Before Carson-After Carson

I did it again-messed up and have these pictures in opposite order from what I intended! Boy am I out of practice. My brother-in-law is an awesome drywall and carpenter man. He and Linda came up last week to do some much needed repairs to my house. First you see the AFTER Carson pictures. The picture above was given to me by my clinical group this summer-in honor of my spirituality and because they knew I liked Norman Rockwell pictures. It goes very nicely in the new room Carson finished for me. You can see that picture below. The Rockwell picture hangs above the table.

These are the pictures of what Carson had to work with...ugly closet where my furnance and hot water had sat before I moved them (I had to buy new) to my garage this summer. It is a wonder the paneling did not catch fire. You can see the holes in the floor (covered up) and in the ceiling that the furnace guys didn't fix. They told me when I questioned them that "we are not carpenters"! It would have been nice if they had told me that up front. I am sure they assumed I knew that. Carson tore out the paneling, the floor, the ceiling-all down to the studs and put up dry wall. It really looks great! You will have to come visit me sometime-of course, give me notice so I can be sure the place is clean....!!!!! My sister and I turned my house upside down cleaning while Carson did this job.

That's it for now folks! School started back with prep week today. Students start next Monday.

My goodness it has been a year...!

Since I have posted anything in the name of Lady J! Where has the time gone? Thanks Karen for having me on your list of bloggers because I had forgotten my signon...a blond moment.


I have messed this up royally since I forgot that I needed to post my pictures and then my script! So first you will see some of my favorite pictures from Cape May, NJ where my friends Sue and Genya, staff at AMSN, took me while I was out there last weekend.

This is The Southern Mansion, the original summer resort. Gorgeous place. I was intrigued by the outside winding stair case.

One of my favorite victorian homes in Cape May.

My friend Sue on the left and Genya in the middle. We had such good fellowship in the Lord and were blessed to have Charles (Genya's husband) to be our chauffeur for the day!

A neat little shopping area where I found a wonderful decoration for my house!

This summer break found me very busy. First I was off to NJ to write test items for the AMSN national medical-surgical nurses certification exam. While there I had one day of orientation as the new editor of the AMSN MedSurg Matters Newsletter which is published 6 times a year. My friends Sue and Genya took me to Cape May one day and I found something I couldn't leave without-a victorian looking doll sitting in a swing. Sue and Genya kindly mailed her to me so I wouldn't break her apart on the plane home. I had one idea of where I would hang her but as my sister and I were giving my bedroom a deep cleaning it hit me just where to let her swing! So here she (Barbara is supposed to be her name) is in all her glory.

Last but not least-the Beach! Nice white sand.

I have some more pictures to post but since I've messed this up so badly I think I will do another post.

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.