and my fortune said ...

Last night my family went out for Chinese food, when we were done and the fortune cookies came I reached for a cookie at the same time as my husband. I let him grab it and then he gave it to our daughter. I got mine and opened it. However Daph couldn't get hers open so we traded and I read my fortune.

Do not rush through life. Pause and enjoy it.

I have to say that I've never had a fortune that I felt I needed to share, unless it sounded dirty, but this one seemed so appropriate.

A little over two weeks ago my best, basically a sister, friend called me at 12:30 pm with the news that her husband of almost nine years had unexpectedly died. I flew out a few days later and was able to go and spend a week trying to help her and her three boys.

I know she hates it when people say she's strong, so I won't! However I think what people were seeing and amazed at was her ability to see the positive. As much as she was devastated by her loss she could still look at the fact that they had had an amazing summer as a family. The economic situation meant that her husband had been home with them all a lot. They had great memories of gardening and just being a family.

They had spent the evening before just talking, and she always told her husband how excited she was to be his wife, so she didn't feel like there was anything left unsaid.

There were so many things that she found to be thankful for.

She wanted only a positive message at the funeral. That we are saved by Grace and Love endures. Even the music, Simple Gifts followed that feeling. And just to make sure people didn't leave crying she had them play a very Dave piece of music as we left the funeral, Aerosmith's Walk this Way.

So it just felt right to share my fortune with anyone who reads this, and to remind us all to slow down and find the things that we are thankful for.

Take the time to enjoy life, don't wait to get new pictures, let those in your life know how much they mean to you, and don't assume there will be time to do it all later.

A couple more pictures

After I published the last post I realized that a few of the pictures were missing. It just seemed easier to do another one.

A little extra time on my hands

Today I found myself with about 45 minutes between appointments, and amazingly I had my new camera in my purse so I just drove around and took some pictures of the fall colors and whatever struck my fancy!

There's actually enough snow up at Lake Tahoe that people have been snowboarding!

I think I really like my new camera!!

Where's my groove?

I thought that as soon as Daph started school again I'd be able to get back in the groove again and get back to sewing, but that just hasn't happened.

I have so many projects too. And Christmas isn't very far away in crafting time.

Ahhhh, what am I going to do.

I may have to resort to desperate measures, and "horror" schedule!

But on the bright side I got an early Birthday gift, a new camera. It will be really nice not to have to turn it on 3 times to get it to really work. Hopefully I like this one as much as I liked my old one!

I just couldn't cut it!

I fell in love with this fabric. I thought about making myself something with it, but I just couldn't cut it. So instead I bought a large canvas from an art supply store. I wrapped it with a thin batting, and then wrapped and stapled the fabric around it, and I only had to cut 4 inches off.

Public Service Announcement

Here's my public service announcement for the day.

Always remember to put on your sunscreen, especially when you are going to be at the beach of a high altitude lake.

Does sunburn count?

I don't know if you've noticed, but on the side of my blog I've been keeping a log of how often I burn myself, and still have a mark the next day. If you don't know me that might seem like a really odd thing to keep track off.

My friends and family however find it a source of amazement and humor. If there is even a remote chance of me burning myself I will.

When I was in junior high, I had to quit ironing my Dad's dress shirts for extra money because the school had called my parents with some concerns about the scars on my wrists. For some reason I just kept burning my wrists.

Even the family that I babysat for all through high school joked about how often I burned myself. The Mom was so excited one day because she had bought one of those self contained frying machines that you couldn't burn yourself on. I followed the instructions exactly, but for some reason it didn't release the steam like it should have. In fact I shouldn't have been able to open it unless the steam had been released. But for me, it opened and the whole top of my thumb turned into one large blister.

My friend likes to joke about the times I burned my self on the screen door and even on her car. My husbands favorite story is the time I burned my forehead. Your thinking well yeah, with a curling iron. But no I burned my head with the regular iron when I bent over while I was ironing a seam open. There are so many more stories I could tell but instead I'll get back to my question.

So does sunburn count for this list. While I was at Camporee with my daughters girl scouts troop I forgot to put on my sunscreen when we went to the beach. That was on Sunday, and I'm still bright red and have a couple spots that still hurt to touch. So what do you think, do really bad sunburns count?