Rule of Thump

Yeah. That's a lemonade ice pop alright. It's the tasty and free kind you get from your boss's assistant's son. Sweet. (literally)

Making in Mine

This last weekend was great, it was missing a Maria and the major purchase of a washer and dryer, but still great. Mom, Jayme, and Nikki came down on Saturday and we started two large projects. Here are before pictures of our projects, or kind of during for the fence. It started with a broken pole and 12 feet of fence laying on our grass.


The fence was falling when we looked at the house in May and my June, it was down. So Mom, Shannon, and I replaced one post, reinforced another, and put the planks back on. It's far from perfect, but its standing which means the grass isn't being killed by the 12 feet of fence laying on it. We left some 2x4's there to support the fence while the cement cured all the way. They will come down. The post we bought was about 18" too tall, so we had to cut it. But Shannon and I don't own anything more than a 6"blade hack-saw. No way we're cutting a pressure treated 4x4 post with that. So Mom and I went to Lowe's (much better than Home Depot) and she bought us a table saw! Neat!


This is the half-bath in the hallway. It had this crazy wallpaper (as do the other bathrooms in the house, one room at a time...) that reminded me of an old fabric my mom had for crafts and reminded Rhonda of what used to be on the walls in her bathroom in Garden. Either way, we knew it would have to go. Shannon and I came back after talking with our neighbors about the fence and found Mom, Jayme, and Nikki peeling wallpaper. :) The room isn't quite done, it still need a toilet paper holder and a towel holder and a picture or two for the walls. It's an awesome color, called Brick Wall. I like it a bunch. We got a nice new light and a really fun faucet (thanks mom). Now we just have to get Mom to come back some weekend and tile the floor!


It was a great weekend, spending time with Mom and Jayme and Nikki and getting stuff done. Maria was going to come, but had to work (boo). Maybe next time. Hopefully next time. Oh, and Nikki, freaking adorable! Check out this cute video of her on Shannon's blog. (Charles is Jayme's male friend.)

Treasures Part 4

Back in the day, I used to work at craft shows with my mom''s little company Creative Crafts by Irene. She made all sorts of neat things and sold them and I helped. As I got older, I started to try and make some things to sell, too. That's were the above plastic canvas doggie bag holder comes in. I stitched them up and we sold them for pretty cheap at the shows. Don't really know how good they did, but I made them! A rather noteworthy thing about doing craft shows... Mom had an old Ford tempo and she was able to get all of her crafts in there for shows and the tables/tents needed to sell them (if not provided). There was a lot lot of stuff inside that small car. Mom is very good at packing things.

One of my best friends in high school at Honesdale was Anna Marie Cunningham Smith. She was a year older then me and we rode the same bus. Our bus driver, Walter, even let me ride the early bus route so I could hang out with Anna some more because they changed the bus routes during my sophomore-ish year. Anyway, Anna made me this mug (or at least made the mug and decided she'd give it to me later). It never got used, and sadly it's falling apart now. But it's still fun to see it and have some of my foggy memories come back.

When I went to Anna's house once, we watched Monty Python. It was my first time seeing it. I also saw Dazed and Confused with her at her house. Her cousin, whose name was Daniel I think was pretty cute and my age.

Here are some candles I made while living in Garden. The first four from the left I made with actual candle molds. But the blue one on the right I used an old toilet paper tube with some wax paper and duck-tape as a mold. That was much more common for me.

Not much here that you can't see for yourself. It my old gym uniform shirt from Honesdale. The shorts that went with it were awful of course, but we could wear sweatpants if they were red. So I got me some and wore those most of the time. Remember, I didn't shave back then either, so my legs were often hairy.

Ah, back in the day when we tried to get rid of the nickel-width space between my two front teeth (I couldn't hold a lollipop in between my two front teeth because the stick was too narrow). I wore braces on top for a good while and then got this spiffy glow-in-the-dark retainer to wear afterwards. Even though my space went away, it wasn't permanent. It's rather small now, but still there.

Treasures Part 3

I played hockey in Garden City for about 3 years, the first three years I ever played. For some of that time, we met some people from Holcomb who played too. They were younger and needed a ride to Garden some times. Shannon I guess drew me a map with direction's to Dustin's house. Helpful.

In my girl-ier times, I collected (and displayed) Barbies. Here are some of them. I don't know, maybe they will be worth a lot of money one day, or a lot of memories. But right now, it's just kinda odd. :)

Here are some that I took out of the box, that was silly of me. But they are some awesome ones! James Dean, Midnight Something-or-Other, and Native American Barbie. Sweet. They each have a little stand that they go on too. But now, they are in a bag inside a box.

Here are my old back-packs from high school. I used them both in Honesdale. You can't really tell, but the blue one has it's zipper pulls all fur-ified. That is because my sophomore year, I would get a water to drink for lunch everyday and I took the plastic rings off after the I broke the seal around the lid. If you turn them inside out (the rings) they make these neat little spikey things to put on your back-pack. Which is what I did. Somewhere I have a whole shoe-lace full of them, but I still can't find it. I believe I called them "wottles." My random hic-cups started my sophomore year as well.


This little dude I got at a craft show in PA. He's just a silly little marionette.

Treasures Part 2

Julia, you may recognize the above towel. I was really pleased to see this one. I forgot all about going to Worlds for OM. ~~~ It was my first year in Kansas, an angry teen moved from all her friends of 10 years in Pennsylvania. I had done Odyssy of the Mind* in PA and we figured that it would be a good way for me to meet people and have some fun to I did it in KS too. I started out on one team and then got moved to a team with Julia, Kenzie, Kristin, and Chewy. This turned out to be fabulous for me because Julia is awesome and became my best friend. Another story... Back to OM... Our team was awesome, I made a morphing 3-toed sloth costume for Chewy and he jumped into Julia's arms, it was a fabulous skit, I even had a speaking part (wow). We did well at the State competition. So well that we won first!! Er, was it second? Maybe it was third? Who knows? Turns out there was some big issues and three (?) teams from KS got to go to Worlds in Disney World! I can go on and on. But we went, had a blast and traded our Kansas pins for as many other pins as we could get, which are pictured above on the towel. That was so much fun and I am so glad I changed teams and met Julia!


Speaking of PA, here we are in our young years. From left, Maria is sitting, Jayme in a cute pink bathing suit, Melissa Dragic (our neighbor) is sitting next to me, then my cousin Teresa Dorrian (who's getting married this November!), then our other neighbors Nick Collins and his brother Matt Collins. We are in our pond. It is a fun picture not only because of who's in it, but we have water in the pond. When we left it was more of a swamp then a pond.


Do I really need to explain? It's a pretzel necklace I made, of course.


I bet my mom is wishing she had these sweet rings on her fingers. The one on my middle finger glows in the dark. Sweet. (I actually wore these in middle school and high school.)


So, one day I was sitting on my bed in Garden with a pin cushion, some scissors, and some pink construction paper. I started cutting and sticking the paper to my bed (without the card board) and made the lady in pink. When I got tired and realized, "Hey, I can't sleep on bed with this stuck into it!" I found some card board and moved the pink lady to it and then decided, "Hmph, she needs a red friend." So I made her one. Eventually I went to bed and this weird little piece of art "stuck" around.

*OM was completely different 10 years ago then it is now. I probably shouldn't have even linked it. This is probably better.

Treasures Part 1

First of all. I've started work and its alright. Nothing too special. Almost all of my training these last three days has been reading books. And I actually have only ready about 1/10th of the listed things on the training sheet. Nice.

But in more fun news, I've been opening boxes from years ago and finding some awesome things. I wish to share some of these things with you. This is by no means all of the things I've found, just some more meaningful or entertaining ones. I've supplied a small bit on each piece as well. If I've messed up, I apologize. I have this problem with not really remembering events from my past. I know things happened, but I don't remember the details. If it weren't for pictures and accounts of the events from other people, I don't think I'd remember anything.

This is a wooden votive candle holder made for my by one of my sisters. And, thanks to my remagination, I don't know if it was Jayme or Maria. Since no one "signed" it, I can't just flip it over and see. But its all personalized with my name and some kanji. I think it was made around 2000?

Here is a little (like 1" diameter) clay pot that M.H. (or Maria) made for me also around '99-'00 time. Maria was on a kick for a while with making all sorts of little clay things. I was gifted with this fine pot.

This is not mine. No, I never played basketball for a team (this I do remember). This is Jayme's. Yes, Jayme. Jayme tired many sports in her day. While in Pennsylvania, Jayme tried soccer, softball (where she played outfield and pitched), basketball (she wasn't' really very good) (I seem to remember going to Scranton or something to watch her team play. I say her team because I think Jay played for like 2 minutes of the game, maybe...), and field hockey. She started out as not very great at field hockey, but by the end of the season, she was pretty good! She had a little stick and a jacket and it was pretty neat.

She also played some basketball in Garden (hence the KHMS outfit). I'm pretty sure she was supposed to give this back...

I have many more things to share with you. But I also have some other (house-y) things to do as well.

Hockey Rink

After work today Shannon and I located the hockey rink. It is alright. It's not in great shape, our wheels are gonna grind down really low and if we fall our pants will rip even more, but it's big! It's not as big as the indoor rinks at Matteson, but its bigger than the outdoor rink in Garden.

Supposedly there are leagues year round. Shannon and I will just have to figure out when the next one starts up!

My "Office"

Shannon got a window view. I wasn't as lucky. But I am hidden in a little corner, so that is pretty cool. I'm out of sight of everyone. It's not too bad.

Happy Father's Day!

I may not have a dad to call, but I did call my Grandpa. He's an awesome man. He wished me and Shannon a lot of luck for our new jobs (which start tomorrow) and our new home. I believe we need to find a way to get him out here to see it and us!

Crazy New World

After I passed my Master's report on Tuesday, Shannon and I packed up my office and ate a Manhattan dinner at So Long Saloon with Jenette, Chris, Maria, Mandy. It was nice to eat some good food with everyone. Afterwards, Shannon and I drove to Wichita to gather a lawn mower and some other random objects before going to our new home.

We are here now, in Tulsa, in a home we own. It's crazy. On Monday we start our new jobs. It still doesn't really feel real. I like it all so far, but it just doesn't seem like its anything different. Although I know it is.

What is also different is that a tornado hit Manhattan! No one in Manhattan was seriously injured and everyone know I know well enough to hear from is fine. Thank goodness. K-State's campus took over 20 million dollars in damage. Ace and Midas are gone and plenty of other buildings and homes are either damaged or gone. It's insane. In the 7 years I lived in Manhattan, we never had a tornado, or even anything worse than that ice storm last winter. And now, 2 days after I move away, a tornado hits. It crazy!

Check it. I passed.

Just some minor changes and some more submissions and I'm done!

Chest Pains

Tomorrow I present my Masters report. I am so nervous. I think I'll be fine, but just knowing that I have to do it, makes me rather uneasy. Oh, I'll be glad when its over. To add to the fun of giving the biggest presentation in my life so far in just 15 hours, my major professor may not be there! She got a call from her sister yesterday saying that her father had chest pains and went to the emergency room. He live a few states away and when I talked to her she didn't know how serious it was. I still haven't heard anything, so hopefully it all is fine.

Trash Can

My littlest sister, Maria (who recently got a pretty tattoo) is trying out our new trash can. We used Jayme's car to take it home, as ours is too small (Thanks Jay). Also, the same day we bought a trash can, Mom helped us get an awesome fridge!

S'mores

Well, we own a house. We closed on Friday the 6th and had a lot of people there this past weekend. Me and Shannon, and Rhonda, Michelle, and Anthony, and Jenette and Chris were all there Friday night. Then Mom, Jayme, Maria, and Nicki joined us Saturday night! We all slept in our new house and it was awesome!

Above is the S'mores Michelle and Anthony ordered at Cosi for lunch-dessert.

Moving Day

You can't see him, but Shannon is driving that Budget truck. The weather is very, very windy and the truck keeps rocking. Its quite scary to watch from the back.

My Report

I turned in my copies of my Masters report to my committee members. I present on Tuesday June 1oth.

Heavy Rain