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framaz
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Name: Frances
Birthday: 3/11/1938
Gender: Female
Interests: Over the years I have had many. I have been heavily into sewing and knitting, and a lot of ceramics. I am presently enjoying my digital camera, do a fair amount of gardening (one of my life long passions), computer stuff, and always a reader. I love to visit new places and hear about different lifestyles.
My family has priority though. They are my blessings in this life.
Occupation: Retired
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
4/18/2001
 Lifetime
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| Here we are - the last of March! Spring is supposed to be here?  Seems winter just did not want to give up lightly at all. Saturday morning I woke up and looked out my bedroom window, which I usually do as I open the curtains for the day. WOW I was surprised to see this scene  It had all melted by the afternoon, and today they are saying the sun is going to come out tomorrow for the rest of the week, so April is hopefully the start of true spring. Just wish there was heat to go with it  I have started getting my weekly news letters now from my favorite nursery, as they opened last week. Just too early for me to get that gardening feeling though.
It seems I have done little besides sitting around all winter. Lots of reading and talking on the phone, or just playing on the computer. So about a month ago I decided I just had to get moving, even if it was not outside. I am just not into exercise machines (Elmer does have one he uses daily) Hmmm so what should I do? Just out of curiosty I counted how many steps it took me to go from my chair into the kitchen and then around through the dining room and back to my chair. Found out doing this 3 times constituted about 100 steps. Not many! I have no idea what is supposed to be the optimum anount of steps a person should do per day, but obviously I was doing less than 1,000. One of these days I will fugure out how to use my pedometer, but for now I have to get myself a bit more active. My hip gives me a lot of trouble very quickly when walking. Not good! So what I am doing is taking this circle and walking it about 6 times a day 20 times a shot. During comercials at night is a great time Now if anyone who reads this knows how many steps is optimum I would love to get your imput. I did take yesterday to attempt to clean up some of the jumble on my main computer. It is amazing how quickly it can get out of hand, as I needed to get regular address, phone #'s and Email addresses organized and updated in my files, graphics I collected over time but never put into their proper folders, photos the same way - still have more to do in this area, as there are months worth that have just been uploaded but not categorized. Took a lot of time. I do a whole lot better when I have many for a series than the odd ones here and there that I have been taking these last few months. I did take a couple of our painted walls to share  Coming in from our front door, looking up the stairs to the main house - here you can see the blue/white we decided to make the entry way (I still have to decide if I want to put up any pictures or other on the walls as I had before, we gave all our puzzle pics away but one that were there originally)
 Here is what we did - two colors of blue. Looks so different from what we had before. I like it, but it is going to take a while to get fully used to it.
As for Easter - daughter Angela and Son John put on a great family feast and invited us. It was so lovely to have all of them together for this event. I so seldom get to see any of their youngsters any more as they are all grown up and leading their own lives now. This is a pic of us with John and Angela at their home that night  (Elmer would just not smile for that camera! )
I do not look too bad for turning 70 this month | | |
| Oh Dear - I miss coming in here for a couple of weeks and find everything is changed! Not sure if I really like this new format, but Oh well, I will live with it It is Easter Sunday already! Wishing all a very blessed one. Life as usual just flying by. I am not sure where all the time goes. I do know Elmer and I finaly decided on the colors I wanted to put on those walls. What a job to paint them all! I think both of us agreed this will be the last time we are painting them. This color, whether we like it or not is what we are going to live with for the rest of our stay here! At least it does look bright and fresh. Very different from the old look.  Here you can see the first of the painted walls in blue, while Elmer is washing down the next section in the front stairwell in preparation of painting that part the same color too. As you can tell from this it is a radical change! I have not taken a pic the finished walls yet, will have to do that but it is quite hard to show it off properly due to the space and needed distance to get it all in. In fact I just have not been using the camera much at all lately.
I did take it out to record my beautiful crocus during one non rainy period, as they were a sight to see (now all gone again)  The bees also took advantage and were there in droves.
I also found one lonely cluster of Snowdrops from last year 
Now I see my Hyacinths are blooming - no pics - but they do not look that good. For some reason they have come up very scraggly and sparse in flowers. Quite disappointing. And I do not know why as I felt I did all the right things to ensure they would be strong and healthy. At least Spring is trying to burst into flower - I see around town many early bushes and plants putting out their blossoms. Just not that much in my own place. I am still waiting to see what survived the winter and will come up again. | | |
| I woke up thinking - WOW it is Febrauary already!!!!!
I really have not been doing anything for the last month where activity online is concerned.
On the other hand it has been quite a month gone by. Snow storms! freezing weather! Watching the temps and weather from here to across the States - why? Well my children were traveling and I had to know they were going to be safe on those roads. Sheilagh and her family were gone for a week to San Jose for a Hockey tournament for their girls. Jamie stayed home and I had her for Sunday - Hockey game and just being together. The wind outside was way too cold for us to do more than that. I know I enjoyed her company. Angela and Eugene drove down to Calif. for a little over a week. At least she was able to get online and we could connect most of the days while they were ther via Skype. It turned out to be a great time for them, and perfect too weatherwise. The day after they left the storms came in. As she had returned to Spokane with Eugene, that became another story. Hardly there when they became snowbound and had to cancel any other plans they had made. Not fun to be stuck inside a place and unable to go anywhere. Trever (my grandson) was just delighted though to have his Aunt Angela almost to himself LOL. Again - their connection to the outside world was internet, so we did a lot of talking and visiting this way too.
In the end, it was decided she had to come home at the first break in the weather via bus, as it was just too dangerous for Eugene to drive her back here. That turned out to be quite the edventure for her, while I was keeping close to the phone for those calls from her to let me know she was still safe. What a sweetie - she phoned regularly to keep me updated on her adventure and trip - they did not get too far before they had to pull into the nearest town and sit at a truckstop for the rest of the day and all night - the pass had had an avalanche and all roads were closed due to the storms and snow. It was not till 10.30am the day after she left that the road South at least openned and they were able to continue, going all the way to Portland before coming back to Seattle and then home, arriving 24 hrs later than the original time. I was just so happy to know she was safe and sound and back home again. I think I was way more tense than I thought, as yesterday all I wanted to do was sleep. And the dreams I had! I can only interpret them as my weird way of putting my fears to rest and letting my subconcious relax and accept all was once again right with my world.  I took this at the beginning of that big snow storm - we had a whole lot more before it was over, and then the freeze came. Now most of it has melted and I can feel comfortable about driving on the roads once more.
 On Jan 1st. Elmer and I took the plunge and bought new furniture for our livingroom. It took a couple of weeks to get here, but this is part of it. We have changed the way I placed them too and love our new look. The rest were two recliners in a darker green for Elmer and I - takes a bit of getting used to as our old ones were at the place where they had softened out considerably and the new firmer ones feel different. But I love them! Seems I have taken to green lately as this is the color that appealed the most to me, starting with that new green carpet. Now I am thinking just what I am going to do with those walls They are not exactly the right colors for my new theme.
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December for the last few years has been a hard month for me. So I am happy when I see the end of it.
This is a week of letting go, and starting to look forward to a New Year. I sit back and think of all the things that have happened for me in the past 12 months, both good and bad. Basicly it was a very good year and I had many very exciting and happy adventures. Yes there were some sad times too, but even they combined the pleasure and love of my family and friends as we shared these times. Now I wonder what 2008 will bring into my life and the lives of my loved ones. Some things have already been set into motion, and will unfold as time goes by - again some very exciting, while at least one so far will need prayers and support. I see I do not spend as much time as I used to on the web, neither have I been taking as many pics as I usually do - in fact I have hardly taken any at all this last month, so have none to share today. At this point I do not know if this is a coming trend or just the fact I seem to go into a form of hibernation when it is cold, rainy and very little sunshine. I do not even go outside the house very much and driving on icy wet roads is daunting to say the least. My night vision is not the best either any more (especially if it is rainy or the roads are wet) and I noticed the other night that Elmer too is having trouble night driving in similar conditions. Hard to accept we are reaching that stage in our lives where we will have to start depending on others for things we took for granted and did without thought before. Again I will have to see how this progresses in this coming year. Meanwhile I was sent this by a special friend and wanted to share it here with you all too New Year's Eve History I wanted to bring you a little history on New Year's Eve! I chose to look at a very famous American tradition: the history of the celebration in Times Square. The celebration at Times Square is an amazing phenomenon that has packed the square full of celebrants since its start in 1904. Even during the depression, the New Year was rung in at Times Square, although they did forgo the lights. You will find the history of the Times Square celebration here on this Web site. I was really surprised by how much I didn't know about the celebration and its tradition. It is amazing to me that people travel from all over the world to be in Times Square on New Year's Eve. You can also check out the Times Square timeline at the bottom of the page. It is pretty nifty! It is an interactive timeline and it dates all the way back to the 1890s. Also, if you're looking for even more information, you can check out the side menu, where you will find information on the ball itself. The section you want for that is About the New Year's Eve Ball. I found that section particularly interesting, because you get to discover what the ball has been made out of over the years and the history behind it. Wishing you the very best in 2008! http://www.timessquarenyc.org/nye/nye_history.html | | |
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Oh my but we have had some heavy weather this last week! Temperatures went way below freezing for several days. On Sat. I went to pick up daughter Angela as the two of us wanted to get our hair done and had an apointment with a friend who is also a hairdresser. As I slowly approached her driveway, my car decided to go ice skating down the road. It took a while for it to come to a stop so that I could back up and turn into her home. She did the driving for the trip! No way was I going to attempt it while she was in the car. Then on the way home again the car decided to do some sideways sliding! Scary! I was just pleased to get home safe and sound. No way was I going out again until all that ice had melted.
Then it statred to snow in earnest for the next couple of days. Over 8 inches of snow and very heavy wet stuff for us! Way more elsewhere. Quite the storm! But the guys seemed to love it! Here were two of them making a pathway across the road to each other's homes - a lost cause as it just filled up withing minutes again, but they had fun I am sure! 
Elmer had to get into the act too Coming down like crazy and he had to clear off the patio - an hour later you could not see what he had done, but I realized later it did make it easier the next time he worked on it, otherwise it would have been too much to move. I am not sure just how many times he cleaned our driveway, but that too turned out to be a blessing and not just a waste of time for him. Meanwhile he just loved doing it!
A couple of days later we had a Pineapple Express come through with temps in the 50's F (10+c). Torrential rains for days, flooding and disasters everywhere along the Western coast line, news of freeways closed, main highways and rivers flooded, mountain passes closed because of avalanches, winds of hurrican force blowing down trees and cutting off electricity. We are at the tail end now of this system, and most of the warnings have gone. Next week predicted extra cold again! With all this going on, and listening to the news predicting the whole of the N. American continent possibly going to have the coldest winter in over 30 years this time, I think of my trip and just wish I was down in the South again. Anywhere there is sun and warmth! Meanwhile, here is the last of the photos I have of that trip  A fascinating piece from Ripley's
 and a closer look at the detail of it. Made from Camel bones
Louis Taussards and Ripley
http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/449078385/Ripleys_and_Tousard_Wax_Museum___Texas/ Enjoy! | | |
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