Thanksgiving and Birthday

There are some more "catch-up" pictures in this group. I can finally get to some of the pictures on my i-phone. This was a picture I took of a picture of a peacock when I was making Kristen's costume for Halloween.

Here is a picture taken of Kristen Halloween night by someone else. She sent it to me by text.

A picture of one of the beautiful maple trees on our street a couple of weeks ago. It was so gorgeous, I just smiled every time I saw it.

Kaitlyn and I at the Dad's Day lunch at the sorority house.

Joe and Kaitlyn at the Dad's Day lunch.

Kaitlyn and Michael at the date party last weekend. I can't remember what the theme was but she and Michael went as the numchuck and controller for the Wii game.

I had fun making my pies this year at Thanksgiving. I put a little twist on each one. This one had upside down longhorns on it. The pumpkin was the right color (burnt orange).

My pecan pie had a violin and musical notes on it. However, the pie didn't set up right and was all runny. I ended up throwing it out.

My cherry pie had football helmets and the state of Oklahoma on it.

We had Thanksgiving dinner Wednesday night so Kaitlyn and Michael could go to Tulsa on Thursday and spend Thanksgiving at his mother's house at noon and at his father's house at 3:00. It was nice actually to have Thanksgiving on Wednesday night (I had the day off) and then just eat leftovers on Thursday. Friday Kristen and I got up and drove to Dallas for 2 days of shopping. Joe went hunting with a friend in Altus, OK so he paid for our hotel room in Dallas. We went to the Outlet Shoppes in Allen, TX first then stopped by IKEA (that place is cool) in Frisco before heading to our hotel. We ate dinner at Uncle Julios (mexican). We got to our hotel room early enought to see "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders" but our hotel didn't have CMT on their cable lineup. We ended up going to bed early to rest up for Saturday. We got up Saturday morning and went to Nordstrom Rack and Off-Fifth Sacks store. Then went to Northpark Mall and the Galleria. Kristen spent the most money, I was good. Here is a picture of the beautiful tree on the ice rink at the Galleria. We drove home last night and got here around 8:00. I fought the strong north wind all the way home. I had a great time and enjoyed the short getaway for my birthday. Tonight I work at the annual Advent Festival at our church. I'm helping the middle-schoolers make hanging scented pine cones.

Catch-up

This is a catch-up post from the last month. Here is the spice rack I purchased and made a fingernail polish holder. I saw the idea on Pinterest. I didn't initially think I had enough fingernail polish to go on the rack. And these are just mine! When both girls lived here we had more than this. For now I'm using this in the bathroom but I still may use it for craft paint when I get my sewing/craft room finalized.

This was the small spice rack I purchased. I painted it black and I may glue an old brooch on the front. Haven't decided yet.

Here's the final product in my bathroom.

About two weeks ago, Joe's grandmother, "Mama Pat", passed away. She had Alzheimers and was living in an expensive memory care/long term care facility. She had been there for a couple of years and didn't really recognize anyone. She was 94 years old, she was Joe's mother's mother. Last night we went to her memorial service. It was a private family service (there were about 40 of us) and it was held at St. Simeon's in their chapel (the facility where she had been). All of the grandchildren (except 1) were there (Joe and all his cousins) and out of 12 great-children, 8 were there (the 2 girls from California, one girl that lives in Arizona and Kaitlyn, who had a previous sorority commitment - what is unusual is they are all the same age within 1-2 years). I was glad Kristen came with us. It's probably the last time all the grandchildren/great-grandchildren will be together and Kristen is the oldest great-grandchild.

Redecorating the Office

Jann is in a redecorating frenzy so we've been upgrading our office to a more inviting space. We've been working with some of our decorator friends and they've help pick out some new pieces to go in our office. We purchased a pretty chair to go beside my desk so people can sit down closer to me rather than across the room. (It's a recliner too).

As you walk into our office this is the view you see (after you see me at my desk). We bought the new, red, distressed storage chest.

This is our seating area. The four fancy pillows in front cost more than the couch!

We brought in some different pictures for our conference room.

Our coffee bar....(neither Jann nor I drink coffee at work)

Jann's office

We moved my old desk into our work/file/office supply room.

Dad's Day at the Sorority House

Last weekend was Dad's Day at the University of Oklahoma. Kaitlyn was nominated to be the Dad's Day Chair for her sorority. The only problem was there was no information from previous planners on what to do or anything. So I helped her with ordering the chairs for extra seating, food, etc. Then through a miscommunication, the "house" boys didn't get contacted so she had no one to serve the food and clean-up etc. Joe and I stepped in, along with Michael and a few of her sorority sisters and we did it all. We set up tables, the food line, served the food, and cleaned up. It went well but I think Kaitlyn has decided she doesn't want to "volunteer" for any more positions like that. Here are a few pictures I took from that day.

Here, we had sat out the table decorations we purchased and we started cutting table covers from the roll we purchased. The extra chairs we rented were stacked by the door.
This is the "cafeteria line" they usually have opened up during the week for the girls to eat in the dining room. We pushed all the chairs from the tables in our buffet line up against the wall.This is a view looking from the back of the dining room to the front where the china cabinet is with their house china for formal dinners. We started setting up our own buffet line and used the round table to measure the tablecloths for outside.

This is one of the 2 formal living areas in the front part of the house. We had to set up tables for the silent auction in here.

One of the mascots dropped by the house and the girls were having a great time having their picture made. Kaitlyn is standing beside him on the left.

Trip to Guthrie, OK

Today our prayer shawl group took a trip to Guthrie, OK. Since we've been to Fort Worth twice on the train, we decided to do something different (and closer). Guthrie was the state capital of Oklahoma when it became a state back in 1907; the capital was later moved to Oklahoma City. Guthrie is about 30 miles north of OKC (Norman is 20 miles south of OKC). It has beautiful architecture, lots of antique shops, bed & breakfasts and a dinner theatre that people come from miles around to go to. Back about six weeks ago, there was a Groupon online for $30.00 of merchandise for

$15.00 at a yarn shop in Guthrie named S.W.A.K. (sealed with a kiss). Several of us purchased one and then the trip was born! It was a beautiful fall day here albeit a little windy!

This was a Fiddle shop down the street from the yarn shop. There were "fiddles" hanging in the third floor windows.

This building was across the street from the yarn shop. It holds a glass-blowing shop and a whimisical gift shop/art gallery. Cool stuff in there!

Here's the front of the yarn shop.

Walking around downtown Guthrie looking at all the historical markers, I came across this one. Interesting....

This was in the middle of town too. Right beside a drug store.

This is where we had lunch. It was very good. We were the only ones in there but we had a group of 12 and took up a lot of the room!

I liked this window on the side of one of the buildings.

I think this was the old state capital building.

This is our group outside the yarn store.

These are my purchases. I bought this little collapsible market basket to put my yarn and projects in on the loveseat beside me at home.

I bought some more needle stoppers and a new prayer shawl pin. I also found these cute little "angel" embroidery scissors at a unique fabric shop.

I bought both of these old spice racks that I'm going to paint and put fingernail polishes and craft paint in. Saw the idea on Pinterest!

At the fabric store, the lady had just gotten in some OKC Thunder Fabric. I bought a yard of it.

Kristen has this Chesapeake Thunder t-shirt that she's been holding and wanting me to make her a t-shirt dress from. I'm going to use the material I purchased to make the ruffle to go around the bottom. Cool, huh?

Let me see your peacock......

Kristen decided she wanted to be a peacock this year for Halloween so I got on the internet and researched peacock costumes. This is the tulle I'm using, 3 of them have sparkles in them the other 2 do not.

I cut 6" strips and put them on an elastic band just like you'd do for a child's tulle tutu alternating the sequined and colored strips. I had to figure out how to attach the peacock feathers to the band.

I made a satiny type tube dress that Kristen wants hemmed slut-tastically short and she'll wear the peacock tutu over the dress. We are covering the front of the elastic with some stretchy sequined elastic. Here is a preview of the first fitting. The sad part is both my sewing machines are on the blink after this so I'll have to hand finish the costume. Will try to post more pictures when we get it finished.

Trying to catch a dog...(dachshund)

There's been a little dachsund (sp??) hanging around the perimeter of our office building for about 2 weeks. He stays on the other side of the fence most days sitting in the sun along the grassy bank of the drainage culvert away from the view of the busy road and away from the interstate. He (or she, I can't get close enough) won't come to you when you call, and runs when you try to approach it. When it is approached, he runs into the drainage culvert and through it (under one of the busiest roads in Norman) and comes out across the street at the hotel. I spent Saturday chasing him from one side of the culvert to the other (having to drive around to both sides of the street) just so I could possibly feed him. He doesn't have any tags on. The sad part is almost every day he is in the same spots along the drainage culvert sunning himself and hiding amoung the weeds/sunflowers. He looks to be healthy but I worry about him. It's starting to get cold at night (down in the mid 30's) and yesterday we had a strong north wind all day making it feel colder than it actually was outside. Kaitlyn and Michael have both searched around my building but haven't had a siting of the dog. Joe has even come and looked and tried to catch him. It's going to take the whole family to split up and get on both sides of the drainage culvert to nab him, I think. I'm such a softie when it comes to dogs. For someone that was deathly afraid of dogs as a child, I have such a connection to them. I can usually get a dog to come to me, but this one is really elusive and apparently afraid of humans. I don't know where he's sleeping at night or if someone is feeding him but I hope the dog catcher doesn't catch him or that he doesn't eventually try to cross the interstate - that would mean certain death. I hope his owners, if he even has any, get off their ASS and take care of him. I'm still patiently waiting. If I can catch him, he's coming home with me.