The 2016 Birthday Theme

Take a closer look at these hats and you'll get my birthday theme as inspired by these ladies we encountered (below) while in Branson last fall: the Johnson Sisters. Attired in their matching pink t shirts, I approached them for their story. They were adorable. Diann had her "lightbulb moment" that 

she'd cash in on the idea for our band of two (with an honoree member in Minnesota) vicariously.

                                                   Presenting the Johnson Five!

We needed a look, so she worked on the design of hats and t shirts. Next time we are out and about you may see us in these shirts.  I'm guessing we won't be in the Chicago area, though. We are either going to amuse or frighten those we come in contact with. Consider this fair warning.

     We cheated with the look this time by placing shirts over our bodacious bods already attired.

  This is how my gift box looked at time of presentation. Check out the cute ornament.

In the box of gifts were so many fun treasures to remind me of our Nelson Sisters

adventures, especially within the last year. And my sis and her creativity came through 

with each gift and clue.

The clue for the one below was "As sisters, we share...readiness for adventures."

The gift:  a bumper sticker. Yes, I got a bumper sticker! (It's my mantra for when she asks 

me if I'm up for a road trip.)

Each clue was hidden inside a dotted and decorated envelope sleeve.

I now am the owner of a flashy pink memory foam headrest.

I discovered it's also very useful as ear muffs and sound buffers!

Diann also created a special photo book of our past year highlights as the NS duo with trips to the live 

DWTS show in Peoria, birthday celebrations, road trips to Hilton Head, Branson, and Galena, seeing Santa and eating at the Walnut Room and celebrating an early Christmas together.

No celebration is complete without a shared meal and activity.  We ate crepes and went to the movie

The Lady in the Van (Get it?  Road trips??) and so enjoyed another memory made. 

What a gift, this thing called Sisterhood.

Mystery Reader

Do you know what (who) a "Mystery Reader" is? Nope, not one who reads mystery novels. No, not one whose identity remains shrouded while reading a book. A "Mystery Reader" is one who goes to a classroom to read aloud to the students. The kids know someone is coming, just not who this person is and how they are connected to one particular student. The reader could be a mom or dad, grandparent or relative or friend. And last week it was my turn to be the MR!

Back in the day when I was still an employed woman in a public library in the Children's Department 

(Three cheers for CMPL!!!), I often assisted patrons who came in to find "Mystery Reader" books to bring to the classroom. What fun it was to match up titles to active, excited listeners! One day I hoped to have a turn myself as a MR! And it all came true last Friday afternoon.

As I waited outside the classroom for my cue to come in, I got the chance to check out her locker. She has inherited the stuff-it-all-in-and-walk-away-gene just like someone else I know and love! I heard the teacher give these clues:

The Mystery Reader is a grandmother.

There is a girl in this class with this grandmother.

The girl in this class has sisters.

And, because these kids are so smart, they guessed the girl to be E and I walked in. It may have helped that E was wearing a birthday crown for the guessers to be so quick.

I read these two books that are her favorites:

and

Yes, they are both a bit girly. But both have great messages - the first one with the message of being resourceful and helping out a friend in need and the second with a sweet relationship between a mother and her daughter as she outgrows her clothes.

It was so much fun to be back in the classroom again with such adorable kids!

I admit to being especially drawn to the one in the back row, top left, in the yellow shirt!

The Word of the Year 2016

Every year, I try to zero in on one word which inspires my actions, thoughts and relationships. This is done in place of making resolutions I just can't seem to keep. Past words have included: savor, turnover, mindful, embark and sixty. Silly as it may seem, these one-word personal cues have made a difference. 

Sometimes the words come easily; sometimes they don't. There were several candidates for the year:

The word ONE.

The word JOURNEY.

The runner-up word of FOCUS.

But none felt exactly right. However, on this past Sunday gray day as I was headed into church, it came to me! A word about the need for this in our lives, how we need this in loving the world, eating healthy and thinking creatively and really seeing all the gifts we've been given everyday...sunrises and sunsets, forests, oceans, mountains, flowers. The word is

Think about a life without color. Think about how we take our vision for granted. (And think about those cataracts developing!) and I am determined in 2016 to celebrate color! Eating veggies and fruits. Hanging out with people who are colorful. Doing tasks that start with letters in c-o-l-o-r: celebrating, cleaning, clearing (c), organizing, observing (o), learning, laughing, lounging, (l), and reading, reorganizing, reaching and relaxing (r).

Have you seen this picture recently floating around on Facebook? She clinched the word-of the-year for me:

She's 93 and is quoted as saying, "Well, I refuse to be that little old white-haired lady!" She's my kind of ****colorful! 

****Note: I'm not intending to go the pink hair route just yet, though.

Here's to a color-filled New Year!

Beautiful Memories

We three loved hanging out together - me, Karin and Sue. We spent our formative years being close friends in New Jersey. We went to camp together, to Sue's family cottage together. We had many sleepovers and talked about boys (or lack of boys), played guitars together, braided each other's hair. The above picture is post-braiding with a hand-written note that says after and in the picture below the note reads before. 

We loved James Taylor and Carole King. (I think part of the hair braiding thing came about because each of us had pin-straight hair and Carole didn't.)

When the Tapestry album came out in 1971 (we were high school sophomores) we listened together as a group and also alone in our rooms. It is amazing that the grooves on the album kept producing sounds due to its heavy use.

Each song brings me back to those days - break-ups, make-ups, fresh starts, encouraging words, and just plain old fun!

I Feel the Earth Move

So Far Away

It's Too Late

Beautiful

Way Over Yonder

---------------------

You've Got a Friend

Where you Lead

Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

Smack Water Jack

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

When I learned of the play Beautiful coming to Chicago, I put tickets to it on the top of the Christmas gift list - a list of one thing. It is the story of Carole King as a young, gifted singer/songwriter through her early years of marriage and family and ending up around the time she moves to California and produces the Tapesstry album.

The guy in the furry hat delivered!

It was Some Kind of Wonderful. Beautiful. And I think I (Could) Feel the Earth Move with each song sung in the show. I hated for it to be over so soon.

There's a great book out there, published in 2008 and written by Sheila Weller, about Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. The title is GIRLS LIKE US and it gives an in-depth portrayal of these three

musicians. As for Carole King, I was thrilled to see her honored recently at the Kennedy Center.

As an homage, I will not be copying her hair ever again.

Once is more than enough!!

Update:  apparently I did it twice as pointed out my my friend, Sandi.  Braces in the top pictures and no braces in the bottom picture my senior year. Not only was I making bad choices, but I forgot about them! Onward and forward, and no braids in my immediate future.

Adding Color(ing) to a Christmas Gathering

Whew! It's been a whirlwind of Christmas these days, and it has been wonderful. But not exactly restful. You know what I'm talking about here, don't you? Not only did we enjoy the 24th and 25th with our immediate family - especially in our "Biggety Bed" set up in Wes's home office with the Grands singing away in the early morning hours with an ever- changing cast of little characters  - we enjoyed a FULL house! Congrats to our kids for surviving this 24 hour togetherness!!

(The quilt shown here was made in 1976 as a wedding gift to Wes. It used scraps from those groovy fashions I sewed for myself in high school and college. Far out, huh?  But I digress.  This post is supposed to be about coloring, not colorful.)

I purchased a couple of coloring books at Walmart back in November, hoping to get a little down time to color a festive picture.  Didn't happen.  I hoped to bring the books out when we had our 24 hours of 

Family Togetherness.  Didn't happen. Post - Christmas we had a larger family gathering in Michigan and I packed the books and markers along just in case...and it did happen!

First it was Miss E, Miss M and K-Man with me. He left and we were joined by Grace. Then Laena.

Then Anne. Then Renee.

And then it happened. The realization that all this hype about adult coloring does bring you calm. We chatted and got to know each other better. We relaxed. We exercised our brains with color combinations and patterns.  We oohed and ahead about each other's work. We didn't need to have more food. We were being fed morsels of fellowship and love. All through the simple act of coloring!

May today bring color you way!  Any way you can get it. 

Perhaps even a trip out to buy your very own 

coloring book to bring on the post- holiday calm through

marker on paper! It works if you just make it happen.

Nelson Sisters Gift Exchange (Part Two)

Now that Part One described what was given to me by way of the FELTED WOOL theme, it's time for the "reveal" of my theme for her!. See that package above?  Now take a look at the lower right corner...

these are tiny charms that I attached to the key ring we bought on one of our trips.

Yep. A key ring was my inspiration!  Funny how inspiration starts, huh?  That's how KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL SISTERHOOD came about. Each gift would feature a memory or shared experience that worked to build our bond.  For example, one of the charms was a columbine flower - the state flower of Colorado. That's where we grew up.  The gift? Had to relate to Denver!!

It was a CD of the best hits. Oh, I should have mentioned that each gift had a key attached to the package ribbon. (Great way to get rid of spare keys!!!)

The charm for this gift below was a tiny ship wheel - a helm. This photo of us was the gift. Here we posed before boarding the showboat in Branson, MO.

Of course I had to get a little cheeky with the gifts. There's more cheeky in me than in my sister, so I must have hogged the family cheeky genes.

Two Planter's Peanuts spreaders as gifts to go with this note:

Because of all her support in my recent felted wool venture, a hat charm was added to the key ring with a special hat gift for her winter warmth...isn't she cute in it?

Yes, there were also charms/gifts representing our shared love of PROJECT RUNWAY and DANCING WITH THE STARS. You can spot them here.

Derek Hough? Uh, yes...we may be old(er) but we can still be smitten.  You might also notice a movie pack of Hallmark movies in the stash.

There you have it. This is how the Nelson Sisters do it. But it isn't the gifts that matter - it's the love, history and duration of our relationship that is the true gift. 

Nelson Sisters Gift Exchange (Part One)

I admit it: we are a couple of sentimental goofballs when it comes to giving gifts to each other!

For Christmas and our birthdays we go all out with themed gifts, tags for packages and wrappings that

are coordinated and plentiful. The gifts range from silly and nutty to books with topics we are interested in, wearables, edibles, framed photographs, and music CDs that have special connections. 

We exchanged these gifts yesterday. As always, it was a highlight of our sisterhood. And a way of making up for the time she pushed me out of the bed and broke my collarbone and me breaking her treasured watch while she was out of our shared bedroom.  (Years and years and years ago when we lived under the same roof as girls, of course.)

Because many ask about these exchanges, it's time to blog.  Part one is her theme for me, and part two is my theme for her.

Here's how my gifts were wrapped- blue, white and silver with glittery ribbons that left a trail of glitter to sparkle us up for the rest of this year and into the next year!!  

Inside this white pocket were the above letters (all scrambled up because she knows I like word puzzles) that told me what my 2015 theme was going to be - FELTED WOOL - due to my preoccupation with it this past year. Not only that, but all gifts had these letters (e, d, f, l, o, t and w)

in them!  She's outdone herself, yes?

Like E-L-F and this adorable gift:

And O-W-L for this fun coin purse:

And F-E-E-T for this gift for my feet...a very comfy pair of slippers!

With W-O-O-D for this inspirational saying on a wooden square.

Quite a lot of tedious cutting went into these little letters; she assured me that the time spent cutting them out sped by while watching Hallmark movies. Happy-ending Hallmark movies I might add.

Don't you just love this theme? It sure tickles my fancy!

The icing on top of exchanging these gifts of love is getting a yearly ornament for our "Sister" collection begun in the late 1970s.

That's a lot of ornaments!  This is the one she made for me this year featuring a part of a key ring we chose together on one of our trips this year. Diann used a key to attach the stitched heart with some other treasures from our travels together.

And even this was a word (w-o-o-l) that needed unscrambling. Do you see the key hiding?

Here you have the entire collection! Unwrapped! I love it!  And my Sis nailed it again this year.

Part two will feature my theme for her.