Dear Sisters, What a great year! I loved every event and I am looking forward to Founders Day with everyone. Our chapter has adopted into our budget paying for each of us to go to Founders. This way everyone will at least be financially available to go. It has really helped us to make that plan and get there as a whole group. I hope to see everyone there - and get my Beta Hugs from each chapter. This year’s theme was so good - I kept humming this little light of mine throughout the year. A coworker sent me an email - and I had not thought about this saying before - but it really spoke to me: As We let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same! So sisters - Sing, Dance, talk, explore, share, love and most of all let YOUR light shine Be yourself- so someone else can catch that Beam and shine too! Always Ellie The Bustle Beta Sigma Phi Southwest Houston City Council April 2014 President’s Message April Service Project: Hampton at Meadows Place _______________________ Decorations: PN Ice Cream Social: BLB Thanks to all for their commitment to bring- ing a smile to the faces of the “seniors”! Happy Birthday! Patricia Benavides Julie Parnell Nannette Chapman Rita Mayo Barbara Hobbs Joyce Chriss
Transcript
Dear Sisters,
What a great year! I loved every event and I am looking forward to Founders Day with everyone. Our chapter has adopted into our budget paying for each of us to go to Founders. This way everyone will at least be financially available to go. It has really helped us to make that plan and get there as a whole group. I hope to see everyone there - and get my Beta Hugs from each chapter. This year’s theme was so good - I kept humming this little light of mine throughout the year. A coworker sent me an email - and I had not thought about this saying before - but it really spoke to me:
As We let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same!
So sisters - Sing, Dance, talk, explore, share, love and most of all let YOUR light shine Be yourself- so someone else can catch that Beam and shine too!
Always Ellie
The Bustle
Beta Sigma Phi Southwest Houston City Council
April 2014
President’s Message
April Service Project:
Hampton at Meadows Place
_______________________
Decorations: PN
Ice Cream Social:
BLB
Thanks to all for their commitment to bring-
ing a smile to the faces of the “seniors”!
Happy
Birthday!
Patricia Benavides
Julie Parnell
Nannette Chapman
Rita Mayo
Barbara Hobbs
Joyce Chriss
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Alpha Theta Master Submitted by Grace Wallace
Sisters in Alpha Theta Master were saddened by the passing of former member Sue McPherson the first of March. A Celebration of Life was held on March 15th for her here in Houston. Janann Gibbs and Winona LaBrant gave a luncheon and bridal shower for Terry Colley’s granddaughter, Bryson. It was held at the Houston Junior League in March. It was a wonderful time attended by ATM members, Terry’s daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Janann and Rick Gibbs just returned from a long weekend in Napa, with daughter Jen and her hubby Phil. Lots of good wine, good food and great company! Barbara Hobbs’ son, Mark, spent a week with his parents while John had an extensive round of tests at MD . Mark and his dad also went to a Rockets’ game, along with a foot-ball practice and baseball game at the U of Houston. John came out of his testing with “flying colors.” Joyce Frank would like to give a great big thanks to her chapter, Alpha Theta Master and sister chapter Xi Alpha Zeta for nominating her for Sister with Something Extra. What an honor. Looking forward to the Founders Day Banquet on April 26th. All of our members have worked very hard to give all of you a great Banquet. As Joyce works for a CPA and it is tax season, she has been very busy at work. Of course, she still found time to go to Gonzales to watch her granddaughter, Anna, compete in the Youth Rodeo. She did great and made the finals in Poles, ending up in 6th place. She also competed in Barrels and straight barrels doing good. She is in 27th out of 45 youth in all events. Great for her first year of riding in completion. See you at Founders Day.
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Alpha Theta Master continued
What is the Value of One Member?
Ten little members standing in a line.
One dislikes the people, then there were nine. Nine ambitious members offered to work late. One forgot her promise, then there were eight
Eight creative members had ideas as good as heaven. One lost enthusiasm, then there were seven. .
Seven loyal members got into a fix. They quarreled over programs, and then there were six.
Six members remained with spirit and drive.
One moved away, then there were five. Five steadfast members wished there were more.
One became indifferent, then there were four. Four cheerful members who never disagree--
‘Til one complained of meetings, then there were three.
Three eager members--what do they do? One got discouraged, then there were two.
Two lonely members, our rhyme is nearly done. One joined a bridge club, then there was one.
One faithful member was feeling rather blue--
Joined up a neighbor, then there were two. Two earnest members each enrolled one more--
Doubling their number, then there were four. Four determined members just couldn’t wait-- ‘Til each won another, and then there were eight.
Eight excited members signed up 16 more. In another six verses, there’ll be 1,024.
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Xi Alpha Zeta Submitted by Debbie Harris
XAZ Sisters have not slowed down a bit as their March meetings and social events have kept them on the constant run. Donna and Rich Unangst had just returned from their “Anniversary Disney Cruise” on Sunday, so Donna decided to host the first meeting of March at “The Cellar Door “restaurant in Katy, TX. This restaurant had quickly become Donna and Rich’s favorite restaurant and she was glad she could share the experience. The XAZ sisters had a wonderful meal of hummus and pita chips, stuffed mushrooms, meat and cheese trays, and Sonoma and Genona flatbread pizzas. Diana Rayle served as co-hostess as Donna shared some of her favorite wines with us. As the ladies were wined and dined, they shared a very relaxed and free flowing conversational meeting as they planned the BLB brunch for later in the month.
The second meeting of March was held at the home of GiGi Kennel on March 18th. GiGi was the “hostess with the mostess” Serving a wonderful meal of baked fish, couscous, spinach salad and mini chocolate bundt cakes. The secret sister theme “The Color of Light” was the program. The gift exchange was thoroughly enjoyed by all, receiving color-ful garden items, purses, candles, jewelry and lamps.
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Xi Alpha Zeta continued
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Xi Alpha Zeta continued
On Saturday March 22nd, the XAZ sisters hosted the sisters of BLB at the home of Ellie O’Dell for a champagne brunch. It was a wonderful morning of food, drink, games and conversation. Ellie’s home was the perfect backdrop for a “scavenger hunt” and the op-portunity for all sisters to become more acquainted with each other.
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Preceptor Nu Submitted by Duang Putnam March is a signal that the spring is here. It is a beautiful season of flowers, the birds, and the bees. The Preceptor Nu bees gathered for the March meeting at the beautiful home of Linda Rather. We had a lot to share, both chapter business and personal. We elected our new board for 2014-2015. Sandra Simpson is taking the role as our President. Congratulations to all the new board members, Toni, Linda, Rana and Leah. Linda was a gracious hostess and provided us with a delicious meal and refreshments. She also presented a wonderful program on “Croatia”, a trip that she and her husband took last fall. Using slides we got to see the beautiful cities, buildings, architecture, and sea port. Members learning about other places rings to our motto …LEARNING! Congratulations to Linda, the mother of the bride to be. Her daughter, Julie is getting married at the end of April. Best wishes for all the happiness that life can bring to the couple. Rana, her son Ramsey, and Toni enjoyed their time serving ice cream and visiting with the residents at the Hampton place. Duang finished up the PN service project for the year with Easter basket decorations. All of us are take service projects to heart, but one of our sisters, Toni Laas, has a unique way of providing her services. She will be working as a translator for Faith in Practice, a medical mission of volunteers who provide medical, surgical and health related educational programs to the poor of Guatemala. Her task is to be able to communicate and connect with the patients before and after their surgery. This gives her the opportunity to know the patient, their stories, to give them hope and let them know that there are people in this world that care for them. We are very proud of you Toni!!!!! Toni is also planning a social for us in April; it is a dinner at the Argentinian restaurant, “Tierra del Fuego”. We will get to enjoy Argentinian grill, Tango dancers, and music. We certainly will let you know if we give them a thumb up or down. Many thank to all our council sisters for the love and prayers for the PN sisters, Shirley, Melody, and beta buddy Larry who are dealing with health issues. Your kindness is very much appreciated. Happy spring everyone and I look forward to seeing you at the “Founder’s Day” event.
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The ladies of Beta Lambda Phi have been on the go and busy as ever to start off the spring season. In March, the chapter was hosted by the won-derful ladies of Laureate Iota Tau (LIT). Both chapters had a fabulous time at the home of Mary Gordon. We played Minute to Win It and enjoyed learning about each other over a deli-cious spread of food. We are happy to have had the chance to get to know these ladies better and sharing the afternoon with them. Also in March, we celebrated Day with Your Sister. It was a sleepover held at Andrea’s home and hosted by Amy. It was the best sleepover in the chapters history. A lot of belly laughs, good food and wine was had making this a memora-ble event. Tricia and her family spent almost 2
weeks in both New Orleans and north LA. Emma and Tricia had fun visiting her grandparents but most especially loved the Irish Channel Parade in New Orleans where we caught beads and cabbag-es, danced to the music and gave 'boons' for flowers (that's her Uncle Mike she's kissing). Amy hosted a fun St. Patrick's Day playdate for our BLP littles. Luke started soccer and is having a great time kicking the ball around. Joseph is growing up too fast and turned a year old on 2/25!
The Allison's took a trip to Wisconsin for Kelly's cousin wedding. It snowed while they were there and they had fun snowmobiling and introducing Jake to snow. It got down to -7 while they were there and couldn't wait to get back to Texas. Kelly and Stuart celebrated their 3rd year anniver-sary at the San Antonio River walk. Stuart surprised Kelly with a wine tour from Austin to San Antonio and then they spent the rest of the weekend cruising the River walk. Kelly's sister Amy moved to Houston and she's been busy helping her sister get settled in.
Beta Lambda Phi Submitted by Emily Zeitler
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Diane had a wonderful time in Uru-guay visiting her family. Daniel was such a little angel on the trip -- he slept the entire 9-hr flight! Diane’s grandmother was so excited to meet Daniel and Neal. Daniel is now 9 months and has been on an airplane 6 times total! He also left the USA with no teeth and came back with 1. :) Right before Diane left she passed her real estate exam (she was taking courses before Daniel was born but
never had a chance to take the exam)... she enrolled in a crash course to help her "refresh" on what she learned and she can't believe she actually passed the test! It was REALLY tough. The sister of BLP are so excited for Diane and wish her well in her new career.
Kimberly and family went to Lost Pines in Austin. They had a great time roasting marshmallows by the bonfire, and hiking. Victor and Kimberly got a couples massage and had dinner together while the grand-parents watched the kids.
Emily completed a 32 hour prenatal yoga training. She can now teach prenatal yoga and is very excited in sharing this with new moms to be. Nathan is coming up on turning 7 months old. He is growing so fast. He loves solids especially squash. He is starting to be more vocal and each day makes new sounds. He smiles all the time now and recogniz-es when mom or dad is gone.
Beta Lambda Phi continued
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XPG is rockin and rollin with Spring in the air. It was a long cold winter and we are glad to see green and Spring! The month started off with our service chair Maisie taking charge of decorating at the Hampton for St. Patrick's Day. And thanks also to Jill for picking out the decora-tions. The festive arrangements helped set the mood for some good old "Luck of the Irish". Members gathered at Alicia’s Mexican Grill in early March for our first meeting. The margaritas were huge and the food was great. It took forever to get the bill, but it al-lowed more time for talking. Maisie served as our host for the meeting and treated us to some great desserts. The nominees for next year's board were announced - Melinda, Sandy, Maisie, Melissa and Kim will be preparing for their new roles come May. And with the Houston rodeo still on-going at the time, our program centered around our memories of our "first" rodeo. A few had never been to a rodeo and some remembered fond times of "old"! Our second meeting took us to Patricia's house. She treated us to a full spread of goodies to eat including home made favor-ites of chicken salad, deviled eggs, veggies and Easter candies. We welcomed back guest Rachel and enjoyed visiting with her again. In fact Rachel and Chris both made fast friends with Buddy (Patricia's four-legged child). Buddy has really come out of his shell and entertained us all with his an-tics! Votes were cast for Sister With Some-thing Extra. And we held the Ritual of Jewels for newest members Beth and Li-sa. Maisie wasn't able to be there so her ritual will be planned for at a later date. Patricia shared with us one of her family's Easter traditions growing up. It is called "Cascarones". Cascarones means "eggshell" in Spanish. Each year her Mother would begin to cook a lot of scrambled eggs for the family in the month leading up to East-er. The eggs were carefully prepared so as to save the bulk of the eggshell in one piece. They were then set out to dry. Later they were colored and then stuffed with con-fetti. The Cascarones were given to the children on Easter morning and the game began to smash the eggs over someone's head. Patricia prepared a basket of colorful Casca-rones and we each were able to select one to take home. Thanks for sharing Patricia!
Xi Phi Gamma Submitted by Sandy Dickey
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On Saturday a group of XPG sisters wandered over to Old Town Spring to attend Springfest, an annual wine festival benefitting the Spring Preservation League. We arrived early and stayed late so that should tell you we had a great time full of shopping, eating, a lite drinking and more shopping. The weather couldn't have been any better; a perfect spring day with sun and cool temps. We even were surprised to see Mickey Mouse and were able to get our picture taken with him. Sisters are excited about Founders Day next month and look forward to a great council event to round out the year. We are planning a girl’s getaway weekend in May. Getting out of town with our sisters for food and fun is always a welcome event.
Spring is here and the ladies of XEE are all busy, busy, busy. Shirley Grass has been kept busy with her Grandchildren. Her Grandson just achieved his Eagle Scout status and her Granddaughter just graduated from Culinary School (maybe she will cater one of our meetings, hummmmmmm). Barbara Hupe has become the newest volunteer at her Church's office while Sue Carson has been busy trying to remember where her world traveling daughter is at while she is judging the Science Fair at her Granddaughter's school. Wow, I'm getting tired......... Bobbie Viles continues on her quest to remodel/redecorate her house and Nannette Chapman is making plans to return to Washington DC to work on the tours. We enjoyed attending Sweetheart Ball and honoring our Sweet-heart, June Ryan. This week, we are busy planning a social to host another chapter . I hear a pool party is in the works and we are gearing up for summer and our usual travel adventures. Bye for now..... I think I hear Elvis calling me.......
Xi Phi Gamma continued
XI Eta Epsilon Submitted by Debbie Phillips
Laureate Iota Tau Submitted by Julie Parnell
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Laureate Iota Tau has been busy this last month - both individually and as a chapter. Our first March meeting met in the home of Frances Speer. We enjoyed a delicious salad supper and we made final plans for entertaining another chapter. The following Saturday we entertained BLP at Mary Gordon's home. Since we had so much fun entertaining another chapter last year with "A Minute to Win It" theme, we de-cided to repeat the theme. We'll post pictures in the next Bustle. It was a hoot to watch 2 teams compete to finish some pretty silly looking tasks first! We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know our sisters in BLP. Our second meeting in March was in the home of our president, Sandra Rutland. We had t postpone it and reschedule it a couple if times due to the flu bug. Sandra fed us delicious chicken and baked Parmesan asparagus. Julie Parnell brought a sinfully deli-cious chocolate cherry cheesecake for dessert. This time we were making final plans for the program and hosting the April council meeting, We have also been busy completing baby blankets to be donated to a charity hospital. They are being donated through an organization that provides them to low income and homeless mothers with newborns and to mothers who have had stillborn infants. We crocheted lacy edges on the blankets to make them a little more special than just a plain receiving blanket. Debi Copeland had a very busy Spring Break. Her sister, Frances came from Ohio for a visit and they were in the go constantly. Sandra Rutland joined them for a trip to Freder-icksburg that was really enjoyable. Gaye Lynn Talley has been shopping and getting ready to welcome her first grandchild. Baby Lydia is due to arrive most ant day now. Gaye Lynn and husband, Ralph are leav-ing this week to travel to Tucson to be with daughter, Sara for the birth. Sara's husband is deployed overseas with the military and will not be home until August. In addition to getting ready to be a grandma, Gaye Lynn has been getting her 90 something year old mother settled in a rehab following a fall which resulted in a broken hip. There have been many complications with her mother falling a number of additional times and with infections that put her back in the hospital twice. Please keep the Talleys in your prayers - both for their travel and for Gaye Lynn's mother while they are gone.
Laureate Iota Tau continued
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Also, please keep Julie Parnell's daughter, Kathryn lifted up in prayer. She had to resign from her job in Dallas and move home 6 months ago to try to get her health under con-trol. She has been suffering from numerous cellulitis infections related to a congenital birth defect. Kathryn has been going to Lymphedema therapy 3 times a week for 6 months to try to remedy the problem. She has now been dismissed from the therapy be-cause it has not helped and her edema is worse than it was. She is probably facing going on disability unless some other treatment is found. Frances Speer is leaving soon to fly to Boise, Idaho to help daughter, Stephanie and fami-ly get ready to move back to Texas. Stephanie's husband is in the Navy and Thayer are being transferred back to the Corpus Christi area. We are looking forward to Founder's Day, but without Gaye Lynn who will be in Tucson and without Frances who will be in Boise.
Executive Board
President Ellie O’Dell, XAZ President Elect Sheila Ayres, XEE Vice President Joan Batts, BLB Recording Secretary Julie Parnell, LIT Corresponding Secretary Joyce Frank, ATM Treasurer Kelly Allison, BLP Parliamentarian Melinda Montgomery, XPG
