Friends

Mary Grace, Linda, Carole, Jan and Me, Rodeo's Mexican Restaurant, 10/01/11

My recent road trip to Ozark was a multipurpose sojourn.  I am so glad I did this.  I accepted Linda's invitation to be a program guest speaker on the topic of Living Green way back a number of months ago.  Saying 'yes' and getting this commitment on the calendar was what I needed to motivate myself.  I had all these 'refashioning' projects to be finished and lots of recycled materials to magically transform into little works of art.  What better way to accomplish these tasks than to agree to talk on this same subject and use all my finished products to illustrate "reduce, reuse, recycle.'  This was my plan.

It worked!  The seminar was mucho fun and all my preparation paid off.  Jan and James Lisenby were gracious hosts.  As a guest in their beautiful home, I had plenty of room to spread out and organize everything before the seminar.  Only a very good friend would allow such a mess for so long.  (Thank you, Jan and James.  I enjoyed my time with both of you more than words can express.  And I loved meeting 'the girls.'  They are sweethearts...and I must say I miss that 'little dumpy' more than I thought I would.)

Since Linda allowed me to choose the date of the seminar, I chose a date close to the Claybank Jamboree weekend.  Hopeful I could attend for part of the day and catch up with more of my Alabama gardening friends.  And finally, at day's end, perhaps round up the 'best of the best' for dinner at Rodeo's before I departed town the next day.  And unlike the "best laid plans..." it came off without a hitch.  Lucky us!

I miss you all.  You are never far from my thoughts and always are in my prayers.

'bout time!

Gavin & Babka making "fungi" with new play dough!

That's what I get for waiting so long in between postings!  I just typed all about what I've been up to for the past couple of months and I got an error code and a "thankyouverymuch" and then my blog page went blank and wiped the slate clean.   Guess that will teach me for going on and on.   Rather than repeat everything I just commented on, here is the link to the blog I wrote for the Claybank Master Gardener web log, posted October 8, 2011,  describing the Living Green seminar with some photos of the workshop.  I will add that I am glad I spent oodless of time preparing.  It paid off in the end.   

(Lo' and Behold!  I found the 'missing words' in a draft copy of this blog, under a separate heading.  Here is the original:

Another billion minutes have passed without an update to my personal blog.  Now that I've posted a couple of entries to the Claybank Master Gardener site and to the LIVING GREEN blog, I feel like I can be self-indulgent and update my This 'n That page.  Here it is, in a nutshell...

I've spent lots of time these past months, preparing for my Living Green seminar.  It went very well, from my perspective.  An audience of around 50 folks showed up to hear me speak and watch me demonstrate DIY projects.   Reduce, Reuse, Recycle examples were discussed and illustrated in a myriad of ways.  I managed to fill three long tables with examples of recycled materials.  Some of the refashioned items were practical and some of them just for the sake of art & creativity.  It was a lot of work but very gratifying to reach the day of the workshop and feel prepared and revved to present.   I received excellent feedback from many of the audience members and lots of good ideas for additional ways to recycle common materials.)