Under a Blue Moon

I’ve misplaced my blogging mojo…

I can’t seem to start a post to save my life today. I was going to do a little vignette on my mantel’s Easter pastels but I can’t get the lighting to cooperate AT ALL. So I said phooey on that (well, that’s not exactly what I said but you get the gist, I want to keep my PG rating) and decided to do a post on eating and take my pictures outside where it is gloriously sunny.

Of course just then the camera’s batteries died and I had to go around the house and check all the remotes until I found one that had AAs I could pilfer. By the time I got that all sorted out I couldn’t remember exactly what I wanted to say about eating. Except that I’m not doing much of it and the weight is just not wanting to come off. I think my fat has abandonment issues.

So let’s go back to the photo problem. I’m always going to have issues with light. I think I need a fancier camera but I also thing the quality of my pictures would be much enhanced by using a photo editor like Photoshop where I could tweak things a bit.

So I’m looking for advice – I downloaded a trial copy of the full blown Photoshop and omibob – I cannot figure it out. And I write training for software applications for a living! I should be able to do this. I realize that it is probably way more application that I actually need. I see there is another (cheaper) Photoshop program called Photoshop Elements that seems to be a toned down version. Does anyone have this or have any advice for me?

By the way ~ it’s a little early for strawberries. They look pretty but they are still too tart.

There’s still time to post a comment for the Blue Moon Giveaway! Just leave a comment and your name will be entered for the drawing on Friday.

Scattered musings

Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled program, shall we? I’m not quite caught up but I’m getting there.

I’m trying this little thing where I stay focused on one task and don’t allow myself to be distracted. My problem is I feel like I have so many pressing things to get done and I feel they all need to be checked off my list NOW. So I start one thing, get distracted start on another, check my email, look at a link, make myself a cup of tea, decide to dust the tops of the door jambs while I’m in the kitchen – and I feel like I’m not really accomplishing anything. And I feel like I’m spending umpteen hours working when in reality – if you took a stop watch to me, I’m probably just putting in a normal eight hour day only I prolong it with little bitty distractions.

You’ve probably seen the commercial for a sleep aid that shows some poor woman, laying in bed at night, unable to sleep because her mind is churning with all the things she needs to get done (like that isn’t 98% of us…). Well I’m like that during the day. So onto my little plan. I actually set a timer for 30 minutes to accomplish a chore (okay tax gathering activities) where I had to give it my undivided attention. And it worked! In 20 minutes!

I seriously sound scattered. It’s amazing I manage to get dressed in the morning. Oh wait. That doesn’t always happen.

Let’s move on to the picture portion of today’s post. I actually spent some quality time out in the garden on Sunday. My Sundays are normally spent doing laundry and gathering up things to take down to my Dad’s But this Sunday I stayed home. Rick is out of town this week and someone needs to feed the goats.

So I stayed and got the weeding finished. Admittedly I had Rick take the weed whacker to the last bed but they be gone and that’s all that matters. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the pretty pink flowers Belle is lazing about in are actually weeds but hey, the color works.

The azaleas are all going nuts. I know I complain that’s all I can grow here are azaleas but man are they ever pretty right now. Glowy, gorgeous pinks. This picture is actually a rescue. Rick was at a client’s house and admired their beautifully landscaped yard and the owner said – "oh I’m tearing it all out and doing something low maintenance." What is lower maintenance than azaleas, pray tell? Anyway he told Rick when he was ready he would call him and Rick could come dig up whatever he wanted. About a year later the guy actually called and we went there and dug up 50 year old azaleas and transplanted them into our yard.

I love it when the yard is all tidy. And for some reason I don’t get all distracted when I’m out there. I stay on task.

I must say this alone business is weird. I’m really all a l o n e and usually I’m NEVER alone. I can’t remember the last time I was alone. Someone is always around – either here or down at my Dad’s. Very unsettling. And something skittery and leggy feeling just fell off the ceiling and landed on my face and I had to rip my sweatshirt off and leap about in a most undignified manner. I suppose there’s a bit of a silver lining. If you are going to be totally undignified it’s probably best not to have an audience.

Look! The first rose of the season.

Oh! And if you haven’t already – go to the last post and leave a comment ~ Friday will be here before we know it!

200th Post ~ Blue Moon giveaway

I’m really liking all the blog love I’m seeing lately. Where bloggers give away a little token of themselves to say thank you for all the kind words and support.

So in honor of my 200th post (sheesh ~ do I go on and on, or what?) I have compiled a little selection of things that I think represents me and what I love. The rules are simple just leave me a comment and on Friday, March 30th I’ll have Belle draw a name from a hat. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world, go ahead and leave a comment and if your name is drawn I’ll see to it you get a pretty little package that will include a ruffled pressed glass dish, a vintage hankie and a pretty, beglittered gift tag.

I’ll be throwing in a few other little items as a surprise.

And ~ it goes without saying ~ I appreciate all of you and all the goodwill and camaraderie you have shared.

Thank you.

Real life

Cardimg

(catalog card generator)

I am miserably behind at work (and truth be told the housekeeping is slipping too…).

I’m behind on my personal email too, so if you have left a comment or emailed me and I haven’t responded be patient with me my dears. I also need to update my links – there are so many wonderful blogs I visit regularly (hmmm – wonder why I’m behind on things…) that I’ve just bookmarked. I’ll be doing a little blog housekeeping as well.

I’m planning on blitzing through my to do list today so I can relax and enjoy my weekend.

Catalog card generator idea shamlessly swiped from The Winemaker’s Wife.

Walking down memory lane

Sorry for the blurry picture but I took it with my cell phone.

I’ve taken to walking every day for an hour. You know, after the whole weight debacle. I’m fairly certain my loved ones are thoroughly tired of hearing me go on and on and on about it.

Andrea: Can you EVEN imagine….

Everyone else: Yeah yeah. Get over it already. Fatty.

So I’ve been eating excrutiatingly spartan like and have been walking a brisk pace every day. When I’m down in the bay area the walk I’ve been taking takes me right through my childhood. I leave the house I grew up and head down the street. I pass by the highschool I attended although it’s used as an auxillary campus for a Jr. College now and no longer a highschool.

I head on through the park where the picture above was snapped. On the right is the park and on the left is the Jr. High School I went to. It’s weird but as soon as I step on the path it smells exactly like it did when I was in Jr. High. The mown grass and the cedar trees. The grassy area on the left is where Linda F., Mary H. and I sat every day and ate lunch and where I laughed so hard I snorted Welch’s grape juice out of my nose. I’m here to tell you there isn’t much on earth that stings as much as Welch’s in your nasal passages.

The sounds coming from the school sound exactly the same, with coaches blowing whistles, the band practicing and students shouting back and forth. The only sound that’s missing is that folorn noise that the tether ball chain used to make clanging against the pole. I think that is a sound that anyone that grew up during the 60’s and 70’s could identify with their eyes closed.

On the right is the park that for a short while in my youth my Mother would tell me to hop into the Malibu station wagon so we could go round up one of my sisters who was hanging out with a less than desirable crowd. I think everyone in that group turned out to be respectable adults but it’s hard to call when you just have a bunch of loitering 14 year olds, smoking and practicing their swear words, to go by.

I head out of the park and onto the neighborhood just beyond where I pass by houses of forgotten schoolmates. Some of the houses have been remodelled to within an inch of their lives and others look exactly the same. Like time has stood still for them.

I wonder if the parents of my old friends still live in them, like my father does, or have they moved on too. I know that Linda F.’s parents are still in their old house. I still see Mr. F. out tinkering in his garage just like he did 35 years ago. He had a workbench with a pegboard above it and that pegboard had the outline of each one of his tools. If we took one down and didn’t put it back exactly where it belonged we were in for it.

Mr. F took Linda and me to McDonald’s when I was 12 years old because I had never been and he thought it was time I had the culinary experience of the golden arches. I had a cheeseburger, french fries and a chocolate milkshake.

Hmmm. Maybe he started me out on this lifelong path to plumpness. Oh I see all of you rolling your eyes and mouthing "here we go again…"

Buttons

Last week when I went to JoAnns to buy my ill-fated crocheting supplies I stopped by the button aisle and picked up a few to add to my teeny collection.

I have two plans for buttons. One involves the handkerchiefs I’ve been amassing and another one involves buttons on a MUCH grander scale. A project I have in mind that I want to keep secret until I can unveil it here to the gasps and murmurs of "now why didn’t I think of doing that with buttons…"

My problem isn’t with my smaller project. I can hand select each button I need depending on the colors in the handkerchiefs. The bigger project is a whole other issue. I need lots of buttons. I’ve tried buying them on e-Bay but what happens is I see someone has a large collection they are selling and I make my bid. And at the last minute someone always outbids me by a penny. It’s vexing, let me tell you.

I rarely bid on anything on e-Bay. I’m more an instant gratification, buy it now kind of a buyer. I can’t play the bidding games because I’m too much of a ‘everyone play nice and all get along’ pollyanna type of a person. I could never swoop in at the last second and outbid someone by mere cents because I don’t like how it makes me feel when it happens to me.

I’d never make it in the cut-throat world of sales or corporate hi-jinks would I?

What I’m not beneath doing is sneaking into closets and snipping off the occasional button off a shirt or jacket.

Here’s a funny story about buttons. I don’t mean to pick on people in sales because I’m sure there are plenty of nice, honest ones. This story, however, involves a not very nice one that my friend was involved with. She and this person, her partner of some years were in the process of an unpleasant break-up. She was struggling with a new catering business and he was in a very high powered sales position. They had a new baby together and they were trying to negotiate monthly child support.

This man would think nothing of dropping $75 on a pair of socks or $300 on a tie. He had a dozen suits hanging in his closet with hand made shirts to go with them. Yet he was balking at child support and would only agree to pay something like $150 a month in child support. This miserable man would threaten to bring up things from my friends past so he could get custody of the baby if she didn’t agree to his paltry offer. She was no match for him and finally just agreed to his terms in order to put an end to it.

But the night before he was to move out she snuck into his closet and snipped the threads on every single button on every single shirt and every single suit he had. Didn’t cut them off, oh no. Just snipped a bit so that eventually they would all fall off.

I should give him a call. He might have some buttons for sale.

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