I have neglected you terribly and will not go back to rehash all that has happened since June except to say I attended CKU in Nashville, TN and had a blast. I went by myself and roomed with a lady from Louisiana whom I had never met. We were so much alike it was unbelievable. We are both former English teachers, same age, no longer married, diabetic, nightowls, and on and on. We are talking about going to Provo next summer to CKU. I had an album class with Ali Edwards who is such a great person and then took classes editors of various magazines. It was a wonderful experience and I brought home a backseat full of free products. I hated the hotel, Opryland. It is a nightmare to navigate and super expensive by my standards.

This past weekend we celebrated my great-aunt Mabel's 100th birthday. There were over 120 of her nieces and nephews there and it was so much fun. I saw people I hadn't seen in over twenty years and probably never see again. All of her surviving nieces and nephews were there from all over the country. This is probably the last time these cousins will ever all be together. I just wish Aunt Mabel could hear and see better. If it wasn't for those problems, she would be in amazing condition.

Life continues to be good. It has now been 10 months since I had the back surgery and I now wonder why I put it off so long. I am now pain free except when I overdo or do things that would cause anyone's back to hurt. I haven't had a pain pill in months. Dr. Buchowski gave me my life back.

Next weekend is our annual stitch-in at Jeanne's in St. Louis. I haven't stitched in ages except when I have to wait for the car to be serviced. That gets done tomorrow so I'll get some stitching in for a change.

I promise not to wait so long to visit you again.

Well, it was bad news on the refinishing. There are so many pet stains that he said I would not be happy with the results as they are so deep they will remain very dark. So, I swallowed my disappointment and headed to Lowe's to look at new flooring. Since I don't plan on living here that much longer, I decided to go with Pergo laminate.

Next guy comes to measure for the Pergo. This is the installer who says, "You have quite a ridge that runs the full length of the hallway. I think you should call a foundation repair guy to have it checked out. Looks like the house has settled and it will affect the way I lay the laminate." Then he looks at me and asks if I'm going to take up the baseboard and move all the furniture out. Right, me, the dog, and the cat can do that in an instant. Guess it's time to call my sons again to come up and help dear old mom.

What started as a simple project that would cost around $2,000 is now turning into a monster that I have no idea what it will cost. Oh, I did decide to go ahead and have the laminate put into the kitchen as well.

On a good note, the bathroom and my bedroom are completely decluttered and cleaned. I like to just stand in the door and look. I did buy new curtains for the bedroom and changed the blind. I'm Goodwill's best donor right now. I don't go in the front door to buy, only drop off at the backdoor.

June 3, 2007

I had to create a new blog as I couldn't access my old one for some reason. I did have "Judy's Journey" but now have this one which reflects my two hobbies I enjoy the most.

I am in the process in de-cluttering my house and what a job!!! The first thing I had done was tearing up my carpeting. Underneath are hardwood floors and I hope they can be refinished. I'll find out tomorrow when a refiinisher comes to take a look. I won't go into the gory details of all I got rid of in just my bedroom but I'll just say that I made Goodwill very happy.

This is the second week of vacation that I take this time every year. The first week is always Camp Grandma and that just ended. My grandkids are now 10 and 12 and can wear this grandma to a frazzle. They never run out of energy but do love to go to movies which gives me a rest. We saw Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3. Both were pretty good and I like Spiderman the best. I had never seen a Spiderman movie and now I'm anxious to rent the first two and watch them.

Scrappin': I'm working on getting my scraproom organized which is a major undertaking. I'm purging supplies that I know I'll never use. I'm also getting ready to go to CKU in Nashville. I have a ton of homework to do before August gets here.

Stitchin': I'm currently working on two projects. One is a La D Da limited edition Stitcher's Pouch. It is small and one I take with me everywhere so I can get in those few stitches anytime I have a couple of free minutes. The big project (BAP) is my granddaughter's birth sampler. I'd doing Long Dog's Bienvenue and I hope to have it done by the time she gets out of high school She'll be starting 5th grade next year. I'll try to remember to post a weekly progress picture of it.