I Miss You... Hope All is Well

 Do you ever sit down to blog and realize "I haven't read a post by ... in a while"? I did that today. Three of my favorite bloggers came to mind and I looked at my blog roll to see when they last posted. One was in December 2020 and the other two last posted nine monts ago! 

So first off, shame on me for not noticing sooner. And second, none of them have attached email addresses so I can check on them. I hope they're ok.

Bloggers drop off on a regular basis. I have to admit there are less than 10 bloggers between my two blogs that I actually contact outside of Blogger. And that's generally only to exchange Christmas cards.

Blogging relationships are so special. They can feel so deep when you connect with someone in your same stage of life, or someone who enjoys the same hobby (cross-stitch) or someone with the same obsession (ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS!!!) or especially someone who shares your faith journey.

These relationships enrich my life. But... they're online. That means they can drop from my life in an instant. Real life relationships fade, but that's just it. They fade. They don't generally end in the blink of an eye, or in my examples, in the blink of several months.

So to the bloggers I'm missing I want to say, I enjoyed reading your posts. I enjoyed getting to know you in even a small way. I miss you.

And to those of you still posting, I love reading your posts. I look forward each (well, it used to be each, now it's a couple times a week) morning to see what you've been doing, to be inspired by you, to feel the warmth of our blog relationship. I love getting to know you. I hope we stay connected.

What's Up With Comments?

Will someone please post a comment and tell me if the photo verification for I am not a robot is being used on my blog? If it is, will someone tell me how to remove it?

Every blog post I've read this morning has the photo thing. It took me seven tries on one of them to get my comment posted! I couldn't see the item they wanted me to look for at all. I understand wanting security, but hopefully they can make it work for blind people like me! hahahaha!

Christmas in July!

Yippee! It's finally here, Christmas in July! 

Now, I know many of you groan when you see the Christmas merchandise appear in June at the craft stores. That's why I don't write CIJ posts for this blog... I don't want to lose readers! But for the rest of you, the people like me that rejoice when the Christmas items show up in the summer, I have a Christmas blog. This year's theme is The ABCs of Christmas. Come on over for a visit and a shot of Christmas cheer!

Christmas in July

If you haven't already begun, July is a great time to start preparing for a stress-free Christmas season. Check out my Christmas blog for some holiday fun in the middle of the summer. Hope to see you there!

It's That Time of Year

This is the time of year when I evaluate 2015 and start planning for 2016. I look back over the year and decide what worked and what didn't. I give myself permission to toss out what didn't work and I come up with a new plan for a new year.

One of the areas that I failed miserably in 2015 is this blog and my Christmas blog. I rarely posted. I've mused in previous posts about why that is, but the truth is I don't have a good reason or any kind of an excuse.

It's not that I'm tired of blogging, I still really love it. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I have an opinion on everything and am rarely at a loss for words. It's not that I don't have adorable grandchildren, cute pets, and a terrific family to post about, I do.

It's that... never mind, I have no clue.

So, I'm slowly starting to think of ways to improve for 2016. I have come up with one solution. I try to post a verse every day, but this year I doubt if it was even once a week. The only thing that saved that feature of the blog was that this was an SSMT memory year with Beth Moore, so I at least posted my memory verses every two weeks. But 2016 is an off year, so I won't even have that to keep me in line.

So the first Sunday in January I will introduce a verse for the week. That way I'm committing to 52 verses instead of 365. No wait, 366 - it's leap year!

I'm excited about this new feature and hope you will enjoy it.

Between now and New Year's, I'll be sharing other ways that I plan to improve in 2016 and my One Word.

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I appreciate all of your comments and encouragement!

The Eyes Are the First Thing to Go...

I have a confession to make. I can not see the characters when I write my blog posts.

I'm not sure if this is due to my advanced age, or if it's because we got a new computer recently and now neither one of us can see the screens. (Note to self: remind Dan AGAIN to change the resolution).

This has been very frustrating as I like to publish a quality post with no typos, misspelled words, or weird punctuation if possible.

I have avoided increasing the font size because, well, because I'm vain about stuff like that and don't want readers to realize that I can only see words that are 1/2 inch tall.

But earlier this week I found the perfect solution! It's so great that I can't believe I never thought of it before.

Are you ready?

I change the font size as I'm typing it and then change it back when I'm ready to publish.

I know.

Genius, right?

I feel so much better about what I'm writing now that I can actually see it.

You know, it really is the little things in life that bring the most pleasure.

Blog Stuff

When I started this blog over six years ago I was a first time Grammy. I wanted to write about my granddaughter, but I also wanted to satisfy my urge for creative writing. Over the years I've reevaluated the blog from time to time and have been open in stating what changes I was going to make. Of course, as life goes, half the changes never "took".

I love writing the blog and have no intention of stopping. I have been reevaluating it again and have decided to make some changes. I thought this time I would be more circumspect by NOT sharing my intentions.. Maybe that way if (when) they don't occur I won't feel so guilty!

I can see that my posts have steadily decreased over the past couple of years. My excuse is that my husband has been so busy I don't have as much access to the computer. Also, having grandkids three days a week really cuts down on my "me" time. Which I don't regret.

So, at the end, I'm faced with the reality that I need to be more deliberate about making time to blog. Instead of blaming it on "scheduling" (isn't that a nice way to put it?) I need to adjust my schedule to make the time work for me.

So, this is my non-announcement about unshared changes I'm going to make in my blog.

Aren't you glad you read this post?!

Welcome to Christmas in July!

Over on my Christmas blog I'm celebrating my Third Annual Christmas in July. Each day will include a post about a Christmas related subject. If you're in the mood for a mid-summer dose of the Christmas Spirit, come on over and check it out!

SSMT #19

For some reason I can't update my Daily Verse gadget on blogger. I tried yesterday and for some dumb reason I deleted the text box I had to try to re-create it in case there was an error in the one I was using. Well, now I can't add a new text box so my verse of the day is gone. If anyone knows of how I can fix this, please let me know. I assume it's a glitch in Blogger's system and they'll get around to fixing it someday. In the meantime I'll try every day.

OK, on to this month's first verse:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10

Pumpkins for Cathey!

Happy Blogoversary Cathey!

Many thoughts and prayers headed your way today and every day as you keep fighting.

Go girl!

To see all of the Pumpkins for Cathey, head over to Daffycat's blog.

Miscellaneous Monday

Usually I have my grandkids on Monday, but the schedule has changed for this week and I have today to myself. Well, what I really mean is that I have the day to do laundry, clean house, cook dinner... but it is a change. I thought I'd take time to just ponder the minutiae of life.

When we were in San Diego a few weeks ago I wore my tennis shoes two days in a row while we toured Sea World and San Diego Zoo. My tennis shoes were at least 10 years old. They had been bothering me for a few years and I did pause for a moment to think about the possible damage I would suffer from wearing them for that long. But they were all I had, so I wore them. Boy, am I paying the price. By the end of the 2nd day my left big toe had a huge blister under the toe nail. For the next week it would break open on its own and drench my shoe with whatever liquid is inside of a blister.

When I went for a pedicure a couple of weeks after the injury I got to see the damage when my nail polish was removed. The entire nail bed was black/blue/yellow - completely bruised. Yuck. Oh well, it didn't hurt anymore and at least the blister was gone. I thought I was on the road to recovery.

Until Saturday when I went in for another pedicure. The nail looks the same, but now it has detached from the nail bed 1/3 of the way down from the top. Super yuck. I was praying the whole time that my nail would not come off. It didn't, but it feels really unstable now. I'm so afraid I'm going to lose the nail. The nail tech said, "oh well, if it comes off we'll just apply an acrylic nail". Great. I wonder how much THAT costs?!

In other news, over on my Christmas blog I only have two posts left for Christmas in July. When I decided that I wanted to post each day for the month, I only half thought I would actually do it. To my surprise, I stuck with it and I will have posted for the 31 days of Christmas in July. It was fun, but I'm not sure I will do it again any time soon. It took a lot of time and effort. I have started receiving comments from someone in Brazil who writes in Portuguese. This is a language I'm not familiar with. At all. I wanted to be sure that I didn't have inappropriate comments showing on my blog so I tried to figure out how to figure out what the comments said. Thank goodness MS Word has a translate feature. I copy the comment onto a Word doc, hit the translate key, and get a translation.

We have a Village Inn a couple of miles from our house. We have developed the habit of going there for breakfast about once a week for the past several years. It has the friendliest staff I've ever encountered at a restaurant. The turnover is low, making it easy for the regular diners and wait staff to get to know each other. Two ladies in particular are favorites of ours; Gina and Cassie. They have been our servers for four years now and we know them and they know us. They ask about our family, we ask about theirs. They both had babies in the past year so it's been fun to watch them grow through baby pictures. Gina has asked for prayer support a time or two. I'm not sure if it's allowed or not, but this year at Christmas I want to give them each a token of our appreciation. I'm trying to think what I should do: cash or gift card?

Well, here we are at the end of July. August starts in a few days. Dan and I both have birthdays in August and the free/discount birthday offers have already started pouring it. This is when it pays to have signed up for emails and rewards! Have a great day...

Christmas in July

I am celebrating Christmas in July over on my Christmas blog. My goal is to post a Christmas themed article for each of the 31 days in July. That may be a tad optimistic, but I'm going to do my best!

So, if it's hot where you live like it is where I live (116F forecast for today), take a cool break and check out my Christmas blog!

A Very Cool (new to me) Blog

I am planning 31 days of posts for Christmas in July on my Christmas blog. This requires a lot of searching on the themes I've chosen for each day. While I was searching yesterday I came across the most beautiful blog I've seen to date. It's called "a quieter storm" and you can find it here. I also added the link to the right side of my blog page under the heading "Check Out These Great Blogs".

If you check it out, let me know what you think of it!

Goodbye 2012, Welcome 2013!

I usually spend the week between Christmas and New Year planning for the future, remembering the past. But this year I have not had time for that. I feel all discombobulated.

2012 was a good year and really the only major disappointment I have is in my stitching. Out of my 15 Crazy January Challenge starts in 2012 I did not finish 5 of them. Bummer. I have my 15 Crazy January Challenge 2013 projects kitted up and ready to post tomorrow. I chose several small patterns this year so maybe I'll finish all 15! I also have 2 1/2 Christmas stockings, a wedding sampler, a birthday gift, and three Christmas gifts to stitch. Plus Janel, Jessica, and I are still working on our afghan project.

If you read my last few posts, you know that I chose my One Word for 2013: Bold. I'm also taking part in the 2013 SSMT (Scripture Memory Team) that Beth Moore sponsors. I have a link to her blog on the right sidebar if you'd like to learn more. I will begin reading through the Bible again for 2013 using my Daily Chronological Bible.

I'm going to make some changes to this blog for 2013. I'm ditching the daily quote.The daily Bible verses will be from the NET Bible this year (unless otherwise noted). I'm going to make a determined effort to post a stitching update once a week. I may change around the layout some. I just want to freshen up the look of it. I'm still posting to my Christmas blog, but will make some changes to it also.

2013 is the last year of my 101 in 1001 list. I feel overwhelmed when I look at my list and see all of the items I have not accomplished. I'd better get in high gear!

Since joining the hordes of people on Pinterest earlier this year I've made several of the items I've pinned. I'm hoping to make many more in 2013 and hope to have a couple of Pinterest Parties to that end.

I'm woefully behind on scrapbooking and plan to make January 2013 "Picture Project Month" so I can hopefully get caught up. We'll see how that goes.

I enjoy reading other blogs and get so much creative and spiritual inspiration from them. Isn't it amazing how our "blog friends" enrich our lives? I wish I could meet each one, but until that happens, I enjoy our online friendships.

All in all I'm ready to bid a fond farewell to 2012 and am eagerly anticipating 2013.

Craft Blog Directory

While I was visiting new (to me) blogs today, I ran across this Craft Blog Directory. There are too many craft blogs to count listed there. I foresee hours and hours of blog reading ahead of me.  Click here for link.

Followers

When I first started blogging in October 2009, I added the "Followers" gadget to my blog. But I'm going to be brutally honest here... only a few people followed me. I got discouraged and removed the gadget. The past few months I've had several people comment that they want to follow me. So, I put the "Followers" gadget back up today.

I follow many blogs. I don't always sign up as a follower, but once I put your blog on my blog roll, you can rest assured that I read it every time you post. I guess I need to get better about signing up as a follower... after all, I don't want to be part of discouraging a fellow blogger!

As always, the comments you leave are so appreciated. That's the thing about blogging that I just love... we may not meet face-to-face, but we get to know each other and can count each other as friends.

So... Please, if you enjoy reading this blog (or my holiday blog - Christmas 24/7/365 ) join in as a follower.

Thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to encourage me to add followers to my blogs!

Completely Frustrated...

I am completely frustrating with blogging right now. I'm feeling as if I'm not technically savvy enough to be doing this. Evidently when you use Blogger, every time you upload a photo into your blog it goes into a Picasa Web Album. Once your web album reaches a certain capacity, you have to pay to have more storage space. If you delete photos from the web album, they are also deleted from your blog. At least this is what I understand from reading the warning on Picasa.

Seriously?! I just want to upload photos from my computer into my blog without them going somewhere else. Since I'm currently also posting to a 365 photo blog, as you can imagine, I've reached my capacity pretty darn quick.

I tried going on to Picasa to try to understand what the albums are, how to condense them, label them, organize them. But I can't find anything that helps me to do that. My 365 blog will be complete in about two months. When it's complete, I'm going to print it out and then I can delete all of those photos off of my Picasa Web Album. That should open up some space. I also terminated my recipe blog and deleted all of those photos from the web album. I hadn't posted to it in months, so no big deal.

I just don't understand how Google can usurp my photos. They are my composition, my creation, my personal property. How can they stick them on a site without my permission?

If I'm ranting about nothing, please let me know. As I said, it may just be that I'm too limited to know what I'm doing. If you know a way around Picasa, please let me know... but use language that a child could understand. Actually, most kids are probably way more tech skilled than I am! haha

Thursday Thoughts

So, I found out what the problem was with posting the other day. Blogger no longer supports my browser. Really?! So now in order to edit my blogs I have to use Google Chrome. It's a pain, but there's not much I can to about it. We need to get a new computer, so hopefully Blogger will support the browser on the new computer so I don't have to use two browsers.

The weather here is gorgeous. This is why we live here. We are flirting with the 80 degree mark every day. We are to have a cold front come through later this weekend and the temps will plummet to the low 70s. The heater is off and the windows and doors are flung wide open during the day.

The appraisal business is flourishing. Dan is giving his notice at Sam's Club this weekend. It is scary, but we know it's time. We can't be turning down appraisal orders due to the few hours he puts in at Sam's Club. On the other hand, he will have to go on COBRA insurance (I'm already on it) and we'll have to find our own insurance soon. It costs so much for me that it's just ridiculous. I'm trying to not worry, but instead to pray about it whenever the worry seeps in...

I haven't posted about this yet, but... we're having a wedding in our family in March. Katie and Gabe are getting married on March 24th. We are all excited. It has been fun for me to help her with some of the details of  her wedding. They are having a casual backyard wedding at a friends' house. She invited about 80 people, but I'm not sure how many are attending. Gabe's family is making all of the food. One of  Katie's work friends is making the cake. Actually, she's having cupcakes. JD and Janel will be here, so we're very excited that the whole family will be together!

We bought an elliptical machine. Yeah. Dan and I are in deep depression over just how out-of-shape we are. It is truly pitiful. But, we are bound and determined to get into better shape. Wish us luck.

Gotta run... Enjoy your day.

2012 - A Look Ahead

You know when I was younger New Year's was the most depressing time of the year. I dreaded the new year. I'm not sure why. But I got over that in my 30s. Now, New Year's is not my favorite time of the year. But it is a change that I look forward to as the old year winds down. (Actually, I think New Year's is a silly holiday. The new year should start when the new school year starts, it would make life so much easier.) As 2012 is upon us, I'm excited to look into the new year to see what it will may can bring.

For my Quiet Time, I plan to read the One Year Chronological Bible again. I've said it time and time again. If you want to read the Bible in context, get a Chronological version. It's like reading a story. It somehow makes all the stories in the Bible fall into place. They make more sense historically. My favorite part of the chronological Bible is seeing when the Psalms were written. The first Psalm to show up is Psalm 91. It's in the middle of Deuteronomy on March 24. You know how easy it is to get bogged down in the Old Testament? Those Psalms are like a little oasis to me when they show up in the middle of a particularly difficult OT book. The last Psalm is Psalm 147. It's on September 23. Then I only have to make it to September 28 and I'm in the New Testament (whew!)

I'm not sure that I'll continue the $5 Savings Plan. I kind of fell off the wagon last year. We want to buy a house in 2012, so basically every spare dollar that we have is going to that project. I am planning to fill a Christmas Jar in 2012. I will also buy Angel Tree gifts again next Christmas. I love doing that. I will participate in at least two charitable projects in 2012. One of them will take place in February. Katie works for a company that manages 20 group homes for CPS. At Christmas this year she mentioned that the teenage boys homes never get donations or gifts from people voluntarily. So I baked cookies and made candy for those two houses. In February, I'm going to make candy and bake Valentine sugar cookies for those boys.

I have an ambitious goal for x-stitching this year. I'm going to participate in a 2012 Crazy January Challenge, but I'm making my own rules. I will work on a project each day for the first 15 days in January, but some of them will be new starts, and most of them will be WIPs (works in progress). If you're interested, you can check out my projects on the 2012 Crazy January Challenge tab at the top of the blog.

I want to be more disciplined about my health this year. My cholesterol is a little high. Of course, as is typical in this day and age the Dr. wants me to take a pill for it. I'm not big on pills. So I'm trying to get it back down in the next three months. I also STILL want to lose 30 pounds. And I need to stay on top of controlling my blood sugar with diet and exercise.

I failed to meet my goal of reading 100 books in 2011. I'll try again in 2012. I will also keep plugging away at my 101 in 1001 list. I have completed 16 of the 101 items. I have 27 items in progress. My end date is 8/29/13, so I need to get going on this list! If you're interested in my progress you can click on the tab at the top of the blog to see how I'm doing (or not doing!).

And last, but not least there's my blogs. I love blogging. I have stalled out on my political blog and the recipe blog. I hope to do much better in 2012. I'm sure it will be easy to get back to the political blog since it's an election year. Any one that knows me knows that I'm passionate about politics. I want to be passionate about cooking. I think maybe it requires a measure of patience that I don't have. I'm more than half-way through my 365 photo blog. When it's complete I want to print it as a book. Actually, I want to print all of them as books. I just haven't checked into the details of that yet. Maybe this year. I have "met" so many great people as a result of blogging. I enjoy reading other blogs and get a lot of great ideas and information from them. I hope my blog(s) encourage and interest my readers as theirs do me.

So friends, there you have it. A new year is upon us. I'm ready for it. I'm excited for it. We have a lot of exciting family events coming up in 2012. And of course, there will be lots of unexpected joys and challenges in the year. All I can say is... bring it on!

Home, Sweet Home

We're back!

One week ago today we left Phoenix to drive to Manhattan, KS to visit JD and Janel, our oldest son and his wife.

Guiding us on our way was our new GPS, Betty Lou. Dan picked her name. I wasn't sure what the GPS would do or if it would be any help along the way. Boy, was she ever helpful! We used her to find hotels and restaurants. It was great.

We made it to Holbrook, AZ the first night. Got up early Thursday morning and drove to Dodge City, KS. We hung out in Dodge City Friday morning and then drove on into Manhattan.

We had a great time visiting JD and Janel. We spent Saturday in Abilene, KS. Sunday we drove out to Janel's parents farm to meet her dad and sister and have lunch. We'd met her mom a couple of years ago when she flew to Phoenix for a conference. We hung out the rest of Sunday and then got an early start home on Monday.

We made it to Albuquerque on Monday night and pulled into our driveway around 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

Whew!

Yes, I took pictures and I plan to share some of our trip in more detail. But for today, I just wanted to say we're home and yes, I really missed blogging!