Category What’s Next

Puzzles – a way to relax

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Back in 2015 I was given a not so great health news. Part of the cause could be from extra stress. With my health problems, and those of my parents it’s been a rough couple of years.

I decided that I needed to expand my puzzle collection from 1 to a few more. I reached out to the good people of Freecycle and got a couple of responses. Two women had some puzzles they wanted to get off their hands. After collecting these I realized I needed to get a bit more organized. We happened to have 2 bookshelves that weren’t really getting used, so I re-purposed them for games and puzzles.

I have completed a few of the puzzles so far, which is why I have a the before/after style photo above. I have even added a few. My brother’s kids were over in summer 2016 and while looking for games found my puzzles and had their parents get me a couple more for my birthday. I have also picked up a couple at the store. Of course being a glass half empty person I feel like I’m almost out and keep contemplating if asking on Freecycle again is a good idea.

After I did some of the puzzles on a card table in our new cat’s room. (Yes she has a room, the cats don’t like each other, so Pumpkin has a safe place to go.) I decided to work on a really large puzzle that needed to be done on the kitchen table. After that it’s where I’ve been working on all my puzzles, and taking a photo of them upon completion. I use a super cheap clear table topper to keep everything protected when I’m not working on the puzzle, and since it’s clear I still see it and be reminded to work on it.

Here is my collection of completed puzzles that I have documented so far. Once I finish the puzzles are now going to my oldest niece who started college fall 2018.

She is hoping to become an RA, loves puzzles, and wants them for other students (and herself) to work on. I obtained another large donation from a young woman on Freecycle who was also an RA, although the puzzles she had were from her grandmother.

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completed puzzle
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This post was originally published 2/19/17.

What you can use old news (newspapers) for

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This might be something that is ongoing.

Right now my uses of newspaper is a super list of 2 things I use old newspaper/ads for while crafting and gardening.

newspaper in garden1. You may have seen the use of it in my garden. I’m not sure how well the inks mix with dirt, but I’m hoping it’s not too bad and won’t cause more problems than the GMOs I inadvertently ingest.

2. Keeping old newspapers around for crafting is always good. With all intentions of not getting glues everywhere I’m just not successful. So I now coat everything with newspaper and spill away. I’m sure it would be great while painting and such as well, really any art project. Who am I kidding you probably have a stack higher than mine of papers ready to be spilled on.

3. Blocking a bee hive that is in an old swing set. As much as I don’t want to, they keep attacking my husband when he tries to mow.  If only there was a good way to communicate with bees that we don’t want to hurt them, just mow around their house.

Anyway, someday I may start adding photos and make this much more exciting to look at. I am trying to do more crafts. But I ran into a snag with my last project when I gave it as a gift before I took a photo. So I took the process of making it and then nothing at the end. :/

I’ll get a hang of this blogging thing someday.

The Vanishing Act

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Since October I have been laying off a lot of things I used to do. I am now over a month behind on TV, tonight I am hoping to watch the sudden series finale of Leverage from Dec. 25th. Even cooking and crafting have taken a backseat recently.

I think I tried to take on a bit too much the last few months. Trying to build a photography business, an Etsy crafting shop, read my magazines (which I’m finally up to August issues), read a book (I’ve been reading Dracula since October), and blog about my doings, all while while working full time. This really hasn’t worked out as I had high hopes for last year.

And then there’s the cookbook. I have been typing up recipes from my Taste of Home and Healthy Cooking magazines. Even though it takes a while it really helps with typing skills.

So with the new year well on it’s way, I hope to be better about posting my goings ons. And hopefully get to cooking and crafting again!

Life just keeps happening!

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As by the title I’m sure you know what’s coming. My ever present apologies for not posting anything. To my very few followers. I have given thought and remembered that a while back (June/Julyish) I was taking pictures like crazy of all the food I was making. Those photos were then put in a folder on a computer. Which one is something I will have to figure out, and what folder as well.

After I find those pictures I hope to get a couple of recipes up. One is for cheesecake! To go with the crust I put up a long time ago. The weather in this part of the country got super hot and dry. So for a couple months baking was a bit out of the question. Anyway posting more is on my ever expanding to do list.

On the photography front, it’s been going better. I’ve had a couple of sessions, which is partially why I’m so behind on here. Now I can only pray for a few referrals, I’ve already started my shopping list. First up is the next lens I want (Canon 24-70 f/2.8), the new one that’s not even out yet.

Yet Again…

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For anyone who has noticed or cares that I have not dropped off the face of the earth, I figured I should let you know that I am still on the earth. I have lots of pictures of food on my camera cards ready to start letting you know about more awesome food to make. But between the full time day job and the extras that come with it and as you know all of my ambitious plans for things I just haven’t sat down at a computer unless it’s for work.

If you don’t know in this area of the country we host a little thing called the College World Series, it’s more the biggest event of the year around here. Well I got roped into helping since the boss decided to create a new magazine about being a fan of the CWS. So I spent my weekend sifting through photos, some were pretty darn good (not mine) we had other photographers who have much more experience and equipment. Anyway that was just the last weekend.

Before that was just a little of everything. I’m really trying to do more photography, even if it’s just for practice. I’m still trying to hold out hope for some actual clients. Even one a month would be a great help.

Anyway a lot of the way up ahead and so far I haven’t actually finished much of anything. Just the wedding so far is now done. I know it’s only Wednesday, but so far most of my Saturday isn’t full. So there may be some time to catch up on a few things.

I hope in the next month or so to get my posts up and you’ll have some new recipes. As for crafts, well right now that’s being reserved for another magazine I work on.

Still Going

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Well it’s taking me a while to get through the wedding photos. I’m taking my time trying to make sure each picture looks awesome, but I’m doing this while watching TV. Needless to say I am farther along on my TV watching than on the photos.

This weekend I have set myself some lofty goals. Most of these goals involve food! So hoping that means a few new recipes will be posted here so you can enjoy my food. Well it’s not completely mine, but I have trouble following recipes, so they are (sometimes heavily) altered versions of what I have found either on Pintrest (great source for quick dinner ideas), in Taste of Home or just around the blogging world.

My other goal this weekend is to get those wedding photos done. The formals are just holding me up.. We weren’t able to have as much fun with them as I had hoped so I think that’s why I’m just not moving through them faster. Then there’s a photo book I want to make of my honeymoon from almost 3 years ago. We went to Jamaica and I never really went through all of the photos. That should be really exciting to see what I did get and finally have an album of sorts of it. (Those lovely coupons are the only time I can afford those darn books).

My other lofty goal is to get the calendar done for Julie, and get a journal/sketchbook made to list on Etsy. I’ve been falling behind on that kind of thing and need to try and get back to it.

Not sure if there is enough time this weekend to finish everything. I normally end up sleeping through most of my days off and get next to nothing accomplished. If all goes well though there should be some posts with photos again!

Related articles

Flying Time

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I’m sorry I haven’t really written much lately. I haven’t been doing much crafting or cooking. I’ve been doing a little photography and a lot of reading.

This weekend will be something exciting though. I will be the main photographer at my sister-in-laws wedding. We are really hoping for no rain Friday or Saturday. I will also be doing family photos for my husbands’ aunt and her family on Friday..As of today, expecting rain of course! I even bought a 32GB card just for this occasion of the wedding. I’m hoping between that and a 16GB I should have plenty of space to take photos all day.

After everything is done I hope to get back to crafts. I have a bracelet all laid out to be strung, I think that will be my next task. Maybe working on my cross stitch again (see previous post). That will be one of those 5 years in the making projects.

As for reading I am working on 3 books right now, I think that’s my limit of number of books at once. I’m working on The Frozen Pirate, it’s a classic, I think supposed to be a thriller, but 1800’s scary isn’t all that riveting. Then there’s Memnoch the Devil, the final Vampire Chronicle! Finally, I honestly just want to say I’ve read it, and then I seem to understand more references the more I read. Finally is Disclosure (Michael Crichton). This one is almost funny with how much technology has changed since the mid ’90s. I haven’t gotten too far, but it’s a Crichton book so I have no worries that it will be good. If you’re super curious on my progress check out my Good Reads.

I hope to get back to posting, with photos, soon. Maybe even try out a new recipe. I’ve been working on typing up a whole bunch of them, which actually takes a lot of time. And I got this crazy thought that I want to put all like recipes together i.e. all soups together in the main dishes. Only flaw in that is that I’m always going to be finding new recipes and so the pages will be changing all the time.

Anyway enough of my babbling. Just wanted to post yet another update on what’s going on.

Chairs

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I can’t believe I am forgetting about something I’m about to embark on. It involves my new dining room chairs.

These chairs aren’t actually new. I have recently acquired my great-grandmother’s dining room table and chairs from a different table. These chairs will need to be stained a little darker to match and they surely need to be recovered. That’s when the fun starts. Picking a new fabric and color. They also need padding, BAD.

If anyone has reupholstered and put padding on an old wood chair a few tips of the trade would be appreciated! I will be documenting the results once I figure out how I will be going about this little venture.

I’m still here

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I know it may seem like I’ve fallen off the internet world. I really haven’t, I’m just trying to keep up with my life. I have gotten into a few too many side projects. I have so many things I want to do that I just keep starting things with no sense of where they should go.

I have updated my Etsy with more notecards and a few postcards. Not sure if anyone still writes thank yous or just general how you doing cards, but I make them if you want to check them out. I have been trying my hand at jewelry which is going ok.

Another thing I’ve been trying to do is build up my photography. Just did a family and newborn session two weeks ago. And I have another family session and a wedding at the end of April.

Still trying to cook when I can. Typing up recipes is the next thing I need to get back to. I’ve fallen way behind and my Taste of Home magazines are piling (I get the Healthy Cooking one too).

Anyway I think that about sums things up, I have many interests and just haven’t found what I want to do all the time, so I keep working on a mirage of projects.

The Plan

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We all have plans of what we want to do. It feels that my list just keeps getting longer. I started out this year wanting to read more. Now I hindered myself a bit when starting my third book of the year, continuing the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I’m not even much of a vampire fan, maybe in high school a few years back, but I remember more about pirates than vampires. I think I’m determined to read the books just to say I did and so I will understand any references in the rare case someone might be so inclined to reference books from the ’80s.

Anyway as we have now entered into month 2 of this year I have rediscovered my love of all things crafting. And continuing my new enjoyment of cooking. This week I have meals planned for every night. Mostly chicken dishes. Apparently mushrooms go really well with chicken. But tonight will be the test of my new Star Wars® cookie cutters. I not only decided to try a whole new cookie recipe (to get rid of some sour cream) I am going to test out new cookie cutters. We will see how this turns out. I hope to remember my camera while making them for another post on, well just ending up with cool looking cookies. Sadly I have not mastered the art of frosting, so these will be plain tan cookies.

Also on the horizon are lots of new and a few old projects that I am working on. If anyone is interested I can keep a running progress on a counted cross stitch kit that I have bee slowly working on over the last year or so (too many other things to work on, so it’s been back burnered). I also make these cool note cards out of card stock and old wallpaper samples. I am going to test run some postcards too, not sure if the glue will hold through the mail process. These are my old things that I have been doing for a while. (I just love working with the wallpaper samples and their fun textures.)

The new projects are going to include transferring photos to wood, it looked cool on Pintrest and I am just waiting for some nice weather and a few kids I know to be available to be my models. I hope this can be a project I can promote with Etsy and make custom art from people’s photos. Another possible custom Etsy project are pins. I was thinking “save the date” or even putting a logo or symbol on them for businesses to hand out to potential clients. I think for “save the date” it would be something different than the customary postcard or magnet. Those are the two things that I am hoping to get started on first, but I’m always adding new stuff.

So keep checking in once in a while to see what I might be up to next.