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.

Smooth as a Baby's Behind

Today was our day to go to a spa for a facial.  Laura was also going to get a massage and I was going to get a French manicure.  I told Laura that I didn't want any special service that was going to hurt.  I'm a baby when it comes to pain.  However, the technician talked me into getting an anti-aging treatment which included some microdermabrasion, an eyebrow tint, and an acid peel.  Hmm, the latter sounded rather scary but she assured me that it wouldn't hurt.  It would just be a little tingly.  What also helped convince me was when she had me get under a hood where she turned on a special light that shows the hidden sun and age damage to your skin.  Ugh!  That was scary and I don't even sunbathe.  My skin was definitely dry, she said.

The facial wasn't bad but the acid peel was something.  She kept asking me if my face felt like it was burning.  Uh, yup.  "Don't worry," she said, cheerily.  "It's perfectly safe."  When she handed me a nozzle with oxygen coming out of it, that helped a little.  I waved that all over my face and it helped keep the burning manageable.  I kept waiting for her to peel off the mask (at least, I thought it was going to dry and then be able to be peeled off like a mask) but soon she asked me if the burning was starting to lessen.

"A little," I replied.
"Good," she said.  "You're all done here.  You can get dressed and then we'll get you started on your manicure." 

I'd never had a French manicure before which was something that my manicurist just couldn't believe.  It's true, though.  She explained that she would be giving me an "American" French manicure which meant that the white that she was going to use was actually an off-white, rather than a bright white.  She said it looks better on hands and that she reserves the bright white for pedicures.  I also got a nice sugar scrub on my hands and arms and now they are soft as a baby's behind, as my mom used to say.  I'm quite pleased with the final results of the manicure.  I think they look quite classic.

By the time we left the spa, we were starved.  We headed over to the Cheesecake Factory and had a wonderful meal.  We started out with Tex-Mex egg rolls and then Laura enjoyed Chicken Piccata and I had Fettucine Carbonara.  Oh, yummy!  We ordered the lunch-size portions but my goodness, the portions were huge.  We couldn't finish them at all, especially since we wanted to save room for some dessert.  And the desserts?  Well, Laura had Snickers cheesecake and I had their Red Velvet Cheesecake.  Again, we just couldn't finish our portions.  Our accommodating waiter packaged up all of our leftovers.

Here's the haul that we brought home.  It looks like we either didn't eat anything at all or that we ordered enough for 10 people.  Neither is true, let me assure you.  We didn't leave there hungry, though and it looks like Laura won't have to cook for several days after she gets back home.  Speaking of home, we head back tomorrow.  Hard to believe that it's already time to go.  We've certainly enjoyed our vacation here in Raleigh. 

When we left the spa, the last thing the technician said to us was that we could expect our face to peel in a few days.  "Laura," I said when we got in the car.  "How much peeling are we talking about?  Are we talking about shreds of skin hanging down or what?"  She assured me that it was more like the dry, flaky skin you get when your skin is extra dry.  I hope that's the extent of it.  It might be a little embarrassing to walk into church on Easter Sunday looking like something that just came out of a meat grinder.

Buns, Birds, Barrels, and Barbies

We set out early yesterday to go "find us some culture."  That meant a visit to two of the lovely state museums in Raleigh for a start.  Our first stop was at the North Carolina Museum of History.  I was delighted to see that they had a special exhibit on the history of Barbie.  Being a Baby Boomer, of course I grew up with Barbie and Ken.  In fact, I owned Barbies just like the one in the striped swimsuit in the background, and had the pink peignoir outfit and the gold brocade outfits for her just like the two in the foreground.  It was a real hoot to walk around with my daughter and hear her say, "I had one like that" even as I was saying, "I had one like that" as I pointed to a display from an earlier era.

The museum was also featuring a special display of guns made by Carbine Williams and a recreation of his gun workshop.  Since Laura's husband is a big gun enthusiast, I had to make sure I took lots of pictures of the guns that were all around.  I have to admit that Carbine's workshop was pretty impressive.  I can see how it would be a gun hobbyist's "dream come true" to be let loose in a shop like that.  He must have had every "toy" imaginable in that workshop.

Laura was very knowledgeable as we walked around the other exhibit entitled "A Call to Arms."  It featured guns from all the different periods of history in our country.  She was able to tell me about the different types of pistols and rifles and why some were designed certain ways.  I had no idea that her husband's passion had rubbed off on her to such an extent.  I'm rather glad that the Commander's hobby is computing and genealogy, not guns.  I'd much rather compute and do historical research instead of shoot and clean guns.  I have a feeling that it might be a tad cheaper, too.

After we finished up at the Museum of History, we walked across the street to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science.  I was prepared to be all freaked out by exhibits of gross bugs but it wasn't too bad.  The biggest freak-out were the large crowds of teenage school kids.  We both agreed that we preferred nice, quiet groups, not kids dashing all around.  At one point, Laura turned to me and said, "But Mom, I'm planning on you to take any kids I might have on field trips."

"Oh, no," I told her.  "I'm reserving that pleasure all for you."
"Well, then you're going to have quite a wait because I'd don't care for kids, either," she said.
"Hey, " I protested....."It's not that I don't like kids.  It's just that I already served my sentences on field trips and I just don't care for kids in large groups."

We tried to figure out where the kids were all heading and then we made a point of heading in the opposite direction.  That was our strategy for seeing the science museum.  We weren't too successful because it seemed that there were wave upon wave of school kids being deposited at the front door of the museum.  Oh, well.  The first exhibit that greeted us were a group of displays of birds.  It was quite fascinating and I had a lot of fun trying to get good pictures of them "up close and personal."  Then we wandered through mock-ups of the Piedmont area and various rock formations.

There was a fun exhibit on the prehistoric era in North Carolina.  This ferocious-looking beast was actually a giant sloth.  I think they were supposed to be rather peaceful animals but since none of the scientists that study them were actually alive in that era, who knows?  They also had an impressive T. Rex skeleton and a recreated brontosaurus.  Cool!  I didn't have to worry too much about yucky bugs because whenever we got around bug exhibits, we couldn't get close enough to the viewing windows to actually see them because of all the kids clustered around the windows, although I did get a look (unfortunately) at one rather impressive hissing cockroach.

We left the museums and drove over to the town of Wake Forest to do a little shopping in some quaint little shops and then we found a nice tea room on the main street of town called the Olde English Tea Room.  We had a lovely tea there.  Laura's tea of choice was the "Holiday" tea which had cinnamon and cloves in it and my tea of choice was Sweet Mint tea.  It tasted just like the tea that I used to drink in Morocco.  Yummy.  We both had half of a pecan chicken salad sandwich on a croissant bun and a small bowl of chicken rice soup.  It also came with  spiced apples.  After our main entree, Laura ordered a dessert scone which was the size of an acorn squash, I swear, and I ordered the triple chocolate cake (thinking that it would give me my frosting fix for the day).  Unfortunately, it wasn't really frosted (heresy) so I was a good girl and only ate a bit of it.

Today we are heading out for spa treatments and a little more shopping to end our time in Raleigh.  The weather looks like it will cooperate so it should be a fun day.

A Smashing Good Time

Today was Palm Sunday so we got up bright and early and went downstairs for breakfast, hoping to beat the morning crowd in the hotel.  We shouldn't have worried.  There were only two other people down there.  After breakfast, we headed over to the Trinity Baptist Church, a church that Laura had found on the internet while doing some research on the area before we came down here.  She had discovered that they were going to be having their Easter cantata today so she thought it would be nice to see it.

We were pretty amazed when we pulled into the parking lot.  The whole church complex filled up a large area.  There were a lot of buildings and parking lots on both sides of the street.  Laura had thought she was picking a smaller church instead of a mega-church.  I guess by southern standards, this isn't a mega-church.  But goodness, it's huge when you compare it to Baptist churches in our area.  When we got inside, most of the sanctuary was filled but we found a spot and settled down.  Then the choir filed in and they just kept marching in and marching in.  They had a huge choir.  The organist and pianist could have been professional musicians (and indeed, perhaps they were).  They were outstanding.  The cantata was lovely.  With that many voices, the music was magnificent.

After church, we went out to the car and backed out of our parking spot and were waiting at one of the cross aisles to pull out (there were a lot of cars leaving the lot) when I felt a jolt and the car lurched forward a bit.  "Oh, oh," I thought.  I looked to my right and there was a small sedan partially backed out of their parking spot and sitting on my daughter's bumper.  They had backed up right into her car.  We got out and the other couple got out.  They were an elderly couple and seemed a little confused.

The husband, who had been driving, said, "I thought you had already pulled out."

"No," said Laura. "I was waiting for cars to pass so that I could safely pull out.  I'm going to need your insurance information."

The wife looked at us and said, "We don't have that right now.  We'll have to take your name and number and call you with it."
I told them that we'd need their information now because we weren't from around here, but were just visiting.  "You must have your insurance information, don't you?" I asked.

"Oh, no," she replied.  "We don't carry that sort of thing."

I just looked at her.  "Surely you must have that information with your car registration.  Most people do."  She started rifling through her billfold.  I gently suggested that perhaps she might want to look in her glove compartment.

She finally looked in there and didn't find any car insurance papers but DID find her car registration and thank goodness that it had their insurance information on the form.  So we were able to copy that down.    As we got back in the car, Laura told me, "I'm pulling out NOW.  I don't trust him not to back up immediately and hit me again."  So it was an eventful church visit.

After a nice lunch, we went to the local flea market which is held in the State Fairgrounds.  It was one of those that feel more "flea" than "Market" to me so I didn't really find any treasures that I couldn't live without.  Then we did a little shopping in some local malls, stopped for Starbucks on the way back to the hotel and did a little driving around to see what else was in our immediate vicinity ---- (furniture stores).  Now we're back here chilling until it is time to head out for supper.  Tomorrow we're planning to visit two museums in town.  Until then, hope you had a good Palm Sunday. (photo of cross courtesy of Photos8.com)

Off On a Mother-Daughter Adventure

I headed off bright and early today for my daughter's home where I switched my bags over to her car and off we went.  She had some vacation days that she had to use up or lose and her hubby couldn't get time off from work so she asked if I wanted to go off on a mini-vacation with her.  Of course!  It was a beautiful day today and we were definitely headed in the right direction....towards the south.  You see, yesterday a cold front arrived in Pennsylvania and it had gotten down to the 20's last night so I was more than ready to head to warmer climes.

We hit a lot of traffic around the Washington, D.C. area and all the way until Richmond, VA.  It hadn't really dawned on us that it was Spring Break time but most of that traffic was probably college kids heading toward Myrtle Beach and Florida.  Lucky for us, we were heading to Raleigh, a college town that folks were probably leaving.

We finally made it here and got settled into our hotel.  We have a nice little living room/kitchen area and a separate bedroom.  Of course, the first thing we had to do was set up our computers and check our emails.  I love a hotel that has free internet access.  I can't believe that there are still hotels (and some pretty pricey ones, at that) that still charge extra for internet access.  For shame!  Anyway, we checked our mail and let our hubbies know we arrived safely before heading over to the mall that is right across the street to get supper.  Boy, was that mall crowded.  Each restaurant that we went to had around a 2 hour wait.  Forget that!  We finally got back in the car and drove around the mall area and found a Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of the mall with no waiting whatsoever.  The food was quite good, too.

On the way back, we stopped at a Barnes and Noble so I could pick up a book light for my Kindle.  That way, if I wake up early while we are here, I can read in bed without waking my daughter up.  Of course, I COULD go out into the living room to read but then I wouldn't be snuggled under the covers, right?  Luckily, this light came with batteries included.  It took me a moment to realize that the reason the light wasn't working was that the batteries were still encased in plastic wrap and needed to be unwrapped and reinstalled.  Duh!  But we're good to go now.

So all that is left is to get ready for bed and crawl under the covers with a good book.  Tomorrow we figure we'll have to get up early to get any breakfast since the hotel is filled to the brim with people.  Then it's off to a local church to enjoy their Easter service and after that, we are going to visit a flea market in the area.  It should be a fun day.  And the weather down here?  In the 70's!  How nice is that?  We actually have the air conditioning running right now.  I could grow to like this!

Moving and Shrinking - All Part of the Week's Highlights

It's Friday already.  My, how time does fly.  Once again it is time for the Friday Fave 5 highlights of my week.  This week I'm coming to you from (I thought for a moment there that I should say "mid-town Manhattan" but no, it's still just my little neck of the woods here in Pennsylvania) a different blog host.  You might have noticed that my blog is not on WordPress today.  I have moved.....but more about that in a moment.  Let's get right to my Fave Five, shall we?

1.  I discovered a neat little book at our local bookstore this week.  It's entitled "Eco Books" by Terry Taylor.  I've always been fascinated by the construction of books.  I guess that comes from working some in the book processing department of several libraries.  In the past several years, artists have found a new platform in the design of "art books", creating books as an art form.  We had an ongoing display of some incredible examples at the college library I worked at before retiring.  There has also been a growing group of hobby enthusiasts who are making small books or journals.

This book shows you how to make little books using things that you would normally throw away, such as cereal boxes, old maps, audiocassettes, baggage claim tickets, even egg cartons.  I find it really appealing to make something fun, quirky, and useful out of things that can be recycled.  The instructions are very clear and nicely illustrated.  I think I'll be able to do it and if so, my family just might find some unusual little books in their Christmas stockings this year.


2.  I had the joy of reading a "thank-you" email to my mother from one of her former 3rd-grade students.  It was so nice to see her face light up as I read it to her.  It really showed me just how easily such a simple thing as an appreciative note can make someone's day.

3.  I finished another square for my "Great American Aran Afghan."  This one is the square designed by Kathleen T. Carty.  It was quite interesting to knit up.  You actually knit the outer cabled edge first.  Then you graft that together and then pick up stitches around the inner edges to start knitting the middle of the square.  How in the world these designers ever come up with some of these construction ideas is beyond me.  Guess that's why they are the designers and I'm just a knitter.

4.  I had to go buy some new clothes because I'm down 3 sizes and all of my pants were becoming way too big.  I know these both look big but hey, it's all relative.  The ones on the right were what I WAS wearing and the pants on the left are one of the new pairs of pants I bought.  And what is even neater is that those pants were purchased in the "regular" side of a store, not the women's sizes part of the store.  That hasn't been the case for me in years.  Whee!

5.  I moved my blog back to Blogger from WordPress.  WordPress had a lot of nice features but I was finding myself frustrated because I really wanted to use some of the neat templates that I'd seen available around the Web.  However, most of them were compatible with Blogger blogs, not WordPress.com blogs.  I didn't have the expertise to write my own code so I just decided to migrate back to Blogger and that's why I'm back here.  I still have my old posts from 2009 and early 2010 over at my WordPress blog so if you are looking for posts or links that I had on the other site, you can still access them at the old site.

If you'd like to read other Friday's Fave Five posts or join in the fun by posting some of your own, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.  Lord willing, I'll be blogging the next few days from Raleigh, NC.  My daughter and I are going off on a mother-daughter mini-vacation.  Have a great weekend!

I Can See a Work Surface

How about that?  I've made some progress on cleaning up and reorganizing my craft room.  I've tackled and tamed the work table so that now I can actually see a work surface.  A nice clean expanse of table always makes me want to sit down and do some scrapbooking or other crafting.

This is what the work table looks like standing back from it.  I got rid of some extra stuff that was cluttering up the shelves at the back and repositioned some of the boxes that hold my different matting papers for scrapbooking. Then, of course, I labeled all of the boxes so that I can see at a glance what each box contains.  I moved the phone off of the makeshift stand (which was a leftover organ bench half-jutting out from under my table) and put it on top of one of the blue mini-drawer units to the side of my table.  I have an extra-long cord on the phone so I can move it down onto the table surface if I need to or bring it over to the computer desk, if I want to talk and compute at the same time.

I also tackled the closet in the craft room.  I decided not to use pegboard.  The Commander doesn't like to nail any more things into the wall than he has to so, for now, I'll see if we can make do without it.  Instead of putting my bobbins on pegboard, I found some wicker baskets and have separated the bobbins according to which spinning wheel they go with and put them in the baskets.  I put those baskets on some of the open shelving on the other side of the room.  I'll show you that side as I get it better organized.  I also cleaned out the top of the closet a bit and relabeled the containers on the top so I know what is where.  I cleaned off the top of the white shelving units.  I found a cute Easter bucket and am using that to store my larger straight needles, with my interchangeable needle sets stored behind the bucket.  My circulars are hanging to the right, out of the picture.  I sorted through the drawers and put like things together and then labeled all the drawers.

Finally, I took a bit of a break this morning to work on the Kathleen T. Carty square in the Great American Aran Afghan book.  It's always a mystery to me how some of these squares are going to actually come together.  When I got to our afghan class last evening, we were tackling picking up the stitches around the inside of the outer edge in preparation for knitting the center of the square.

First, I hadn't knit with DPNs in a long time.  I've been using circular needles and the Magic Loop method for quite a while now and have really gotten spoiled.  I felt like I was all thumbs.  Then, after we picked up all those stitches, the next thing the designer has us do is bind them all off.  Say what?  I asked our instructor twice, just to make sure I was hearing her correctly AND understanding what the pattern seemed to be telling us to do.  It just didn't seem to make any sense.  However, I'm finding that if you just take it on faith and follow the patterns in this book step by step, somehow they mostly DO come together and look like the pictures.  For those occasions when I just can't seem to figure out what in the world the designers are trying to tell me, that's when I'm extremely glad that I'm taking a class with other knitters and tackling this afghan in a group.  It's nice to have an instructor that can give us little "heads-up" tips for those "landmines" that seem to abound in some of these squares.

And I am so loving the fact that we are basically knitting up one square a month.  I'm not feeling rushed and I can really take my time as I continue to master some skills that I normally would not have had the confidence to try on my own.  Plus, I really like meeting with the same group of ladies each month.  They are like a support group and a cheering squad all rolled into one.  Even though I've knitted for over 50 years, I've never been a very adventurous knitter so I've tended to stick with types of knitting that I knew I could easily do.  This afghan has really forced me to stretch outside of my comfort zone.  That's been a good thing.  And I'm so delighted to report that I'm feeling VERY comfortable with knitting cables now.  In fact, I'm enjoying knitting them.  Who would have 'thunk' it, as my mom would say?

Whipping That Craft Room Into Shape

 It's Springtime and this is the time of year when I get the urge to a.  Move to another part of the country and b. Reorganize my craft and sewing spaces.  Well, since we probably won't be moving anywhere at this point in time, I decided to concentrate on the second urge.  Now that I have three spinning wheels, my little craft room is getting a tad crowded.  Plus I have a tendency to not keep things totally squared away every day.  I'm not a slob, mind you, but over time..little transgressions can mount up into a disorganized mess.  It's rather like our lives, isn't it?  At any rate, I've decided to whip my craft room back into shape.

The first place I am concentrating on is my worktable.  I actually cleared out quite a bit of junk yesterday and did some much-needed dusting.  Today I'm picking up where I left off and working on organizing the smaller bits of scrapbooking papers and embellishments and getting them into storage boxes and labeled so that I can easily find what I need when I'm doing traditional scrapbooking or card-making.  You'll notice that the duster hasn't moved far away.  I have no doubt that its services will still be needed.  And I found one of the candy bars from Mika's shower so I have that handy in case I need a little sustenance.

My closet in the craft room is a total disaster.  It looks bad but actually, I don't think it is going to take a lot to get it whipped into shape.  I'm thinking that I might want to put some pegboard along the back of the closet to hang some of my spinning tools, including the bobbins which are cluttering up some of my open shelving in the main room.  I crammed some of my fiber stash in the bookcase when I was making room in the guestroom closets for our son and his family when they visited.  However, now that they have left, I really could reorganize, especially since I can now reclaim the guestroom.  I suspect I could find a better place for my exercise hoop.  It's obviously not doing a heck of a lot of good sitting in my closet.  Oh, I have some ideas for this space and I think it will look much better once I implement those ideas.

Lest you think "poor thing....stuck inside on a nice spring day having to organize"...well, don't feel too bad for me.  I am one of those strange people who actually enjoy organizing.  In fact, I can really lose myself in such an exercise.  I think that's why I always enjoyed secretarial work and working in a library.  I always LOVED filing and organizing.

Speaking of filing and organizing, here I have a great system all set up for filing photographs and over the winter months, I've pulled out photos at various times and then just stuck them on top of my organizing boxes, being too lazy to open up the boxes and refile them.  Bad Dee!  So that's another spot that I intend to tackle and whip into shape.  I even have old photographs from the 1800's in those piles and cartes d'visites and here I've just piled them on top of each other.  I really do know better.

So today I'm going to put on some music, open the windows and get busy.  I'll try to document my progress on the blog.  Maybe it will help get some of you inspired to do some "spring organizing."  Mainly though, it will help keep me accountable.  I've also done some Web surfing to get some inspiration for better ways I can do my craft organizing.  I've found some neat websites that I thought I'd share with you.

Carol Younge Has a great list of links to folks who have posted pictures of their organized sewing and quilting rooms. 

Over at Prairie Home Quilts, they've also come up with another list of folks who have posted pictures of their sewing spaces.

Sewing.org features a different sewing & craft room each month.

You can also find neat ideas by going to your favorite blog host such as Blogger or Wordpress  and search for "organizing craft rooms".  Ravelry , which is a free site for knitters, crocheters, and spinners  has entire groups dedicated to those who are organizing their rooms, along with great pictures.  Check out the groups "Organized Knitting Club" and "My Craft Room."

Until tomorrow, I'm off to do some organizing.