Random Acts of Living


Friday, August 31, 2007

Blog Day 2007

Blog Day 2007

Unique artwork and a wonderful little Poppet character
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One man's "how-to" on drawing with a Wacom tablet
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A cat sanctuary based in the depth of the UK's mystical Wiltshire countryside
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Everything you never needed to know
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Brian and Sheila’s journey to buy, design and renovate a bus to travel around Oz

Monday, August 27, 2007

Your Opinion Please

I've created a picture in PhotoShop that I'd like input on. Instead of posting it on both blogs I decided to post it on KS Born Talent and put a link to it here. The picture is for my children's story that I want to create. To go directly to the post, click on this link - "Is This Talent?" So, PLEASE, go check it out.

Thank You!

Snake!

Remember my post about the ants? That I had taken to potted plants out of the kitchen because they were covered with ants? Below is one of the plants that I removed to outside. Can you see the hole in the dirt? I noticed this when I sat it down outside but didn't really pay much attention to it.
The plant sat outside for a couple of days till a storm front came in. At that time I got my pruners and started trimming up plants and bringing them in before the storm hit. There was possiblity of high winds. When I got around to pruning the leaves on the plant above I found the snakeskin below among the leaves.

Could my plant have had a snake in it in the house?! Now I've even had a pet snake before, but it just kind of creeped me out not knowing if there had been or possibly still was a snake in the bottom of my planter. So, the plant was placed in what I hoped to be a safe place on the porch to wait out the storm. What do you think? Could there have been a snake in my plant?

Friday, August 24, 2007

Blowing in the Wind

You gotta be strong to handle the Kansas wind. It's been blowing pretty strong almost daily for the past week. My poor plants are getting a beating. Fortunately, they should come out of it stronger for having to fight.
Can you see my potted plant hanging in the tree blowing sideways. Somebody really needs to find a way to tap all this energy effectively.

Cucumber and Onion Mix

My Cabbage Soup post went over so well I thought I'd share another of my favorites. The night before I slice up my cucumber and onion and salt them then cover and set in the refrigerator. I get a really fine slice using the slicer in the picture.


The next day I rinse most of the salt from the cucumber onion mix and add vinegar, fat free sour cream, chives and dill weed to taste.
The mix would look creamier if didn't use fat free sour cream, but my doctor wants me to keep my fat intake down. This mix gets better every day.
Next I'll share a salad that I use the mix with.

Salad for Dinner

This is my favorite salad. The ingredients are Romaine lettuce, my cucumber and onion mix, fat free cottage cheese, fat free Ranch dressing, tomato, tomato juice and green onion.


I chop up the romaine lettuce and add about a 1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese.
On top of that I add 1/2 to 1 cup of my cucumber & onion mix.
I top that with the fat free ranch dressing
Next I chop the tomato and add it
Add some tomato juice to taste
and finish with green onions on top.
I like this better than a hot fudge sundae.

Monday, August 20, 2007

The Reluctant Reunionist (is that a word?)

I am a member of a mailing list, Mennolink, and have been for many years. Members of this list I consider friends, though I have never actually met any of them. Most of these listers are some of the most down-to-earth people I know, they'll tell you like it is. Anyway, one of my friends, Audrey Metz, wrote about her upcoming 50th class reunion. She had never been to a reunion, hadn't really intended to attend ANY reunion. But, she decided to go to this one. She wrote us a very nice long email concerning all this and her thoughts after the fact, but the part that really struck me was her conclusion. I have asked and received permission to share this on my blog.

"I have concluded that reunions are - yes, a fun time of reconnecting - but much more important, they are a way of coming together for healing, for changing memories. Because that's one of the things that happens: with all the laughter and hugs and memories shared, the common thread was a camaraderie that bound us together, reminding us that we are HERE NOW in a way that is different from before. We are here because we care enough about each other to show up. We are here because our lives were bound together way back when, whether we all liked and accepted each other then or not. And it has turned out OK! In fact, it has turned out really beautiful. We have replaced old memories with new ones that put everything else into perspective. And that perspective includes forgiveness - of each other and of ourselves."

Thank you, Audrey.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

40th Class Reunion

Last night was my husband's 40 year class reunion. First thing was the lasagna dinner with salad, bread sticks and a creamy chicken and pasta mix. There was plenty to go around and plenty left to take home.



Next was to gather everyone from the class for a photo. Here's two that I took. All the while, playing in the background, was a two man '60s band, the husband of one of the classmates. They were quite good.


Hopefully I got everyone that was "hiding" in the second shot.





Then all the classmates were gathered into a large circle and were asked to tell either a funny story or something memorable about High School. It was fun to hear the stories as each took their turn around the circle. To hear others say, "That was you that did that?!" and "I got blamed for a lot of that stuff." There was one amusing story about a carload of girls driving through the cemetery at night and boys dropping from a tree over the road onto their roof. The girls telling how scared they were and spinning their tires in the dirt road to get out of there. There were many tales and many laughs before the night was over. I could have sat there all night and listened to their stories.



It all broke up around 11pm and everyone said "Goodbye" till next time.









Friday, August 17, 2007

ANTS!!!

We've been having a problem for the last couple of months with ants. Not a whole lot of ants, just one here or there, fast, little things. I sprayed around the house and put out poisin stakes. Last time I had an ant problem, years ago, the ants made a trail and it usually had a string of ants going up and down it. I got some liquid ant poisin and put it on the trail and shortly afterward the ants were all gone. This time there was never a trail, I couldn't figure out where they were coming from.

Tonight I was watering the plants and I watered my clover and the ants came pouring out! I grabbed the pot and headed outside with it. The plant beside it was covered with ants also, so out it went too. I'm not sure where all the ants that escaped the plant have gone. By nighttime, there's no trace of them. Maybe, hopefully, they're taken care of. It will be nice to have them gone.

The poll's still open!

PLEASE VOTE!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Your Vote Counts!

On my blog it does anyway. Please note the poll to the right and cast your vote. Help me give my blog a description.

Mmmmm, Cabbage Soup











I haven't had a big pot of cabbage soup since the end of winter. I think I eat half of it before it gets completely cooked. I use a very simple recipe: cabbage, onions, tomatoes, 1 package onion soup mix, a couple of low sodium chicken boullion cubes and cook. Use as much or little of the veggies as you desire. I usually fill the crock pot, it cooks down a lot.

Monday, Monday


Monday was a busy day. After doing all the regular morning things (watering the outdoor plants, reading the paper, getting the mail, stuff like that), we got around and went into Wichita to run errands. The first thing I needed to do was find sawdust for my composting toilets. I went back to the cabinet manufacturer that I went to last year only to find out that they now burn all their sawdust. None available. Because we didn't really have time to hunt for more and I really needed to get something, we went to B&B Lumber and I bought a big bag of shaved pine. I'm going to call the school here in town and see if I can get sawdust from the shop class and then stock up. Next we went to Cowley County Community College South Wichita Campus so hubby could sign up for another semester of MasterCam. It was pretty packed with people signing up and it took us at least and hour. From there we went to CompUSA to get a couple wireless mouse', ink for my new printer and a 4gig flash drive for hubby. They were out of black ink so I will have to get that later. Then to RadioShack to get a new clip for my phone. The last stop was Dillons. We finally got home around 10:30pm and I was beat. That was why I took the lazy way out and linked to KSHIPPYCHIC's post instead of writing one of my own.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Fowl Play

One day my daughter called me from work to ask me come identify some big birds that were wandering the grounds of the care home she worked at. I grabbed my digital camera and rode my bicycle to the care home and this is what I caught on video. The person pictured is someone my daughter worked with.




Saturday Night

Bec, I'm so tired, been a busy couple of days, I think I'm going to cheat and hope you don't mind. Bec is the author of KSHIPPYCHIC blog and now the official photographer for T&S Mobile Projectors. We met up on Saturday night at McGraws in Hutchinson for BoxABuddy. Bec did a wonderful write up of the event and our meeting, please go to her blog KSHIPPYCHIC and scroll to August 12, 2007 to read it. I'll be working on editing the new BoxABuddy for the next few days but tonight I'm going to post a couple of things and then get some sleep!

Monday, August 13, 2007

AHSGR: Golden Wheat Chapter Picnic

Saturday, August 11, from noon till 4pm was the annual picnic of the Golden Wheat Chapter AHSGR. AHSGR is the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Kansas is filled with people that are descendants of Germans from Russia, only many of them don't know it. Do you know people by the name of; Bergen, Brandt, Braun, Buhler, Buhr, Derksen, Dyck, Elias, Ens, Epp, Esau, Falk, Fast, Fehr, Franzen, Friesen, Froese, Funk,Gerbrand, Giesbrecht, Ginter, Goertzen, Groening, Hamm, Harder, Heppner, Hiebert, Hildebrand, Isaak, Janzen, Kehler, Klassen, Klippenstein, Koop, Kornelsen, Krahn, Kroeker, Lemky, Leppky, Letkeman, Loeppky, Loewen, Martens, Mueller, Neudorf, Neufeld, Neustaedter, Niesen, Nikkel, Olfert, Penner, Peters, Plett, Petkau, Pries, Ratzloff, Redekopp, Reimer, Rempel, Sawatzky, Schapansky, Schellenberg, Schmidt, Schroeder, Schulz, Schwarz, Siemens, Spenst, Stobbe, Stoesz, Striemer, Suderman, Tiechroew, Thiessen, Toews, Unger, Unrau, Vogt, Wall, Warkentin, Wiebe, Wieler, Wiens, Wolf, or Zacharias, they might have ancestors that came from Russia. This is only a very small sampling of the surnames in the Germans from Russia database. The Germans from Russia played a very important role in the growth of Kansas, they were the ones that brought the Turkey Red winter wheat from Russia that made Kansas the bread basket of the world. There are German/Russian settlements in Ellis county that are mostly Catholics, the German/Russians around Hillsboro and Newton are predominately Mennonite and there are also groups that are Lutheran but I'm not as familiar with where they settled. The majority of Mennonites that are of Mennonite ancestry in Kansas can trace their ancestors back to Russia around the 1870's.



The Golden Wheat Chapter of AHSGR gathers together several times a year to learn and share information relating to our German/Russia ancestry, to enjoy the fellowship and, hopefully, pass on some of the heritage that has survived. There's always plenty of food at our gatherings. If you look all the way to the end of this long table of food you will see two of my darling granddaughters.








After our meals we have our meetings which usually includes some type of program. Our annual picnic usually is the next get together after our International Convention and therefore our program will be related to that. This year the Convention was held in Hays, Kansas and my husband and I attended. I took one of the T&S Mobile Projectors' camcorder and recorded most of the programs. I am in the process of getting them burned to DVD for our chapter library. For the picnic my son and I set up the big screen and projector to share two of the programs from the convention.



Here's what makes this annual get together a "picnic". It is held at the shelter house at Hyde Park in Wichita. This picture is two of my grandsons getting out of the sun.

Our organization is "graying", we are in need of younger families to get interested and get involved. But as I stated previously, there are many that do not have a clue as to their ancestry. Prior to my involvement I thought that my family was "German" but I had no clue that they came from Russia. If you are interested in family research, and have questions, please ask. I'll try to help as best I can, or point you in the right direction anyway.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Fairy Butts


I have found myself with some time to just sit and do what ever I want. I think I have most everything together that I need except the salad for the picnic, but I plan on fixing that tonight.

Here are pictures of the Asiatic Dayflowers that I said I would post. It is a ground cover that is like what we always called the Wandering Jew. I'm assuming some bird dropped a start or seed (I'm also assuming it goes to seed though I've never seen seeds) to start this growth in my mulch as that I've never had any on my property before. The flowers bloom in the morning and by evening they're all shriveled up.



Looking at this shot once I had uploaded it to my computer I thought, "Hmmm.... that looks like a couple of blue winged fairies trying to fly off into the leaves."








So....

I took the picture into my graphics program and cropped it and enhanced it a bit to come up with this shot.




I've got some pictures of the things that I have been working on for Saturday and I'm just debating as to whether I should post them here or at KS Born Talent. I think I'll post them there. So if you'll just click on the link I'll get a new post up over there.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Volunteers


The prettiest plant in my yard is the volunteer coming up from the bottom of my compost bin. I do believe it's canteloupe, but am not 100% positive. Sure is healthy from all the nutrients that filter down from the compost. This is in the active bin that I'm still adding to. In my inactive bin I've got some volunteer Asiatic Dayflower taking over. I'll post pics of it later.

I haven't posted lately because I've been really busy trying to get ready for two events on Saturday. From 1pm-4pm I have the Golden Wheat Chapter AHSGR Picnic that I have to set up big screen, projector and sound

system for. I am in the process of putting together video from the national convention to present. Then at 7pm my son and I have to be in Hutchinson at McGraw's for BoxABuddy that we project on the big screen and tape. We also sell DVDs of this event.

I've got more pics that I want to post but it will have to wait till after Saturday.