Packing For Mexico, Or The Eight and a Half Ounce Library

Parrots at a coffee plantation, last year.

My feet go on vacation every time I do!  It's amazing.

 Okay, we are leaving for Mexico on Friday, and I really need to get packing.  One of my goals is to get there and stay there for a week with ONLY carry-on baggage.  Ed can easily do this because his basic packing job is three swim suits, some flip flops, a shirt or two, and some cigars.  Oh, and a toothbrush.  He even lets me have some of his suitcase room sometimes.

Why, with all my travels around the globe, haven't I gotten the packing thing down well yet?  We even have a washer and dryer in our rooms in Mexico!  I don't NEED all that stuff.

In the interest of Packing Lite and not being charged $25 each way to check a bag, I decided to do something I have been wanting to do for awhile...and those of you reading this who wonder why I would spend $139 to save $50 on checked baggage...well, you just don't see the big picture.

I bought myself a Kindle.  It came yesterday, and I must say, I am already fascinatingly in love with it.  Last time we were in Mexico, I talked with a lady who used one daily to read whatever novel she was reading.  I tried it...and I loved it!  Alison has a version of the Kindle, too, and loves hers, especially for traveling, something she is very accomplished in.

Just beginning The Woman In White, by Wilkie Collins...
and that money in the corner is the money I saved on not having to check baggage... :)

For my Kindle, I have downloaded about a dozen free books so far, including a version of the Bible.  Last trip to Mexico, for two weeks, we each took about 5 books, and ran out of reading material before we returned home.  Not this time, and for only 8.5 or so ounces!

If I don't post a blog before then, I will update you on our Mexico trip after we return on March 4.  It is snowing like crazy here today, and I have a cold (naturally!!), so Mexico is looking better by the minute.

Get some reading done while I am gone...I plan to.

34 Years Ago Yesterday

A couple of nights ago I asked Ed if he remembered what he was doing 34 years ago that evening.  He said he remembers he was really tired...so I reminded him that he was getting his hair cut late at night by his fiancee who wouldn't be his fiancee in about 16 more hours.  I don't recommend cutting your fiance's hair the night before the day of your wedding.

Ed and I are the senior members of our little small group (which we call Tribes in our church).  The other day we were mentioning that this Saturday, the 19th, was our 34th anniversary.  Ed stopped right in the telling and looked at me and said, loudly, "Raye!  That is a third of a century!"  Since we have been married longer than anyone else in our Tribe has even been alive on this earth, it made quite an impact.

And here is the haircut from 34 years ago yesterday...

At least he had some hair left.
We had a wonderful anniversary day together yesterday, and are glad we married each other, haircuts and all.

My Strawberry Truffle

The other day Grace was here while the kids took Charlie to the Theo Chocolate Factory in Seattle.

This little trip was appropriate for him on so many levels - he loves chocolate, his middle name is THEOdore, he still talks about our golden retriever Theo (mainly to remind me that "Theo died, but Sophie is fine"), and he loves the book Curious George at the Chocolate Factory...so they went for a visit.  And he got a Banana Truffle, just like Curious George does in his story.  Highly successful field trip!

Grace can't eat chocolate and doesn't remember Theo the Dog and her middle name is Elis and I am not sure whether she's read the Curious George books yet...so she stayed with me.

We had a great time - at least, I did - playing dress up in new outfits Grandma bought.
We also had peaches and bananas off a real spoon, the first time I have fed her solid food.
Playing dolls was never so much fun!

(And the two tiny truffles A & E & C brought me were scrumptious...no, I did not share them.)

Strawberry polka dot truffle, sweet enough to eat!

I think I like this new shirt...it tastes good.

 

Grandma gets a truffle...and I have a mashed banana...is this fair?

Happy Hearts Day!

This morning started out nicely, even though it is pouring rain outside...

Aaron and Erin and Charlie and Grace came by with some cupcakes and hugs and kisses and coffee and a card made by Charlie.  We also watched some baby angels sing, in the e-card Charlie picked out for us.  Grace danced to the music.  She is quite the little dancing queen already.

Ed came by to pick up homemade roasted chicken legs for his group's Valentine's Day potluck...any excuse for a food extravaganza.   I am making him shrimp and asparagus risotto for dinner tonight.  Yum.

Just a nice quiet Valentine's Day.

We love you all!

Happy Hearts Day!
Love and hugs and XOXOXO
Raye

Blessings

Over the past couple of weeks I have been altering a book I found at the EXTREMELY junky liquidator shop near our house.  

I must admit, I love that shop.  The people who run it are paranoid about shoplifting, as if I really wanted to steal dusty post it notes from an estate sale, or faded pictures of girls in white dresses and blue satin sashes, or teensy weensy little wrenches, although those are TOO cute, really.  But, I am sure they have plenty of experience with even that type of item just walking off.  Signs everywhere, in every dusty nook and cranny, warn me that "YOU ARE BEING WATCHED!!!!"  

But they do have the coolest books,  old ones from old  houses in town.  I found this one, called The ABC's of Chafing Dishes, published in 1956, a good year, if I do say so myself.  Now, here is a subject we all could stand to learn more of.  However, I don't own a chafing dish, and am not sure I even know what one is, but I loved the color of the book.  It was just so cute, and only 99 cents, so that was a bargain.

I decided to make a Count Your Blessings book, using the words and pages from a VERY old hymnal I have had for a long time (from another cool secondhand bookstore around here).  

WARNING: CRAFT LESSON COMING UP...SKIP IF NOT INTO THIS STUFF...

I do have to share one thing I discovered on my own,  and please forgive me if you are not into altered art and don't have a clue what I am talking about, but I am pretty proud of this one...

I had an older page of word stickers that was almost empty.  The stickers look like those labels you make with the plastic tape and the old type turn-the-dial label makers.  We used to have one growing up, and I have two now.  But anyway, these were stickers, not real labels, (see the Grandma label on the Grandchildren page below).  I was going to throw away the base paper of the stickers and noticed that the paper was slightly tacky, and also that you could read the words on the base paper, because it was embossed, just like the stickers had been.  I remembered something I saw online one time about using this powder called Perfect Pearls, which I happen to have.  I wondered whether I could dust the Pearls powder over the raised letters and would they look like metal labels, then?  I tried it and was amazed at how cool they looked.  Those are the copper labels you see on each page...just Perfect Pearls powder dusted and rubbed into the throw away backing for a sheet of labels, then cut out and glued in place.  

Pretty cool, huh?  And totally done with stuff I would have tossed.  I LOVE that.

I have a total of 36 Blessings (actually, I have many more, but that is how many pages ended up in my book).  I doubt anyone wants to see all of them,  so here are just some of the pages from the finished book.  

(And I am also especially pleased with the little songlet I found for the Mariner's page...since I couldn't find any baseball songs in my hymnal... :)

And you, you are a blessing, too, even if you don't have your own page.

(Yes, Erin and Alison, my sweet blessings, you are on a page, I just didn't post a picture of it.)