All Gone To Look For America - The Final Chapter

this is Westbound Lola... Loaded to the ground
Our route, on a map......Yes, Catherine will use a map and a gps.....
Do we know how to pack or what??? Vintage Saxton Road Trip
Hello!!! What's a road trip without Jerry Garcia? I'm gonna go look for this.

This is going to be a quick one. Three years ago, Dr. Farrell wrote down on a little yellow card from an epidural kit, "No hay mal, que por vien no venga." There is no bad that some good will come. I was driving home from a work meeting today and decided to think of the things I'm grateful for. Besides the usual bitchen house, relatively decent health, great husband and dog, roaming turtles, great kids, I was grateful for all the places I've gotten to go because my daughter ended up in New Jersey for the last three years of school. Yeah, and I am still going. Tomorrow I leave to fly to Texas, to do the last portion of what Caitlin has called Westbound Lola. I kept waiting for blogging action from her, guess I'm going to attempt to do it. Wanderlust occurred at an early age for me. Road trips, that's what our vacations were. Still are. Right here in America.

So here's a few of the places and things I'm grateful for.....My daughter's college education. Rutgers and the Rutgers Women's Volleyball Team. New Jersey including Glen Gardner and Rahway, New York including NYC, Nyack, Fiddle Camp, The Jersey Shore, getting to hear warm ups for Social Distortion for free, good places to eat in Edison, NJ including Rasaoi and the thai place, Laramie, Wyoming, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, all the great National Parks and State Parks I got to see bits of, Indiana, Chicago, The Carri bean, Michigan, getting lost somewhere on Lake Michigan, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Florida... I been a lot of places that had Caitlin not gone so far away to college, I may have never seen them. Big Shout out for NCAA women's athletics, all the staff at Rutgers University, those nice young ladies at the Hyatt New Brunswick, all the wonderful people I came in contact with, who helped when I was lost and had time to talk story with me. Thank you. OK, I hope I have time to write while Caitlin and I are on the road.

In Health and Love,

Catherine

PS, I haven't quite learned all the tricks of my new computer so the pics are not where I want them... enjoy them anyway :)

St Catherine of Craftlandia

I stayed home from work today. I didn't feel well. I folded laundry, watched daytime television, drank tea, talked to a friend on the phone. I kept looking at the dried up, dead flowers in my Mermaid Vase.... It's a bad economy. It's extravagant to buy new flowers every week. Especially when I'm staying home from work and not getting paid.... But I LOVE my vase and don't want her to be empty... There went the lightbulb, I could make some tissue paper flowers!! They turned out great. I sent a photo via phone to some of my peeps. Molly replied, "Mom, you need to blog about it." Margaret replied, "St Catherine of Craftlandia." My favorite mermaid blogger replied, "I LOVE IT! So crafty!" She needed some pop, so I made one last gold one, in honor of Jules, and Mermaid Diaries. She had made some big paper balls using the same method for Caitlin's Golden Birthday. It was just what my arrangement needed, tonight and at the birthday. So tonight's blog is dedicated to Jules. And Molly. She's the one who said I didn't have to write a lot.

All I did was fold and cut tissue paper. I used pipe cleaners to hold the accordion folded paper, and then got pieces of bamboo from the garden and attached the flowers to the bamboo with the wire pipe cleaners.

I hate doing dishes. I don't like picking up messes. I did both tonight. After I finished my crafty floral arrangement.

PS..... I also like my new nickname..... Saint Catherine of Craftlandia.

I hope this finds you having a groovy day.

In Health and Love,

Catherine