Life is an adventure at times.

Life is definately an adventure at times-and sometimes it is not of your own making. I must prefer to plan and organize my own adventure. Saturday was a busy day with errands trying to make my pre-conference week a little easier. Lo and behold if I didn't rear end the car in front of me on US 31 northbound next to the Eastbrook Plaza! That person then rolled and hit the person in front of her. No one was hurt (except my pride) for which I am thankful. In addition to the planned errands I now had to find a rental car-everything was closed in Columbus, Franklin, Greenwood. I had to go to the Indy airport to get a car. Needless to say all my errands did not get done Saturday. Saturday night I didn't sleep well and overslept for SS and then didn't get ready in time for church. It was a mixed up day and a little painful in the neck area. Went to the MD today for medicine, the police station (don't forget they ONLY take CASH!), the insurance company, body shop....I sure wish we had gone hiking Saturday!

Faculty Retreat 2008

Today was the annual Ivy Tech Faculty Retreat day where we are supposed to have fun together and learn something to help us work together. The subject this year was Emotional Intellegience. I love talking about this kind of stuff so I actually had fun today. We met at the new Hilton Garden Inn at T/ville. That place is really nice and the food was great! At lunch time we were dismissed to do different activities according to the sticker on our name badge. I was in the first group and we were told to go play awhile. I made a beeline for the free chair massage. It was awesome! I had a few sore spots-I'm sure from hunching over a computer all day. It was at last year's retreat that I made the decision that it was time to loose weight. Thought I would add a picture from last year and the one a friend took of me this year.

When I got home from seeing Daddy I started working in the yard pulling up dead flowers, weeds, etc. I am running out of time and it is time to put the yard "to bed" for the winter. My neighbor John came over to show me his newest "pet". The squirrel came crawling down his tree and up his pants leg. John would put him back in the tree and it would climb down and go right back up his pants leg. The dogs went nuts so they were put in the house. John later tried to put the squirrel in the neighbors yard (not mine, though I offered) and it crawled right back through the fence so heput Buddy and Sophia (the dogs) in my yard.

This next week I will be busy getting ready to go to my annual medical surgical nursing conference. I can't wait! It is in Nashville TN and yes, I plan to go to the Grand Ole Opry!

Long awaited goal met!

40 weeks, 61.5 lbs and 74 inches later I am now entitled to enter the stabilization phase of my weight loss plan! FINALLY!!!!!! It seems it has taken forever to reach this point. Stabilization is for 6 weeks (and I can't cheat one tiny bit) and then maintenance phase! I now can add one starch 3 times a week at lunch for week 1. Not sure what happens week 2. Thanks everyone for all you love and support during this time. I should have some before/after pictures to post soon.

A Beautiful Day!

I know some of you may get tired of my hiking pictures but I on some beautiful trials at Turkey Run State Park today. The weather was gorgeous, the trails rugged and the companionship great! The food at the Inn wasn't bad either-especially the ice cream... As you can see we like the more rugged trails that have some challenges to them!

Next week you will see some before and after pictures of me!

Happy 90th Birthday Dad!

Linda and I gave Daddy a 90th birthday party Saturday at Silver Oaks-it was the perfect place for the party! Dad's birthday was actually August 26. I can't believe he is 90. He had a great time at the party-he was feeling good, clear mentally, and very jovial. Of course he loved all of the attention! Many friends and family came through out the 2 hours. By the end he was ready for a nap and they had to wake him up for supper. I am so thankful Linda and Carson were able to be here. He also received almost 40 birthday cards. He was excited about all of them and I taped them to his wall yesterday afternoon so he could enjoy looking at them. Here is a slide show of pictures I took at the party. My Dad is a wonderful man and I will miss him when he goes to Heaven.

Check this out!

http://covertscorner.blogspot.com/ LaDonna has more pictures of the wedding you might be interested in.

The wedding was beautiful!

Words cannot describe the beauty and hallowed presence of God at this wedding. It was awesome! I wish everyone could see the video. Christa literally glowed all during the ceremony. There were several unique things about this wedding. First, the rehearsal. The family joke, since Christa was a late in life child, that her sisters would be old women when Christa got married and would have to come down the aisle in wheel chairs and with walkers! They made their promise good, as well as their husbands "clowning" around. You can see a Scarbrough event is never dull!

Each of Christa's nephrews that were participating age walked a bridesmaid down the aisle to meet the groomsmen. That was really cute. Instead of the typical trinitiy candle (David was afraid the candles would give him a flash back to Iraq) they had the Three Strand Cord ceremoney-one cord represents God, one represents David and the other represents Christa-during this time the cord is braided into one. Beautiful. At the beginning of the ceremony David's dad prayed but at the end David himself prayed for God's blessing on their marriage. At the reception Christa threw 4 bouquets instead of the traditional one. Why? Because she had caught 4 at her friends weddings. I had strict orders from her that I was to catch one and I did! Felt a little stupid at my age but what's a little stupidity for pleasing the bride????? Here are a few pictures that I think will be self-explanatory. Now it is back to school for me, hopefully I will have something to blog about in the future.

The little guys were enthralled with this beautiful flower girl. Steven was in "love" all weekend! Martha said he kept winking at her all during the wedding! And she acted like she thought she was really the bride!






David and Christa in the receiving line at the reception. He looked so good in his dress blues! We now have two David's in the family. David Vernon is married to my oldest neice so he is called David alpha and Christa's David is called David omega-got to keep things biblical you know!

As already mentioned the Scarbrough's sometimes do crazy things. Apparently Uncle Dan has gone into the cake decorating business! You can tell he will be real successful! lol! I never quite figured out if this moose cake was for the groom or for Carson's 60th birthday party we had after the reception. It was a red velvet cake for those that like their meat rare.

The white smear on David's face is wedding cake-place there by Christa of course.

Everyone knows the wedding is not over until the car is decorated! You can tell this wedding was in the south, look at the bare feet on one of the brides maids!

I'm sorry I don't have better pictures of the wedding party. While they were taking pictures in the church I was downstairs setting up the wedding party's lunch. I worked on this posting last night but had trouble posting pictures, finally gave up and went to bed. Maybe later I will post a picture of the bouquet I caught-I need to take a picture of it.

The Groom is Here!

David made it in around 3AM this morning! We are so thankful since he was orginally told he couldn't leave base until noon today for his wedding. This means they can get their marriage license today!!! The local judge was planning on coming in early Sat morning to sign it.
Pray for Bill Cooper, Carson is on the way to hospital with me. Bill's knee gave way at work and he is in extreme pain. He needs surgery anyway to correct his torn ligaments and tendons from a previous injury. Bill goes to Carson's church and preachs for him occassionally.

We finally know----

Susan (neice) and Jeff are having a boy! My greatneice is due Nov 9 and my new greatnephrew will come in January 18! I am so excited.
Shopped at my favorite store today and bought a few new outfits for the fall. Since my suitcase already weighs 47 pounds I had them shipped home. $7.00 for shipping and handling is a lot cheaper than $50 charge for being over 50 pounds.

Wedding week-Travelinig day!

Well, best laid plans often go awry and they certainly did for me on Monday. On Sunday I tried to print a boarding pass and couldn't and thought it was because this trip was a ticket from a trip last May that got cancelled. When I checked in at the airport I was told I had NO flight reservation for Monday or my return on Sunday! I was surprised to say the lest. Apparently when Travelocity changed my ticket they forgot to re-issue the ticket. They made changes on their system but forgot to change it with US Air! After several phone calls to Travelocity and six hours later I finally flew out for Charlotte and Atlanta. It was a very long day. I pulled into Susan's house about midnight and I should have been there for supper! At the Enterprise counter I was asked the routine question-Can we upgrade you for $7.00? Said no and then when I got to the car pick up place was informed they had no economy cars and would need to upgrade me to a different car. My first question-And I won't be charged for this right? He told me he would split the cost 50-50 and I informed him no way, it wasn't my fault they didn't have an economy car. He didn't charge me extra. Stay tuned for more wedding events! Pictures will probably come later.

Beautiful McCormick's Creek

This Saturday once again found me visiting another state park-McCormick Creek down by Bloomington. It ended up being just Wayne and I but we had fun! Once we got out of the car at the Canyon Inn parking lot the smell of bacon just drew us into the Inn to enjoy thier breakfast bar. Then we hit trail 3 which eventually took us to the McCromick Creek Falls. I enjoyed taking my shoes and socks off and treking through the pool to be close to the falls. It was great! Got soaked-not from falling in the creek but from trying to take pictures behind the falls! I can't believe how much better I feel from spending time outdoors. My semester break has been awesome! Next week watch for postings about the wedding! I am sooooo excited. Here are some pictures of our trip yesterday.

At the start of Trail 3.

Here are a couple of pictures from the falls and I finally caught a butterfly in a good position for a picture!

I do more than hike...

Early this morning these 4 ladies left the church parking lot for the Creation Museum in Cincinnati. What fun we had! The day passed so quickly. If you have not been to the Creation Museum then you need to plan to go. It is a wonderful family place but I am not sure young children would get much out of it. The museum's theme is centered around these 7 eternal principles: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, and Consummation. There is a mix of display, animation, audio presentation, video presentation, etc. Very well done. At the end you see a video presentation about the Last Adam, a very clear presentation of the Gospel. It is nice too in that you can take pictures anywhere except during the videop presentations. I am attaching a scene of the Adam and Eve family after the Corruption (Fall).

The planetarium show was also excellent. I kept thinking of the verse-What is man, that thou art mindful of him? A very humbling experience when use see how the earth is such a small piece of God's expansive heavens. How anyone can not believe God exists is beyond me. The universe could not have just happened. It was cute in one place they had a small area that was not developed yet and the sign said"This space is still evolving"! Nothing like poking fun at the evolutionists.

The botanical gardens were beautiful! And the water lilies and water falls. Wow. My only disappointment was that their were no tags identifying the names of the plants. Here are a couple of shots.

And of course I found a new "beau". It seems I find one every where I go!

Clifty Falls Hike

It was a hot and muggy day but we had a great time at Clifty Falls! Oh, how we sweat! We had frequent stops especially coming out of the canyon. We would call ourselves the 3 bumps on a log etc. Believe them when they identify a trail as being rugged or very rugged, especially if it says "long steep grade in and out of the canyon"! We went on trail 7 and trail 2. Well, we were actually on parts of trail 1, 3, 4, and 8 at some point. The directional signs were very confusing but we had fun and ended up in places we hadn't planned on! I think we hiked a total of 4 hours. We did trail 7 first, pigged out at the buffet in the Inn and then hit the creek bed trail. I am so glad I have found some single Christian friends who like to hike. That is one thing I have missed here in Indiana. We haven't decided which state park we will tackle next. I am going to try to paste in a short movie clip as well as the slide show

Well, I tried uploading a movie clip but it either didn't work or I didn't wait long enough-I do think 5 minutes is long enough for a 30 secs movie clip! So, I will try to insert the 3 photos of the Ohio River from the Inn veranda that I "stitched" into a panoramic view. For some reason I can not get the picture at the top of the post down here, it just won't drag! I'm going to bed.

"Armour Hot Dogs...

...the dogs kids love to eat!"-and adults do too. Not sure if it was an Armour hot dog or not that I had at lunch today but it was good none-the-less. I drove up to Frankfort IN for there Hot Dog Festival. Been to better festivals but it was fun and a nice drive. Everywhere I go I seem to find a different kind of "man" to have my picture taken with.

After I did the few booths they had and a couple of antique stores I headed for home. I probably was only there about an hour. Oh, for those keeping up with my diet-I ate my foot long hot dog with out the bun! THEN I had some ice cream! I did not take a very direct route home. I had always heard how nice Zionsville is as a quaint little town and decided to check it out. It is all I have been told. Plan to go back there. From there I went around Indy, got on 465 and over to Hwy 135. I have heard there is some good shopping over there (like Steine Mart) and some other places. Another place to go back too. Ate supper at Jonathon Byrds cafeteria and then headed to see Daddy. He has had another good day-meaning he has been awake, cheerful, eating, singing, talking, etc.

It has been a great day for me. I thoroughly enjoying going by myself at times. It is nice to do what ever I want to do and when I want to do it. Of course I love going with friends too! But this was a day I needed just for me. Watch for another posting with pictures I took at the Cincinnati Museum Center last week.

Trying out our camaras

I had the best time Saturday with friends from school-LaVeena, Karen and Wayne. We took a couple of wonderful hikes and had a great time enjoying nature and taking pictures. Here is my first attempt at posting a slide show-thanks Karen W for the help. We went to Shades State Park first (I will post these pictures later) and then had lunch at the Turkey Run Inn in Turkey Run State Park. Boy was that food good-including that turtle sundae I had after our hike at Turkey Run. I certainly needed this time out in nature. Enjoy! Hold your mouse over the picture to see the caption.

40 years ago...

Once upon a time some 40 years ago there was a boy and girl at God's Bible School who were attracted to each other. Oh, not at first on her part but when he walked onto campus as a high school sophomore and saw her for the first time he told his brother-in-law "That's the girl I'm going to marry". Well, Uncle Edgar gave one of his belly laughs right then and there but to Carson it was any thing but funny. He has found his soul mate. Now Linda, in the meantime, had a habit of where she would start dating a guy in the spring, all through the summer and then it all seemed to end in the fall. One spring Carson said, "It's my turn this year!" Determined as he was it wasn't to be because he came down with appendicitis and while he was in the hospital someone else asked her out! So went another summer. That next spring Carson and Linda were the new couple on campus! 3 months later they were secretly engaged but Carson didn't ask Dad for her "hand in marriage" till a few months later. That fall, instead of breaking up with her fella Linda took off to PA to teach in a brand new school called Penns Creek. On July 12, 1968 they joined together for good and 40 years later are happily married! It was good to have them here this weekend to celebrate-nothing special, just being together and reminiscing about 40 years. I won't go into all that but here are some "then and now" pictures.

Carson has always been my favorite brother-in-law, basically because he is the only one I have! We have enjoyed good times together over the years. From the very first he was the only on my sister's suitors who acted like he knew I was part of the family. What a tease he was!-and still is! I appreciate that they have both been a consistent example of holiness in my life. I love them both very much!

Happy Anniversary Linda and Carson!

I did it! I did it! I DID IT!!!!!!!

Yip 50 pounds are finally gone! Actually it is 53.5 pounds gone! I can't believe I finally reached this goal. Here are the before and after pictures I promised a long time ago. I will let you decide which is the before and which is the after!!! LOL!!!

Shirley

For those that know Shirley just a quick update as of this morning about 6:30AM. I went to see her before clinical and she looked great! All she was worried about was getting her hair combed and out of her face! I was told she would be getting rid of a lot of tubes and paraphanelia today and move out later today to the step down unit. The staff was pleased with her progress. God is good.

Just have to share this...

A year ago I probably would have been offended at this but this year I laughed and laughed and so did my students. Yesterday when I was given my User ID to the medication cart at St. F's it was GOJHOG! That translates into Go J Hog! Whew I'm glad I've lost some weight!

My Dad

Last year about this time Dad moved to Silver Oaks Health Campus. I honestly did not think he would be here this Father's Day. He has surprised me and I am thankful. Due to his fall last week I was not able to take him to church this week-at least so I thought. When I got there to take him to church there they said he had dressed himself and was supervision only on mobility. So I decided to see if he could walk with his walker. He did! All the way from his room to the dining room where they have church. After church he walked to the dining room where they were having Father's Day Brunch and then back to his room. He was pretty tired by that time so we took the knee immobilizer off and put him to bed for the afternoon. Here are some pictures I took today.

They always have wonderful food on their brunch tables and Tim always makes it look so attractive. Here you can see the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies. They also had a good baked fish florentine that I enjoyed. Dad always likes the other end which includes scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuit and gravey. Then there is the beautiful salad. The desserts are to "die" for. For some reason I could not get that picture to upload. I cheated and had a small piece of their chocolate cake and 2 bites of a raspberry scone.

This is Dad and I in the courtyard. I am wearing a size 12 blouse! Aunt Joyce and Uncle Hubert always enjoy eating with us on brunch Sundays! I enjoy it too because I can have company and not have to cook or clean house! Love it!

And here is a common scene throughout Taylorsville and Columbus. This is just down the street from me. Enough about the 100 year flood we have experienced.