake and his Dad (our older son) celebrate the win!


And Mom (DIL, Janel) and Grandpa John congratulates Jake on the win too!

I Turned My Blog Into A Book!!

I was looking at the BLOGGER BUZZ section of Blogger (when you sign in) and saw this post there:
Turn Your Blog into a Book with Blog2Print
September 15, 2009 — permalink
Guest Post by Caroline Vanderlip, SharedBook CEO

To continue Blogger's 10th anniversary celebration, I’m delighted to announce that Blog2Print has now partnered with Blogger. Blog2Print lets you publish some or all of your posts and photos as a professionally-printed, full-color book. Since 2007, thousands of Blogger users have become Blog2Print fans, using our easy and quick service to save and share all their favorite writings with friends and family or to keep a hard-copy version of their work. You can make books by season, by year, by event or even by theme, and you can choose from soft cover or hard cover versions of your book.

So, I decided to try it out!! I got the first two years of my blog, and made them into a hard cover book, which was scheduled to arrive by Oct. 8th. I received it today!! It's WONDERFUL!! I am going to order another one, after Jan. 1st, with this year's (2009) blog posts and photos in it too. For me, it will be a keepsake for my kids and grandkids to see what their mom (and grandma) was doing, thinking, and feeling, because my blog is like a diary of sorts. I am VERY pleased with my book, and encourage others to try it!! Believe me, you'll LOVE it too!!

Another Email Rejection - feels like a "Dear John" letter to my recent art entry....

REJECTED, yet again! *sigh*
Thank you so much for your wonderful participation in our 4th Juried Showcase.
The Artslant Curation Team has concluded their review of all work and profiles, and they have selected the Showcase Winners for our Juried 4 competition.
Unfortunately, your entry was not selected.

Fr. Bill's 25th Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood Party

Our priest, Fr. Bill celebrated 25 years in the priesthood earlier this week, today the members of Christ Church also celebrated and rejoiced with him...and gave thanks for the ministry God has him in at Christ Church.




We gave him a bottle of wine - 7 Deadly Zins, and one of the Free Wine Tasting, All Welcome assemblages I had made...also found a really cool card that plays the words and melody of one of the verses to "How Great is Our God".


It was a nice reception with a lot of good things to eat that everyone contributed.







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It continued to be a great Sunday following the party too when the PACKERS won their game!! GO PACK GO!!

Lapsarian - The Fall

Lapsarian is from the latin word lapare: to slip, to fall, to stumble. We get our english word "lapse" from that word too. Lapsarian is defined: of or pertaining to the fall of man from innocence, and to the role of women in that fall.



In the book of Genesis, the first book of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, God creates Adam and Eve and places them in the Garden of Eden, forbidding them to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (often symbolized in art and literature as an apple tree).

The serpent persuades Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve shares the fruit with Adam and they become ashamed of their nakedness, making coverings for themselves with fig leaves.

Later God provided garments for them of animal hides. Because of their disobedience, they were banished from the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which Adam had been taken & made.




This assemblage piece is an attempt to visualize that story, sort of in a Tim Burton-ish way. It shows the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (shown here as an apple with teeth), with a serpent (a snake) winding in and out of it.

Eve's hand comes from inside holding an apple core. Adam, below, also has an apple core behind him, and is shown clothed with fig leaves and an animal hide (turtle shell).



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* UPDATED * INTERESTING INFO ADDED 11/10/2009 *

I was visiting the blog of Mauren, Writing Without Paper and found some pretty cool information on Native American folklore/beliefs on turtles and turtleshells, and couldn't help but think it must surely be a "Godsidence" that had me use the turtle shell to clothe the figure symbolizing Adam in this assemblage.

Here are a few sharings from Mauren that fit with my assemblage, Lapsarian ...

"Native Americans might tell you, if you take the time to listen, that our earth was formed on a turtle's back, and so is symbolic of Creation.

Further, they might point out, the turtle never leaves its shell — its home — behind, and where home is, so is shelter, shelter as protection. . . from the elements, from predators, from violence. A place where life is within, and within which life can withdraw in self-defense. Or out of fear.

The turtle's shell, a kind of all-enveloping life jacket, is tough, not meant to crack, enduring. Meant to last as all things do that are strong like steel. Like belief in God, if it's strong enough, is meant to last forever.

Native Americans might add, the turtle is symbolic of longevity also. With longevity, if the order of things is natural, comes experience after experience after experience that, we are told as children, we need to gain wisdom that protects us from repeating our mistakes and mad acts. Wisdom to understand that in the natural order of things, beauty, too, can hold the secrets of violence that gives itself up to destruction.

.......God gave the turtle both a shelter and a softer unprotected underside.

God gave us shelter, too. He named it the Garden of Eden. For some reason, He didn't stop with Eden. He didn't stop after creating Adam in His own image. He also gave us soft and unprotected undersides we don't always know we have.

Eve, lacking the hardness of experience, and Adam, tempted by Eve tempted by the Devil, ate. . . and defiled, and beauty never again was seen with quite the same eyes."

Check out Mauren's blog for more interesting sharings too!

Busy Saturday - more roofing, grandson fun & more!

The roofing job continues today, and our son John helped, along with brother in law Bill and nephew Chris. I had the three grandsons, and after getting the food set up for the crew, we headed out to a movie. "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" - it was a GREAT movie! Inspired by a children’s book, it tells the story of a scientist named Flint, who was trying to solve world hunger and encounters a problem of global proportions, when food begins to fall from the sky like rain. The boys loved it and laughed soooo MUCH, me too! Check out the trailer of it!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Movie Trailer | /Film

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After the movie, the boys were able to go up in the bucket lift with their Dad... now THAT is high!!!

An apple with teeth??

I've been playing around with an assemblage that I am still in the process of finishing. But I LOVE one feature in this one... TEETH... I added teeth to an apple-like gourd that was hollowed out... I am hoping to find a way to anchor a hand inside the "mouth" with an apple core dangling from the fingers. It's kind of a play on an Adam and Eve theme... more to come on it later... BUT, dontcha just LOVE those teeth?? *G*

Roofing "Party" 2009

So, we are once again re-roofing our house. We figured when we had to tear off 4 layers of shingles and re-roof our almost 100 year old home, that it would be the last time that WE would have to do it. BUT, Nooooo... the shingles we had were defective... (don't EVEN get me started on Certaineed Shingles). The warranty on them didn't cover labor or full cost to replace the curled up ones, and it only applied if we bought their brand of shingles again. Since John has had problems with their shingles on other jobs, we decided to go with another brand. A downside to that was we couldn't get red shingles again... had to settle for a grayish mix.

But, anyway... John had done favors for others and so they came together to help us re-do our roof...we are extremely thankful to family, friends, and subcontractors who helped us!!

There were some who came today, and I was busy with grandson Jeff as we fixed Jambalaya and cornbread pudding, did grocery shopping for tomorrow, laundry, and other stuff.

Here are some photos from today's work crew...THANK YOU ALL!!!

This photo, I think, they were pointing to a bird in the sky on a break..*G* I call it the roof monkeys...see no evil, hear no evil...but DO evil.




I think this one looks like it should be patriotic or something..*L* Our son, John, should have his hand over his heart or something?? I love the clouds in the background too... Kasey took this photo.

And here John is moving the lift bucket, and the guys are on a break as he does it.






Supervisors grandpa John and Jeff help watch the work going on...




I've been busy making stuff for lunch for a bigger work crew on Saturday. Chocolate chip cookies, apple crisp (oh, we had a visit from the "Apple Fairy", our friend Debbie, who saw on FaceBook that we had a roofing party going on, and she brought us a crate of apples, thanks DEB!!)

So, the crew was rained out later this afternoon... hopefully tomorrow won't be a rain day since half the roof is under tarps. eek!

Thanks to all who are helping us, we appreciate you ALL SO MUCH!!

Tuesday Support Group & Birthday Celebration

On many Tuesday nights John and I gather with a few of our friends for what we fondly call "Support Group". We get together for cocktails and talk about our weekend, or the week so far, our families, our work, the weather, or just anything. It's mostly a fun time to go out on a weekday evening. We usually head over to Tubby's Too for their lobster and steak special, but tonite Randy invited everyone over to his place and fixed ribs and scallops to celebrate our friend Sue's birthday.



I made a special "surprise cake", but not like last year, this year it was a REAL cake, others brought yummy things to eat too, and a good time was had by all! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE, and thanks Randy for a delicious dinner!!

Chili Cook-Off

John was one of the guys who entered the Chili Cook-off with his Chili Deluxe recipe consisting of moose and beef hamburger, along with green and wax beans, lima and butter beans, italian beans, light and dark kidney beans, diced tomatoes, onions, peppers and celery and spices. His entry didn't win, but it did get many votes, and a whole nesco roaster was almost gone at the end of the dinner event.






My Dad ended up winning for the Best Over-All Chili, and Fr. Bill received the prize for the Hottest Chili.



There was also a basket drawing of many kinds of things that people could win, I made a chair planter for it, but wasn't lucky enough to win any of the other good things that were donated. My mom also helped a lot with the event, setting up, providing a dessert and making a few baskets for the drawing as well as taking tickets for the drawing - Thanks Mom! It was a fun night!

After cleaning up the Parish Hall, we headed to another fun party at some friends, who were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary .. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the two piece band they had for us to sing along with and dance too! Mark and Gretch Hladish, who perform regularly at Millies Pancake Haus, are GREAT entertainers with wonderful voices and LOTS of fun! Check out their website and music!

Scarecrow Fest, Christ Church entry... "Don't be SCARED to CROW what God can do!"

Our city has a Scarecrow Festival in September each year. They ask that area businesses or individuals have a scarecrow to promote the event. We usually have a more elaborate entry, but this year, no one at Christ Church came forward, so I used the old sign from last year (that promoted our Hoe Down event), and cutout a crow shape, spray painted it, added a cross, and an old (store bought) scarecrow we've had for 4 years, added our sign message, and tahhh dahhh...we are at least part of promoting Scarecrow Fest this year!

But, hmmm, that crow looks a lot like a penquin?? haha... ohhh well!!

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Fr. Bill and my friend and co-worker Deb, took me out for a belated birthday lunch today (we were all busy last week and earlier this week)... we had a great chinese lunch (and even enough leftover for dinner)!! Yummm!! Thanks Fr. Bill and Deb!! It's great to have such a wonderful co-worker and friend relationship!! xoxox

End of Summer Garden Photos

My garden areas aren't perfect, but I still love the flowers and how much they've grown in such a short time... hopefully I still have at least another month or more of enjoying them!


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Today is the official birthday of our younger son, Kaine! We celebrated last week when he was home, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY ((((((KAINE)))), Love you!! Miss YOU!! xoxox

A WONDERFUL Birthday Day!

Another year older, and deeper in debt... *S*

Yep, today we celebrated the 27th Anniversary of my 29th Birthday! (YOU do the math - ha!). After Church John, Kasey and I headed over to where our older son, John-John, and daughter-in-law, Janel & grandsons, have their camper. It's a great Yogi Bear Campground (one we used to go to when John-John was a little boy), it's greatly enlarged and improved since back then! John and Janel made a wonderful birthday lunch, grilled porkchops, rice, snacks beforehand, and a delicious icecream cake following! YUMMMM!!
It was perfect weather to sit back, relax, watch the boys play and enjoy the family!
THANKS JOHN AND JANEL for the dinner and fun! Thanks to Kasey and John too for the gifts!! Love you ALL!! xoxoxox

The Pensive Jesus Assemblage Shrine

Last week, I saw a photo on Flicker in a group I belong to called ARTE RELIGIOSA: The Art of Divinity. It was a shrine of sorts with what they called "The Pensive Jesus" inside it. Here are a couple of shrines with The Pensive Jesus I found on the internet.

The Pensive Christ or Christus im Eland ("Christ in Distress" in German) is a subject in Christian iconography depicting a contemplating Jesus, sitting with his head supported by his hand with the Crown of Thorns and marks of his flagellation. It is therefore a picture of Jesus shortly before his crucifixion, although more an andachtsbilder or devotional subject than intended to show an actual moment in the narrative of the Passion of Christ. The Pensive Christ is much more common in sculpture than in painting.



I had found a small carved wood figure of The Pensive Jesus a long time ago, (not knowing the history behind this depiction of Jesus), so I pulled it out from my stash of treasures, and created a shrine for Him from an old cuckoo clock, candlestick holder and assorted decorative touches. Here are some views of my Pensive Jesus.

"Party Animals" Assemblage and more on the workbench...

Here's an assemblage I did just for fun, I don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I thought the two animals looked like they were decked out for a party, so I used them as party animals. The box and base I painted blue, distressed it, stained it, added an old new year's noisemaker in the background, some cans of beer, a glass paperweight on the top, and some game letters, and other pre-decorated letters I found for cheap at Good Will.

And here are some things I am in the process of reconstructing, and gathering ideas for... they may totally change before I even start..*L*