I {Heart} Faces, Ummmmm, I Mean Feet.

I have missed being able to participate in I ♥ Faces Monday challenge.  I was determined to get back in the groove and join in this week.  Wouldn’t you know this is their off week and faces aren’t in focus this week.  The theme this Monday is Barefoot Week.

Well, these feet aren’t totally barefoot, but close.  This is a girl thing, but for some reason, looking at pretty, colorful toenails just makes us smile, especially when it means you are going somewhere fun.

This picture was taken last summer as we were preparing for our Alaskan cruise.  I didn’t get to show them off much, but just knowing they were cozy in socks and tennis shoes was my little secret.

This week’s photo challenge is held in conjunction with a charity called Soles4 Souls.  Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 7 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. Soles4Souls has been featured in Runner’s World, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic’s Green Guide, and The New York Times. It has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, BBC, CNN and thousands of regional news outlets across North America. Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. Anyone can join our cause, and we need your help.

Click on the Soles4Souls button and see how you can help.

So to my fans reader, hope your Memorial Day is good.  Let’s remember what this day is really about.  Thanks to my dad and all those who have given their time, effort, and lives, to keep America going strong.

All writing and photos property of LoneStarLifer 2010.

Alice Cooper Said It Best.

School’s out for the summer
School’s out forever
School’s been blown to pieces

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s
Dirty looks

Well, we got no class
And we got no principals
We ain’t got no intelligence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes

School’s out for the summer
School’s out forever
School’s been blown to pieces

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s
Dirty looks

Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not come
Back at all

School’s out for summer
School’s out forever
School’s been blown to pieces
School’s out completely

Little J has finished 6th grade.  That means no more homework for him.
Or for Mom and Dad.
Thank goodness.

Back with more very soon.  Thanks for hangin’  in with me.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I have been working on getting all of my parents’ slides and old pictures digitized.  More about that in a later post.  While working on the slides, I came across this picture.  I don’t remember seeing this slide, though we often spent Saturday nights looking at slides projected on a wall and I thought I had them all memorized.  I was touched when I saw this picture, as I don’t have many pictures of me and my mom in a sweet moment.    I will be having this picture printed and framed to remind me of a more innocent time in my life.

My mom

My mom is quite a woman.  She attended college and earned a journalism degree.  I’m not going to tell you what years, as a lady never tells her real age.  She moved far away from home, lived in a boarding house that Miss Lily ran, and wrote for a newspaper.  She later moved to the small town where my father was raised to work for the newspaper, dated and happily married my father.   He was soon drafted for Korea and they traveled to California and Camp Roberts.   She could type like crazy and was able to get a job while Dad was in boot camp.  When he went overseas, she came back to Texas.  I was born about a year after he returned home.  Hmmm….

She was the kind of mom that was always there when I was in school.  Every play, music event, piano recital, school assembly, she was there.  We were at church when the doors were open and the Lord was always present in our home.  When I was in high school she went back to work and started putting money away so I could go to the private university I wanted to attend.  She became the first public information director for the town’s brand new junior college.  She held that job for at least 20 years.  Because my mom can write, she’s been active and involved in several organizations over the years, historical associations in particular.  She has written multitudes of  newspaper and newsletter articles about historical houses, events, people.  She was the reporter that called in stories to the two nearest larger towns.  She and my dad were instrumental in getting several historical markers in and around town.  She wrote a very nice book about the history of my hometown and sold all the copies.  She has worked on and contributed to many other books about city/county history.  Even today she is still active with the writing and the historical events.  She recently flew to Houston for a convention and Little J and I got to spend some time with her at the hotel.

Mom

I love how someone wrote "Our Treasure" on this picture

My relationship with my mom has been……well, you know, mother and daughter.  I spent many years being an ungrateful child and not giving her any credit for all she has accomplished.  But, of course, as I am aging and raising an energetic, lively child, I am growing to have more and more appreciation for how she has lived her life.  Over the years she has been there for my family and me time after time after time.  My dad has been gone for 11 years, she has battled serious illness twice, she has faced disappointment and loss, but she is like Timex.  Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

So Mom, Happy Mother’s Day.  I am grateful, appreciative, and honored to be your daughter.  Many many thanks for all you have done and continue to do to make my life better.

Mom and Dad

P.S.  Are you interested in getting your pictures, slides, home movies digitized?  I have used ScanDigital for those services and am very happy with their work and customer service.  (All the pictures in today’s post came from ScanDigital.)  I first found them through Groupon.  If you haven’t started using Groupon, you should!  Go here and sign up.  They send you an email each weekday (sometimes on Saturday) that offers you great deals.  Sometimes the offer is for something in a specific city, and sometime, like ScanDigital, it is for services that can be used anywhere.  Even if you don’t live in a city where Groupon is offered, sign up for a city near you.  You will still be able to use the Groupons that can be redeemed online.  If you decide you want to use ScanDigital, I am pleased to offer a coupon for $20 off $100 of service.  The coupon code is: Rf448378.  {End of commercial}

All photos and writing property of LoneStarLifer. 2010.

M.I.A. But for a Good Reason.

I had been trying to be more consistent with my blog writing…but have been absent the past two weeks.  Snail Mail Notes is on a growing spurt and I have been out traveling/taking pictures and  furiously designing Texas-themed product for an upcoming opportunity.  So until I can get back to writing words, here is some of what I’ve been up to.  And these new items will be on the Snail Mail Notes website soon, so YOU can buy some!

New Notecards and Postcards:

New Enclosure/Gift Card:

More to come.  Check back in later.  For now, I’m off to finish up designing.  Today is really the last day I can submit designs to the printer and get them back in time for the show.