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.

Creative Time

During this month of December with all the snow that has kept me home....plus seeing all the neat things others have been making....I've found myself being more productive than usual. As you have read before, I'm not exactly the speedy kind of gal when it comes to creative pursuits.

Thought I'd show you a few of the things I've been up to this month.


I made two aprons from Cindy Taylor Oates book "More Retro Aprons" for my daughter and future daughter-in-law. They were so fun to make and turned out adorable. I also made matching rubber gloves. Sewed a cuff on the gloves....aren't those cute too? I think the girls liked them. I bought fabric to make myself one too but will do that with the Yaya's on our winter retreat.




This is an applique block from a block of the month I started.....uhhhhh......2 years ago this June. I'm not giving up my secret on how much of the quilt I've accomplished but you can read my post about how long a quilt takes me and get a general idea. Ha, ha, ha. This is my cat Finnian being silly. Cute, huh?


I have been collecting western/cowboy themed fabric for 3 years knowing that one day I'd be making a quilt for my grandson. When we decided he was getting a cowboy themed Christmas, I knew it was time to get the fabric out and start cutting. The quilt pattern is called Fresh Linens, and is from Heather Mulder Peterson's book "Let the Good Times Roll". It will be a quick project...which is good seeing as I'm making it for Mr. Cowboy's 4th birthday in 2 months.


At a Christmas Tea I watched a friend crocheting this strange looking "boat" thing. She said it was a double thickness potholder...no way I thought. But she explained how it was gonna work and I had to try it myself. It's such a fun project to do cuz no one gets what you are doing and its super fast...oh and it only takes a single ball of cotton, like Sugar'n Cream. I'm not good at explaining but this blog does a decent job. I did some things different - like I used an F hook, I chained 40 to start (36 on a different one I made) and I just single crocheted normally (not in the back loop) once I did that first go around.


Only needed to whip stitch this opening closed and voila, it was done.

I also started knitting my first hat....got about half way done and ran out of yarn. I haven't been able to find any more so not sure if I will add a different color or just take it apart. Decisions, decisions.

I still can't believe how productive I was this month. Huh...I wonder if I can manage the same thing in January? :)

Christmas Delight

Christmas 2008 was delightful. From the snow, to family, to fun presents and good food....what more could a gal want? :)

Here's the whole crew....you can even see all three dogs (even if Bonnie's head is barely in the shot!):

Hubby was Mr. Santa himself! Passing out gifts and enjoy a sip along the way.

David is eating his piggy bank.....all gifts went straight to the mouth....as did everything else at Nana's house.


Mr. Liam enjoyed his cowboy themed gifts. Here he is all outfitted and ready to go shoot the bad guys.

David and Grandpa having a happy moment together! So dang cute. David was sick this visit....poor guy....but he did have his happy moments.

Fondue is our traditional Christmas dinner. I love the ease of it (hardly anything to prepare) and how it makes us all slow down after the hecticness of the day.

Mr. Liam had to have the most important cowboy gear -- boots, hat & gun -- with him even when we went outside to play in the snow.

I look forward to many more family Christmas'. You can see more pictures (and usually better ones at Faith's blog. Jenn hasn't posted yet at her blog, but will soon and she'll have more pics too.