Saturday, May 28

Up a little after 7 a.m., but skipped my exercises so I could get ready to go to a town about an hour away for a visit with Hubbie's family. One of his granddaughters was visiting from Michigan to help celebrate the other granddaughter's 30th birthday this weekend.

We met at the lakeside home of Hubbie's daughter and son-in-law. His other daughter and son-in-law were also there, as well as a nephew and great-niece, and two great-grandsons.

We enjoyed a lunch of deli sandwich wraps, chips, and a white cheese/Rotel dip, fresh fruits, and brownies with homemade ice cream for dessert. I took a bowl of heritage and red grape tomatoes from the hydroponic farm as my contribution, though Daughter was the only one to try them. She is very fond of tomatoes, so was glad that I left the remainder of them for her to enjoy.


After lunch, the daughter who recently went on a church mission trip to Uganda showed us an array of handmade jewelry, baskets, and nativity scenes that the ladies (and a few men) of that area had created from paper, bamboo, nuts, beans, beads, wood, etc. We were encouraged to choose something for ourselves as her gift to us. And then we could purchase other items, if we wanted to. The proceeds from any sales goes back to Uganda to help buy school supplies.

I chose a necklace that features a pendant in the shape of the African continent as my gift from Daughter, and then bought a necklace fashioned from tan and green peas or beans. Daughter also let us choose a nativity scene as a gift, and I chose a small one with the Holy Family carved into it. It is made from a tree branch, and features two side panels onto which Mary and Joseph are carved. The center features Jesus on a bed of straw, with a star above. The two side panels are attached with cords.

After that, Daughter showed us photos from the trip on her laptop. These are photos that she did not use in her power point program...a program we’ll see in a few weeks at a church in another town.

The visiting granddaughter brought along a couple of scrapbooks she’s done featuring her very young boys, and asked my advice on designing pages. The scrapbooks she showed me are pre-planned ones, with pages designed to simply glue photos into designated spaces. But now she wants to design some of her own pages.

I gave her several suggestions based on pages I've done for my own scrapbooks. She is allowing scrapbooking to overwhelm her, because she wants to use all the snapshots of her boys. I emphasized that it is important to be selective in choosing photos, especially in this digital age, when hundreds of images can be shot in a single day.

Sometimes one photo can tell the story, with appropriate journaling, while other times, the story might require several pages. I reminded her that photos can be ordered in a variety of sizes, and billfold size allows for more photos on a single page. I also reminded her that cropping unnecessary background information out of photos is important for better visual impact.

Frankly, with a job, two active boys, and a baby girl on the way, I don’t know how she’ll find time to scrapbook. When we left this afternoon, though, Daughter was helping her with her project.

We left around 4 p.m. to head back home. Even though the temperature reached into the 80s today, it was overcast, so with the van parked under a tree in Daughter’s yard, and with the portable automobile air conditioner, Shih Tzu was comfortable. The air conditioner is small, and runs off the car battery. It uses blocks of ice for cooling, which need to be changed every couple of hours, but Hubbie kept track of it.

We got back home around 5 p.m. Mother went to her house, and Hubbie and I had a cereal and toast supper before watching the 2001 Lifetime Movie Network feature, “Angel Eyes,” starring Jennifer Lopez. A woman police officer saves a man who has been in an automobile accident. Later, she has a relationship with him without remembering he was the man in the accident. He doesn’t remember that the accident killed his wife and young son. He also hides from himself how the accident happened. The policewoman, too, is carrying baggage from her past.

A second Lifetime Movie Network feature we watched was the 2006 "A Trick of the Mind." A woman blames herself for an automobile accident that killed her parents. She marries a man she meets while working as a volunteer helping to build a house. Later, she realizes how dangerous he might be, and jeopardizes her own safety when she helps a private investigator gather evidence against him.