Carol's Life in Photos

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 7^th 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 7^th 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

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Happy 2012! Welcome New Year!

Abee (my grandniece)and I

2012! Yah! I’m so happy to see the New Year come. Last year was very hard. I know that 2012 will be better. I lost Julian in 2011 and am still feeling a very large hole in my heart. However, things are getting better. It’s January and I made it through the holidays. I’m feeling much better after having my gallbladder removed just before Thanksgiving. I can eat almost normally now with out feeling sick and without pain, so that is very good. Food is actually starting to look good again. I actually had a peanut butter and bacon sandwich for dinner tonight!! It tasted delicious! Faye and Jules came over for lunch and I fixed cheese, chicken, rice, avocado, tomato, lettuce, sour cream, salsa burritos. They were good too. Melt butter in a pan after getting all the ingredients ready, plop the flour tortilla in the pan add all the ingredients cook till the cheese is melted and the flour tortilla is brown and crispy, turn over the 2 sides and slid onto a plate. UUMMMM Good.

Christmas had it's good points. I got to sing Vivaldi's Gloria with my church choir before Christmas. We have at least 60 members and were accompanied by 8 strings (4 violins, 2 violas, 1 cello, 1 harp), plus a few brass and woodwinds. It was very awesome! I have to say that singing in our beautiful church decorated for the season was what put me in the spirit and kept me there.

I finished grading all my papers for my GCU job Wednesday before Christmas and immediately got the stomach flu. It was lethal and came and went for 4-5 days. I thought I was better, but it came back on Christmas Day. I could sing many verses of the diarrhea song to lighten that thought up, "I was running down the hall and it splattered on the walls" " I was sitting on my tushie, it was feeling kinda squishy". I could go on but you probably don't want to hear that.

I sometimes feel like I have no life, but I really do and will try to share a few of the things that I did this past month. I missed seeing the boys open their presents. However, Faye and Javier came over on Boxing day with Jules. They had saved all their presents from me and opened them that day. It was wonderful. As Kirsten says there is 12 days of Christmas and it doesn't matter when you celebrate it. Kirsten, Rob and the kids celebrated on Thursday after Christmas because Rob was out of town flying over Christmas.

On December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, I walked in memory of Thomas Augusta Free who was lost his life when the USS Arizona was bombed and sank at the start of WWII. I researched him after the walk and found out that he and his son were both on the USS Arizona so were both killed. Very sad. Thomas also served in WWI and his son William joined the Navy and was sent to the USS Arizona in June of 1941. It was an honor to walk in his memory.

The 2 men facing me in the center were survivors of Pearl Harbor

I walked with these 2 Vets

This is the USS Arizona Memorial in Phoenix that we walked to


Bailey, Mom, Abree, and Airah

Sean Cude (Jacki’s oldest son) gave his girls a trip from Alaska to go to Disneyland and to see shows in Las Vegas. They had a layover coming and going in Phoenix, so Grandma and I went to the airport both days and got to spend several hours visiting with them. It was really great to see them. Sean as always is very busy with his various businesses in Alaska. However, he also spends a lot of time with his girls which is great. His newest business has to do with harvesting old equipment (lots and lots of metal) from abandoned sites in the outback of Alaska, shipping and selling it to be reused. He’s cleaning up Alaska and making money at it. Good for you Sean. We are all proud

My friend Elisa and I went to Desert Botanical Gardens today. They had an exhibit of large wooden bug sculptures on display at various places around the gardens. I made her scarf and she made mine. We were roommates in college and she is still one of my dearest friends!