A Few Spring Things

Happy Opening Day! Like the parties on Christmas Eve have increased over the years, there were 3 Opening Day Eve parties. I watched bits of the first one, because my aide was in and yesterday was salon-day (hair-wash and pamper,) and all of the last two. Opening Day is today, not because I’m a Reds fan, but because the oldest professional team in baseball has always played at home on Opening Day. Baseball resuming in Cincinnati has always marked the beginning of the new season.

I still want to one day get to Cincinnati for Opening Day, parade and everything. I’ve been to OD for the Tigers as both a paying fan, intern and paid staff. No matter in what capacity, there is nothing that compares to the electric feeling in the air on Opening Day. As huge as it is in Tiger-town, you can feel the city-wide buzz is even more powerful in Cincinnati watching it on TV. I’d hope that the Joey Votto jersey and wheelchair could get me to the front of the parade line, or at least a free drink. **smiles**

When Melinda, my aide a few days a week, was here on Saturday it was snowing. It was enough snow that at times it looked pretty heavy and it did stick to the ground. It was April 2, so where did that prank come from? Its been a rough spring for me with no actual usable wheelchair, I’ve been a house-body, so I pretty much missed the crocuses this year except for one photo David took when they first came up and a glimpse of the end of them and beginning of the daffodil buds when I went to the doctor’s office a couple weeks ago. Melinda came right back in after she left and brought me one of the narcissus blooms. It didn’t get knocked off, she picked it. “So you get to enjoy at least one of them.” It made my day.

The snow we got on Saturday was melted away pretty quickly yesterday morning. Even though it was still a cold day, it started out sunny. We have nothing to complain about. I read on Edna's blog  that they woke up to a lot more snow from overnight in New England yesterday. She had some nice snow pictures and in spite of the snow, she offered a very bright and warm quick page freebie. By golly, it’s spring! I followed her lead and rebelled against the chill with this:

Credits: 2016 quick page 15 by Miss Edna, Open Windows by Mandy King and Connie Prince

I added a bit of my slightly sarcastic sense of humor, I remembered the ads from my childhood that “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” It seems she pranks us enough. I don’t need no stinkin’ real butter…

Funny memories… Marco was being nosey about my toothbrushing stuff and it brought to mind an old lesson about why they don’t sell cat-toothbrushes.

Nani and Ritchie ages 17 & 1

When I was 17, I had a cat, Ritchie. Ritchie was all black except for a few white hairs on his chest and he was incredibly affectionate, although dumb as a box of rocks. On one given day, 17-year-old Nani was dumber than that box of rocks. I was playing with Ritchie, nuzzling his face, and he had incredible fish-breath! I figured it was a good idea to brush his teeth. I got an old toothbrush and put a little toothpaste on it. I never got to brush his teeth. As soon as the toothpaste hit his tongue he freaked. He ran through the house with the foam that the tooth paste instantly created trailing behind him leaving a frothy white map to exactly where he was. Where he it eventually ended up was his water bowl and I don't think I’ve ever seen a cat drink so much water!

Leave cat dental procedures to the professionals!

I Am Defined

Happy Sunday everyone! Unless you’re reading this tomorrow or on any day that’s not today or some multiple of seven from today, then happy whatever of the six other days this happens to be.

I have finally been defined with a definition I agree with. For years and years I’ve taken forms of the Meyers-Briggs tests, including the all out test that I took for a job interview many years back, and the results always start with E, calling me an extrovert. I’m actually consistently an ENTJ; Extrovert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judgmental, and the description of an ENTJ fits me pretty well except that I am not that outgoing. I’m outgoing when I need to be, when I have to, but I treasure my alone time too. As a rule, extroverts can’t stand being alone. I took a test online that tells what kind of introvert or extrovert a person is, because I love taking personality tests no matter how corny they are although this one is less corny than others I’ve taken, and it doesn’t call me an extrovert. According to my results I am an outgoing introvert. Which if you look at this description; 8 signs you may be an outgoing introvert, it fits me perfectly. And I love the fact that it doesn’t call me an extrovert.

I’m in the midst of a reading dilemma. Remember I said I was going to have an upstarts book and an ereader book going at the same time? Well, I did that. If you look at my Good Reads widget on the right, there are 2 current books listed. One is a hard cover that I got in a book swap and one is an e-book, young adult fiction. I read the Harry Potter series, and the Trylle series in the beginning of 2013; don’t judge! ;) But my current problem is that I’m just not really into either one. They’re both okay, but nor riveting at all. I have a Baldacci paperback in waiting and thanks to Christmas gift cards for both Barnes and Noble for the Nook app and Amazon for the Kindle app, both on my iPad, I have a couple lists of loaded and ready to read books on the tablet. I have a goal of averaging 2 books a month and I’m not even half way through either book with only a week of January left! January and February are usually good reading months for me. I have to come up with a plan to get myself some reading time so I can catch up and start some bocks I’m more likely to MAKE time to read.

I was talking to a friend from our MS support group about the things that make MS easier to live with today than it would have been years ago, say in the 1940s when it was first diagnosed and recognized as an actual disease. Without MRIs, there was no apparent scarring of the myelin to see on the brain or spine images and while it wasn’t a death sentence for sure, it did affect life expectancy just because they knew so little about it. So much about diagnosing and understanding the disease has improved in the many years since then.

The first disease modifying medication was approved for use and became available in 1993 and more medications became available after that; all injectable. The first oral medication was approved in 2010. That was my first choice in 2011, anything to avoid needles. There are 10 medications an MS patient and their neurologist can try, depending on what side effects you want to chance. But just think;25 years ago there were NO options. You were diagnosed, treated the symptoms as best you could and you knew the disease was going to progress with no way of slowing it down.

Back in that day, just prior to a drug for the disease, it wasn’t considered a disability. In fact the ADA was a baby in 1990 with members of congress that still didn’t want it to pass. We MSers were still destined to end up in wheelchairs and there were still people fighting tooth and nail not to have to widen a door for those chairs or anyone else with a wheelchair, walker, cane or just limited mobility or allowed mobility for breathing or heart conditions. We have advocates and are encouraged to be self-advocates in the fight to continue living instead of just existing as helpless invalids; we became legally valid!

But we really acknowledged the internet, tablet, smart phones. The internet means we aren’t hopeless and lonely when we are at home. The incredible ability to reach out to others like us and be cyber support is fantastic. I couldn’t live without my iPad. With the numbness in my hands that has me dropping things all the time and unable to write having my planner and several reading apps in one device, with a padded cover and replacement insurance on it, is such a blessing It also has a notepad, radio and MP3 storage, camera and my social media apps. And it has speech-to-text for every app I’d type in, a godsend for the times when my “fumblehands” just aren’t up to hitting the right keys. This is not an ad for the iPad. It’s an acknowledgement of how technology makes disabilities less disabling. There have been many times in the past year that speech-to-text software,, like Dragon on my PC, has written this blog!

It’s just amazing and wonderful. How many times did I watched Star Trek episodes where someone was carrying around a tablet with information essential for their job on it? I’m just waiting now for the hypo spray that will zap my MS all together? THAT’S something I’d take to our support group for “share and tell!”

My final note today is for everyone in the areas where the current storm is headed BE CAREFUL! The nasty winter storm the Weather channel is calling Juno is supposed to dump a TON of snow and nastiness on the east! We have relatives and friends that are expected to get in excess of a foot of snow. My friend Edna of Miss Edna’s Place will be seeing it in her part of New England as well, what she describes as feet of inches predicted on TV. If you are in the areas getting snow and hurricane winds, stay as safe and warm as possible and the rest of us please send good thoughts and prayers for them. We’ll get a few inches in Toledo and I’ll complain as I see it falling but then I’ll remember that I don’t have it so bad and check Edna’s blog or ask David if he talked to any of his brothers.

My Calendar's Been Full!

It’s been a busy week, well the part of the week I’ve been home has been busy. It’s been just over a week of ups and downs. While the downs have been really down there have been enough ups to even them out and then some. So I’m a pretty happy Nani as usual.

To sum things up just a little bit after the water came back I got all those dishes done, I enjoyed nice showers and brushed my teeth twice a day. Yeah I know that sounds not even blog worthy but after almost 2 weeks without running water that’s a pretty bright star in my world. After my physical therapy appointment last week I was waiting for the bus and reading in my current book. I was about 50 pages in when the bus arrived. Later that night I grabbed the Nook to read some more and… nothing! After troubleshooting on my own and then calling Barnes & Noble customer service it was determined that the Nook had died. After the initial panic it was time to make decisions.

I’ve been researching different tablets since November and chose the one I wanted and what accessories based on all that research. I made that decision around the end of January, so it was three months of work. The whole point of wanting a tablet is to have my e-reader and planner on the same device. I also know me well enough to know that if that device offers more I’ll explore it and probably put some more on it. So I needed a device that could do both things I need to do, including that the reader MUST have a greay background with black print available because that combination is what made my dyslexia disappear when I read for fun. I’ve become a relatively voracious reader now and I can’t go back. As I got near point of choosing I needed to know not only that I could have the right reader and planner style but I researched the variety of apps, quality of photos and amount of storage I might need.

I choose the iPad. It has the added bonus of being an Apple product and I miss my Mac! I also already know how to get around in iTunes. I want the 32 GB one with 4G capability in addition to Wi-Fi. I’m saving money for it. I don’t have enough saved for the particular one I want yet. With the death of the Nook I had to decide between purchasing a previously-owned Nook, a different less expensive tablet or smaller iPad. When it came right down to it after spending three months choosing the tablet I wanted it would just be wrong to settle for anything less. So I replaced the Nook through Barnes & Noble’s “out of warranty replacement plan” for just over $30 which is unquestionably affordable compared to any lesser tablet than the one I want. The iPad I’ve chosen is worth the wait.

So the new Nook was on the way but David and I were taking a three day break to Maryland to photograph the Maryland Midland short line and I had no book! Some shots I’m just not able to get because the car or the wheelchair can’t get into a safe place to take the photo. Those are usually my reading times. I did have some magazines that I read for a while but it goes back to that black print on a white background and reading becomes a lot harder because of my dyslexia so I can’t read as much or as long. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that box on the porch at midnight when we got home after driving home Wednesday. The first thing I did with it after registering the new device was to load my current book and get it the page I was on in my computer app. I can still read a little during the day that way but you can’t take the laptop to bed or in the car; too big and the battery just doesn’t last long enough.

David thought I needed to get out of the house and get some photographs the snow. I agreed to an extent although the thought of three days in the car and not being able to get out to stretch too often because of the cold and ice everywhere gave me some reservations too. My legs were very sore and absolutely rubbery when we got home but I do have some great photos in the snow.

Maryland Midland, March 4, 2014

That brings me up through Wednesday night. More soon, but right now I have a dinner-date with my new Nook!

Wednesday Hodge Podge

1.. The NFL playoffs were held this past weekend and this year's Superbowl lineup will feature The New York Giants versus The New England Patriots. How do you define 'patriot'?

Super Bowl Champions? :)


A patriot is one who thinks of country before self. Today, there are more football patriots than American patriots.




2. What's something in your life right now that feels like a 'giant'?

The reorganizing project in the house, which is just a nail and hammer away from remodeling. I’m making decent progress though. Tomorrow is assemble the first shelving unit day!



3. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think back to being 18?

Voting! I turned 18 in a Presidential election year and I was pretty excited about voting. My birthday was a Sunday, but I was at the Secretary of State office on Monday to register.

Many presidents for whom I didn’t vote lived in the White House before a candidate for whom I voted did, but I finally felt like I had a right to complain about it!



4. Coconut-mashed potatoes-vanilla ice cream-mayonnaise...which white food would be the hardest to give up?

That one’s easy. Vanilla ice cream; there would be no Baseball Nut ice cream without it!






5. Describe an incident or a day you remember as the coldest you've ever experienced?

Once the temperature drops below70 outside, I’m pretty much cold all the time, unless I’m in bed or someplace with heat. Right now I’m wearing the thick fleece robe I always wear over jammas or clothes at home and my furry house slippers!


The coldest I remember in my mind was ice fishing when I was little and I think that’s where my intense dislike for cold came from. It was a family adventure when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was cold enough that the ice on the lake was thick enough to drive on to get to the shanty for fishing. Everyone was in snowmobile suits with ski masks and gloves, much layered warm clothing. They sent my brother and me outside to play. I guess it’s because we were restless in the shanty. I remember being so cold that I was sitting next to the ice shanty balled up and rocking back and forth praying. You see, it was supposed to be fun and I felt bad that I wasn’t having fun at all. In fact, I was praying that God wouldn’t let me die from the cold because it would make my parents feel bad if I died. I was a kid. That is what I remember thinking, that it would hurt their feelings if I died.

That memory has never left me and I don’t think I’ve ever perceived I was that cold. It was the most terrified I remember being of the cold.



6. You're hosting a brunch...what's your favorite dish to prepare and serve?

I could say “waffles” because David cooks the waffles. :)


Seriously, if I’m hosting the brunch, my specialty is cinnamon chip pancakes.



7. How do you combat negative thinking?

I write in my journal about it. Sometimes it takes a few pages, or even a couple days of writing if something is really bugging me, but I usually find the answer to getting over my troubles.



8. Insert your own random thought here.

I made stuffed pepper soup Sunday with a recipe I found online. I did a half batch, which was 3 servings. I had the last one for lunch yesterday and I don’t know what I’m gonna do now that it’s gone! Oh my, it was HEAVEN! I need to make a huge pot of it to freeze!

Click photo for recipe

Come join Joyce at From This Side of The Pond and share your Hodge Podge of answers!

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!

It's A Half-Birthday Party!

Happy Half-Birthday to me!
I’m half way to 43!

Not so many people acknowledge their half birthday after about age 12. I remember telling Rina and Tori, who were being bullied by a kid in kindergarten because he was “5 and a half and they were only 5,” when their half-birthday was and they realized that they were 5 and a half too! The bullying stopped when they told him because suddenly, they were peers.

Of course, at 5 1/2, you say you’re 5 and a half. Other kids would call you on it if you said you were 6. I round up after January 29 when someone asks how old I am. I discovered that, just like when I was 5 and a half, when I was 39 and a half, my friends called me on it again! I was just too excited about turning 40 for everyone’s liking and they refused to let me say I was 40 before July 29! Well, from here to July, I’ll probably say “43” when someone asks how old I am, but you all know that I’m 42 1/2. Shhh!



Okay, enough already with the snow! YEESH!

We just had a foot a couple weeks ago, now the storm that was SUPPOSED TO miss us, dumped almost another nine inches between Tuesday night and yesterday at noon. It had JUST gotten to where there was enough ice and packed snow clear for me to walk in the driveway without fear. We have awesome neighbors who lent us their snow blower again. We are going to fill up the snow blower's gas tank and we’ve discussed adopting one to live in our garage.

The Weather Channel was reporting from ice-storm crippled Paducah , Kentucky yesterday morning. I was in Paducah in December, 1998. I had interviewed for a job in Hopkinsville at their FOX affiliate and drove out to Paducah to meet Kelly for dinner. I was not going to be that close to Missouri at Christmastime and not meet up with Kel for a long dinner! I spent about an hour at the National Quilting Museum while I was in town. They had some really nice quilts there! Grandma would love it! I told her that on Christmas morning when she opened the cloth quilt badge I got her when I was there. It was an awesome conversation piece brag badge to add to her name tag for the quilting guild at home!

I was pondering, if I’d taken the job in Hopkinsville, which would have required a second job to pay rent, but could have been a gateway job to Nashville or bigger, I would be icebound anyway. Ten years later, I’d have maybe been in Nashville where yesterday it was 30 degrees colder than it was in Knoxville, in the mountains! I already did a blog complaining about the broken promise of global warming, right?


On to happier things!

Stay tuned to this blog and/or Scrap Bird for news about my beginning of February sale! If you love love and you love scrapping about love, you’ll love the sale! And there’s your Thursday tease! hehehe


I have a couple more CT introductions!

First, Marzena, Mamrotka, signed on as a guest CT! Very cool! It’s not uncommon for new designers to be on established designer's CTs. You know, like that chick form Digitalegacies being on Darlene Haughin’s team? It’s especially cool when an established designer lends a promoting hand and does a guest spot for a (hopefully) up and coming designer!

She did a couple of layouts last week with “My Blue Heaven!”

Happy One-Month Anniversary by Mamrotka,
Credits - “My Blue Heaven” by Digitalegacies Designs

This one was personally such a sweet wish to see in the Scrap Bird gallery last Friday, but I love the way she cascaded the flowers on the cake. It kinda feels like our eloping selves had a cake after all!

Woman by Mamrotka
Credits - “My Blue Heaven” by Digitalegacies Designs

What can I say except “stunning.” I hadn’t really though about the possibilities of this kit beyond romance, but what a powerful layout this one is!

You can see both of these layouts at Scrap Bird and other galleries around town as well. Stop by and leave some love when you do!

Speaking of love, Rhonda shared her first layout with “Because Of You” with me. Oh My, FABULOUS!

Young Love by scrapin_rho
credits - kit “Because Of You” by Digitalegacies Designs

I love what she did with “Because Of You” It really does work well with teen layouts! “Because Of You” will be part of that love sale in a few days when it is officially for sale, February 1.

And now I get to boast about a new member of the Digitalegacies Designs team! Sheri, sherriberi39a, is a very proud and devoted grandma of four. If you visit her gallery at DSP, you’ll see the grandkids a lot in her layouts! She just sent me her first layout with “Your Own Special Way.” I had to chuckle, different kits and different ages, but same title!

Young Love by sheriberi39a
Credits: “Your Own Special Way” by Digitalegacies Designs

Such a great presentation and a completely adorable photo!

I gotta say, these are three ladies that have really made my January! Creative teams are about promoting scrapbook designers’ kits, but they are so much more. It’s people sharing their talents, learning and growing together. My designing gives me ideas to scrap better and vice versa, seeing the amazing work others do with my kits, helps me grow and broaden what I can do as a designer. I know as a CT member, I learn and get exposed to new scrapping ideas too. I still have a couple of guest spots, with the possibility of being a longer term, open for February. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at chroniclesofnani@gmail.com.


New in the store!


Since I’m officially releasing the Valentine kits Feb 1 and that’s a Sunday, they may not actually be in the store until Monday, the first business day in February. In the mean time, I have released a new set of Brag Book Pages, this set with “Eight Days A Week.” As it says in the description, the Beatles believed in one more day in a week, so does Digitalegacies Designs! This Brag Book set is 8 pages, priced as if there were seven. Thank the nice gentlemen from Liverpool!


Patch 365 - Week 5

credits: "My Blue Heaven" by Digitalegacies Designs

The features of married week 5 included our one-monthiversary, picking up David’s ring and “branding him,” and my toe-socks (that one was a slow day, but they’re cool socks!) Since we celebrated our 1-month during this week, I used the kit I created to celebrate our wedding, “My Blue Heaven,” for the layout.


Now that you’ve had some fun looking, how about some fun getting?

I have a special blog freebie in honor of my half-birthday. I wasn’t sure if you’d enjoy the template or the quick page more for the freebie, so I bundled them both in one download! You can use the quick page for a Valentine or anniversary week Project 365 page, or any collection of love pics. Then, you can turn or flip the template and create something totally different! Have fun with them!

Sorry, this link is expired.