TEXAS HEAT

After a week trip to visit my Mom in New Braunfels, TX, I have a new appreciation for the "cool" of the upper Midwest as Minnesota is called.

I departed the day after a big snow storm and chose to take mostly long sleeved shirts and jeans with me. Big Mistake #1! I had known I would not need a jacket most likely but didn't think I would be hot in my shirts and jeans. It was 80+ for several days, I became over heated when the temp was 87 on Weds, and I was sweating up a storm while we were grocery shopping. I caught a cold and was pretty much confined to quarters my last two days there with sneezing, coughing, and nose blowing my companions 24-7. Mom made sure I ate and I made sure I drank lots of water.

During the time there, the wind blew a lot and the air was dusty and everything was dry. They are 18 months dry and everyone is worried Texas is the next dust bowl or desert. It was not a very pleasant experience. But I have never claimed to be a lover of dry, hot weather. It saps all my strength and makes it hard to breath.

So I will keep my appreciation of the colder, wetter, snowy days of winter "up north" and look forward to our almost totally perfect spring, summer, and fall weather! But you do have to watch out for the occasional state bird now and then! They grow them big in Minnesota when the conditions are right.

The pictures are of a craft item I made for Beth from a tin DVD case. The upper picture is of the front and the flower and the sentiment are raised on foam pop dots. The inside is in two layers to create a pocket for the bookmark and the pad of paper has a matching cover on the top and the pen has matching paper inserted to coordinate with the card stock This particular card stock had the greens and blues with all the circles and swirls on one side and the orange on the back which made it easy to use for this project. There is lots of Stickles glitter glue in almost every small dot or circle but it doesn't show much. I will show you others at another time. I have made 7 so far, 5 of them for gifts and all are very unique and different from each other. Let me know what you think they might be worth if I should make them to sell. They make an attractive message center by the phone, or on a desk.