Friday Frapp

76 F was the temperature in Dallas as I left work today. Yep. I decided the weather was warm enough to take a spin thru Starbucks. I just had to purchase my first Mocha Frappucino in 2012. Yep. I certainly did.

The temperature told me it was warm enough for to deserve such a treat.

A chum of mine and I discovered we visit Starbucks at different times of the year. She is more of a 'go when it's chilly outside', for her warm caffeine fix. While I am a 'go pretty much every day that's over 75 degrees' to get my cold beverage treat.

I realize I don't visit Starbucks for their hot beverages. I think because the coffees are too strong for my taste. If anyone has a Starbucks hot cup o coffee they like, please do tell. Otherwise, I will wait for the next unseasonably warm Dallas winter day.

Something bout the whipped cream on my Frappucino makes me smile....

Terra Cotta Pots Made Saturday Perfect

Last night I stayed up later than I planned to finish the 20 terra cotta pots for the writers' conference I volunteer for. I was proud of myself as I got the hang to print on tissue paper. I realize tissue paper will be my paper of choice. The quote along with the actual logo for the conference printed out better than I planned.

This morning at the conference, we put a pot on each of the 20 tables set up. The founder of the writers' conference even told the audience I made them. I saw people pick my 4 inch decorated terra cotta pots and inspect it. Each pot had a piece of colored tissue paper inside of it. I liked the look. Did I take a picture? Uh...well...no.

At the end of the conference, during a reception for key note speaker, I notice one of the attendees has a pot. I thought that odd, since the reception was in a different room than my pots had been in. I wound up giving a pot to the keynote speaker and thought that was the end of it. I just figured we'd go back to the original room, get our stuff, pack up the remaining 18 pots and go. I wondered what the conference founder would do with the left overs. Back in the original room, I noticed the tables were bare. I thought the other volunteers had just packed up the room.

Wrong.

The conference founder announces to me, the attendees just snapped up the pots. Huh? Another volunteer concurred. I'd left that room and headed to the reception locale, before the founder finished her wrap up. Evidently folks wanted the pots as a give-away. So those 18 pots got gave. I was told some folks took 2 or 3 pots.

Really? I admit I looked at the pots, as they sat on the table, thinking I really need to touch that one up. In fact I had a brush and blue paint in purse! I'm still in disbelief. People liked my pots!!

I did realize new logistics in the making of pot--- yet that's for another post. Right now, my feet hurt, the Mocha Frappucino melts and the cat stares me as I type this.

My pots. People liked them. The day was good as it was, yet that little part made it purt near perfect!

Sunday Short

Sun shines here in Dallas as I ready myself for church, Feels good to get up and go.

Last week, back in Iowa and caught a few minutes of my church, the Inspiring Body of Christ service, with Pastor Rickie Rush online. I pointed out to my chum Deb, the seat I call 'mine'.

Deb asks, "Do you have assign seats?"

Time zipped by so last week. I do miss Iowa to a degree--I honestly do.

As I sit here, already thinking of the Starbucks Cafe Vanilla Grande Frappucino I'll treat myself to later and the several malls, Wal-marts, and Targets in my radius, the 3 grocery stores within 5 minuts of me, with 2 across the street from each other and one of those with a Starbucks IN it! I wonder if I could really adjust to small town living again...

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, gots to go get my Praise on!

He didn't bring me this far to leave me...

Wrap Frap

The furry, yet orangy kitty posted here in my Perry. He's also the kitty in this blog's banner. Together we've been almost 9 years and he'll turn 9 years old on the 4th of July. Firecracker, Perry is, who so loves the remants of my Starbucks Cafe Vanilla Frappucino--just a teeny taste of whipped cream I let him have. At times, I see age creep in him, (just like me) yet Perry purrs, demands my attention and plays with a cat nip laced toy like he's about a 9 month old kitten. Yep, he's my Perry One.

Ya know, I was actually gonna write about the day and thoughts of stuff, like I'd love to have the BP Oil people take a dive in their own oil.

Alas, I digress.

I'll cut it here instead. Perry remains on this desk. Purrs. We've been thru a lot. Perry gave me ringworm when we first met. Ran to me, meows all the way, the first time he saw me after my 3 week hospital stay in 2006, and now. I rub his chin and he nips my hand.

Yep. It's a wrap for today. Gotta go cat cuddle.

I am blessed.

Labor Day 2008 Nears its End...

Looks like Hurricane Gustav has left New Orleans somewhat. Some of those towns, like Houma, I'd been to. Granted it was 1981, yet I'd been there. Ventured to New Orleans with a boyfriend at the time. His maternal family lived in a small town called, Donaldsonville. We drove all night, from Des Moines. For some reason, we didn't take enough money to stay in a motel on the way there.

Looking back, I couldn't stand that boyfriend. In fact, I read my 1981 diary, which reminded how we went to the movies the night before the drive. Yet when he dropped me off, he announced he was going to see this woman he'd been seeing and sleeping with. Just to say good-bye he said. We got into such a row, and I was concerned we wouldn't make the trip the next day. Naw--I was more upset what people would think. So I blubbered to him how much I loved him. Yea. OK...did I tell you this guy tried to cook with vodka, eventho the recipe called for wine? That WAS 1981.

We wound up doing the trip. I met his aunt and uncle, who lived in Houma. Sweet, sweet folk. His uncle announced, if I didn't eat the catfish he was about to fry up, I wouldn't get anything at all. His aunt just smiled. And we all enjoyed each other. The catfish was great, and those people were the best part of the trip. They opened their home to me. We traveled to Louisiana the next year too and our relationship was more fractured. We didn't speak in the car for the first seven hours.

The only reason we did was I had the gas card and we were purt near on "E". That trip was also the time we had a flat tire on I-55, outside of Cape Giradeau, MO. Should have gone home then. But nope, we stayed in a motel, to cool off from the disastrous start of the trip. I should've slipped out the room and hopped a Greyhound back to Des Moines. We fought in the motel room. I recall he said I was crazy to think we were going to go out and find something to eat. Then he thought I was crazier I had a pizza delivered and wondered how it was going to be paid for. At first he refused to eat any, until his stomach churns won out and he said, "It's your money."

That trip second trip to Houma was worth all the headache from him, because his aunt passed away just a few months after out visit, from cancer. She was really the only reason I even agreed to go on that second trip. To see her. Their house wasn't a lively as the year before. Sweet, sweet folk.

So on this Labor Day, as I labored to finish a rough draft of a short story, pet some cats, sipped a grande Mocha Frap, enjoyed my destined to be de-cluttered home and Thanked God, I thought of the folks in the path of Gustav. Prayed the harm would not be a horrid as originally thought.

Labor Day usually signals the end of summer. Tell that to those that left homes for higher ground. For them the day nears its end not soon enough.