Pentecost Celebration

Today we celebrated Pentecost at Church. The Christian feast of Pentecost (from the Greek word pentekoste, meaning fiftieth) is celebrated fifty days after Easter and ten days following the Ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. It is also call Whitsunday (White Sunday) in some churches, because of the white baptism garments worn by those who are to be baptised.
It commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the disciples as related in the Bible, in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2, verses 1 - 6.


The coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the disciples so strengthened them that they were said to have baptized three thousand people that day. Pentecost is thus known as the "birthday of the Church", because it was the presence and power of God, the Holy Spirit, that transformed them so.



We celebrate with lively worship & hymns, balloons, pinwheels for the kids, kites, and dove or balloon releases, also cake and treats following the service.
Here are some photos from today's celebration at our Church. Many were taken by my daughter, KaseyK Photo.
A few were taken by me.

Pentecost Plant Assemblages...

I'm not sure if you could call these assemblages ... but they are "creations" I did for work today. I work as the Parish Administrator for the Church we attend. This coming Sunday we celebrate the "birthday of the Christian Church", not just OUR Church, but all churches. It's Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after we celebrate Jesus' resurrection. If you'd like to read more about Pentecost go to the Book of Acts for more info.

Anyway, we celebrate this Holy Day in fun ways too. We have balloons and cake (because it's celebrated as the "birthday" of the Church). We have a dove release, (because the dove is often symbolic of the Holy Spirit), and at our Church, we send out flower bouquets to other Churches in our town as a sign of being One in the Holy Spirit, - One God, One Faith, etc. So today I went to find some plants to send to the churches. We usually give red carnations, but they just didn't seem to be enough to me, so I looked around at the various plants and flowers, and found some really cool plants. To me, they look like the "tongues of fire" mentioned in scripture. So I bought 12 of them for gifts to the area Churches. I delivered some of them today, and tomorrow Deb and I will deliver the rest.

We sometimes have 3 white "doves" (they are actually white homing pigeons), that we release at the end of the service outside as symbolic of the Holy Spirit, but this year we decided to have cut out doves and asked the parish members to write a note of encouragement or scripture passage on them. I attached the ribbons to them and on Sunday I'll be going into work/Church early to fill up 100 red helium balloons, at the end of the services we'll release the "doves". I hope to get some good photos of that on Sunday.

Soooo... now I'm home from work, and can "unpack" all my goodies I got from Good Will stores yesterday... more photos of that later...

Good Will Shop-A-Thon Marathon

Today was a GREAT day of fun and shopping with my friend Deb. We did 12 hours of shopping, and hit 8 Good Will Stores (and one of them twice!), had lunch and dinner and a wonderful day of treasure hunting. We both came home with bags and bags full of neat stuff... here are some of my bags in the car, I didn't even bring them all in yet ... and still going thru them marveling at my wonderful finds! Now to use them in some assemblages... can't wait!
Maybe tomorrow I'll actually post a picture of some of the items and not just the bags... ha! But right now, I need to relax after a grueling day of shopping... ahhhhh...

Great Weekend - Thankful for our Service men and women & Happy Birthday to Jake, Josh & Jeff too!

We had a busy and fun weekend. Went to a wedding reception on Saturday, and to a birthday picnic after Church on Sunday. Our three grandson's birthdays are within a few weeks of each other, so we celebrated them all on Sunday. Our son and daughter in law have rented a permanent site for the summer and have their camper at Yogi Bear Park, where they have already been spending many weekends. We joined them for a birthday picnic...it was WONDERFUL weather, and a fun time. Here are some photos from the day.




And today, Monday, it's been a relaxing day of doing not too much... I worked on the church newsletter for a few hours, watched old movies with the family and just recovered from the parties..*L*

Kasey and John went up to the cemetary for the Annual Memorial Day Program... here are a few photos she took there. Go to her blog Kasey K Photo to see more! We all thank the many men and women of the armed services who have served and some who have given their lives so that we could have the freedoms that we have. Thank you Lord for them ALL and bless those who continue to fight and are in harms way...keep them safe, I pray... (on all sides of conflicts).

Infiltration Conspiracy - The REAL Story.

Here is the TRUE story the government doesn't want us to find out ...


The infiltration has been going on for over 50 years, most likely 51 years, hence the name of the forbidden AREA 51!

And, if you believe this... I have some swamp land to sell you too! ha!



This is a fun assemblage made from a wood pizza paddle, a light fixture cover with a decorative glass ball on top, a couple of different candle holders - one as the base of the UFO and one as the steps/conveyor belt of the UFO.

The 13 Mickey Mouses were GoodWill finds, that I thought looked like alien clones.
The Area 51 Sign is one I googled, printed off, and glued onto a wooden base I made.



Sooo, now we ALL know the REAL truth....

1 Wooden Pizza Paddle, 1 Light Fixture Cover, 2 Candle holders, 13 Mickey Clones, 1 Decorative Glass Ball & an Area 51 Sign = INFILTRATION CONSPIRACY

Heh, heh... how does this all add up?? My next assemblage is almost finished... check back and see it soon and find out what the government DOESN'T want you to know!!

Bug Sprayer Collateral Damage

I've had this old rusty bug sprayer for awhile, and found the old rusty decoration, that to me, looked like a dandelion gone to seed, but all dried up and dead. I had the "diamond" dragonfly in my jewelry box and thought it would go well in this. For now it sits on top of my TV, but I am hoping to find a base or something for it.. it's sitting on the checkerboard for the photo, but I think the pattern in the checkerboard takes away from the other parts too much. So for now, it's still an idea in the making.

I called it Bug Sprayer Collateral Damage because the plant the dragonfly sits on suffered the destruction from the bug sprayer rather than the intended target... the bug. The title may change too as this assemblage evolves.

He Had His Cake And 8 It 2

Here's an amusing assemblage ... it has an old metal cake container, a rusted fork, some wooden shoe forms painted red and stained to age them more, a half mask with a nose and a Joker-like grin (that kind of freaks me out - ha!), two 8-Balls, some scrabble letters and a dice turned to a number 2.


Incase you can't make out what is spelled on the top, "Had His Cake And 8 It 2".

This could be a fun storage container, or even used for a cake or pie - a unique, one of a kind assemblage.

Cake Baking with the Grandson

Today is Friday, Grandson Day!! My older son brought me a HUGE bag of rhubarb since our plants aren't producing much this year and so I figured Jeff could help me bake.
One of our favorite recipes to use with rhubarb is "John's Mom's Rhubarb Cake". Jeff helped me pour ingredients together, stir things up a little, and then his best part of helping, licking the mixing spoon and cleaning out the bowl!

Here are some of the stages of the cake and the delicious recipe (for these 4 small cakes, I tripled the recipe below and divided it in each pan)

John's Mom's Rhubarb Cake

Put 2 cups (or a little more) chopped fresh rhubarb (or you can use frozen too) on the bottom of a baking dish or pan.


Mix together in a separate bowl:
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons of shortening (Crisco)
1 cup of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup of milk (add a little more if the batter seems too dry)

Spread the mixture over the top of the rhubarb in the baking dish.

Top the batter and rhubarb with a mixture (mixed in a separate bowl) of:

1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon cinnamin



Pour carefully over the top of it 1 cup of boiling water. (if it looks like the 1 cup of water is going to overflow a pan then just use enough to not overflow the pan or baking dish - it's a real mess in your oven if it does drip over - use tin foil on the bottom of a baking sheet to prevent spills).



Bake for approx. 45-50 minutes at 375 degrees (a little longer if you double the recipe for a larger baking dish).

The hardest part of all this is waiting for it to cool so we can eat it! The grandson wants it NOW!! haha!

A Photo Story of an Assemblage...

How cool is THIS? I got this free program and this is my first attempt to use it. It's a PhotoStory program that allows you to add text and narration and music, and more (I haven't figured it all out yet), but here is a video on one of my assemblages...I'm sure I'll get better with practice, but so far I am LOVING this program! Can't wait to do it on family photos too!

Don't forget to stop the music on my playlist (top right) before starting the video, which has voice and music with it too.

This assemblage is a work in progress... (like we all are!) .. here is how "Redeemed" is evolving since the video photo story.
I've added a metal beaded branch and a pocketwatch. Not sure if I'll add anything more yet...

Assemblages & Stuff in the works...well, kinda...

I have several projects on my workbench ... and have found some cool new things I hope to make into assemblages in the near future...

Here are some of them... with no explanations right now...just photos, I'm still moving things around, and trying out different ideas with the treasures....


More to come on these soon, I hope...

Goody 2 Shoes Assemblage

I had some old brass coated baby shoes sitting on a windowsill and decided to use them in a glass display case I'd found. I sanded it down and put a coat of oak stain on it to age the case, then I decoupaged cream colored tissue paper, dictionary pages on foot/feet/shoes, various vintage shoe ads, shoe paste photos, feet, a shoe measuring chart and more to the inside back and sides, then whitewashed it and dabbed some stain on to age it.

I used various old letters on the sides to spell out "GOODY" and "SHOES", and glued a number "2" to the front ... hence the title "Goody 2 Shoes". On the top is an old cast iron shoe mold for a child's shoe.


And I have room to move the shoes over and add more if I find some in my treasure hunting ...this is MUCH better than the windowsill where they sat before.

Mother's Day 2009

Today was a great Mother's Day... we started out after the Church Service with the Annual Mother's Day Champagne Pot Luck Brunch & Basket Drawing put on by the men of the Church. Here are some of the guys who helped host the Brunch in honor of all the women of the parish, (Ron, John, Henry, Jerry, Charlie, Mark & Eric), and some of the people enjoying the food made by the men.





Bill and some of the kids helped draw names for the winners of all the wonderful baskets donated by families in the Church.


After the Brunch we headed to my Mom and Dad's to celebrate Mother's Day by planting my mom's planters and gardens for her and Dad.

Kasey (Kasey K Photo) took a lot of great photos of the day .. here are a few...
Grandson Jeff and Josh helped with watering after the planting was done.

Here's my Mom and me, and my Dad.




And the kids having fun in the wonderful weather! And a photo of my Mom (Nana) and Kasey.

It was great having Kasey, Kaine, John, Janel, Jake, Josh & Jeff all come for Mother's Day too - and I received some great gifts from them...but the greatest gift was just having them be there! Thanks for the wonderful Mother's Day!