PuRSe Contents

My friend Joy "tagged" me and dared me to show the contents of my purse. I'm a little slow in taking the challenge but here you go! In my defense: This is actually the purse I got to go on our cruise in February and I needed something BIG to take on the plane. Also, I change bags frequently - I get bored easily.

So here you go from the top:
1. Hard to see - but I have a bottle Excedrin - never leave home without it.
2. Bag of peanut M&Ms - you never know when you might get stranded and need a little happy pick me up.
3. Lip stuff - 3 different kinds (again hard to see)
4. Wallet - holds cash (on a good day) and cards.
5. Gum - never know when I will need "minty fresh breath".
6. Bills I need to mail.
7. Quilting Magazine. I LOVE to quilt and one of my favorite stores "The Material Girls" was featured as a Top 10 quilting store. Here is why I love Material Girls: I usually have to take my two tasmanian devils - aka - my supervisors with me when I shop. The ladies at the Material Girls understand what it is like to have to take your kids with you everywhere and are understanding when mine get bored and start playing hide-n-seek in the fabrics. On the other hand the old blue-hairs at Broadbents can't remember what they had for breakfast, much less what it's like to take your small children with you. I am convinced that they hate ALL children - even my teenager, Jade (who is very well behaved in fabric stores)!

But I digress. . . .
8. Kleenex - some days I need them or one of my children does!
9. Cell phone - so my husband, kids and sisters can track me down when I "go to town".
10. Hand lotion - I have horrible dry hands!
11. Mirror - I usually don't carry one of these, so it was a fun surprise in my bag
12. Checkbook and miscellaneous frenquent diner and frequent quilter cards.
13. Paint swatches from Kwall Howell - I am going to re-paint Madeline's room when she (finally) moves into a "big girl bed."
14. Some random paper clip ?!?

Now it is my turn to tag some of my friends: Julie, Heidi, Sheryl, Hollie, Karalee & Michal - - are you up to the challenge?!?

Happy Mother's Day!

I would like to wish all the Mom's I know a Happy Mother's Day. I know that today can be a hard day - you want your kids to act perfect, the house to stay clean (dream on!) and everything to be just like it is in the movies (again, dream on).

However sometimes life gets in the way of that and your kids fight and pick at each other, the house will look like a bomb went off by the end of the day because "it's your day off and you don't want to pick up all the crap they drag out over and over".

But then you look at their beautiful faces and know that it is all worth it.

I would like to share with you the gift that Jade gave to me this year. For a photo class at school she had to make a slideshow as her final project. The video above is the finished result that she presented to me this morning.

For those of you who don't know we have a little girl - McKenna, who would now be 12. She was diagnosed with an inoperable brian tumor (diffuse pontine glioma) three days after her 4th birthday. This was also three weeks after we found out that I had breast cancer. We did our radiation together and then I underwent 6 months of chemotherapy. We knew from the start that our time with her was limited and there was nothing they could do for her. So we decided that we would make the best of the time we had with her and make every day count. Isn't that what we should always do with all of our children?

McKenna fought this horrible disease valiantly until the end - which for us came way too fast. She passed away 1 year after she was diagnosed. This slide show is dedicated to her and her memory.

Happy Mother's Day!

Love,

Jana

The Potting Bench

I love to garden. Usually when I plant my flowers in pots each Spring, I am either doing it on a card table in the garage or on the floor of the garage, or some other random place. For YEARS I have wanted a potting bench, for obvious reasons and well, because I thought it would "look cute" in my yard somewhere.

Last week I was browsing through some on-line ads and came across this jewel:

The ad didn't name a price, it just said "make offer".

I looked and saw lots of potential. Mark looked and saw crap. He said "Do you REALLY want to BUY that . . . THING?!?" My response was "Well yeah, I'll offer them $20 and see if they take it."

In the description it stated that it was made out of Tiger Wood (NOT Tiger Woods). And let me tell you that was not just a catchy name! When I got it home I realized that the wood really was pretty ugly, but no matter. I had BIG plans for this bad boy. It had great lines and lots of potential.

Within about 3 hours of getting it in my garage, I had it sanded and painted. Then I did a second coat of paint and then "distressed it a little".

Here is the final result. I still need to find some drawer pulls for it because it is a little hard to get the drawers open without them!

It is a little dirty because it's outside and I actually USED it today.

Here is what I did:

Train Ride

Last week UTA had a "grand opening" for their new FrontRunner train. It is a high speed train that (right now) runs from SLC to Ogden and a few points in between. They were offering free rides for the first 4 days it was in operation. Jack is a HUGE train lover and so I thought it would be a fun outing to ride the TRAX train from Sandy to the main hub in SLC and then catch the FrontRunner and come back.

Oh, wow, if I only knew what I was getting myself into!

First, we talked my Mom into coming with us since it was her day off . We started our adventure at around 11:30 am and drove to the Trax station (about 20 minutes from my Mom's house). We then rode Trax downtown and stopped and had lunch at the Gateway.

Then we got back on Trax and rode to the main SLC hub. When we got there there were ELEVENTY BILLION people who also thought it would be a great idea to ride the train for free!!

We got on the train and were lucky enough to find a seat.

We decided that since it was now 2:45 pm we would just ride it for a few stops and then get off and ride the next train back to the city. The internet schedule said that it would be about a 15 minute wait between trains. WRONG!!

We got off in Farminigton - - where there is NOTHING except for the train station and a parking lot and then had to wait for 30 minutes for the next train. The nice man at the train station said that the trains were not quite running on schedule since this was their first few days.

Have you ever tried to entertain two Tasmanian devils at a deserted train station - OUTSIDE for 30 minutes?!? This is a character builder, let me tell you!!

We finally got back on the southbound train and were able to find seats on the top deck - much cooler than on the lower level. This kind of made up for the wait, but it would have been better if they were serving Diet Dr. Pepper on the rocks - - I was needing one pretty bad about then!


When we got back to the main SLC station we then had another 35 minute ride on Trax to get back to our car. The good part of this is that both kids slept all the way home on the train (using me for a pillow of course).

I dropped my mom off at 4:45 pm. I definately think that she got more than she bargained for on this adventure!

However, both of my kids have talked non-stop about riding the train and Jack asked the very next day if we could go again that day. I said - - "Um, no, but maybe when I have recovered fully we can ride Trax and have lunch w/ Dad." That seemed to pacify him - for now.

Senior Prom

A few weeks ago both Jade and Matt went to their Senior Prom. Here are a few pictures:

Here's Matt and his date. Mark wondered about the cane and asked him if he was hurt and had trouble walking! Jade assured us that canes and hats were "cool".

This is Matt's group - it was a big one. They had their prom at the Hale Center Theater in West Valley. They had a great time!

(Matt is on the far left side, back row).

Here are some pictures of Jade and her date, Willy. I have more pics of Jade because she is used to me tagging along to EVERYTHING.

Here's Willy picking her up at the house.

Then they went to the high school to meet up with their group and have their pictures taken. This is where they also met the limo. We waited in the parking lot for them to come out for a while (OK , really about 5 minutes) and then I decided that we could wait inside and see them get their pictures taken just as easily as we could wait in the parking lot.

So, we went inside and people watched while we waited. This is a "taget rich environment" if you're into people watching!

When they lined up to get their group picture taken I quickly took some pictures of my own. I had to be sneaky since I didn't think the REAL photo people would appreciate me in their territory!

Here they are in front of the the limo.

They went to dinner in SLC and their prom was at the Gateway. I introduced myself to the limo driver and he assured me that he would take good care of them. I was glad that they weren't driving themselves since there was a Jazz playoff game, a Led Zeplin concert and three other proms in downtown that night!

Here are Jade & Willy getting into the limo - I'm not sure if Jade is more excited to get into the limo or to finally be rid of me!!