Craft Club

I have a group of friends that I do crafts with. We call our get-togethers Craft Club.

My friend Karen is the mastermind and creative guru for the rest of us girls. (She even has her own craft-room! It’s like a Man Cave only better.) We do what she says and our crafts usually turn out pretty nice.  I didn’t think I would like doing crafts and I was skeptical of my creative abilities, but this group of girls makes it fun. We eat. We drink. We laugh. We encourage.

Some of my projects have turned out better than others. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised in what I’ve created.  The Hearts-on-a-Stick craft involved a lot of hand sewing. I found that I really enjoy sewing and have now taken up 

quilting.

Below is a little photo gallery of some of our crafts over the past couple of years.

Halloween Door Hanging

Christmas Painting

Hearts-on-a-Stick sewing craft

Fourth of July Wreath

So, this week I ventured out on my own in the crafting department. I found a door “wreath” on Pinterest that I liked and thought I could probably pull it off. I’m happy with the outcome. I think my Craft Club girls will be impressed too!

$3.98 Walmart Spray

$2.99 particle board
(not real wood) letter R

$5.00 picture from Goodwill.
I only needed the frame so I
removed the picture and glass.

          

Sandpaper, paint, and super glue.
TA-DAA!

Inviting front door on a budget.

My Pinterest inspiration.
My Pin-spiration!

I would love to see and hear about any craft projects ---or really any project--- that you’ve had fun with or learned from.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

I had my very first Jet Ski ride this past week. It was scary. It was fun.

Three friends and I took a girls vacation to Florida for a few days. While we were there someone (named Tara) came up with the idea to rent Jet Skis. (I’m unsure of the actual brand of personal watercraft we used, so for simplicity, we’ll just call it a jet ski- - kind of like facial tissues are called Kleenex. But I digress…)

Yum! Iowa corn-fed! Tastes just like chicken! 
(Courtesy of Google Images.)

I was less than thrilled. I don’t like deep water and I wasn’t too keen on being shark bait. But, I didn’t want to be a party-pooper, so I went along with the idea.

We rented two jet skis and rode double. Two of the girls were experienced drivers and riders.  Two of us had never been on a jet ski. So it was deemed that the experienced girls would drive us newbies around.

Tara rode with Becky. I rode with Karen. Becky is nice. Karen? Not so much.

I knew that riding with Karen would be an adventure. She’s kind of a crazy girl sometimes and even as I protested, she told me to step out of my comfort zone. 

It would be fun, she said.

 This is what I DO NOT want to happen to me!
(Courtesy of Google Images.)

As soon as we hit the end of the no wake zone she hit the gas! I thanked God right then and there that I was holding on tight. I told her that I would be super scared if I fell off and asked her not to do anything that would cause me to do so.  She honored my wish- just barely.  We went straight but we went FAST!  (No donuts! Thank Goodness!)

One time we both bounced on a big wave. Even though I was laughing, I was terrified when we separated from the seat. My zany chauffeur slowed down for a while to let me catch my breath, and from that point forward, if a big wave came our way she either slowed down, or warned me before we went through it.

Karen and me before I peed my pants. (We did wear life jackets.)

I had a blast!  I would do it again. I gave Karen a lot of grief over the next couple of days; contending that her driving abilities were less that optimal, but really, it was so much fun.

I have a pretty long list of fears. Some of them I’m trying to conquer. Some of them are better left alone. The Jet Ski Event was a step forward for me. I’m proud that I didn’t let my fear win out.

But don’t get crazy, here. I’ll never go haunted housing (again). Also, I will never para-sail.

So what fears do you want to conquer? I’ll send my friend Karen right over- she’ll take care of ya!

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine

Night Camping

The lighting of the tikis crew.

Last week I talked about camping with my book club girls. I think the real camping begins at dusk.  A dark night with a full moon gives the camping experience a little more teeth, don’t you think?

Someone's goofing off while on tiki duty.

We were walking back to the shed from the cemetery as dusk was settling in. Tiki torches had been placed around the perimeter of our camp and it was time to get them lit. The tiki torches give me a sense of security that no wild animals will wander into our camp. 

The fire, which had been burning for several hours, was now a bed of red-hot coals- perfect for our foil dinners. Our family calls the meal Hobo Stew. Some call it Hobo Dinner, still other names were bantered about but in the end it’s all the same great meal. A hamburger patty, sliced potatoes, carrots, onion, bacon and asparagus in butter, salt and pepper; all wrapped in foil and baked in the coals.

After we ate and cleaned up, we built up the fire and watched it crackle and burn. It’s that simple. Just relax and watch the fire and wait for the stars to come out.

Our moon.

Just before the moon rose above the trees we heard it. Coyotes howling in the woods. No matter how many times you’ve heard them, the cries of a pack of coyotes are unnerving.  After a few minutes they were silent and we didn’t hear them for the rest of the night.

I brought glow stick bracelets. We put them on our wrists and in our hair and took many group selfies, which pretty much did not turn out but made us laugh anyway.

We’d gotten text messages from our husbands about possible storms overnight. Because we’re such smart and resourceful women and we knew rain was a possibility, the tents were abandoned for the shed and blow up mattresses in the back of trucks with toppers.

We had a late-night snack of bananas and chocolate heated in foil over the fire, then squirted with whipped topping. Oh yum.  Then we decided to try whip topping (squirted straight into our mouth a la Tom Hanks’ character in Big style) with a Fireball chaser. That’ll cure what ails ya!

We may or may not have smoked cigars.

At 1:30 a.m. the rain started. We dashed for our respective sleeping bags and called it a night.

The scariest thing about the whole night was the very strong odor of skunk. A couple of weeks ago my husband and one of his camping buddies had a skunk come into camp. I was afraid of that happening again. I shined my huge flashlight over the perimeter to the woods several times but never caught sight of anything

.

The next day was still rainy. The grill wouldn’t work and the fire was water-logged. We had left over taco dip and Rice Krispy treats for breakfast, instead of the omelets we were planning. We packed up and were heading out when the minivan got stuck.

. 

All in all, the camp out was a huge success.The weather was warm with low humidity. It was a beautiful day and night up until it rained. We got drenched the next day, and we ended up having to get help from the men, but we had a blast at Girls Camp Out.

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine

Girls Camp

In last week's post I talked about some of my book club’s antics and how I was about to host a girls’ only camp out. When planning the camp out, I told the ladies that my husband said he would be willing to camp a couple of acres away from us, if they thought they would feel more comfortable knowing a man was nearby. The answer was a resounding NO! (But thanks anyway.)

Girls just wanna have fun, right? So no men allowed! (One of the 20-something sons of the group also volunteered to be The Man on Sight. He was vetoed too.)

So we were on our own. And we had fun.

Seven of eight.
Maybe we should have brought a selfie stick!

The first thing we did was unpack a shit-load of food and drink. Each of us brought enough for all of us. That’s one thing about this book club; we will never die of hunger or thirst. Embarrassment? Yes. Laughing? Maybe.

After we had everything organized, we mixed a walk-about-drink. Each of us with our favorite. Gin Bucket, Cape Cod, Captain and diet, beer, and wine.  When everyone had a drink and a bottle of water we headed for the woods.

 

Walk and talk!

The funny and cool thing to me was that, even though there were eight of us (and two were girls I invited- new to the group) everyone walked in two’s and three’s and just chatted away.  Every now and then we would stop to look at something, then the groups would re-organize in a different way and the talking would go on. I loved that my two friends were brought into the fold so easily.

Far left in orange shorts. Bags Tourney.

After a nice long walk we went back to the shed (cabin would be too fancy of a word for the building) and had lunch. Pulled pork, pasta salad and Papa’s Pretzels--YUM!

Next on our agenda (there really was NO agenda) was a round of Tournament Bags. Two games and the winners of each of those games played for the championship. Trash talk and cat calls were the prize.

We sat in the shade and talked about the book we’d read the past month, Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets. One of the ladies in our group actually wore orange shorts because the heroine in the story left her blaze orange behind, and it was a near fatal mistake for her.

Shake, shake, shake!

We made camp ice cream. Yep. Cream-based recipe in a sandwich bag inside a gallon bag filled with ice and salt.  We each had a baggie mixture to shake, shake, shake to Pitbull’s and the Ying Yang Twins’ song, Shake. For 10 minutes and frost bit fingers we shaked- um- shook. The ice cream was as good as it was fun to make. Topped with fresh strawberries, uumm, uumm.

Near our camping land is a cemetery. It’s an old, old cemetery. I’ve visited there before so I knew many of the stones dated back to the early 1800’s.  One of the girls said she’d like to visit it. So off we went. Eight jabbering, laughing women suddenly, without preplanning, whispered the whole time we were in the cemetery. We could see by the old markers that in some cases, several members of one family were wiped out in a very short time. We wondered if it was because of illnesses that we so easily treat now with antibiotics. Some of the markers were so worn or covered with dried moss that they were illegible.

As we headed back to our campsite, one of the girls said to me, “You know what? Don’t laugh at me, but I think those people buried there were smiling because we visited them.”

I won’t laugh at you. I can agree with you.

 “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” – Ecclesiastes 12:7

In my next post I will talk about camping after dark…

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself.

~Nadine

Book Club Antics

This month our book club read Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets. It’s the story of a female bow hunter who gets lost in a vast and snowy wilderness while tracking an elk that she hit (with an arrow, of course) while out hunting alone. 

We chose this book because we always like to "theme it up," and we wanted to have a camp out. Usually we choose the book and then the activities fall into place, but this time was just the opposite.We had to do some searching to find a novel about a woman in the wilderness just so that we could have a camp out.

When we meet to discuss the book each month, we have a potluck and a few libations- a celebration of reading, if you will. Typically we try to eat the same food as the characters (this is difficult when reading a book about WWII--- and we’ve read several). Like the time we ate Hershey Bars after reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and only potato based dishes after reading The Martian by Andy Weir. 

Sometimes, and yes I know this is nerdy, but sometimes, we dress like the characters.  After reading Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close- you guessed it- we all wore white dresses to a martini bar. One year we read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, a book about Frank Lloyd Wright’s female love interests, then took a field trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin to visit Wright’s personal home he called Taliesin.

So, off we go. We will hike around the woods, but we won’t get lost. We will climb up into a deer stand, just to get a look around. We’ll make a campfire to sit by. We’ll gab until dark and watch the stars until our eyes get heavy, then we’ll get into our respective tents in our little tent city and sleep to the sound of cricket music.

Until next time,
Be Good to Yourself,
~Nadine