Category Archives: personal

Seattle!

We were very happy to make our flight at LAX for Seattle yesterday. We were the latest we’ve ever been for a flight and just made the 40 minute cut-off for checking a bag. Sheesh.

It’s good to be home but I made the mistake of walking into our son’s empty room this morning and I lost it. Even though he’s a 28 year old adult the realization that he’s left the nest hits this mom’s heart. The old world Russian upbringing I had never condoned kicking your kids out of the house at 18! They in fact would be pretty upset if a son or daughter left their house before they were married! :0)

We really couldn’t be happier that he has found a great vocation for himself and that he is being trained for it many miles away from home. When his training is complete he will be living about 6 hours away from us.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

D-O-N-E ~ Done!!

It is now a confirmed fact that I really am not a crafter. I am not good at anything that takes more then a day to complete. If I can accomplish it in an hour or two or at least within a day I’m a dedicated worker but…if it takes longer I become testy and the joy of the project vanishes out the window!

 

I was hoping to share my high school scrapbook with my graduating class at our next mini-reunion but it was falling apart and a lot of the memorabilia was escaping. I knew I needed to re-do the whole thing. I bought a lot of those new fangled scrap booking goodies. You know acid free this and that and memory book glue as opposed to Elmers, yada yada yada. What a mess projects are. It took me a couple of weeks and 3 separate trips to Michael’s but I finally am DONE, D-O-N-E done! Yippee. Not a moment too soon either because I was getting ready to just burn the whole thing.

 

Lots of fun memories. It was amazing to see the prices of movies, shows and food from the late sixties. I think I had enough sugar packets from restaurants to bake a cake with. I decided to slit a little hole in each and empty the sugar out this time around. If anyone runs out of matches just come on over. I have several matchbooks.

 

I now have a scrapbook that can travel without leaving a trail behind.

I’m really enjoying my nice clean dining table top!

Have a good Tuesday.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Labor Day Weekend…

This is going to be a fun long weekend for Dear and me. We are going to celebrate his birthday every day this weekend. This year Dear’s birthday happens to fall on 09-09-09! All the more reason to celebrate in style. On Saturday we are driving up the coast to Morro Bay for lunch and whatever else comes our way. On Sunday after church we are headed south down the coast to have a birthday brunch at The Five Crowns Restaurant in Corona Del Mar. Monday morning the tide is low at the right time for us so we are going to have an early morning walk on the beach in Ventura. I hope to get lots of fun photos to share.

I also am documenting some things about my blog that are interesting to me and probably not so much to you….

This post is #1861.

I have had over 414,000 visits to my blog.

I am in my third year of blogging.

These last couple days I have had over 500 hits on all my Glendale Forest Lawn posts. I think this is because Michael Jackson’s funeral was there on Wednesday and people are curious about Glendale Forest Lawn now.

My most viewed post so far is my recipe for Rice Krispy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars with 8732 views.

Coming in at 2nd is my recipe for Russian Easter Bread with 6210 views.

One of my earliest posts that comes in at third is An Irish Blessing for a New Home with 5362 views.

The fourth top post was my 2008 Christmas Tour of Homes with 4226 views.

Blogging has been a fun creative exercise for me and I’ve found a great joy in photography since I started blogging. I appreciate the little things more. One of the best benefits in blogging are all the friendships that have developed around the world. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this going but for as long as I do I’m going to have fun doing it. I love hearing from all my bloggy friends.

Have a good weekend…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Road Trip, Overnight Guests, and Reunions Oh My!

Today I’m doing all the last minute things I need to do for our trip back to the Condo in Southern California. Our daughter Katie and her boyfriend Ben are road tripping with us and then staying in Southern California with us for a week. My brother Leonard and his wife Mandy and their daughter Miss Hope arrive in Southern California on Tuesday. We have extended family events planned for the week. I do not know how much blogging will occur.

I wanted to share some fun events coming up in blog land with you before I disappear for a while.

On Tuesday August 18th I’m pleased to announce I’ll be guest posting on Sandy’s blog ~4 Reluctant Entertainers. If you’ve never visited her blog you should. She really is a gifted lady and has great ideas on incorporating hospitality in your home. You’ll also enjoy her recipes and photographs.

On Saturday August 22nd the next Round Robin Photo Challenge is Birds! Don’t let this one fly by! You can sign up for this challenge by following the simple directions here.

On Tuesday August 25th there’s a Let there be White Party hosted by Kathleen at Cuisine Kathleen. Click on over to get the details…

On August 28th there’s a Show Us Your Roosters party hosted at Bella Vista by Barb.

Then on September 11th there’s a 2nd Cloche Party hosted by Marty at A Stroll Thru Life.

Hope to see you all soon.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Personality Meme ~ I’ve been Tagged!

Arti at Ripple Effects has tagged me for a little meme all about my strange personality…

Arti is a very thoughtful blogger who posts great reviews of the arts in film and literature…

Thank you Arti.

Now to try to identify some personality traits of mine…

1. I tend to be compliant and a people pleaser generally. Over the years I have learned to set boundaries and I’ve become quite good at saying no. I do not compromise on my firm beliefs, though. If you want me to identify a couple of my firm beliefs I can be bold enough to do that.

#1 Accepting Jesus and His sacrifice on our behalf on the cross is the only way to peace with God and an eternal place in Heaven with Him.

#2 Abortion is the wrong choice.

2. I enjoy celebrating life with new experiences which seem to always revolve around good food and good sights and good conversation. I wonder why I’m not losing weight. :0)

3. I tend to smile a lot and am a positive person most of the time.

4. I’m a communicator. I do not like to be uninformed especially about personal things with family and friends. I’m generally the link in the family to news. I also get really pissed upset if I’m left out of the loop or I find out someone died after the funeral or was in the hospital after the fact. Come on people communicate, ask for prayer, let us serve you.

5. Worship and learning something new from God’s Word (The Bible) is very important to me and I feel disconnected without some good input every week or every day. Learning new things in general keeps me happy.

6. I love to be generous. I love to buy gifts for people. I love to feed people extravagantly.

7. I enjoy good books. Most of the books I really love are by authors who are dead. I’ve been known to cry at the end of a book because it is written so well! (like LOTR or Chronicles of Narnia or Anne of Green Gables)

So that’s it and you’ve gotten a taste of what ellen b. is like even if some of these aren’t about personality. Oh and to set the record straight I’m a whole lot more interesting on the page then in person…

She’s Not Cooking ~ She Got Cooked!!

 

Monday was a travel day for me. I flew from L.A. back to Seattle. My sweet lily white daughter picked me up at the airport and I was shocked by the pink glare coming from her skin. Yes it’s been sunny and hot in Seattle and my daughter went on a bike ride and in all the excitement of getting the bike in her car and getting to the meeting point she forgot the sunblock. She rode for 25 miles. I think it’s safe to say she won’t forget next time. It’s been an AloeVera ointment ~ vinegar bath kind of day for her.

I hope to return all the sweet comments on my Monday posts on Tuesday while avoiding looking at my daughter. OUCH!

These photos of Katie were taken earlier in July before her overexposure to the sun.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Oh What A Saturday ~

The whole experience yesterday had the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream. What’s the word I’m looking for?

We woke up on Saturday morning and realized our modem had died in the night. Before the rest of the world woke up and we could call about getting our modem replaced we left for a hike in Sycamore Canyon. It was a great heart pumping hike and for the first time we heard some rattling noises. I was concerned it might be a rattlesnake but Dear was pretty sure it could be some kind of bird.

When we came home we called Verizon to let them know their modem died and what our options were. We were so pleased that John from Verizon arrived early in the afternoon and replaced our modem and gave us some great additional information about our T.V. options.

We had a tea in Pasadena planned for my mother’s 85th birthday. Nine of us were meeting for Tea at the Rose Tree Cottage at 4:00. When my sister Vera and mother arrived my mother was tripped up by an uneven sidewalk and landed flat on her face splitting open her forehead just above her left eye. She was bleeding quite a bit. We were all at her side and helping her get more comfortable on the ground and trying to stop the bleeding. My SIL Letty who is a nurse and the rest of us mothers realized by looking this was going to need stitches. You just learn those things over the years. We heard sirens and the paramedics arrived. My poor mother was so upset that she would miss the tea she asked the paramedics to just put a band-aide on her forehead. They were very sweet and told her they would have to do what was best for her. We also knew she’d need further tests because the split on her forehead was very deep. When the fire engine pulled up one of the firemen saw my sister Kathy and said hello Mrs. W. and gave her a kiss (we Russians greet each other with a brotherly kiss).  He’s the one in the sunglasses reassuring my mother. Our oldest sister Kathy went to the Emergency room with mom in the Paramedic’s van.

So what should the other 7 of us do…go ahead with tea or not??? Well we were going to have to pay for the tea if we enjoyed it or not so we decided to go ahead with the tea. It was really weird not having the guest of honor with us and we all felt a bit guilty my sister Kathy was missing out, too, but it was just what the circumstances handed us.  My sister Kathy gave us updates while we were at tea. When we finished tea we headed to the emergency room a block away. On the way I managed to back into a block wall and give my car bumper an owie! Sheesh! I never back into stuff…

It was finally determined my mom did not have any bleeding in her skull so after she got stitches they released her at 11:00 PM. I was happy to finally make it home and crawl into bed.

My mother is in a lot of pain. Her left eye is swollen shut. Please pray that all will go well and she will heal up soon and that the swelling and pain will subside. Thank you all for your prayers and concern for us. I really appreciate it :0)

Update on Monday night: My mother is doing a lot better! Thank you so much for your prayers!!

Out and About ~

Out and about on a cloudy day in the Northwest. The sun was out amongst the clouds and it warmed up nicely today. I got some running around done. Whole bean Costco roasted coffee for here and the South, check. New tennies for walking from the Brooks Outlet in Canyon Park, check. Brooks adrenaline are the shoes that have worked best for me and having an outlet here where I can buy them for less is fabulous. Some new 501 jeans for Dear from Fred Meyer on sale, check.

My kids are here this evening playing Rock Band. It’s fun to see them still playing nicely together. :0)

Blessings and night night!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head…

 

See the wetness out this window? We have had rain in Southern California for the last couple of days and we are promised some more rain tomorrow. I find it very refreshing being a transplant from the Seattle area. I was happy to have to pull out my great Marmot raincoat!

Tomorrow we are travelling across town to Whittier for a funeral. The Aunt of my best friend from my Russian Baptist Days in L.A. died last Saturday. My friend and her cousins (whose mom died) were connected in many different ways to my family and extended family. Our Russian community is all inter-connected in hard to explain ways. So it will be a day of tears for the grief her children are feeling from saying goodbye and a day of rejoicing in knowing she is with her Savior in heaven. A day of remembering our friendships and re-connecting and seeing the kids “all grown up”. A day of looking at someone and thinking “oh my I know who you are but I can’t remember your name right now”. Does that ever happen to you?  We will sing in Russian and sing in English. We will hear messages in Russian and a message in English. We will pray in Russian and pray in English. We will gather at the church, then head to the graveside, then we will all meet together for lunch.

“Therefore in life I’ll trust in Thee,
In death I will adore;
And after death will sing Thy praise
When time shall be no more.”

Hope you all have a day filled with an awareness of the God who made this world for us to enjoy and numbers our days…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

10 Things I Love ~

Cori G! at Gingerbread Crumbs & Co. via Pam at Grey Like Snuffie is passing along a meme about 10 things you love starting with an assigned letter. She assigned me either the letter L or R to list 10 things I love. I chose to list 10 L’s I love.

 

If you’d like to play let me know and I’ll assign you a letter or two to choose from.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.