Tornado warnings and...

thunderstorm watches this evening. We kept an eye on things, prepared to invade Adam's dad's basement if necessary, but now it's a beautiful evening with blue skies and some pink bits of clouds.

I just remembered that I'd taken some pictures a couple of days ago. Do you see the little fellow in the upper right of this photo. He's our little hummingbird. That's his (or her) favorite perch. He/she seems dangerously exposed up there. There were a couple of hawks flying among my trees yesterday. Watch out, hummer!

And I caught a thief in the act. I think I'm going to stop putting the bird feed out. I'm mostly feeding the squirrel. I'll probably keep the suet out.

I bought a few things at the library book sale. I don't think I have pictures of everything, here. I've already incorporated them into my bookshelves, so I may show more later. Or not, lol.

I thought this was kind of sweet. This is from a book he wrote for his children, but never intended to have published. It was only published, with permission, after the death of his children. 

I got this little book, which is a history of some little town in Indiana. Why?

 Well, it contains some cool old pictures for my collage materials stash, but...

 ...mostly because it contained this old envelope which had some cool old stamps on it! More stuff for collage. There's even a letter inside! I know. I'm weird. I love old historical stuff like this.

This book is about decorative screens of all sorts. It looked interesting just to look through. These books were all from the 10 cent room, and everything was half-price on top of that!

This old cookbook has several full-color, 70's style pages like the cover. Those will make good artwork for ATCs.

You know how I love foreign language text. Well, this tattered old book is in Norwegian! The title translates as, "Do not hug a miserable in the gate", lol. I found this in a box of freebies. Had to give it a home.

 Some others that I found. Every so often I get rid of my copy of War and Peace. Then, later, I get another copy. Have any of you read it? Is it worth the time? I got the Kinfolk book to add to my Pearl Buck collection. I'm not sure I like her that much. I've only read one or two of her books in the past. I got the Father Brown book because I've watched the TV version and I know it's nothing like what Chesterton would come up with. So, I'm curious to see how this compares.

I actually follow Patsy Clairmont on Facebook! She's a grey-haired little old lady now, but she has lots of good spiritual insights. I like her. I thought I might like this book other than the icky artwork on the cover, ha ha. I hadn't read this Corrie ten Boom book, I don't think. And, MK, I found this little book of selections from Gift From the Sea. It seemed like a good way to see if I want to read more by Anne Lindbergh.

Then a couple of little, old books.

 My bookshelves are getting full. I try to cull books now and then, and I usually donate books back to the library after I read them. So, hopefully I can keep things under control.


My current read is this one. Yep. Back to the smarmy Christian/British/historical romances. Pure escapism of the most innocent kind. I need that these days. ;) I went through a Julie Klassen phase a while back where I read all of her novels. They are very similar to this one. They're published by the same company (Bethany House) and the cover art is the same style. This is the first book I've read by this author and I like her style. But she does copy some of Julie Klassen's little phrases, which bugs me. It's so flagrant. Everyone's always "biting back a smile" or some such thing. (That bugged me in Julie's books because she used it way too often. What a critic am I!) Otherwise, it's a nice bit of entertainment.

Josh just got his car back from the shop. It cost a pretty penny to "fix" it. Now something else is wrong, so he and Adam hauled it back into town tonight. Praying it's something simple. Life. It's always throwing you curve balls!

The newest fad in ATC-land is Faux Postage Stamps. I made these for a swap. I'll have to make decorated ATC cards to attach them to. These stamps are 1"x1" or 1"x1-1/2" approximately.

Here's a sample of what I mean by attaching them to an ATC. I didn't make this one.

Okay. Probably more than you wanted to know about faux stamps!

Hazel and Audrey (with cousin Cali in the middle) helped their "other Grandma Lisa" with some strawberry slicing. I call her "the fun Grandma". She always has something fun for them to do.

It's past my bedtime, so I'll say adieu for now. Thanks for listening!
Shalom!

A sad and scary evening...

Last night about 9 p.m. I heard sirens going down our little county road. I peeked out the window and saw a string of emergency vehicles. I counted seven in all. Some police, a couple looked like firetrucks. It was dark. They seemed to slow down about 1/2 a mile down the road and I couldn't see where they went from there. I decided to post a prayer request on Facebook. It looked like something really bad must have happened.

This morning my daughter called to fill me in. One of our local boys who is about 35 had gone on a shooting spree. Apparently, it was widely known that he's had emotional problems for some time. I stood across the hall from him yesterday as we both waited to pick up children after school. You never know, do you?


I previously described what I thought had happened here in my blog, but later saw that I had a lot wrong as news reports came out. Here's a link to the news story:

Report from the Star Tribune

They have three children, one of whom is in Audrey's class. This is a tiny town with a small school, so everyone knows this young man and his family.Very sad. And another reminder that mental/emotional problems need to be taken seriously. I'm not sure if someone tried to help this man over the years, but we do need to try.

Even when our lives seem comfortable and peaceful, we never know what those around us are going through, do we? Continued prayers for this family.

In happier happenings yesterday, I went to the library book sale. I've already incorporated the new books into my library, but I tried to find all of them and take photos.

The Microshelters book was already in my collection, but the others I got yesterday. The slim, magazine-like books on the bottom were mostly written in Swedish, but had so many pretty pictures, I just had to get them. They were only a dime each.

This is one of the Swedish magazines.

Two vintage storybooks. They're really for me rather than grandkids. I think Andersen's fairy tales were really written for adults. The Hans Brinker book is thick and full of pretty illustrations.

I've got at least three bird guides now. One belongs to Audrey. I get them in case I want to paint a bird picture, or I may even identify one! Novel idea! :)

A little batch of children's books.

I like to pick up little books that Audrey might like to read. And they're kind of into paper airplanes.

I'll mainly "look at" this one. I'm not aiming for this type of intense watercolor painting. Too much work!

Dictionary text, maps and foreign language text for collages.

I also love vintage puzzles! I wonder if all of the pieces are there. Only one way to find out!

So, I think I'll get off of this computer and do some "real" stuff! It's so hard to get unhooked once you start surfing the net. But once I turn this thing off I feel like doing other things. We have a four day weekend and I had planned to have some grands come over, but Micah says everyone is sick, so I should probably stay away for now. Good advice, but I let her know she should call if she needs help.

Love you guys! Thanks for stopping by!
Shalom!

Hey, y'all!

My internet has been on strike for a couple of days, so I'm typing this at the library. Just checking in and had a couple of life events to share.

I, apparently, have a basal cell carcinoma on my nose. A spot that hasn't wanted to heal for a long time. I went to the doctor yesterday and he is going to make an appointment with another doctor in Bemidji who will look at it and do the actual out-patient surgery. Have any of you had this done? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments so I'll have some idea what to expect. :) I have at least one other spot on my face that may need a freeze gun applied to it.

Also, I will be having cataract surgery on one of my eyes this fall. Any stories?

Old age. The body is slowly coming to the end of itself! But, I trust I have some good years ahead, so...I continue to buy books at the book sale!

This time it was $1 per bag, so I stocked up. :)

I like to pick up books in foreign texts. I'll use the pages as background text for ATCs and give a lot of it to other ATC creators as gifts. I later realized that the book on the left is a Bible, so I won't be cutting that up. Anyone know what languages these are? Somebody donated a lot of them to the library.

Once more, some foreign text for collage. The bookplates are really cool, too, and would be good material for collages.

I was blown away to get these! I've given my field guides to my grands in the past and wished I had some more. Woo hoo!

Remembering the Kana is showing how to do Japanese calligraphy. Something else for ATCs. The other two books also have lots of collage-ready pictures.

I saw lots of Jack Higgins books in the jumbled boxes and thought to myself, "If hey had The Eagle Has Landed I would grab it." Ta-dah! I read it as a teen and thought it would be fun to revisit. Also, some Austen and Bronte. Villette is one of my favorites.

I love to learn about life in other cultures, so these called my name.

I always wished I  had hung onto some of my nursing materials. Just interesting, I guess. So I grabbed this manual. Another book about Japan. A celtic music DVD. And a couple of random magazine-type things.

A variety of spiritual material.

I couldn't pass up the little volume of Animal Farm. Read it in junior high. I keep buying Moby Dick and then not reading it. Someone called Melville "the American Shakespeare" so I thought I'd get it again...just in case. The SparkNotes of LOTR....why not? Tom Sawyer was a whim.

Another little hodgepodge.

Children's books. Some for me; some for Audrey. Not sure which is which yet. :)

I made a lot of little posters of periodical table elements to decorate for VBS. We have a lab theme. These took a lot longer than I expected. I made 15 of them and they don't look quite right, but close enough. ;)

I'm continuing to add to my scripture memorization journal. Did I mention this before?

I'll write out the bottom verse. I usually wait until I have it memorized before I draw it out.

Somebody mentioned having baby's breath in their garden. See the blobs on the hillside across the highway? It grows wild here. There's lots along the trail. This was taken out my kitchen window.

I'm currently reading:

If I like it I'll pass it along to Micah.

I have to hurry off to a picnic with the deli gals. My old manager has a lake lot, so it should be fun!

The grands ready for the 4th of July parade.

Always smiley, little Sully. :)

Glamorous Audrey.

Hazel being cheesy.

Della got a sucker for using the potty! Ha ha!

Oh yeah! I'd better get out of here or they may eat all the burgers before I get there! Love y'all!
Shalom!