The Chronicles of Nani

Happy Leap Day!

2012-02-29T11:59:00.000-05:00

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Gioachino Rossini, great Italian composer born on leap day 1792. Rossini died in 1868, which made him 18 at the time of his death. Question my math?

I just found out in a discussion with my trivia man husband that the leap day is skipped in 3 of every four century years. There was a leap day in 2000, but not in 1700, 1800 or 1900. Which means Rossini’s second birthday was skipped. Since there was no leap day in 1900 either, he’d be 53 today.

I read in Canada’s National Post, “It takes the Earth about 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to orbit the sun, so (almost) every four years, a day is added to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. Occasionally, the calendar will leap the leap day to adjust for the fact that the extra time isn’t exactly six hours per year. ” The link will take you to the page. It has some interesting facts and a couple points of giggles. I think it’s pretty cool!

I still have a little bit of a froggy throat…but my silly punny self is feeling a little better today! After a good night’s rest I woke up a little better, but I’m still a tad congested and a dull pain in my throat. And it’s been raining, like crazy! Gotta love this insane winter!

I have a White Tornado board on Pinterest. I pin everything I want to purchase or make as part of the White Tornado project. It’s more productive than adding more bracelets to the “My Style” board…although I still do a lot of that too. Club Pandora re-obsesses me every month. I want wallpaper for my desktop that’s a mound of decadent chocolate with a green, gold and silver Pandora bracelet draped over it. Ahhh….

But I digress; this isn’t about chocolate or Pandora. I was talking about White Tornado, organizing and accessiblizing! My mission last night was locating salad plates that go with my Corelle set. I love my dishes! They are plain smooth beige Corelle.

I have the salt and pepper shaker, gravy boat and cream pitcher and sugar bowl that match the beige. The accents are in the Forever Yours pattern

I have the tea kettle, crock pot, oven bowls and a few other accent pieces in that pattern. The description says the hearts are pink, but it’s a very peachy pink that matches my peach and light sage green kitchen theme well! So I thought maybe if I can’t find the plain beige salad plates, I’d get the beige-based plates in the Forever Yours pattern, which I did find...for $10 each. I kinda wish I’d kept Grandma’s salad plates. They were plain white and matched her brown-trimmed white Corelle. I could have lived with plain white to have the right size plates. I just never got the salad plates 20-some years ago when I bought the dishes and the plain beige was readily available. I have a search out for the plain beige ones with a replacement/search company online, but I might do some inspecting to see if I can culminate the money for the Forever Yours salad plates and be done with it.

When the dream kitchen becomes a real kitchen, the salad plates will match great, and in the meantime, they’re in the cupboard when not in use anyway.

I have several things on my undecorated plate today, so before I go, let’s check out the Wednesday Hodge Podge hosted by Joyce at From This Side of the Pond.

1. The Hodgepodge falls on the last day of February this year, a leap year. How will you spend that extra day?

I don’t know that it’s any different. I’m going to scrap a few pages, get through at least two more boxes in the future woman-cave and drink lots of tea to try to get my throat back to normal!

2. What has recently required a leap of faith on your part?

Starting my MS meds. The one I take has a reduced heart rate, kidney infections and optical damage as possible side effects. I was thoroughly tested before I was prescribed the drug, but it was still scary. I’m glad I did it. I feel a lot better now and no side effects that I can feel.

3. We're one week into the season of Lent...are you marking these 40 days in some way? Giving something up or adding something extra to normal life? How's it going so far?

Lent is supposed to be a time of sacrifice and I kinda lost my desire to really discuss it when I realized how much was spent on fish dinners on Fridays in the name of religious observation. The idea of Lent was created to encourage the wealthier to sacrifice their expensive meat habits and eat fish and support the poorer fishermen. In the true spirit of lent, give or volunteer to the less fortunate and pass on the lobster. Have a hamburger on Friday and support the minimum wage workers at McDonald’s.

4. When was the last time you sat beside a fire?

Assuming that my Christmas Video Fireplace doesn’t count, probably the fireplace at home in Michigan before I moved. That’s been over 5 years ago now.

5. Surf and Turf is on the menu. Do you order as is or do you ask for just the surf (lobster), just the turf (steak), or a menu so you can select another option?

Lobster is fine, just anything that doesn't taste like steak!

6. If you could have any television program back, not in reruns but in new episodes, what program would you choose?

Cold Squad, Canadian cold case program I watched on Sleuth.

7. They say an elephant never forgets. These days would you say your memory is more like an elephant or a gnat?

Oh, I have a decent memory, more like an elephant for sure.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I think today the next White Tornado boxes are mine! Progress!!

Hey, Where’d The Sun Go?

2012-02-28T20:11:00.002-05:00

I did a few things today, but I mostly rested and drank lots of fluids. But the sore throat and stuffiness still lingers. I have a cup of Gypsy Cold Care tea. It tastes good and it’s very soothing. I crawled up on the bed with a blanket and tread for a while after I showered this morning. I read a few blogs, did a scrapbook page and recently fed the kitty kids. I feel like a bum because I really had planned on doing more White Tornado upstairs today. Bleh.

Is this a rare glimpse into my dark side? Well, grouchy me mutters to the surface when I’m not feeling well. I won’t say “sick,” not yet. I need to keep drinking tea and broth. I’m out of coke, which is my usual throat remedy when it’s cold or allergies. I use regular coke and heat a cup in the microwave for 60 seconds. I know that sounds weird, but it works for me, the sweet warm and a massaging tickle of warm bubbles feels great. In a bit I’m going to see if the remedy works the same with Diet Coke with Splenda. I’m not big on WW medicinal points. David’s bringing me home comfort pretzels. That will work better for me!

My pamper-my-stuffy-self day made me late for Tell Me Tuesday! But it’s still Tuesday, even if it’s already dark!

So here is the prompt for today:

What three words would you use to describe the last three months of your life?

At the end of the next three months, what three words do you hope to be able to use to describe your life at that point?

I’ve been taking the wonderful medication that’s made me feel like my old self for three months now, so my there words would be vibrant, ambitious and relieved.

Had you asked me that same question 3 months ago, it would have been fatigued, frustrated and scared.

Three months from now, in May, when I’ll be making purchases and having furniture assembled. I want to be happy, industrious and satisfied in a better organized and more accessible home!

I can’t encourage enough to come join us for Tell Me Tuesday hosted by Suzanne at The Coloradolady! It’s thought-provoking and may just introduce you to a part of yourself you haven’t really gotten to know!

Internet is a must have for a small biz

2012-02-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Lemuel Craft

When I think about how new the internet is it kind of freaks me out just a little bit. I can remember back when I was a kid my family had an IBM PS1 computer at the desk in our kitchen. Windows wasn’t even a huge thing back then and if you wanted to run a program there was always a c:/ involved. We had something on the computer called Prodigy, which was a very early version of the internet. Then of course came America Online, which revolutionized how Americans used the internet. Now days everyone has internet with the at all times on their smart phones. When you think back to the days before having access to the internet it is hard to imagine how we did anything. How did we get directions to somewhere we had never been? How did we keep track of credit transactions at our businesses? How did we look up the greatest restaurant in the area? Now no business can survive without the internet. If you are a small business owner in the market for T1 connection check out t1.xo.com.

Googrrrrr

2012-02-28T11:11:00.001-05:00

Happy Tuesday everyone! To be honest, today is a day I NEEDED to have my morning coffee in my Good Morning mug to remind me!

Okay, it’s not really so bad, I just woke up stuffy and with a tiny bit sore throat. And then Google, Oh Google!

Blogger, BlogSpot, is a Google property. Yes, the people who thought it would be a good idea to put all of my actual files for my photos for everything Google on the brand new addition to their family so that if you cleared things to unclutter the brand new community, you killed all the images in your blog and that’s why I’m still missing a year’s worth of images, is responsible for all the blunders in the world of BlogSpot too.

Let’s start with what it doesn’t do. I am currently migrating away from Google Friend Connect. We all know by now that after tomorrow, GFC will no longer be available to non-Blogger readers, who do follow Blogger blogs. That means those readers have lost the reader they’ve been using and it means that those of us who blog at BlogSpot are potentially losing followers too. I have 74 followers. I have no idea how many will be left on Thursday morning. Thanks, Google!

What makes me nuts is I don’t know for how much longer we’ll have Google Friend Connect as part of our blogging dashboard for the BlogSpot blogs either. And does it really matter? For 2 blogs in particular that I follow, I find out they are posting after I get concerned that they haven’t posted in a while. I just don’t know it because GFC has AGAIN mysteriously deleted them from my blog list. Infuriating.

I’ve done some looking around. I did sign up for Linky followers. You can see that list in the right column. I look at it as a new mug rack for my Information Superhighway coffee shop. The biggest problem I have with Linky as a reader, is it’s so new and not really funded that it doesn’t auto update. If I don’t go to my Linky account and enter in a new post every time I post, followers aren’t alerted. I post once, sometimes twice, a day during the week as well as the White Tornado project and the big scrapbooking project with deadlines looming. Posting that I blogged to Linky every time I post means a blog or two won’t be read or commented on by me. I’m often catching up a day or two as is because of my full days right now. So, if you follow The Chronicles of Nani with the Linky Reader, I will try to update to the most current post when I can, but if it’s been more than 2 days since I posted according to Linky, try me again. There’s probably something new!

As for a blog reader for me, I’m using Bloglines. The biggest pain is that I have to migrate all the blogs I read one at a time, but it’s a quick process to add. If you want to try Bloglines, it’s free to sign up. I use the extension for Firefox which enables me to one click add to my reader. It all takes some figuring out, but once you get the initial set up done, it’s very user friendly, updates automatically and thus far, hasn’t deleted any of the blogs I follow from my reader list. I can read the blog entries from my reader, or click the title to go to the blog itself so I can leave comments. I set this up and use it for free. So far I like it a lot.

Next point of Googrrrr is Capcha. Oh, I hated the type in an incoherent mumbo jumbo of letters to verify your comment before, which is why readers have NEVER had to do that to leave a comment here. I’m not the world’s greatest typist, okay I’m not much of a typist at all, letters that don’t naturally go together in English, or at least French or Italian, mess with my head and that messes with my typing hands. I have to stop and type one letter at a time. Yeesh! Now Google has changed all that. Instead of one group of unrelated gibberish, we get TWO! One may or may not be a word and the other is all warped against a background that makes it unreadable. I know there has been uproar about it. The kicker; if you didn’t have those silly characters turned off in the old dashboard interface, there is no button to opt out of using them that I could find in the new one. Kelly sent me an email asking for help because when she changed layout templates on her blog, Coffee Cup Crafts and Christianity, it automatically gave her the Capcha “protection.” It’s protection from people leaving comments because they get so frustrated with the little game to leave a comment that they don’t.

A few thoughts and tips on the Capcha gibberish. First, the only way I found to get rid of it on the new interface is switch back to the old interface, click the gear in the upper right of the dashboard and select “Old Blogger Interface.” Then click settings and the comments tab. Click “no” for comment verification, then save settings at the bottom. Then return to the dashboard and click “try new Blogger Interface.” If anyone knows how to turn Capcha off in the new Blogger Interface, please leave a comment. You won’t have to type in gibberish to do so.

Google’s filter for spam/bot messages in comments is good. I get very few spam comments because I approve of all my comments before I post them. Originally that was so I could be sure there were no comments on sponsored posts that bash my sponsors or use the post as a free space to advertise a competing product. As I’ve said before, I’ll post anything that respectfully disagrees with ME, but if you’re “dissing” my sponsors, you’re threatening my coffee! But when I have things in my spam folder, I go in and check them and they're usually right about me not wanting it on my blog.

When choosing between Capcha garbage, approving all comments or taking a chance that the spam filter is working, I will offer this one thing; Capcha doesn’t work. I know I don’t type well. There are plenty of times that I have to retype the password to start my own computer. So I started wondering why I so seldom had to retype the Capcha codes. I’m bent over with my nose in the screen trying to discern what a letter in black on a scratchy black background is and I’m always right! Humph. I tried typing in a few letters that I was sure of wrong, simple “errors” like hitting a g when I knew the letter was h. The comment still posted! I tried it another time using three errors. The comment still posted. I tried making 3 or 4 errors with letter that were nowhere near the correct ones. It still posts. I finally had to retype when I hit all wrong keys, but the right number of characters. That didn’t work. So, I will offer that as irritating as Capcha is, don’t stress; you only have to kinda be right. It does make Capcha look like a bit of a FAIL though, doesn’t it?

I know a lot of people have vowed to not leave a comment when they have to enter a Capcha code. I don’t blame them. It goes back to the limited blog reading and commenting time and the extra time deciphering the code could be spent reading another blog and commenting without the code. I’ll still leave comments with a Capcha code now that I know what a joke it is for blog “security” of any kind. I’m just sure glad my bank’s website is pickier about security.

---PHEW---

Boy I feel a lot better now! Oh, I still have the stuffies and a mildly sore throat, but stabbing Google with a cyber-pitchfork helped.

Barn Charm

If you’re only here to see the barn, thanks for stopping by, but I do hope you’ll consider reading the Capcha rant and suggestions. I know a lot of the barns I visit have the Capcha codes to leave a comment and like I said, I know a lot of people who won’t leave a comment if they have to enter codes to do it.

Isn’t this barn a beauty? It’s in Ottawa County, Ohio, near the Ottawa County Bicentennial barn on State Route 2. I love the rich colors! It looks so dressed up!

See more barns at Tricia’s Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily.

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Monday Mug Shot

2012-02-28T00:03:00.000-05:00

Toledo Walleye Hockey

This was actually one of my Christmas gifts last year. David thought I needed a Walleye mug to support our minor league hockey t3eam in Toledo to go with my Mud Hens mug. It made good sense to support both our minor league baseball team and hockey team, but there was one little oddity. I’ve seen the Hens play baseball more times than I can fount at both the old and new stadium. I’d seen the Toledo hockey team once at home in the old arena and once on the road in Dayton. They were the Storm then. I’d never seen the Walleye play!

That was until yesterday (Sunday February 26.) I’d gotten an email from the Northwestern Ohio Chapter of the National MS Society offering a free ticket to me and $5 tickets for my immediate family members to the Toledo Walleye game on February 26, the MS Awareness game. The event included t-shirts, luncheon and a raffle ticket for a gift card to the team shop. We didn’t win the raffle, which is okay because I already had the mug

During lunch the kids, all right and the adults too, were entertained by a slew of mascots from the “Mascot Mania” festivities. Spike, the Walleye mascot, made an appearance at the end of lunch, just before he left to put his skates on for the game. Paws, the Detroit Tigers’ mascot was there, as were the Mud Hens’ mascots, Muddy and Muddonna. Clementine, The News Hound, from our local newspaper, The Toledo Blade, was also in mascot attendance as well as favorite Toledoan "zooperstars," Jamie Farrmadillo, Jim Flealand and Kitty Holmes. It was a pretty cool event.

After lunch we went up the elevator to the main floor and fo8und our seats. I break here to say that, as a person of wheels, I LOVE new arenas with family/accessible rest rooms! I think of places where the handicap stalls really don’t have room for a wheelchair and a person in them and I just love those rooms where you wheel in, have room to turn around and lock the door and maneuver however you need to use the facilities. The diaper changing table is on a wall with enough room for a Mom or Dad to change a diaper without being pressed up against the opposite wall and to safely have an older brother or sister in the room instead of outside the stall. And if you leave the changing table down, it doesn’t decapitate the next person using a wheelchair when they come in. Yay Huntington Center and all the awesome new arenas! They have family restrooms at all the newer ball parks I’ve been to as well!

Back to our seat…

The NMSS group took up a full section, including the top wheelchair row. Sadly, I’m not the only one with MS who uses wheels at events. I did feel bad for David, though. I was the only one in a manual chair. David pushes so I can save my arms for things like the bathroom! But a power chair or scooter, in addition to being very expensive, also takes refitting one vehicle or another to transport it; another expense. Even from the top row, we had a great view.

The game started with the announcing of the starting lineup. Spike skated trough the mouth of a giant inflatable walleye head with a walleye flag. Then the members of the staring lineup came through as they were announced followed by the charge of the rest of the team. After the inflatable walleye was taken off the ice and the national anthem was sung, play began.

Then play stopped. The firs6t “fight” happened seconds into the game. I’m not a big hockey fan because of the “fighting.” I was a professional wrestling fan. That’s where you go if you’re hockey skills are lacking, but you handle the fight scripts well. I saw a few real fights when I was a kid. At least they seemed real to me then, nowhere near as fake as hockey fighting is now. I watched two guys hug each other and take pansy-punches at each other’s shoulders, trying to make it look like a hit in the head, but they missed by a Hulk Hogan’s rookie year mile. Maybe it’s the other way around. If you can’t cut it in professional wrestling, you learn how to skate.

I know, I know, a lot of people go to see the “fights.” I played hockey as a kid. I want to see a well-played game. The saddest thing is, when they weren’t fighting, there was some skill. The unfortunate part of that was it was mostly Cincinnati Cyclones really showing off hockey skills. That’s not to say that there weren’t some pretty Walleye plays, but the Cyclones’ passing game is pretty! The third period seemed to go so fast! The Walleye carried a 5-1 lead into the last period and barely escaped with a 5-4 win! But they did win after a few games losing streak, it was nice to be there for that.

So that was my first Walleye game. It was a fun event and I’ll no doubt go again, but not likely until after I’ve been to a countless few Mud Hens games first.

Monday Already?

2012-02-27T10:37:00.001-05:00

It seemed like a short weekend, even though I took both Saturday and Sunday off of the White Tornado, so it really wasn’t sort. Maybe it just seems short because I’m short on David time. He’s got a model railroad session next weekend, so he switched around some days and has a three day weekend coming. That means yesterday was his weekend for last week! I’m getting back to work today too.

While I’m finishing up my coffee, I’ll get this week’s Meet Me On Monday posted. The Mug Shot will be during afternoon break!

1. What was the first live concert you ever attended?
2. What colors look best on you?
3. What is one thing about you that most people wouldn't know?
4. Who would you call to be bailed out of jail?
5. What do you think is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why?

1. What was the first live concert you ever attended?

Kiss and Cheap Trick at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan. July 13, 1979

2. What colors look best on you?

I hope green. I have a ton of green blouses and sweaters. I know it makes my green eyes just glow when I wear green or blue.

3. What is one thing about you that most people wouldn't know?

I’m a pretty open book, there’s not much that’s “secret.” Like any optimist, sad moods are rare, but when I do feel depressed, it’s REALLY depressed.

4. Who would you call to be bailed out of jail?

Depends what I was in for! :) Probably David, but then I’d have some ‘splaining to do!
.

5. What do you think is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why?

Personal computer, yes way greater than smart phones, because no one has ever gotten distracted and killed someone trying drive while blogging on their PC.

Sentimental Saturday

2012-02-25T17:50:00.000-05:00

Me and Mom 1999

Yesterday was another productive, although tiring afternoon/evening in the White Tornado world. I got another chunk sorted and cleared in the future woman cave that turned up some wonderful things. I went through a grandma box and a Mums box.

Before I go further, I want to clear up a source of confusion. I realize that what’s simple for me can be very messy to try to read and I’m sorry. But don’t we all do that from time to time? Things that have just “always been” don’t seem to need clarification. My brain says if I made a distinction once, it’s already overkill. That would be true if I was writing in my private journal and didn’t expect anyone to ever read it. Even my private journals I do want read after I’m gone. They are all my secrets that might make insightful, helpful or entertaining reading 60 years or so from now by my nieces, grand nieces and nephews, and greats and so on.

Grandma, Mums and Mom 1945

Anyway, the distinction issue. The other day when I mentioned women in my blog who were here before me, I spoke of “Mom.” “Grandma,” “Mums” and “Grammy.” Those are four different women. It gets more confusing because if I talk about Tori and Rina the names are different for each one. SO the round up goes like this:

I am Nani, nicknamed that by my mother and in 1994 it was intended that I’d be “Aunt Nani” to my nieces. Well, they never called me Aunt Nani, I am Nana, pronounced /NAH-nah/. They are 17 now and I’m still Nana, so I don’t think that’s changing.

When I speak of “Mom” on my blog, I speak of my mother, Janet. Truth there is I didn’t call her “Mom,” I called her “Fluff” pronounced /Floof/. That was a private nickname and to my friends and other family members I still referred to her as Mom. To the Niecii, she was “Grams”

My first communion with Noni and Grandma 1973

Now is where it starts to get a little more complicated. Being the oldest is so cool because you get to name everyone. I had very distinct differences in the names so I could keep them sorted out when I was very young. My grandmother, Wonda, was “Grandma.” She got to keep the American English Grandma because my paternal grandmother, Rosa, was Noni. Oldest grandkid, I got to choose to call my nonna, Noni and all of my cousins followed suit. The girls never got to meet Noni, so they know her as “Noni” or “Dad and Nana’s Noni” Grandma to them was “Grammy.”

Grandma and Tori 2005

Grandma with Rina 2007

We’ll skip a generation for a moment. This is a huge source of confusion. My nieces and I share a wonderful treasure in that we all knew our great and great-great grandmothers long enough to remember them! They called their great-grandmother, Wonda, “Grammy.” I called my great-great-grandmother, also Wonda, also “Grammy,” and their great-great grandmother, Opal, “Great-Grammy.”

I actually have just one vivid memory of Grammy whom I didn’t see very often, but I did a few times. She passed when I was 9. I have lots of pictures and things she wrote on, touched and some of her quilts, but the memory I hold is just a simple saying hello when I was about 5 or 6. It’s just at a family gathering, I made a point of finding her to say hello. I just remember saying “Hello Grammy!” and she said “Hello Honey,” with a smile. We hugged and kissed and that’s the memory. Small, but special because I don’t remember anything else from that family gathering except that it was summer and outdoors at a relative’s home in the country.

Mums and Grandma 2000

Back to the original timeline. My great-grandmother, Opal, was “Mums.” She’d originally been “Mom-mom.” which is what my mother called her, but I eventually shortened it to Mums. I was very close to my great-grandmother. I remember spending the day with her from time to time when I was little. We lived about an hour apart then, so it was a big, just us, holiday for me. When we were building our house that was just a mile away from her we lived with her for a year and we shared a room. Mums snored, shake the rafters loud. I think that’s why I don’t even notice when David snores; it’s actually a comforting sound to me. Once I started driving, I never missed a Tuesday coffee at her house. I was in my 20s, she in her 80s, the first time I heard her say, “Sometimes I feel a little old.” She also told me, “But a spoon of ice cream makes that go away!”

Some of the real treasures I found in the box from Mums’ things that I went through yesterday include a diary that starts on January 1, 1944, which is the year my grandparents eloped. There are lots of very old photos. Three identical photos of a baby in an old brown cardboard fold over frame. There’s nothing written on any of those, but I have a hunch it might be Donald, the older brother Grandma never met because he died from pneumonia before she was born. I think that’s part of why Mums and I became so close. I was hospitalized with pneumonia when I was 2. Mom had told me that Mums was terrified when I got sick and the happiest of the whole family when I came home.

Here is one of the wonderful treasures:

Mums 5 years old

This says “Opal, taken 1912” on the back. She turned 6 in December of that year. What really struck me was that if I’d dressed Rina up and taken her picture in black and white when she was 5, it’d look like they were sisters. Mums is definitely where the eyes come from, those sultry eyes that Grandma had, I have and Rina has. But Grandma and Rina work them, without trying. I’ve got the same eyes, but I’ve never been sexy. All the older pictures of Mums, they’re just pretty eyes, not sexy. Grandma and Rina got the tools and the natural talent. Mums and I appear to have gotten gypped in the sex appeal department. Oh well. Who needs sexy? There’s still ice cream!

On the top of the box were some more current photos. I recognized those as the ones Mums kept on her buffet. She kept every post card I sent her when I travelled, and if I went to the zoo, I sent a post card, and some photos. She used to show off the picture of the production truck I drove for sports and the George Bush presidential rally photo from 1992 to friends and family when they visited. She kept this picture on the buffet too:

Me and Mums 1985

That’s us on New Year’s Day 1985. I kept the same photo framed in my living room. Her buffet is now my buffet and if you visited that same table we used to sit at for our Tuesday coffee, you’d see Tori and Rina’s senior pictures displayed. The buffest still boasts about the women of the current generation.

So that’s the nomenclature of the women in my family you hear me speak of from time to time, especially if I’m talking about my vintage treasures or the origination of some of my quirks.

Five Question Yesterday

2012-02-25T13:21:00.000-05:00

I read Five Question Friday, hosted by Mama M at My Little Life, on several blogs yesterday and the questions this week are very cool! Since the Linky stays up for the weekend, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This could be a meme I start adding on Saturdays when I’m home. We’ll see!

1. What's your favorite way to spend down time (alone or with a significant other)?

Down time? hehe… Okay, since I do need break time when I’m physically working on something, we’ll call break-time, or break days sometimes, my down-time.

Alone time, I read or scrapbook. I don’t think of meditation and reflection as down time because that’s something I make a point of having time for.

With significant others, like my husband, nieces and friends, it’d be a movie with David or coffee/dessert. David and I have plenty of talk-time and we do talk about things that aren’t household/relationship things. With Rina and Tori and with my close friends, male and female, coffee is all about communication, keeping our relationships strong by keeping our souls bared to each other. And yes, that’s something that is scheduled from time to time too, but it’s scheduled to make sure there’s a break from “priorities.”

2. Are you the kind of person that wants things more as soon as you know you can't have it?

I don’t think so. There are things that I really want that I never was able to have, yet. I call those dreams or goals. But if you mean did I “wanted him as soon as he was engaged,” or something like that, no. There’s never been anything I didn’t get or take that I’ve regretted for more than a day.

3. If you were given $1000 to spend on yourself, what would you buy?

Everything on my IKEA and Amazon wish lists to move the White Tornado up about 2 months!

4. Do you ever go out to eat by yourself?

When I travel alone it’s stop at a restaurant or eat fast food behind the wheel and get no break from the road. Besides, I like having some me time where I have no distractions and can enjoy a meal, read and relax with nothing to clean up afterwards! When I went to physical therapy sessions, Cracker Barrel was right across the parking lot and I stopped for lunch after therapy once a week as a treat to myself.

I may not as much now because eating out entails using the wheelchair and I need help with that. I can take the chair out of my backseat, but after wheeling myself in, having lunch and wheeling back out, I need help to put it back in. But I suppose in the summer as long as the weather is decent, I might stop at Cracker Barrel in the afternoon, when it’s not so busy, with the walker. Putting the walker back in the car is easier. We’ll see.

5. What company would you want to do a blog review for?

Assuming there is free product for doing the review, I think IKEA. If I don’t get that $1000, I wouldn’t mind that chunk of my planned spending taken care of for me!

Follow Friday Four Fill-Ins

2012-02-24T09:47:00.000-05:00

Every Friday Hilary at Feeling Beachie hosts the Follow Friday Four Fill-Ins. It’s a quick and fun meme to challenge your thoughts to squeeze into the spaces of the week’s statements and compare them with other who often have a very different view of what fits!

This week’s statements:

1.       I never ___ on a ____
2.       ___ is my favorite holiday
3.       I think my ___ is/are ___.
4.       When there is a ___ I ___.

1.       I never substitute the healthier alternatives on a holiday recipe. Christmas cookies and cakes are meant to have real butter and cream in them.

2.       Opening Day is my favorite holiday. Really, it’s whichever holiday that I really celebrate is next. (Opening Day, David’s Birthday, My Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Our Anniversary, Christmas, Valentine’s Day)

3.       I think my face is not aged enough for my gray hair yet.

4.       When there is a snow day I want to hibernate!

Come on over the Feeling Beachie and see whose brain yours matches or not!

Treasured Re-Find

2012-02-23T14:49:00.001-05:00

1956 May Birthday Angel Bell

NAPCO S1307E

This was from my great-grandmother’s home. I liked it for several reasons. First, her dress is peach and I could just imagine seeing her on a trinket shelf in my dream kitchen. Second, it’s dated 1956 and definitely has the look of that time and it whispered to my love of household vintage things. Third, and this was a biggie, it wasn’t Mums’ taste. She like the modern look and had a lot of oriental-influenced knick-knacks. Also, her birthday was in December and this is a May figurine. I love a good mystery.

This re-find is part of the good of the White Tornado project. She was wrapped up in my boxes from Michigan. As the White Tornado is officially in the future woman cave now, there are boxes from Grandma, which include boxes from Mums that Grandma didn’t go through, and boxes of my own. I had the little bell from Mums’ house that I planned to research and get the story, or as much as I can, about how it was that this girl was in my great-grandmother’s house and then promise her a decorative home in my living room in Michigan to eventually be a sweet decor piece in the dream kitchen. She lived on a shelf in my Michigan living room for 4 years and was carefully wrapped and packed up to come with me when I moved to Toledo. Well, she lived the next 5 years carefully wrapped in that box in the storage area of our home!

You can see where the wings were connected.

She is a 1956 angel bell made by NAPCO, the National Potteries Corporation. The wings are no longer there, they must have broken off sometime between 1956 and 1992 because I never saw her with wings. NAPCO began production of glass and ceramic collectibles in 1938 and was at its peak popularity in the 50s and 60s.

My May girl has the appropriate transfer mark to be a real NAPCO piece, so she is the “real deal.” NAPCO was based in Cleveland and the products were made in Japan. Now it starts to sound like a piece Mums would have bought, except that the old fashioned girl in the frilly dress just didn’t seem like Mums. Had it been a slender Japanese woman in a kimono holding an exotic flower, I never would have questioned it being in my great grandmother’s house. I had to put together the last piece of the puzzle.

That last piece wasn’t difficult. In the maternal side of the family, the custom is that when going through an estate, items that were gifts are first offered to the person who gave them. I own things that aren’t so much my taste the same way. I have a Virgin Mary night light because I asked for it from Noni’s house. I’d given it to her as a Christmas present years before. On Mom’s side of the family, you don’t have to ask, it’s automatically offered. It represents a connection between you and the person who passed. As I said, the NAPCO brand was Mums’ taste, but not the figurine and there was still the December birthday and a May bell. Her mother was born May 9, 1885. It was a gift that Mums gave Grammy and when Grammy passed in 1975, it was offered back to her.

I’ll call my wingless angel Wonda, that’s my great-great-grandmother’s name. Grandma, also Wonda, with an o not an a, was named after her. Now that I traced the puzzle back and have a reasonable history for her, Wonda is an even more meaningful piece of my family history!

See more treasures and mysteries solved at Vintage Thingie Thursday at The Coloradolady!

Photoblog Wednesday

2012-02-22T11:39:00.000-05:00

First Crocus Buds

February 18, 2012

Maybe the Groundhog was right about "early spring"after all?

Wednesday Hodge Podge

2012-02-22T00:50:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Wednesday. I’m joining Joyce from From This Side of the Pond for Wednesday Hodge Podge again!

1.February 22nd is National Be Humble Day...what makes you proud? What keeps you humble?

I think my scrapbooking makes me proud. It’s not just that as the years have passed since I started digital scrapbooking I’ve gotten better at it, but it's me, the things I’ve done, my people and the silly things I scrap that make me happy, proud of all that I’ve accomplished and earned in my life.

No question that MS humbles me. I’ve had to earn to do many things differently, most significantly, I’ve learned how to ask for help and accept it graciously.

2. Where is the catch-all (aka dumping ground) in your house?

Um, kinda embarrassed, but the purpose of The White Tornado project is because the answer to that question has been “yes” for too long.

3. Do you make it a point to visit State/National Parks when you travel or even in your own hometown? What's your favorite?

When I lived in Michigan I was just a couple miles away from Maybury State Park and I was there about 4 or 5 days a week average. They had wonderful and peaceful walking paths, paved and rugged. I walked every day, at least a mile. I knew those woods well! In the winter I used my stationary bike for exercise, but it was nothing like the mental break of a walk in the park.

Grandma and I went to Tawas Point State Park for a picnic at least once every time when I visited her, except in the winter.

4. How would you define honor?

Honor is respect, dignity. You honor people by giving it and when you receive it, you’ve earned honor.

5. Angel's food or Devil's food-which cake do you prefer?

Where’s the chocolate in Angel Food cake? Paraphrasing Billy Joel, “I’d rather dine with the sinners than diet with the saints.”

6. What's the most recent road trip you've taken? Where did you go and how many hours did you spend in the car? Do you like to zoom to your destination without stopping or leisurely wind your way there with stops along the way? What is your car snack of choice?

Connecticut for Christmas with David’s family. He estimates that it’s about 10 hours each way. We meander, big time! We stop to photograph trains, barns and other things that strike our fancy. My car snack of choice is pretzels.

7. Recent headlines told how a preschool child in NC had their packed lunch from home taken away and a school lunch substituted by a school inspector who deemed the homemade lunch unhealthy. Reportedly the parent was then billed for the school lunch (chicken nugget meal) although an update to the story says the parent was not billed. The inspector was conducting a routine inspection of the classroom-he/she was not there solely to peek in the lunchboxes. The packed lunch contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple juice box, a bag of chips, and a banana. You can read the story here. Your thoughts?

From the story:

“The state guidelines require that one serving of meat, one serving of grains, one serving of dairy, and two servings of fruits or vegetables are provided with each meal.”

“children who ate in the cafeteria on Wednesday were served a lunch that consisted of fish sticks, corn, peaches, potatoes, and a small carton of milk.”

“(the) girl’s lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — ‘did not meet USDA guidelines.’”

Mom’s lunch:
turkey & cheese sandwich – protein, dairy, carbohydrate (grains? it didn’t say what kind of bread)
banana – fruit
apple juice box – fruit or at least a percentage of fruit (many juice boxes aren’t 100% juice)
potato chips – a treat which in moderation (like one lunch sized bag or chips) is fine

The school lunch on Wednesday:
Fish sticks - protein under breading and fat
corn – carbohydrate (NOT a vegetable or whole grain)
peaches – fruit
potatoes – carbohydrate (NOT a vegetable or whole grain)
milk – dairy

Aside from a recipe for forming habits that can result in obesity and diabetes, the state is lacking in a fruit or vegetable. The peaches are probably canned in syrup too.

Conclusion – the girl’s mother should be teaching the school board some classes about nutrition.

I would be livid if it was my kid, especially since all she ate was 3 fried chicken nuggets instead of the healthier lunch I packed her. If the school boards and government are going to raise our kids for us, they damn well better first prove they are capable. This North Carolina school - FAIL!

8. Insert your own random thought here.

It was snowing this morning. I asked David to pull the shade on the front window. What I don’t see doesn’t hurt me, right?

Everything

2012-02-21T14:51:00.000-05:00

I’m posting later than usual today, so that means all of my Tuesday stuff gets to share a blog entry!

I have started going through boxes and piles in what will be the woman cave today. The woman cave will be in the room that used to be “the office” when David and I were both on the older desktop computers. David’s actual desk is in the basement. It needed brought upstairs, but it was not a job he could do on his own, so his “desk” was the door to the room on top of two stacks of totes he had old clothes in. When I first moved in, my Mac and I were in the corner next to the door-desk on my card table. Later my desk moved in when my furniture was moved from Michigan. It was cozy, but it worked.

What made it cozier was that my banker boxes, all of my office and craft supplies from Michigan, lined the wall opposite the door-knob desk waiting for shelving units to be assembled. I bought 2 shelving units to start. One I assembled and put in the “train room,” which was the guest room, but all of David’s model railroad stuff lived there. That shelf freed all my photo albums and scrapbooks from boxes and gave them someplace to live. Assembling the other shelf for the office had to be done in a particular order. David’s real desk had to come upstairs and be switched out for the door knob desk to make enough room to assemble the shelves and move the banker boxes to place the unit. That unit is the one in the kitchen annex now and I still need more units! LOL

But where claiming the room as my woman cave becomes more of a challenge is that since the laptops moved in and allowed the desktops to catch some dust, Grandma passed and a half year was spent cleaning out her house and settling her estate, that put more boxes added to the old office which became a storage room, my MS symptoms blossomed and took a year of running around from doctor to doctor to figure out what that was and start to treat it and the office/storage room sat untouched. Last year, just before Christmas we heard a loud boom coming from upstairs. Something fell. After locating both cats to make sure they were okay, David went upstairs. He came back and told me “you don’t want to look at it.” After years of supporting the desktop computer and the peripheral supplies and accessories, one of the clothing totes holding it all up gave up. It cracked, collapsed and slid the entire contents of the door top onto the floor blocking passage to my desk! Miraculously, nothing, except the one tote, was broken. Even a glass candy dish survived the fall!

So, as I embark on sorting my way back into the room, because right now I couldn’t access the Mac if I really needed to, I have those original banker boxes of supplies, the rest of the boxes from Grandma’s and everything that fell off the doorknob desk. I did take some before photos. I’ll want to scrap this whole thing after I finish and earn my superwoman cape!

As of this morning I have access to the room’s closet again. I’ve also decided where the shelving unit for the M&Ms collectibles will go. Eye on the prize, I can’t wait until that collection can be displayed again!

Tell Me Tuesday

Once again this week, I’m joining Suzanne at The Coloradolady for Tell Me Tuesday. This one was harder to think about than write about! This week’s prompt:

What is the most unique thing you own?

First off as people are all unique, I think every collection is unique. I could say my mug collection because although it’s not unique to collect mugs, the specific mugs in that collection are unique to anyone else’s collection. I have other things that are probably pretty common, but the story behind them is unique. So I’m going to show you one of my very special and unique because of the story things.

I just unwrapped this from one of my one storage boxes:

Anchor Hocking Apple Jar

These jars were a promotion at Dunkin Donuts. I did some looking to see if I could get help to remember the year, but it seems the apple jar is pretty unique after all! I guess that’s not super surprising. When I started unwrapping it, I remembered what it was and the fun story that goes with it, and I said a little prayer that it wasn’t broken. The glass is thin and it has a valuable and fragile feel when you pick it up. Perhaps they are unique, or at least rare to still exist.

It was a Christmas promotion that Anchor Hocking co-oped with Dunkin Donuts in the 80’s. In going through my memory banks, I think the three years Anchor Hocking and Dunkin Donuts did the glass canisters were 1984, 85 and 86. I own all three canisters and the apple was the first one. I think I remember that it was before I was 18 and that was part of the tease in the story.

As I’ve credited many times before, Dunkin Donuts was and still is the place where I hang out with my friends in Novi, Michigan. Anita worked the counters in the evenings during the week then. Her kids are my age, so she and Mom were peers and Mom was in on the joke too.

When the posters were up all over the store promoting the deal for Christmas that you could purchase an Anchor Hocking Apple Jar filled with Dunkin Munchkins, I was intrigued. I thought the jar was really cool, but a little pricier than my part time job could afford after gas and gifts for others. I asked Anita “What’s Anchor Hocking was and what do you do with the jar to help you anchor hock?”

I did know that Anchor Hocking was the brand. I didn’t know why it was a big deal that it was an Anchor Hocking jar. But, as was natural for me at the time, and still is, I was being silly. Anita joined in.

Addressing my Mom, “you never had 'the talk?'”

I realized they were ganging up on me. Scotty and John were there too and they just loved it when I got zapped. So I asked Anita if she was going to tell me what Anchor Hocking is and how one anchor hocks.

She told me, “You’ll find out on your wedding night.”

Our collective joke that Christmas was anchor hocking the verb! I’ve been married for three years and I still don’t know how to anchor hock!

Now, if you don’t think my apple jar is unique, please leave a comment telling me how to anchor hock!

Join us to tell us about your most unique things at Tell Me Tuesday at The Coloradolady!

Barn Charm

Morenci, Michigan

I got this green-roofed barn on March 26, 2006, while railfanning in the Motherland.

See more fabulous barns at Tricia’s Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily.

Blog Carry-Out Meals, Not So Filling

2012-02-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

So I took a break because I was hungry, but you know how I am with breaks, I have to sometimes take a break from my break. That is once I tackle the stairs and get to the kitchen, I have to sit for a few before I actually make lunch. No problem there, that’s why my computer is set up on the table right by the entry to the kitchen. I can read a couple blogs and then move on to the kitchen when my legs are ready.

Well, I sat down and read Glo’s blog where she mentions Cream of Potato Soup. Then on Suzanne’s blog there is a recipe for drop biscuits (with photo!). Tummy was complaining that it was feeling what Eyes were looking at. Finally, I stopped at Joy’s blog where there was a vignette that had the most beautiful chocolate chip cookie in it! I’m telling you, Brain was full! Tummy, notsomuch.

I did read and download the last parts of this month’s scrapbook kit from Su’s blog and Edna’s blog. Edna was talking about her trials with Murphy. He and his laws are not among my favorites either. Edna, I hope your day’s gotten much better, because I think I picked up a cyber-hitchhiker at your place!

Yesterday afternoon, I took out a bowl of stuffed pepper soup from the freezer and put it on the counter to thaw for a few hours so it would finish thawing in the fridge overnight. If I just put it in the fridge without partial thawing it, it takes 2 days to thaw. So after my tummy finally convinced my brain it didn’t get all the stuff I looked at, I went in to get the soup out of the fridge to heat it up. But… There was no soup in the fridge!

I turned around and looked on the counter in horror. Did I forget to put it in the fridge? If it spent all night and half of today on the counter, surely it was spoiled. But there was no soup on the counter. Then I opened the freezer door.

David and I have an agreement about making each other stop and listen when it’s important. I talk a lot, so does he; I think it’s for room noise because if the TV is on, it’s often muted. No one takes any offense if the other isn’t listening unless the “this is important” is spoken. I never thought the “this is important” was necessary for a “while you’re going downstairs” request!

I asked, “While you’re going downstairs, can you take the 2 stuffed pepper soups out of the freezer in the kitchen and trade them for a minestrone from the deep freeze?”

He said, “Sure.”

Never trust that you were heard when the response is a one-worder.

When I opened up the freezer, all three stuffed pepper soups, including the one I’d put out to thaw, were in it. It seems all he actually got was “Put stuffed pepper soup in freezer.”

::sigh::

So now, the stuffed pepper soup is on the counter to partial thaw and be lunch tomorrow. I had Parmesan oatmeal (recipe idea from the web, very tasty) with some crunchy romaine and carrots as sides. It was good, Tummy was sated, but Taste buds had something different in mind!

I’m enjoying a cup of afternoon coffee, regular coffee with a tablespoon of brown sugar and freshly ground cinnamon. M-Mmm! (Completely within my 2-points for a drink limit)

I noticed last week, reading friends’ blogs, that the torch of Meet Me on Monday had been picked up again, YAY! Thank you to Acting Balanced for starting it back up!

This week's questions:
1. What is your favorite kind of soup?
2. What was the last movie you saw in a theater?
3. What is your least favorite TV program?
4. If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
5. What 3 places that are on your bucket list to visit?

1. What is your favorite kind of soup?

Just one? I love soup, I mean I really LOVE soup!

Both Noni and Mom could make stellar soup from scratch or leftovers, out of anything! I have that influence from both sides of my family and I’m so happy that I inherited that double whammy talent! I make no apologies for my pride in my own soups. The freezer currently holds 2-serving bowls of minestrone and stuffed pepper soup. I just finished my last bowl of fall harvest veggie soup a couple weeks ago. The next soup is going to be a milled roasted vegetable soup…unless some new inspiration strikes my fancy!

Restaurant soups, I love the Stuffed Pepper soup at Eat’n Park and Cheesy Tomato at Cracker Barrel.

Canned soups, NEVER Progrosso! I always doctor the canned soups up a little, but I don’t change the Campbell’s Harvest Orange Tomato! (I just always have it on hand for a quick meal!)

2. What was the last movie you saw in a theater?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

3. What is your least favorite TV program?

I don’t watch a ton of TV, so I really only tune in when a program I like is on, it’s usually off otherwise. I will give that I’ve seen, because others like it, and HATE with an untold passion America’s Funniest Home Videos. I see nothing funny about people falling, failing or doing stupid things in front of or with kids.

4. If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?

Um, The Chronicles of Nani. :)

5. What 3 places that is on your bucket list to visit?

I don’t do the Bucket List thing. I refuse to assign myself an expiration date! So, I’ll say that San Antonio, Texas and Hawaii, all of it. As for #3, the very first thing I’d put on my “bucket list” is immortality, so I have some time to think about it.

Links:

Monday Mug Shot

2012-02-20T11:02:00.000-05:00

The Red Cabooses
Whitefish, Montana

In October 2007, David and I went on a train trip to Montana for Altamont Weekend, a railfan weekend near Columbus Day. We flew in to Washington and rented a car to drive the rest of the way to Essex, Montana and the Izaak Walton Inn. Our first morning in Montana, we just HAD to go to The Red Caboose for breakfast! The Red Caboose was a 24/7 diner on the main street of town built into a caboose! You couldn’t miss it when you drove through town!

The interior had a rustic feel and all sorts of train décor. There was even a B&O light switch plate in the ladies room. There were just railroad details everywhere! It was just a perfect breakfast stop for us! We’d decided to have breakfast there the night before, so we made a point of waking up earlier.

Ladies room light switch

The menu offered several railroad named dishes, which made my decision rough! Usually, a themed restaurant will serve in specialty with an appropriate name and in the spirit of things, I always get that dish. When we ate on Amtrak, I had the dish named after one of the trains that was easy. But at The Red Caboose, where their breakfast specialty was hash browns or home fries loaded with breakfast tasties, there were several railroad ways to have breakfast! I chose the Switchman breakfast; spicy breakfast sausage, onions, bell peppers and mushrooms over hash browns with cheese. YUM! It still sounds like an awesome breakfast!

We stopped again on the way back through Whitefish for lunch and to buy my coffee mug and a shirt for David. It was a memorable and very good breakfast!

Update!

Just this very month, The Red Caboose has reopened under new owners after renovation. It’s a frozen yogurt and coffee bar now! They didn’t change the landmark outside, but I think we need to go back and see what it’s like now! Um, frozen yogurt and coffee? Yes, we definitely NEED to go back and check it out!

Saturday Second Chance?

2012-02-18T07:42:00.000-05:00

Hehehe…It’s my do-over this morning since I blogly missed Friday! Oh, I read and commented. I just didn’t post anything new. But I am here and all is okay. I was just in some non-cyber world things that pulled me away.

Since the Linky for it is still up, and it is for a few days yet so you could join in too, I get a second chance to post my Friday Fill-Ins! Every Friday Hilary at Feeling Beachie does four statements with blanks to fill in. Simple enough, you fill in as much or as little as you like, post, link, visit! And if you have a full Friday, you can still post on Saturday!

This week’s statements:
1. Sometimes I ____
2. I ___ high school
3. Deciding what to ___________________________ before I ___________________ is such a pain sometimes
4. _________________is my favorite_________________

My Fill-Ins

1.Sometimes I wish I could have just one day where I could physically do what I could just 5 years ago to get a big chunk of my White Tornado Project done. But then I’d want it until the project was done so I could construct my own bookcases and move the heavy stuff.

2. I was a total rebel in high school. I was great at bending the rules enough that the principal would go nuts. He couldn’t do anything because he never caught me actually breaking a rule. I was an Honor Roll student, which infuriated him even more and at one time I actually cited Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and told him I was only practicing what I was taught in school.

3. Deciding what to pack before I go away for the weekend is such a pain sometimes

4. A bracelet is my favorite accessory.

Awards, For Me?

2012-02-16T23:46:00.002-05:00

I mentioned a couple blogs ago about Tere having shared a couple of blog awards with me. I haven’t gotten any blog awards in a while. Maybe that’s because I don’t really have a place to display them. Well it looks like I figured out how to get the edge of the White Tornado to hit The Chronicles of Nani too! On the bottom of the blog I installed a trophy case. I wish obtaining and installing shelving at home was that easy!

Earlier this week Tere from Tere’s (Never Quite “Normal”) World gave me two awards! Thank you SO much, Tere!

First I’ll show off the One Lovely Blog Award!

The One Lovely Blog Award rules are:

1. Link back to the one who gave you this award.

2. Pass the award on to 15 other lovely bloggers.

3. Follow the person who sent it to you.

The second award is Kreative Blogger Award

Kreative Blogger Award Rules:

1. Link back to the one who gave you this award

2. Share 10 random facts about yourself

3. Pass the award on to 6 other people

4. Follow the person’s blog who sent you it

Here are my 10 Random Nani truths:

1. My favorite alcoholic drink is a Mai-Tai.

2. I love soup! (Just made a big pot of stuffed Pepper Soup today)

3. I’ve been using French’s Honey Mustard on things a lot lately

4. I can come up with a crazy explanation for almost anything and make it almost sound logical.

5. My first car was blue, every one since then has been red. The next one will be red too.

6. I never wanted to get married. David changed my mind, but it wasn’t easy!

7. I didn’t have a wedding and I didn’t go to the commencement ceremony for high school or college. I’m not into the pageantry, just the prize.

8. I’m behind on some things and need a serious scrap day – no cleaning, no internet!

9. I love the smell of steak and can’t stand the taste while I hate the smell of fudge cooking and LOVE the taste.

10. I have such a hard time coming up with random facts that are interesting.

Now I’m going to bend the rules a little bit. I always do that. It’s me channeling my inner teenager. Tere and I have some friends in common who may already have the awards and may have already done the random things and I have some friends who have full schedules and I’m not going to dictate how they use their blog time. But just the same, even if you have these awards already and even if you don’t have the time to list 10 random things, believe me it took me a little thinking time to be so random, I want to recognize you and link up to your fabulous blogs. So consider this a set of awards, because I’m passing them both on to my list, with no strings. If you have the time and want to list 10 random things, I’ll be there to read and comment but you don't at all have to do it.

Here are the awards recipients, 15 stellar blogs that I read every morning with my first cup of coffee:

1. Miss Edna’s Place - A great blog to visit for morning coffee or a visit any time of day! Edna is a fabulous photographer and also generously shares some great digital scrapbooking supplies!

2. Free Spirit – Su is Edna’s partner on the monthly scrap kits, they do great work together! Su recently revamped her entire blog, beautifully, and it’s easier than ever to read up and follow what’s going on in her world!

3. A Vintage Green - Joy does some fabulous work arranging her décor and an incredible job creating vignettes to show it off. You’ll see fine things in great arrangements at her blog.

4. The Coloradolady - I first started reading Suzanne’s blog as a fan of Vintage Thingie Thursday which she hosts. I also got involved in the Secret Santa Soiree which she took over last year. I truly enjoyed that and will definitely sign up again this year! Now she started Tell Me Tuesday, which is a fun meme and one that really gets you thinking. I love it!

5. Linda’s Bee Hive - Linda was my “Secret Santee” last year and I loved getting to know her through her blog! She does fabulous quilting and wonderful handmade gifts for her family and friends. Right now, I’m getting lots of tips on organization following her while she’s working on her craft room!

6. Marti’s Musings - I know Marti already has these awards, but I have to tip MY hat to her too. I thoroughly enjoy reading her personal history stories and her sense of humor and creative & snarky way of expressing many things is just too awesome not to read every day!

7. This and That - I enjoy reading about Flora’s travels and sights! She also does some great cooking and crafts. Most recently check out the peanuts!

8. My Texas Cats - Kaline asked me to make sure I included this one. No, Kaline insisted I do. She has been following Millie and Sam for a few weeks and says she has so much in common with them including that they call it by different names but enjoy chewing the same plant!

9. Here in Texas - Carla is Millie and Sam’s human Mom. She and I both talk about our furbabies and our flowers. Of course, she’s in Texas, so she talks about flowers longer than I do!

10. Empty Nest - Empty Nester is a Mom of four adult daughters who is exploring the nuances and possibilities of the nest she and her Hubby share. Her blog among other things is an awesome source for tasty gluten-free recipes!

11. Life According To Amanda - Amanda is a transplanted Ohioan grad school student in Mississippi. She does great posts about faith and the confusion, okay confusing for me, of a post about healthy snacks followed by a recipe for Nutella Caramel Corn. YUM big time to both – see where my confusion is?

12. Glo Sews - Glo has fabulous tips on sewing and some awesome non-sew crafts as well! Her posts often make me want to start sewing again!

13. Auntie M. Designs - Auntie M. Designs started, as most scrapbook designers do, with full free kits. Her kits are great and the topics are things that you really do scrapbook, things that happen for real, like babies and farmers markets and I have some fantastic frames in laptops and phone she did. She has a store now, but she still has freebies on her blog that complement her kits!

14. Just Breathe - Debby posts some great recipes and food ideas, realistically combining satisfying tastes with healthy diet-consciousness. She also has a sister-blog to Just Breathe that highlights ornaments on her bountiful Christmas tree! That’s given me some scrapbooking ideas for the ornaments on our tree!

15. Coffee Cup Crafts and Christianity - Kelly is my best friend and like a sister to me! I’m proud to say that I helped her get her blog started right here in this very dining room. (I use the laptop, so you’ll just have to trust that I’m in the dining room) She combines messages about her faith with posts about crafting, decorating and her stories about her world as a Mom and Grandma! It’s a “work in progress” but it’s progressing well!

A Cute Find From Grandma's

2012-02-16T16:29:00.000-05:00

Grandma had a stereo that played LPs, cassettes and 8-tracks. No, I didn't take that home with me. I did take a Reader's Digest series on cassettes, Sentimental Journey, and a set of individual big band stars on cassette. I still have cassette in the car. I also have a record players that older than Grandma's stereo was. I'll show that on another Thursday. But Grandma didn't have an extensive record collection and her big band stuff was on cassettes or LPs that had long been overplayed and discarded because the songs UI know she and Papa enjoy4ed in their courting and early marri3ed days I only found on cassette.

There were a couople of records thqt I took hojme. One was a lt3er made Frank Sinatra compilation and the other one, which I just thought was fun was this:

The Grasshoppers and introducing the Chipmunk Song! Obviously a kids record I did some reseach and searching. This record on the Spin-O-Rama label was released in 1959. It is in really good shape and the markings in the empty areas of the vinyl tell that this is an original release.

Since neither Grandma nor Papa collected old records, my guess is that it was bought in or around 1959. My Mom, an only child, was 14. It leaves me confused! But, when I was 14, I read Diamond D and the Dreadful Dragon for a Forensics competition in school, so it might have been something Mom had for school. I don't know.

Unfortunately, this is one I'm sure I'll never know. It's still a neat find and I'll give it a spin on my turnatable some day.

See more fun vintage things at The Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

At a Stopping Point

2012-02-15T17:05:00.000-05:00

It was break time anyway. It was 3:00 and I hadn’t had lunch – I was hungry! So, after moving things I’d put in the hallway, I came down and made myself a chicken with honey mustard sandwich with some cucumber and carrots and a mug of cinnamon hot cocoa.

The glaze I did yesterday never did set, although it’s not as goopy today. They still tasted good last night. They still looked pretty…and messy

I used various valentine sprinkles and I did some with cinnamon sugar. The cinnamon ones are pure heaven! That’s what prompted me to make the cinnamon hot cocoa. Would you believe David wouldn’t even try the cinnamon ones? He said chocolate and cinnamon is just not appealing at all. He has NO idea what he’s missing. Ah well, the spoils go to the adventurous souls who dare to try and for everyone else, there’s still plain.

I picked a good time to get hungry because I’m at the point where I need the aid of strength and height to finish in the hall closet. I decided that out luggage could go on the floor in there instead of battling shoes for space in the bedroom closet. I have 4 pairs of shoes; 2 sneakers and one each of black and white dress shoes. David has more, I think a TON more! The point is the shoes are much easier to find without the luggage, which we have a lot of, falling on top of them.

We don’t really use the hall closet and it hasn’t been opened in a while. We’ll start using it now! There wasn’t much in it. Three boxes that were on the floor where I wanted the luggage to go are actually mine. One was some office stuff and one was half of my philosophy and religion books and my dream diary. I keep my dream recording in my journal now and the dream records aren’t quite as complete anymore. I used to keep the dream diary in the bookshelf in my headboard and when I’d awake from a dream I really wanted to write down, I’d pop on the light and write it down. There were dreams that I did NOT remember the next morning except that I wrote them down in the middle of the night. Of course, I lived alone, anyway, I slept alone, so I wasn’t waking anyone else. It’s not that easy with a mate!

Well, the shelves in the closet are very deep and I can’t reach the back of them from about the third shelf from the bottom up. David said he’ll help me clear out the remaining shelves tonight and I’ll ask him to bring the luggage in too. I think the closet might be done by bedtime. Yay!

Now, while it’s still Wednesday, I’m posting my Wednesday Hodge Podge answers, hosted by Joyce at The Other Side of The Pond

1. George Washington-Abraham Lincoln-Thomas Jefferson...who would you most like to meet and why?

My answer is none. Any of them would probably ask me more questions than I’d ask them.

2. What's your favorite chain restaurant? Eat’n Park

3. I spied this question on the Bears at Home blog last week and she gave me permission to steal borrow it-

When you look back on your life, do you imagine you'll think about the goals you failed to meet with regret? Or will you look at what you accomplished and say: it was good?

I’m not going to “look back” and think about failure. If I’m looking back, it’s to remember how great my successes were so I can be confident looking forward. And I will still be looking forward at 90.

4. Grapefruit-take 'em or leave 'em? Given the choice between an orange and a grapefruit which would you choose? Would you prefer it served as is or squeezed into juice?

I take them and drink them. I have a grapefruit tap so I can drink the juice right out of the fruit. Then I tear it open and eat what’s left.

5. When was the last time you cleaned out a closet? Is there a closet in your home that currently needs cleaning? What are you waiting for?

The last time I cleaned out a closet was a few hours ago. I’m waiting for all 6’5” of David to get home. :)

6. You get to have lunch with three famous people...who would you like to see round your table?

Dead or alive famous people? You never really know if someone is famous or infamous until they’re gone.

I’d pick three political candidates running for the same position so I can let them fight over me for my vote.

7. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your ability to parallel park?

Parallel park is the one where you slowly run over the curb and stop when your wheels hit the street again, right?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

It’s time to take down the mistletoe. I like to leave it up for Valentine decoration.

Photoblog Wednesday

2012-02-15T07:52:00.002-05:00

Kaline always finds the best sunlight in the house!

2/12/12

Take A Break

2012-02-14T16:01:00.000-05:00

It’s definitely break time. I can tell you that I now know the cake-pop maker Dave, Laura and the girls gave me for Christmas works! I don’t have any sticks, so I didn’t make cake pops; I made cake bites or cake balls, 2-1/2 dozen chocolate! I am troubled because they’re drying after I put chocolate glaze on them. I think I added too much whipping cream. They’re not setting. But, maybe I’m just being impatient. I’m going to take a break for right now and then go shower. The maker cooks faster than baking them, but it’s MES-SY! I have the cake pop maker cooled and cleaned off, the dishes done and all the cake batter and glaze off the counters. Thus why I need the break before I hit the shower! I’m kinda full too. I chocolate glazed a few strawberries and had a bunch of the leftover strawbs for lunch. I also tried two of the cake balls and a pretzel bagel. As lunches go, it’s kinda shy in the milk and protein department. Well, I did say the glaze wasn’t setting because there was too much milk. That counts for something, right?

I want to mention that I am honored to have received 2 blog awards from Tere on her blog, Tere’s World. I follow two of her blogs and enjoy reading them. She uses her blogs to express, share and vent, like many of us. I have a space that I present this year’s awards on the bottom of the blog, my trophy case if you will. I’ll be doing the “things about me” part and awarding these awards, probably tomorrow, when I get back to my normal routine.

Right now, while I still have time for it to be Tuesday, I have some Nani facts to Tell!

The question for Tell Me Tuesday at Suzanne’s The Coloradolady is:

What songs bring you back to really great moments in your life?

There are a few that paint pictures in my mind that make me smile.

Age of Aquarius – This is probably my oldest memory with a song attached. I vividly remember a snippet of this song coming on the radio while I was playing under the kitchen table while Mom was washing dishes after lunch. Mom was humming along with the song and I remember the deejay introducing the song as a current popular song. The 5th Dimension’s version came out in the spring of 1969, so I was a few month away from turning 3. Mom said I played under the kitchen table when Mom was in there often when I was little. I only actually remember that one time.

Your Own Special Way – This is David’s favorite love song and he played it for me on Valentine’s Day 2005, our first. We slow danced in his kitchen after dinner. I told him just yesterday that dance was the moment when I really realized that if it was up to me, he’d be in my world the rest of my life. (SO glad he felt the same way about me!)

Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off – The version with both Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers singing was a song Tori and Rina loved when they were little. I had a copy from the Shall We Dance soundtrack. They loved the song and even watched the movie with me, but they preferred color movies. When they made CDs of their favorites to play in Papa’s car, both CDs had this one. It makes me think of when they were little.

Sweet Caroline – This one makes me think of when I was little! This Neil Diamond classic was the first grown up song I knew all the words to and the first 45 RPM record that wasn’t a kids’ record that I owned. I think I had to keep my room clean for a week to earn it, but the record was played a LOT!

I Feel The Earth Move, Carole King – This was the song we danced to in my first year jazz class at the spring recital. It was my second year dancing, but this song is the one that flashes the hot pink leotard with the star and fringe. It always makes me smile.

Tell us about those songs that make you remember and smile! Join Tell Me Tuesday at The Coloradolady!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

2012-02-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

Valentine Smiley from Eat-N-Park

Yesterday was a frustrating yet fun day. Mondays are David’s Sunday and so they are my Sundays too. It had snowed so much in Cleveland over the weekend and it was supposed to be sunny yesterday, so we headed out to Cleveland to get some train pictures in the city in the snow.

We were up and out before the sun was up which means this was our view driving east on the Ohio Turnpike:

No, not easy to drive into, but I love seeing the sun rise on a new day!

And it did start out to be a beautiful sunny day too! The first train I got of the day was my favorite shot, favorite shot so far this year, actually.

Our friend, Terry, met up with us before he went in to work and showed us this phenomenal location with a great shot of the tracks coming around a curve with Jacobs Field (brought to us by Progressive) in the background. One shot with a train and a baseball field. Perfect!!

We got McLunch and David stopped at a store to get a new scanner that he’d wanted for some time and needed to get from the store in Cleveland that carried that particular brand. After that the clouds started to roll in with a vengeance.

We saw that our train day was pretty much done earlier than planned. We wanted to have dinner at Eat-N-Park while we were in the western most area where there is an Eat-N-Park, and on Stuffed Pepper Soup day no less, so we looked for a few other things to do before an early dinner.

David got the directions to the Lake County Bicentennial Barn while he was getting his new scanner.

Now, I boast about Ohio being the Unofficial Barn Capital of the Nation, but there was only one barn yesterday. I’m glad this was it! The Lake County barn is showing the years since painting. The barn itself is a little shabbier and the logo is faded, but it has so much character! There aren’t a lot of barns in the Cleveland metro area, but this one is a gem!

After hunting and shooting the Lake County Bicentennial Barn, it was a little too early for dinner yet, so we stopped at CVS, with its bold reminder that “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.” We decided to stop and get cards for each other. There was some chocolate selecting going on too!

After that we went to Eat-N-Park for dinner. Going the day before Valentine’s Day meant that they had not run out of Smiley Valentine cookies like they had when we ate late at an Eat-N-Park in Pennsylvania for dinner on Valentine’s Day a couple years ago. We took a half dozen home!

Before bed, David presented me with my third pre-Valentine’s day present; PEZ!

I love PEZ as a low-cal fat-free snack when I crave something sweet. I also have a Reds and a Tigers PEZ dispenser! This pack includes strawberry vanilla, which I haven’t tried before. He did ask if he could try the new flavor and if I might share the orange and raspberry ones. I teased him about asking me to share my gifts, but how can I say “no” to my favorite PEZ pusher?

That’s it for now, I’ve got a full plate today, but I’m going to try to post again today! In the meantime, definitely check out Tricia’s Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily for more fabulous barns of character!

Monday Mug Shot

2012-02-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

Sky Dome, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

It’s legally called The Rogers Centre now, but it is and will always be Sky Dome to me. As much as I love advertising, I can’t stand selling the naming rights to sports arenas. I grew up seeing baseball at Tiger Stadium and the Junior Wings, and once in a while the Red Wings, at Olympia. It just crosses the line when the naming rights are sold to the highest bidder. It’s an old complaint now, name the arenas for something historic to the sport or the city, and let the fans name the building, as was done with The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. If you have to sell the naming of the building to pay the bills, cut the bills someplace. Honestly, players and owners, how many MILLIONS a year do you need to get by when fans can’t even afford to see you more than once a year?

Steps off soap box. So the building where the Toronto Blue Jays play is the Sky Dome. When I say Sky Dome, that’s the place I mean.

I have been to the Sky Dome 4 times. The interesting piece of irony is that the first time I was at the Sky Dome for an event, it wasn’t baseball! In 1990, with a group of friends, including my Mom, I went to the WWF’s WrestleMania VI, the first WrestleMania outside of the United States. I was 24 years old and our group called ourselves The Zoo Ringsiders from Parts Unknown Heights. We went to the World Wrestling Federation local matches every month, usually buying our tickets for the next month at the matches, where they go on sale first. We always had ringside seats and did we heckle? We did more than heckle, we dressed up!

I still had a room full of spandex pieces and patterns that I made or altered for costume designing for my brother’s band. I did the sewing parts, but everyone joined in designing our fan costumes. For the WWF matches, where there were a lot more young kids, we dressed as good guy fans and dressed as bad guy fans for the WCW matches, where the crowd was more young adults. We had the best times with the matches. We watched on TV, of course, to keep up with the story lines, and we did a newsletter, where we filled in our creative “behind the scenes stories.” I even did some photo cut and pasting long before I’d ever tried out Photoshop!

One of the most fun things we did was when we recycled sewing room scraps. When the Ultimate Warrior was new on the scene, the kids just loved him with his face paint, wild hair and arm and knee band with long flying tails. We cut the scraps of bright colored spandex and made sets of “Warrior Fringe” which we carried in a couple of black drawstring bags. We went to the matches at The Palace in Michigan and asked kids if they wanted Warrior arm bands. Parents questioned if there was a cost for the arm bands and we assured them it was free. We told them we made the arm bands from scraps in the sewing room and we just wanted to share. There is nothing cooler than kneeling on the floor of an arena with a line of kids waiting for you to tie their arm bands on! Equally cool is going back next month and seeing the arm bands you gave out last month come back! The truth is, we did the arm bands a second time when The Ultimate Warrior was in town, and I “donated” some larger pieces of spandex to the cause to make sure we had a good collection of them. Both times we “sold out” including one of the guys taking his own arm bands off when he had two kids and one set left. It was so much fun with the kids. Heck, in our 20s we were still kids!

The main event at WrestleMania was The Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan, good guy vs. good guy. Of course, we were cheering for The Ultimate Warrior because he was from Parts Unknown, just down the street from Parts Unknown Heights. But we were concerned that a match like this meant that one of them was turning into a bad guy, one of the fan favorites loved by lots of kids was turning bad. We were so happy at the end of the match! First, because the Ultimate Warrior won and became champion, but second, because as he celebrated his win, he encouraged everyone to cheer for Hulk Hogan, they slapped hands and gave a quick victory hug and saluted each other to the fans. Two good guys, the championship belt switched hands and they were still good guys when it was over, like it should be in sports, right?

Not long after WrestleMania, our interest in pro wrestling started to fade. The lines between good guys and bad guys were starting to gray, not cool in a “sport” followed by so many young kids! When Hulk Hogan said in promos that he was “taking potions to make himself stronger” to face an opponent at the time we were shocked. Performance enhancing drugs? Yes, definitely in pro-wrestling, but since it’s more acrobatic acting than a sport, not a big deal. But it becomes a big deal when you are telling kids you’re taking “potions,” that taking anything to get an edge is okay. There were other characters who were the worst kinds of good guys, who for their inability to be calm or curious in interviews would have automatically been bad guys a year earlier were suddenly introduced and you didn’t know if they wore a black hat or a white hat. They were becoming something in the middle, not the Saturday afternoon cowboys they used to be with their moral stories win or lose. Instead of moral guidance in the stories, it had started to become the question rather than an answer.

If you'd like to see some of the photos of our group in costume, drop me an email for a Friday By Request! ;)

OMG, I Need Help!

2012-02-10T16:23:00.000-05:00

These are simple and fun blog memes that open you and your blog up to meet more bloggers, interesting and fun neighbors in the blog community! If you’d like to join in, visit Hilary’s blog, Feeling Beachie, on Fridays for The Friday Follow Four Fill-In!

This week’s statements:

1. I don’t understand ___ and probably never will

2. I prefer ___ to ____

3. My favorite smell is ______________because ___________________

4. I suspect my neighbors of _________________

My fill-ins:

1. I don’t understand how any human being can physically hurt another human being or purposely do anything that might cause physical harm, how anyone can take another’s life, how anyone can psychologically or materially violate someone by stealing, breaking in to a home or how anyone can harm an animal, especially a domestic one which is probably psychological trauma to the adults and children to whom they are dear and probably never will. And the truth is I never want to understand it.

2. I prefer waking up early to see the sun rise, especially when I’m traveling.

3. My favorite smell is breakfast cooking outside because it reminds me of camping when I was child.

4. I suspect my neighbors of obsessive insanity over their yard! And as I remind David, they probably think people who leave before dawn to go photograph freight trains are insane too. But seriously, how many times a week does the lawn need mowed? And do you really need to mow in January in Ohio just because there’s no snow?

I Got A Problem

Well, so far I have the cookbooks on the shelf they’ll actually go on. I think. When the other shelving unit is done and the new unit for the toaster oven & coffee pot, which will move the current shorter bookcase, then I’ll dust a few things, seriously mop the floor and figure out where everything’s real homes will be. I do know the dehydrator will go on the bottom of the other shelf. I want it on the bottom and it’s too tall for this one. We’ll place the last shelf a peg higher on the other one. Right now I’m mentally working on where the two biggest pieces will go; the table and the recumbent bike.

I’ve also discovered something about myself. I’m a coffeemaker hoarder. Other things that I have stacks of I’ve had plans for shredding or Good Will for over a year. I won’t call me a hoarder for having had undiagnosed MS. I just call myself so far behind I can kick my own butt. But the coffeemakers?

I had a coffeemaker that I loved for my coffee bar in my living room when I was in my 20s. You put the water in and beans in the left side of the filter and then brewed the best coffee! It was the pot we used here for a while until the carafe broke. It is a filter that without the right type of carafe won’t open the filter bottom to allow the coffee to go through, which causes the filter to overflow and get coffee and coffee grounds all over the counter. Please don’t ask how I know that. It’s not pretty. So, I have a 24 year old coffeemaker that takes a specialty carafe. I used a butter knife and small pan for a while to make coffee, until I had a chance to find one of the three coffeemakers I knew I had in my storage unit. Yes, I said it. I had THREE in my storage unit. I put the old coffeemaker with the impossible to "just find” carafe on the table in the annex with the other appliances we didn’t have kitchen room to store. I think this may be why a previous owner built the annex off the kitchen. A 50s kitchen just doesn’t have the room for modern appliances!

Now, I’m not sure why that coffeemaker didn’t go in the box for appliance recycling day to go away. I have a coffee grinder that I use once in a while. I can even grind beans to use in the My K-Cup filter, so I can grind for one cup and have it that fresh now. But I still have that coffeemaker.

Now, I still have and use the coffeemaker I got from storage when that carafe broke. I use it to make coffee on those occasions where a full pot would serve better than single cups. For instance when 4 or 5 coffee drinkers are here for games night or something like that. Or when anyone visits that prefers a 20-oz cup of plain old coffee to a smaller “frou-frou” cup of coffee. So, why do I need to keep the old grinder-coffeemaker with no carafe?

There’s more evidence of my problem.

Next to the old carafe-less maker is a brand new Gevalia coffeemaker, still in the box, never opened. Remember I said I had 2 more in storage? This isn’t one of them. Back in 2009, when Grandma was in Memory Care at the nursing home, I opened a new account at her bank to pay her bills. I got a free gift for opening a new account! I had a choice of a car emergency kit, a does it all utility knife and a Gevalia coffeemaker. I probably could have used the car emergency kit, but I took the coffeemaker!

There is also a coffee carafe that fit none of the coffee pots we have that’s on the table in the annex. When I cleared out the cabinets, I’m the one that put it there and not in the Good Will box!

So, here is my fix. I’m going to put the old carafe-less coffeemaker in appliance recycling and the extra carafe and the unopened Gevalia coffeemaker in the Good Will box. I have a coffee grinder, a French press and a full size maker in addition to my Keurig. One of the coffeemakers in storage is an espresso maker, so I don’t need anymore coffee appliances, just more mugs!

Thank for reading and helping me self-correct!

Friday By Request

2012-02-10T10:26:00.001-05:00

Good Friday morning to everybody! I was a good girl and resisted doing any more work on the atrium yesterday, so now, I’m ready to get motoring on it! I’m posting a FBR replay from April 2007. We’re expecting 1-3 inches of snow tonight (boo!), so this repost is nice because it the opposite of snow!

I’ll be back to read blogs and post some more this afternoon with lunch!

Friday By Request
Originally posted on Yahoo 360, April 27, 2007

Welcome back to Friday By Request, a week and half a day late, but here! To make up for waiting, this one is a long one! Chalicat asked for a story, a specific story. “Since you are a kitty mom and a kitty step-mom...what is your favorite story about your cats?”

Well, I have just a ton of cat stories! But this one is kinda special. The blog-novel you’re about to read is a story of a Michigan lady who was living with two lovely feline girls and a story of a man named David who was busy with 2 boys of his own.

Hiding From The Heat – Girls VS Boys!

For Chalicat

Last summer I was still living at my Dad’s house. There were long stretches of record heat and the central air conditioning had died. Dad had no intent on fixing it since not only was he planning to sell the house, but he was working on the west side of Michigan and staying with my brother. I was still living there with 16 year-old Azreal, my furry sister, and Alexis Kaline, the kitten David and I had rescued the fall before who lived with me.

The days were miserable and becoming more so. I would be on the computer job searching and dripping with sweat. The heat didn’t help the computer much either as it seemed to run slow and it threw more heat out it’s fan in the back. Added to my job hunt woes and my own dealing with the heat, the cats wouldn’t stay in the basement or at least on the slate floor on the main level of the house when I was upstairs. They wanted to be with me.

Azzie was medicated twice daily to help the seizures she had from the brain tumor she’d been diagnosed with when she was 10. Getting older, terminally ill and very hot, I worried about her a lot. She pretty much slept on the floor pillow in my office, only occasionally getting up to walk around just a little and then lay back down. Kaline’s water was in my bedroom, but generally she didn’t share well, so I moved water up in the office for Az, but she didn’t seem to drink much. Even Kaline, the spunky kitten wasn’t getting into things as much and her water consumption was way up.

On a Saturday that I had planned to go out with my girlfriends for a dinner and “girls only” games night, I almost didn’t want to go! I showered, a cold shower because I couldn’t bear the thought of being in a steamy room under hot water. When I got out, I instantly started to sweat. I was uncomfortable and really feared that there was no way I could even get a bra on! But, after looking at the thermostat which told me it was 89 degrees in the upstairs hallway, I decided that the entire thought of driving to Royal Oak in Dad’s air-conditioned SUV was too good to pass up. I wasn’t at all forgetting the girls at home. I knew with me not in the house, they’d retreat to the basement where it was cooler and safer for them.

I was worried about the cats, especially Az. They don’t sweat, they have no way to cool off more and that house was trapping the heat and holding it in. I was so afraid that the cooler, but not “cool” basement, extra water and fans wasn’t enough. I was, in addition to heat that was starting to make me loopy, dealing with immense guilt.

I talked to David on the phone at the end of our girls night evening from Heather’s place. He said they were calling for high 90s Sunday and suggested that I might consider staying there. I voiced my concern about the cats and told him I needed to give Azzie her medicine in the morning. He said “Why don’t you stay there tonight then and in the morning, pack up the girls and bring them here?”

“Are you serious?” I asked. “All four cats in one house?”

“Yeah. It’s better for you and the girls.”

So, Sunday morning I packed up my clothes, cat dishes, food, a few toys and Azzie’s medicine and loaded them in the truck. I also took Kaline’s litter box. Baggle and Chester had two in the basement, but I was concerned that Az might have trouble going up and down the stairs because they were steeper than the ones in my Dad’s house. We could leave Kaline’s smaller box in the bathroom on the main level so Az could stay away from doing stairs if she didn’t want to. I pulled out the cat carrier they shared. I had no intention of putting them both in one carrier for the hour and a quarter to Toledo. It wasn’t a big carrier and, beyond comfort, if Azzie had a seizure it could be dangerous for Kaline. Both of the girls had claws on all four paws. So, Azzie traveled in the picnic basket. The wicker basket was large as picnic baskets go and tall. While it was on it’s last legs as a picnic basket, it would work fine to carry a cat that had never been over 7.5 pounds and had lost weight in the last year.

Putting Azzie in the basket was pretty easy, she was a pretty passive old lady and lethargic from the heat. I started Dad’s SUV, which I was driving at the time, to get it cooled off and put the basket on the floor of the passenger’s side. First mistake is loading the easy one first.

Kaline, after seeing Aunt Azzie loaded into the basket and taken outside wanted nothing to do with getting in the carrier. She ran. She ran from me and all over the house. It was already 90 degrees inside. I didn’t want to chase her up and down the levels of Dad’s sprawling quad-level home!

I tried the always works standard, telling her “Goodbye Kaline!” When I’d leave, she’d run as if to say “Catch me if you want to scritch me goodbye,” when I’d say goodbye, like it didn’t matter if I did, she’d run back to me as if to say, “hey! Don’t leave without giving me a scritch!” This time, nothing doin! She knew if she came back, she was going in the carrier. I had caught her once but she squirmed away and made a run for it and disappeared.

At this point I was becoming delirious from the heat and sat on the steps beginning to cry. Then suddenly I remembered that I had left the car running and Azzie in the basket! I went outside and turned off the car. A sniff inside told me that Azzie had used the basket as a littler box!

I took the basket back in and let Az out. She messed on her afghan on the bottom but it hadn’t seeped through to the basket. I took the afghan out and washed it. Then I replaced it with a towel for her to lie on. Then low and behold, Kaline resurfaced!

I grabbed the kitten before she realized that I was reaching for her and stuffed her in the carrier. Whew! Success! This time I took the carrier out and strapped it into the passenger’s seat, Kaline crying all the while. I turned the car back on getting the air pumping back in. Then I went in and repeated the easier task of collecting Azzie and putting the basket back in the car.

The trip wasn’t so eventful. I propped the top of the basket and positioned the carrier so the girls could see each other and me. They calmed down and seemed to just pretty much relax in the air-conditioned car. Kaline complained every now and then because Aunt Azzie could poke her whole head out of the basket and she couldn’t get out of the carrier.

When we got to David’s all three of us refreshed a bit from the air-conditioned trip. David came out to help get the girls in the house so they could meet Chester and Baggle and acclimate a bit. We set the carrier and basket down on the floor so the boys could have a sniff. I opened the basket and took Azzie out. David opened the carrier door.

Baggle is amazed at “Aunt Enigma”

Chester and Baggle seemed amazed at “Aunt Enigma.” Azzie’s medicine changed her body chemistry to the point where she didn’t smell like a cat to other animals. After adjusting to this critter that looked like a cat but couldn’t possibly be a cat, the boys got along well with Az. Kaline was another story!

Kaline stayed in the carrier for a while. As I recall, we finally had to dump her out of it. As Chester neared her for a sniff she hissed and Baggle took off upstairs. Chester hissed back. There was posturing and more hissing. Then they left in opposite directions.

We put Kaline’s box in the downstairs bathroom and showed the girls where that box was and the basement boxes. Azzie seemed to like the basement, maybe too much. I carried her upstairs and she went back down! Every time I carried her back up, she’d end up back downstairs. Actually, I was worried about her. She’d get in to the very open, since the flooding the day before we found Kaline, main room of the unfinished basement and just paced in large circles.

Upstairs. Chester was taking charge of the territory. That was odd because Baggle and Kaline are the alpha cats of their respective houses, but I guess with Baggle hiding from strange cats like he does when there are strange people in his house, Chester had to step up and keep the “bitchy girl” from taking over!

The first night we were all there, David and I went to bed with the boys upstairs. I’d brought Azzie up to the top floor to be near me but she only stayed a while and went back downstairs. I waited for Kaline to come in and curl up on my hip like she usually does, but she wasn’t there. David told me not to worry because she was probably just checking out the new place. He guessed that she’d be upstairs in the morning. So after a few futile attempts at calling “Kitty Kaline! Come to bed!” we went to sleep.

Chester says the kitten interloper is staying down!

In the morning the boys were upstairs, but no girls. I found out they both stayed in the basement. I wasn’t sure why Kaline didn‘t want to sleep with me and thought maybe she thought Aunt Azzie needed company or protection. I came to find out why she didn’t come upstairs on night two.

After a day of continued growling, hissing and posturing, night two came. There was a standoff in the hall in front of the bedroom. Kaline was in the landing before the stairs and Chester and Baggle were in between that landing and the bedroom. There was much staring, leering and light growling. When there was a break in eye contact, Kaline made a mad dash bounding over or past the boys and jumping right onto the bed. She climbed up on my hip and just sat there without purring, glaring at her brothers. In the morning, she was still on the bed. Chester and Baggle had managed to successfully hold the blockade for one night. That’s all it took for Kaline to adjust to her situation and take charge. The first couple weeks were rough trying to convince the kids to get along, but it worked out okay. Kaline made it clear, “I sleep with Mommy and Daddy, got it?” Baggle made his statement too, “The food is mine except for what I let you have.” Chester insisted, “As long as I get my share, whatever, Mom and Dad will take care of me.” And they all seemed to agree that we’ll be nice to the old lady that doesn’t smell like a cat, but acts like a wise old feline.

Nani Is A Happy Little Princess!

2012-02-09T17:31:00.000-05:00

I’m posting my first post of the day a little later than usual today. Pop was over this morning to see what could be done with our crashed bookcase. It took him about an hour to go from shattered pieces to shelving unit anchored to the wall! It took me the better part of the day in 2007 when I assembled the other identical bookcase and David constructs with words, not wood! Assembling a unit from a kit, even a unit that had splintered a few screw holes and taken a chunk out of the bottom of one shelf when it fell was very simple work for my Dad, who has worked in construction since the early 70s. He’s already said that he’ll come back when I get the rest of the kit-furniture. I’ll prepare a nice lunch spread to say “thanks!”

After Pop finished putting the shelves in and put away his tools in his car, we had minestrone. I was both anxious and a little nervous about Pop tasting my first try at minestrone. I thought it was good, just a few tweaks away from great, soup is my specialty, but the opinion of the senior minestrone maker in the family was the true test. He liked it! He really liked it!

After lunch he wanted to make sure he had the directions to Sofo, MY Italian market, so he could stop before he went home. I enjoy the fact that both Pop and my brother feel the desire to stop at MY ethnic store when they visit. I have the edge there! Sofo is a truly awesome place for Italian groceries!

So far, the popcorn popper is the only thing on a shelf, since that was the tallest appliance and it was used to place the first shelf. After a couple of serious moving, bending, lifting and stretching days upstairs, I promised myself, and David, especially David, that I was going to relax today. Just like working out, rip, then heal to build muscles, I rip then heal to restore strength.

Happy Chocolate Day!

Today is Chocolate Day! Chocolate Day is celebrated on the third day of Valentines Week. So I think I’ll eat my rose tonight.

David has been bringing home little gifts when he finds ones that just scream me. At this time of year, there are lots of those! At the end of January, he brought me a Dove rose. I know the rose is 3 Weight Watchers points. I figured it out right away, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to opening it. It’s so pretty and so sweet and romantic and once I eat it, it’s gone! I think official Chocolate Day is a good day to finally open it. There WILL be more chocolate, likely even more chocolate from David!

The past couple of nights we’ve had another treat he brought me.

He knows me well! That little black forest cake was the perfect size for us to share for dessert for two nights.

Last thing I’ll share for now is a vintage thing for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

I have three peach-tone glass dessert plates from Grandma’s. You don’t really see the peachiness until there are a few stacked together, but they ARE peachy!

I confess that it was a set of four, but I lost one to a knock off the counter that also claimed one of my dollar-store glass plates. Obviously the peach dish was a bigger heartbreak!

I don’t know exactly how old these ones are. What I do know is I hadn’t seen them before we found them in the back of the cabinets that had many other old dishes. I spent a lot of time at Grandma’s house and did a lot of foodie things with her. So, I’m fairly sure they pre-date me! I do know they are pretty and totally match my peach and green kitchen future!

See more Vintage Thingies at Suzanne’s blog, The Coloradolady, every Thursday!

Links

Chocolate Day

Sofo Market

The Coloradolady

Wednesday Hodge Podge

2012-02-08T09:12:00.000-05:00

1. What is something you are loving right now?

Bookcases. In my White Tornado project, shelving units are key to progress and I’m dreaming of bookcases and organization. Anything that organizes makes my pupils big.

2. Paris, Venice, New York, and Rome are considered four of the most romantic cities in the world. Which one would you most like to visit?

This one’s easy. I’ve been to all of them except Paris, so it’s Paris.

I don’t get how Rome and Venice are romantic. They are pretty, but dirty. New York I went to for the first time at Christmas with the boyfriend I married. Yes, that was very romantic.

3. Are you a romantic?

I am, but not a textbook romantic. I like some common romance things, like roses, chocolates or a candlelight dinner, but there are some uncommon things that romance me that, well, David got the job because he does them.

4. What's your favorite love story made for the Big Screen?

I’m not much of a movie watcher and I don’t watch a lot of love stories. Bull Durham?

5. Everyone loves Pooh bear and friends...which character are you most like and why? Click here for help in answering this question.

I love Eeyore! In fact right now I’m wearing my Eeyore fleece. Eeyore is about as UNlike my own personality as it gets. Opposites attract.

6. What's the best chocolate something you've ever eaten?

We had a dessert at Montana Jacks in Moline, IL, that was absolute chocolate ecstasy! It was a chocolate crumb crust with a layer of fudge on top, then a layer of chocolate mousse and whipped cream on top with a candied nut and cocoa power top sitting on top of a pool of chocolate fudge sauce.

K, if I leave now, I can be in Moline by afternoon snack time.

7. Share a favorite quote about love.

Love is like coffee;
Sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad,
Sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,
Sometimes it’s all glitzed up and sometimes it’s plain.
Sometimes you go out to find it and sometimes it’s right at home,
Whatever way you get it, there’s no point in waking up without it.

-Nani

(But if he turns into Folgers, I call my lawyer.)

8. Insert your own random thought here.

My love-coffee quote wasn’t random enough, huh?

I had a weird dream the night before last. I believe that dreams are the subconscious processing the record of what you did and what you thought about during the day. Bad dreams are the subconscious processing things that worry you.

In this dream, I was meeting David “downtown” for a baseball game. I drove up to the lot right next to the field. I got a phone call from David asking where I was because I was going to be late. I told him I was in the lot across the street. He said he thought we were parking in the lot by the ballpark. I told him that the lot across the street IS the lot next to the ballpark. I was at Fifth-Third Field in Toledo. David was at Comerica Park in Detroit. He’d bought Tigers tickets, not Mud Hens tickets.

Am I worried about our communication in the back of my mind?? Maybe it’s just winter anxiety.

I'll Be Brief

2012-02-07T15:58:00.000-05:00

It's time for Tell Me Tuesday!

Are ya wondering what the prompt is? Will Nani write an even longer "term paper" with this week's prompt? Or, will I write the little bit shorter one I thought I might someday. Well, this week's question was NOT 'What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" I keep hoping.

But here's this week's prompt:

I need to practice_____________more often.

Hold getting that refill!

I need to practice brevity more often.

Done!

Be sure to check out the variations on this theme at The Coloradolady, Meet Me Tuesdays.

A Rant, A Cat and A Smile

2012-02-07T10:30:00.000-05:00

The first thing I’d like to address today is a current grumble in Blogland. That grumble is with the mothership. Blogger is making me nuts! I have my list of blogs that I follow and my usual habit is that I check that list and read everyone’s new blog posts with my morning coffee. The problem is that information I get from Blogger’s Friend Connect is usually incomplete. I get randomly selected updates. Who gets listed in the current new blogs? I think it’s occasionally everyone, but how can I be sure? I also get blogs I follow that just vanish from my list! I thought Linda, my Secret Santee at Christmas was deleting me because I was following her anonymously during the swap, but now, two others that I’ve been following have been deleted and I’ve tried twice to add them back, but Blogger doesn’t save them. One blog I read by clicking the newest post post on my “friends I follow” list yesterday at lunch and then by the evening, she was gone from my list entirely, poof! Grrr!

I wonder if any of my readers use a different type of reader to follow their favorite blogs. I was looking at Google Reader, but that’s the same company as Blogger and Blogger is my problem. When I clicked to see the blogs I follow in Google Reader, they were still not all there and the updates were shown randomly. Has anyone used Bloglines? There isn’t the complete information on the main page I’d hope for before I sign up for an account. I really want something similar to the Blogger friends list or Google Reader, just one that works. I welcome any suggestions by email or in the comments!

Whew! Okay. I’m over the grumblies.

My Dad is going to be here Thursday morning to work on that book shelf. That means I’ll have today and tomorrow to finish up in the bedroom. Shouldn’t be a problem. I have a few bags of things to move into the future woman cave from there too. David asked me if there was enough room to move with all those boxes. There will be. Actually with his desk not there, I still have more room than I had with 2 desks. Add to that, a lot of the stuff is to sort and either shred or put in the good will box. Plus once things are properly organized, they take up so much less space.

When Pop is here, I’ll get to let him try my first batch of minestrone. David brought up one of the larger bowls from the freezer. It’s thawing in the fridge now. I hope Pop can work his artisan miracles and save the shelving unit. They aren’t terribly expensive kits, but expensive enough that I’d much rather not have to add that to my shopping list!

I don’t get a lot of time to blog or read on the weekends, but I do some. I did a post on Sunday that, according to Blogger’s stats has only been read once! I think it’s an important post, way more important than the Super Bowl, mugs, barns or vintage things. If you have an extra click, please read “Lend a Helping Paw.” It’s not trying to sell anything. It’s about Paws and Whickers Cat Shelter and a sweet little feline girl we are sponsoring.

Bissett at Paws and Whiskers

Isn’t she the prettiest thing? We sponsored Bissett when we visited Paws Saturday, which brought her adoption fee way down. Paws is our local cat shelter and we are supporters and fans of the shelter. How could we not be? That’s where our Carla came from and likely where Jo or Joe Morgan will come from as well. I say likely because Kaline was not a shelter cat, she was a feral kitten who was too young to be without her mother, but she was without a mother. We firmly believe in rescues as our pets, usually from a shelter, but if we find one that needs us, we’ll rescue it ourselves.

You can read some more about Bissett and see a couple more photos of this calico beauty through the link, or just go back a few posts. If you are even considering adding a new furbaby to your family, really consider adopting a rescued cat or dog. Shelters are so crowded in a rough economy and rescued animals are the most loving and faithful animals you’ll ever give a piece of your heart to!

Barn Charm –

Yesterday morning, David and I went out to take advantage of the sunny blue skies and photograph some trains. Of course for me, it’s photographing trains, water towers, post offices, barns and anything else that strikes my fancy!

I was totally torn about going because I had laundry to fold or hang and I’m in the middle of the White Tornado Project in the bedroom, so I’m dusting and organizing everything, even dusting the ceiling! I’ve also found half the missing socks under the bed!

I’m glad I went! David had some stuff he needed to go back to the house for at midday, so I stayed home for the afternoon. I got a couple trains, my barn for this week and still got clothes hung up and some dusting done. It was a productive day after all!

This barn can be seen greeting drivers on the I-75 in Wood County.

It’s in Dunbridge, Ohio. My thought is that Joe and Gertie are the owners of the barn, saying his to everyone who passes. We pulled over on the ramp for exit 187 to get this shot.

See more barns at Tricia's Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily

Links

Super Bowl Wrap

2012-02-06T14:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, the final score was bad, but the game was pretty good after the first quarter. I didn’t think either team looked that great in the first quarter. The Super Bowl should be a close game; it’s the two best teams in the league and the biggest sports day of the year. 30 seconds of ad time is millions of dollars. The game had better be enough to keep people watching so the advertising investment is worth it!

The Super Bowl ads were quite good this year, with only a few quite bad ones. There is much talk about the 60 second Chrysler ad at half time with Clint Eastwood. Okay, to be honest as I was watching it, I really thought it was a quietly political ad. Not totally sure it wasn’t a political ad. Funny, as I understand Eastwood is a conservative and as a political ad, it’s anything but Republican!

The end of the Depression and through the years Budweiser ads were good, but not as strong as Bud ads have been in the past.

I will NEVER eat another Dorito again.

I could have done without the David Beckham ad. It was supposed to impress women. Might have worked on me with a better looking man. What was it selling again? I was too busy being grossed out.

The Samsung Mobile ad started off looking like they didn’t produce a new spot for the Super Bowl. Then it just got dumb, I mean really stupid.

I loved the introduction of Ms. Brown in the M&M’s spot and Red’s insanity at the party where she WAS NOT NAKED! Sorry guys, it’s NOT that kind of party. (but it was that kind of ad!)

Special kudos to Dannon Oikos for the first ever yogurt commercial in the Super Bowl. The spot was so-so, but it was the brand’s first time. I cut them some slack. (And I love Dannon Oikos!)

The Honorable Nani Mentions: (because there is only one winner)

I liked the KIA Altima commercial with the sandman who tripped and gave the man so much dream glitter that he had a dream so awesome that included Motley Crue, bikini girls and a giant sub sandwich. In the end he busted into his wife’s dream and she dumped her romance novel guy on the horse to join hubby’s dream in the Altima. A full story in 30 seconds without words, brilliant!

I also really loved the Chevy Silverado ad. Everything will be gone after the apocalypse except the Chevy Silverados and their drivers…all eating Twinkies. I LOVED that tip of the cap to the 70+ year shelf life and the “only ‘food’” that will survive the end 0of time. I also loved the jab at the one guy in the group who didn’t make it because he drove a Ford.

The third Honorable Nani Mention goes to the Dog who can’t fit through the door to chase the Volkswagen so he works out, gets thin enough to crawl out and chases the car. Then the commercial breaks to the screens in the cantina from Star Wars and a debate about whether the dog of the kid in the Darth Vader costume was funnier, with Darth Vader using the force on the dog’s fan. The ad was cute without the last bit, but great with it!

NUMBER ONE

The best of the best Super Bowl ads this year was Audi’s Vampire Party, promoting their “Daylight Headlights.” Well, the guy on the “blood run” gets there with those headlights and well… Awesome end scene where the driver “figures out” what happened to everyone else!

See all the Super Bowl spots here:

Mashable Business 2012 Super Bowl Ads

Monday Mug Shot

2012-02-06T06:30:00.000-05:00

Broadway Dinner Train

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville was the last stop on the 2-week tour of the South that Mom and I went on in 1989. It was the first time I’d ever been south of Kentucky and the scenery was very different! On that trip I’d driven through the mountains in pea-soup fog, through twisting and turning back roads in Chattanooga city traffic in Atlanta and I saw my first ever train coming down the middle of the street in Columbus, Georgia! We had planned to see caverns in Alabama, but they were clos3ed for the season when we got there. The brochure didn’t say anything about closing in October! After spending the night in Cullman, Alabama, we headed north through Tennessee, making our final stop of the trip, two nights in Nashville.

We’d decided before we left that we’d each pick one place where we’d splurge on a really nice hotel and we’d go Knights Inn/Days Inn for the other nights of our trip. Mom picked Nashville. We stayed at the Sheraton Music City, very posh and comfortable room and close to everything. We’d already been on a riverboat dinner cruise in Chattanooga and a Dinner train in Atlanta. There was just something about eating while moving that made the food taste better. Well, okay, that and that most dinner trains are the food equivalent of a several star restaurant.

We got to the depot early. Dinner trains seat 4 to a table and parties of 2 are seated with other parties of two. If you get there first, you get to pick which seats you want! It was still light when we boarded the train, but the sun was setting when it left the station. We were seated with a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary. The conversation was fun and included what we all did for a living, how they met and how our trip had been. Casual small talk you enjoy with strangers when you’re seated together for dinner.

The tracks went along the Cumberland River for a good part of the ride. It was beautiful to watch as the sun was setting, with the last of the colors in the sky quietly reflecting off the moving water. I’ve always had a romanticized feeling about riding on a train. A dinner t4rqin is one of the most romantic places. Yet it’s someplace, as many times as I’ve been on dinner trains that I’ve never been with a date. I haven’t even ever been with my husband. Strange.

After a wonderful chicken dish for dinner, it was dessert time. All four of us chose the same dessert; pecan pie with chocolate sauce. Oh my! It was wonderful! I dint as vividly remember the dinner as I f=do that wonderful dessert!

After dessert, I sat with my coffee and gazed out the window for a while. Mom and the couple we dined with chatted. I was a little blue because we’d leave in the morning back to Michigan and our trip would be over. I stared out in the black night and marveled at the beautiful lights that twinkled on the river as we passed little inhabited areas. I rejoined the conversation as the table as the wait staff was clearing off the last of the dessert dishes and cups. Yeah, I had to surrender my coffee cup before we got back, but it was just a plain beige cup. When we got back to the depot, I had to stop in the souvenir shop, of course, to get a mug to remember the beautiful trip, twinkling lights, a friendly strangers and the last destination night of a great vacation with Mom.

Lending A Helping Paw

2012-02-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

We started yesterday with some morning errands to places that close before early afternoon on Saturdays. Then we went on to a place that opens at noon on Saturday! Paws and Whiskers doesn’t open until 12:00 on weekends and we had a couple of things to donate and we wanted to visit the cats.

No, it’s not time to adopt Joe or Jo Morgan yet. We want to get more of the house organizing done and have either the woman cave or man cave clear so our new kid has a room they can stay in as they acclimate to their new home and the three cats can gradually get used to each other. We didn’t do that with Carla and almost sent her back to the shelter because it just wasn’t working with Kaline and Baggle for the first month or so. We want to spare all five of us that stress, or as much of it as we can, this time.

Paws and Whiskers recently did some additions and new rooms for the cats. The shelter is over capacity, but the cats seemed even more assertive yesterday. There is something going right there if they can be over-full and the cats are still affectionate! When we walked in to the main area where the cages are, there was meowing from a few of the, paws stretching out of the cages as we passed, everyone looking for our attention. It’s like they’ve added a meowtivational speakers program on techniques for making that sale and getting a forever home!

One cat that meowed at me as soon as I was near her and reached out a paw to me was Bissett

Bissett is just a GORGEOUS calico and such a sweet girl! She has been at Paws since the last day of August last year when she was left in the parking lot in a cage with her 2 kittens. I reached a hand in and she rubbed up to me and let me scritch her chin and behind her ears and all over and she purred, loudly and vigorously.

When I started to go away I heard her meows and I went back to give her little more lovin’ before I moved on to visit some other cats.

We didn’t leave with a cat, but we did leave with the receipt from our new sponsorship! If you are in a reasonable distance of Toledo and have been thinking about a feline companion, or if after seeing this affectionate beauty in a cage you are, consider Bissett! Her adoption price is down to only $35 now. Wouldn’t she be a beautiful site sunbathing in your front window when you pull in to the drive? If not Bissett, there are capacity+ looking for a forever home at Paws and Whiskers. Sadly there are animal shelters all over with cats and dogs living in cages waiting for someone to come and give them a home and love. Adult shelter animals are the most loving and faithful animals you can adopt because they remember that you saved them long after they forget why they needed saving.

Links

Paws and Whiskers

Bissett's Paws and Whiskers Page

Can You Use Some Help?

2012-02-05T22:00:00.001-05:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
I could sure use some help with my prescription drug costs, who couldn’t? Walgreens Prescription Savings Club is here for just that, a little help! Members of the program get savings on over 8000 prescription drugs, generic and brand name. They also get discounts on flu shots, nebulizers and, I have a couple of friends who would benefit from this, diabetic testing supplies! Annual family membership in the program is $35 and it covers you, your spouse, all of your kids 22 and under and your pets’ medications are even covered too. That covers the whole family through college and obedience school! If it’s just you, or if you’re suggesting the program to one of your single adult kids, an individual membership is only $20.

The program also offers bonuses when you purchase Walgreens brand products or when you use their photofinishing services. Like Walgreens on Facebook to keep up on Walgreens’ specials and the Prescription Savings Club and Follow Walgreens on Twitter to keep up to date.

The Walgreens Prescription Saving Club is perfect if you are uninsured, insured but your insurance doesn’t cover some of your medications or medical supplies or if your copays are just too high. Check out the program and read the FAQs. I already found one of my medications listed in the 90 days for $12 drugs list. The program is definitely worth considering!

Friday By Request - What Would You Write?

2012-02-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

This is going to be the last month of “best of” FBRs. I figure after the reviews to show what all you can request, it’s up to my readers. I would be the lousiest salesperson. If my existence relied on commissions made from pressure selling anything, I’d be living in a box, hopefully under and overpass with a low crime rate. But for a few weeks, I’ll repost some of the Friday By Requests from 2007.

I’m reading “Soul Intent” by Dennis Batchelder, a follow-up to “Soul Identity.” I loved Soul Identity and the whole concept of the company the story is built around. In the book, your eyes are the key to finding your past, your soul’s past. Think about retina scans for identity, we already use that in places. The theory in Soul Identity is that no two living people have the same iris pattern, like a fingerprint. The company, Soul Identity, is ages and ages old, since a time when qualified artisans drew the eyes to form the identity pictures. After you have gone, your soul will return as another person, but that soul signature will remain the same. Soul Identity members deposit wealth and things they want to pass on to their “next self,” member of their “Soul Line.” If you join Soul Identity in your next life, you can open your Soul Collection and see what you left yourself.

Soul Identity does NOT advertise, but find clients by seeking those who at least have a mild ability to accept that their soul might have walked the earth before. If your beliefs would not possibly let you believe in some sort of reincarnation or you wouldn’t even be interested anyway. It is a company with incredible financial worth. Soul Collections that are worth great financial sums are invested and the amounts grow. Money and artifacts are left untouched for even centuries because soul members never claim them, the company is worth a TON. You can see why they don’t advertise that they exist. If they made it known that they were around, they’d be subject to con artists trying to find out who has left great sums of valuables and attempting to steal their identity. Think about it, identity theft is already a reality in so many forms and the perpetrators are always looking for new ways to steal.

So I love that the concept is so plausible. The story in Soul Identity had action and intrigue and did bring up the question of soul-identity-theft. But it’s a great book and the follow up is equally intriguing with some interesting curve balls. But the company Soul Identity doesn’t exist in reality. Or does it?

This FBR from 2007 fits in with the concept of that book. If I joined Soul Identity, even if I was the first one of my line, I’d leave copies of my journals. Maybe I'd make a single scrapbook highlighting key points of my life, with instructions in my will to have the last one printed and put in my Soul Collection, and I think I’d write something similar to the letter I was asked to write in January, 2007.

Friday By Request
Originally posted on Yahoo 360, January 19, 2007

This week’s request is from Mary, who challenged me to answer the question “What Would You Write?” from her friend Jaymes’ blog. This is the message Mary sent me: What would you write to yourself if you were to be reincarnated; what would your message be? After a little soul and memory searching about all the mistakes and the really right things that have occurred in my life, here is my letter:

What Would You Write?

For Mary

If it's true that we live over and over till we get it right, then this letter is to you, Nani.

I doubt you are called Nani this time and I doubt you’ll ever see this letter. But, I hope that writing it will instill its message in my essence, our essence, that it will manifest itself in your subconscious and influence you somehow. It will have influence on you in a way that you’ll never know it does, but it will make that essence that is you and me and all the versions of our being before us and to come better and closer to the way we should be.

First I’ll tell you life is not easy, for anyone, no matter how things look. The happiest people feel pain. The materially wealthy feel things that are missing within themselves. The most arrogant have great insecurities. The most peaceful and loving people have things they despise. Recognize this and be willing to give emotional charity to everyone.

But, while you’re giving that charity, remember that there are those who

take without giving and expect more. Who those people are will sometimes surprise you too. Know that you can separate from them without hurting them. They will learn more and perhaps improve more from the people they lose in their lives than from your continuing to let them feed off you.

When you are really hurt, telling the truth will do more to make the pain stop than keeping the secret. Know that you can give without having to suffer, that you can be kind and tolerant without having to try to help everyone. Know that the ones who truly love you don’t think they have to and aren’t afraid of what others will think if they don’t. They just do.

Be patient. Education, inspiration and even love are worth the wait to do it right. There is a reason that things happen the way they do, accept that. Some mistakes you have to make first, so you don’t mess up the really good things that come later. Never be afraid to make those mistakes and learn from them.

Don’t lose your faith and don’t give up on yourself, even briefly. That’s when life is the darkest and loneliest, when you give up everything. Don’t be afraid of rejection. Fear is the greatest obstacle in finding your calling. You need other people to get ahead, but ask for the help, don’t just take it. The rewards last longer and you’ll be able to ask for help again.

Find a profession that fulfills you and makes you happy to do it. But don’t work much overtime. What you’ll miss in life, even if you like the job, you’ll never be able to buy back. Your people will be there long after one employer has let you go and another is questioning your ability regardless of your professional successes. Your people will always remember the good things you did and enjoy reminiscing about them. You won’t have to go through anything near the screening process for a new job as you will to make new friends, and the benefits are better. Remember, that what is important you can’t buy with the money from what’s not.

Always strive to keep life in balance. Give a bona fide effort to anything you do. Don’t ever fail on your commitments to others. Love like there’s no question you’ll be loved back. Most important, don’t feel guilty when you take time for yourself. Doing nice things for yourself will keep you understanding and loving when someone else doesn’t. Don’t create expectations for other people and you’ll always be pleased with what they give and do for you.

signed,

Nani

Your former self

Link: DennisBatchelder , author of Soul Identity and Soul Intent

Groundhog Day – Come Vacation in Ohio!

2012-02-02T12:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Groundhog Day! I was reading some dejected Tweets about the impending doom of Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow this morning, but on a blissfully overcast day in Ohio, Buckeye Chuck did not, I repeat NOT, see his shadow. So while the rest of the country is burdened by 6 more weeks of winter, my crocuses will be budding by mid-March! On behalf of the Ohio Department of Tourism, I’d like to invite everyone to our fair state to enjoy the early spring!

I did well in all levels of my education with math…and sarcasm! As a lifetime Midwesterner, I never understood what all the fuss about the groundhog was. How mean is it to wake up a furry critter on an early February morning to see if it casts a shadow so you can determine if it’s going to be a torturing 6 weeks until spring or blissfully only 6 more weeks until spring. If you’re banking your state of mind on a groundhog, that’s pretty sad. Still, come to Ohio, the happy state!

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I’ve been diligently working on the White Tornado Project upstairs this week. Today I am achy and I’ve decided to take it as an easy day. One thing I need to do is plug lights back in. I was moving some things around, cat toys and socks, under the bed. I pulled on an extension cord and unplugged the light on David’s side of the bed. Then when I turned on the light on my side, it blew out. So right now we have no bedside lighting. Not so good in the winter when the sun is gone at bedtime and not back yet when you wake up! So, while I’m otherwise taking a break today from the White Tornado, I will still wiggle onto the floor to plug things back in and replace the bulb in my reading light.

Then, the rest of the day is for scrapping, blogging and making some mini quiches for the freezer. I joined my Dad for the first phase of the South Beach diet back in the late 90s. Word of eternal caution here – even if a doctor suggests a diet to someone else, it may not be right for you! Pop’s doctor suggested South Beach for my dad to shed a few “off season” pounds. He always gained over the winter when it was not construction season. I decided that I’d join him because the support would help him stick with it and it certainly wouldn’t hurt me to shed a little. Well I was wrong on the “wouldn’t hurt me” part! I followed the recipes with the exception of adding all the oil they called for. That much oil was a gross thought and I had elevated cholesterol. Upping my fat intake would drive me to the “high” level in no time. After I got sick and actually gained weight, MY doctor chewed me out for trying a diet that is geared towards people with weight gain from carbohydrates with high or headed that way blood sugar. It’s actually dangerous for high cholesterol because if followed to the letter, it will reduce blood sugar and raise cholesterol. By cutting out the fat in the recipes, I reduced my blood sugar, which wasn’t good for me and because I wasn’t eating enough calories, I gained weight. This is why they say to consult your doctor before changing your diet!

But the one thing that I did get from the 2 week on the South Beach diet is a taste for the little breakfast quiches made in cupcake pans. Boy those were good! All the talk last week on the Wednesday Hodge Podge about brunch and the many people who’d make a breakfast casserole or a quiche made me crave casserole or quiche. I remembered those wonderful South Beach breakfasts, which I’ll definitely have with whole wheat toast now. I looked up a few recipes last night and I’ll analyze them and create one that works for me this afternoon. I’ll get back with you all on how that turns out!

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It’s Thursday and time to share a vintage treasure. This is from one of the boxes from Grandma’s garage. The garage is where the boxes from Detroit went in 1982 that weren’t opened again until Dave and I with our spouses were sorting through everything. It’s where we found the tax return copies from 1958. and in one box I found these!

I had to do some searching to get a little bit of background. The Labor Non-Partisan League pin is supporting Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 Presidential election. Winning that election saw FDR’s fourth term in office. He died of a stroke just a few months after the beginning of that term.

I haven’t come across any other presidential election pins, but I find it interesting to note that the presidential election pins I’ve had, the candidates have won too. Maybe there’s some family mojo at work there. Maybe I should seek out a pin for the candidate I choose this year.

The other pin is a Douglas MacArthur War Hero pin. It was in the same box and I’d guess probably from the same time.

I admit that I totally enjoyed the research I did for these pins. At the site where I found both of them, the FDR pin sells for $45 and the MacArthur pin for $20. I also did some reading at various sites, brushing up on some American history and imagining my just-married grandparents at that time. Grandma was living in Boston, and at the time of the election, Grandma was pregnant but probably didn’t know it yet. Papa was stationed in the Pacific. World War 2 wasn’t over.

Enjoy some more nostalgia and vintage finds at Suzanne’s bog, The Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Links

Cleveland Leader – Buckeye Chuck blurb

Roosevelt 1944 Election Pins.

MacArthur War Hero Pins

Photoblog Wednesday

2012-02-01T16:55:00.002-05:00

A little sun is a guarantee you’ll find Kaline

June 2008

Wednesday Hodge Podge

2012-02-01T06:41:00.001-05:00

Another fun week of various questions from Joyce a From This Side of the Pond.

1. It's that most wonderful time of the year...tax season! Do you complete your own returns or farm that job out to the professionals?

Before I got married I always did my own and I did my business taxes, including the PITA sales tax documents. It was a small business, so we’re not talking IRS science. Now, David does them, last year with Turbo Tax and he’s thinking of going that way again this year.

2. This next question comes from Kansas Bob...he posed it in his response to something I asked in an earlier Wednesday post and I asked him if I could add it to the Hodgepodge some day. Today's the day....

Which do you think has changed you more-love or pain?

No question, love. Pain has not changed me. Emotional pain has always been dealt with the same way. My first thought when it’s shared pain is to make sure everyone else is okay. Even when my Mom only had a few hours and I was going to get Grandma, a couple hours’ drive, the way I drove that night it was just a couple hours, my first thought was to try to get Grandma there to say goodbye to her only daughter. Fortunately, Scotty knows me well and went with me so I wasn’t alone. In times of pain, I go into crisis mode and get done what needs done. Then I fall apart after. That’s never changed. Physical pain just makes me more stubborn, but not different.

Love, has changed me. When my nieces were born, My Type-A personality became unfulfilling where I’d thrived on it before. When I met David, I surrendered a little of the control I’d always taken. Love has made me a calmer and less stressed person.

3. Tangerine Tango has been named color of the year for 2012. Your thoughts? Would I find this color anywhere in your house? How about in your closet? If not, will you be adding this color to your life in some way in 2012? If you're not sure what tangerine tango looks like click here.

There’s a color of the year, really? I have a few orange jewelry things, have had them I guess since the last time an orange was color of the year? I have some things that are Detroit Tigers orange. I might get something in tangerine orange if it strikes my fancy, but I won’t go out of my way to look for the current fad color.

I’ll still buy lots of green! :)

4. Are you a collector? What do you collect and does it get admired, used, and/or dusted regularly?

I collect coffee cups. They get featured on my blog on Mondays when I do the Monday Mug Shot and tell the story of the mug.

5. February is National Heart Month...besides a green salad what is one tasty heart healthy dish you like to prepare?

Oatmeal. I have breakfast and lunch recipes that I do with oatmeal.

6. When was the last time you had car trouble?

This spring when we try to start the Camaro. We’ll be getting it ready sell this year.

7. Have you been more demanding on yourself lately or less? Is that a good trend?

Yes and no. I’ve really not been any more demanding than I usually am, the goals remain the same, but they are a much greater challenge to achieve.

I think it’s a good thing. Refusing to be weak, keeps me strong.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

The current Roaman's catalog came in today’s mail. I leafed through it. Who cares about the clothes? I am totally in love with this bracelet and I would so love to have the full set with the necklace and earrings too.

But I WILL figure out a way to have that bracelet on my wrist…

Too, Too Much

2012-01-31T10:01:00.000-05:00

I must start this post with a fair warning – writing from a prompt can definitely take on a life of its own when you set hands to keyboard. My first thought today was I was going to write a shorter post than last Tuesday. It’s about the same. Also, I don’t often write about my religious views, although I’d imagine you can probably figure them out from my writing. I think religion is personal and everyone should practice their beliefs in the way that satisfies their own spiritual needs.

I don’t mean to offend, but if you are easily offended in discussions about religion, I won’t be offended if you don’t read my post.

Today's prompt:

What is there too much of in the world???

There is too much hate disguised as holy.

Let me tell a story from school. I went to Catholic school for the first 4 years of grade school. I had a lovely woman who I adored for my first grade teacher and I’d decided that I wanted to be a nun when I grew up because I wanted to be as wonderful a person as Sister Ann. After making that decision before first grade was over, I decided at only 6 years old that there was no better time than the present to start studying what I needed to know to be a good nun.

That summer is where I took off the blindfold that I really needed to keep on for my chosen vocation. But I was almost seven. What did I know about career planning?

Since I was learning all about the way Catholics worship in school, I wanted to know more about other religions. If I was going to be a kind and gentle nun, I had to understand and respect everyone’s religion. I went to Summer Bible School at the Baptist church around the corner from home and at the Lutheran church with my Aunt Judy, where she taught my age group. I found out that the lessons about Jesus and loving people were pretty much the same as I learned in school. They sang more at the Baptist church and they did more crafts at the Lutheran church. Maybe that was because my Aunt is a crafter and she was teaching my class, but I remembered that I did more crafts at Bible School at the Lutheran church. Still the messages were the same and the Bible the same and the love shared was the same. In fact, the only thing I really knew as different in other religions is that they said the prayer we said a little later as the last line of “Our Father.”

And so, I went to Summer Bible school every summer in between school years at Catholic School. I was still planning to be a nun and was enjoying the friends I’d made at Bible School, getting more involved with the youth group’s “Terrific Tuesdays” field trips with the Baptist Church. I still remember the hymns and songs we sang on the bus and hayrides. I was having fun, but I knew I was also learning important things to make me a good nun.

Well, my awakening was in fourth grade religion class. I was 9 years old now and planning more than ever to answer God’s calling for me. One day, in about the middle of the school year, we were discussing line by line what one of the prayers we say in church means. We got to a line that Sister Mary Ann told us meant that ”there is only one church, the Catholic church.” I remember, so clear in my mind what I said, what she answered and my reply. I remember being mad.

I raised my hand and asked, “What about the people at other churches, like Baptist?”

“God will forgive them.”

“For-give-them-for-WHAT?”

I kinda realized that day that I had a better chance of hoisting the Stanley Cup as the first woman in the NHL, my backup plan if the nun thing didn’t work out, than I did of being a good Catholic nun. My Mom tried to explain that Sister was mistaken, that catholic with a small c, like it is in the prayer, mean all Christians, not just Catholic Christians. Well, then I asked about the friend on my bowling team who was Jewish. She did her best to try to answer my questions in a way that wouldn’t lead to more questions and an angrier child.

As an adult, I consider myself a Unitarian Universalist with a Christian belief foundation. I’ve studied many religions and have a reference selection of many holy books, although the white padded-cover book with the gold lined pages that I keep in the bedroom is a Bible.

I believe in tolerance as my first religious conviction because I refuse to believe, even for a moment, that God is so limited that he only shares himself with any particular one group of people and everyone else is wrong. It’s that Bible that says with God all things are possible, He is all things to all people. Am I really qualified to add “except” to the text?

But a lot of “leaders” do just that. I’m not talking about extremists who use religion when they apparently don’t believe it to get people to bomb buildings with the promise of “virgins in the afterlife” for killing Americans or “a place in Heaven” for killing doctors at a clinic that does abortions, although that’s extreme hate thinly disguised as holy. I’m talking about religious prejudice. The belief that one religion is more right than another to the point of considering the other religions wrong. Whether you believe that you need to “stay away” from someone because they believe differently or just that they’ll “be forgiven” for not being you, isn’t that prejudice? Just like we hear about “gateway drugs,” prejudice a gateway belief for hate and too many times that prejudice starts in a church.

It's Tuesday, Must be Barn Charm!

2012-01-31T06:30:00.000-05:00

Since I had photographed and sought so many of the Ohio Bicentennial barns, I just had to get a shot of this one when we were on vacation last summer. Niagara County New York is not quite as old as the State of Ohio, but it’s still a nicely painted barn!

Enjoy more special barns, they’re all special, in Tricia’s Barn Charm at Buff Area Daily!

Monday Mug Shot

2012-01-30T13:02:00.000-05:00

Uncle John’s Pancake House

Toledo, Ohio

This week’s mug shot is not a nostalgic trip down memory lane, at least not yet, someday it will be. This is my newest mug!

Yesterday David and I went out to breakfast, which we do on occasion, even when we’re at home. He had a couple of coupons for a free breakfast, with the purchase of a drink, at Uncle John’s pancake House, so we decided to give it a try. It was a little farther a drive than we usually go for breakfast, but not really any farther than we do when we are j the mood for IHOP and with coupons for 2 free breakfasts, the price was nice!

It was fantastic! The restaurant was pretty full, but we were still seated quickly (although there was a wait by the time we left) Our waitress was at our table pretty soon after seating, but not at all too quick, we didn't feel rushed to sit down. I was impressed with the coffee service. There is a color code to differentiate between regular and decaf so the staff with coffee for refills, which seem to be everywhere and constant, can know without asking which to refill. And your coffee cup only goes empty if you insist.

I had a Greek omelet with pancakes as the side instead of toast or hash browns. Two things were at play there for me. First, how can you go to a pancake house for the first time and not at least try the pancakes? Second, and this is the important part, I couldn’t decide between an omelet and pancakes when we left home and seeing the menu didn’t make it any easier! The Greek omelet, which I had made with Egg Beaters was super fluffy with asparagus and feta and I t was SO good. I’m going to try that at home, but I’m not sure what the secret is to making it that fluffy! I was planning on having one pancake and taking the other two home, but David was hankering for a little more and… well, we didn’t take any pancakes home. The pancakes are light, fluffy and everything a pancake house pancake should be. YUM!

After finishing breakfast, David went to pay the coffee bill and get change for a tip. When he came back to the table he had a bag. I asked what was in the bag and he told me he wasn’t telling. I asked, a little surprised, if it was a half-birthday present. I never expect gifts for birthdays and especially not half birthdays, but he told me I could think of it as that. When we were leaving, we passed a display case full of coffee mugs. I didn’t even mention wanting one because I kinda figured out what was in the bag!

A great sign of love is to acknowledge someone’s passions, no matter how trivial the trinket seems. It was a wonderful morning.

Oh Noooo!

2012-01-29T19:11:00.000-05:00

Busy…Busy…Bus—STOP!

I was truly in crisis mode. As it turned out I couldn’t even move the box with the bookshelf, much less assemble it. It got heavier in the five years it sat in storage! So, David took over the assembly today after breakfast. He got the support base or one side done and was ready to attach the other side when *SNAP* *BOOM* The side he was assembling slid and cracked two of the base levels on the other side and one of the shelves. I jumped, as much as I can jump. Nothing fell on him, it just fell on itself.

He released some expletives at it in his boomy voice. Scrap wood. That’s what he called it. He wants no more assemble-it-yourself stuff.

“But it’s more expensive,” I protested.

“And better quality,” he countered.

I couldn’t deny that. I remembered the comparison between the black lacquer entertainment center and the assemble-it-yourself bookcase I bought and put together in my old living room. The entertainment center was FURNITURE. The bookshelves were someplace to put books. So I looked at the selections online for a local store of a chain furniture stores.

Wowsers! I selected and added up the cost of all of the items I was planning to get from IKEA, minus the kitchen cart, which I may get getting from Amazon. The total is THREE TIMES the total at IKEA with the kitchen cart!

Then was crisis time. The gloom was setting in. I was looking at my major project and my dream for an organized and accessible home stop dead in its tracks. There is no way I can even dream of affording all good furniture and it’s not necessary to have “good” furniture. I don’t care about “House Beautiful,” I just want “Home Comfortable.” The price assembly obstacles meant that the “woman cave,” or craft room if you prefer, would be towers of cardboard boxes and I’d still need new cardboard boxes.

Oh gloom. Oh despair.

Then the phone rings, Pop’s ring. Pop asked how things were and I told him “great except we had a bookshelf collapse in assembly and it’s broken.”

You see, David and I are both professional people by trade and training. Pop is the former king of his construction empire. I didn’t think he’d have time to help with all that assembly and honestly, it’s so far beneath his skills and now the first part was broken.

I explained what happened; he said he could probably fix it. He’s going to give me a call this week when he gets his work schedule for next week and come down to fix and put together the bookcase on his day off. He also said he’ll come down and help assemble the other furniture when we get it. We’re going to “leave it to the retired professionals.”

I told Pop that when he comes over to fix the bookcase, I’ll pull out a container of my minestrone from the freezer and we can have it for lunch so he can try my minestrone. I could hear the smile in his voice. Smile from me too. I want an honest critique of it! I’ll go to Panera the day before and get a baguette to go with it. We don’t live together anymore and I’m a married lady now, but my Pop is still looking out for his Little Princess!

In the mean time, annex stops for a week and a half and I start the boxes in the eventual woman cave tomorrow!

Breakfast at Uncle John’s Pancake House was wonderful this morning! I’ll tell more about it tomorrow because, YAY, I got a new mug!

Now, after a late lunch, it’s scrapping time, then comes a late dinner. Ah, weekends!

Booking Flight

2012-01-29T14:07:00.000-05:00

Contributed by Milford Woods

My in-laws are coming to visit us in March. For some reason, they are extremely bad about booking their flights. They just don’t understand exactly how to search different websites and find an inexpensive flight. They usually just call their favorite airline over the phone and try to book a trip. It usually ends up costing them way too much money. I told them this time, that I was going to help them book a flight. My mother in law insisted that they had it, they found flights for seven hundred dollars a piece. I logged onto kayak.com using my clear wireless internet Covington connection and searched for flights. I ended up finding them first class tickets that were non-stop for five hundred dollars a piece. That saved them four hundred dollars and they are getting to fly first class! I am going to have to teach them how to do this when they get out here in March. They shouldn’t be wasting that much money! There are a lot of things you could be doing with four hundred dollars!

Happy Half-Birthday To Me!

2012-01-29T07:45:00.000-05:00

Under the yummy frosting, it's a Blaforca!

(Half a Black Forest Cake!)

It’s January 29 and at 7:45 this morning I reached thehalf-way point of my 46th year. Many friends will start to grouse at me until my birthday in July nowbecause when someone asks my age, I’ll say “46.” It’s been that way since I was 21. Icould be getting myself in trouble if I’d have said I was 18 when I was still technically17, rounding up a year before I was 19 in Canada and of course accused of SOmuch trouble for saying 21 when I was 20 years and 364 days at home.

I can’t say I’m 45 and a half. That sounds so immature! I was “and a half” until I was about 11. Then I was “almost” the next number up until21. On January 29, 1988 I was, in my ownmind, 22 and at some point in the month or so after that I switched over tosaying I was 22. For the couple ofmonths right after I say both ages depending on what enters my head first. I just feel dishonest saying I’m 45now. When I became legally 45, I hadcompleted 45 years. It was the first dayof my 46th year. Past thehalf-way point, am I not closer to completing than just starting my 46thyear? So, from today forward, I’ll callmyself 46 when someone asks, but the papers will agree with me in July.

To celebrate my 45-1/2birthday, David and I aregoing out for breakfast. Well, okay we’regoing out for breakfast; he’s not celebrating my half birthday. Then I think we’re buying a new toaster. That’snot a half birthday present either, but maybe I’ll make myself an afternoonsnack of a PB2 and jelly on toast for my half-birthday. After all, what’s a birthday withoutsomething sweet and presents??

Speaking of presents, here's the present! It’s the last template set in my Project 366 templates!

Click preview to download

If you use the templates, I’d love to see your layout! You can leave a link in comments or drop mean email. If I have your permission, I’llpost your layout and link back to your blog!

So, now I’m off to enjoy the rest of my half birthday. The number isn’t important, hasn’t been since35, when I was old enough to be elected president, and it won’t be again until Iget my AARP card and discounts! But it’sfun to look forward to birthdays and half-birthdays and keep my inner childsmiling and laughing. David may not likethe whole rounding up thing, but he always says he does like my smile!

These Are Some More of My Favorite Things

2012-01-28T23:17:00.002-05:00

I told everyone I was following Marti’s lead at Marvi Marti on the “Things I Love” and yesterday she did list 2, “10 Websites I Love.” My lists are in no particular order. There might be a website I love more than one of activities I love that I listed a couple weeks ago. So, in NO particular order, here are 10 websites I love!

10 Websites I Love

1. Digital Scrapbooking Studio
This is the Digital Scrapbooking site I call “home.” I’m not as challengey as usual right now because the project I’m working on doesn’t so much lend itself to challenges. It IS the challenge and it would take too much of my work on it time to t4y to squeeze it into a challenge mold. I figure I’ll be back to challenges and Creative Team duties by the end of next month.

2. Playlist
Thanks to Edna of Miss Edna’s Place for directing me to this site. It’s the source of the playlist at the bottom of The Chronicles of Nani and also I site I’ve often gone to when I want some music while I’m cooking. They have some great featured playlists, including pretty much whatever genre my mood calls for be it dance music, hip hop, country or classical, and yes, the mood will strike me for any of those. I even favorited a Frank Sinatra list for myself!

3. Amazon
I LOVE Amazon! It’s not just Home of my personal collection of Kindle books, but I pretty much always get my textbooks for school there too, always a little to a LOT cheaper than the bookstore at school. I also got my first year as an Amazon Prime member free because I’m a student. Now I still get half off as a student and even at full price it’s worth every penny! How can you beat free 2-day shipping on pretty much everything! There are other sellers who post through Amazon, so if Amazon doesn’t actually carry it, they can hook you up with someone who does. I’ve also gotten MP3 credits when I order text books and, oh yeah, Amazon is where I spend 45 minutes a day, sometimes twice, to watch episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for free as a Prime member. Most of my gift shopping is through Amazon. My fuzzy red slippers were from Amazon and most recently, my feather duster set got here just in time for the ceiling dusting!

4. IKEA
This one is recent. IKEA is key in a lot of the shelving and organizing items I’m using for the white tornado project. It’s also where I found the kit for the chest of drawers and night stand I’ve needed to replace for a while.

5. Site Meter
I’m a stats junkie! Site Meter is where I see how many people visit the Chronicles of Nani and from where they come when they visit. It lets me know what posts get the most hits so I can “serve the drinks everyone in my Cyber Coffee Shop likes the best!”

6. Pinterest
This is new for me, thanks to Marti for the invite! I read a pinned quote on Pinterest that “Pinterest is like Fantasy Football for women.” I think that’s fairly accurate! It’s a great place to share ideas. I’ve repinned and pinned some great recipes and craft ideas. It’s where the Stuffed Pepper Soup recipe came from and an organizational craft project I’m working onto. I also pin things that I want to think about purchasing. Cool thing there is it links to where the photos come from so Pinterest itself organizes and keeps recipes, craft directions, my White Tornado plans.

If you’d like to see what I’m in to or follow me, I’m Nani_Noted on Pinterest.

7. Craft Crave
I check out Craft Crave every couple days to see what’s new in the scrapbook freebies. Sometimes I’ll see one element that finishes a layout to my satisfaction or a word art that inspires an entire layout. It‘s also a great place to see kits from possibly up and coming designers!

8. Good Search
I try to remember to use Good Search whenever I need to search for anything on the web. I’m signed up so that when I use Good Search it credits a few cents per click to our local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. If you’re looking for something simple to do to “give back” and you’re looking for an organization to help out, try Good Search and use National MS Society Northwestern - Ohio Chapter as your charity of choice! I’d really appreciate that, but there are so many organizations that would benefit from a few cents per click, every click, every time and spread the word. It adds up!

9. Toledo Blade
I read my national news through assorted links from iGoogle, but the Toledo Blade is my local newspaper! I get my city and state information here!

10. Patients Like Me
I stop at patients like me at least once a day to check in and fill in the “Instant Me” feature. Remember, love analyzing stats here. I allows me to record how I’m feeling by time of day, day of week. I also communicate with others dealing with MS, even people taking the same medications as me!

Angel and Devil Break

2012-01-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

Another fun week in Blogland is drawing to a close. I’ve gotten pretty good with checking in, even just for a meme and a moment, daily. I wanted to do that for a while and I hope I can keep it up when my house project is done. We won’t have to worry about that for a while. But scrapping and blogging do a great job of getting me a good rest when I need it during the day and keeping me away from food! The exception being that the fruit basket and my laptop share space in the dining room. But the fruit is a good thing! Better than overdosing on M&Ms!

Right now I’m taking a rest between jobs for the day and the big bag of pretzel M&Ms and my last Ambrosia apple are fighting for my attention. The M&Ms are on my right and the apple is on my left which is totally skewed from the classic devil/angel scenario. I didn’t have milk stuff at breakfast because I cooked hot breakfast, eggs and sausage. I should probably have yogurt. I don’t have enough shoulders!

I decided last night that since I’m just stronger and more coordinated in the beginning of the day, I’d assemble the bookshelf during the day. It’s never going to be upright before it’s finished (I assembled the other one just like it upstairs a few years ago) I could sit on the floor and assemble it. That’s what I’m doing next. David said to assemble what I can and he’ll finish it when he gets home tonight. I hope all he’ll have to do is upright it and put it in the annex. We’ll see how much I can finish before another break-time!

Before I get working on the bookshelf, I want to do this week’s Friday Fill-Ins.

Follow Friday Four Fill-Ins

Every Friday, Hilary at Feeling Beachie posts four fill-in statements. It’s fun to read everyone’s answers and see how different they all are! I copy the statements and answer before I read Hilary’s. It’s not a meme that requires lots of time to participate and it’s fun! Stop on over and join in!

This week’s statements:
1. Nothing is better than.____
2. I ___my ___ in ___but never ____
3. Those _____ that are always _____ make me want to ___________
4. My favorite _________________ is when __________________________.

1.. Nothing is better than the feeling of accomplishment when a project is complete.

2. I love my furry slippers in the morning but never find they’re quite warm enough at night. :(

3. Those Humane Society commercials that are always so sad make me want to adopt about 6 more cats! Scotty already refers to David and me as “That couple with the cats” because we had four at one time. We had all four cats for a while at each of our houses, but never as a permanent residence. Three has been, and is planned on being again, the highest number actually living with us.

4. My favorite coffee time is when I meet friends for coffee and we have no plans for after.

Friday By Request

2012-01-27T06:27:00.000-05:00

I’m sad this week. No new Friday By Request again. This week will be the last repost from Yahoo 2006. I had some really deep and some tough requests in 2007, so I’ll repost 2007 requests for February, including a request I’ll repost, but rewrite it. There are 2 reasons for that; it’s a television question for a show with new characters and the request came from a friend on Yahoo 360 who is still a BlogSpot friend! (If you think it’s you, drop me an email and let me know if you remember the request you made in 2007. hehe)

I know if I want to be challenged, I can use blog prompts. Tell Me Tuesdays are great challenges that I participate in but FBR is different. Tell me Tuesdays hone my writing and deepen my thinking, which is so good for my writing and I love doing them. But Friday By Request stretches my creativity. I don’t know what type of thing it will be or the tone. In the past it’s called on me to be funny, outrageous, soul-searching. I’ve been asked to do specific scrapbook layout challenges (No journaling, one photo, must have a hot pink dot, that sort of specific challenge) stories like you’ve seen this month or poetry on certain topics or using particular words. I’ve been asked to do crazy Photoshop photos and even an animation. If I lack the software or the skills that I can develop in a week, I’ll let you know. I’ll even still give you the link in my blog for stumping me.

Okay, my pathetic begging session is done. Let’s get on with the last Best of 2006!

Friday By Request

Originally posted on Yahoo 360, December 1, 2006
(When I lived in Michigan)

Well, now Friday By Request has come full around to “Go,” with a request from the man who started it. (Do I get $200 for landing on go?)

Last night, this request came from David at work via text message. I haven’t done a top ten list in a while. In honor of the forecasted snow coming our way in the MI/OH region, David wants to know my top ten things to do on cold snow days.

The Top 10 Things To Do On Cold Snow Days

for David

1. Sit INSIDE with a fire in the fireplace, sipping hot cocoa and WATCHING the snow fall outside!

2. Bundle up and shovel! - I’m serious! If your health is good, it’s a great total body workout. Of course don’t over do it and if you have any doubts about whether or not you’re in good enough shape, ask your doctor.

3. Crafts with the kids. If you’re snowed in, they are probably home too. Even something as simple as pull out a coloring book and crayons, color with them. It’ll take you back to a “snow day” when you were a kid.

4. Go out for a challenging drive in your 1994 Camaro Snow Mobile! Donuts in the dark on the Turnpike with semi’s coming at you, what an adrenaline rush!

5. Watch an old black and white movie. Snowy days are made for a big bowl of popcorn and a couple of Sonya Hennie movies.

6. Let your honey take you out in the cold to photograph trains. HINT - stop and buy wool socks and boots first. Another hint - you can never have on too many sets of long underwear!

7. Scrapbooking - A perfect day to catch up the pages from last summer!

8. Spend some quiet quality time with your pets. Those furry friends soothe the soul.

9. Bake Cookies. Be sure to play some cheery music while you’re in the kitchen and eat them while they’re still warm!

10. Write an entry in your Yahoo 360 blog so you can tell everyone about the crappy weather in Michigan! :)

The New and The Old

2012-01-26T11:48:00.000-05:00

We had a little dusting of snow this morning, or so David tells me. I didn’t look. I had commented on Edna’s blog yesterday that I tend to not look out the window in the morning this time of year. I guess it’s fear that I might see new snow. I love watching the sun rise but, even though I’m up before it rises at this time of year, I so very seldom see it rise in winter. The exception is if David and I are leaving for the day before sunrise. Then I see it - from a nice heated car! So the sun is up now and the rain has washed away the dusting. It’s just gloomy looking and wet!

I figured out how to mop sitting down yesterday! That means the area where my first bookshelf will go is swept, mopped and ready for the shelving unit! YAY! I’m really all over myself with the “I can do anything” today. I’m going to be involved in a job-seekers teleconference tonight from 7-8, but then I’ll assemble the unit after that. Yeah, I am more tired and all by evening, but I want to assemble the bookcase when someone else is home, just in case my ambition exceeds my ability and half way through it falls on me. :) If I can get it assembled tonight and David can move it in to the annex, tomorrow will be cookbook and appliance placement day so I can get things moved out of the other half of the room to sweep and mop there. I’ve got two more shelving units to buy and assemble before the annex and kitchen are done and then we’ll have two organized and super user-friendly rooms. I feel more energized and excited every day as I’m working on this project!

Vintage Thingy Thursday

These were from my Great Grandmother’s attic. They were my Great Grandfather’s books when he was an early teen. We only found these three. My guess, and it’s just my guess, is that he originally read the Tarzan series when they came out in magazines and he bought the books for the stories he really liked. Or possible, he had at least all of the earlier books and these were the three that survived until 2002 when I found them.

The Return of Tarzan was the second book in the Tarzan series. It was published in issues of New Story Magazine from June to December of 1913 and the first book was published by AC McClurg in 1915.

Copyright page, The Return of Tarzan

That’s the publishing information from The Return of Tarzan. The other two books are not original editions of the book. They are still super cool finds for an old paper nut like me.

See more vintage treasures at Suzanne’s blog, The Coloradolady.

Wednesday Hodge Podge

2012-01-25T12:52:00.000-05:00

1.. The NFL playoffs were held this past weekend and this year's Superbowl lineup will feature The New York Giants versus The New England Patriots. How do you define 'patriot'?

Super Bowl Champions? :)

A patriot is one who thinks of country before self. Today, there are more football patriots than American patriots.

2. What's something in your life right now that feels like a 'giant'?

The reorganizing project in the house, which is just a nail and hammer away from remodeling. I’m making decent progress though. Tomorrow is assemble the first shelving unit day!

3. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think back to being 18?

Voting! I turned 18 in a Presidential election year and I was pretty excited about voting. My birthday was a Sunday, but I was at the Secretary of State office on Monday to register.

Many presidents for whom I didn’t vote lived in the White House before a candidate for whom I voted did, but I finally felt like I had a right to complain about it!

4. Coconut-mashed potatoes-vanilla ice cream-mayonnaise...which white food would be the hardest to give up?

That one’s easy. Vanilla ice cream; there would be no Baseball Nut ice cream without it!

5. Describe an incident or a day you remember as the coldest you've ever experienced?

Once the temperature drops below70 outside, I’m pretty much cold all the time, unless I’m in bed or someplace with heat. Right now I’m wearing the thick fleece robe I always wear over jammas or clothes at home and my furry house slippers!

The coldest I remember in my mind was ice fishing when I was little and I think that’s where my intense dislike for cold came from. It was a family adventure when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was cold enough that the ice on the lake was thick enough to drive on to get to the shanty for fishing. Everyone was in snowmobile suits with ski masks and gloves, much layered warm clothing. They sent my brother and me outside to play. I guess it’s because we were restless in the shanty. I remember being so cold that I was sitting next to the ice shanty balled up and rocking back and forth praying. You see, it was supposed to be fun and I felt bad that I wasn’t having fun at all. In fact, I was praying that God wouldn’t let me die from the cold because it would make my parents feel bad if I died. I was a kid. That is what I remember thinking, that it would hurt their feelings if I died.

That memory has never left me and I don’t think I’ve ever perceived I was that cold. It was the most terrified I remember being of the cold.

6. You're hosting a brunch...what's your favorite dish to prepare and serve?

I could say “waffles” because David cooks the waffles. :)

Seriously, if I’m hosting the brunch, my specialty is cinnamon chip pancakes.

7. How do you combat negative thinking?

I write in my journal about it. Sometimes it takes a few pages, or even a couple days of writing if something is really bugging me, but I usually find the answer to getting over my troubles.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I made stuffed pepper soup Sunday with a recipe I found online. I did a half batch, which was 3 servings. I had the last one for lunch yesterday and I don’t know what I’m gonna do now that it’s gone! Oh my, it was HEAVEN! I need to make a huge pot of it to freeze!

Click photo for recipe

Come join Joyce at From This Side of The Pond and share your Hodge Podge of answers!

Photoblog Wednesday

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

Baggle??

This was taken in 2007 when I was unpacking boxes and unwrapping goodies when I moved in. Kaline had never seen my milk pitcher before! She stepped over everything else on the table to get a closer look.

Mom had gotten it for me back when I had the coffee bar in my modern room. She thought the tuxedo cat had just the right amount of class and the right Nani-flair.

It seemed Kaline thought it had just the right amount of looking like a cat to be confusing!

I Forget…

2012-01-24T15:34:00.001-05:00

(This one ended up being a little long, so top off
your favorite afternoon beverage before reading!)

It’s not that I forgot something. It’s would I choose to forget!

That’s this week’s Tell Me Tuesday topic at the Coloradolady; Memories. Here is the exact question about memories for this week:

“Would you rather lose all of your old memories,

or never to be able to make new ones?”

That’s a pretty heavy question!

Memories are something to cherish. Ideally you learn from the bad ones and build your character from the good ones. They are your past and the foundation of who you are. That’s why I scrapbook, the pages are my character. They are the events, people I love and the things that have influenced me told through my page designs and journaling. It’s how I perceive my world and that perception is who I am in the world as a whole. Even when I do a page about something less-than-happy, even tragic, I scrap/journal about the takeaway, the good I did find in it. I’m an optimist and those scrapbooks truly do represent my character.

In the pages of my personal journals, the pages which have been unseen by anyone else and will remain that way, is a combination of the positive things and the negative. It is a good representation of my life, but not who I choose to be. When I’m angry, writing about it helps me diffuse it. When I’m sad it helps to lift the clouds. It has let me get over frustration about a decision I thought was a bad one that someone else made that didn’t really have an effect on me and it’s helped me realize countless times that my anger was actually fear. Internal fear was a much easier foe to defeat than the perceived outer attack. In essence those journals are the supplies in the craft room where I create my character. I wouldn’t want someone to see all the scraps on the floor, just the finished work. Except in the case of character, the work is never finished. I still don’t want anyone looking at my unvacuumed floor, just what I have on display.

So, my memories are precious to me. At what cost would I let them go?

Well, if I am unable to make new memories, I’m dead or in a coma and if I’ll never make new memories, I’m never coming out of the coma. I’ve never heard about someone coming out of a coma and truly remembering what it was like to be in a coma. Depending on what your belief is about the afterlife, those memories of self wouldn’t be important.

If the essence of your soul returns to the greater soul of God, “self” is nonexistent. If you remain intact and reside in Heaven in God’s World, with Him but not “part of" Him, it becomes a different philosophical question about whether or not Heaven is indeed perfect. What I mean is I’d feel pretty bad as the only angel in Heaven who wasn’t able to talk about their people at the Coffee Cloud. If keeping my memories is part of Heaven’s perfection and I gave them up, I made a BAD deal with the wrong dealer! If I’m reincarnated, I won’t remember anyway, since I don’t now. And if I just die, end of story, well, that’s the end of the story. Point being that no matter what, my memories aren’t important after death, or I’ll get them back anyway, there’s no point in dying to hold on to them.

Of course, there are two very similar alternatives to dead or in a coma to having no memories and would give you at least minor ability to make new ones. I could have amnesia or dementia/Alzheimer's. With dementia or Alzheimer’s the memories slowly fade away, the most recent ones first. I’ve watched relatives mentally dwindle away. After seeing it with my great-grandmother, Grandma started to learn new things and exercise her mind. She was almost 80 when she learned how to use the computer, she quilted and did word puzzles every day. She was bound and determined not to be like her mother. Still her memory started to fade just before her death.

I remember the day that I went to visit Mums and she had no idea who I was. I’d always been so close to my great grandmother. It was a pleasant visit. She thought I was a nice stranger and invited me to visit again if I wanted. I was crying so hard when I got home it’s a wonder I drove the two miles safely. Grandma was a little more prepared a year later when Mums giggled and told her she was way too old to be her daughter, “Wonda is just a little girl.” There were no memories. She didn’t remember our Tuesday coffees, me sleeping in the same room she did for a year, not even how she felt the day I was born. She didn’t remember being at Mom’s wedding or the wonderful stories from her granddaughter’s childhood and she didn’t remember her pride in Grandma’s promotion to management or how proud she was of her raising a daughter alone until Papa returned from the war. True she didn’t remember the bad things either, no memories of deaths, war, the Great Depression when she was a young mother. She wasn’t even really aware anymore by 9-11. And she seemed happy enough, pleasantly unaware. But she unwillingly hurt the people she loved. I couldn't stand to voluntarily be in that position.

Ah but, the diseases that rob us of our memories in advanced years don’t really give an opportunity to create new ones either, not ones we'll remember. So, I look at amnesia from some mental or physical trauma, as really the only way one can lose all memories and still create new ones. It’s a fascinating thought. How do you lose all your memories and retain everything that’s developed in you as a result of those memories? As you recuperate, wouldn't you start to get those memories back and isn’t that cheating if you made the choice to give them up?

After deep consideration, I think I’d give up my memories for amnesia, but with the clause that if they start to come back, I’m not in default of the agreement and as long as I can keep my scrapbooks.

You can join in on Tell Me Tuesday; you don’t have to write a term paper, I tend to get carried away sometimes. It’s a fun meme and it really gives you a great chance to look inside yourself or share your thoughts on how you’d like things to be.

Barn Charm

2012-01-23T22:22:00.001-05:00

Cuyahoga County Bicentennial Barn

There are a few pretty cool distinctions about this barn.

First, it’s yellow. Maybe some might call it a very yellow beige, but it's not a common barn color!

Cleveland is in Cuyahoga County and it’s a pretty metropolitan/suburban area. As David understood it, they had a hard time finding a barn in Cuyahoga County. In every other county the barn awarded the Ohio Bicentennial logo had to be very well kept and the face to be painted had to be clearly visible from a main road. For Cuyahoga County, it needed to be a barn. Take a look beyond the barn. It’s at the entrance of a very current style subdivision!

It’s probably the only barn in Cuyahoga County. From the research I’ve found, it’s not an abandoned barn, but I haven’t discovered for what it’s used, if it’s used at all.

See more classic, modern, weathered and unique barn’s at Tricia’s blog, Bluff Area Daily

Monday Mug Shot

2012-01-23T10:15:00.000-05:00

Bars

This was my lovely parting gift from my internship with Metrovision Cable in Farmington Hills, Michigan, in the spring of 1991. When I was a student at Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts, I did two internships. I was studying both radio and RTV. In the early 90s, there were two tracks at Specs; radio engineering, RE classes, and Broadcast Redo and TV, RTV classes. My class was RTV11-90, the 11th Radio and Television class that started in 1990.

I did a radio internship with a news and talk station for 3 months and then I did one with Metrovision for TV production experience. I started the one with Metrovision in March, knowing that the internship wouldn’t end until after I’d finished school. I only needed one internship for my program. I just wanted the production experience because I’d decided I really wanted to work in production and NOT in news. When I started at Specs, I was sure I was going to be in something behind the scenes in television news. After 3 months with news media professionals in radio, I knew that I could never be comfortable working in news. I found myself with too many jaded people who found joy in the most devastating events. I never wanted to laugh at people suffering or get excited about war because it was “good for business.”

At Metrovision, I interned in the public access department, working with members of the community on their projects. I also had a project of my own that I was working on as part of the requirements for my internship. I assisted with teaching classes and learned as I worked with students too. These things set me up perfectly for my first real paying job. I was the Public Access coordinator and Sports producer at Omnicom less than a year later. I taught the classes I assisted with as an intern and also produced local and high school sports for the local origination channel, the difference being public access was programming produced by the cable company’s customers and local origination was produced by professionals, company employees, highlighting local events. Local Origination was a great place for an entry-level job because it taught and expanded skills in every aspect of production.

I loved that internship and it completely groomed me for that first job that I loved even more. I found that I enjoyed working with volunteers in the community sand I enjoyed working with the professionals that also worked with them. I felt like I was really a part of the department even though I was just an intern and I learned how truly important that was to do for the interns that reported to me, make them feel like they were a part of everything that was going on. It made the internship experience a valuable one. On the last official day of my internship, I walked in to the office and the members of the department brought out this mug, filled with candy and balloons tied to it and a wonderful card of “graduation.” I still have that card with the many special cards I’ve kept over the years.

Short and Sweet (and Free)

2012-01-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today is a promise of sun in Cleveland. The goes with a promise of trains! I’ve been hiding from the cold inside this week, so the opportunity to spend the day with David…in the heated car…Is one I won’t pass up!

Before I leave, I wanted to get the link for part 2 of the Project 366 templates posted for the digi-scrappers. If you are visiting from one of the freebie sites, take a minute to check out the previous entry, Friday by Request, and the basics of getting started in digital scrapbooking. If you have thoughts to add, or other freebie sites to mention, please leave a comment. It helps those who read along and want to try sharing in our hobby!

Here is part 2:

Click preview to download.

Thanks or stopping by! Have a great Sunday!

Friday By Request – Digital Scrapbooking

2012-01-20T16:54:00.003-05:00

Jojo, of My Random Insanities left a comment on 100 things I love post last week asking about advice for someone just looking in to digital scrapbooking. We exchanged some emails and she made it an official request for Friday!

This could be a few weeks of posts, so it will be very link intensive. I want to welcome any of my scrapbooking friends who have any ideas or links to add, to please feel welcome to leave them in the comments!

Digital Scrapbooking – Getting Started

For Jojo

I love digital scrapbooking. My memory-recording started with simple plain photo albums back in my high school years. I progressed to captions, then almost scrapbooking in photo albums, then paper scrapping. Now I am fully a digital scrapbooker. I love that I don’t have to put everything away if I have to leave a page I’m working on, just hit save! There’s also no mess left on the table and no little snips of paper on the floor. There’s also the fact that my typing is much easier to read than my handwriting!

When I became curious about digital scrapbooking in the beginning of 2007, I already had an old copy of Photoshop 5.0 LE which was software in the package on my old Mac and I transferred it to the newer Mac. I’d already had some work experience doing simple graphics. 5.0 LE is a good program to learn and move into Photoshop Elements. You can get Photoshop 5.0 LE for less than $10 at Amazon.

I think Photoshop (PS) and Photoshop Elements (PSE) are the most common programs I see spoken of in the scrapbooking forums; however PaintShop Pro (PSP) is also fairly common. There are software suites made specifically for scrapbooking, but be sure to do your homework. Some software only works with elements offered by their company or only with their templates which is limiting to your variety and creativity.

There are a lot of free software or free trials that you can try out before you settle on which software works the best for you. Since I use Adobe products, I can tell you they do have 30-day free trials for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. This will give you the opportunity to do a few pages as you learn the software before you decide on the software that’s right for you. There are lots of free tutorials for doing different things with the more popular software choices. You can always post questions about how to do things in the forums at the scrapbooking sites.

As for getting started, I’ll share how I got started. One thing to keep in mind about digital scrapbooking is that there are MANY alternatives for every aspect of the hobby, not just software! The first thing I’ll suggest is to check out a good digital scrapbooking community. My favorites are Digital Scrapbooking Studio and Ginger Scraps. The main elements that are useful at a digital scrapbooking site are the forums, challenges and store. Most sites have blogs now too. There are a lot of sites and stores out there. Don’t be afraid to sign up to join a few. They’re free to sign up and offer a lot of information and inspiration.

When I first started I got a lot of tips and encouragement doing challenges in the forums. At that time there were bonuses for participation but now the participation awards are usually a store discount. Many offer bigger discounts the more you participate. Challenges are great for learning new scrapbooking techniques.

Credits: Winter Bliss, Freebie kit by Dreams Fulfilled

Building up your scrapbooking stash so you can participate is not difficult. Many scrapbook designers create freebies that complement their kits and designers that are starting out create full kits for free for practice and you get their name out there.. While you’re getting started in the hobby, you can help them get started too! I will say that I don’t really recommend going to a store and purchasing kits for your first couple of pages if you are on a budget. I had enough in freebies to scrap for about two months as I was getting addicted to it. Then I knew I was going to stick with it and making a purchase was a safe investment. The first kit I purchased was My Wish by Jan Hosford. The colors were just SO me. It ended up being the kit I used for the first pages in the first book I had printed with digi-scrap work. I haven’t printed any of those pages I did the first month. I got better at it and then it was worth printing!

Speaking of printing! What DO you do with all those pages once they are done? I print mine in 11x11” books at Inkubook. I haven’t really talked to a lot of people about what they do with their layouts. I know others get them printed in books as well, but some print the pages individually and slide them into the plastic insert pages in traditional paper scrap books. I like to be able to add ephemera, ticket stubs and such, to my books, but I scan those things and make them part of my layouts. Some people print at home, either with a printer that will print a 12X12 page or they make 8-1/2X11 pages or print the square pages for an 8X8 book. Still others keep their pages as an online book to share with family via a link.

So, there’s the skeleton of the many choices to start a digital scrapbooking hobby. It’s a great opportunity to really be creatively expressive and you’ll meet and share with some great people in the digi-scrap community.

Links:

Jojo’s blog, My Random Insanities

These are places I enjoy for my scrapbooking needs:

Software:

Photoshop 5.0 LE at Amazon

Adobe, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

Scrapbooking boutiques, forums and challenges:

Digital Scrapbooking Studio

Ginger Scraps

Freebies:

Digitalegacies Design freebies, right here at The Chronicles of Nani

If a freebie you’d like is expired, drop me an email and I’ll make sure you get it!

Craft Crave

Click blog next to Digital Scrapbooking Freebies

Creative Busy Hands

Printing:

Inkubook

Banana Diaries

2012-01-20T09:17:00.000-05:00

You might recall my blog entries about bananas. There are a few, I really like bananas. Truthfully, I really like a few fruits, but apples and bananas are my year-round favorites. Right now the fruit basket sits on the table right next where my laptop usually camps out. So last night when David called from the grocery store on the way home from work and asked if there was anything I needed, I saw 3 grapefruits and nothing else in the box so I said, bananas and apples.

I don’t like to say I “trained” my husband. If he needed fixing or training, it was stupid of me to marry him and I try not to do stupid things. But David is not a big fan of many fruits. He was just never a regular in the produce section before he met me. So I’ve shown him what I look for in some things in produce so when he calls and asks if I’d like him to pick anything up, he can pick up exactly what I would. So, he brought me two beautiful specimens of my favorite apples and a bunch of four bananas that were slightly green at the top. That makes for one this morning that is slightly firmer than perfect, Saturday and Sunday with perfect bananas and Monday with one that is slightly past perfect. I like my bananas solid yellow, no green at all and no brown spots.

In March of 2009, I did a Photoblog that was a photo essay called The Banana Days of Winter. In that photo essay I documented how fast a banana peel ages in the cold. It was 14 degrees outside when David came home last night. It wasn’t 14 degrees in Kroger, but it was outside and in the car where the bananas were transported in just a thin plastic bag. The bright yellow peels have some scuff marks. This doesn’t affect the fruit inside at all is the banana if momentarily exposed to the cold, but it makes the outside appear a little older than the banana is. So, this morning’s banana was about 2 days before perfect so not quite as sweet as I was expecting, a little too firm and I got that subtle sensation of a hairy tongue from it. So I think I’m going to wait until Sunday to start eating the rest!

Da-da-da-dum-dum-dum

Banana’s like the climate in your house or at the store

And I must wait an extra day, before I eat some more

For sure-sure-sure

Follow Friday Four Fill-in

This week’s statements:
1. I used to enjoy ______ but now I don’t really anymore except for when I____
2. My first job was ______
3. I am a bit obsessed with ________ at the moment
4. If I don’t have my ___________ at night, I don’t sleep well

I used to enjoy driving when I first started but now I don’t except when I am one of very few people on the road and it's a bright, sunny day with a perfectly repaired toad. (Which means I don’t enjoy driving much at all!)

My first job was a deli clerk.

I’m a bit obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the moment. Since finding out I can watch every episode, I started with episode one and watch a couple a day. It’s been too long and I loved that show!

If I don’t have my extra blankets at night, I don’t sleep well. If I’m cold at all I can’t fall asleep and if I knock covers off, which I often do because to be warm enough to fall asleep I often get hot, I wake right up when I get a chill. I just have to be warm when I’m sleeping, period.

Stop on over to Hilary’s blog, Feeling Beachie, to check out more fun answers to the Friday Four Fill In or join in yourself!

Links:

The Banana Days of winter

Original Chiquita Banana Song (1940s Movie Ad)

My Grandfather Was a Very Smart Man, Really!

2012-01-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

Sn** - YUCK!

David wondered this morning if we weren’t in for our first appreciable snowfall of this winter today. I said “Shuh!” I always shush him when he uses language like that. I have a thick skin. I can handle hearing profanity without it burning my ears. But I find that four-letter-“s”-word beyond offensive. They use it on TV, I mute it and ignore it when it’s written and I still see it on the ground outside, practically sideways when the wind gusts. –Sigh- it brings other 4-letter-words to mind.

“Dan the Bug Man” as he calls himself with a chuckle, just left. He was in to do our bi-monthly anti-bug update. Orkin sprays around the house and in the house to keep pests out. The biggest and most important things are that it doesn’t deter our outdoor friends from enjoying our oak tree and yard, the squirrels and chipmunks are safe and most important, there’s been a DRASTIC reduction of spiders in the house. Dan said there were just a few spiders in the basement today but no mice. That makes me happy and Kaline notsomuch. But she’d get bored with the mice if we had lots of them, right?

Dan made me happy when he asked how I was doing. I told him the meds I was on for my MS were doing well and I felt great. He said I don’t look as tired as last time he saw me and I look like I have lots of energy now. I love that it’s apparent to others, not just me. I told Dan to “be safe” as he was leaving because the sn** was picking up and he’d already mentioned slick roads and “bumper cars” on the highway this morning.

About the title. When I found this treasure I was excited to brag for Vintage Thingie Thursday.

Papa’s Senior Year Report Card

It’s my grandfather’s high school report card from his senior year, 1940/41. He Went to high school in California, PA.

My grandfather was an incredibly intelligent man. He had an impeccable memory and wonderful logic. I was told that when he was in the Navy, he had to pass a sort of IQ test because the standard was higher for the Navy. I don’t really know all the details, but that he was in the Navy was a big deal at the time. I also always knew that Papa had fantastic grades all through school. Mom said that Papa was where the Mensa quality IQs came from, genetics.

I never doubted any of that. I always considered my Grandfather and my Mother the smartest people I knew. So I fully expected to see straight As, maybe a B in there since it was senior year. What I didn’t expect was this:

Huh? There were Bs and Cs!! One A final in science. Well, that one was okay, but how could this man, a genius in my eyes, have Cs, even a couple of Ds for card makings? Yes, I had a couple of Ds in freshman year. but that was freshman year, I wasn’t mature enough yet. This was his senior year!

Then, I looked at the “grade code.” Hmmm… It really was about the lessons and not the “self-esteem” then.

Papa’s average as a senior was pretty much a straight B. Only 15-27 students in 100 got a B. That A in science was something on 3-10 percent of students got. My high school grades were higher because I got the ”cost of living allowance.” A coke after school cost more for me too!

After realizing there was a huge grade adjustment, we don’t fail students now and we don’t have them do a grade over, we just give more As, I was pretty pleased with my Grandfather’s totals.

The other very cool thing about this treasure is on the back:

That’s my great-grandfather’s signature verifying that Papa’s parents indeed saw his report card. My grandfather was the baby of the family. I never got to meet my maternal-paternal great-grandfather. There’s something about things that are written or made by hand that is a very real connection to the past. My grandfather’s achievements and my great grandfather’s signature make this a very special treasure to me.

See more great vintage things at Suzanne’s blog, The Coloradolady!

More Hodge Podge

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

1. A new Miss America was crowned on Saturday night-did you watch? If you were a contestant what would your talent be?

Didn’t watch. Didn’t even know it was on. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever watched it.

Is it really still Miss and not Ms. America?

If I was in the “Ms. Middle Age Plus Size Disabled America” contest my talent would be either the handful of really funny jokes I’ve come up with over the years or as a motivational speaker. But really as stage talent, I’d have to do an over the top funny motivational speaker and it would be a gag, so, I guess any way you slice it, comedy.

2. Do you have houseplants? Real or fake?

I have 3 living houseplants.

The gorgeous and aromatic rosemary bush Sheri gave me at Christmas went from beautiful and great smelling plant through the holidays to should have looked it up online for care instructions dry and brown by the second week in January. The card says after the holidays it makes great potpourri and that’s what I’m going to do, but in order for it to live, it needed sunlight that it wasn’t getting in my kitchen.

We managed to kill off the Christmas Cactus I had and there was a peace lily that dried out. But our home is NOT a houseplant graveyard! I have the “pumpkin plant,” Kalanchoe in a pumpkin shaped pot and 2 baby rubber tree plants. Spire was named before I realized baby rubber tree plants grow out and down, not up. I grew her son, Sprout, in water until there were roots and then planted him. He was a broken branch from Spire a few years ago and I’m so proud that I was able to help her procreate. :)

3. When you were in school did you speak up or were you more of the hide your face, avoid eye contact, and pray the teacher didn't call on you type of student?

I wad totally the speak up one! In a high school American literature class I was in, I freely debated with the teacher when we disagreed on an interpretation. When I raised my hand, everyone else put theirs down because they wanted to watch! I got my A and was asked “please don’t take one of my lit classes again.” Mom was proud – an instructor didn’t ask her not to take any of his classes after giving her an A until college.

4. Next Monday marks the Chinese New Year...what do you order when someone suggests Chinese food?

I have a few that I really like, but Kung Pao Chicken is my favorite!

5. How would you define a miracle? What would it take for you to consider something a miracle?

I’ve really never thought about definition a miracle. I’ll take the cop out on this one and say mere mortals aren't qualified to define or recognize miracles.

6. What's your favorite Disney song? If you're stuck you'll find a list here.

“Everybody Wants To Be A Cat.” or “Bella Notte”

7. I should have _____________ yesterday.

Taken a Benadryl and vegged on the couch

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I just found out that, as an Amazon Prime customer, I can watch every single episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer streamed on my computer for free!! Where’s the popcorn?

Something New & A Barn To View

2012-01-17T14:05:00.000-05:00

My something new today is that I’m joining Tell Me Tuesday at The Colorado Lady. Suzanne started this the first Tuesday of the year and I think I may do the first two weeks in my personal journal so I have all 52. Let me tell you about Tell Me Tuesday!

It’s actually not you telling me anything. It’s me telling you! Suzanne posts a question on Tuesdays and participants answer it truthfully. Some weeks have easier questions than others and the hope is maybe the writer learns a little something about themselves in the answering of the question too. I know that happens because I write when I’m troubled because it reveals things to me that I was keeping from myself. I can’ tell you how many times I’ve been writing or typing away in my personal journal when I’ve stopped and said, “Oh! That’s the REAL problem!” I’m looking to the weekly introspective opportunity too!

So, here’s this week’s question:

"What is the most important lesson you learned in the past year?

I could make this week’s answer real short and just say the most important thing I’ve learned in the past year is that I have MS. It turned out that MS was the biggest thing in my world last year.

I’ve NEVER liked spending any more time than I absolutely have to in doctor’s offices or hospitals. I was sure they’d only pump me full of drugs and make the pain worse. The biggest thing I learned from a year that had more baseball-free months than doctor-free months, a first from me in many, many years, was to trust doctors. If I had a dollar for every time a medical professional said, “Don’t worry, I won’t drop you, I won’t let you fall, I won’t lie to you,” well, that’d pay all of copays for the year. Looking back, it seems my mistrust was pretty apparent.

My year of doctors started with my primary care doctor once again assuring me he wouldn’t let me fall off the table when I was having a back manipulation done. Then it progressed to a neurosurgeon telling me a few times that he wouldn’t let me fall if I set down the cane and held his hands so he could see my balance. In September, when I’d started on one medication and knew I was soon to be started on another, I called the pharmacist to be sure I could take Benadryl for my allergies without dangerous interactions. I didn’t take a Benadryl until after I’d given the list of prescriptions and vitamins I’m taking to the pharmacist at the specialty pharmacy and two doctors and got the same opinion, that it was safe, from all 4 sources. l still, the first time I took a pill for my allergies, David had to be home and it had to be during the day, so I wouldn’t be alone or asleep, just in case.

I’m still careful about checking qualification and asking lots of questions, but I learning to trust. I don’t have just one doctor anymore; I have a team of doctors. Trough requests to have everything sent to my primary care doctor at home they ALL know what the other is doing. My doctor won’t drop me. My specialists won’t let me fall and my Physical Therapist won’t have me do something that will hurt me worse. I also trust the medications. As prescribed, they have made me feel so much better and the worst side effect so far is dry mouth, I’m always drinking more water. If ya gotta pick a side effect…

Because I’ve learned to trust doctors, I feel like myself again and I hobble a little better too. Turns out it was, indeed, a valuable lesson.

Bram Charm

This is one of the barns I shot last year on Election Day, 11/8:

Henry Township, Ohio

I love the way the rich red just pops out behind the cornfield. Yes, and the water tower in the shot totally adds to the coolness factor with me!

Here’s a close up shot we got from further up the road:

It’s a little weathered, but kept up well and it’s very productive looking. And that red is so rich!

See more great barns at Tricia’s Barn Charm on Bluff Area Daily

Links
The Colorado Lady
Bluff Area Daily

Monday Mug Shot

2012-01-16T14:30:00.002-05:00

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Vacation 1992 was in the beginning of November. It was just a couple weeks after my brother’s first wedding and our family had been far more involved in the planning than I ever thought a groom’s family was. (This was when I firmly decided that IF I ever got married, I wanted nothing to do with a wedding.) I had started to plan my vacation week in September. Mom usually went with me. She and I were great travel companions. We were going to Atlanta by way of Chattanooga, a couple of my favorite cities. When Mom and I went on fall vacations we always asked Pop to go with us and he always had a reason that he wasn’t interested in going, but we tried every year. In 92, frazzled and celebrated out from the wedding, Dad took us up on the offer!

Pop’s birthday is November 8th and that was the Sunday of our trip, the first night in Chattanooga. My father is the one who got me hooked on trains when I was a small child, counting cars when we were stopped, even timing the stop when a train was coming so we had front row viewing. H loves train travel and we often traveled by train on trip when it was possible. Because he wound up with a daughter nuttier about trains than he is, he completely accepted that it was MY choice to stay at Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

The background here is that I liked the idea at staying at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Holiday Inn, and more that I really wanted to stay in one of the guest rooms outside which were passenger cars transformed into rooms on tracks in the courtyard with the Chattanooga Choo-Choo engine. I wouldn’t spend the extra it takes to stay in the specialty rooms in town on a whim for myself, but for my Dad’s birthday, it would be totally worth it as a surprise! So, I reserved a passenger car room, but didn’t tell Dad. He thought we’d be in the hotel. Then I ordered a balloon bouquet and a cake to be in the room when we checked in. Before we left, after confirming that everything was set, I slipped a bottle of Asti Spumate in my suitcase. I was excited ab0ut Pop’s birthday, till a hotel night and a day away!

We left around 6:00 Saturday morning and headed south. It was a usual trip south with stops for meals and exiting to see sights or shop at anything that struck our fancy from road signs and travel brochures on the way. We played a road game where you looked for words on signs for every letter in the alphabet. This is the trip where, after looking for a “V” for a very long time, Pop saw a sign and announced, “Vah-Vaffle House!” Saying it was two Vs in Italian. Yes, Pop is where I get my bold and obvious attempts at cheating in games!

We stayed that first night in Corbin, Kentucky. I’d stayed in Corbin a time or two on the way to Atlanta because it was just a good stopping point on the first day and it never occurred to me, I never cared, that Corbin is in a dry county. After an all-day drive, my Dad wanted to unwind with a bottle of wine and some snacks. When he asked at the gas station next to our hotel when he could buy a bottle of wine, the woman’s behind the counter said, “Honey, you’re in a DRY COUNTY!” Pop was shocked. Dry County? He’d never heard of such a thing! We ended up taking a drive before dinner and sure enough we ended up almost an hour back north in Richmond, NOT a dry county. Pop got a couple bottles of wine and we had dinner before we headed back to Corbin. I sensed that drinking a glass of wine in a dry county made it taste even sweeter.

On Sunday we got into Chattanooga by a little after noon and went to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Mom enjoyed the museum, as she always did enjoy the trains when we travelled, but Pop and I were in heaven. There were engines and cars and water tanks and all sorts of very cool railroad stuff, as well as a working turntable. Many steam engines can’t go backwards for any lengthy of time and had to be turned around for return trips by rolling onto the turn table which then turned around 180 degrees so the engine could leave the turntable facing to opposite direction. I was very cool to watch! We also took a steam trip on the museum’s tourist ride, a stem powered excursion through some beautiful wooded areas with fall colors still holding on to some of the trees and a ride over a very tall trestle with a both breathtaking and harrowing view.

After a few hours with the trains, there were more trains! We went to the hotel, “my” choice, the Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo-Choo. While my parents marveled at the opulent lobby, Mom was in on the surprise for Pop and kept him distracted, I checked in and made sure everything was set. Remember it was my father’s birthday and neither Mom nor I had acknowledged it all day. I let them know we were checked in and could put our bags in the room before dinner.

Pop was a little confused when instead of towards the hall, we went outside to the courtyard. I explained that they had passenger cars that were transformed into room. When we got to our car I stopped and said, “Here’s our room!”

Pop looked surprised and smiled. Then he asked me how much a room like this costs. I told him to never mind because it’s something I wanted to do, so it was worth it to me to save up. When we got in it looked like the entrance to a passenger car, the thin hallway had the very spacious for a train bathroom with décor and amenities that matched the grandeur of the lobby. A little further down was the main living area with a queen bed and daybed, refrigerator and microwave, all the look and feel of a high-end hotel room. But the first thing my Dad noticed was how all-out they went. “They even left balloons!”

The balloons were attached to a coffee mug filled with chocolate kisses. I told him to read the balloon. It said “Happy Birthday Popsie.” He looked at me with a huge grin and gave an equally huge hug. He opened the cake and said we could have it after dinner with the other bottle of wine he’d gotten in Richmond.

“How about with the Asti I brought from Michigan?” I smiled.

I got a little harassment because we’d ended up so far north before we got a bottle of wine the night before, but really, explaining why I was travelling with a bottle of sparkling wine would have inevitably spoiled the surprise.

I was a mushy moment and a fun evening enjoying cake and champagne after dinner in our private train car.

Links

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum

100 Things I Love

2012-01-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

It’s not an original idea of mine. I’m riding coattails! Marvi Marti posted the first ten things on her list today. She initially got the prompt from Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. The list is done in tens, Marti did her first ten today, so now I am too.

Okay, let’s get this love-fest started!

10 Activities I Love

1. Baseball Games - I love baseball and I don’t really think there was a time I didn’t.. I’ve told the story about Mom dancing with me when the Tigers won the 1968 World Series and how much I loved following the Tigers and Reds as a kid. I saw a game in the 1984 World Series and watched the final game in an all ages club on the big screen with my parents. I was allowed to TRY to watch the Reds World Series games in the 70s, but my single-digit aged self couldn’t make it.

Last year, David and I tied my season high of 21 games seen, finishing it with a Division Series Tigers game. Would have broken the record if the Tigers had made it to the World Series. We had tickets.

My current dream is to be in Cincinnati on Opening Day

2. Train Chasing - It’s funny. When I finished trade school, I had firmly decided I was moving to Atlanta. My first interview was with Green Frog Productions, a railroad video company in Marietta, Georgia. I loved trains and the entire thought of chasing trains and videotaping them was just an incredible idea to me. Alas, I didn’t get the job and while my Mom went with me to museums and on tourist trains, she wasn’t going to go chase freight trains so I could photograph them and there wasn’t anyone else who would even go to the museums with me.

14 years later I replied to an email inviting me to a presentation at a Mensa event. I had no idea who the man was that was inviting me, but the presentation was trains he’d photographed, his hobby. This man did that I had wanted to do so many years ago. When I emailed back and said, “Trains, I’ll definitely be there,” it led to a few emails exchanged, an invitation to a baseball game for a first date and, well, we’ve been married 3 years now. We still love to chase trains together!

3. Scrapbooking – My scrapbooking is both the pictorial record of my life and an art, my self-expression. It’s evolved from photo albums from high school, most of the photos with no names or places, to photos with captions, hand-written, raped on paper strips. Then it became pages with ephemeris and typed and cut out captions and title on magnetic pages, followed by actual paper scrap pages and after a short while of printing the photos from my first digital camera, I started digital scrapping. That was 2007 and I was scrapping 2005. It was a couple years of “can’t afford to print the photos,” that put me behind. I’m catching up now.

4. Baking – I love kitchen stuff in general, I come from a long line of great cooks and I grew up with the kitchen gadgets in several drawers and a utensil pot next to the stove. That’s why the obsession with my future kitchen. I designed it in my mind and my storage is full of boxes of peach and greed gadgets, dishes and calicos. I have a green calico kitchen cat and a kitchen pig wand. The pig want removes the calories when you wave it over the food. :)

I’ve made my own recipes for many things from scratch or by doctoring up ready-made things, but I love baking the most of all the kitchen-crafts. Baking allows my culinary gifts to really shine and while a good meal makes people feel satisfied and they enjoy it, something baked and sweet always make everyone smile!

5. Board Games – I love games night with friends, I love just playing Yahtzee or Qwirkle at home with David. Games give your brain some good exercise and they aren’t like concerts or other activities you do outside someone’s home because it’s quieter. It allows for conversation and quality time with the other people of your choice.

6. Having Coffee – Coffee is not just a drink. To me “Having Coffee” is being with a friend of two for conversation. The act of having coffee with someone is much more intimate than just a beverage. I used to have coffee with my great grandmother every Tuesday once I started driving, I had coffee with Grandma on the phone on Mondays and I make a point of having coffee with friends in Michigan at least once or twice a month.

7. Aunting – Kids just get cooler and cooler as they get older! I truly enjoyed the time spent with Tori and Rina when they were little, helping them learn and learning from them too. As they got older and could learn at a higher level, it was fun watching them figure things out and then form their own opinions about things. Now they drive when they are over and we share many things we have in common and can debate, in a civilized way, they things we see differently. I mean, last mouth I had a political discussion with the baby I comforted when she had a tummy ache. How cool is that?

8. Reading – Since getting my Kindle, the old one with the grey background and black writing, I’m enjoying reading with a new vigor. You see that darker background has solved whatever conditions cause my dyslexia and I read much more comfortably and faster. I LOVE my murder mysteries!

9. Coin Collecting – this is something I started doing with Grandma, who did it with her uncle. My biggest passion in coins is pennies. I collect both American and Canadian pennies. My oldest Canadians are 1920 something and the oldest American ones are Indian heads!

10. Cleaning and Organizing – I think I would have to say I love this in the same way any addict loves getting their fix. Once I got started cleaning and organizing in the annex, I found myself in that addict spot. I can not pick up something when I’m near it. It’s a healthy obsession!

Whew! Okay, I see why it needs to be broken up into segments! Net ten will be…soon!

Links

Marvi Marti

Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online.

Changes

2012-01-15T18:32:00.000-05:00

It’s been suggested to methat there is a difference between the text used and the way it’s used for sponsoredlinks and inline text links referenced in a regular post. Making names hyperlinks makes them easier forreaders who might be interested in more information. I pretty much agree. When I read a blog and come across ahyperlinked text, I usually right click and open in a new window, since someblogs that I read don’t automatically open links in a new window.

Part of my concern has beenthat when text is clicked and a new window opens, readers may not return tofinish reading my post. I do realizethat when I offer a scrapbooking freebie many visitors don’t read thepost. That really is okay. I want to share my templates and kits that Idesign. While reading my log or leavinga “thank you” is nice, I don’t consider it a requirement to download the giftand I don’t think any less of someone who only comes for the freebie and snagsit and leaves. The download number goingup tells my ego I did well. Still, I dolove and appreciate comments!

The new Blogger posting interfaceallows for automatically opening text links in a new window instead of havingto go back in and add the code for it to do that. So, if the text that’s linked is a propername in an unsponsored post, it will take you exactly where you expect it will. The hyperlinked names in this blog bring youto other blogs or the specific site mentioned. Sponsored posts that don’t require identification as a sponsored post beforethe blog post, some require that disclosure be site-wide only and not as partof the post, are labeled “good ideas.” To further identify UNsposored posts, I’ll still use the Links list atthe end of the post.

Okay. New real blog post will be up in a fewhours. Thanks!

Football, Flora and a Freebie

2012-01-15T00:24:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the New England Patriots for their 45-10 victory over the Denver Broncos! Tom Brady tied the record for most touchdown passes in a playoff game. The Pats scored early…then often. Now it’s onward and keep winning!

The Lions’ loss last week means that I won’t be tested in the Super Bowl. Remember when I said that I was sure I’d cheer for the Braves against the Reds in the 1995 National League Championship Series, but found out that I just couldn’t do it? Well, I always say that I took the Patriots as my football team because it was in my wedding vows to take David’s football team. Keeping my baseball teams was in the pre-nup! I guess it would be the ultimate test of my loyalty for the Lions and Patriots to face each other in the biggest sports event of the year, but it’s not to happen this year. I wonder, if it happens and I find myself unable to cheer against the team I grew up with, is that grounds to end the marriage??

I’m not as passionate about football as I am about baseball, so I think I’ll be okay, if it ever happens.

That plant was a surprise that David brought out of Giant Eagle in Cleveland when we were there for a medical appointment for me. It’s a 2-hour drive and I can only drive just over an hour before I get incredible pain in my right hamstring, so David has to drive me. I try to schedule things on his regular days off so he doesn’t have to shuffle his schedule. So, he drives, takes me to my favorite restaurant for lunch and that day he stopped at Giant Eagle to get me a couple packages of Butterfly Bakery sugar free Chocolate muffins. The selection of Butterfly Bakery products in Toledo is very limited and I’m especially fond of the chocolate muffins. I waited in the car while he ran in to the store. He came out with the “pumpkin flower.” He said it had my name written all over the terracotta pumpkin bowl!

Now a question: Does anyone reading know what kind of plant it is? There was no label to tell me! It’s a beautiful plant, but I’m not sure what to do to take care of it. Since it came home in November, all the original flowers dried up. Many of them fell off on their own and others I brushed my hand on to knock them off. I keep it watered and it has a place in the window in the kitchen annex, so it gets Northern exposure. There are a couple of new flowers and new leaves, so I’m not doing anything totally wrong. I’d just like to know what kind of plant it is!

Project 365…366 Templates

I did two sets of templates that I sold in my Scrap Bird store in 2009, plus a blog freebie that went with the set. Templates for 9 weeks of project 365 or templates that will accommodate 63 photos of events you’d like to scrap. For 2012, I’m rereleasing those templates as freebies! On each of the remaining Sundays in January, I’ll release three templates from the set, culminating in a final freebie on my half birthday, January 29.

Here is the set for this week:

Click preview to download

I hope you all have a great Sunday. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Friday the 13th!

2012-01-13T14:54:00.000-05:00

Top of the afternoon to you! Hope you’re having the “Luck o’ The Black Cats” today. Last year just before the Friday the 13th in May, Kaline declared Friday the 13th a holiday for everycat. “We’re all Black Cats on Friday the 13th.” I’m not totally clear, but much like the offices are empty at 5:01 on March 17th, the Catnip bars are full ~~aft~~er all day on Friday the 13th. Right now, our 2 black cats for today, are napping so they can party some more later!

Maybe that was Barbara Ann’s problem in the Friday By Request story this week. She went on that doomed date on Friday the 13th. I hope you got a chance to see the (best of) Friday By Request this week. It really is a very versatile challenge. You can request almost anything!

Kelly and her Dad got home safely. Kel called me last night at 9:40 to let me know they’d gotten in. I was glad the trip was only minorly eventful as far as the weather goes, but I am a little disappointed that the 1-3” overnight turned out to be a little more than a dusting, not even an inch, though. Not that I like the snow in even the smallest, miniscule, teeny tiny smidgen of a way, but Kelly and Dave left earlier because of the weather. I don’t like it when Murphy and Ma Nature gang up for a collective raspberry!

One thing we did do while they were here, I helped Kelly set up her very first blog! She’s at Coffee Cup Crafts and Christianity, http://coffeecupchristianity.blogspot.com. Her place is still under construction while she’s moving in, but she’s put up a few things and a couple short posts. Stop in and say hello!

I know once Kelly is moved in and posting, she and I will be trading links. If anyone else is interested in a link trade, let me know! You can grab my blinkie, if you right click and go to properties you can get the URL for the blinkie on the web or you can right click and save image as to save it to your computer. I’m a little rusty on Macs because I use a windows operation mouse on my Mac too. I just really prefer the windows mouse. But I think you can just click and hold to open in a new window for the URL and save to desktop to put it on your hard drive. Drop me a note at chroincilesofnani@gmail.comn and let me know your blog address for the trade!

A BIG THANK YOU to Kelly and Dave! While they were visiting, much as I said that I didn’t want housekeeping help while they were visiting, Kelly did laundry, which I put away this morning, and Dave installed the hand shower that David and I got when we exchanged the one from Christmas at Bed Bath and Beyond. This one is both a regular shower head and the hand shower, with many spray levels including 2 different levels of fire hose!! Mmm…showering is fun again! Thank you so much guys! I’m not mobile enough to even think of doing both in one week, let alone one day. With the stairs and all, Kelly did the laundry in one day that I do all week! I am blessed with the most awesome family I could dream of!

Okay, that’s what’s going on here for now. Back to Grandma’s last box in the annex. We’re almost ready to bring down and assemble the shelving unit!!

Friday Four

I leave you with my replies from Friday Four Fill-Ins at Feeling Beachie. Won’t you come over and join us?

This week’s statements:
1. I have never eaten ___
2. I like to ___ in ___
3. If I could go back and change one thing, it would be _______.
4. My greatest _____ for my ______ is ______.

I have never eaten headcheese and I never will! It grossed me out when I worked in a Deli when I was 16 and it’s still just too much obvious pig leftovers to fathom trying today. I prefer my “snouts and tails” hidden in a tasty hot-dog!

I like to have lots of blankets over me in bed!

If I could go back and change one thing, it would be nothing. I believe that changing anything would alter the present and I like the things in my present of which II had the power to control the outcome.

My greatest reason for my optimism is my spirituality and my wonderful family of relatives and friends.

Friday By Request

2012-01-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

For today's FBR, we're going back into the 2006 archives again. Last week I showed the very first ever Friday by Request on Yahoo 360, Poetry as only Nani can do it, as requested by my then boyfriend, David. Oh, I've go more bad poetry if you want it! I could also write some bad poetry just for you!

But this week is not poetry. I want to show you some of the versatility in FBR, that is how many different things readers have asked me to do. So this week I'll show you one I really had some fun with. It really was a challenge. Sheri gave me a "let's see if you can do THIS."

As I recall she enjoyed the read when it was posted!

Friday By Request
Originally posted on Yahoo 360, September 15, 2006

This week’s request was a fun “grab stuff from outside the box and make it all fit it IN the box” challenge. The challenge is from Sheri, and I think it’s better to let her explain it, so here is the cut and paste of the message she left me:

“ What I want you to do is tell a story using song titles in alphabetical order using as many letters of the alphabet as you can. Did that make sense?

An example:

This is a story about AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL. It starts off on a night as dark as BLACK VELVET.

Something along those lines. Yes, you can use those song titles if you need to, that was just an example.

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with! :)”

I used 67 song titles, all the letters A-Z twice and once more up to O. So, here is what I came up with!

A Bad Night for a Good Girl

A story with a musical twist for Sheri

“Well, Another One Bites The Dust,” Barbara Ann thought as she stared into her morning Cup Of Life. “He thought I was Desperate But Not Serious. My heart sunk like the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

She pondered something stronger first thing the morning after. “Something For My Broken Heart. Give It To Me. Something to Help Me Hold On. I Can’t Hold Back the tears.”

Her mind drifted to last night. “Oh, James, Kiss Me Again. Let It Be Me.” she begged him in the back of her mind as their lips met.

“My List of the greatest kissers,” She said to Nobody in her empty breakfast nook, “I was ready to put his name on it Over And Over Again. Passionate Kisses, my Quest For Fire in my heart over. It sent my soul on a Rocket Ride. What a Smooth Operator. I was so Tempted.”

She’d been Up All Night thinking about it. If she wanted a reputation like Valerie has, she could have said “yes” when he suggested ”We’ve Got Tonight,” after they left the Club Xanadu.

“You Know Me Better Than That.” She told him and he closed up like a Zip-Lock. “Are You Sincere?” she asked him on the quiet ride home. Silence.

She could barely Breathe, she was so Caught Up in him, she really thought about saying “yes” on a first date. ”Why Don’t Cha?” she thought to herself. “Enough Is Enough. You give a little Flesh For Fantasy tonight and in the morning when he says ‘Good Morning Girl,’ he’ll be asking ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?’”

“If I Had $1,000,000 for every girl dumb enough to think that.” she scolded herself. “A desperate cry of ‘Just Let Me Be In Love,’ is every decent woman’s Kryptonite.”

She knew if she’d said “Let’s Go,” in the morning he’d be gone. Miles And Years would pass before she saw him again, if she ever did, No Doubt About It. She didn’t want to be left Out In The Cold to Pick Up The Pieces of her reputation. “It defies the answers to all the Questions Of My Childhood about being respectable and safe,“ she told herself.

She looked out the window at the gray sky. It would be Raining On Sunday. After last night, maybe she just needed a Saturday Night alone and a day to let that rain Turn The Page on another weekend of dating frustration. “Unconditional love. That’s what I really want,” she said to the clouds. “Something that will fill my heart until the Very Last Moment In Time.”

She stirred the last sip in her cup. “Well, right now, I’m just Wishing for a second date, or at least a first one that doesn’t end X-Rated. Yeah, guys like that belong at a petting Zoo or a pig farm!”

She got up and refilled her cup. “I just don’t believe that All Of The Good Ones Are Taken! Today, I’m a Brand New Me,” she said with resolve. "I am my own Crusader. I will find someone who wants to Dance With Me without groping or looking at another woman Everytime I Close My Eyes.” She smiled “I’m gonna Find Me A Man who will share Good Times and make me a Happy Girl, accepting Infatuation as a wonderful feeling, if taken slow!”

Java Blues sunk in as she tipped the cup, spilling coffee all over the table. Still smiling, she folded up the soaked table cloth and put it in the sink. Her Momma, a strong Kentucky Woman, always told her to be be honorable. ‘There’s no one Like You, don’t let some man with a Mean Streak tell you otherwise.’”

“Momma’s right. I’ll Never Surrender, unless it’s ME making that decision!”

Finis

(Oh Sherrie, I hope you liked the story!)

The Songs Titles:
Another One Bites The Dust, Queen
Barbara Ann, The Beach Boys
(The) Cup Of Life, Ricky Martin
Desperate But Not Serious, Adam Ant
Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot
For My Broken Heart, Reba McIntyre.
Give It To Me, 112
Help Me Hold On, Travis Tritt
I Can’t Hold Back, Survivor
James, Pat Metheny
Kiss Me Again, Toby Keith
Let It Be Me, The Everly Brothers
My List, Toby Keith
Nobody, Keith Sweat
Over And Over Again, Nelly with Tim McGraw
Passionate Kisses, Mary Chapin Carpenter
Quest For Fire, Iron Maiden
Rocket Ride, Kiss
Smooth Operator, Sade
Tempted, Marty Stuart
Up All Night, Boomtown Rats
Valerie, The Monkees
We’ve Got Tonight, Bob Seger
Xanadu, Rush
You Know Me Better Than That, George Strait
Zip-Lock, Lit
Are You Sincere, Andy Williams
Breathe, Faith Hill
Caught Up, Usher
Don’t Cha, Pussycat Dolls
Enough Is Enough, April Wine
Flesh For Fantasy, Billy Idol
Good Morning Girl, Journey
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?, Rod Stewart
If I Had $1,000,000 , Barenaked Ladies
Just Let Me Be In Love,Tracy Byrd
Kryptonite, Three Doors Down
Let’s Go,The Cars
Miles And Years , Lionel Cartwright
No Doubt About It, Neil McCoy
Out In The Cold, Judas Priest
Pick Up The Pieces, Alexz Johnson
Questions Of My Childhood , Kansas
Raining On Sunday, Keith Urban
Saturday Night, Bay City Rollers
Turn The Page, Bob Seger
Unconditional, Gary Allan
Very Last Moment In Time, Lindsay Lohan
Wishing, A Flock Of Seagulls
X-Rated (Sub title of several songs - Hey, it’s X, cut me a little slack!)
Yeah, Usher
(The) Zoo, Scorpions
All Of The Good Ones Are Taken, Ian Hunter
Brand New Me, John Michael Montgomery
Crusader, Saxon
Dance With Me, Next
Everytime I Close My Eyes, Babyface
Find Me A Man, Toni Braxton
Good Times, Sam Cooke
Happy Girl, Martina McBride
Infatuation, Rod Stewart
Java Blues, Nazareth
Kentucky Woman, Neil Diamond
Like You, Bow Wow & Ciara
Mean Streak, Y&T
Never Surrender, Corey Hart
Oh Sherrie, Steve Perry

Are you ready to challenge me? Email your Friday Request to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com.