What I'm likely to post on

These are the things that I'm interested in right now that may get mentioned on this blog. 

FLYLADY – I’ve been trying to get a handle on my house for years.  In 1999 FLYLADY, Marla Crilley, finally got her act together.  She figured out how to get her house in order and came out on the other side as a guru on housekeeping.  I discovered her within a year or two of that. She’s a down-to-earth woman who makes a lot of sense.  Before her, I found the “Side-Tracked Sisters” who also had a plan for getting the house under control.  FLYLADY based a lot of her advice on the Sisters’ work.  Basically, the premise is you can’t organize clutter, you can do anything for 15 minutes, and routines can save your sanity and your house. My house is not, and never will be, magazine picture perfect. But I've made enough progress in the last few months that I would even let my TOPS chapter members into my house.

TOPS  - Take Off Pounds Sensibly.  This is an international weight-loss support organization that’s been around since 1948 (a year before I was born.)  Shortly after I retired in June 2011, my chapter elected me as their leader.  I wish I could say I practice what I preach but I’m not that good.  At least I am showing yearly losses and not gaining more every year.   This year I want to get below 150 pounds.  I have 47 pounds to go.  I know what most of my problem is.  It’s a combination of eating too much of the “wrong” things and not exercising enough. DUH!  That’s 95% of anyone’s weight loss issue so I’m no different than anyone else.

Photography – I've got a very nice Nikon D3100 that I use on the auto setting. I would like to use the camera better.  I don’t have children at home so I don’t have that kind of photo-fodder around.  I can’t seem to find (or, really, make) the time to learn how to use the camera better. I have a macro attachment that I can’t get to work and I’d like to have someone show me how so I could do close-up of flowers (when there are any blooming which isn't now.)

Crafty things – I scrapbook. [Since when has scrapbook become a verb?] I also make greeting cards.  This year I gave/sent out over 60 hand-made Christmas cards.  Just this month I made my first digital greeting cards. They were Valentine cards for my TOPS chapter members.  I think I’ll continue to make the digital cards for them (we are only eight members strong) and do the paper-and-glue cards for Christmas and Anniversaries.  I have trouble coming up with designs so I usually follow instructions from Paper Wishes.  I need to get a little more confident in using different papers, papers, stickers, die-cuts, and other supplies though. It gets expensive when I buy all the supplies they (the Paper Wishes design teams) use. 

I have a scrapbook that is 80% finished. It’s about our London trip at the end of 2012. I've been 80% finished with it for two weeks but got side-tracked with two things – making Valentine’s Day cards for my TOPS members, and Valentine and Anniversary cards from the animals for my husband and a glue-and-paper card from me. The second thing that’s distracted me is a yearlong workshop I’m doing on Art Journaling.  I’m making weekly digital Art Journal pages.  We get new assignments every Friday and I’m caught up to just before yesterday’s assignment. Once I get the idea of what I’m going to do, it only takes a short while, two hours or less, to get it put together.  And, nagging at the back of my mind, I’m also trying to work on Project Life.  I haven’t finished January yet, though I do have the pictures.  And I've taken a few pictures for February but I haven’t started the page layout.

As well as the paper crafts I want to get back into sewing.  That requires two things, one a relatively short time duration and the other a longer commitment. The short duration is to take my mother’s Bernina Artista 200 down to Albuquerque to be serviced. The long duration is to get down into a size 14 (as it was in 1980) dress.  I enjoyed making my own clothes but once I was into an 18 I quit because nothing really looked good any more.  I reached size 18+ by 1989.  Then the manufacturers resized clothing but by then I was still very much a PLUS. (I really shot up once I quit smoking in 1992/3.)

Pets – I love cats, always have and probably always will. Right now we have two, a black male (Shitani) and a black and white female ((p)Syche.)  They don’t get along very well.  I like to take pictures of them. They’d just a soon I keep that big black box out of their faces.  And don’t use flash. I’m a cat person but we also have a dog – Peaches.  She’s crazy and doesn't want her picture taken either.  In fact, she’ll leave the room if I bring out the camera.  I apparently used the flash too often.

Family  - My children both live in California and we don’t see them all that often.  But when I do, I take pictures and write about them. Or build a scrapbook page and journal on it and then put it on my blog.

Travel – We have, for the last several years at least, gone on a cruise every year.  We've been going on an annual cruise sponsored by an Albuquerque radio station in conjunction with a large travel agency there.  Our favorite disc jockey goes with us.  We've done a good portion of the Caribbean and I’m getting my fill of San Juan and St. Maarten.  This year we’re also going to St. Kitts.  The big thing this year is that we’ll be sailing on Celebrity’s newest ship, the Reflection. (We've been sailing Royal Caribbean.)  All we know about next year’s cruise is that it won’t be the Caribbean. The travel agency owner is pushing for the Mediterranean but there will be a poll during this cruise asking where we’d like to go. The last poll showed Alaska as the favorite with Hawaii a close second.  We wouldn't mind either although in 2011 we didn't cruise with them; we went on a thirty year anniversary cruise to Alaska with an additional 4 days on land.  That got made into a bound book.  Last year, 2012, we sailed on the Oasis of the Seas – I still haven’t finished that scrapbook either.

We also now travel with my father to Colorado in the summer when he goes for Northern New Mexico Senior Golf Association tournaments in Durango and Pagosa Springs.  He has a timeshare in Pagosa Springs that we'll stay in for the week as our base and see the sights of southern Colorado while he golfs for three days.

So that's a taste of what you'll find on this blog.  There's no particular schedule although I'd like to post weekly. If you like what you read, please leave a comment. If you don't, just quietly leave and I'll never know you were here and you'll know not to waste your time here.