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The Chronicles of Nani On Video

I am overcoming my inability to type with my ability to talk (and talk and talk and talk) I'll be posting a video every week on my YouTube channel. I'll be posting those videos here too along with an occasional regular blog in the mix. (As long as my hands are up to doing the extra typing.)

You'll be able to watch the videos here, but I encourage you to stop by my channel at YouTube once I'm up and running to follow me and get my numbers started!


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Contact Nani at
chroniclesofnani@gmail.com

Monday, February 22, 2010

Planning Ahead

I’m going to share a couple scrapbook layouts this morning and talk about the good and bad jobs I do in planning ahead. First I’ll tell you that, yes, this is a stall because I haven’t written the Monday Mug Shot yet. I think I know which mug and the story though, that’s half the work! I’ll write it up thus afternoon. It turns out that I will have some extra time because of something I DID plan ahead correctly! I have stuff I need to do for Grandma’s estate in Michigan. I was going to do what I needed to in Livonia and then meet Tracy for dinner on the way home. We planned this contingent on the weather. Well, slushy snow is all over the ground and they are calling for maybe more snow, maybe ice. I don’t want to be driving home from the Motherland at night in that. We rescheduled that proactively yesterday.

Speaking of snow! That something else we planned ahead that worked great! Remember that nasty snow I mentioned? The one we left early for Connecticut to avoid? We returned almost a week later. In that time, we of course needed the kids' sitter to come in and visit them. We needed the tons of snow that was starting to fall in our driveway when we left at least cleared out enough for Lillian to get in to see her grandcats and the idea of reduced snow for us to trudge through with bags when we got home was a wonderful idea too, let alone needing to shovel it would be a nasty welcome for David! I did some calling the day before to see what the financial damage would be if I could get someone to come in and do it.

Now comes the unsolicited testimonial part! I contacted Rapid Snow Removal in Toledo. I told then I wanted to get price and availability information. I explained that we were going to be out of town for a funeral and we have a cat sitter who’d need in and out access while we were gone. A few questions and answers were exchanged and I told them I wanted the driveway plowed, the sidewalk in front of the house shoveled and the steps to the side door. I was quoted an incredibly nominal amount with only ten dollars additional to salt everything. I was also offered to have a photograph of the house when it was finished sent via text. I accepted and contracted them to do the job as soon as the snow stopped falling. I made the payment with my PayPal account.

Once the snow had stopped, just after I’d received a text that school was going to be closed for the second day in a row and we were beginning to shovel out of Ben’s drive in Connecticut, I got this photo text:



When we got home, our driveway still looked great! In fact it warmed up a little so the salt could really do it's job and it was mostly DRY! It lightly snowed a couple of times since then and nothing stuck in the drive or on the steps! FABULOUS!

When we have an appreciable snow again, I’m definitely calling Rapid Snow Removal again. Even when we’re home, I can’t do the walking at all to help and David ends up doing all the snow removal. So, when it’s a big snow, my compensated blog posts will cover me subcontracting my share of the snow shoveling and David can stay in warm, dry and not in any overexerting danger. For that I love my sponsors for the feeling of personal value I can have at home. Sacrificing a little of my coffee money for snow removal is so worth it for that! I also love Rapid Snow Removal for the fantastic job they did for such a reasonable cost!


Now in closing this “plan ahead” blog, I want to show you a couple of scrapbook layouts. No, they aren’t about planning ahead, they ARE planning ahead!

I take lots of photos, some silly photos and some that never make it onto a scrapbook page, but I have a folder of “extra layouts" in which some of those fun photos often end up featured. Extra layouts are one-page layouts that don’t really have a time stamp and can be put into a book anywhere. I don’t always scrap in order, in fact, as I’ve told before, I’m scrapping up from 2007 and back from now with the plan to meet in the middle and be caught up. Sometimes, a 2-page layout just fits for some subjects and events or when I have a surplus of good photos in a particular folder. When I order my printed books, 2-page layouts must be even number-odd number in the placement or they will be front and back of the page instead of pages facing each other. When that doesn’t work, in comes an extra page! I slide the extra into that book’s folder just before the 2-page spread and it lines everything up. That may not seem like such a big deal, but having the folder of extra pages, allows be to keep moving without messing with my creative flow in a certain folder of photos.

Here is one fun page I did as an extra:

Credits: background paper from my stash,
designer unknown, sorry! Butchered lyrics by me

David or I will buy one lottery ticket when the jackpot is really high once in a while. A rate which will never win us immeasurable millions of dollars, but, well, ya never know!


This next one isn’t so much an extra page, but because it documents a few weeks, it can be inserted before or after other pages in the same time frame. This is the answer to Edna’s question in comments about that post I wrote last month for Zenni Optical. Yes Edna. I really did fall and bruise my entire left side of my face! I was so grateful that I didn’t break any facial bones, just a nasty bone bruise that still hurts a little if I nudge it right with my hand, but oh, I sure was scary-looking for a few weeks!

Credits: Credits: Kit: Cocoa Blush by Scrap Kitten,
Template: 12 of 12 by Urban Mom Scraps

Fonts: Make Me Alpha, Courier New, Angelina, Comic Sans,
Celebrate The Day, Champagne and Limousines, Juice


Okay, after that, I need coffee!


Links:
Rapid Snow Removal - Simply the BEST in Toledo!

1 comment:

Edna B said...

Your "plan ahead fot snow removal" idea is really great! I was also pleased to see that you have in-home baby sitters for the kitties. I have never used kennels. My furry kids are used to nice soft beds and carpeted floors. No cement floors for my babies. That of course, means having live-in baby sitters whenever we were away.

As for your layout of your bruises, Oh my! Gosh, I felt so bad for you. It's not fun to fall, but to hit your face on the ground is just horrid. I must say though, even with large purple spots, your photos came out quite lovely.

Hugs from me and Tootsie, Edna B.