IT'S BEEN 40 YEARS!


Since I graduated from high school!


I remember my graduation day celebration just like it was yesterday...



No..........not really


But I do have a few moments:

-50.00 [guess-tament] bride's maid dress [worn the year before paid for by parents], that I made, designed a wrap from left over material and [I] bought long gloves. I made the flowers for my hair. Parents paid for the hair-do. All the accessories were from the wedding. So maybe 100.00 was spent to cover both occasions. When PoD graduated dresses were going from 300.00 to LOTS more!

- I was from a large school so there was no classroom pictures and I really didn't know too many of the kids that were in my grade. I started with a new school in grade 10 so it was hard fitting in. The diploma event was held in the school's gym....my parents never showed up. They never did take a picture of my BIG DAY and they only one who did was my escort's parents....they made a big fuss
Man was I ever skinny back then....yet I always felt like I was too fat?


The gala event was at a fancy hotel, it was a super and dance. My escort paid for the ticket or otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go. My close friends had planned to drive out to this beach and have our own private party, so we skipped the dance. I had permission to stay out all night so it was supposed to be the most exciting night of my life!


That was the night I had decided that I was going to learn how to drive!



No, I didn't get drunk and drive around crazy like...



I sat watching all of my friends get TOTALLY S___FACED and PASS OUT!


There I sat tending the fire all alone, nursing beer after beer, yet never got drunk...

Trying to stay warm....

Mosquitoes eating me alive every time I had to take a "bush" break...

Monsters and wild animals in the dark threatening me when I did...

All I could think of is how I could get back home without hitch hiking...that was too scary even way back then!


As for the gifts, partying with relatives and friends...nothing.


This was my first BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT and our family's only graduate that actually finished school and GRADUATED when they were supposed to!


;(


I made sure that both my kids got what I didn't when they graduated...with in reason of course...;)


Full filling the wishes on this day is very important to me and I like seeing the glow of happiness from the grads faces when they enter their special world...



IT IS WORTH ALL OF MY WHINING!




P.S.

Here's what my dress would look like today...
Wish the face was as wrinkle/sag free as well...


;)

WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO....?

June 12...

The Oilmen"s Association finally got their act together and dumped a huge sign order that had to be completed by the eighteenth, for their annual golf tournament.

I love the order! Just hate the haste in which they had to be done!
Will be making sure that I give it to them at the last minute...



Grad decor set up is 12 days away!

-4 wrought iron trelises need to be painted black [which makes me sick every time I try]
-4 pillars still need to be put together/painted/ribbon
-5 lamps need to be assembled with lights/ivy/ribbon
-5 pole lamps need lights/ivy/ribbon
-2 candelabras need to be polished

All to be done by just me....?

Why just by me...?

All of the decor is being kept by me and I will be renting them out for other functions. It's a new sideline that I hope to be able to continue with, that will involve designing/building decor for special events.

PoD's slaved over the massive work load helping to keep the business end going while I struggled to accomplish my "Super QoH" endeavors. She managed to squeeze in the wrought iron painting which involved them having to be done outside, yet be protected from our crazy weather. Happily her dad loaned the use of his car port and he lived right across the street from her so she could go home during drying times.

THANK YOU POD for painting those trelises!



June 18....8:30 am we are to meet with the Saskatchewan Ghost Hunters Society that did a paranormal research of our courthouse awhile back and watch their reveal on what transpired during their last session.

Our first mission that morning was to drop off the sign order at the golf course.

We got to visit a bit with the girls that work at the town office in the courthouse while we waited for SGHS to arrive. They were all excited to see what was going to be revealed and jokes were made about moving the town office to another building if it was haunted...;)

The reveal turned out to have special FX added?

By the time the two from SGHS showed up, the weather had started to turn quite ugly!

As we watched/listened to the reveal, the silent moments were filled with crashes of thunder and lightning!

One huge crash caused the phones to go dead on my side of town! Seems lightning hit one of their stations!

SGHS showed us more evidence of things that go "bump in the night" in the courthouse!

You must visit their site [link on side bar] and see what's happening there. Hope they have it on soon. It's hard with all of the footage that they have to go through, have a job, family, etc.

Revealed...

-Chad [investigator] is at the vault door [basement] and as he stood there, he felt something touch him and he said so on the film. The film shows a dark shape [the width of an arm] come out from the vault and connect with him!


-A ball sitting on the basement floor between the two vault doors. Suddenly you see this small shape appear next to it and the shape of it makes it look like something wants to kick it?


-A strange light the goes of and on in the old ladies jail cell [basement] and is caught on two different camera so they corroberate each other.


-In the courtroom a strange light [orb] is recorded coming from the window area, cross over to a big armchair, curve around, head back towards the camera and do a 90 degree turn and heads under the tables across from the window from where it came!


-The infra red light that was positioned in the back lawyer office, to light the area for the camera stationed down the hallway from it to take pictures of anything crossing the doorway, kept going off and on! It was plugged into the electricity, so nothing could drain any batteries! All of the wiring in the courthouse has been checked, so it's not faulty wiring!

-EVP's [electronic voice phenominon]:
-"Get out you f__king kids"...this was during one of our noisy sessions
-"Thank You"
-"I'll try"

During all of this reveal one of the new workers voices some concern on whether she should be worried or not and we assured her that all we have found so far has been nothing but good and NO evil!

All were pleased with the results and will go great towards our Centennial Celebration in 2011!


SGHS are also going to be coming back to our town [July 4th] to record anything that might be in the other historical building here, the old bank building which is now houses library. They will be able to record the whole building as the upper floor tenants will be moved out by then. There has been a few stories on chairs being moved from where they were placed and feelings of being watched...so hopefully we find something of substance.


After that enjoyable time it was back to grad.....

June 25....12:45 pm

The boys arrive with 2 trucks to pick up their Grad Decor and the day begins....

Set-up was "speed-set-up" in the heat!

Someone had the heat on?

Happy someone came to turn it off!


Grade 12 Graduates and their parents...

It was like.......HERDING CATS!

What more can I say!

As usual it got done! 4 hours later!

I was happy to see that they did have some talented people there besides me and PoD so they did manage to do the head table area themselves...I just provided the materials.

The final results....

The "Grand Entrance"....
The "Tables"...


The final project looked like...

I got tons of compliments and LOTS of offers in the future for other grads & weddings...


FUTURE....?

June 26......up at 3:30 am...can't sleep need to get more designing work done...


9:00 am til 2:00 pm

We prepared and installed this...
Did more designing work......


Fell asleep 3:30.....

5:30 pm...slept in planned to be ther at 5:00, quickly rush to hall to plug in all of the lights and make sure all was well....people already filing in!

9:30 pm I get to the hall early for grad take-down, expecting to have sometime for more photos, seeing as the crew wasn't going to be there until 10:30. Only to be met by people leaving!

There is always this big deal about a dance after the grand march only it never happens! The grads just want to go have their party and get smashed!

I hate speed take downs!

Between the torrents of rain/mosquitoes, 3 men and me, we got all of my decor back into my place.

Happy Grad 2009 is DONE!....:)

WEEKEND GARAGE SALES

It was scorching hot out this weekend!

There were two sales in two days...a wild weekend for me...;)

Saturday found me driving around the small town north east of us [20 min drive] looking for their sales. Amazingly there were 8 places to go. Alas there really wasn't anything for the wedding/grad decor that I could use. I did find 2 cute dragons for the goth wedding.

For my Xmas collections, I found a large Santa [same size as my big fancy santa which was over 200.00] for only 2.00 still in its original box! Other than that my only other buy of interest was 2 metal Egyptian vases for PoD. I did find lots of little things to add to my other necessities and there was even some goodies that I brought home for BillyRoo.

In all I spent around 25.00.

I had spent my morning trying to paint the wrought iron from this old ugly green gazebo [bought in a garage sale], black. Well this paint is making me sick! It is an oil base so it stinks, that's why I have it outside. Between the early morning heat, the rapid eye movement [using roller & brush] and the smell...ended with me throwing up! No warning, nothing! Happily it was just dry heaves...but bad enough to make me quit!

A little rest, some food and I was back to normal...?;)


So Sunday morning found me trying to paint again!

This time I was a little smarter. I had tried to paint the wrought iron while it was standing when I should have laid it down. It worked much better and I was able to paint one more corner before the sun decided to do it`s thing to me! Again I had to go in and lay down.

Sunday`s garage sale was in another town south east of us another 20 min. This one had just as many sales but nothing of interest to me. Lots of baked goodies so BillyRoo as got his sugar fix and something for AJ but boy stuff for JD wasn`t to be found! I got something for Trebor so he should be happy...

In all I may have spent 35.00 (40.00 in gas) this weekend and did enjoy the driving around. I even enjoyed talking with all of those who participated in these sales, which aside from work I never get out to see that many people.

The downside...I think I got too much sun!

No sunburn...I was prepared for that!

I feel like I have a touch sun stroke as my first waking thought this morning was to go throw up!

I`m writing this in my well moments but do feel the need to go lay down again!







I just have one more thing to do before I do.....

Hopefully you are feeling more like your OLD self SOON!

HAVE A GREAT DAY WILMA!

WHERE'S THE FIRE?


DODGE'S NEW FIRE & RESCUE TRUCK!

Isn't this a pretty cool looking fire truck!
To all you big city people it may mean nothing and you probably see them everyday but this is a big thing for a small town to be able to afford to do. Thank you to contributors!

This is what one of the old ones look like...

It's taken awhile but they finally got the new one and we get to do the lettering on it & a new logo!

You should have seen the gawkers drive slowly by to see what was going on at my place, while I was busy taking pics & measurements...;) hard to tell we don't get much excitement!



Hope we never have the need to use it!

AH...GRAD!

Well it's nearing that time again.... THE GRAD DECORATING FIASCO!

This year has been no different than all of the others!

You'd think that there being only 14 graduating, with 5 of them being girls, that things would have gone smoother?

NOPE!

From the beginning those 5 girls could not come up with ideas that they ALL could decide on, besides the most impossible [even for me] ones! I blame the girls because the guys were smart and bowed out early.

Grad's inspiration this year: "Every Mile A Memory" and usually the decor follows the theme except this one. They wanted a ballroom, pillars, a hanging chandelier with candelabras on every table. The tables were also to have cloth tablecloths instead of the usual paper or plastic. Knowing their budget it will be plastic...;)

I've been through this tirade before so I'll not bore you with the details...the woman in charge finally TOOK charge and all the decisions are now hers!

FINALLY!

The girls are going to get what they get...

Not to worry I KNOW THEY WILL LIKE IT!

I'M GOOD AT WHAT I DO...




Enough ego boosting...


Time to go make that impossible dream come true...


Stay tuned for pics just as soon as I figure out why I can't again?

I DID MY BEST!

It's Saturday...8:45 am

All that build-up for our town wide garage sales turned out to be mildly disappointing for me!

The "land of loose" managed to scrape up 33 places to go to...ours was a dismal 16! I kept telling myself that it was better than the 3 last weekend...;)

But we are larger than them! Our businesses weren't advertised as participating, but they sure got to profit from the increased customer traffic! The odd thing was, they normally do? I thought it bad that they had more sales inside that day than normal!

They didn't get any of my money!

The morning turned out to be ARCTIC COLD! I would even include a wind chill factor! There were times that I wished I'd brought mini mitts with me! I felt sorry for the sellers who had to brave the cold [it stayed cold too] until 4:00!

Our only "treat/baking sellers", that I saw, was this child around the age of 6 or 7. He sat there shivering, trying to sell his cookies and iced tea. Not one to pass up any sugar on these ventures [excitement/over exercising makes mine go low] I bought 10...2 FOR ME and two each for PoD's family [who happened to be there at the same time]. It was too cold for the iced tea! There wasn't any baking like cakes/squares any such either? My son, BillyRoo, likes these as his treats...so nothing for him. The cookies weren't that great.

PoD's day [we crossed paths fairly often] went from smiles to..."do you want to take my husband with you...he's like you", kind of day! She said that the next time she goes, it's by herself! The kids are like him/me too...:)

BUT, I KNOW WHAT SHE MEANS!

I had fun doing it alone, but it would have been nice to go with someone who understood the nature of the "garage sale beast" and had it in them also...like my sis "Buttons" did. I did find two small "Halloweenie Beanie" collectibles; a black "Fraidy" [me], me & an orange "Scard-e" [her] cats that sat on the dash as I did my journey...I know...I'm crazy...


I did find some real steals and deals!
The majority sales this time were ones that WANTED to get rid of their stuff AT ANY PRICE!

[I've been trying to add pics and can't...?]

I was able to pick-up a cut-off saw, belt sander and small hand router for 19.00...these went to Trebor. I paid 2.00 for a rolling cart that guys use while working under vehicles & 50 cents for a small dolly for the business. I tried to find sewing stuff and materials for AJ [12, she's taking up sewing and wants to design clothes] because she got a sewing machine for her birthday. Found some doll/toy patterns for her to practice on. There wasn't much for boys so JD missed out again. PoD got some exercise stuff [joke] for her "gym" collection...;)

As for stuff for grad & wedding.....10 cents for a large plastic blood-red vase.

One real find [for me] were the 12 glasses [prairiegold box for 2.00] to add to my "blood red" glass set! These will house my LED tealights for the head table decor in the "goth" wedding.

Added to my Santa, Snowman, Masks & Halloween collectibles...5.00

I even bought a cute [used once] 40.00 purse for 2.00!

All this and a few odds & ends for under 40.00!


The wierd thing on the day was PoD's and my timing on our meet-ups?

I was sitting in my [son's] vehicle getting ready to pull out to start the day... to go get the map. She pulls up beside me and we both head for the map start point. We then went our seperate ways.

She drove away I stayed for the three booths that were right there. I had already cased the others out and felt this was the better deal. Turned out I was right!

We met up again at the cookie place in time for them to get cookies.

We didn't meet again until my last stop which also turned out to be theirs!

11:30 am...done?

The start point was selling coffee, hamburgers, hot dogs & pop so we had lunch in the cold!

Boy was I happy to get home and after putting the stuff away [sort of] I tried to find some heat!

Spent the rest of the day trying!

My plans had me needing to paint the metal on my archway, black, [it's an ugly green right now] today! That was out of the question....to frigging cold for it to dry outside and I've no room in to paint it, plus it's oil based & smelly! I could have strung vines on lights for my poles...too cold in garage...too hard to work with coat on! No room inside!

Took the rest of the day off and huddled under a blanket in front of the electric heater!

I did enjoy the garage sales and seeing the people...


Maybe next year's will be better...?

A GSALE-ING I WILL GO!

It's our Town-Wide Garage Sale today!

This time I'm going by myself!

Not that I didn't like going with GSBuddy...she's got company today and it's family related.

PoD doesn't like my demands on driving/parking/hurrying.....


BESIDES... I JUST LIKE MY OWN COMPANY SOMETIMES!


Will be leaving shortly [7:00am] to drive around and scope out my plan of action....


STAY TUNED FOR THE TREASURES....

INTO THE UNKNOWN ONCE AGAIN!

It's finally Saturday [pretend] and it's time to do what I love to do for fun!

?

My quote:

Some get off on riding roller coasters...
That scares the crap out of me!

I get off on the thrill of the unknown...
All that goes bump in the night!


Early Saturday morning saw me doing more building on grad/wedding decor.
The problem of the moment was the archway...something that would suit both functions. Both need one for entrance and one for photo op. Happily I came up with solution to both!


Next thing I knew it was Garage sailing time! 3 places! Not bad for a small town! Got lots more NEEDED stuff [spent 4.00 on my project & 16.00 on PoD's family].....:)


Moving around helped with the aches & pains [be happy you didn't have to put up with all my crabbing like I had to] and made me tired enough to take a nap...needed to be ready for the long night/morning ahead!

Nap turned out to be sporadic because the PHONE kept ringing!





Next thoughts were of excitement.....is it time yet?

Got all of my supplies/equipment [camera]/snacks, ready for the night's adventure by the time PoD arrived to pick me up at 3:00. We spent the next hour pumping up ourselves for the evenings events by watching the videos taken by the kids last weekend. They both did really good with their filming...better than I would have done!


Our group for this weekend is the Saskatchewan Ghost Hunters Society out of Saskatoon [http:/www.saskghost-hunterssociety.ca]. They were here April 17 and are coming back to accumulate more data and clear up some questionable sounds from the last time.


Not being able to wait any longer we decided to wait at the courthouse and maybe get the "feel" of it before they arrived.

I didn't feel apprehension like I normally do when entering this time.

I did feel like it was waiting and the being "watched" feeling was still present.

PoD & I did some clearing of space in the "Council Chambers" where the command post was to be set up and removed most of the huge chairs to the front foyer. Before we knew it, they had arrived!

It was great seeing the familiar faces of: Miles, founder/lead investigator, Jen, pr/research/investigator, Chad, investigator/research, Yancy, investigator/researcher.

PoD and I got our first look at the process that involves setting up to record our court house "Phantoms"....

First, the unloading of equipment...more stairs...;[

Next, was discussion on where to set up which involved MORE stairs...

Leaving that with PoD [she's our techie], I thought I'd conduct a little experiment on my own, with this rubber ball that they had brought with them.



The foyer in front of the main staircase seemed to be a great place to place it, hopefully out of the way of any traffic. I made sure that there wasn't any dirt around the ball that might impede it's ability to move freely, placed it with the logo facing upward. Satisfied that the ball wasn't going to roll on it's own [the floor slopes gentle downward towards the entrance] I cautiously stepped back far enough to take a shot to record the position of the ball/logo with the background. That's when I realized that the camera setting was on "movie" and was filming it. What I had wanted was to take still shots...

While I was mucking with the camera trying to change the settings...


two feet in front of me...


The ball gently rolled towards the entrance way for a foot & half, curved and continued rolling for about 6 inches, then stopped!


I SAW THIS WITH MY OWN EYES!!!!

You can't imagine how excited I was at that moment!

Short of jumping up and down I managed to remember to take more shots in case it moved again!


I've tried to recreate in drawing form to show what happened from the 2 photos I was able to take...


I have the short movie clip that shows the ball being still and not tottering, plus the 2 after. Note the background for placement and positioning of it. There is no way I could have reposition the ball and got the same placement/level...etc. if I was to do the moving myself!


I WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED....where was the movie camera when it happened? Oh yeah...I could have got it on movie myself if I'd only left the settings alone.....


Of course I had to tell someone...


No one around to tell....

All are busy...


I finally got a hold of PoD, then Miles, who immediately had to see whether it was de-bunkable or not....? Far as I'm concerned the shots prove it and my eyes agree...


After that wee bit of excitement [for me] we got down to equipment placement.

Here's some of the places:

The third shot in the photo above was the best out of three take of this set-up. Every shot was dark yet all others in the other places were brighter? The flash on the camera wouldn't work either while in there yet worked for other rooms?

I pushed the button just like the other times...


Jen set up a motion detector against this courtroom door just inside of the creepy hallway that Judge Orr said sounded like someone/thing was walking up & down it, when he was locked in overnight that one time.

Good thing from the looks of this photo that I wasn't too close to it or I would have set it off...;)


My quality of shots are usually better than the ones taken that night and after awhile I stopped taking them so there won't be many. I had to change cameras often, one would stopped working only to have to switch back when that one it would quit...?



Jan, PoD and I took some of the "toys" the group had brought and placed them in various locations throughout the courtroom for the phantoms to play with and be recorded on different devices. It takes LOTS of energy building to do this and hopefully their Electromagnetic field meters will record any spikes in their areas? See their site on the tech terms...;)

Pictured is:
-the ball...hopefully something will try to move it again!
-a bell that can be moved or maybe rang...there's even dust to write in..;)
-corn starch with a "loonie"/two other small objects [can't remember] in it and will mark movement or maybe spirit writing?
-a LED candle for them to turn on.

The guys put a stuffed rabbit on a chair in front of the camera in the vault in the basement and the ball sat just outside of it on the floor.

Visually we never got to see anything move and no one mentioned hearing anything either from these objects...that doesn't mean to say that nothing was recorded.

While we were doing this we stopped by the "witness room" to take shots of the "Hanbidge" display of his lawyer's office. I found a pipe/tobacco pouch lying beside a metal ashtray stand. the ash bowl was missing and was found to be lying under an easel. It looked like someone/thing had hit the pouch or pipe, knocking it to the floor at the base of the stand and the bowl part rolled under the easel 3 feet away. This could have happened at any time so we set it back up to see if it had been a ghostly act then or maybe it might happen again?

It didn't...


It seems these guys have read my blog [welcome] and now bug Miles about my "Rack Russell Terrier" traits and did note my apprehensions about being back after my last weekend's experience. They gave me a laminated card that read about an invocation of Arch Angel Michael. This is to the read/spoken before entering into our type of ventures. I'm not religious [this is not meant to be] but I figured I'd cover all bases anyways just to NOT repeat that experience again!

Invoking the Arch Angel Michael

Michael to the right of me,
Michael to the left of me,
Michael above me,
Michael below me,
Michael within me,
Michael, with your flaming sword of cobalt blue,
Please protect me.

I put it next to my heart...

I can happily say I wasn't bothered at all that night/morn by any weird thoughts/feelings. Granted I didn't ask for them to either!

Did it help?



PoD and I received this real nice surprise...
We are both now official "Associate Members"!

How cool is that!

THANKS GUYS/GALS!


We are truly honored!



PoD was in her glory as she wasn't the only smoker and we got to have lots of breaks during the night/morning...;) This is the ONLY time that I'm happy she does...just kidding It gives us much needed excuse to get out for awhile, plus FRESH air!

While they were busy doing their thing I went around taking shots of our wonderful place while it was still light out...

This one is kind of cool with the half moon in it...
We were also waiting for Mike [?], the guy from CTV News out of Saskatoon, to come!
The station was doing a news bit on the group and on it's recording of the courthouse!

He did eventually get there [9:00ish] and we still had some daylight left for him to film the outside.

All decided to go on the tour except for me...NO more excessive stairs if I could help it! Besides, I liked watching the action through the camera's eye. They had six split screens to view at once...which can make you go bug-eyed after awhile.

I hate being on camera!

Guess what?

I had to do an interview on why I like doing this!Need I say More!

Did I mention that I freeze when in the spot light!

I'm sure I'm going to come off like a startled deer in vehicle headlights!


THAT over with and the news guy gone, we got down to the night's events...

We all had missions to do, which was one on the more tech end of the scale. I was happy with that fact...I didn't want to use my "sensors" after last time. This is the nice fact about the difference ways that these groups use to do their research... me, I'm a watcher/listener and like to observe.

I'm recording also...them! We are compiling a history of the building's phenomenon and on who are doing it. This will go the the museum also when done.



Of the few pic we got, PoD got some of the better shots...

Here's Chad, multi tasking and Yancy going bug eyed watching all of the cameras...


The ONLY ORB taken all night between the both of us was this one by PoD...


Has anyone noticed that there is no ORBS or DUST MOTES in ANY SHOTS taken by us...

?

In all, it was a quiet night [while we were there] and no visual stuff except my episode with the ball.


PoD and I decided to call it quits at 3:30 am.


The others were going to sleep in different locations throughout the building?


Where they nuts!


Jen was going to sleep in the basement next to the vault doors...!



NOT THIS CHICK!



I had no trouble in falling asleep where I lived!



And boy did I sleep!


My intention was to get up early [I slept in and didn't get up until 9:30] and go see and TRY to help take down...not to mention curious to see how it all went?

They were already gone!


Later that day, PoD and I went back to make sure all was okay [had no reason to think otherwise] and found a thank you note from them. They had been to excited to sleep and wanted to get back quickly to see their results...this was at 5:15 am.

All was quite in the building once again and I swear it was smiling as we left...;)



P.S. Update...

Received a phone call the other night from Jen on whether I had seen the news broad cast or not. Sadly we can't, as neither of us have TV channels. It seems their story was aired in Regina & Saskatoon on the 3rd and it was the 3rd story [?]. Happily nobody mentioned my headlight stare...;) [PoD's neighbors kids came over to see their neighbourhood celebrity after seeing it]. Jen also said that they had gotten LOTS of stuff on what they had gone through so far and it was only 2 hours of it! Can hardly wait for their reveal some time soon! Keep track of their progress on their site...



Well thanks for sitting through this epic tale [I tell no short stories] and hope I have made some of you skeptics into believers....