The Scarecrow Jamboree

The Scarecrow Jamboree


The invitation was sent to all
delivered by bats who came to call
on a stormy autumn night.

The word went out across the land
“The big day is coming! Give us a hand!”
at the scarecrow jamboree.

The moon was full and witching bright,
its eerie shadows designed for fright
in the graveyard entryway.

As each guest trudged between the stones
all could hear the bumping of bones
on their way to a Halloween rite.

The ghouls were there with foolish grins
they’d stolen off pumpkins in the bins
at the scarecrow jamboree.

The vampires hid behind their capes
while skeletons played a raucous tape
of screams and howls throughout the day.

And when the goblin band arrived
it woke the dead and scared the live
as they danced from dusk ‘til light.

But the town folk knew to stay away
for your very life could be the pay
at the scarecrow jamboree!

© 2008 Ruth Y. Nott

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Thanks for the feed back

In polling people here, they too have said that Disney was not their favorite.

We are more interested in the sights, interactive attractions, some of the water rides offered and maybe a few of the others. Both of us are not huge ride people, especially rollercoasters, but I did tell Dave that I would go on a couple, just for the sake of being there.

So, it sounds as if we should just stick with our Disney Tickets and Universal/Island tickets and if we have time, throw Sea World into the mix. I could have gone either way with Busch Gardens, as I went to the Williamsburg one in 1991(which for the record is the first time that I met all of you, cause I just found pics that I took of peggy, cousin fred, David, and Uncle Doug).

Peggy- the gift choice is up to you, as we are not going in to this with the expectation of anything.
David- that's a very generous gift. Thank you
Ruth- Your gifts are lovely and the light box will be on display at the wedding, near our cake table. Thank you for the offer of looking in to tickets, but I think we will bypass Busch Gardens for this trip.
Fred/Alice- all the girls are excited to wear their shoes. Woohoo!

More later...

I need help planning our honeymoon....

Advice is needed. Here is the lowdown on what we know so far.

We are planning our trip to Florida, primarily for Disney and Universal Studios.
Expense wise, this is what we have come up with.
For 8 nights, and round trip tickets, we have a total of $670-$680. This is leaving from Portland, ME, vs. Boston. Basically if we left from Boston we would have to pay for bus tickets, which would put the cost over $700, so this is the better deal.

Now here is what I need help with.

Disney- If we purchase tickets online, we get a discount(awesome). It also appears that we want to add the Park Hopper option to our tickets that will allow us to go to all the parks, at anytime. With this being said, I think that purchasing the 8 day pass would be the best option, so that we can decide what days we go. For two, it will be $562. Crazy expensive, but crazy fun.

Do you all think this is a good price, or is there another way for us to get a better deal?

We also want to do Universal Studios and SeaWorld.
Here are the options. Universal Studios unlimited would be $200 for 2. And Seaworld would be $140 for 2. So, right there we are looking at $340.

The other option is there is an Orlando Flex deal that is offered where you can get unlimited 14 day pass to the following parks: Seaworld, Aquatica, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Busch Gardens. Included in this is free admission to the city walk and free shuttle service to Busch Gardens. The total for 2 people would be $560.

So, do you think we should spend the money for all the parks, or just pick a selected few and cut our losses. I know that it sounds like a lot to cram in to 8 nights, but really, we will probably not have too many opportunities to travel to this area and do this kind of thing.

If anyone knows of any other options for getting deals on these park tickets, please let me know, within the next week, so I can book them in time.

Thanks for the help in advance.
T.

A New Poem

Another of our quilter friends passed away on Monday and was buried today. I wrote this poem in her honor.

Quilting Angels


Somewhere up in heaven’s realm,
a golden quilt frame stands,
and a host of quilting angels
sit with thimble and needle in hand.
Taking threads of rainbow hue,
they quilt a great design
where all their names are clearly sewn
in the woof and weave of time.
And there are several empty chairs
awaiting sister quilters
where you and I will someday sit
when through His gates we filter.
There’s a special guild in heaven
where membership is free,
where your dues were paid by Jesus
out of love for you and me.
Today another chair was filled
and the tapestry grew larger
as another name was sewn in place
and the quilt extended farther.
And when it’s time for you and I
to knock on heaven’s gate,
we’ll come with sewing kit in hand,
not wanting to be late.
We’ll be ready to join the Master’s guild,
in service to the Lord,
just waiting for our special key
to where His fabric is stored.
With new designs in mind for Him,
we’ll cut, and sew, and measure
to make His beautiful works of art
to add to heaven’s treasures.

© 2008 Ruth Y. Nott

I'm a student again!!!

I've just started school at University of Phoenix (online obviously since I live in NC). I am very impressed with this program and how online works. My major is accounting. I talked to John and Amy about the school since they worked there, and they were able to give me lots of good advice. John did warn me that it would be hard work (he said some people think that since it is online, it is a cake walk). However, I can already tell that it will be a lot of hard work.

Wish me luck!! I hope I get good grades! I am really excited to be doing this (believe it or not)!!

Spoiler Alert-Me and my dress before the wedding

I will not be wearing the shawl for the ceremony. Primarily for pictures. This pic gives a good view of the shoes that Fred and Alice purchased. yay! they can be seen!!

Not used to being so girly and exposed. So I still feel a bit frumpy, but I am sure it will all be different in the right setting and with all the jewelry and hair done.

Tried on my dress today to make sure I could still squeeze in to it. Here are a couple of pics. Please keep in mind that I have bed head in these pics :) And I am still not as tan as I hope to be.

Well, I am off to bed, but more to come.

Completely random thought. Mom is home alone for the next week or two, so if anyone wants to give her a call, she would appreciate it. My gram just went in for hip replacement surgery and is in the hospital.

Vote for ME?!

Please vote for me!

Make sure you watch the video :o)

Happy Birthday Peggy!

Hope you are having a
supercalifragilistic day!

Decorations and Wow, what a deal!!

Just a sample of table decor(gotta love good will)
The fabric on the top part of pic will possibly be used on our sand ceremony table and cake table. The other fabric will be a table runn that I am making for the head table(or possibly aisle runner, depending how long it is.)
These are the sand ceremony vases. We saw this idea from an earlier wedding we went to. Instead of a unity candle you do a sand ceremony so you have art to take home with you and display.

So, I can't recall if I shared some of the decoration photos with you, so I will put in a few now.



So, like our caterer has got to be the most accommodating company that I have dealt with in a long time. They are being nice to us and they are meeting our every need. They even went above and beyond and offered to feed us right after the rehearsal. Only charging us for food, which is cheaper than what we budgeted for a restaurant dinner with guests. And once again there is no charge for the additional room use and he is giving us three hours to rehearse/eat/decorate. This takes a huge stress off of us trying to coordinate how things were going to happen and when. This must be an example as to why they are named the best company in the greater bangor area, 11 years running!

If I bore ya with wedding talk let me know. Just wanted to keep ya all involved.

Peggy's Surprise Birthday Party

Well, it's finally happened, Peggy's been surprised. Michelle planned a surprise birthday lunch party of Peggy on Oct 4th. She driver her up to Anthony's Home Port Restaurant in Everette on the pretense of looking over their banquet room for a planned Summit Assistance Dogs event. When she rounded the corner there we all were. :-)

Take a look at the photos here.

Alice's Knee

As most of you know, Alice hurt her knee in July. It healed pretty well and she was reasonably active recently, as evidenced by her walking in the video on this blog a couple weeks ago. Well, we went hiking a couple weeks ago and she re-injured her knee. Here is what happened as best as I remember it...

Alice and I are ahead of David and Chunnan on the trail. We see a very interesting tree 75 feet off the trail.

Alice: "Can I go climb that tree and sit on that branch? Then you can get a picture of me."

Fred: *knowing that once she is next to the tree she will realize there is NO WAY she is climbing it* "Ha, sure, go for it."

Alice heads toward the tree and David and Chunnan catch up to me on the trail. When she gets to the tree David takes a picture of them together. Obviously, to the three of us at least, she is not getting up that tree. I am talking to David and not watching Alice. Then I look over there to see her about two feet up the tree with as wide a grip as possible. Apparently she thought she could shimmy up it.

Fred: "She is going to blow out her knee."

Alice falls to the ground.

David: "I think she just did."

Yeah, she did. The results of the MRI say it's a full length tear of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament ( ACL - look in the center of the next picture)  and there is possibly a tiny hairline fracture at the tip of the Tibia. 

Her left knee is still very swollen and sore. She has an appointment with an orthopedic doctor on Oct 17th to discuss the possibliity of surgery. Here is a link to what post surgery recovery of the ACL is like. It sounds better/quicker than we expected. She could be walking around without crutches as early as two weeks after surgery. At the bottom of that page there are more ACL links if you want to read up on it all.

For now, and into the forseeable future she is using crutches to get around.

Registries, Rob, and Random (the 3 R's)

Well, here are places that we are registered at if that helps, Peggy. Dave and I really aren't needy, we just put things on the list that would be nice to have and because family locally was asking where we are registered. And when people ask we always say money or gift cards work fine too. We are not going in to this with expectations of anything, but if we receive something, than it is greatly appreciated.

Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and JCPenney(this one, more for the free stuff they gave us for wedding planning)


As for Rob- he is still in Kansas. Doing ok I suppose. He did have some trouble with the law again about a year ago. But he is back home. He was going to attend, but Rick did not have enough frequent flyer miles to cover his ticket as well. I honestly don't have regular contact with them. The last time that I spoke with them regularly was about 2 years ago, when mom was in the hospital. More to give updates than anything.

On a completely random note. My dad just gifted us his ford taurus, so that we have a vehicle that doesn't need to go in to the shop every month. Very exciting, cause now we are selling Dave's car and will be putting that money towards our Honeymoon. We have already had some people interested. We are asking $800. That will pay for disney tickets/universal studio tickets. And everything else were budgeting will go to airfare and souvenirs and food. I hope this car sells soon!!