Friday Fun - I have a twin, sorta

I love to go antiquing. I like buying vintage housewares, things I can use to decorate my home, anything interesting looking that I can turn into something useful and attractive for present day use. Things I enjoy looking at but normally never buy are mostly girly things. Hats with tired netting that has seen better days, long opera length gloves with impossibly tiny fingers, that sort of thing. Other things fun to look at are vintage magazines and photographs.

I recently bought a bag of photos because one of them looked a great deal like me. I just couldn't pass up owning the photo.

A close up/side by side comparison (ignore the fact that my photo is several years old.)

Husband and Wife Landscaping

It's been awhile since my last post, with good reason. I've been super busy with a multitude of brides and various projects. I'm looking forward to the summer, have been faithfully attending my pilates and zumba classes and according to the post title, doing a bit of landscaping.

First off, I'm not the worlds greatest gardener. I'm more of an "appreciator" of great landscaping. But I try to keep up and do my part by planting a couple flats of annuals and of course a garden heavy with tomatoes. This year Adam commented that we need to plant perennials so we have less work in the spring. So in addition to my petunias I planted a Bleeding Heart bush (very pretty delicate little blooms). My neighbor offered me some of her hostas that she was planning on eliminating from their much more impressive landscaping, so I hopped on that and moved the hardy plants to my yard.

Now, let's talk about my husband and his thoughts (or in this case his actions) in the landscaping realm. He's a mulcher which is great. The town offers free mulch which is actually pretty decent mulch. Last night he works until he can no longer see. He's cleaned up the grape vines (our own little vineyard) behind our home, yanked out all the sticklers and dug up some random tulips bulbs. Then a fresh layer of mulch and his own decorations. I laughed out loud when I went out there this morning.

My idea of pretty

His idea of pretty

A close up of what made me laugh.

His prized cattle heads from Jackson County, each artfully adorned with a fading tulip.

Compromise is everything in a marriage.

Christan Garman Fundraiser

An important message from my brother-in-law Rodney that I wanted to pass along.

On June 14th, there will be a fund raiser for Christan Garman. In case you aren't familiar with the situation, Christan is a 26 year old from New Bremen that had a stroke about a month ago. Her fiance is serving in Iraq with the Marines and the hospital bills and rent and car payments and probably about everything else are piling up. So they could use some help.

First off, please try to attend the benefit in New Bremen on June 14th at Speedway Lanes. There will be more info on that coming later. Secondly, they are asking to get some things together for a Silent Auction. If you have some items you'd be willing to buy or make and donate, that would be great too. Thanks everyone!

If anyone reading is interested in donating items to the silent auction let me know and I can put you in contact with the right people. Rodney (a.k.a. Munch) is getting people to work together to make a great OSU gift basket. So you see, you don't have to donate a large item. Grab your friends and have fun pulling together a gardening basket, summertime basket, dinner and a movie, or a kid basket. I'm sure someone at the auction would love to bid on it.

According to reports from her family Christan is slowly but surely getting better. She's getting stronger everyday and working hard at her therapy. Christan and her fiancee Kris are planning a November wedding and I been told that upcoming event is what is keeping her motivated to work so hard. It's hard to imagine that at 26 your life can change that drastically but her family and friends are pulling together with their love and support. If you are inclined, please keep all these folks in your prayers.

May Showers = well, May Showers

So it rained today. A lot. Twice I had to shut down my computer because I don't trust my surge protectors and I have the horrible worry that the lightening is going to zap my computer which essentially runs my whole life. But that's life.

A quick "shout out" to my sister in law Abi who is celebrating a birthday today.

And happy wishes go to several Sara Paper Brides who will be wed tomorrow.

Aletha and Eric will marry at the Columbus Museum of Art surrounded by family and friends from literally all over the globe. One of my popular services is the Addressing Service. Brides love it because it saves them a lot of time and writing. I enjoy it because I get to see a lot of cool names and addresses. This wedding had an incredible amount of names I couldn't pernounce and places I didn't even know exsisted.

Another couple getting married tomorrow is Heather and Tom from the Lima area. This is a fun couple. Tom even helped the bridesmaid plan the Bachlorette Party. He worked behind the scenes to get Heather a few days off work. When Heather sat down to a meeting at the Abercromie corporate office she was very pleasantly surprised to find her bridesmaids in attendance ready to wisk her off to her party. They also added their own touch to their invites and programs. I printed them and they finished them off with their own embossing tool.

I wish for these couples a beautiful day (regardless of the weather) and many years of happiness.

Some more tidbits from http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/index.html
In 1519 Artist Leonardo da Vinci died. And much more recently, in 1997 Tony Blair became, at age 44, Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years.

And finally another recent Sara Paper project.

These programs were for Jennifer and Grant, a Columbus area couple who recently married at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Jennifer had a specific vision and I'm really proud to have worked on these extra fancy and special programs.

April Showers = May Flowers

I can hardly believe it's May 1st already. Seriously. If April showers brings May Flowers Adam and I are in big trouble. We have no flowers to speak of and only a tiny bit of green hostas poking up from their winter slumber. Our landscaping is definately lacking, but we (meaning Adam) have been busy fixing our grape arbors, tiling up the garden and cleaning out the shed.

I found a fun website http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday From it I found out that May 1, 1967 is the day singer Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas.

Also on May 1, 1931 the 102-story Empire State Building in New York City was dedicated.

Looking back over the month of April I can see why it went so fast. I wrapped up several weddings, assisted with birth announcements, and various parties. Adam has been plenty busy too. He got a new job working at Gossman Pools in Maria Stein. http://www.gossmanpools.com/ If you need a swimming pool or hot tub, Adam is your guy. He loves hard work, learning new things and he's sporting a pretty nice tan already.

Here is one of the projects that I've been working on these past couple months.