Does Nanny Need to Get a Life?

I have been in Michael's repeatedly trying to describe the letter stamps that I needed to make these stepping stones for my garden/yard. I wanted to have each grand child's foot print put into the middle, with their name and birth date, maybe ( need to think of ID theft, etc. doggone it), and let them decorate them.

Aren't I clever? NOT! My little buddy, Danette, helped us make these up at girl's camp the year we got evacuated for the Aspen Wildfire. I loved them but took several years to ask if I could borrow the stamps. By that time, she had taken them up to Utah and used them with her family . . . nerve! Anyway, last week she told me where she had found them, Michael's.

Mariah and I were pricing stuff there and just stumbled on to them! I am so excited to find them and get to work on the stones. I am going to be a little ornery and not let their parents help them with the trimmings, I want them just the way the kids want them. When we are done, they can make them for their own homes and parents can have a little control if they want!

So, my questions is, if I get this excited about this, "Do I need to get a life?" Naw, I have a pretty good one, even after shopping all day with Garrett, Mariah, Garrett, Lincoln, and Garrett. No, there wasn't more than one Garrett. It just seemed like it after listening to the little guy WHINE all day! He is darling, but his whine . . . . cheese wouldn't help it go down!!

A LITTLE SIDE NOTE . . . . If you want to make these, don't buy the over priced forms, Danette just used the clear trays that you put under plants and they made a couple of hundred using just a handful of those trays. I will have to find out where she found so many cute little doo-dads.

LITTLE SIDE STORY - - - Now don't anyone snitch on me! When we were evacuated, we had to grab the girl's clothes in a back pack, any RX they might have with them and their scriptures, NOTHING ELSE! No one could come up to help haul girls down, so we shoe-horned them into the vehicles we had and drove very carefully down. I had two girls in my passenger bucket seat and five in the back bench seat of a crew cab. I had to judge the width of the girls' hips so that we could put two girls in each seat belt. In just over an hour an half, we had just over three hundred women and girls out of there . . let's see men do that! The brethren couldn't believe it, they have seen those girls and how the value their "stuff". This picture is after we came done. For days this is all we could see of the mountain.

A few days after we came down to the valley, Jon was at the command center for the fire, talking to someone with clout. He told them that all the food had been left up at the camp with no power and there was concern about the toxic mess that might develop if left there too long. It had all been put into closed picnic coolers, the walk-in coolers and freezers. The hope was that the fire would be contained quickly and we could go back up before it got too rotten. It wasn't.

He got permission for three pickups, no more, could leave the bottom of the mountain two hours after he talked to them, have one hour at the camp and report back at the bottom of the mountain at a designated time. If we were late to leave, the deal was off. If we were late getting back down, they would come looking and be in BIG trouble . . . and Jon would be in hot water. So, I had to make quick calls to people who I knew could be trusted to not try to go sight seeing, etc. and would not try to stretch out the time at the camp. These fires are very dangerous and if people are where they don't belong, it can cost lives trying to find the ding-a-lings.

Up we went with lots of black bags and rubber gloves, for protection in case there was rot already. We loaded bags went through everything like lightening. In case you are wondering, we should all eat aw well as those girls do at camp! Shee! Not one package of

bologna for sandwiches, more like deli cuts! I had to laugh because I have heard the stories when those girls come home ;-). BTW, one more day and it would have been awful! We did find lots of ripe food get pretty icky.

When it was all loaded and tied down, we had five minutes, so I ran over to where the stepping stones were left drying and grabbed all I could . . . . When we got down into the valley, I hightailed it to the dump. It was Saturday afternoon and I did NOT want that sitting next to my driveway until Monday morning! Made it with 5 minutes to spare, they didn't want to let me in, so I plead desperate and told them what I had and they let me in. Whew!

I don't know if I ever admitted it to Jon . . . should I? Hm-m-m-m-m, if he reads this, I will probably get the "eye-brow". Oh well, he's stuck and after 31 years, I've become a bad habit that is impossible to break . . . in other words, in spite of myself, he loves me!