Save the Date!

It's been a while since we really did it up--
07/07/07
7:00
Start getting excited (and making travel plans).

Lots more information and planning to follow, but I want you to put it on your calendars now.

Yay for numbers!

Patience

Look! We did it! We went from this...


to this!


In just two years! I remember talking to Matthew about being patient, and asking how long it would take, and finding it hard to believe we would ever have a lawn. And now we do, and it makes me so happy. And it gives me lots of extra hope for the trees. Here they were a year ago, I can't even see the tree in this picture. They were tiny.

And here are the trees...

and the lilacs this year. The lilacs started out even smaller than the trees, and look how robust they are now!

Someday I'll look out and feel this way about our windbreak, and our shade trees, and our flowers and our patio (future goals)

And because I really don't have many hobbies... I planted a garden today. It's not very big, just a zucchini, yellow squash, cantaloupe, and two tomatoes. I'd like to be a big gardener, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for it. I'll start with this teensy plot, and we'll see what happens.

Happiness is found in little things.

Megan spent the day at my house and we had such fun. We made things. First we made the pincushions, but blogger doesn't work same way my brain does, so the pictures are backwards.

We made 10 bags! Some Megan had started, but these beautiful 6 were from scratch. I love making bags. Megan showed me how and it's easy peasy. I will now be one of those girls in the grocery store who brings her own bags and saves the earth from plastic and earns 5 cents a pop. We figured that's at least $12.00 a year!! Imagine!

We made adorable pincushions, but I'm impatient and so the pictures are blurry. They're so cute! Watch out, you may all get these for Christmas. Here's the inspiration.

That last one is mine. I almost want to take the time to pin things now. (almost). It says "Happiness is found in little things". My favorite kind of motto is the kind that is cutesy and accompanied by a drawing of a cute little girl. I tend to surround myself with these. I have a little platter in the kitchen that says "Every day is a happyday", with a little girl; a little wooden sign in my craft room that says "The time to be thoughtful is now", with a little girl; and three books with drawings of little girls that are filled with the same sort of cutesy sayings. But they all make me happy, so, I guess it's true--Happiness is found in little things.

Happy Mother's Day to you, and may you find happiness in little things.

I *heart* Kansas

The Kansas Sampler Festival was here this weekend. I love the Kansas Sampler Festival, and Kansas, and Kansas Explorers, and Marci Penner, and living in Garden City. We spent the past two days at the festival, talking to people from all over the state, finding out fun things to do, learning about Kansas, and getting all excited about loving where we're from.

I love it that I'm from a place that raised $1200 in 6 hours, just by putting a jar in the Greensburg booth.

I love it that this morning at the Kansas Explorers meeting, we all sang "Home on the Range" together-and I wasn't the only one who was teary.

I love it that I live in a community where I can't walk around a festival for 30 minutes without seeing 5 people that I know. At least!

I love it that I got to eat Indian food today, and watch Indian dance, and that the community response to this first offering of Indian culture was so great that they ran out of food by 1:00, and there was an enormous crowd there to watch the dancing.

I love it that on Friday night, I got to see a delightfully funny and impressive GCCC show, that Matthew got to play drums for, and that lots of my former students were in. I get to see at least one play every year, and the Garden City Symphony, and at Easter, Handel's Messiah, and band concerts in the park in the summer. All of these things are made up of people in the community. They are always wonderful, and I don't think I would enjoy anything else as much as I enjoy seeing our people perform. Even if it were a big fancy symphony, how much better could it be?

I love it that we have a Strings Professor at the college who played with a big fancy symphony for 30 years, and is now here, to play with us and start the Southwest Kansas Music Academy . Abby gets to sing with a fantastic children's choir (accompanied by the big fancy violinist), and in 2 years, if we like, we can sign Anna up for "Violin for the young child" and she'll get ridiculously early exposure to playing music.

Honestly! What a wonderful place!