Scrapping the Day Away

I haven't been on the internet today because I was off scrapbooking from 9 in the morning until 8 tonight.  Can't remember if this was for National Scrapbooking Day or not but a large group of us all gathered in a hall and scrapped the day away.  Here's my friend Linda working away.  She had quite the day.  Halfway through the day, her computer ran out of available space.  So off she had to go to Best Buy and ended up with a Thumb Drive (is that what you call it) to put some of her storybooks on until she could get home later tonight to transfer them to her external hard drive.

When she finally got back, she began the process of transferring some of the things she had been working on over to the thumb drive to free up space on her laptop but suddenly, she got an error message.  Turns out that she had completely filled up that flash drive as well.  Poor kid!  She just wasn't having any luck.  Thank goodness that she had at least freed up enough space on her laptop that she could work on another set of digital pages until the end of our session.  Oh, that's my friend, Karen, another convert to digital scrapbooking working away on her pages.  There were three of us clustered together.  We always enjoy the fact that we don't have to lug all the paper supplies and tools to these crops.  All we need are our computers, power strips, and our imaginations.  And if we get tired of working on digital scrapbooking, we can always take a break and play some games on our computers or just walk around and look at what others are working on.  It's a great way to scrapbook.

Throughout the day, they drew names for door prizes.  Look what I won?  A set of pages with pre-made borders.  I still do some occasional pages the traditional way so I'll be able to use these or maybe I'll share them with my daughter.  We both love that color of green. 

As always, we have a wonderful spread of food for lunch and for supper.  Everyone brings snacks and desserts to share and food is brought in for our two meals.  So we can snack all day long if we so desire.  It's going to be bad news at my weigh-in at TOPS on Monday evening, I'm sure, although I really did try to avoid eating non-stop throughout the day.  I managed to do pretty well, too but didn't do so well at resisting the toffee cookie bars.  And drat, I made them so I knew how good they were, too.  By the time we needed to pack up our supplies and head home, the weather had really turned cold.  My, the wind was really whipping around and it felt more like early November than late April.  What happened to our lovely warm Spring days?

Here's a graphic for you today.  It's an old calling card that is actually an advertisement for a fellow who printed calling cards.  It was in amongst my grandmother's old cards.  The little card with his name was actually inside the little envelope but I took it out so it could be seen.  The little hand with flower bouquet looked to be a sticker that was stuck on the little envelope.  I'm guessing that it is from the late 1800's since most of the calling cards I have from my grandmother are ones she had as a young lady from that time frame.
Enjoy!

Friday's Fave Five "S"s

It's Friday once again.  Last Friday I plumb forgot what day of the week it was and didn't do my usual Fave Five posting.  This Friday, I wrote myself a note to remind me so I wouldn't forget.  The theme today is going to be around the letter "S", since all five of my notable things this week begin with that letter.  Let's take a look at what made my week memorable, shall we?

1.  Spring has arrived in all her splendor here in my neighborhood.  I've been enjoying taking walks around the subdivision and seeing all the trees in bloom.  It gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my camera.  The downside of all these flowering trees is, of course, the pollen.  My sinuses aren't behaving very well but I can put up with some sniffling and stuffiness at night for the beauty that is Spring.

2.  Sipping a delicious new coffee flavor.  I first read about this flavor on someone's blog but for the life of me, I can't remember who mentioned it.  If it was you, I'm so sorry that I didn't jot down a reminder to myself so that I could give you credit for introducing me to this coffee.  It's made by Green Mountain Coffee and the flavor is a Limited Edition flavor called "Island Coconut."  Yummy!

3.  Skyping with my extended family, including our grandbaby.  Boy, has Mika changed since she left here in February.  She even has little pigtails now and is definitely getting more of a toddler look than the infant-look she had when she left.  She insisted on standing with the aid of her parents while we talked on Skype and it was so cute to see her react to us as she peered at the computer screen.

4.  Scanning old cards and photographs - As part of my craft room reorganization attempt, I've been trying to file all the paper memorabilia that has accumulated in the drawers of my cabinets.  I have a lot of old cards, valentines, cartes d'visite, calling cards, and other memorabilia from my mother and grandparents, some dating back to the 1880's.  It's really been fun to scan them and read the old postcards particularly.

5.  Singing along with my Pandora radio stations - I just love Pandora and how you can create your own radio stations based on your favorite singers.  I have a Christian station, Celtic station, Crooners station, and Country Western station set up right now.  This week I had the Country Western music cranking through my speakers.  I don't much care for the slow, mournful tunes so I give a "thumbs-down" to those which means that my station usually plays the fast, upbeat CW music.  It's great to sing along with and really keeps me awake when I'm working on the computer, doing my digital scrapbooking for hours on end.

What have been your highlights this week?  If you'd like to join the Fave Five fun, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.  Have a great weekend.

Scanning Old Images

I'm still fiddling away with my craft room, trying to restore order to chaos.  I've actually made quite a bit of headway and am down to the fine tuning.  Part of that fine tuning involves tackling the cupboards where I've just stashed big envelopes of pictures and paper memorabilia, without taking the time to file them or scan them into my photo storing program.  So today I started the scanning and sorting process.  What fun this is!  One thing I am quickly realizing is just what great quality the paper from years ago is.  The high school announcement above is my mother's high school graduation announcement from 1907.  That paper is just as lovely and pliant as the day it was put in her hands.  I'm not sure the paper we get these days would last as long.

Remember calling cards?  You probably don't although I confess that I had to order a set of them when I was commissioned in the Navy.  I don't think I ever used them but I had them, just in case.  This is a calling card from a friend of my grandmother's.  It probably dates back to the late 1800's.

Since we just celebrated Easter, I thought you might enjoy this little postcard that was sent to my grandfather in the early 1900's.  Aren't those little chicks just the cutest?

I couldn't resist this postcard.  My mom sent this to my grandfather years ago.  There's no date on it but I'm guessing that it was probably in the 30's or 40's.  I think that's going to be me when I head down to Texas in a few weeks.  They'd better hide the bon-bons.

I just have an older model scanner but it does a pretty nice job of scanning these images.  So I think in the next few weeks, as I work through these, I'll try to put up one a day to share with you.  Hopefully you can save the .jpg to use as a graphic, if you so desire.  Some of these are just too cute to hoard for myself.

Solomon in All His Glory

I was able to put my Canon A480 up for sale on Amazon and sold it within a day.  Fantastic!  I'm sure it will be a great camera for someone else who doesn't need the image stabilization feature but it sure was not for me.  Yesterday my new camera, the Canon PowerShot SD780IS arrived and I couldn't wait to try it out.  What better way to give it a workout than to go for a walk around the block on a beautiful day?  So here's a photo tour of our neighborhood in all its Spring splendor.  This is the white dogwood in our neighbor's yard right across the street.  I usually start my walk by crossing over and heading up the hill.

Next house up has a lovely cherry tree in their front yard that is in full bloom.  Isn't it gorgeous?

After I'd taken the shot of the cherry tree, I spotted these lovely tulips across the street so I sauntered over and snapped a shot of them.  They are a bit past their prime, as were most of the tulips I spotted on my walk but they are still adding some lovely color to the neighborhood.

While I was on that side of the street, I walked past this house with a lovely Easter Redbud tree in the front.  These gorgeous trees are all over our neighborhood and are just so beautiful against the bright green of the newly revived grass.

By this time I was at the end of our street and had the option of going into the little cul-de-sac where the subdivision builder's home is or to turn and head down the hill.  I usually do the latter but I had to snap this tree first.  I don't know what it is but I always enjoy the reddish leaves against the green grass and the graceful shape of these trees.

Of course, what goes "down" eventually has to come "up" and so it was time to start up the next street which is uphill.  I was rewarded with a shot of St. Francis in this front yard.

Several more houses up and there were these lovely tulips along the curb.  Don't you just love the yellow "bulls-eyes" in the middle of these?

Right before I had made a complete circle and was ready to start back up my street, I discovered this charming bed of phlox.  I've never had much luck growing it but I sure appreciate those who do.

Time to start back up my street.  Our subdivision is quite hilly so you are either going up hills or coming down hills.  That last climb back up to my house gets the muscles going but it feels so good when I turn into my driveway.  This cherry tree against the blue sky was the reward I got as I rounded the bend in the road.

Here's the view right as you round the curve before it's time to cross over to my house.  There are flowering trees everywhere.

As I crossed the street, I had to snap shots of two more flowerbeds.  Here is another lovely set of phlox.  Just breathtaking!

My neighbor's tulips are yellow mixed in with Paperwhites for a lovely Spring arrangement.

Now up my driveway and over to the side of the house so I can get a quick peek at the lilac bush which is sporting some new lilacs just starting to blossom.  Soon I'll be smelling their fragrance.

And here we are at home.  Time to unlock the door and soothe Fresca, the Wonder Dog who is quite put out that I didn't take her along for the walk.  I have to say that I'm very pleased with this little camera.  There wasn't a blurry snapshot in the bunch and the colors are amazing.  Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my walking path on a sunny April day.

I Changed My Mind

I've been having a terrible time getting clear shots with the new Canon digital camera (the Powershot A480) that I purchased back in February.  It got really good reviews both in Amazon and also on different photography websites.  The problem seems to be that it doesn't have an image stabilization feature.  For many people, that would not be a problem at all.  But my hands must shake just a bit (and I know that my husband's hands shake) so a lot of my pictures end up blurry.  Other than that, it is just the right size and it's features are easy enough to understand but I just can't get past all the blurry pics I have to erase.

Earlier in the year, I had purchased a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.  That got really good reviews and I was all excited about getting it to take pics of the new grandbaby.  But I found that it was big, heavy, and pretty complicated for me.  Half of the time, I'd forget how to do something (like set it on self-timer) and by the time I'd run to look it up in the manual, I would have lost the shot.  So I had decided to sell the SX20 and get a smaller, less-complicated camera -- hence the A480.    Well, today I was getting ready to list my SX20 for sale up on Amazon when I decided to take another look at it.  Doggone, it takes some nice pictures.  The calendar shot at the right was taken zoomed from across the room.  That's pretty clear.    The shot of the A480 was also taken when I zoomed across the room.  I think it came out pretty good.  I remembered, too that the SX20 takes videos.  I walked over to my sewing room where Fresca the Wonder Dog was napping and roused her enough to video her barking and prancing up to the window.  When I played back the video, it was crystal clear.

OK, so I've changed my mind.  I listed the A480 for sale instead.  In the meantime, I had ordered another Canon (no, not the one pictured on the box.  That's my older Canon from several years ago which was and is a swell camera but only has 6 mega-pixels).  I've ordered another Canon Powershot SD780 IS.  This one is tiny, takes video, and has the optical image stabilization feature.  So the plan is to use the 780 when I need something small that I can slip in my purse.  I'll use the SX20 for pictures I take at home or at family gatherings or on trips when we take the car.  See, I knew there was a reason that I was dragging my heels about listing the SX20.  Apparently my subconscious knew what my mind just hadn't figured out.  It was too good of a camera to give up.  Let's hope the SD780 will be a winner as well.  It should be arriving tomorrow afternoon so I'll give you a review on it after I've played with it for a day or two.

Scrabble By Our Rules

I read an article in the paper the other day that quoted the BBC as saying that Mattel was going to be changing the rules of Scrabble for the first time in the history of the game.  Scrabble players around the country were all stirred up.  But as I read further, it said that the rule changes were apparently not going to apply to play here in the States.  I guess in Great Britain you will be allowed to spell out proper nouns. 

Growing up in my family, my brother and I learned early on that we had to be Scrabble players or we wouldn't have a lot of other options.  My mother loved to play Scrabble!  In fact, she played Scrabble up into her early 90's when we realized that she could no longer see the board.   She also developed her own set of unique rules.

Oh, we followed the usual rules such as if someone challenges you on a word's spelling and you look it up and the spelling is correct, the other person loses a turn.  Or, if you wish to look up a word in the dictionary,  you can do so but you will lose a turn.   We also followed the rules about not using proper nouns or foreign language words.  After that, however, my mom came up with her own set of rules.  For example, -

1.  If someone played a blank, you could replace it with the letter it was representing if you had that letter and then you could use the blank to represent another letter AND you didn't have to play the blank on that particular turn.  You could save it to use later.

2.  If you had more than 3 of the same letter, you could put one back into the bag and draw another tile without losing a turn.

3.  You could consult a list of 2-letter words AND "Q" words that Mom had, at any time, without incurring a penalty such as losing a turn.

3.  And finally, Mom liked to have us all play with 9 tiles instead of 7.  She said the game went faster that way.  Well, it was true.  The game does move along faster AND it opens up more possibilities for words you can spell.

My own children grew up playing Scrabble by "Grandma's Rules."  It was quite a rude awakening for them and for me when we first encountered opposition from players outside of our family who didn't want to play by her rules.  Why in the world wouldn't you? It certainly livens up the game.  Without those extra options, I've been known to doze off in the middle of a game with deadly serious competitors.  My goodness, in my family, playing games was a time for laughing, gossiping, joking, even pouting, but NOT serious thinking.  Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the meaning of "play?"

So I give you fair warning....if you ever play Scrabble with me, I'll be the one who is trying to exchange the blank tiles or trying to pull 9 tiles out of the bag.  If thwarted, I'll probably be the one snoring softly in my chair as I await my turn to play.

Who Turned Off the Heat?

What a difference a day makes.  The other day it was 92 degrees here in south-central PA.  I was loving our unusual, record-setting heatwave.  That was the other day.  Today it didn't get above the mid-50's and it is supposed to get down into the 30's tonight.  Ugh!  What happened to my glorious summery weather?

Since I knew it was supposed to be getting colder, I decided to make up a crockpot recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup.  This is MY type of recipe.  It's strictly a "dump and pour" recipe.  That's all there is to it other than enjoying a tasty bowl of it in the evening.

That's just what we did, too.  Boy, did it taste good.  Hard to believe that a recipe so simple could be so tasty.   To serve it, I like to crush some tortilla chips into my bowl, ladle some of the soup over the chips, sprinkle some chopped onions and shredded cheese on top of the soup and dig in.  Here's the recipe, in case you'd like to give it a go yourself:

Chicken Tortilla Soup
4 chicken breast halves (you can vary the amount to whatever quantity you prefer for your size family)
2 15-oz. cans black beans, undrained
2 15-oz. cans Mexican stewed tomatoes, or Rotel tomatoes
1 c. Salsa (mild, medium, or hot, whichever you prefer)
4-oz. can chopped green chilies
14 1/2-oz. can tomato sauce
Tortilla chips
2 c. grated cheese

1.  Combine all the ingredients except the chips and cheese in a large slow cooker.
2.  Cover.  Cook on Low for 8 hours.
3.  Just before serving, remove the chicken breasts and shred them with a fork.  Stir back into the soup.
4.  To serve, put a handful of chips in each individual soup bowl.  Ladle the soup over the chips.  Top with cheese.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make a mug of the new K-cup spring blend of Island Coconut coffee I just got today and go warm up.

Working with Commercial Digital Kits in Storybook Creator Plus

As much as I like Creative Memories products, their digital offerings haven't always been as appealing to me as I would like, although I must say that they are getting much better.  Therefore, when I recently  discovered that I could purchase digital scrapbooking kits from commercial designers and then load them into my Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 software, I was delighted.

Most of the time, I have not encountered any problems.  I HAVE discovered one little fly in the ointment, though, that I finally figured out how to work around.  Now let me just say right up front that I'm not a Creative Memories consultant.  I'm just a long time user of Creative Memories products.  Nor am I particularly computer savvy.  I use the computer a lot but the Commander (a techno-wiz) has spoiled me rotten. If I have a computer problem, I just have to bat my baby blues at him and he comes right to my rescue.  This can be a good thing and a bad thing; good in that I never get into computer glitches (except for the occasional hardware failure) that the Commander can't get me out of and bad in that I get lazy and don't make myself learn how to do these things for myself.

Anyway, the occasional annoyance that I've found with adding commercial digital kits to Storybook Creator is that sometimes designers group elements together into one "page", instead of making them individual elements.  For example, in the photo above, this designer put the entire alphabet set into one .png.  Now maybe there is an easy way to get each letter apart and saved individually but I haven't figured it out.  So here is the work-around solution that I came up with.

I first create a new project in Storybook Creator and make it a blank 12 x 12 page.  Then I open up the designer package that I want to work with.  Looking at the right side of the SC screen, I click on "Embellishments" and scroll down until I find the set of embellishments that I want to separate.  In this case it was an alphabet set.  I dragged that set over to my blank page.

Now at this point, you have several options, depending on the actual graphic.   For quite a few alphabet sets, sets of brads, sets of frames, etc., I was able to follow the procedure below:

1.  "Select" the whole set of elements on your blank page.

2.  Click on "Cut and Fill" on the Home Ribbon.  Then click on "Wand."

3.  Click with the Magic Wand on an individual element within the set of elements on your page (adjusting the color sensitivity and intensity sensitivity of the Magic Wand, as needed). 

4.  Once the moving dots have selected it to your satisfaction, then click on "Copy the selected Area."  You should see that particular individual element now pop up in your Elements panel on the left of your screen.

5.  Now click anywhere on your working page where you haven't already been working to "select" all of the elements again, and repeat steps #2 through 4.  Do this step each time that you've finished copying an element until you have made a copy of each element individually.

6.  Now you need to go to your Elements ribbon at the left of the screen.  Click on the right of one of the elements you just copied.  You'll see a drop-down arrow.  Click on that arrow and then choose "Save as Content."

7.   In the photo above, it shows the window that will pop up.  You want to choose what package you want to save that element in.  In my Content Manager, I've created a folder called Blog Packages and in that I've created individual User Content Packages for each commercial digital kit that I've purchased.  So when I want to save elements I've created from a set of elements from one of these kits, I "save" each one to the designer's content package that the set originally came from.  I choose "embellishment" as the "type".  Then I type in a name for the element I'm saving (it can be any name you want, such as "UpperA") and click on Save.  I don't mess around with any other settings on that window, such as size or pixels.  It automatically defaults to save it as a .png file, which is what I want.  Repeat this step for each element you've copied.

8.  Once you've finished saving all of your copied elements into your content package of choice, I go back to my Element Ribbon once more and click on the right of each element once more and this time I choose "delete."  I do this for each one until I end up with a blank page, ready for me to work with the next set of graphics that I want to separate.  It's tedious, but it works  and once you've done this, you don't have to repeat it again because these elements are now saved permanently as individual embellishments in your designer kit within Storybook Creator.

Now suppose you have a set of graphics that you just can't get the Magic Wand to select properly?  In the case of the alphabet set at the left, I just couldn't get the wand to give me a good copy of the whole element.  So I ended up following the same procedures I outlined above EXCEPT that I used the Shape feature in the "Cut and Fill" section of my Home Ribbon.

I looked through the "Geometric" shapes and found "Ellipse."  I choose this and then manipulated it until it was the same size and shape as the individual oval within the set that I wanted to save.  Then I just placed my shaded ellipse over the element and followed steps 4-8 above.  The only difference is that as I'm ready to go on to the next letter, for example, I "select" the entire page and then click on "Shapes" and the oval shape that I already worked on to get to just the right size will show up on my page and then I just have to move it over the next letter or number that I want to copy.  There is no need to resize the Ellipse each time.

You can see my newly saved individual elements are now showing up in the Embellishments Panel on the "Content" side of my screen.

There you have it.....my technique to make individual elements out of those pesky grouped graphics.  There might be an easier way out there but this one works for me and it certainly makes time fly.  Plus I can guarantee you that you will become much more comfortable working with Storybook Creator Plus as you do all of this.  Good luck!

Blame It On the GPS

As I mentioned yesterday, we attended a wedding in New Jersey this past Saturday.  Our trip down was pretty uneventful except for the fact that our GPS decided to give up the ghost just as we headed into the Philadelphia area.  Aargh!  It just kept on saying "Unable to contact satellite."  Good grief, the skies were as clear as could be and we were not in the middle of the city.  We were out in the outer beltway area, away from tall buildings and tunnels.  It continued to say that all the rest of the way, even though we turned it off and back on several times.  I'm SO glad that the Commander was driving and had also printed off directions on MapQuest.  I would have panicked.  I'm also thankful that it didn't happen last week when my daughter and I were returning from Raleigh.  As it happened, the GPS DID give us quite a time driving through Virginia.

Our day started out fine.  The weather was perfect and we got an early start.  Things looked promising.  But then we hit Virginia.  It wasn't too long after that when the traffic slowed to a crawl.  Ugh!  It took us by surprise, too, because we had stopped for lunch (with the traffic flowing freely) and when we came back out and got back on the highway, everything was at a standstill.

"Look on the 'Maps' section in your iPhone, Mom," Laura directed, "and see how far this traffic jam goes."

I dutifully pulled up the Maps app on the iPhone and all I could see were maps of Raleigh, which I told Laura.

"No, you have to hit the little symbol in the left corner," she said.  I did as directed and SLOWLY a map of the freeway we were on started to emerge.

"Now, look for the red line and tell me how far it extends," she said.

"I don't see any red line," I said.

"Well, where is the blue dot?" she asked.  "That's the symbol showing where our car is."


"I don't see any blue dot either," I said.  She sighed.

"You must have it on directions and not enabled for traffic," she countered.  Thus ensued some quickly issued commands on how to switch over to show traffic, which I tried to follow as she rattled off the steps.

"OK, do you see the blue dot now?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"OK, look and tell me how far up the red is showing for traffic congestion," she ordered.

I tried to scroll up to follow the red line of doom but the app wasn't keeping up with me.  It seemed to be taking forever to "refresh" the screen when I'd scroll or expand the screen.

"Should I take this exit and try to find a parallel route?" Laura asked.

"I don't know.  All I see on the screen is a gray grid," I replied.

"Oh, for Pete's sakes, Mom.  What's the matter?  What is so hard about following the map on the phone?" she groused.

In the meantime, I'm whipping my glasses on and off because the darn bifocals are near impossible to use when trying to focus on such a tiny little screen for such detailed observations.  I mean, YOU try figuring out exit numbers when they are blocked by a red line no matter how you maneuver the darn screen.  I finally got a good enough look at it to see that there appeared to be a parallel road with green lines on it, instead of red.  It looked promising so we took the next exit and prepared to rely on the GPS to get us back on the main road after we'd bypassed the congestion.

Well, we eventually DID get back on the main interstate but no sooner had we gotten on it then the GPS directed us to get off onto another highway.  Laura's complaining began anew.

"What in the world is it doing?  Where is it taking us?  Why isn't it leaving us on 495?....She kept firing these questions at me as if I had the answers.  How the heck should I know?

"If this puts us on Hwy. 66, I'm just going to cry," she proclaimed dramatically.  "You'd better pray that we don't hit Leesburg at rush hour."

The complaining continued as the GPS kept on twisting and turning us onto various side highways in a circuitous route around Washington, DC.

"Did you program this thing to avoid the major highways?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well, I might have several years ago when we were going down to Myrtle Beach," I replied.

"I knew it!" she said.  "That programming is still in there.  This is just disgusting."

"Well, it's not any more disgusting than listening to you complaining ever since we crossed the Virginia border, I countered.

We sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the GPS "recalculating."

"Look," I offered.  "Why don't you just pull over when you see a gas station and let me go in and buy a map.  Then you can look at it and figure out how you want to go and we'll turn off the GPS."

"That's not the point, Mom," she insisted. "There's going to come a time when there won't be any more maps and you're just going to have to figure out how to use your iPhone map to navigate."

"Navigate! I can't even see it when I'm just sitting here.  How in the world am I going to manipulate it when I'm driving?" I asked.  More silence ensued.

I rolled down the window a little.  "At least it's a beautiful day out and we're driving through some lovely areas.  Why don't we just enjoy the drive?  We'll get home eventually, right?" I suggested.

I don't know if she was feeling a little ashamed of herself or just tired of complaining but the clouds lifted and the rest of our journey was much more pleasant, despite the fact that the GPS DID try to put us on Hwy. 66 (which we ignored).  We made it back to her house and we didn't hit Leesburg during rush hour.  But next trip.....I'm taking a map!

An Empty Nest Easter

Did you all have a nice Easter weekend?  We crammed in a wedding in New Jersey on Saturday.  One of my former student workers got married so we made the long drive over to help celebrate in her happiness.  I was so happy that she found a young man who is a strong Christian.  Jane and I used to joke that I was her "Pennsylvania Mom" when she was attending college here.  So I still have a big soft spot in my heart for her.

On Easter Sunday, we headed off for church and enjoyed all the fellowship and celebration of serving a risen Lord.  After church, the Commander and I had decided to just go out to eat.  It didn't seem worth making a big Easter dinner for just the two of us.

When the chicks have left the nest, we're finding that a lot of our previous family traditions are getting set aside for newer, more streamlined versions.  Anyway, the Commander called the restaurant to see if they accepted "call-ahead seating."  He reported back to me that we should be fine.  "When the lady says, 'Hon, you've got nothing to worry about.  Come on over', I guess we won't have any problem with waiting," he chuckled.

Indeed, we didn't have any wait when we arrived.  In fact, we were the only car in the parking lot.  Wow!  Our waitress told us that she had opened up the restaurant at 10 a.m. and we were her first customers at 12:30 p.m.  I guess most folks were eating Easter dinner with their families at home.

After lunch, I headed over to the nursing home to visit with Mom.  I greeted her with the familiar Easter phrase "He is risen", expecting her to reply, "He is risen indeed."  Instead she smiled and said, "That's wonderful."

"No, Mom," I said.  "Don't you remember?  Every Easter, when the pastor says "He is risen', all the congregation is supposed to reply "He is risen indeed."

"Oh, OK," she said.

We had a nice visit and I read some more of our current book to her and then I wheeled her back to her room.  As I left, I gave her a big hug and said, "See you on Tuesday.  And remember.....He is risen."

"That's great," she said, smiling pleasantly.  Ah, well!

 Later that evening our daughter called us to chat.  She and her hubby were grilling BBQ chicken outside and getting ready to enjoy their Easter dinner.

"What, no ham?" I asked.

"Mom, you know I don't eat ham," she countered.  "What's wrong with BBQ chicken?"

"Absolutely nothing," I replied.  "It's just that most people have ham on Easter.  What's for dessert?"

There was silence.  "Nothing," she said.  "Well, maybe we'll have a cookie."

"Bummer," I thought.  "Not even any Easter bunny candy."
But that's probably why our daughter always looks so good and why I'm always trying to lose weight.  Gee, come to think of it, the Commander and I hadn't had any dessert at the restaurant, either.  Guess the Easter bunny and all those high-caloric treats is another holiday tradition that has gone along with the children. 

What is the world coming to when I feel like I have to go mug a kid to get a peanut butter egg?  Happy Easter!

Five Lessons I Learned After a Trip to a Day Spa

Today it's time for another Fave Five post.  This isn't really going to be a "Fave" five but in keeping with the theme of "5" on a Friday, I'm going to tell you about five lessons I learned after our recent trip to a day spa while we were on our vacation in Raleigh.  Perhaps it will save some of you from going down the same unfortunate path.  So hang onto your makeup brushes, ladies.....here we go!

1.  Never be totally truthful on the questionnaires they give you at the day spa.  For example, I dutifully put down that I only drink about 2-3 cups of water a day and listed the rest of my fluid intake as coffee and diet coke.  Oy!  Big mistake.  For the rest of my time at the spa, I was reminded again and again that I MUST increase my water intake.  Not only did I get the lectures, but they also kept bringing me BIG glasses of water to drink.  I fairly sloshed from the facial room over to the manicure room.

2.  Never, NEVER look in any device that purports to show you the "hidden" skin damage on your face.  This is going to scare the bejeebers out of you.  I'm serious.  It will cause you to do unwise things....things that you probably wouldn't agree to, if you hadn't caught a look at yourself looking like some big spotted toad.

 3.  Remember that facials include a step called "extractions." 
After we'd made our escape, er, left the spa, I said to my daughter, "Wow, that facial was something else.  It wasn't so bad until she started pressing on my face.  Honest to Pete, it felt like she was trying to push a baby out of my pores.  What in the world was she doing?"  "Oh, that's called 'extractions.'  She was getting all of the built-up stuff out of your pores," replied my daughter.  NOTE TO SELF:  Next time, ask for a facial WITHOUT extractions.  I can live with build-up.

4.  NEVER, EVER agree to an "acid peel", especially if you have a special event to attend in the same week.  I had never had an acid peel.  The sound of it didn't sound very enticing, to be truthful.  But there was that darn glimpse I'd had of hidden sun damage so I let them talk me into an "anti-aging acid peel."  They assured me that there would be just minimal discomfort and that my face would peel a little in a few days.  Ouch!  It burned.  "Don't worry," the operator laughed, "it's all good for you."  Uh-huh!  She was just a little too cheerful.  I kept waiting for her to wash off the 3-4 layers of acid that she had brushed on my face but it didn't happen.  Jeepers, what was this?

Before we left, I asked at the front desk about the peeling.  "Are we talking strips of skin hanging down from my face?" I asked.   "Oh, no,"  they assured me.  "It will be just like the little peeling you get when you've had a sunburn.

That night, back in the hotel, I looked in the mirror and almost fainted.  I saw wrinkles all over my face.  I hadn't seen that many wrinkles since college when our drama class had been taught to soak tissue papers in spirit gum, wrinkle them up, stick them on our faces, and then cover it all up with pancake makeup to simulate "aged" skin.   What the heck?  I finally figured out that it was like putting egg whites on your skin and letting it dry on there.  After it dries, when you move your facial muscles, all sorts of wrinkles appear.

Ugh!  Now here it is, 3 days later, I'm peeling, parts of my face still feel stiff, and I have a wedding to go to tomorrow.  These people haven't seen me in several years and I'm going to show up looking like a wrinkled prune.  Oy!

5.  Don't let the spa technicians talk you into buying lots of products.  In my defense, the spa operator who did my acid peel kept going on and on about how I shouldn't use any product containing acid on my face for 5-7 days after my procedure and so I was scared to death that if I did, my face would dissolve.  I'm pretty sure that most of my facial products are anti-aging and contain retinol or some form of acid.  So I let her talk me into buying the stuff that she kept pushing into a pile in front of me.  When the bill was tallied up, I was too embarrassed to say, "Let's remove some of these things, shall we?"  Consequently, I could have bought a good camera for what I ended up spending.  Ugh!  I blame it all on that darn machine that showed me my sun-damaged skin.  And I'm not even someone who did much sunbathing, ever!  I'd hate to see what someone looks like who was a sun-worshipper. 

There you have it....my five lessons learned.  If I ever visit a day spa again, I think I'm just going to stick to getting a manicure.  If you'd like to see what others are writing about for their Friday Fave Fives, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.  Have a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating Christ's resurrection.