I'm a Winner

So, the mail truck stopped in front of our house. I assumed it was to bring Clif a book because that is what is usually delivered to our house. But no. It wasn't even a package for Clif at all. It was a package for me. Then I remembered that I had won a giveaway from Linda http://lmarandomcreativity.blogspot.com/ and I could hardly wait to open it. Here's what the package contained.

Wow, I haven't journaled in some time, but now I intend to begin again. Thank you, Linda for your thoughtful and beautiful creation.

Linda wrote this on the first page.

 And here was the lovely card enclosed.

Love this tag as well. Wow.

Wow, the blessings just continue to flow for me. I am sooo very blessed. If you aren't familiar with Linda's blog, I suggest you go there. There is no end to her creativity.

p.s. Thanks, Linda. I scanned my name on the envelope for a signature. I like it.

ANGEL TAG

I want to take this means to publicly thank Cindy Adkins for the lovely angel tag she made for Clif and me. It arrived in today's mail. Cindy is an artist and a writer. She has a beautiful blog. If you are not familiar with it, I hope you will go there and pay her a visit. She is a lovely lady. I Owe It All To Him is the name of her blog. You can click on that name to go there.

A TEA AND A TAG

As many of you know who follow my blogs, Saturday was a special day for Arizona bloggers as we gathered at the Front Porch Tea Room in Mesa to meet and enjoy each other's company. I did a post on my Charlotte's Weblog blog this morning about it with photos. If you haven't seen that post, you can click HERE to go there and check it out.

I was tagged by Cheryl at Cherdecor to do this meme.
I am to open my first file of pictures and select the tenth one and post it.

My first photo file is labeled Allen. It contains pictures of our son, Allen. I gathered a bunch of our pictures of him and put them in this file when I was preparing to make a DVD for him for his birthday a couple of years ago. So, when I go to the tenth picture in the file, this is it.

This picture of Allen was taken at a place in Buena Park, CA that is no longer there. I think it was called a Japanese Deer Park or something like that. It has been gone for many years. This was taken in the 1960s.

This photo reminds me of how much Allen loved animals and birds when he was a little kid. I guess he still does, but I remember as a child he always included all the animals and mammals in the world in every prayer he said.

Now I'm supposed to pass this meme on to five other bloggers. I decided instead of choosing five, I would choose all the Arizona bloggers who were at the tea on Saturday to do this meme. Come on, girls, it's fun. I hope you will want to participate.  

OVER THE TOP AWARD

I didn't think I would have anything to post today. but guess what? I just visited Debbie's Heart Choices blog and found out I had an award with rules to go with it. She said she hated rules. So do I, but I'll try to follow them this time. Thank you Debbie, I think, LOL. Debbie is not only a blogging friend, she's an AZ blogger who I had the privilege of meeting in person this past summer, and a Facebook friend too. She has a beautiful blog and she is a beautiful person.

This a survey I have to fill out. One word? That will be a challenge.

Rules
1. You Can Only Use One Word!
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers!
3. Alert them that you have given them this award!
4. Have Fun!

The Fun Part

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your hair? white
3. Your mother? heaven
4. Your father? deceased
5. Your favorite food? bread
6. Your dream last night? forgot
7. Your favorite drink? water
8. Your dream/goal? heaven
9. What room are you in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? health
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where were you last night? bed
14. Something that you aren’t? sad
15. Muffins? Yum
16. Wish list item? Photoshop
17. Where did you grow up? CA
18. Last thing you did? breathed
19. What are you wearing? capris
20. Your TV? large
21. Your pets? none
22. Friends? family
23. Your life? good
24. Your mood? happy
25. Missing someone? mother
26. Vehicle? BMW
27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
28. Your favorite store? Macy's
29. Your favorite color? pink
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? Clif
33. One place that I go to over and over? church
34. One person who emails me regularly? Williams
35. Favorite place to eat? home

and now I get to pass this award onto 6 of my favorite bloggers:

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life

Sally at Smiling Sally

Jean at The Daisy Chain

Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage & Inspirations

Ginger at Enchanting Cottage

Sue at Where Memories Are Made

I'VE BEEN TAGGED - AGAIN

Hootin' Anni tagged me on Saturday and since I was pretty busy over the weekend, I am just now following through on the tag. I hope everybody had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend.

So what is this tag? I'm supposed to name six things that are unimportant but make me happy. Hmmm, that takes a little thought. 

Okay, here goes. 

1. Blogging
2. Getting comments on my blogs
   
3. Eating dark chocolate
4. Watching TV
5. "Window shopping"
6. Watching DVDs I've made

Now, I'm supposed to tag six people to do the meme. This really isn't a hard meme to do and I think a lot of people would enjoy doing it, so this time I'm just going to say that if you are reading this, TAG - YOU'RE IT. I know - this is the easy way out. lol

I've been tagged by Brenda to state some personal things about myself.
Here are the rules:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What I was doing 10 years ago:
It was ten years ago that we went back to California to move my parents into a care facility. My Dad died shortly after that. Mother died exactly a year after my Dad did. They both had dementia but had been physically healthy all their lives. That was a sad year (1998). Two of my cousins also died that year – Jerry who I had grown up with (my dancing partner in previous posts) and Linda, the little girl pictured with me on the horse in one of my earlier posts. She was only 49 years old when she died. I was very close to both of these cousins at different times in my life. Jerry I was close to when I was growing up and Linda in later years.

Five things on my to-do list today:
Work on our tax return
Work on our tax return
Work on our tax return
Work on our tax return
Work on our tax return

Snacks I enjoy:
Dark chocolate
Any kind of nuts
Medjool dates (eat with nuts)
Wheat Thins
Ritz Crackers
Saltine Crackers with peanut butter or cheese

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
I don’t even like to think about this. I hope I would do lots of good things and help a lot of people and give a lot of money to missions. I know I would do a lot of shopping. I love to shop. For sure I never have to worry about ever becoming a billionaire.

Three of my bad habits:
Putting off things I don’t like to do.
Watching too much TV
Spending too much time blogging

Five places I have lived:
California, Oklahoma, Oregon, Colorado and Arizona.

Five jobs I've had:
(1) My first job was in a dime store when I was 4 years old. We lived in an apartment over the store in Placentia, California. I spent so much time in the dime store that they put me to work straightening shelves. With the money I earned I bought crepe paper and made dresses out of it.
(2) Did some baby sitting when I was a teenager. (doesn’t every teenager?)
(3) I worked at U.S. Rubber Co. (now Uniroyal) in Los Angeles as a Dictaphone typist and later as secretary to the office manager before I got married.
(4) Temporary secretarial work in a California church.
(5) Secretary for 10 years at the church we were with before we retired.

Five people I want to know more about (a nice way of saying TAG!):
I have recently done a couple of memes and tagged a total of 13 people. This time I’m just going to say I would like to know more about everyone who visits my blog. Since I must get busy working on our taxes, I won’t name anyone here this time. I know. I just broke rule #3. But please humor me and if you would like to play the game consider yourself tagged. If you do play, please let me know so I will be sure to go to your blog to read it.

I was tagged by Brandy for a meme. I will play along. Here are the rules. In the 8 facts about yourself, you share 8 things that your readers don’t know about you. Then at the end you tag at least 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going.So here goes. It shouldn’t be hard because most of you know almost nothing about me. Although – if you’ve been reading my posts, you know a few things.

1. I got lost in Tijuana when I was six years old. A Mexican policeman helped me find our car. My cousin Jerry (who I talked about in past posts) and I were supposed to stay in the car with our two younger cousins. Jerry got out and walked around awhile and came back to the car. Then I got out and walked around and got lost. I still have a terrible sense of direction.


2. I spent the summer of 1948 when I was 11 years old in Oklahoma (I lived in California) visiting various relatives. I had quite a few there at that time. One of my aunts lived in an apartment in downtown Lawton. There were 5 theaters in the city at that time and it only cost 10cents so I spent a lot of time going to movies. I saw “The Egg and I” five times. I loved that movie. Something more important happened that summer. I met my future husband. He was the little brother (2 years older than I) of my aunt's husband. So my aunt eventually became my sister-in-law. This aunt/sister-in-law eventually became the mother-in-law of Ginger of Enchanting Cottage. Small world.


3. I have a few food “quirks”. I always mash beans with my fork before I eat them. Any kind of beans except green beans. I don’t mash them.


4. I love white gravy, but can’t stand any kind of gravy not made with milk.


5. The only time I smoked a cigarette was when I was in the 5th grade. My little friend who lived in the house behind us had teenage brothers, and she swiped some of their cigarettes. I didn’t like it then, and never tried it again.


6. I attended an Elvis Presley concert in Long Beach in 1956. He is still one of my favorite singers as you might have surmised by my choice of music on my blog.


7. I rode a camel to the pyramids in Egypt. I’ve never wanted to ride another one.


8. I could have ridden an elephant in India, but didn’t want to. I’m not terribly adventurous that way. I would have been in my younger days (much younger).

Who will be the eight people that I tag to play the game? Here they are:

Connie down on the farm, ceekay, Thinkin of Home, Rita Saved by Grace, Rhoda Southern Hospitality, Lori Stilger, Musings from a Proverbs 31 Wannabe, Martie Hitting the High Notes, LW The Pink Front Gate, Gina Simply Heart & Home.

A Few More Bunnies

Bunnies keep popping up that I have overlooked. I think this is the last of them. Two of them were lurking in my doll room closet. One was sitting right there in my kitchen in plain sight. How could I have overlooked that one? One was hiding behind a picture in the dining room. Here they are - the last of my bunnies.

Now, it's on to business - or I should say More Fun!

Yesterday I was tagged by Ginger http://enchantingcottage.blogspot.com/ to do a six word meme. Here are the meme rules: 1. Write your own six word memoir 2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like 3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible, so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere 4. Tag five more blogs with links 5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Here’s my six word memoir: “God has blessed me beyond belief.”

I’m tagging:

Brenda at http://countryromance.blogspot.com/
Joyce at http://thesecretgardner.blogspot.com/
Connie at http://edelweisstexas.blogspot.com/
Jennifer at http://dustbunnyhostage.blogspot.com/
Karoline at http://cherishedvintage.blogspot.com/

TAGGED

After being tagged by Ginger, I tagged Nannykim, but Nannykim had just recently already been tagged. So, I looked at other blogs, and it seems like just about everyone has recently been tagged. Since I couldn't decide on anyone else to tag, if you're reading this, and you haven't been tagged in a while, consider this as your tag. You're the lucky one.

I'VE BEEN TAGGED

Ginger at http://enchantingcottage.blogspot.com/ has tagged me to tell 15 reasons it's good to be me. Here are the first 15 that came to mind.

1. I’m a child of God
2. I have a wonderful husband
3. I have two precious children who are both faithful Christians
4. I had parents who gave me unconditional love
5. I’m pretty healthy for 71
6. I have a nice home
7. My husband vacuums and mops our house
8. I have a nice car to drive
9. I have many wonderful Christian friends
10. I have had the opportunity to travel to many other countries.
11. I’m an American citizen and live in the best country in the world.
12. I get to see my kids often as they live close by
13. My husband is a “bookaholic” and I have plenty of good books to read
14. I had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about computers while I was a church secretary.
15. I still have one knee that doesn’t hurt and I can still get around (slowly)

I think I'll tag Nannykim. I chose her because she was the first one to comment on my blog and has been one of the most consistent to visit. How about it, Nannykim? http://nannykim-nannykim.blogspot.com/