Kris and Cokie

I got to see Kris tonight. She was one of the folks helping organize for Cokie Roberts' appearance in Wichita tonight to celebrate KMUW's 60th Anniversary. I just adore Kris - she's always fun - even tonight when she had to have been tired. You don't pull off an event like this and not be tired at the end of it.

Whenever we're together we have to take what we've dubbed "the cute girl pic." Greg, fortunately, reminded us tonight. We forgot once when we were together. Obviously, you can't go back and redo that event.

Of course, I also got to see her hubby John, as well as Chris and Shari who were visiting from Kansas City, Kansas. And, we met some other interesting folks.

We are getting a big thunderstorm here so I'm going to turn the computer off instead of going through photos tonight. But, soon, expect to see a write up of Cokie's presentation and some photos. I can sum it up by saying she was interesting, entertaining and funny on top of it.

Three groups of folks from Hutchinson went. Oddly enough, we were all in Pei Wei at the same time. I had no idea it was everyone's favorite restaurant!
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!

My Earth Day Eve got off to a great start. Sharon showed up with her Releaf Landscapes crew and worked on my back and side yards. Things look better around the house than they ever have the whole time I've owned the place - better than when I bought the place. It's amazing what four people who know what they're doing and are in constant motion can accomplish. About 30 times more than I can do in the same amount of time. Thank you Sharon!

I'm doing some grass killing for Earth Day. I know, kinda weird, huh? But that's my main focus at the moment. I have put down two giant pieces of plastic - so about a 20 by 25 foot area - to kill the grass underneath. I need more room to plant all these seedlings and I hate mowing. So, I'm hoping the grass dies quickly so I can press that area into service.



They also cleaned out a little area I had tried to do a flower bed in a few years ago. It got away from me - like everything else. But they tamed it again today. I'm going to plant some sweet peas and holly hocks there, I think.

I'm totally enchanted with growing plants this year. I think maybe it's that whole "new life" thing. I feel so fortunate to be living life and not be worrying about my prognosis that I feel I have a new lease on life. It seems no accident that I'm suddenly attracted to growing seedlings. Now I just have to find a place for all of them.



On one half of this new plant area I'm going to put in some pumpkins. I've never grown pumpkins but I think it will be cool to let them grow every which way all over the place.

In honor of Earth Day, and because my main computer is tied up trying to do things that it thinks are far too complex, I'm sharing some pix from recent posts - including my favorite flower photo I've taken recently.



I hope your Earth Day is spectacular!

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Guenter Wendt Appreciated at the Cosmosphere

Last week during the blogger fam tour, we had a tremendous tour of the Cosmosphere by the CEO, Chris Orwoll. During our behind the scene tour, he showed us a photo of Guenter Wendt, known as the "Padleader" during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.



When he showed us this photo I was instantly reminded of how important so many people are to any project of this magnitude. Those of us outside the industry may not know their names, but they play a critical role.

It was Guenter Wendt who closed the hatch. That, alone, should be enough to put anyone in the history books. He was the last person to see the astronauts before they rocketed off to space. Wendt was there for their last few seconds being Earth-bound, before they undertook what would be life-changing - and sometimes life-ending.

In those early days of space exploration, fires and explosions were not unusual occurrences. Everyone knew the risks involved, but I doubt that awareness kept the normal human emotions at bay. No doubt Wendt saw excitement and fear at various times.

The Cosmosphere has one of the "White Rooms" used for the Apollo missions, as well as others, where Wendt was stationed during launch. They have a photo shot through the open hatch door from the Apollo 10 mission of May, 1969. That view of Stafford, Young and Cernan strapped to their couches, preparing to go to the moon, was Wendt's view.



You can walk into the White Room on display and be where Wendt watched history being made. Where he was participating in history being made.



The White Room was suspended more than 300 feet above the launch pad, attached to a 60 foot long swing arm connected to the rocket. About four hours before liftoff, the astronauts would walk across the swing arm and enter the White Room where Wendt and his crew were.

Right before lift off, the White Room swung away from the space craft, leaving the astronauts alone on top of the 36 story tall rocket that would send them into space. Astronaut Wally Schirra is quoted on Wendt's website as saying, "So it came to pass that when the white room was closed out for Apollo 7 and his smiling face disappeared from the window, Donn Eisele asked, "I vonder vere Guenter vent?" I stole that line and made it famous." He also referred to Wendt as the "dictator of the launch pad."

The particular White Room in the Cosmosphere's collection was from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad Complex 39. There were three white rooms, and no records were kept regarding which missions used which room, but it stands to reason that you can stand where roughly a third of the astronauts in the Apollo Lunar program made their final preparations.

In another part of the Cosmosphere, outside an upstairs meeting room, is a whiteboard where celebrity visitors to the museum leave their signatures.



It's good to see the Cosmosphere recognizes Wendt's contributions.

Wendt has written a book, "The Unbroken Chain" about his experiences at Padleader.
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Tourism Thoughts

I have a great interest in tourism. Partially because I love to travel, but also because I'm fascinated by the decision making process involved with travel. I know how I like to travel and I know others have different styles.

Last week I participated in a blogger familiarization tour in Hutchinson. I had nothing to do with organizing it, and was just invited to participate as a kindness since I already write a lot about the area, but I was very impressed with the idea and the execution of it.

Convention and Visitor's Bureaus (CVB's) focus most of their efforts on groups and it's understandable why - it takes the same amount of energy to bring a group of 50 or 500 to your town as it does to bring one individual traveler. You don't have to be a math whiz to see the logic in that.

The problem is that there's a hole in the travel market. The tourist is no one's customer.

When you look at a visitor's guide for any city, you see beautiful photos, listings of things to see and do, and lots of ads. This is a system that has developed over time and has served well for some time. However, the "customer" for the visitor's guide is not the visitor - the customer is the advertiser, who's ads paid for the printing of it.

I want there to be - somewhere - someone who is serving the needs of the individual traveler. I also believe the individual traveler is where the potential growth is. Now, maybe when I'm 70 I'll think it sounds like a fabulous idea to be traveling on a bus with 41 other people, and having my luggage packed and outside my hotel door by 6:30 a.m. I cannot imagine that will ever be the case. I think that traveler is not going to exist in a few years.

Instead I think the potential growth is in the individual traveler - the people who write me to ask about Las Vegas, NM, because I wrote on the blog about eating at a diner there. Or to ask about the catacombs of Paris because I blogged about visiting there. Those people are the future growth of travel, I think.

And communities/states/countries on the front edge of that, encouraging those in the new media to write about their places - on blogs, twitter, or whatever - are going to see a significant benefit.

Interesting things to think about...
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Oxy Clean is Amazing Stuff

Oxy Clean is amazing stuff, and I'm not getting paid to say so. I'm just telling you this for your own benefit, in case you hadn't discovered it.

At the MCC sale on Friday I bought this quilt. For $20. Hand quilted. Because it had a stain on it - a stubborn, ugly stain. You can see it here - right in the middle of the quilt, and on the lower portion in that same row. What you can't see in the photo is that it was present elsewhere, too.



I decided to take a chance that I could remove the stain, and knew I would appreciate the quilt even if I couldn't get the stain out. I brought it home and started it soaking in a mixture of oxy clean, borax and wisk. The first water was gross and disgusting. I tried some stain remover of various sorts and a few more washings. It helped, but the stain was still there.

So, I brought out the big guns. I sprinkled some oxy clean powder on the stains and sprinkled water over it to make a paste. It gets hot. Yes. Hot. I let it dry and it was hard as a rock. I wondered if it was going to come off. And, to be fair, this is not a recommended use of the product. This was just a Patsy thought. I guess that would be "off label" as they say in the pharmaceutical industry.

I had a moment when I thought I had made a big mistake because it wasn't peeling off the fabric easily. But, I got most of it off and the rest washed off in yet another washing. But, amazingly enough, much of the stain went with it. So, I repeated the process and the stain was all gone. Gone! All of it. A hand quilted, double  wedding ring quilt for $20 plus some Oxy Clean.

I have used it many times to soak linens of various sorts, but I've never worked on a stain like this before with it. I don't know what it was - I'd just as soon not think too much about that - but the normal stain removers didn't touch it. But, Oxy Clean took care of it. It wasn't like you see on TV, where they dip it in and it comes out magically clean, but it did work.

Needless to say, I feel like I got a good deal for $20.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more. Friend me on facebook.com. Follow me at twitter.com. All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Optimism and Promise

There are more of them. Yes. Buds. On plants I grew from seed. More than just the one cosmo. Now there are three bachelor button plants with little buds.

However, it is not time to put them outdoors yet. Tomorrow is the 50/50 date for us, meaning there's a 50/50 chance it won't frost again. Of course, I would not put my baby plants in peril like that. And it's a good thing because we've had a lot of rain tonight. I don't think they would have enjoyed that, either.

Of course, they're in no danger at all in the climate controlled comfort of my sun porch, under grow lights, where the softened water is delivered to their roots, without getting the leaves wet.

There's something quite wonderful about seeing all this new life springing up from seeds planted just a few weeks ago. I believe I first planted on March 1, so some of these things have been in about seven weeks and some less than that.  There's such promise in new plants and such optimism in planting seeds.

I need more optimism and promise in my life. Maybe that's why I can't seem to stop planting.
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Connecting People and Ideas

I like to connect people. As friends pointed out to me a few nights ago, the importance of connecting to other humans is one of the things I'm always talking about. Well, hey, science has now proven that it's really important if you want to be happy, live longer, etc. etc. etc., so I'm not just running off at the mouth anymore. Well, maybe I am, but not necessarily without merit - at least on this one topic.

When you get people together who have interests that complement each other, the conversation is always worth eavesdropping on, and that's just what I was doing this morning. The sum of the parts becomes greater than the whole.



The last day and a half, bloggers from Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas and Kansas have been in Hutchinson, touring the town and seeing the sites, so hopefully they will have cool things to say about our town. One of the folks who came from Oklahoma was Becky McCray. (on the left in the photos)


I've been following Becky in Twitter for awhile and just KNEW that she and Marci Penner, (on the right) who is the head of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, needed to meet. I've forwarded some of Becky's blog posts to Marci and WenDee (the assistant director at the Sampler Foundation - in the black in this photo) a few times.



Well, the other night when our blogger group was at dinner I mentioned this and Becky said, "See if we can go see them Friday morning." So, I tried to call Marci but didn't get her. A few minutes later Cody tried and got us set up for early this morning.

While we were talking, Todd, (see him working hard in the photo below) who is the editor at The Ledger, a print and online paper that covers the area, said he'd like to cover the meeting for the paper. So, this morning I picked up Becky and Jeanne at the hotel and we headed out to the barn in Inman where we were greeted with homemade cinnamon rolls, courtesy of Marci's mom. I've had her cinnamon rolls before and let me tell you, they never disappoint. That, alone, was worth getting up extra early for!



Like Todd, Jeanne was taking notes like a fiend. She writes on the Small Business Survival blog, along with Becky and some other folks.

It was really cool to see people who are interested in some of the same things meet for the first time and connect. There's an energy that's generated that can't be duplicated by anything else. Marci is devoted to preserving rural culture. She said this morning, "Our plan is to help the world love rural Kansas." Becky is interested in small business, and small towns. There is some common ground there, for sure, and they were talking about how to find the people interested. Becky said, "The technology sitting around this table helps find them."

Becky did a few video bites with Marci and I'm sure will be posting them at some point. I don't know about Becky, but I'm sort of buried under really great potential blog posts right now, after our intense days of touring.



Marci and WenDee are preparing for the Kansas Sampler Festival, May 2 and 3 in Concordia, so they're busy bees, but I'm so glad they took time out to visit with us for a bit this morning. It was cool, at least for me. I hope it was for them, too.


________________
Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more. Friend me on facebook.com. Follow me at twitter.com.

All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Connecting People and Ideas

I like to connect people. As friends pointed out to me a few nights ago, the importance of connecting to other humans is one of the things I'm always talking about. Well, hey, science has now proven that it's really important if you want to be happy, live longer, etc. etc. etc., so I'm not just running off at the mouth anymore. Well, maybe I am, but not necessarily without merit - at least on this one topic.

When you get people together who have interests that complement each other, the conversation is always worth eavesdropping on, and that's just what I was doing this morning. The sum of the parts becomes greater than the whole.



The last day and a half, bloggers from Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas and Kansas have been in Hutchinson, touring the town and seeing the sites, so hopefully they will have cool things to say about our town. One of the folks who came from Oklahoma was Becky McCray. (on the left in the photos)

I've been following Becky in Twitter for awhile and just KNEW that she and Marci Penner, (on the right) who is the head of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, needed to meet. I've forwarded some of Becky's blog posts to Marci and WenDee (the assistant director at the Sampler Foundation - in the black in this photo) a few times.



Well, the other night when our blogger group was at dinner I mentioned this and Becky said, "See if we can go see them Friday morning." So, I tried to call Marci but didn't get her. A few minutes later Cody tried and got us set up for early this morning.

While we were talking, Todd, (see him working hard in the photo below) who is the editor at The Ledger, a print and online paper that covers the area, said he'd like to cover the meeting for the paper. So, this morning I picked up Becky and Jeanne at the hotel and we headed out to the barn in Inman where we were greeted with homemade cinnamon rolls, courtesy of Marci's mom. I've had her cinnamon rolls before and let me tell you, they never disappoint. That, alone, was worth getting up extra early for!



Like Todd, Jeanne was taking notes like a fiend. She writes on the Small Business Survival blog, along with Becky and some other folks.

It was really cool to see people who are interested in some of the same things meet for the first time and connect. There's an energy that's generated that can't be duplicated by anything else. Marci is devoted to preserving rural culture. Becky is interested in small business. There is some common ground there, for sure.

Becky did a few video bites with Marci and I'm sure will be posting them at some point. I don't know about Becky, but I'm sort of buried under really great potential blog posts right now, after our intense days of touring.



Marci and WenDee are preparing for the Kansas Sampler Festival, May 2 and 3 in Concordia, so they're busy bees, but I'm so glad they took time out to visit with us for a bit this morning. It was cool, at least for me. I hope it was for them, too.


________________
Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more. Friend me on facebook.com. Follow me at twitter.com.

All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Third Thursday

Tonight was the Third Thursday art event in Hutchinson. It was the end of our blogger fam tour we've been doing the last day and a half. I'm impressed that a group of folks in town decided to do something different - and they did it well. Kudos to Logic Maze, The Cosmosphere, the CVB and The Downtown Hutchinson Revitalization Project.

I'm very, very impressed that the Cosmosphere CEO took time to give us a private tour yesterday. That tells me he understands the power of social media, or he's at the very least open to the power of it. Those things matter.

Well, I'm tired from the many hours we've spent touring and talking in the last 36 hours. Such an exciting time!

So, tonight I'm sharing some photos from the Third Thursday event - something I love - and something I'm so thankful to Jennifer and Danny for making happen.















Come join us next month! May 21 - 5 -9 p.m. in Downtown Hutchinson.
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Once upon a time there were fam tours...

I'm participating in a blogger fam tour. What, you may ask, is a fam tour? Well, children, gather 'round and I'll tell you a story.

Back in the long, long ago days, before the internet put travel information at our fingertips, there were these people called "travel agents." They held the keys to the kingdom of information about flight schedules and hotel rates and all sorts of other bits you needed to know if you hoped to venture beyond the borders of your own little burg. They worked very limited hours and required you to come to their lairs if you wanted more than a cursory tidbit of information that could be given over the phone. These dark ages - like 10 or 15 years ago - made travel far more difficult than it needed to be. That was not the fault of travel agents at all, it was just how the system worked.

Although most travelers who were at the mercy of these people who had the information never knew it, these travel agents were also going on "fam tours," short for "familiarity tours." They would be invited to hotels and attractions and cities and amusement parks and cruise ships and any other place where they might be able to encourage people to go. The idea was that they would fall in love with it and tell people they just had to go there.

As anyone faced with such a thing would do, travel agents took advantage of these perks. And, they, indeed, did encourage people to travel to, stay in, eat at, and visit these very places. It was good for the agents. It was good for the fam tour hosts. It was a happy time in the kingdom. For everyone except, perhaps, the traveler, who was still at the mercy of these people who had all the information, not to mention the memories of all this travel, some of which was far more exotic than going to Disney

Well, a group of people in Hutchinson Kansas, where I live, decided to bring the fam tour idea into the modern world. They have invited some bloggers to come to Hutchinson for a couple of days and see the sights, in hopes they will have something positive to say about it on their blogs. They graciously invited me to join in, and it has been really cool so far. I'm taking a day and a half of vacation in order to do it and it has been well worth it so far. This modern version makes so much more sense, because bloggers talk to many people at once these days.



Hutchinson does have some excellent attractions - the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, a world-class museum devoted to the space program, and the Kansas Underground Salt Museum, the only museum of its kind in the western hemisphere. Even though I live here, I try to make it a point to appreciate what's cool about the community.

This morning we were treated to an amazing tour of the Cosmosphere by director Chris Orwoll. It included some behind-the-scenes areas and needless to say I'll have many more photos to share with you later.



Here he's showing us a glove. Not just any glove. It's a space suit glove. Not just any space suit glove...



That's "Aldrin," as in Buzz.

It was amazingly cool to walk into this "white glove area" this morning, where artifacts are stored, and see incredible things lying around like this metal press pass from an Apollo mission.



This morning I got to touch a space suit - with the white glove, of course - a nice follow up to getting to touch a moon rock recently.

This afternoon we went for a tour of the Fox, then had dinner at the Airport Steakhouse, and went back for an IMax show at the Cosmosphere. Tomorrow is a very full day of activities. Not only is it fun to see interesting things, but it's great to meet other bloggers. Check out the other bloggers and read about the tour at What's Up Hutch.

I'm quite impressed that this is happening. It's a different way to approach things and I'm always interested in exploring possibilities.
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

NPR's Jackie Lyden

Jackie Lyden, host of "All Things Considered" each weekend on National Public Radio was in Hutchinson today for a presentation. She spoke at the Hutchinson Town Club as part of the Prairie View Food For Thought Series.

She read from her book, "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba," and told stories about growing up with a mother who was suffering from a mental illness. She said, "Long before radio existed for me as a vessel in which to pour all these life experiences, I was a daughter." And that relationship shaped her world view in many ways.

Lyden said she was a diarist from the time she could write, and that she wrote on anything. I asked after her speech if she still wrote by hand, and she said yes, that she doesn't go anywhere without her journal. She said, "My leather notebook goes everywhere I go. I believe in pen and paper."

Lyden said part of the appeal of writing this book about her mother was, "I wanted to fix her on the page." She said she felt if she could get down to the tap root of what was wrong, she could pull it out.

She said her mother's delusions would eventually turn dark and her mother kept a notebook about them called, "The Evil Account." While not knowing how her mother would be from one day to the next was difficult, Lyden said the experiences taught her,  "Nobody's imagination is garbage. It tells you where people are."



Working as a foreign correspondent, Lyden has interacted with people in many different kinds of situations. She told the story of a man telling her he couldn't leave a dangerous situation because, "If I leave now I will lose all my family history." She said that stuck with her, and reminded her people are similar everywhere. Holding her fingers a couple of inches apart, she said, "The line between Hutchinson, Kansas, and Fallujah, Iraq, is this big." She said, "When I tell stories on the radio, I'm looking to make that human connection."

Lyden said that no matter where she went, she had something no one else had, a faded photograph of her mother in a dress made specially for her in Hong Kong in 1950. Lyden has the dress and wears it on special occasions. She said, "I don't know where I'll be, but wherever I go, I will carry the photograph of the woman in this dress. Then I think what you carry the most is their story."

She said when she discovered NPR, she saw there was an opportunity for creativity and imagination. She said, "Radio entered me like a wave." And on the radio, as a host, she could be the voice of all the people she had had conversation with.

When asked about why mental health still has so much stigma attached to it, she said, "Until we understand that we are just molecules and that brain chemistry is chemistry and we are a little more humble about being human ... then we are going to have difficulty with something like stigma. Because to not be in control of your faculties is to not be perfect. And we are a culture that believes in perfection of the mortal."

She said she's very close to her mother and this is probably the happiest time they've ever had together. "My mom is fun. My mom is funny and smart." She said the great tragedy of her mother's life was not that she had a mental illness, but that she didn't have an education. Last year her mother read four dozen books, and is currently reading "My Antonia."



She said her mother's view of the book Lyden wrote about her has changed depending on her mother's mental state. She said now that her mother is better, the book is painful, but she is proud of it because, "She feels her struggles are not for nothing."

One of Lyden's sisters asked why they couldn't just move on and try to forget all of this, leaving it in the past. Lyden answered that, "Memory is what makes us human. Memory is the human connection. It's what gives us soul."
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The Itty Bitty Bud

Yesterday I saw it. Just innocently sitting there. As if it were nothing special at all. Just another day.

One of the cosmos plants has a tiny little bud on it!

An itty bitty bud. On a plant I grew from seed. From seed, I tell you. I put the seed in the dirt and now there's a bud that will be a flower. (OK, technically, I put the seed in a potting "mix" but it's like dirt. Kinda.)

I realize I might be a bit overly excited by this development. A person might rightly point out that it would be expected that a flower would - at some point in its development - put forth a bud. But nonetheless, there it is. Just as plain as day. If you look closely. Very closely. It is an itty bitty bud, after all.

It's not like I've never grown anything from seed before, but it's still a magical process to me. Seeds become itty bitty buds. Amazing.
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Susan Boyle

Every once in awhile, there's a You Tube video from Britian's Got Talent that is really cool. The latest is Susan Boyle, who wowed the judges, including both Simon and Piers. It's worth your 7:07 minutes to go watch it. Click on the link above - they're not allowing embedding, which I never understand, but nonetheless, go give it a watch and listen.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more. Friend me on facebook.com. Follow me at twitter.com. All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Rain on Easter Sunday

I've been gathering images of flowers dripping with rain on Easter Sundays for many years now. The first one I recall noticing was when I was a TV reporter and the producer sent a photographer and me out to a sunrise service. He took some gorgeous video of a daffodil bent under the weight of the raindrops clinging to it. I used it as the opening shot with the minister's voice saying, "It was raining that morning, too."

I don't know the Bible well, but I don't recall a weather report of that Sunday morning so many years ago being included. Of course, I'm guessing the minister had more information than me. And he may have been using that as a metaphor as well. Regardless, it has stuck with me all these years.

I've had a very laid back Easter Sunday. I slept in, which felt nice, and then stayed in bed reading, writing and thinking for awhile before I got up. I did a few things around the house and then went to Sharon's. We had a nice, although non-traditional, Easter dinner and then I worked on some computer things for her. As I was leaving I couldn't resist photos of her tulips.

There's something magical about a rainy day. It's as if the world is being washed clean so we can all start anew. That seems an appropriate image for an Easter Sunday.

On a personal level, I've really been feeling the need for a fresh start, a renewal, this spring. I think maybe that's part of why I'm enjoying starting so many seeds this year. Watching life spring from a tiny seed reaffirms my belief in miracles, as if I needed any more proof of them these days.

I'm also feeling a need for "nest building" lately. Having a new lease on life - literally - gives me reason to want to make my daily life all the more pleasant. And part of that is making my home the way I want it to be.

I hope your Easter Sunday was all you wanted it to be, and then some. And may  this season of renewal bring us all hope beyond what our imaginations can fathom.



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Happy Easter

Easter is a time of hope and renewal.
May your day be blessed.

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A Busy but Fun Saturday

The highlight of my day was lunch with Tara and her mother in law, Gail. I met Tara during a "Food Coma Caravan" organized by Carl. I really liked her and her husband, Todd, right away. They live in Kansas City so we don't get to see each other very often. But, we had dinner a few months ago when they were in Hutchinson visiting family, and we keep up on Facebook.

Someone forwarded Gail a note about my blog entry on the doggie Easter parade, and she remembered that I knew Tara. So, Gail asked Tara if she wanted to see if we could get together while Tara and Todd were visiting in Wichita this weekend, and voila it all worked out with perfect timing because I was open from 11-1 today. It was so fun to see Tara and meet Gail.

This morning I went to a workshop on vegetable gardening at the Extension office. It was a primer, I guess you'd say, but I picked up some good tips. It was done by Pam, the royal subject of one of the winners in the doggie Easter parade. Hazel, who shared Portabello the kitty with me at the shelter, was helping out this morning, too. Of course, there were some other folks there I knew, including Jessica and Trish and Jim, but I didn't really get to visit because I had to slip out a little early to get to Skaets for lunch with Tara and Gail.

After lunch we all headed out to the Salt Museum. I was volunteering this afternoon and they were going for a visit. Todd, and Gail's husband, Steve, came over separately and they all met up at the museum. It just so happened they were on my first tour of the day so I got to visit with them briefly underground, too.

Needless to say, it was a busy day for me, with something on the schedule from 9-5, but it had lots of fun. And tonight I finally got my taxes done. I filed the federal online and have the state ready to mail. I'm so glad to have that off my list of things to do. I've joked that I've spent more time whining about doing them than it would have taken to actually do them. Unfortunately, that was not true. They took me about 2 1/2 hours. But, at least I'm getting a little money back instead of owing, so that's a bonus.

I have some other things on my agenda yet this weekend that I want to accomplish. I have a lot to catch up on in the house. A lot. In every nook and cranny. I also have a pile of computer-related things to do. I hope I feel like I've got a handle on things by the end of the weekend. We'll see how that goes.
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Friday

I was so glad to wake up to a Friday today. This has been a frantic week in some ways and has had its share of disappointments tossed in for good measure, so I'm ready to have a nice weekend. I've got a slew of things on the agenda this weekend, but most of them will be fun, including lunch with Tara from Kansas City tomorrow. That's an unexpected treat.

Trish and I had lunch today and it was good to visit with her. I never see enough of her. We're both going to a gardening presentation in the morning so I'll see her two days in a row, which is kind of unusual.

After work today Greg and I decided to get a quick bite at Quizno's. While we were finishing up Barbara came in so we got to visit with her a little bit. Greg took this photo of me while we were there.



I was laughing tonight, looking at it, because he took another photo of me a year or two ago at another restaurant where you can see my water glass. I noticed in this one I have the phone, too. People sometimes tease me about always having the phone handy and I guess there's officially proof now.

Last night sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., Greg called and told me to go look at the snow. Snow, I asked, a little groggy? Yes, snow. We had quite a rain storm last night and it was still raining when I went to bed. Then the snow started. It was snowing and raining at the same time. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

I was glad Greg called me, and glad I came downstairs to see the snow. It was big, fluffy flakes - just like those that made the blizzard for us a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, there was no accumulation this time, but it was something to see. I snapped a photo from my front porch.



You can tell the sidewalks are wet from the rain. There are even some puddles. And then the snow.

Also on the agenda this weekend, in addition to fun, is getting my taxes done and getting my house presentable. I'm not sure why I put off doing my taxes every year. They're so easy it takes me well under an hour. But, apparently, I prefer to whine about them on Facebook and in real life for far more hours than it would take to just do them.

I'm having Creative Sisterhood here Tuesday night so I want to get the house presentable. I tell you, you literally do nothing to your house for two months, you end up with a lot to do. I still don't bend and stay bent for very long, but I certainly feel like making some basic improvements to the general cleanliness level. I've never been a Martha Stewart type, so I'm keeping my expectations reasonable. That means, in this case, it will still involve piles of things here and there. I can't help it. I'm a person who has piles.

Well, the 9 a.m. gardening presentation I'm headed to in the morning is only a few hours away. I'd best get a little sleep between now and then. I hope you're having a wonderful Easter weekend so far.
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All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.

Your Purpose in Life

I was talking with a friend today who expressed that she was trying to figure out her purpose in life. I've never thought about it in those exact terms, but I guess we're all doing that to some degree.

Do you consciously think about what your purpose is? I can't say that I do. I know when I'm living within it though, by how I feel. The trick, as always, is how to live that purpose, and yet manage all the necessities of life as well. If I could figure that out, I could be living my purpose all day.

I've been thinking all evening about how I would define my purpose. I'm not sure I have words for it, exactly. But, it seems a worthy goal to find some. Time to put pen to paper for that one.
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Qi gong in the Park

Terry called this evening and asked if I wanted to meet him in Avenue A Park and do some qi gong. It's an ancient form of exercise/meditation, similar to tai chi but less strenuous. Terry teaches it at a couple of local centers. He and Sharon both teach tai chi, too.

At first I was hesitant because I had already worked in my back yard and was feeling it. But, Terry assured me it wouldn't require a lot of the things that still make me hurt - like bending. So, I decided it was a wonderful way to spend some time with a friend, and be out enjoying the sunshine.

I called Greg to see if he wanted to go and Sharon was at his house so we all went.

Terry gave Greg and me a private lesson, and Sharon did it along with us, which was great because we had two people who knew what they were doing to watch. I really liked it.

We did the "Eight pieces of silk brocade" series - at least I think I've got the right name. There are eight series of movements and you do each one eight times. Terry explained each one and then did them so we could follow along. I was able to do all of them except one that involved bending over and touching your toes then slowly coming upright again. I did one of those and decided that was not a way my body wants to move quite yet.

I'm hoping we can do it again soon. I guess there are lots of different practices you can do, but this is one of the common ones and pretty easy to do. I don't think I could do anything much more complex than this one. It stretched my limits on coordination.



Avenue A Park is such a cool part of our city. The water flows under Main Street and the park is beautifully landscaped. I love the fact that some long-time businesses, like Midwest Feed, are part of the scenery there.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, cooking and more. Friend me on facebook.com. Follow me at twitter.com.
All text and photos on this website are copyright Patsy Terrell, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. None are to be used without permission. Thank you.