Everyone knows that kids love boxes. Isaac was no exception. This is the box that my Christmas tree came in and I had just put the tree up. Isaac was in love with this box and told me he wanted to eat his lunch in the box. The flap was a ready made table. Normally, I would have cropped these pictures so that the background junk was not showing but for some reason I am not allowed to crop and save these photos in any of my photo programs. I don't want to take the time to figure out why. I think he is about three in these pictures.








And here he is, on another day and in another box, sound asleep.

January

Don't steal my snowman!


There is only one more day in January.
I'm really glad for that.
I am wondering, however, just where the time went.
It flew past.
I'm glad we didn't get snow.
Yeah for spring.
Only a couple of more months to go.

Serenity Prayer, Take II

The path at Ward's Lake Park in Lakewood.

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,

the courage to change the one I can,

and the wisdom to know it's me".

~Author unknown, variation of an excerpt from "The Serenity Prayer"

Still one of my favorite pictures after all these years.

I've been going through a lot of pictures these days trying to organize them in meaningful ways that make them easy to find.
These three are still favorites after all this time. They are not great in terms of photography skills, but I love the moments they represent.
Enjoy.

Jeren falling off the bar. (Santa Monica)



Jeren and the girls at Disneyland.


Rhyan and her uncles on the campus of USC.

My latest shots of the moon.

These are some hand held shots that were taken from David and Nikki's balcony. It was cold which made me shiver so it was hard to get any closer than this. I cropped them but otherwise they are as taken.







I like this one even though it is not what I was trying to achieve.

Fly Lady

I decided to join the flylady campaign, but it's already annoying me. I don't want to post sticky notes all over my house. I already get up and get dressed to the shoes every day because I really can't do much unless I have on my regular shoes. Foam shoes don't work for me unless I'm in slipper mode. I have to have lace-up shoes in order to do very much because I need the support.
I don't care about shining my sink everyday. My sink is the least of my worries as far as getting things in order go. I do my dishes every morning because I like to do dishes while waiting for my coffee. I do skip an occasional morning, but only because there might only be one plate in there. Jeren and I use paper plates a lot. It's easier on both of us.
I don't need to be reminded to do the little things. My house is mostly clean, just cluttered because of too many projects, too much stuff and not enough time. (curse the computer here)
I think I will adapt things to my own needs. I think I will just adapt my hour a day program, making the increments smaller.
I don't want to keep a notebook, but I do think I will go back to lists. I am going to post a list on the refrigerator, scratch things off, add things on and work on things one at a time. I am going to use some of her ideas but adapt them to my situation. I don't work days, I work nights. I don't go to bed early because I am not home yet. I don't need to lay my clothes out every night. They are on the chair in the bathroom every morning because I place them there when I shower for work. I don't change jeans everyday and I use my work shirts more than once, too. Even so, I know right where my clothes are. (in the dresser, the dryer or my basket, depending on when I did laundry.
I already have good daily habits for cleaning.
I do laundry just about daily. I fold the clothes as I take them out of the dryer. Don't get me wrong. There are days when I "freshen" them a dozen times and forget to go fold them, but they don't get taken to another spot to wait for folding. I clean up after myself as I cook. I put things away when I'm done with them. When I leave a room I take any dishes I might have use there. I put my coffee cup on the counter before I go to work.
It's not the cleaning I need help doing. It's the dealing with many years worth and seven kids worth of stuff to go through, assess, throw out, keep, sell, give away. It's also putting back all the little pieces that got separated when kids didn't pick up a toy or game properly. It's rearranging while I remodel and fix things around the house. It's a whole yard of things that go undone when I'm working a lot or busy with family and friends. It's learning to allocate my time and not procrastinate.
She has some good ideas.
I just need different angles on them.

Do I want to fly?

This site was called to my attention today. I'm wondering if I want to try it or just keep doing my one hour a day plan. My plan works pretty similar to hers but maybe it would be nice to have the group motivation angle. I wonder if maybe I should change my plan to 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day. Some days, out of the three hours I set as a goal in my plan, I can only do one or two. There are various reasons for this.
For instance:
Today I didn't even do one hour at anything. Here is what sabotaged me.
1. David called after work last night and asked me to come over so we could discuss something.
I went over and they had an issue they wanted me to help them figure out. We did that and then visited while I held the baby. We ended up talking until 2:30am. That got me home at 3am. By the time I wound down I didn't get to sleep until almost 4.
I woke up around 7:30. (probably because of habit, since I used to get up each day at that time before Jeren got his truck.)
I played on the computer until I fell back asleep about 8.
Keri called somewhere in the middle of my sleep. I fell back asleep again and slept until 11am.
That only leaves me three hours until time to start getting ready for work.
I got coffee and did my hour on the computer.
I realized that I have to go do some banking stuff. That means I have to leave at 2 instead of 3.
That means I need to get in the shower as soon as I'm done with this blog.
That means my only accomplishment today was my exercise because if I have to eliminate hours I eliminate by importance. My exercise is more important to me than housework, yardwork or other tasks.
So today my hour a day (three hours) plan didn't work. I have a couple of days like this a week. Sometimes more.
Still, I am getting things done. Just not anything much in the last three days. I have trouble on the weekends because Jeren is here. It makes it harder when there is someone around.

I'm still working on it, but I'm wondering if I should join the flylady program and do smaller increments. It is a fun forum. It is free unless you buy stuff from the store. (I personally want the timer. I don't like my current one.)
I think it would make things a little more manageable and if it feels too slow to me I can just up my pace or use the extra time on my yard. I really want a garden this year with more than just tomatoes.
I like the part about dressing to the shoes. I have used that tactic for years. You get a lot more done if you dress and put on shoes. Just trust me on this one. She has that on her page and I can tell you from experience that it is very true. And those foam shoes do NOT work for me. It has to be lace-up or a work style shoe or boot. You WILL get more done if you have on good sturdy shoes. I put my shoes on my feet first thing, unless I exercise first. Then I put them on immediately after.

There's really only one hitch to her program.
I just can't decide if I really want to shine my sink everyday.
Everyday.
But I'm thinking about it.

Lazy day.

I don't feel like blogging today. I really don't want to miss a day, though, even though I missed one very early on in the game. I made it up and continued from there, so I will blog today even though I don't feel like it. I haven't really stuck to the theme.
I am starting over, yet another time, on the Wii fit because I realized my days were wrong. I had to start over before because I realized my time was reversed. It had me exercising at night when actually I exercise in the morning. I have already lost four pounds. I skipped today and will start again tomorrow with new stats. Annoying, but I like it to be accurate. When we moved the day to the right day it caused the program to think I skipped a day.
Ok...pretty boring blog, but I have to go. I want to leave early for work.

Puzzle time.

Your mission today, if you should try to accept it, is to identify this object.
This is an item from Tonia. She gave it to me with the mission to figure out just what it is and what it's use might be. It is a kitchen item. Well, that is to say, it was found in the kitchen. We examined it closely and the bend in the blade is how it came. It was not bent to this shape by the user. We thought of lots of ideas, but they all had flaws. Maybe you have one or bought one and know what the "intended use" might be.

Daelin is two weeks old.

Hi Grandma!


Haven't I seen you somewhere before?


Holding grandma's finger.


Falling asleep.


And he's out!

Two more treasures.

I probably could have resisted this item if it were not that they still had the box. This is a "super air velocity" hair dryer by Kenmore. I love several things about this item.
1. It does have the box, which gives you several depictions of how this marvelous item can be used.
2. It is made of pink metal. No plastic on this hair blower at all except the on/off and hot/cold switches.
3. Tonia's father made a makeshift stand for it so he could use it in his shop. I'm not sure what happened to the original stand.
4. It still works.
5. It tells you on the box that it for use with "home permanent wave sets". I'm not sure why I find that amusing. It's just the wording from a different era I think.













This next item I saw on my first trip there, but didn't ask about it until she phoned me Friday morning. I thought about it for two days because I kept rationalizing that I really don't NEED it. But then I really don't NEED much of anything I own, so I guess that's a dumb rationalization.
I'm not sure why I couldn't get this thing out of my mind. I love it's simplicity. As bathroom cabinets go it is pretty basic. It is also all metal. I know we had one somewhere or someone I knew did because as soon as I saw it I "remembered" it. Not this one in particular, but I remember seeing one before. More importantly, I remember opening and shutting one and the first thing I did when I saw it was to open and then shut it. There is something about the sound it makes when you open and shut it that for some reason is very nostalgic to me.
The first picture is a truer representation of its color. The second is just to show the inside. The third picture is to show you the little wire towel hanger at the bottom that can fold up out of the way if you don't want to use it. It's a little rusty here and there, but can be cleaned up without much work. I am going to repaint it the yellow color and use it in my kitchen as a spice cupboard.
I love it that Tonia's dad labeled this above the towel rack with an embossed tape. The label says "hand towel". Over on the post next to this was another towel rack and it was labeled "face towel". I guess he got a little eccentric over the years. He measured his mattress and put a line for the center mark with a permanent marker. Whenever he bought new sheets, he would fold them and use the permanent marker to draw a line to mark the center of his sheet. I guess he wanted to be sure the overhang was even on both sides. He is still alive by the way and 93 years old. The house is being emptied and sold because they had to finally put him in assisted living.

Don't ask me why because I really don't know.

It's probably pretty easy to get that I love old things. I don't know why. I always have. The things I have are not valuable antiques. I don't love them because they have monetary value, if any. I think sometimes I just long for the "easier" times when things weren't so hectic and life didn't travel at the speed of light. Days were long when I was young. We didn't have instant connection to the world and all that is going on around us. When I was young I got my news in the movie theater a lot of the time. There were always newsreels before the movie. It wasn't the latest breaking news. Sometimes it might even be a week or two old.
These days we know what is going on around the world almost immediately after the fact. News is available 24 hours a day. Is it any wonder that we all feel stressed and crowded and overloaded with information?

Here is a little backwards trip into time with the kitchen items that I bought from Tonia. I will do a separate post for the other things.

I had to have this because I always wanted one of those cake pans with the slide-on lid.
This one is a brownie pan or for a small cake, but it will do.



I had never seen one of these. It is a measuring cup/funnel. The
bottom works like a cork so you can fill it with a measured amount,
stir it up if you need, and then pull the cork and let it drop into whatever
container you are filling. I can see many uses for this.





So, yes, I know this is labeled Grandma and Grandpa and there
are four little chicks with names on them that do not belong
to any of MY grandchildren. But the point is...I collect chickens in
my kitchen and so I had to have this. They were happy for me to
give it a home. Their mom was overjoyed at becoming a grandmother
because she thought she wasn't ever going to get grandchildren.



A cookie maker. I have a more modern (plastic) one. I also
have my mom's around here somewhere, but this one was nice
and, actually, I wanted the box. It will go on my shelf with the
other old stuff.





Yes, here we have the Slice-a-way, a 3-way adjustable slicer/shredder
from Popeil. I didn't take a picture of the actual shredder. It's clear plastic
with a blade but it was crooked and I couldn't make it straight. I didn't like
the way it looked crooked. Popeil items were much like "As Seen On TV"
items of today. Picture the Sham-wow guy hawking this!





And finally, another item I never saw before. This is Revel Roasting wrap.
I couldn't get a clear picture showing the whole box. It is long like a box of
heavy duty foil. Actually it's a bit longer than that. It is a roasting film like
the film they use to make roasting bags. Along each edge is a strip of foil to
make it easy for you to wrap your roast or turkey. I love it that this is
"regular size" at 18 inches wide. I wonder if the "non-regular" size is
bigger or smaller. This appears to be from the 50's or 60's. If you look
closely at the picture you can see the foil edge on this side. I will try to
stage it later so I can take pictures of the whole box.

The train case.

I think one of the best things about some Craig's list runs is the information I get from the person placing the ad about the things I am taking or buying. This last group came from the leftovers of an estate sale. The daughter, Tonia, was trying to wrap things up and put this huge cabinet up on Craig's list for free.

It is that cabinet that I actually went to get. I got a lot more, including some pretty nice stories about the stuff that was still there.

I don't have time today to highlight all the things I got. I do however want to devote a blog to this one item, the train case. This was sitting on the patio as I walked up to the back door to knock. I told Tonia right away that I wanted it. I have a train case that belonged to my mother and I want to sit them both in my sewing room to hold ribbons and such.

Back in the day luggage sets came with these little cases. Some people called them make-up, cosmetic, or personal cases, but most people (at least the people I knew) called them train cases. I imagine it is because more travel took place on trains in those days and in these cases is where you kept your essential items for looking your best so that you didn't have to open and go through your bigger suitcases while traveling. The interesting part about this one is that Tonia's parents outfitted these cases with their own version of travel kits. She said they had different collections in each one. The one I brought home was a coffee kit. Here are the pictures.

The train case. It's missing it's handle, but a twill tape is taking it's place.



The coffee kit. The percolator is complete except for the lid
to the basket that holds the grounds.


Another view, showing all the items and the tape holding the twill handle.



A jar for coffee, two cups and a spoon.


Mr. Kurka was in the military at one time and managed the
commissary out at McChord. These are C-ration coffee and creamer.
I imagine these are quite old since they are the old style container.



They included the directions for using the percolator which
amused me.


I imagine it will be awhile before I am able to bring myself to dismantle this kit and actually use the train case for anything else. I'm just weird that way.

First day.

My first day on my new plan went pretty well. I was able to get my Wii Fit set up on my new Wii and did 20 minutes. I love the new Wii Fit plus because I love the boxing. I am seriously thinking of getting a punching bag to install in the garage.

I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I did get a lot done. I just wanted to be a little further than I am. I need to remember how much time it can take to cook.

I made a nice lunch of mushrooms and olives and avocado. I saute'd onions and garlic and then slow cooked a portabella mushroom. I then added some noodles and sprinkled on some grated Mexican blend cheese. I cut avocado slices to put on top of that when I ate it.
I also took some of the noodles and cut up some olives and marinated mushrooms (Safeway's gourmet olive bar) and avocado to mix with them. I then put grated parmeson, a little vinegar and a little olive oil and stirred that all up for a nice pasta salad. It was a nice flavor combination and made a nice lunch. I think I will take the leftover salad to work.

I need to go early today to take care of a couple of things. Tomorrow is another day and the Wii and lunch should go a little faster, so I should be able to accomplish a little more. It was hard to not go outside today, so if it's still this nice tomorrow I will plan one of my hours for outdoors.

Stop wasting time on the computer.

It's a disease.


Time is flying by
I need to stretch it out
I can't bottle it.



I can't believe how fast time zooms along. I have so much to do and so littl e time. I need to quit wasting time. I need to throw my computer out. I need to control my computer addiction. I have to admit it takes a lot of time to complete my tasks in both Farmville and Cafe World. I have a lot of neighbors. I have 52 Farmville neighbors and 40 Cafe World neighbors. I haven't even counted my Farm Town and Lil Farm Life neighbors. I play those sporadically, now. I think about discontinuing them, but there are still things I like about them and I just need to find a way to divide my time since I obviously can't divide myself.
If only I was retired.

Seriously, though, I'm going to start a new time management program tomorrow to try and squeeze a little more productivity out of my days. There are just some things I want to be finished. I'm tired of the loose ends all being untied and flopping around. I know I can get a lot accomplished in one hour, so I'm going to plan my time in hour increments. There will be three increments each day dedicated to various project completions. I figure that leaves three other hours in the day if I get up at 9am. I no longer have to get up early because:
a) Jeren got a vehicle so he can drive himself to work.
b) Logan is now going to daycare.

If I start forcing myself to GO TO BED by 1 or 2 o'clock (depending on when I get home from work) I will have plenty of sleep by 9am. I'm even going to set an alarm since the room I'm sleeping in right now has no window.

I am giving one of the three "extra" hours to exercise.
I am giving one of the three "extra" hours to taking care of myself and getting ready for work. In other words, I won't be realizing at 2:15 that I haven't eaten yet. I have a tendency to put things off and end up trying to eat, shower and dress all at the same time. It's silly.

That leaves one hour for the computer plus the hour I have when I get home from work. If I can't do it all in two hours a day, then too bad. I will have to plan my game time a little more effectively.

On my days off I want to remember to eat regularly. I have a really bad habit of going all day without eating because I get busy doing stuff and don't think of it. I will also plan two more hour segments toward a specific goal. I started this before but got interrupted by "having" to do things that ate up my scheduled time. I will be writing this new schedule though and any adjustments will have to be made on paper so I can see where my time goes and account for it.

Wish me luck. I'm determined.

Today's news.

Today Jeren bought a truck. Well, sort of. I mostly bought a truck with him on the loan. I always wanted a truck, but I kind of want one that is my own. This one is his, but man, I sure had to do a lot of signing for something that isn't even technically mine.
Pics will come later in the week when I have more time and I am rested because I no longer have to get up early in the morning to take him to work. Yay.

I called in late to work, but I still need to get going.
Have a great day!

Craig's list.

It's a disease, but I can't wait until I take pictures of the stuff I got today.
This was not free stuff, but I originally went there for a free item.
I will post pics tomorrow. I don't have time for it today.
Sometimes visiting with people is the best part of Craig's list.

Today's tidbits.

Got stuff done today.

Swept hall and dusted movie shelf and phone table.
Cleaned the hall window and the blinds.
Swept the living room, got the little rug out and put down the "new" braided rug I got from Craig's List FREE!
The living room looks much bigger.
Finally unpacked and hooked up my Wii.
Moved the table I got free from Craig's List (for Keri) into the sewing room so I can sort photos on it.
Sorted the toys and threw some out.
Sorted the books and put them away correctly. (2 years olds aren't good at that, LoL.)
De-Loganfied my living room.
Started taking down my Christmas stuff.
Dusted some things.

Pretty boring blog, eh?
Oh well. It's what you get today. I have to go hold my new grandson for awhile and take some pictures of him.

Karma?

When I was a kid and we visited our grandmother in Moose Lake, Minnesota we were returned to a more primitive time due to her lack of running water. She did not get running water until 1979. She had an outhouse and a pump house. We kids used to actually fight over the chance to carry her metal milk buckets out to the pump house and pump the water and bring them back. It was kind of like Jack and Jill but without the hill. Those buckets were NOT aluminum either. I have one here that I took (with permission) after a trip back home and they are heavy.
It was a long walk to the pump house. It was out the back door, past the driveway parking area, past the garden, past the chicken coop, past the feed storage room, and more than halfway to the barn.
Pumping water used to be one of my favorite parts of visiting my Grandma Costello. It's quite the experience for those of you unfortunate enough to have never experienced it. It's not like a tap where you just turn it on and the water magically appears. When you first start pumping it is very easy and you have very little resistance. It's like pumping air. Then you start to hear the gurgles as the water starts to rise and the pumping gets a little harder. It takes a few minutes before you are pumping a steady full stream of water. When you get close to the top you stop pumping because it also takes a minute for the water to stop.
I'm not sure why the next part seemed so great, but then you carried your two heavy buckets full of water back to the house working hard to not spill the contents as the water sloshed from the motion of walking. Grandma had this lovely little piece of furniture called a commode and that is where we put the two buckets of water. One bucket got a ladle for dipping out water for when we wanted a drink. The other bucket was for cooking. Both buckets were covered with a cotton towel made from a flour sack to keep the flies and any dirt or dust out. They sat on a towel on the lovely little commode.
I always wanted that little commode. It was very nice with a couple of drawers and glass towel rods on either side just under the lip of the top. It also had a shelf below but I really can't remember if the shelf was behind doors or not. I loved it to death and one day my grandmother told me that after she died I could have that little commode. I was so happy. Grandma gave me lots of things over the years. Some things she knew I loved but she loved them, too, so she would promise them to me for after she was gone.
People started taking her stuff and sometimes she would have me hide some of our favorite stuff so it wouldn't disappear. I always thought it was sad that my cousins wouldn't leave her stuff alone. I only saw her occasionally because we lived out of state and only came back for visits. I tried to help her whenever I was there. She and I had our own little rituals when I was there, but that is a different blog. Or maybe I already wrote about that. I can't remember.
Well, anyway...
Eventually, of course my grandmother died. She only had plumbing for about three years of her life and she really hated it. After she got the plumbing she still had the commode sitting there, but the buckets were no longer used. That is how I happened to get one. She gave it to me on my last visit to see her before she died. And she reminded me that I was to get the commode. She reminded others of that, too, but I never got the commode. I tried to make arrangements for it to be shipped to me, but no one would cooperate. My mom made a trip back there sometime in the next year to go to her class reunion and she was going to try and get it shipped back to me, but it was gone. She asked about it.
"Oh, that old thing. We burned it with the other old furniture. Sheila never came to get it."
That may not be an exact quote but it's close enough. They knew it was supposed to be mine. Apparently they decided since I didn't drop everything and fly out to Minnesota and pick it up that I didn't really want it.
Tonight I went on a Craig's List run to get a free cabinet that I want to use like a pantry cupboard. The person had an estate sale last weekend and there were things left over. I was looking through them and bought a few old things for my kitchen. We went through the house and looked around and visited with the woman who was there and it was fun. A really nice visit with a stranger. When we finally got done visiting and perusing the stuff that was left she showed us where the cabinet was and how we had to go to get it outside to our car. We found a couple of more treasures down there and I didn't even haggle on prices because they were very reasonable. We got to the last room where the garage door was and opened the garage door. I turned around because I was still looking at everything and OMGoodness! I almost had a heart attack because there by the door sat a little commode. It is not exactly like my grandmothers, but it is about the same age. It doesn't have the glass rods on the sides, but I think I might be able to find some and attach them. Her father had taken it down in the shop and used it for who knows what. The finish needs a little work (well, ok, a lot of work) but I fell in love with it immediately. I asked her about it. She was surprised that her dad had used it like he had, but she was willing to let it go for a few bucks. I am so excited. Even though it is not my grandmother's it will represent it for me. A lady at work asked me just the other day if I was interested in her pitcher and bowl set and I'm going to let her know I am. She wants to give it to me and it will be perfect on the commode in my bathroom. My grandmother's was painted so instead of trying to refinish it natural I'm just going to sand it a little and paint it. I have to find two more handles or I might use some wood putty and put little glass knobs on it like my grandmothers had.
I didn't take a picture of it yet because I had to get this posted and it was almost midnight.
I will post pictures later in the week.

Uh-oh, my drink spilled.

Ok...so here's the scenario. You are at a public place with very public restrooms. Your drink has run out and you need a new one. You also need to go to the bathroom. Which do you do first?
I see this every single day and the decision is, believe it or not, to go and get a fresh new drink and then take that drink into the restroom with you to use the facilities. I just can't fathom it. These are not the crackheads nor the prostitutes. These are your everyday version of women; dressed nicely, hair done, nails done, expensive purses. Maybe they spent the day at the mall or out shopping and then came to the casino with their husbands/boyfriends/S.O.s for an evening out.
I just don't get it. And they are always totally surprised when their fresh drink falls to the ground and it breaks the glass or bottle and makes a mess. Even the plastic glasses break and the liquid always makes it way across several stalls making navigation around it almost impossible.
Where are they putting these drinks while they potty, you ask? They are sitting them on the little metal trash containers hung on the wall of the stalls. You know; the ones in which you deposit your feminine products. I have also seen them place them on the back of the toilet or try to balance them on the little edge of the seat cover box hanging on the other wall. A few have even tried to hold them in one hand while completing business with the other and instead of dropping the glass they pour the liquid on the floor because they don't remember to keep the glass upright.
Can you give me a big collective EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Maybe I've blogged about this before but each time it happens I am flabbergasted all over again. The other night the lady's drink managed to splash on my shoes and my pants leg and then spread completely across the room. It was brand new fresh and very full. It was in a plastic cup that shattered apart.

And while I'm on pet peeves about the bathrooms here is another one. The nicely dressed women with perfect make-up and hair who come out of the stalls, check their hair and pat it a little, check their make-up, freshen their lipstick, straighten their clothes and then LEAVE the bathroom without so much as thinking about washing their hands. What the heck?

Ok. done ranting now.

Logan's not smiling.

One day I gave Logan a bath and combed his hair nice and wanted to take some nice portraits of him all clean and shiny and combed. Logan is a very stubborn little guy and refused to smile. 52 pictures later, still no smile. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.


First he refused to look at me.


The look says it all.


He almost forgot and smiled but then pursed his lips.


Cooperation? In your dreams.


He forgot himself for a moment because I got him talking about cars. Still not really a smile, though.


I decided to concentrate on the feet.


He got tired of the towel and wriggled out of it.


I gave him a book.


He did get a little interested in that, but not with a smile.


At least this is a pleasant looking face and not a scowl.


Talking about trains he almost relented.


But he caught himself and went back to the steely gaze.



One stubborn boy!.