Thursday, March 29, 2012

Noel, Holly and Little Julian Visit





I am going back to the beginning of this month when Noel, Holly and Julian were visiting.  It was wonderful, hectic and truly a blessing having them here.  I hadn’t met Holly and little Julian before, so that was really fun.  Holly is delightful and loves my front yard birds especially the love birds & hummingbirds and the oranges which are so sweet right now.  Julian is a busy, busy 22 month old.  He and Jules are very close in age and are about the same size. 


 Sharing toys was a challenge for them, but they learned fast (mostly).  They were both into playing “nite, nite”, which is hilarious since Julian will do anything to avoid taking a nap or actually going nite, nite at night!  He doesn’t want to miss any action.  However, after talking to Noel after they got home, he said that Julian slept all the way home, even when they took him off the plane in Phili or wherever it was, had a 2 hour layover and got on the new plane, still sleeping.  That was really a blessing for them and for everyone on the planes. We had family gatherings which was great because I haven’t had family en mass here since the gathering after the funeral. 
Noel, Julian (wearing Jules hat), Carol, Jules (wearing Julian's hat)

Grandma Coral, Julian and Holly
Artists at work
Story time
What do you think, like the hat?
Noel and Julian at Piano
Nathan teasing Jules over BooBear

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Feed My Starving Children and Flowers







For I was hungry and you gave me food.
Matthew 25:35

Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed the poor.  
Proverbs 22:9
Me packaging food for children
I spent the morning at church packaging food for Feed My Starving Children. We have been saving our pennies and dollars for the past year to get $24,000 for the food.  It is specially formulated to reverse and prevent malnutrition in children.  Dried chicken powder, dried veggies, soy and rice are combined with vitamins, minerals and some spices to make up this yummy? product (tastes sorta like a high power hot breakfast cereal).   My job was to open the baggies, place around the funnel to be filled and weigh bag adding or subtracting rice as necessary.  Each bag and box has to weigh close to the same for shipping purposes.  There were about 125 volunteers and we had 4 shifts.  My 2 hour shift packed enough food to feed 74 children for one year!  Pretty awesome!  If you want more information go to:  http://www.fmsc.org/.   I quickly shift to flowers imagining those children who will have a chance to bloom in life because of this organization! 


Iris just starting to bloom

Violets just finishing winter blooming
Nasturtiums starting to bloom

Statis starting to bloom
Torch cactus bloom

I know you want to see an update on my cactus flower.  Here it is in full bloom.  It is called Torch Cactus after it's beautiful bloom.  I've also included other flowers that are blooming in my garden right now.  

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Spending time with Janice my BFF from 7th grade



  It has been a while since I’ve posted.  I’m going to try to post on a regular basis so it becomes a part of my week.  Somehow life seems to get in the way.  Today I ran around getting stuff I needed.  I went to Home Depot because I needed the store brand of a stain for my fence.  I’ve been putting it off, but found that it was sorta nice to be somewhere that the opposite sex is found.  I bought some plants a cactus that has 2 very large blooms ready to open up, some succulents and a huge blooming peace lily.  I meant to get bird food, but I got distracted by various things and forgot the birds.  I spent the rest of the day getting my finances ready to go have my taxes done tomorrow.  I couldn’t find what we paid for our vehicle registration in 2011.  That was a crazy time what with my car being totaled, having to buy a new car, having visitors, etc.  It made me think of the fun time we had with Julian and Camille, Star and Blaine and Amy and Liam.  I just talked to Amy and Liam the other day which was great.  They are going back to South Korea in a month for a couple years and are really excited about it. 
I’ve been enjoying spending time with Janice my best friend since 7th grade.  She and Dave are in Phoenix for a few months trying out retirement life.  We’ve been getting together most Wednesdays and it feels like the years have just melted away.  We’ve ridden on the light rail to downtown, gone to the botanical gardens, had lunches together and just hung out.  Not quite as exciting as when we rode the bus to LA to stay at the beach with Janice’s Aunt.  We had a great time at the beach. We were going home and her Aunt dropped us off at the bus station in downtown LA.  The bus was delayed for several hours and we were wondering the surrounding area to keep busy.  We went the wrong way and ended up in a really bad part of town, went to see a movie where we shared the theater with drunks, homeless and other lost souls.  We went back to the bus station, got to talking to this nice African American woman cleaning lady.  We told her what we did and she was really upset and said that we were lucky that we made it back in one piece.  She told us we should have gone the opposite direction and we would have found a really nice shopping area. And then there was the time we got matching pajamas but in different colors.  We put them on and walked around the trailer court thinking that we were being very risqué!  One day we were walking home from school and we decided that it would be fun to walk in the middle of the street on the white line.  Normally we walked on the ditch bank which was quite an adventure in itself. There we could have fallen 5 feet to our death into the irrigation ditch.  Walking in the middle of the street seemed more dangerous, but safe enough because there were no cars coming.  It was out in the country for heavens sake!  Well, there we were walking in the center of 7th street and had just passed the Melgaards.  We were going home so didn’t see the car coming behind us.  Imagine our surprise when my Dad pulled up and Boy Oh Boy did we get a piece of his mind! 
Jan and Dave