Kara at One Month

Hello everyone. I am Kara Mae. I am one month old now. I have skinny legs. My grandma is jealous of my legs.
I am growing up so fast. I don't think so, but that's what everyone tells me. It seems to be taking FOREVER , in my opinion. Like a lifetime.
I like to study people's faces. They seem to like to study mine too. My Mommy is very pretty and I really like to look at her. I like to eat and sleep and cry too, but sometimes I just like to look around. There is so much to see. I'll have to think about spending more time just looking. It's fun and people seem to like it better than when I cry. I may need to schedule more time for that hobby.

See you next time my Grandma wants to brag about me.

Honest!

Nancy, at Be Not Afraid, has awarded me the Honest Scrap Award. I discovered Nancy in a roundabout way. She actually "followed" my daughter's blog and I started reading her blog and discovered a kindred spirit. We think so much alike sometimes that it is scary. I've been following her journey through serious illness, surgery and recovery. Thanks, Nancy!

To accept this award, I need to: 1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award. 2) Share "ten honest things" about myself. 3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me. 4) Tell those 7 people that they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving it :)


So here goes to the ten honest things! (gulp!)

1. I am afraid of heights. Not just heights, but staircases and rotundas nearly make me ill. No, not nearly, they DO make me ill. It's all I can do to maintain any sense of composure while climbing a staircase under a rotunda. State capitol buildings, our old county courthouse etc are just torture to me. I hug the walls and try not to cry. It's embarrassing. I'd crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees and feel a whole lot better if it were at all socially acceptable.

2. I don't like nuts. Especially black walnuts. I've learned to like almonds. I can handle cashews and pecans, but I detest walnuts.

3. I spend the summers craving ice cream and popsicles. I can go the rest of the year ignoring them, but HAVE to have them in the summer.

4. I don't handle heat well. I become very crabby.

5. I don't like the cold either. My comfort zone is about 2 degrees wide. One either side of that I either roast or freeze.

6. I love my parish. It's home.

7. I am afraid of public speaking. My voice quavers. Being president of Altar and Rosary for three years was . . . interesting. I did ok in meetings, but at events, I was horrible.

8. I enjoy spending time with my family. My kids are terrific and it is so much fun to see them as adults (at least 4/5 of them are adults). They are just good people.

9. I am hooked on Yankee Candles.

10. It may not look it, but I have a black thumb. I kill plants without even trying.

Bonus honest thing: I have cut waaaaaaaaay back on my blog reading. I *think* I still read 7 blogs . . . .
I would like to award the following bloggers:

Renee at S.A.G.A.

Julie at Joyful Days

Michelle at Dei Gratia

Ruth at This, That and The Other Thing

Janette at Ground Level in Kansas

Teresa at A Day in The Life

And just to be ornery, I'm gonna give it back to Nancy at Be Not Afraid (I'd like to see if what she will come up with for her next 10 honest things!)

Because I Am Cheap

This is a stack of fabric that I am going to change into pillowcases. You know how when you buy a set of sheets, you always need more pillowcases? We like two pillows each and to buy another set of pillow cases can cost nearly as much as the entire set of sheets. A few years ago, I decided to make my own. My "style" is country - I love patchwork quilts and pottery and primitives, so I dug in even though I am not much of a sewer.

My former souce of fabric was our Super Wal-Mart where I bought most of the fabric I use for only $1 or $2/yard. However the powers that be at Wal-Mart have removed the fabric departments at our two Wal-Marts, so I will have to cast my nets farther afield. Anyway, buy 2 1/4 yards of fabric for each set of pillow cases. Wash the fabric to make sure it won't shrink and to remove extra dye and sizing. Fold the length of fabric in half length wise. Fold that in half width wise and cut along the fold. Now you should have two fairly equal size pieces.
Then you go downstairs to the dungeon - er, basement - where the items of torture are located. Set your iron on cotton setting and fold back roughly 1 inch of fabric onto the wrong side of the piece. You want to do this on the "short" side that will end up being the open end of the pillow case. Iron that hem in.
Now fold over several inches more (I never measure, just eyeball it.) You want a generous hem. Press that hem in as well. Then retreat back upstairs to your "sewing" room and sew in the hem first. You will want to line up the sewing machine foot along the first line you pressed in. Once that hem is sewn, fold the pillow case in half length wise with the right sides together. Beginning at the top of the hemmed side, sew together the long side and the bottom. If you have folded the fabric correctly at the beginning, the other long side will not need stitching as it is one of your folds. Turn the pillow case inside out and you are done! Repeat until all of your store of fabric has been transformed into useful objects. I don't use pins and don't measure and so far, everything has turned out fine. This is an uber-easy project and I find it fun.
This is our bed showing some of the pillow cases I have made in the past. It's hard to see, but the one in the back is a case I made to cover a body pillow. In case I've never mentioned it here before, I LOVE blue, so most of my pillow cases are blue, but I also love the way yellow looks with blue, so I use a lot of that too.

See that "headboard" behind our bed? That's called a window. Our bed is under the window because it is the only place in the room that the stupid street light across the street won't shine into someone's eyes. And yes, I am aware that the bed is not centered under the window. That's because the window is not centered in the room and there is a whole lot more room on one side of the bed than there is on the other.
Here is the stack of pillow cases I have made over the years for us. The bottom ones are flannel for winter. I love mixing and matching them in different ways. I have also made ones using a star pattern for Becky when she had all star bedding. I've made pillow cases of fun, funky fabrics for Emily and Melissa to take to school with them. I made a couple of sets in pretty sage green prints for Kathy and Jon when they were married. It doesn't take long and only costs a few dollars for a set. And any mistakes can be called "folk art"!

Hand Me A Hammer, Noah

Splish splash, I was taking a walk.
Originally uploaded by Rascaille Rabbit

This has been the rainiest year that I can remember. And this is after the snowiest winter in recent memory. It looks like we live in Ireland. Everything is lush and green. It's hard to find time to mow the yard in between rains.

This is a picture that Jim took of Becky after a storm Friday night as they walked (sloshed) over to our parish's carnival. I thought it was an exceptionally cute picture and wanted to find a way to blog about it. : )

In spite of the rain, I think our carnival was a success. It ran Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Friday was the only soggy night and the show went on anyway. In fact, I walked over there Friday night to get some pictures of the band that was playing. They've been around forever and when my brother was in college, they were his favorite band to go see. I wanted to send him the pictures, so I headed over after one storm, but got caught in another. The rides were stopped, but the band played on. The crew tried to cover up the stage opening with plastic tarp, but the band ended up moving the show temporarily to the beer tent. Once the worst was over, they came back out. They were pretty good, for a bunch of old guys! (Actually they were just really good and they seemed to being having fun. Anyway, there were good crowds all nights and fun for all. This is the 7th annual carnival and the committee in charge seems to have the bugs worked out - if only the weather would cooperate!

At Three Weeks

Portrait of a Workaholic

Meet Angeline V. Milner. She abbreviated her first name as Ange. I'm not sure if it was pronounced "Angie" or "Ang" and I'm afraid that I cannot ask her to enlighten us.

Ange. was the first librarian at Illinois State Normal University. In time, the university changed it's name to Illinois State University. A Normal school, for those who do not know, is a teaching college, hence our town's funny name has it's meaning in the school. Since the university had broadened it's focus, it was no longer deemed fit to call it a Normal school. That and they were probably sick of the jokes too.

Anyway, Ange. was the first full-time librarian , hired in 1890. She continued to work until she was 71 and she died in 1928. She was a hard worker and was legendary for her devotion to her job.

It was Milner’s belief that the school library had two missions:,

To develop a taste for good literature and the habit of reading it, and to broaden the comprehension of the daily lessons and teach the use of books as tools.

For thirty-seven years she classified and organized and worked tirelessly until the library's collection numbered 40,000 volumes. The original library was located in the Old Main building, which was later demolished in 1957. That is where Ange. Milner worked with such dedication. Later a new library was built and it was named Milner Library after Ange. Miss Milner never worked there, in fact it was built after her death. By the time I arrived at ISU in the late '70's, that building was obsolete and was used for storage. The new Milner Library was much larger than anything Miss Milner could have imagined with six floors of books and materials. Now the library had 800,000 volumes and many of the books Miss Milner knew were kept in storage in the old Milner Library, now known as Williams Hall.

Soon it became suspected that Miss Milner had stuck around with her beloved books. Although the books were in storage, on occasion a professor would need some of the books for reseach. The librarians would remove the books from the stacks, arrange them on a cart in readiness for them to be picked up. When the professor arrived for the books, they could no longer be found and it was discovered that they had been reshelved. A "presence" could be felt in among the stacks. The air would be cold. People's hair would stand on end. Sometimes, even a vapor-like white figure could be seen walking among the books. Footsteps have been heard. While it must be very disconcerting for those who worked there, most people tend to regard the possibility of Miss Milner's ghost with affection. She loved the library and she was dedicated to those books. Maybe she still is.

This Week

I had a little out-patient surgery on Thursday of this week to remove an ovarian cyst. I think I pretty much underestimated how wiped out I would feel. I expected to feel tired etc on Thursday, but expected to bounce back on Friday. Not so much.

I am feeling better. The pain is minimal now, but I am still tired.

Remember my blog post on my skinny body parts? I forgot one. I have very skinny veins. Makes starting IV's a little tricky sometimes. The nurse did get mine started on the first stick, thank you God, but had to do a little probing, so my hand looks pretty bruised.

The good news is that at least one of the symptoms of the cyst is gone. I don't want to go into details here, but let's just say that for roughly 2 weeks of every month, I felt pretty miserable. It appears that is over. I sure hope so.

I do have some lovely colorful pictures of my surgery that my dr took of my innards. I don't believe that I will share them with you. At any rate, if I have been a little quiet this week, both here and on your blogs, this is why. I've got some ideas for some future blog entries that have NOTHING to do with my inner workings, so I'll hopefully be back with those as I can. This upcoming week is pretty busy as well as Jim has a medical procedure on Wednesday and my boss has the same one scheduled on Thursday, so I'll be nurse and chauffer on Wed and will be minding the fort on Thurs. I get my stitches out on Tues and should be pretty much back to normal.

The Start of Something Big

This hole is the beginning of something wonderful. This is the result of our ground breaking ceremony for our parish renovation.
This is our junior high school choir singing for the bishop. Becky is the one in the middle wearing the black skirt and white tee. You can also see our fantastic pastoral staff with Father John standing on the far left (kind of hidden by the flying hair), then Father Julius and lastly, Monsignor. What a great group of priests. Love 'em all.
This little fellow was overwhelmed with excitement at the ground breaking and decided to take nap.
Here's Bishop Jenky turning over the first shovel-ful of dirt
And here he is at the reception after the Mass.