Old Pictures

Last week I was walking down memory lane.  Tom's Aunt passed away and her son's, Dan and Mike were getting the service together.  They asked if we would find some pictures of her, especially old ones to send to them.  While looking through old photos that we had inherited from Tom's parents I found some very interesting pictures.  This is Tom's Grandfather Calvin.  I was really taken by his clothes, they are very fashionable.

Here he is in a different group with a leather coat.  The socks are great too.

That is Tom's Grandmother, Gladys with Clarence, in front of the house they lived in Auburn, Indiana.  The date on the back is October of 1930.  They are looking very happy and the clothes are still quite fashionable again. 



Here they are 50 years later, this was dated April of 1980.  This is how I knew Clarence.  We were married in October of 1980 and he passed away during the summer in his early 70's.  Glady's went on to live to age 99.  Her quality of life probably really declined in her early 90's, so she lived pretty well. 

This man I feel was one of Grandma Glady's brothers.  She was the youngest of a fairly large family.  I would like to have known the story behind the next set of pictures.  They seem to have some humor with them.  I don't know his name but he likes hats.  Here he has an English driving hat. 

I think this one is called a bowler.

Loved his top hat-I really think everyone should have one of these, one can dance with them or be in a very prestigious setting. I feel it was Abraham Lincoln who really made them fashionable.  It has a jaunty tilt to it. Think about this, possibly when these pictures were taken, the Civil War could have only been over by 35 years or less.

This picture is actually about one inch.  I first thought there was a flaw but then I realize it was a straw hat he was wearing. 

And now here he is in a bonnet!  This picture someone kept because it is all creased.  I wonder if he knew the photographer.  I don't think it is the same picture with old time photo shopping.  The head tilt and the smile are slightly different in each one. 

Throughout the days, we all wear different hats. 
May you always have a top hat underneath your helmet.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Magazines, memories and ageing

Saturday morning I was eating my bowl of Life cereal enjoying my quiet time of the day, my mind started to wander from one thought to the next .   We all have things that remind us of someone and Life cereal reminds me of my Grandmother who passed away when I was 8 years old and she was 75.  Her name was Serelda and she was my Paternal Grandmother.  I don't think Quaker has changed the taste after 46 years.  We ate it in a very clean, somewhat stark kitchen that had the light over the sink on, so the room had muted ambiance about it. 

She would open this refrigerator to get the milk out that said NORGE on it.  Since I was learning how to read I thought that was a very strange word.  To open it one would grasp the handle and push the black button with your thumb.  I thought that was a neat way to open the refrigerator because kids love to push buttons.....in many ways.

It was pink inside and I don't recall it containing too much inside it.  Very clean and stark again, my Grandfather had passed away when I was 3 so I don't remember him except from pictures.  When she passed away we inherited it.  It lasted a long time. 

My maternal Grandmother named Helen always used Jergens lotion with this black and pink label. My Grandmother passed away at age 93 and she was a nice, religious lady who loved M &M's. She always said she could eat the whole bag, which I can certainly relate to.  I have smelled the recent Jergens trying to remember my grandmother in that way and it does not smell like what I think it should. 

The closest smell that I have found is this Cherry Blossom  from Bath and Body Works.  It is very subtle and has a hint of cherry.  Very Nice.  I buy a couple of bottles at a time just in case they don't sell it anymore, they retire scents.

This picture that I saved didn't turn out very clear but I received the May/June/July issue of Artful Blogging.  This is what start me on my blogging journey.  I picked one of these up one day and decided I would like to have my own blog.  It fulfills a show and tell need in me.  It gives me ideas of how I would like my blog to look and I find new blogs that lead to other new blogs and down the road.  The one I looked at so far was ampersanddesignstudio.com.  Two women who started a really cute business together that has grown.  Their products are really cute and colorful.

I love the magazine rack at the grocery and I found this little gem last week.  I  also love "what are they doing now?" and interesting stories about the scenes that I liked.  How many of us like to say-in that disdaining tone of voice-(insert the persons name)NEWMAN.  He said in this magazine that as long as the show is running and as long as the checks come in they can still keep saying "Hello, Newman" to him.
 It lists the top 25 shows.  Many were my favorite here is a short list of mine.
The Marine Biologist-"the sea was angry that day" how many of us quote that.
When Elaine did her funky dance at the office party-that was a hoot!
"Can you spare a Square"?
When they lost their car in the parking garage and Kramer kept carrying around the television.
Jackie Chan
The lighted chicken sign.
the list could go on and on.
 

My sister ordered a subscription to More magazine for me.  It was a really nice surprise.  This article with Diane Keaton what really good.  It is an excerpt from her new book "Lets Just Say it Wasn't Pretty". 
The article is about the Art of Being Yourself.
She always has had her own style, wearing manly clothing, and she is now 67 years old.
One question that was given to her was "What is more important to you now than 20 years ago"?  She said it is seeing. It is her favorite thing about her face.  She can see trees and sunsets and her children's faces. 

While reading that I thought yes, that is good.  I would miss that too.  The article talks more about aging and since my post has gone on long enough I will hit on that topic more at another time. 

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and that it brought up some old memories for you too.
Thanks for stopping!

Lupins + garden supply store

Browsing the internet the other day looking to purchase some lupins I came across a new garden supply store named Garden Harvest Supply. They had exactly what I wanted and so I put the lupins in my cart.  Then came the time to figure out what kind of shipping I preferred, so I clicked on the "contact us" to see where they were located and they ended up being only 30 miles from me in Berne, Indiana.  I was so happy to keep my purchase in the state! I ordered them on Tuesday and received them on Thursday.  I was impressed with the packaging and the nice size of the plants.  They came in a box marked "live plants" and how they were packaged was fantastic.  They were supposed to be in three inch pots.  They were securely in the box inside this plastic packaging.  The part that is extended out opens up and the plants can be easily removed.  They definitely are the nicest plants I have ever gotten through the mail. 

There is such a large expanse of garage that I put tall plants and items back there.  Here they are planted in the back.  There is a tiny plant that made it through the winter, that I started from seed between them.  I don't know if I have enough time in my life for it to grow to flower.  That's why I bought these. 

The other is planted between the hollyhock, which I did grow from seed two years ago and the trellis.  The clematis that I planted last year is growing but lost it's flowers.  Maybe I didn't give it enough water so I will have to watch that. 

I really love these poppies and their 3 different colors.  Don't pay attention to the little bit of weeds in the picture, they are being taken care of and you can also see a sunflower seedling. 

Last night while planting the lupins I took out a stump from last years large sunflower.  It was like taking out a small tree stump! I had to wrestle it and then it was odd shaped and kept dropping the dirt on the garage floor.  It was quite difficult.  I was glad to throw it in the trash. 


Thanks so much for stopping by. 

Tony Gwynn

My husband and I love baseball.  In 2007 we went to see two great players get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. One was Cal Ripkin Jr. and the other was Tony Gwynn. Tony Gwynn sadly passed away this week from cancer.  He was a really cool person and was also too young to leave.  He had so much more to give.

Here we are waiting for the ceremony to begin.  It was a very warm day. 

The Jumbotron was as good a seat as we could find.  Tony accepting his plaque.
I believe it was one of the largest crowds that the Hall of Fame had ever had.   

We enjoyed his speech immensely.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Tony Gwynn could handle a bat like few other major leaguers, whether it was driving the ball through the "5.5 hole" between third base and shortstop or hitting a home run off the facade in Yankee Stadium in the World Series.
He was a craftsman at the plate, whose sweet left-handed swing made him one of baseball's greatest hitters.
Gwynn loved San Diego.
San Diego loved "Mr. Padre" right back.
Gwynn, a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest athletes in San Diego's history, died Monday of oral cancer , a disease he attributed to years of chewing tobacco. He was 54.
"Our city is a little darker today without him but immeasurably better because of him," Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a statement.
In a rarity in pro sports, Gwynn played his whole career with the Padres, choosing to stay in the city where he was a two-sport star in college, rather than leaving for bigger paychecks elsewhere. His terrific hand-eye coordination made him one of the game's greatest pure hitters. He had 3,141 hits — 18th on the all-time list — a career .338 average and won eight batting titles to tie Honus Wagner's NL record.
He struck out only 434 times in 9,288 career at-bats. He played in San Diego's only two World Series — batting a combined .371 — and was a 15-time All-Star. He had a memorable home run in Game 1 of the 1998 World Series off fellow San Diegan David Wells, and scored the winning run in the 1994 All-Star Game despite a bum knee.
Gwynn never hit below .309 in a full season. He spread out his batting titles from 1984, when he batted .351, to 1997, when he hit .372.
Gwynn was hitting .394 when a players' strike ended the 1994 season, denying him a shot at becoming the first player to hit .400 since San Diego native Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.
Gwynn befriended Williams and the two loved to talk about hitting. Gwynn steadied Williams when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the 1999 All-Star Game at Boston's Fenway Park.
Fellow Hall of Famer Greg Maddux tweeted, "Tony Gwynn was the best pure hitter I ever faced! Condolences to his family."
Gwynn was known for his hearty laugh and warm personality. Every day at 4 p.m., Gwynn sat in the Padres' dugout and talked baseball or anything else with the media.
Tim Flannery, who was teammates with Gwynn on the Padres' 1984 World Series team and later was on San Diego's coaching staff, said he'll "remember the cackle to his laugh. He was always laughing, always talking, always happy."
"The baseball world is going to miss one of the greats, and the world itself is going to miss one of the great men of mankind," said Flannery, the San Francisco Giants' third base coach. "He cared so much for other people. He had a work ethic unlike anybody else, and had a childlike demeanor of playing the game just because he loved it so much."
Gwynn had been on a medical leave since late March from his job as baseball coach at San Diego State, his alma mater. He died at a hospital in suburban Poway, agent John Boggs said.
"He was in a tough battle and the thing I can critique is he's definitely in a better place," Boggs said. "He suffered a lot. He battled. That's probably the best way I can describe his fight against this illness he had, and he was courageous until the end."
Gwynn's wife, Alicia, and other family members were at his side when he died, Boggs said.
Gwynn's son, Tony Jr., was with the Philadelphia Phillies, who later placed him on the bereavement list.
"Today I lost my Dad, my best friend and my mentor," Gwynn Jr. tweeted. "I'm gonna miss u so much pops. I'm gonna do everything in my power to continue to ... Make u proud!"
Gwynn had two operations for cancer in his right cheek between August 2010 and February 2012. The second surgery was complicated, with surgeons removing a facial nerve because it was intertwined with a tumor inside his right cheek. They grafted a nerve from Gwynn's neck to help him eventually regain facial movement.
Gwynn had been in and out of the hospital and had spent time in a rehab facility, Boggs said.
"For more than 30 years, Tony Gwynn was a source of universal goodwill in the national pastime, and he will be deeply missed by the many people he touched," Commissioner Bud Selig said.
Fans paid their respects by visiting the statue of Gwynn on a grassy knoll just beyond the outfield at Petco Park.
Gwynn was last with his San Diego State team on March 25 before beginning a leave of absence. His Aztecs rallied around a Gwynn bobblehead doll they would set near the bat rack during games, winning the Mountain West Conference tournament and advancing to the NCAA regionals.
Last week, SDSU announced it was extending Gwynn's contract one season. The Aztecs play at Tony Gwynn Stadium, which was built in the mid-1990s with a $4 million donation by then-Padres owner John Moores.
Gwynn was born in Los Angeles on May 9, 1960, and attended high school in Long Beach.
He was a two-sport star at San Diego State in the late 1970s and early 1980s, playing point guard for the basketball team — he still holds the game, season and career record for assists — and in the outfield on the baseball team.
Gwynn always wanted to play in the NBA, until realizing during his final year at San Diego State that baseball would be the ticket to the pros.
He was drafted by both the Padres (third round) and San Diego Clippers (10th round) on the same day in 1981.
After spending parts of just two seasons in the minor leagues, he made his big league debut on July 19, 1982. Gwynn had two hits that night. After Gwynn hit a double, all-time hits leader Pete Rose, who been trailing the play, said to him: "Hey, kid, what are you trying to do, catch me in one night?"
In a career full of highlights, Gwynn had his 3,000th hit on Aug. 9, 1999, a first-inning single to right field at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
Gwynn retired after the 2001 season and became a volunteer assistant coach at SDSU in 2002. He took over as head coach after that season.
He and Cal Ripken Jr. — who spent his entire career with the Baltimore Orioles — were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007.
"I had no idea that all the things in my career were going to happen," Gwynn said shortly before being inducted. "I sure didn't see it. I just know the good Lord blessed me with ability, blessed me with good eyesight and a good pair of hands, and then I worked at the rest."
Gwynn also is survived by a daughter, Anisha.
Boggs said services were pending.

Rest in Peace Tony.  You will truly be missed. 

Happy Tuesday- You are my sunshine

Last Sunday was Fathers Day and I want to share a few items with you that I got for Tom.  I picked this magnet up at Pewabic Pottery when I was there in June.  Tom is fascinated by this old train station that is very visible from the interstate in Detroit.  It is the Michigan Central Station. He reads the Detroit Free Press online and listens to WJR especially in the morning so he is all on top of the information about it.  They even announce in the weather the temp. in Fort Wayne, IN....we are sure it is for us :-D. So he was pretty tickled with this magnet.

Here is the card I made him.  I love that sun.

This I also picked up at Pewabic.  They were a new item since I had last been there.  It was a must have. He received quite a few other items like 4 martini glasses for his bar and clothes, nifty measuring cups for his bar, a Lions license plate and a Red Wings flag.  So he was treated pretty well. He's a great  Dad and deserved it all.

Like I mentioned, I like suns and I picked this up at a 3rd world shop in Indianapolis.  It was made in Portugal.

Just a close up of the sun on Toms card.  I should have embossed it also.  The texture would have really shown up then.

These are some earrings I picked up for myself at Pewabic.  I enjoyed the different shades of green.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Billy Joel Poster

This weekend I finished designing this poster for a contest that was being held.  In 1987 Billy did a tour in Russia called "A Matter of Trust" The Bridge to Russia, and they are releasing a documentary about it and a whole package of music and other items.  So CreativeAllies was holding a contest to design a poster for this.  Because I am such a Billy Joel fan I decided to give it a try.  I took a graphic designs class in 2008 and learned to use Adobe Illustrator and was rusty of course. So I broke out my books, signed up for a year of Creative Cloud Adobe Illustrator, one doesn't need to buy the program anymore...it's on the cloud and you don't have to come up with $200.00 to purchase the program, you pay by the month and also when there is an upgrade it's right there, I thought that was a grand idea. 

I enjoy his song Leningrad and decided to research the reasoning about why it was written. If I understand it right he met this man in Russia who it sounded had a rough life and one of his great pleasures was to be a clown and make children laugh.  The music sounds so Russian and slow and heavy.  So when this contest was announced I decided to use the image of the music for this song as the background.  

I used a layer of smoke and made it transparent so that the music would not blare out and to give it some movement.  I made the text in 3-D.  And used the pen tool to draw a path around the picture of the present Billy and his microphone and piano and filled it in with black.  

So when I saved this, I had to flatten it (something I had to read up on) because of the transparency layer.  I didn't totally understand why but I did it.

I am very happy with my design, it is how I pictured it and I think "not bad, the last time I used Illustrator was more than two years ago".  I worked my way through it.  I saved this to the correct format that was needed for the web "EPS".

The only thing I didn't think about was that I needed to unlink the picture I used for Billy Joel.  When I uploaded it onto CreativeAllies site that picture came with it.  I have since unlinked it from my file but I can't do anything about on their site.  Oh Well, it's a learning process.  I am the only poster that has a picture attached to it., I guess it will stand out.

I do not expect to win by all means.  There are others out there that are just fabulous!  But I had fun doing it.  I love using Illustrator, it is such a great program. 

So please check it out and look at all the great entries, you will be able to spot mine really easily.  ;-)


 

Building the Pyamid

We had a family get together last Sunday.  Tom's cousin and family came up from Texas to visit his mother in Ohio and they then drove over to our house.  It was a nice day for a swim and we have been getting a lot of good use out of the pool.  Here we have the start of a pyramid.  Cory, the guy you can't see yet is on the bottom, Kelli is in the middle and Allie is on top.

Another step up

And now Cory has air.

He has a tough job, getting some water out of his eyes.

Ta Daa--Allie is the theatrical one-as you can easily tell.

Lots of activity going on.  Libations being poured, pyramids walking the pool.  It's good to see.

I Put the camera down, walked away, and someone starts taking pictures of themselves...EMILY.
It was a nice find on the import :-) 

and then taking pictures of others.
Boyfriend Byron

Her sister Kelli (the middle of the Pyramid).

It's always nice to have people over.

Happy Wednesday
May your day be great!

cup drawing

I saw a video of Gwyneth Leech drawing on the paper coffee cups from her morning coffee.  Anthropologie has turned her cups into porcelain and are selling them on their website.
She said that she found that this medium is very easy to draw on so I gave it a try and it was.
Here is what I came up with. 

Cheerful to drink out of.  Have a Great Tuesday!

garden next door

Happy Monday!  This weekend I went to the neighbors right next door because they had lots of blogworthy pictures to share.  These are just the cutest garden art!  A co-worker with Lisa makes these.  They are made out of dinner plates and bowls.  If the artist has an Internet site I will share it with you when I find out. 

The strawberries are making a strong showing this season.

They cover them with nets because the robins come in and help themselves.

These are volunteer sunflowers at the edge of the yard.  They are going to put on quite a show later this summer. 

A purple martin has taken up residence in the bird house.  She let me take her picture, and must be incubating some eggs in there.  They are amazing how they swoop through the air eating bugs.  The do flybys at your head when we get too close to nests. 

Her little face watching me taking pictures of her. 

side view-cute bird house.

Gennine-an artist I follow painted a woodpile just like this one, and it was really neat.  I am going to try the same with this one. 

I would like some of this, I had not seen it before and the flowers are really pretty.  Send me an email or write a comment if you know the name,  the neighbors could not remember. 

This bird house also has a nest of purple martins, we got the swoops at our heads when we were near.

Each year the garden gets more impressive and they share with us.  So far we have gotten radishes, lettuce and strawberries.

I thought this columbine was just beautiful with the yellow and orange. 

This is Maggie, the resident boxer.  Lisa works for the human shelter and Maggie was brought in and they were so lucky to adopt her.  She is a really sweet gal.

Our strawberries from the garden, all cleaned up and ready for dinner.

Thanks so much to our dear next door neighbors for letting me bring over my camera.