I hope everyone is doing well. We are having a BEAUTIFUL autumn here in Colorado Springs. The weather is warm and the colors are magnificent. They along with the colors on the Paisley & Petals Specialty Designer Series Paper have inspired me for the cards I am sharing today.
I’ve been working on this set of three tutorials for these three Fall cards for about a week and thought it was time to share it with all of you. I’ve used two of my favorite stamp sets; Paisleys & Posies and Vintage Leaves.
Just a minor editing note: I forgot to flip the third video so you wouldn’t have to watch me work upside down. 🙁 I realized this AFTER I deleted my raw footage. Sorry. If that bothers you, you could always do a little yoga and stand on your head while you watch. 🙂
As always, there is a printable tutorial for you to download at the end of this post. I hope you enjoy watching and making these cards as much as I did.
Disclaimer: this is not a political statement as to who I believe should be the next president of the United States. This is strictly a story about something that happened to me. Current news events have brought back the memory.
This happened thirty-two years ago. Thirty-two years ago, I was in the Army Reserves. Finally, it is time to tell.
Both my ex-husband and I had just returned from active duty tours in Germany, and I was pregnant with our first child. I was 27 years old. I had completed my time on active duty and was happy with the choice I had made to be a stay at home mom. After four years on active duty, I would fulfill the remainder of my military commitment by doing monthly weekend drill with an Army Reserve unit in Louisville, KY, while my husband continued with his active duty career at Ft. Knox, Ky. He would be attending the Armor Officer’s Advanced Course in Ft. Knox. I began my time with the reserve unit a few months before our first child was born.
I don’t remember all of the particulars like the exact name of the reserve unit or the exact names of the individuals involved, but I do remember the exact nature of what happened.
Jennifer was born in November of 1984, so this incident occurred sometime around the beginning of 1985. I was a promotable First Lieutenant when I left active duty. My reserve unit assignment was in the supply room since I served as a Supply/Property Book Officer while I was on active duty. That is the person that does all of the supply/equipment requisitioning for the unit and is “accountable” for keeping track of all of the equipment. The commander of the unit was the person “responsible” for everything. At least that is how it was when I was on active duty from 1981-1984. I doubt much has changed where that is concerned.
At any rate, I was in the supply room this morning during drill weekend going over something with another Lieutenant at his desk when the unit’s First Sargent came walking by. As he walked by, he smacked me squarely on the rear end. Startled, I jumped up and knee-jerk-reaction punched him in the arm and said something like, “Knock it off! That’s not okay. I would never walk up to you and grab you!” He smirked and walked away. He was lucky I didn’t knock his head off his shoulders.
Immediately after the incident, I marched directly to the unit commander’s office; He was a major. I explained to him that I had been leaning over a desk working with the other Lieutenant when the First Sargent walked in and patted me on the rear end. The commander chuckled and said, “Oh he just probably meant that in a fatherly way.”
“Excuse me sir, but with all due respect, I am 28 years old. My father hasn’t done that to me in quite some time. His behavior was inappropriate and I expect that he will be reprimanded for it.”
I left the commander’s office. I continued with the rest of my day. When I got home that evening, I told my husband what had happened. He was livid to say the least. He said it was sexual harassment and the commander, if he was doing his job correctly, should appoint an investigating officer.
A few weeks later, I did get a phone call from a woman. She was a Captain with the reserve unit assigned as the investigating officer relating to the incident. She came out to our quarters on Ft. Knox and we visited for a while. I explained to her what happened. I felt good after the meeting.
Sometime later, I received a phone call from the unit commander. He explained the investigating officer’s findings to me. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something like she had decided I was going through postpartum depression and the incident didn’t really take place. I was flabbergasted! I hung up without saying a word. I couldn’t fathom she would come to this conclusion.
I never returned to that reserve unit. I resigned my commission instead. I wrote a detailed letter to Military Personnel, explaining the incident. I said I had never experienced such blatant disrespect while I was on active duty and wasn’t about to start while I was in the Reserves.
Why am I saying something about it now thirty-two years later? For the same reason so many woman are just now coming out of the woodwork with regard to one of our presidential candidates. They didn’t come out sooner because who would have believed them. Nobody believes women when they make these kinds of accusations. When a woman makes a claim of sexual harassment, it is often considered the woman’s fault.
What egregious error did I commit the day it happened to me? Was it showing up to work? It couldn’t have been because of what I was wearing. I was wearing BDU’s (Battle Dress Uniform) with my combat boots. How sexy is that? Was it what I was doing? I was bending over a desk, discussing a work item with a co-worker. I am even reluctant to say I was bending over a desk as if somehow THAT wasn’t appropriate. IT HAPPENED! What could I possibly gain at this point to make up something like this? It happens every day… and will unfortunately happen eventually or it already has happened to all women.
I am sure Karma got the female Captain who investigated the incident, the female captain who was sure to come up with a finding that would promote her career!
There are some foul men out there! Men who think it is okay to do whatever they want to a woman. Just don’t be bold enough to try it with my daughter or my granddaughter!
Fair warning!
Here is my card today.
Hope you enjoyed what you saw and read today. Writing is one of my other passions. I just don’t think I am that good at it. But I am getting better. 🙂
Somebody has to say it, so I will. I never have been one to keep my opinions to myself. If Donald Trump should become the Republican nominee for president and win the presidential election next year, I am moving to another country.
I am not going to tell you if I am a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. That is not important right now. What concerns me is that there are people in this country that are so…I don’t want to say stupid, because that is too negative and it might offend some individuals…but somebody has to say it, so I will…they are so STUPID they’d have Donald Trump be our president! Can you imagine? I can’t, and it scares me that there really are people who think he would make a good leader.
I believe Donald Trump would be a horrendous choice for president for many reasons. Once reason is, he is a bigot. He blames Blacks and Hispanics for violent crime across the country. He said, “When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They’re sending people who have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Well Mr. Trump, I believe more than SOME are good people. I spent the better part of my teaching career teaching some of the children of these Mexicans you are referring to, and the majority of these immigrants were honest, hard-working people that only want a better life for their children. My grandfather came to the United States in 1916 at the age of 16, because he wanted the same thing for himself. He experienced discrimination too. Italians were thought of as lazy, garlic-eating guniea. A guinea is a nasty racial slur. It referred to the Guinea Coast of Africa and implied that Italian-Americans were non-white which at the time was very offensive. He was also called a WOP. WOP stands for Without Papers; another insult implying Italians had no official papers in which to identify themselves. In some cases it was true, but not in all cases. Yes, we do need to do something about illegal immigration. But, to say the majority of people that have come illegally from Mexico are bad people is wrong. I don’t want anyone that feels that way representing me as an American to the rest of the world.
Another reason why I would leave the country if Trump became President is that he is a Neanderthal in his thinking about women. According to his daughter Ivanka Trump’s recent statement in a CNN interview, Donald Trump is progressive in his views relating to women. “Otherwise,” she says, “she wouldn’t be an executive in his company.” Well… we don’t know that for sure, do we? What we DO know is what he puts out there publically. We DO know that she is his daughter and most fathers would give the moon to their daughters. What we DO know are the derogatory comments he has publically made about specific women during his bid for the Republican nomination. First about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, “She had blood coming out of her wherever”, and second the comments he has made about Carly Fiorina’s face. Do not even start me on the disgusting things he has said about his daughter. A father should NEVER, I repeat, NEVER go there! Joking or not. Period. End of discussion!
Do we really want a person like that representing the United States?
(For more info on disgusting comments Trump has made about his daughter and other women click here and here.
So my card today is made using an older stamp set; For All Things. Hope you like it.
Once again, I used Stampin’ Up!’s retired spritz tool to “spritz” the background of the card.
Hope you enjoyed your visit today. Until next time…
One would assume that as one grew older the propensity to do dumb things would diminish. Wouldn’t one? Unfortunately, that is not always true. The fault is perhaps in the “assuming”. A wise person once told me never to assume as when one assumes one makes an ass out of you and me (ass-u-me). Today not only did I assume something, but I also did a dumb thing.
I am here to tell you that the product GiGi Microwave Tweezeless Wax ™ facial hair remover really works. Here is how I know. First, a little background information.
My friends and family (and some of you that have been following me) know that this past May I retired after 21 years of teaching. In addition, you know that when an individual retires he/she must learn to live with less discretionary income. I began to make this transition of learning to live with less about a year ago. I took stock in what I spent every month and reset my priorities. No longer able to afford monthly trips to the salon and day spa for various services, I figured out which of these services I could do at home on my own. I also decided which I could live without (although I did not think it was possible to live without any of them), and which I still needed to pay another to do for me.
The two things that made the pay-someone-else-to-do list were the manicures and monthly hair color and cut visits to the salon.
The do-myself-items were pedicures and eyebrow and lip waxes.
A trip to Sally Beauty Supply ™ solved the problem of facial hair removal. I purchased a box of GiGi Hair Removal Cream for the face with calming balm for use on my face for the price of one of the previously mentioned services. I would be saving a lot of money because one box of this stuff afforded me with multiple uses.
When I got it home the directions said to keep it away from your eyes, so I decided not to use it on my eyebrows. I continued to pluck my eyebrows with tweezers, but I decided I like the look and feel of my skin after an eyebrow wax. Not wanting to spend the money to go to the salon, I made another trip to Sally Beauty Supply ™. Herein lays my first mistake. I purchased a box of GiGi Microwave Tweezeless Wax ™ facial hair remover.
I read the waxing directions and decided to put it off for a while. I was concerned with burning myself if I made the wax too hot and applying it strictly to the skin below my eyebrows. I did not want to be eyebrow-less. I have to wear my glasses when I pluck my eyebrows with tweezers, and I was wondering how that would work when applying hair removal wax.
As I stepped out of the shower this morning, I decided it was time to for an eyebrow and lip wax.
I applied the hair removal cream to my top lip, waited the required amount of time, wiped it off with a damp washrag and my lip was done. It was as simple as the directions made it sound. Next on the agenda were the eyebrows. I decided to give the tweezeless wax a go. Herein lays my second mistake.
I heated the container of wax in 15-second increments as the package instructions state. I made sure the wax wasn’t too thin, because that meant it would be too hot. I was going for that creamy consistency the directions said I wanted. When I thought it was ready, I applied the wax to the skin below my right eyebrow. I didn’t wear my glasses. I figured they would just get in the way. After applying the wax, I thought, “This isn’t too bad. You did a good job keeping it off the eyebrow and only on the skin. Do the other one.”
As I was applying the wax below my left eyebrow, I whispered to myself, “Careful…careful…careful…Awww Sh………….!”
I worked quickly to remove the wax before it hardened completely.
Let me just say, that GiGi Microwave Tweezeless Wax ™ facial hair remover really works!
My husband thinks I changed my hair style. 🙂
For today’s creation, I used some of my left-over supplies from October’s My Paper Pumpkin Kit. So I don’t need to tell you that this card was super easy and quick to make.
Hope you enjoyed your visit today. Until next time…
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