Yaya's on the go!

Us Yaya's vacation together every winter. I think this will be our 8th time to the beach. It's a much anticipated time away to just chill....and as Y has recently said "not wear our big girl panties"! We started our beach vacationing at a house in Pacific Beach....not nice enough. Moved to a different one the following year...too noisy. Then we found our perfect get-away spot in Moclips...where we've stayed. Until this year. Our numbers dropped to 4 + various life happenings made money not quite so flowing...which meant we couldn't afford the perfect house any more. Unfortunately there wasn't much out there that we could afford...except that very first house. We are going back. I'm confident that the fun of yaya time will out weigh the stuff we didn't like.

Knowing that money was tight, we had a garage sale last summer to raise money for our trip! This is soooooo going to be a tradition from now on. Who doesn't love lowering the cost of things by raising cash?!!! :)

Here's to another week of too much food, drinks, dancing, sewing, making fun of American Idol, chillin' and laughing till our sides ache. I love you girls. Can't wait to get started.

Feet Friday

Working out at Curves! So far I've been disciplined in going three times a week like I wanted to. Sure hope I stay consistent!

With the new computerized workouts you can know how many calories you burned each time. Like today I burned 344. Nice, huh? Except my silly brain tells me that's more than a plain cake doughnut (my favorite) so I can eat one and still be ahead of it. LOL! The justifications. Just so you know......I resisted today. Yeah, Cindy! :)

ABC Wednesday - C

“C” hobbies were hard to decide on…I thought of several that we have dabbled in. Coins collecting, cross stitch, camping and caving were some. In the end I chose two. One for the long history of it and the other just cuz the picture is so dang cute.

C is for Crochet
My mom taught me to crochet when I was young. First was finger chaining…any crocheters out there do that? I would make yards and yards of chains….take them out and do it all over again! I don’t remember the first real project I made back then. Probably a pillow or something simple like that. In high school I made several afghans that I gave to friends. Luckily for me one of those friends was my boyfriend…..who I married so I still have that afghan! After I had my first baby my mom came to stay with us for a few weeks to help out. She was still crocheting and made three afghans in that time! She has always been fast! I made toilet seat covers, towels, coasters, bags…everything but clothes. Never got into clothes. Baby blankets were my favorite and everyone I knew who was pregnant got one. I continued to crochet until the quilt bug hit me. I did decide when the grand babies were coming that I *had* to crochet them a blanket along with making a quilt. Tradition.

This is hubby’s afghan from high school and Jenn’s baby blanket:

Jenn took to crochet just like I did. Loved being able to pass that down. And she is still doing it. Here are some of her first projects...doll clothes for her American Girl Dolls.

C is for Clowning
Our 4H club did a clowning project one year. Dan and Jenn both participated. Had to include this one so y’all could see this cute picture.

Check out ABC Wednesday for more blogs participating. It’s fun!

Red Hat Valentines

"We cannot tell the precise moment when a friendship is formed." - Boswell

Today was Red Hat luncheon day and we were having an old fashioned Valentines...which meant we were exchanging valentines like we did in our younger days. This year I decided to make some special cookies I'd seen at the Better Homes & Garden web site. They were white chocolate cherry shortcake cookies. Yummy sounding, huh? I knew there was trouble with the recipe once I started....no liquid of any kind. I improvised and went ahead with them anyway. They taste fine but the texture is not the least bit shortbread-like....boo hoo. So I didn't finish them (they were suppose to be dunked half way in melted white chocolate). No special cookies for my Red Hat sisters. A quick trip to Albertsons for some Hersheys kisses and I was ready to go with a new plan.

Hubby and I will have to endure and eat them all ourselves! LOL!!!

Here are Tink and I all dolled up for lunch at the casino -- not exactly a Valentines type of place in my mind. :)

Our bags of goodies.

Love my Red Hat gals!

ABC Wednesday -- B

Time for “B” hobbies….and I’m late in posting, as usual. Guess my ABC Wednesday posts will really be Wednesday night posts! I’m trying to use my own photo’s for these posts…thankfully we’ve dabbled in many things over the years.

Basket Making

This is Jenn and Dan’s first basket making attempt. They turned out nice. Jenn made more later when Tracy, her 4H leader, did a basket project. Those were much nicer. Helps when the person teaching actually practices the hobby and isn’t just reading directions off the internet.

Here is a tote she made that I still use:


Bird Watching

We put up our first bird feeder when Jenn brought one home from a class she was taking. It was a plastic milk jug! The birds didn’t care so long as it contained food…and thus began our delight in watching birds. We had our trusty Petersons Guide and binoculars handy so we could keep a journal of what we saw….sure wish I had kept that. Besides the little visitors to our property we also hiked in many places in hopes of seeing more species. On one hike we actually were able to feed some wild jays – too fun!

Groovin' to the Music

What better way to enjoy cooking dinner than to put on some Three Dog Night and groove to the music! Do they teach this in culinary school? They should! :)

Feet Friday

Dancing, listening to poems and singing for a Burns Night celebration! Go Robbie!

Banana-nana

Came across this cartoon while surfing one day. I loved it, of course, since I'm a "Nana". It was even funnier to me cuz Liam has always loved banana's and when he was younger you couldn't always tell if he was asking for me or a banana when he said "nana". The boy still loves us both. :)

ABC Wednesday

When I first started blogging back in September I enjoyed finding challenges and those postings themes that you could participate in on a regular basis…not sure what they call that….like JennyOnTheSpot's “Make Me Laugh Monday”. At Katney's Kaboodle I saw “ABC Wednesdays” and always made sure I checked in cuz she was doing a quilting theme. I also wanted to participate once they got back to “A” with a new round. Well, they started another round and I didn’t realize! Today was “A” and dang, I wasn’t ready. I had to make a quick decision on what I wanted my theme to be (*HAD* to have a theme!) and try to get a post in while it was still Wednesday!

My ABC Wednesday theme will be hobbies. I believe in hobbies…we all need one! Over the next 26 weeks I will introduce you to some. It’s been fun tonight to search the web for “A” hobbies. Here are three:

Astronomy - My hubby was the star watcher in our family. Many nights he'd call us outside to look at something. The kids enjoyed it, but I wasn't into it as much. I do remember once when we borrowed a really nice telescope from an enthusiast and spent a month watching the sky and phases of the moon. That was cool.

Amateur Radio - This is another hobby we tried, but it was very short lived. I was all set to learn all the in's-n-out's but once I started listening in I got bored too quickly. We ended up returning the equipment. I'm too much of a TV gal, I guess.
Angling - so who hasn't enjoyed an hour or so doing some fishing? While never a hobby I pursued with passion, I do have fond memories of time spent on the lake and the excitement of the catch.

There you go. My first ABC Wednesday post....late but here. Be sure to check out the site where you can see all the ABC posts.

Family Visits

We had a fun visit with Jenn and the boys the other day. Of course, how can you not when there are grand kids involved? :)

Liam is not camera shy! Digital photography means we can snap shots of him all day long. And the boy knows how to pose! Such a cutie.

Not to be outdone by his big brother..David is learning to pose too! Dang, I love that smile and those cheeks!

It was a gorgeous January day...which meant taking a walk and letting certain little boys get some energy out. Nice to have Grandpa on hand to push the stroller and leave Nana free to jump over cracks in the sidewalk and collect stuff along the way. :)

My Week in Pictures

So...another week gone by and I actually managed to get photo's each day. Some times it was an "after the fact" kind of thing cuz I'd forget. Funny how you can carry your camera around all day and forget to take it out and use it. I guess that's what happens to us non-photographers. LOL!

On most Mondays I volunteer in my church's office. Reception work. One of my favorite jobs is doing the weekly kids Sunday school materials. I like staying busy and this is a good job for that.

Tuesday we had a company come and inspect our duct work system. Our local power company offers this program to mobile home owners for free. They sealed all the duct opening joints and put in a new crossover thingy....we are getting lots more heat IN the house now than before. Apparently we were doing a nice job of heating the underside of the house. Sigh. No wonder the cats enjoy sleeping under there.
Wednesday was movie day with Tink and other ladies from our church. Bride Wars was a nice chick flick. Funny and poignant too. Loved it.

Thursday I went to lunch with Carol, a fellow Red Hatter. We went to Port Townsend...fun town to do a bit of window shopping.

And Friday I re-joined Curves. I haven't been good about regular exercise....and though I have some equipment here at the house, I find its too easy to make excuses. And I realized I really prefer having company. I loved my years at Curves, so I'm going back. Here's to getting back on track!

Feet Friday

Chillin' at the movies!

To Obsess

Here Tink and I are a Red Hat convention back in September. Notice what we are doing?
Both of us were new to blogging (me more so) and picture taking is a natural thing to do when one is a blogger, right?

The dictionary defines obsess as: to preoccupy intensely or abnormally. Hummm….we are definitely preoccupied with our blog picture taking…..yeah, I’d say it’s intense…but abnormal? I suppose that depends on who you ask. Did our fellow Red Hatters think we were being “abnormal” when we were taking pics of everything? Kinda hard to do when one is dressed in red and purple jammies with a hat made from a bra. Ok, wrong crowd. Hee, hee. Do our friends think we are “abnormal” when we whip out cameras to capture the cracker box or the doughnut at the store or their feet….or the myriad of times we are found with camera’s pointing at ourselves? Maybe!

I’m not the brave type when it comes to picture taking. You’re more likely to find me hiding behind a chair and zooming in rather than standing right up for everyone to see. I’m hoping to be more like my picture taking mentor, Tink, by the time this “picture a day” thing is done with. She’s a good example when it comes to that.
So if you ever see me with my cute little red camera – SMILE!

Last Week in Pictures

I saw on a friends Facebook page a link to "Project 365 How To Take A Photo A Day And See Your Life In A Whole New Way" . It sounded like an interesting way to chronicle a year. Gosh, I wonder if I could even remember to take a picture a day for an entire year, not to mention the discipline to bring my camera every where. I could try. Even if I only managed it for a couple of months, it would be more days recorded than if I did nothing. Better to try and fail than to not try at all, right? Isn’t there some famous quote along those lines? So I give you my last week (M-F) of pics.

Monday – our dvr broke! No recording shows, no pausing live tv, no rewinding to hear fun dialog again...err! Tech support was no help…they expect us to wait while the “engineers” handle the problem. Sigh, the problem is the silly thing is broke!
Tuesday – I had a Red Hat luncheon today. Nice company, as usual, but not a great lunch. Hit Costco afterwards and on a lark bought myself a wireless printer. So much fun.

Wed – My visit to a new Naturopath. Time to address these hormonal changes! (PS. Called tech support again about my still not working dvr…they listened this time and are sending a new one…duh)

Thursday – Sewing with the Knotty Girls. I only have a few more of Liam's Cowboy blocks left to do. Aren't those fabrics cute?

Friday – Yaya Day! My favorite day of the month. It was suppose to be at my house but our water company did a last minute (meaning they didn’t tell us till the night before) flushing of lines which meant no water which meant we had to change Yaya day to a different house. Thanks, Tink! Yaya day always mean good food...and too much of it!

Not sure if I’ll regularly post the pics here but it does provide a little bit of incentive and accountability if I tell myself I want to blog the pics. We shall see how it goes.

Feet Friday

Collections

How many of you collect things?

(Here is someones collection of beautiful Nicholas Mosse Pottery)

I have always wanted to be a collector of something. As a young girl I had tons of collections. Only problem was that they were all collections of one. Yes, I said one. See I’m one of those people who just can’t decide! Do I really want to collect pencils? What if something better comes up and I’m stuck with dumb pencils? When I became an adult I admired the collections of my friends…no, envy is a better word!
When I became a mom I decided my kids were gonna have collections even if they didn’t want ‘em! There was going to be no adult yearnings for them. So pencils it was! Yeah, we’re cheap. :)

And then one magical day at Christmastime years ago, I was in Hallmark shopping for ornaments when I saw this table of cute cuddly animals and a crowd of women hovering all around pawing through them. What on earth? I was witnessing Beanie Baby fever. I asked a few questions and discovered this was the new collecting craze. Did you say collecting? Oh yeah baby. I love cute cuddly stuffed animals….they’re only $5, works for the cheapster in me…and I can always give them to grandkids some day if I decide I don’t want to collect anymore. And so it began. I collected those little darlings for several years and yes, friends and loved ones did think of me when they saw Beanie Babies and bought me some. It was heavenly. I had bears on bookcases, dogs on counters, birds on shelves…they were taking over the house. It became time to stop. I think I ended up with about 200, can you believe it? My first ever collection is in a bin now. And guess who gets to play with them? Yep, you guessed it…my precious jewels.

I have been cleansed of envy. I now longer covet others collections. I am content with my bin of Beanies. And I take joy in adding to my other collection of --- fabric!

Make Me Laugh Monday

Hubby and I saw this sign many time while we were in Scotland. Made us laugh every time. No messing around there....no polite "please clean up after your adorable little doggy"! No way. Call it what poop is....foul! LOL!
Read more Make Me Laugh posts here.

Happy 2009

Cheers to a New Year.

Here's to 365 days of laughing, loving, peace, friends, family, learning, possibilities, good food......and most of all....waking up breathing! Thank you, Lord, for another year.