Happy 30th Laura

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    This is my little, middle girl a long time ago.  Whenever my babies have a major point in their lives, it always makes for mixed emotions on my part.  It is wonderful to see your children grow into adulthood as fine, decent persons. To see them take new challenges and responsibilities. However I now have 4 of 6 over the age of 30.  Oh, how it makes me feel so old. Laura has always had her own special beauty.  She is very artistic and musically inclined and has a beautiful singing voice.  She has also had her own sense of style, much to the chagrin of her older sister.  It's hard to be the middle child.  She is turning into a wonderful mother.  Both her boys are autistic and are a challenge; to which she is trying to rise to.

Right now she is going through a particularly hard time.  She just had to move into an apartment with next to nothing.  Starting all over from scratch is never easy and unlike when there is a new marriage or an new baby where you receive gifts to get you started; she has had family and friends help but it is not the same.  We have helped as much as we can, but there is so much to reestablishing a household it is amazing what you miss.  Her brothers took up some furniture last weekend and went to throw away some trash and realized she did not have a garbage can, just a trash bag in the cabinet (so the boys couldn't get into it).  Needless to say a trip to Walmart was made.

Today on her 30th birthday she decided to spurge and get a cake mix to make her own cake, but had to buy a $5 dollar mixer to make it with.  She has had a really good attitude about it though and is delighted to have a mixer.  She got cookware from us.  She is learning to appreciate what most of us take for granted.  She even considers them splurges and treats.  If you would like to help her out and make her birthday and her life a little easier she does have an Amazon wish list under Laura Frazier but there are lots of them so click here to go directly to her Wish list.  Love Amazon because she can have a wish list and have things sent to her without giving out her address.  Amazon takes care of the shipping.  Remember any orders that goes through my blog; I earn money from.  This also helps me to help Laura more.  So if you have a personal order go to the amazon icon on the top right hand side of my post and click GO.  This takes you to the Amazon home page; then you place your order as you usually do

Check out these eyes, They belong to Laura's youngest, Wyatt.  Then check out Laura's baby picture at the top of this post. Amazing 
Enjoy your evening
☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Give away #3 Photo Stickers

I have so enjoyed sharing my art that I have decided to do another giveaway,  This time it will be two sheets of stickers with my photos.  Since so many of my followers are artists I thought this would be creative way to share my work.  Mixed media artists can use them in their art, or they can be used on envelopes for mail art, glued to a magnet or any way the winner wishes to creatively use them.

 The photos are 12 to a page which makes them about wallet size. The photo sheet above is one of them and the other one will be a sheet of photos with the choice of theme chosen by the winner. Some ideas might be fall colors, clouds, Christmas, landscapes or whatever strikes the winners fancy.  I have lots of photos with lots  of different themes so hopefully I can create a set of stickers from their theme.  I will post a photo of that sheet when the winner chooses their theme

Rules:

Winner will be chosen on Oct 15

The winner will be chosen using a numbers generator.

Each of the following will count as an entry

1- Leave a comment on any of my posts- please leave a comment on the post itself, you will be automatically entered for each comment

2- Sign up to follow my blog- if you already follow my blog leave a comment on this post

3- List me on your blog as a blog that you follow, then leave a comment telling me so- if you already have me on your blog list just leave a comment on this post

Good luck

and

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Blessed to be busy

Busy, busy, busy.  In the last week or so I have accomplished more than I would normally get done in an entire month (if I was feeling good that is).  Sometimes in the pressure of having lots to do in a little time we forget to remember the joy of service and the blessing of  having the stamina to accomplice what needs to be done.  I captured some of what I have done on my camera, but most of what I have done just doesn't show. 

 I've been washing the dog every 2-3 days due to his skin infection coming back.  This is done on a 70# dog with a water resistant coat.  Since it is medicated shampoo; it stays on for an minimum of 10 minutes.  then it is rinsed and lotion applied while he is still wet.  I then I have to bleach all his bedding and his harness.  It really is a big deal and a lot of work

Then Laura had to move with her family and start all over, so I went through all of my basic things (towels, dishes, beds, bedding, dressers, shelves and just about anything and everything you could possibly need). I found what i could but that also meant the dresser, desk and shelves had to be emptied and those things contained therein had to find new homes around our  house.  Her boys now are sleeping on the beds Laura used when she was little and they have a dresser and desk that Laura also used.  I then looked at thrift shops to gather what I could there.  Next came Wal-mart  and Amazon.  Her brothers drove up to her new home and delivered what we had gathered.  I've also been gardening in the morning while it is cool.  Since Laura wants some houseplants, I have been trimming my container gardens and rooting the trimmings on my kitchen window sill.  I also got my winter greens area of my garden ready to plant tomorrow.  I've also replanted some of my herbs so they are ready to come inside when we start to get frosts.

I also made up some photos and printed them on magnetic paper to send to the people who I visit from church.  I put my name and phone # on them so, if they ever wanted or needs to call me, it would be right there on their fridge.The thing i am most proud of is on the collage at the top.  Last year our church's women's organization made totes and filled them with personal products for the local women's shelter.  I found then that I really loved making totes and designing not just the look but designing them to suit a specific purpose.  When I saw a swap of A Tote and a Note on Swapbot; I jumped at the chance to participate.  I really enjoyed this swap and designed this just for my assigned swap buddy.  She does cross stitch so I designed the tote to fit.  It was large enough to hold a good sized hoop and project book or magazine, but was narrow enough to hold it upright.  I included pockets on the inside and out with some long enough for scissors and rulers.  I added a clear pencil case so that the threads could be stored and seen there.  I also added hooks so the case could easily be taken out and some other hooks to hang things like things like keys on.  All this was done with scraps and leftovers from other projects.

Swapbot has been real good for me, allowing me to be creative in multiple ways and I am learning to meet deadlines.  If I am ever to go back to school or start my own business this is definitely a skill I need to develop.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing what I have been up to.

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Good Morning- Confusion reigns

I got up this morning and while I was walking the dog I noticed that the plants seem to be a little cofused as to what season this is.

I saw and photographed all these this morning:

Spring flowers

Cantaloupes ripening on the vine

Summer flowers

Fall leaves

Enjoy

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

If you don't like the weather...

We've been having cloudy, rainy days for several days now.  The weather has been pretty gloomy, but at times the sun breaks through and we get some delightful  cloud formationds.  These picture were all taken within an hour of rain.  There is a saying here that if you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes it will change.  I would really feel bad complaining about the rain and clouds because we desparately need the rain, however the gloom was starting to get to me till I looked up when it wasn't actually raining and saw the teriffic shape of the clouds caused by the weather.  My garden is enjoying it; both the plants that are supposed to be there and the weeds.  At least it is getting cooler so I can go correct that balance when the rain stops. 

Hope you enjoy the clouds, too



Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Low blood sugar brain fog

Personally I find waiting in doctor's offices to be the pits and a tremendous waste of time.  However I spend so much time waiting in their offices I have learned to come prepared.  I see 15 different doctors all of them specialists, all of which I see every six weeks to every three months, which adds up to a lot of time spent waiting.  I know what doctors have a long wait and those that have a good magazine selection.  I also know which doctors keep their magazines neat and rotated from the back exam rooms to the main waiting rooms.  This morning I had a doctors appointment with a doctor with a long wait time (he spends whatever time is necessary with each patient, so the wait is worth it).  I knew my appointment would be around lunch time, so the magazines would be in the exam rooms, so I came prepared with my Zentangle supplies.  Unfortunately because it was lunch time my blood sugar took a big dip to the low side.   This doctor is an endocrinologist and in the past he has taken the time to show me how low blood sugar effects brain function.  When he catches a patient with low blood sugar he has them do simple math problems.  I couldn't even do simple one digit addition.  Since the amount of insulin I give myself is determined by doing some quick math this could be a problem. 
I can't show you how bad my math skills are so I thought I would show you how low blood sugar effects brain function by showing you the Zentangle that I did today.  Some was done with low blood sugar and some with normal blood sugar.  I will probably never send this envelope out because of the number of mistakes.  There are designs where part is upside down, just random parts, and I had great difficulty keeping the  patterns  straight (see upper right).    All together I had a hard time just concentrating  and so it took much longer to do this envelope. 
I should learn that when I start making a lot of mistakes, losing things, or just plain get con fused easily; I need to check my blood sugar.  This zentagle was a good reminder.
Hope you Enjoy it anyway
☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺
I hope this makes sense; since I am still having trouble thinking.
PS You wouldn't believe how often I edited this post and then put off publishing it till the next day; due to brain fog. 

This is why I love Amazon.com

Going back to my post on what do we owe our pets you might remember my concern over the high cost of medical care for our pets.  This is a shampoo that will hopefully keep Rascal's skin infection under control.  The bottle on the right came from the vets and cost $50.  Since Rascal needs to be bathed with this shampoo twice a week, minimum, for the rest of his life, the cost could quickly add up for this one medicine alone.  I decided to look elsewhere to see if I could get it cheaper elsewhere.  I checked out 1-800PetMeds and did find it for $28 on sale plus shipping.  Better but still quite expensive and shipping was expensive, too.  I didn't think Amazon would have it but decided to try it anyway.  Wow they had it for $12 plus shipping, which turned out to be minimal.

It came from one of their independent dealers, which is why it had shipping charges.  I ordered on Saturday and received it yesterday (Monday).  Wow priority mail without extra charges.  Amazon does an excellent job of monitoring their independent dealers so they can be trusted.  As you can see from the pictures the medications are exactly the same except the one from the vet has a prescription label.  The expiration dates are even the same so I didn't get old stock the dealer was trying to get rid of.  Great prices, great service, and easy to use.  When you decide to use Amazon please go through my blog.  Use the tab on the upper right and you can just click on go and it will take you straight to Amazon.  They have a terrific associate program where I earn a percentage of the sales that go through my site and all it costs you is an extra mouse click to go to my blog first.  Save and

ENJOY

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Got to walk the dog

I got my flu shot last Friday.  I know that since the shot does not contain the live virus that it is not supposed to cause any reaction or flu symptoms; it did with me.  every year when I get the shot; I get the symptoms.  They may be less then getting the actual flu, but they still make me feel cruddy.  Aches, chills, fever (100.6) and high blood sugar, (all signs of illness) but when you own a dog, no matter how you feel, the dog still needs to be walked.  Tom normally does this for me when I don't feel well, but he wasn't around, so we went for a walk. 

I decided since I was outside anyway I would bring my camera to catch the last of the summer color.  I have taught Rascal to hold still on command when we walk and that is what he is doing in the picture above.  Good dog! 

This is the space for my garden in the making.  This year we put up this hanging space for my tomatoes.  Put up hangers for my Nasturtiums and put a raised space underneath for my squash and cucumbers.  It is in the middle of this photo (click on picture to enlarge).  Eventually there will be other spaces with walkways and raised spaces, so I can garden in spite of my handicaps.  Little by little as we get the time, energy and money it will be added to.   Fortunately we live in the south where you can garden almost all year long.  Summer is actually the hardest time to garden here due to the heat, so more progress will be made now that the temperature has dropped.  Eventually there will be flowers, herbs, vegetables and a picnic table in this spot.

One last photo of the filterd sunshine in the woods across the street from me.  Rascal and I walk by it every day.

Hope you enjoyed my walk as much as I did.

Enjoy your day

♥☺♥Johnina♥☺♥

Autistic Grandchilden - http://www.autismspeaks.org/

These picture epitomise the symptoms of autism.  There are a couple behaviors shown in the picture above that are very typical of an autistic child,  First and foremost is the fact that even though they are are playing together; they are also each doing their own separate activies.  There is no social interaction.

When I was growing up and my siblings and I all faced abuse, we still faced it separately.  My phrase for it is 'We were all in it together, separately.'  How much better it would have been growing up if my siblings an I could have talked and worked together, but alas it was not to be.  We still do not discuss it.  It makes for great loneliness, feelings of self questioning and doubt without that social interaction.  While my siblings could have had that interaction, due to the abuse it never happened.  With autism that social interaction is missing; it is part of the autism condition.  How very sad to go through life, to be an insular individual devoid of the comfort of human interaction.

This lack of interaction is again shown in the fact that autistic children lack interaction with their playthings, also.  Instead  of playing with their toys and having them interact; they line them up.  Notice that Wyatt is lining up the crayons while Hayden is coloring.  Hayden has been in therapy and Laura has worked hard in encouraging some kind of interaction, but when Hayden was little he often lined up he toys and heaven forbid you moved them.  It was meltdown time.  Now he can interact with his toys sometimes with great enthusiasum.

There is great hope in the research and therapies now. I believe every person has their own special set of talents and gifts, but autistic children need extra help in coping and developing social skills so that their own personal talents can show and shine. 

For more information on autism please go to http://www.autismspeaks.org/.

If you go through this website to Amazon I have a wish list under my name Johnina Young and under my wish list Autism look for items that help with autism if you would like to learn more or would like to help me help my grandchildren.  Or you can go to the Amazon link or my wish list on my sidebar.  I have checked these books out at the library when they were available so I know most of them to be helpful and informative.

ENJOY

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

Art swap revisited

This is the mail art that I received today.  What a fun collage.  What a delightful surprise that it came from Brazil.  Of all the foreign countries I could gotten Brazil was perfect.  My son sent two years on a mission in Brazil and speaks, reads, and writes in fluent Portuguese so no translation problems.

I also got lots of loot and since I have been thinking of doing some mixed media art, these will be a great start.

These are a few of my favorites.  I love the little skelanimals, so halloweeny.  I delight in haloween decorations, books, and crafts.  To show my eclectic side I also love bookmarks and collect them; I also love Shakespeare and getting a bookmark of Shakespeare and in Portuguese is just to cool.

This is what I sent out this morning on the swap 'Send a letter, get a letter' off of Swapbot.  The sticker on the envelope and the sticker sheet I sent are all made from my photos.  All of the other items came from suggestions on my partner's profile and of course the Halloween theme paper came from my love of Halloween.

This has turned out to be lots of fun for me and I hope you

ENJOY

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

PS: there was no entries and therefore no winner of my second giveaway so i am going back to the rules of the first giveaway (I had 60 something entries), but would like some ideas of what to give away.  More mail art, stickers of my photos, photos of mine with magnetic backing, a print of one of my photos (suggestions please) or any other craft that I could produce.  Any ideas would be appreciated.



Art swaps

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to color.  She loved to turn the black and white paper bright with color.  She colored carefully; making sure that all her strokes were straight up and down and always kept within the lines.  However she never showed her pictures to anyone; as there was always some kind of mistake.  Sometimes the crayon would slip a little and venture outside the lines or maybe the strokes were not quite straight up and down or a little space left uncovered.  So in spite of her love of the bright colors; she kept the books to herself never showing them to anyone.  It wasn't as if it would have done any good the books wouldn't have been shown off any way.  There were no pictures on the refrigerator at her house.  She continued to learn on her own; always in the privacy of her room.  She learned to fill in with circles so the stroke marks wouldn't show up as much.  Up and down strokes just didn't look right.  She then discovered how to curve her strokes to follow the lines of the drawing.  Experimenting with combining markers and crayons came next and she became more and more pleased with her finished pictures.  However she still kept them to herself, hiding them.  Hiding them because of the little gremlins who were developing inside her; telling her of her mistakes and telling her that her improvements were really failings because she should have known better.  Then she learned how to paint and a whole new adventure started for her; it was short lived but a step in the right direction.  One day she showed the paintings to her teacher who put them on the bulletin board and soon she had her own spot to display her paintings.  With a new teacher and a new year this stopped and she went back to keeping her art work to herself.  Once again hiding what she was learning.  This went on for years, while her little gremlins inside kept pointing out her mistakes and asking why try, if there was always mistakes and never acknowledging the progress being made.  Soon she was doing less and less art.  But the artist inside her kept trying to sneak out past the gremlins, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.  As she got better and better she started to be noticed for her art.  Sometimes the artist inside would make it past the gremlins and she would share and be accepted.  After years and years of this now as a grandmother she is learning to love to share her art even in it's imperfection.  She is still learning not to listen to those little gremlins.  Instead she is learning to listen to the pleasure it brings to her to share, the compliments and pleasure she sees as others enjoy her work and the small voice that tells her she is making progress.

In case you couldn't tell that little girl was me and sharing my art now brings me great joy both on the Internet and in person.  I recently found an art swap site (http://www.swap-bot.com/) that I have joined.  It is free and they have various avenues in which to share your artwork.  Some are for newbies and some are for more experienced individuals for which you must qualify just by doing a good job of keeping your commitments.  I picked a mail art swap and the above is the envelope that I did.  They also asked to include something in the envelope, since I am best known for my photography I sent a photo with a letter.

I am looking forward to receiving mail art from the person assigned to me.  I plan on doing more swaps and maybe you would like to join me and know the pleasure of sharing in a new way.

Enjoy

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

Update Give away #2

So far i have not recieved any entries for my give away of the book Creative Awakenings.  As blogger comments are not always reliable and if you have entered; please e-mail me at johninayoung@yahoo.com.  If you would still like to enter see my post Give away #2.  The deadline is still tomorrow, Sept. 15.

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Give away #1 revisited

This is going to be short and sweet.  I gave myself my IVIG last night which always leaves me achy and then I had physical therapy first thing this morning.  Big mistake.  I hurt. With the help of my husband;  I did however get my act together enough to get the first giveaway gathered together and mailed. 

I hardly ever delete my photos no matter how bad they are.  The background for the CD and cover is a very badly out of focus photo of a Nasturtium.  I think it made a great background; much better than a solid color.   Going to the post office after my afternoon Doctor appointment (long day) turned out to be a pleasant experience.  The winner lives in Thailand so I had to deal with international mail; which I haven't done since my son served a 2 year mission in Brazil several years ago.  The postal worker was very helpful and because it was international mail it took longer to mail it.  While I was filling out the paperwork this delightful postal worker and I had an interesting conversation on mail art and the photo I had placed on the envelope.  Even with as tired and in pain as I was, this discussion lifted my spirits and made me glad that I have decided to share my art with others.  Not so long ago I would not have felt that my art work was worth sharing much less believed  it would  bring pleasure to other people's lives.  Even at 55 I am learning and growing not just in my artist endeavors but also personally.  Once again serendipity brings joy into my life.

Enjoy

♥☺♥Johnina♥☺♥

Roof fog

Cool nights, high humitity, dark roof, bright morning sunshine: Combine all of these and what do you get- roof fog.

Enjoy

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

Oh no- fall begins in Georgia

In the last couple of days it has become obvious that autumn is getting a head start this year in Georgia.  In the last couple of days I've had to locate my jacket, turn off the air conditioner because the house was to cold with it on, and this morning I was able to open the windows so I could check out the heater and make sure it worked.  Every year when it starts to get cool at night we turn on the heat to make sure it works and to make sure any dust accumulated in the system during the summer is gone.  I hate that first time start up smell.  I would also be very unhappy if we needed it one night and it didn't work.  We've lived in this house for over 20 years now with the same heat pump.  The last time we had to have the air-conditioner part of it fixed, we were told they don't even make parts for our heat pump anymore.  Happy to say it works wonderfully.  I really don't want to have to replace it right now.

I am enjoying the cooler weather especially in the morning when I walk the dog and work in the garden.  I am really getting excited about planting my fall perennials, clearing out and changing around my gardens.  I am not looking forward to the leaves falling and this has already started.

This picture was taken in my front yard this morning.  Amazingly the photo above is the same photo as the photo at the top of this post.  I am still learning the nuances of Photoscape and having lots of fun.  I have been organizing my photos and in doing so  I have discovered that I do not feel that a photo is finished until I either put a frame around it or do some kind of art editing to it.  Discovery # 1 in my journey to decide what direction to take my art.

Please remember the giveaway of the book Creative Awakenings. I am working on my journal and will shortly have some photos of my progress.  Click here for details.

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Zentangle Everywhere

This another book I got for my birthday.  Didn't have to ask for it; it was on my Amazon wish list.  Yoga for your Brain is a fun little book with lots of zentangle designs in it.  I do my doodling and zentangle on envelopes instead of my sketchbook, so I can share them.  After I went through this book this is the first envelope I did.                   It was fun to do. Although it was not perfect it was still bright and cheerful to send.  I send out quite a few cards with my photos in them. While the person who received the cards may have enjoyed the photos I decided that doing art on the outside let more people enjoy the cards I sent out. Years ago I would do some art on my envelopes that I sent to the kids and grandkids, but had stopped as I put a lot of effort into the finished picture on the envelope so that I was not sending out as much mail. Now using envelopes instead of my sketchbook; I may not send out my most perfect more elaborate artwork but it is always bright and cheerful and fun for me to do.

This book also pointed out all the zentangle designs all around me.  It gave me a new perspective on some of the photos I was taking and using them in another art form.  Suddenly the close-ups of architectural details that I had been taking were giving me ideas to use in this new (to me) art form.  I think this really came home to me when I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 with the grandchildren.  This movie start out in Zentangle style,  but all through it is ideas in the background for zentangle designs

Look at the windows, columns, floors and ceilings and all kinds of other archetecual details for amazing designs.

I've also found some pretty amazing blogs and websites with zentagle and doodle designs in them.

http://lifeimitatesdoodles.blogspot.com/

Draw, Doodle and Decorate

The Daily Doodle

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/

Terri's Tangles

ENJOY

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

PS to participate in my give away please click here

Good thing he's cute- What do we owe our pets?

I must admit at the very start of this post that I have very mixed feelings about this subject.  While ideally when you get a pet it should be with keeping them for their lifetime in mind.  Keeping them well taken care of , well socialized (I have a thing against dogs who are chained or left in a pen 24/7) and healthy.  Most pets are social animals and need the love and attention from their owners.  Why have a pet if not for companionship?  I could do a whole post on people who neglect their pets but that is not what this post about.

What about those who love their pets and do indeed take care of them, but due to circumstances or a change of circumstances the pet no longer fits in with your life?

I've had to find homes for dogs that my children have owned but due to a move had to give up their dogs.  So far I have been lucky in placing these dogs in good homes.

However I picked up an abandoned dog (not a subject to get me started on) only to find out that all the shelters were full, due to people surrendering their dogs due to the economy. One large no-kill shelter in Atlanta was turning away 80 dogs a day.  I have something of a different problem. I rescued Rascal from a shelter 5 years ago; a healthy older puppy and he has been my companion ever since.He sits at my feet or lays down in the same room as me.  he's well house trained and lets me know when he needs to go out.  He goes in the car with me, loves to go bye-bye (top pic). I take him with me whenever the weather will allow.  He walks well on a leash and I have even taught him to be still so I can stop and take photos.

He has been a real blessing in my life as I am sometimes housebound and he keeps me company.  However he does have expensive recurring medical problems.  He has allergies and because he scratches he gets infections.  At one time he lost most of his hair and his skin was so raw it would oozed blood.  We took him to the vet and spent a small fortune in veterinarian bills.  He did stay healthy for about a year but a couple of months ago it started all over again.  In the last

couple of months his bills are coming up on $1,000.  That does not include the shots he still needs, but has been to sick to get.  As you can see there are times when he really does not feel good, which makes me sad.  Poor baby.  We thought he was all better but a couple of days ago he started itching again and losing his fur.  I really could not afford his bills so far, but starting all over and his bills could swamp me financially.  Personally I could think of a lot of things that would help me for the money I have spent on him.

 Do I owe him another round of bills and his being miserable; especially since the vet says this will probably continue off and on for the rest of his life?  Should I continue to go deeper in debt?   Is it fair to him to have him miserable just so I can enjoy his company?  Do I try to find him another home with someone who can afford his vet bills?  Would that even be possible given the shelter situation?  He is very attached to me so would he even adjust to a new home?  He really is a good dog and has been well trained and socialized.  See how patiently he waits for his food.  I would miss him terribly.  I'm afraid that humanely euthanizing him will be my best option, but how very sad that would make me.  So many questions to consider and are any of the solutions the 'right' one?  Is there even a 'right' answer?  I don't know; all I know is I want to do the best I can.

What do you think we owe our pets; who depend on us for their all?

♥♥♥Johnina♥♥♥

Race cars at Wal-mart

Since we live so close to the Atlanta Motor Speedway; race car driving is a big deal here.  With the big race over the weekend our Wal-mart joined in the hoopla. These are the cars that were outside Wal-Mart.  These cars I can see how they got there and it was fun to see them, but they were not the shock of seeing the car in the produce section from yesterdays post.  This one is just what it says on the side 'Offical Pace Car" for the race.  The next two photos are cars that are in the race as was the car in the produce section.

 I was not the only one taking photos

 There were lots of security just watching out for these cars.  I would imagine they are worth lots and lots of money.  I'm also sure that since they also keep them in showroom shape and race ready so they don't want anyone messing with them.

Crowd control and enjoyment.  They had a car (the orange one) that you could get into and see what it would be like to sit in the drivers seat.  Vroom,Vroom.   The security people tended to be very nice and friendly.  I even had a discussion with them on what kind of camera they should get.

These cars were also more then they first appeared all kinds of safety equipment and computers and electronics

And of course there was all the inevitable hype and advertising to go with it, but it did serve to give the store kind of a festival feel to it.  Our Wal-Mart quite often has activities and fundraisers outside the store just like the car set-up.  They allow groups to set up tents to sell cookies or doughnuts and sometimes full scale Bar-b-ques for fundraisers.  For years our scout troop wrapped Christmas presents there and my boys were always able to pay for their summer camp from that one fundraiser. 

Hope your enjoyed my shopping trip

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

PS while you are here scroll down and check out my latest give-away