Good Times at the Gala

My son Brad is attending Snow College. This past week, he entered several of his best projects into the juried show for art majors. His professor said that it was very competetive this year - they had somewhere around 250 entries to fill just over a hundred spots. Brad was very gratified to have 4 of his 7 pieces accepted.
We all drove down for the opening tonight.

This is what happens when you give "granny" the camera - nice reflection of me, but not a good shot of the artwork! Bleah - hopefully Brad can go back and get a better one. He made the frame himself too, I really like how it turned out!

This is one of his "art books" the image on the main piece is a self portrait, and the text on the circles are random articles that he found in newspapers & magazines which related to the positive and negative aspects of his personality. "Closed", the discs are intermingled...

...When the cord is pulled, (by our lovely Libby / "Vanna", Brad's wife)
the discs separate - positive on one side, negative on the other.
Very clever, no? (and isn't she cute?)

Brad's other "art book", displayed with some of the other students' projects. There were some really impressive displays there...

This piece is a diagram of the appropriate ninja techniques for throwing a vacuum cleaner. ( Brad works the graveyard shift as a janitor - that's the only explanation I can give ) Believe it or not, this is the one he won the cash award for!...and while they were hanging it, one of the judges offered to buy it! Go figure...
(If you click on the image, you can see it larger)

This piece didn't make it into the show. Why? The judges said that all of his other pieces were "conceptual" art, and this one being more "traditional" didn't represent Brad's work properly. That's ok - it's hanging on my wall, and I like it! - It properly represents Brad's grandpa!

The artist himself, working the crowd (aka my family!)

We all went out to the "Snow Dragon" for Chinese after the show - what a fun evening!

For want of a Pepsi....

A little background first:
We had a surprise snow storm yesterday (well, it was a surprise to me...) The weather man said we may get 1 to 2 inches, but it turned out to be an ugly storm with lots wind etc. (it blew in just as I was supposed to go meet my sister to go to a movie Grrrrr)...needless to say we had to cancel.
...Anyway, by the time the storm blew over, we had almost a foot of snow! (But then, there were areas that were worse off - Tooele got 2 feet of snow, and in Alpine, over 40 cars were so snowbound that the owners had to be abandon them, and go back for them after the roads were cleared. Also, in that same area, a bunch of school students busses' got stranded, and they ended up having to spend the night at a nearby school.

Back to today....My house has been shockingly bereft of Pepsi products - I've been out for 24 hours now, and that was really starting to annoy me, so I thought I would brave the streets, and run down the block and get me some. I thought I would have better luck in our old truck than in the car (seeing as how if I took the car, I would have to shovel the whole driveway)...and the truck has 4-wheel drive.
So, with the help of a kind neighbor, I cleared the snow off the truck, and made my way out of the snow bank, and around the corner to the main street - where, (you guessed it) I stalled. Could not start the beast again.

Another neighbor just happened to be out in the yard and saw me, and came to try to help.
He couldn't start it - or push it either (because as we discovered walking around the truck - I also had a flat tire. We are talking pancakes here!)
I called hubby on my cell, and he called his brother who works here in town. Meanwhile, the helpful neighbor went to solicit help from another neighbor who had been out on his 4-wheeler clearing snow. He came and tried to help push, but decided it would be easier to go get his truck and a chain and drag me.
Dennis arrived then, and between the 3 of them, made it back around the block to deposit the useless beast in front of the house.

A few minutes later, the first helpful neighbor pulled up carrying....Yep - a pepsi!
...Not only that, but he stayed and shoveled my entire driveway, and swept all the snow off my car!
The moral of this story? (besides the fact that having bad habits can be a lot of trouble)
.... Chivalry is not dead - it is alive and well, and living in southern Utah county!
Happy Valentines!

A Hit ........and a Miss

I made these for groundhog day yesterday;

...and took some up to my son's house for their family night treat. They were a big hit with the little girls. One of them told me that hers was so cute that she didn't want to eat it!

They came over to visit tonight, and someone mentioned that yesterday was groundhog day. The light went on for both my son and his wife at the same time - "Oh! They were supposed to be groundhogs!" - Shot down my whole reason for taking them up there!

I guess I should have included a note of explanation...

Meanwhile, my daughter took one to work, and her whole department was taking pictures of it with their phones so they could go home and make them.
...At least someone got it.

My husband said that people kept asking him where I get these ideas, and he told them that I just make them up. SO not true! I search the internet and 'steal' them! ...Don't want to take undue credit.

I'm done making treats for a while now - they are piling up around here, and I do not want to be the one to eat them all!

The project I've been working on is finally finished. That's always a relief because the housework gets put off while I do those things, and it's getting pretty deep around here. I have a couple of other deadlines that need to be taken care of now, so I can enjoy the rest of the month.

This week is "Sophomore appreciation week" at my daughter's high school.
(They're calling it that because the Sophomores are testing all week, so everyone else doesn't have to go in until 10 AM.)
Isn't it wonderful?! ...I get to sleep in, and don't have to go out in the cold and dark!
I love Sophomores!
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Weekend Festivities

Well, Halloween is over, and we did party it up a bit.
I did a Halloween dinner that was lots of fun. (This is not a regular thing - I've always wanted to do it, but this year is the first time ever that I've actually had the time.)
Here's our Tricked out Halloween treats:
Horrid Hors D'euvres

Chili with Bat cheese

Mummy Dogs


Not all of my family dressed up, but here are those who did:
My oldest daughter was a belly dancer, and yes, she does dance too. (she made her costume herself)


My youngest daughter (in the red) & friend - they write and illustrate their own Manga-type stories, and were dressed as characters from them.

My grand daughters:


My son and his wife were James Bond and his Bond girl - awesome costumes, but I'm afraid my photo of them wasn't great.
That's our celebration in a nutshell.

In Closing...
...Can I just say that I am a fan of Christmas music, I really am - but hearing it played on the radio the day after Halloween is something I'm never going to get used to! I know the retailers are frantic to make a profit this season, but geeze! It still grates on the nerves a bit...
...Just one person's opinion.
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Aftermath

Yesterday's storm was definitely one for the books. Heavy snow and high winds caused chaos across the state. It started here around 9 am and continued until around 4:30 pm.
Over 200 accidents occured across the state - the worst one was right at the front door of my little town. 12 deisel trucks, and over 20 cars were mashed and mangled together, closing the freeway for hours, and sending all that traffic up my street until late in the evening.
*** You may have to click on this link [# 1/28/08 - Extreme weather causes problems across Utah] on the extreme left to watch the video - it does run a commercial first, sorry...

Here in my back yard, the canopy that cover(ed) hubby's hot tub is now belly up against the shed. We had a swimming pool ladder standing next to the gazebo - and it is now on the roof of the shed! I would have liked to seen that, I can't figure out how that happened!


I was used to this type of storm where I grew up at the mouth of AF canyon, but I have never seen one like this here. It was one of those days I was very thankful to have nowhere I had to go.

The best of both worlds

...is what I'm hoping for.
Hubby and I had a long talk the other night, about things I'm having a really hard time coping with. I told him how useless I feel not being able to go back to work because of current health issues, (and how afraid I am to try.) So, he went and found me some work I can do at home! It's going to be a little random - sometimes lots of work, sometimes not so much, and it's a tedious and boring job (as are many of them over there)...but it pays fairly well. I will have deadlines, but can work on my own schedule.
Not exactly my dream job, but for now it's a solution for something I've been needing.
Sometimes prayers are answered before they're even prayed.

Book Club Revisited...

My book club has started up again after the holiday break. It was nice to get out and talk to other "grown ups"! I've been holed-up in the house too much lately. We're going to be reading "Tending Roses" by Lisa Wingate this month.
Yay! Something to look forward to!

Celebrating with the Oldies...

New Year's Eve at my house was the anti-celbration of the year.
I was just not in the mood! I sent myself to my room and popped what I thought was the new Pirate movie in the player, and didn't realize until it was almost over that it was # 2 instead (the one that I really didn't like)...it took me that long to figure out because I slept through most of it!
When I woke up, I went downstairs to watch # 3 with hubby. I guess we had it a bit loud, because we missed all the midnight fireworks on the street outside - didn't even notice that we missed the new year!
...Then, I had planned to make up the black eyed peas today, but scratched that because I know nobody here would eat them but me - so why waste the energy? (and the food!)
...Somewhere back in the past, my teenage toes would curl! Never thought I would be this boring...
Happy New Year anyway...

Grandma & gingerbread

Well, this is it - the final countdown...if we're not ready yet, we're not going to be!
The kids needed us to watch the girls for a bit today while they did some errands, so we decided we'd better get this gingerbread house that grandpa bought for them put together, or it was going to be too late.
Arilie was amazing at it! She outlined the trees with green icing, stuck all the candy everywhere (well, what she didn't eat first!) and even helped put the icicles on the roof! I finally have a "crafty" child in my family! I think she did a great job! (I was behind Arilie while the photo was taken, when I saw the expression on her face later, I was rolling on the floor - priceless!)



***Sidenote: I'm so thankful that I insisted on getting this photo, because during the night - the dog ate the house!

I do I do!

Taylor Family Circa 8~22~'06

The Party's Over...

...the deed is done - my son #2 is a married man!
After all those weeks of planning and work, and two full days setting up in the hot sun, it all came together and it was a beautiful day! All the things I had worried about the most seemed to be what people liked the most! (the cake - no wedding line etc.) There were only a couple of glitches - Libby's brother (who they weren't expectiing to be able to come,) let them know he was on his way, which delayed the ceremony a few minutes, and we had a little misunderstanding about who was in charge of the buffet - other than that, it all went pretty smoothly.
Bradley looked awesome in his 1962 vintage tux,(a la Debbie) red shirt and wing-tip shoes - and the bride was a doll in her little cotton skirt and blouse, her wreath of flowers, and that bright beautiful bouquet.
I had purchased 3 different outfits (because I just couldn't find exactly what I was looking for) Brad requested that I wear the red dress. (I was leaning away from that one because I was afraid I would look like a big red barn (which I did) and stick out like a sore thumb in all the photos (which I did!) but oh well, I just wanted my boy to be happy.
The slide show came together (thanks to Jenny) and the music Brad picked was actually really nice! Our neighbor (who is a music expert) even commented on it!
We set up cabanas along the back of the yard to give it extra shade, and it worked like a charm - Wayland added Christmas lights to them all for when it got dark, and that was such a pretty effect!
We had a big crowd right up to the very end, and we have had so many wonderful compliments since! I felt very good about it all!
Brad and I had to go shopping for his white tie the day before, and I had finally got the chance to give him my "motherly advice" about some of the challenges I have forseen for him, and as we were packing up the gifts that night, I got the chance to give him a hug and tell him how proud I am of him. I want so much for them to just be happy ( and he said that he is!)