2013 projects and goals

I did some refining and completing on the original goals post I’d written on New Year’s Eve. I guess I’d like to make my first goal to stay out of the hospital except for lab work! That could also be something out of my control, so I’m not making it a goal. One thing I was sad to learn when I was in “the joint” was that there are some bad levels showing on my liver panel. What that means is it may be a side effect of Gilenya, what I call my miracle drug that I’d knock off a liquor store to keep taking. I’ll be getting full blood work, including liver panel, done at the end of this week or beginning of next and my regular doctor and my neurologist in Cleveland will get the results, They said if the abnormalities weren’t just caused by the virus I had, I’ll need to switch my MS meds. I’ll deal, but it’ll mean I have to take shots instead of pills and pray it makes me feel as good. Shoot me a good thought or prayer that it was just the virus!

But let’s get on to things I can control.


Projects and Goals for 2013

"There is no happiness except in the realization 

that we have accomplished something."
Henry Ford

Organizing project:

One thing that blue end of 2012 taught me is that I need to redefine realistic in my planning! My biggest failure was the White Tornado Project. I accept that the project failed, not me. I am just not capable of doing the physical moving to reclaim storage areas in the house as livable rooms. And the truth is we weren’t using them as rooms so we weren’t missing anything.

For 2013 I am NOT putting that project back in the plan. David and I agreed that we need to reorganize some space in the kitchen/annex areas to make it more usable and free up space and that is the only organizing and fix-up project I have planned for the year. We have 2 very full and unused storage rooms and we’ll continue to have 2 storage rooms. I’m okay with that; I’m giving up one idea to help insure the success of a better one!


Blog goals:

I did well in committing myself to comments on other blogs and not having too many long stretches of time that I didn’t blog on Chronicles of Nani. I did not do so well with my desire to offer a scrapbook freebie every month and because I have a growing backlog of scrapbooking to catch up, I won't repeat that goal for this year either. I’ll offer a freebie when I can and I am inspired to do so. I am planning on offering a small non-scrapbook giveaway when I reach 100 blogger followers. I’m not going to make a huge deal about that until it happens. I want “my regulars” to visit because they enjoy my content and style, not just to try to win a prize. Besides, if I reach a number and then people unfollow me, well, what was I celebrating anyway, right?

I’m also going to commit some time early in the year to restoring Davlicious Recipes. I haven’t replaced the lost photos from the great Google Plus error and I want to bring it back to life and start adding new recipes. In keeping up with the “January Detox” that will include some simple and healthy recipes that offer great flavor, a good nutritional balance and fit in comfortable with Weight Watchers points system.

I also want to be more disciplined in keeping up content, even if it’s a short entry, on my MS bog and the cats’ blogs.


Reading Goals:

This is an easy goal, but I have to have some balance and I need to make some me time in my goals too. I was originally thinking a book a week, but there are some times and some books that make that rough, I read The Black Dahlia when I was in the hospital, It’s pretty long and actually not a book I enjoyed. I read the very end as fast as I could to get it done with. Now I’m half way through my second book of the year and the second week is almost over. It’s the book club book for the month at Ginger Scraps. So far it’s a cute book. Still, with other things to do now that I’m back to non-hospitalized life, I can’t see me finishing it in 2 days and I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on myself for something I do strictly for fun. So, my actual goal is 2 books a month. I’m going to make a point of writing a brief, non-spoiler, review for Good Reads as I finish books this year and I’ll repost those reviews here at The Chronicles too.


January Detox/Health and Wellness:

January detox is simply recovering from December. My plan there is to lose the weight I’ve gained through the holidays and really since August when I allowed myself to feel defeated for the year. That in itself is a daunting task, or could be. In the past and going forward I’ve had my best periods of wellness allowing myself to become food obsessed. If I am really concentrating on my food, how to make it balanced and how to make it taste great and look good on my plate, I stay more committed to being balanced and portion controlled. I also know that my chocolate cravings are best controlled if I make a point to include 25-100 calories of chocolate in my diet every day. Sound weird? In keeping track of that I found that there were days I didn’t meet that goal and “had” to have a Hershey’s kiss with my evening tea or decaf coffee. That's why I call Kisses “supplements.” Treating chocolate like a vitamin really has worked in the past.

Of course, any health and wellness plan must be custom-designed for the person living it. Read up and put the right plan together for yourself, or ask a nutritionist to help, but remember to never let someone else put together a “healthy” eating plan for you that you can’t stick with. If you don’t like the food and don’t eat it, it’s not healthy for you. Strive to find the right balance that will taste good and make you feel good; that’s the healthy plan for you! The way of eating that works best for me incudes lots of soup and a big bowl of crunchy veggies to munch on in the afternoon. And a little taste of chocolate every day.


Scrapbooking:

In May I presented Tori and Rina with the scrapbooks I’d been working on since early 2008 as their high school graduation gifts from me. Especially at the end with the editing and preparation for printing process I was pretty much doing nothing but those books. Then I had a smidge of burn out where I took a bit of a scrapping break, a slowdown. Now I look at my “to be scrapped” folders. I have the majority of 2008, from April on, all of 2009 (which includes our wedding reception and honeymoon) September to the end of 2011 and all of 2012. No, 2010 because I met my goal of having all of 2010 done by the end of February 2011.

What I’ve organized my folders to do for this year is that I am sticking to each current month. In January, I can scrap any pages from any year, as long as they are January pages. If in any current month I complete that month for all four years I have folders for, I can go back to work on open fielders from the previous month, but when that month is over, I move to pages for the next month. This way when I look out the window and see snow, I’m not trying to get myself in the groove of beach photos. The pages I’m scrapping fit my current world and surroundings. I think that will get my natural creativity working better.

I’m going to try to have a tally at the end of each month with how many layouts I got done, and how many folders I’ve closed. So far this month I’ve done the last week of Journal 366, the one allowable from last month and the week that just finished will always be okay to do from the last month to keep up with the year’s project. I’ve also done the first week on 20134 52 topix, 5 layouts completing 3 folders from 2009 with 5 to go and 2 layouts completing 2 folders for 2012 with 5 to go. 2008 and 2001 don’t have January folders. I only have one folder for 2013 right now. Since this is a smaller month as far as undone folders go, I might finish January this year!


Project 365/52:

I’m kinda pumped for this year after actually completing last year’s Journal 366! For this year I’m going to have a weekly theme and my layout will include photos and journaling about my week and how it relates to the week’s theme. I already posted my 2-pager for the first week’s theme; “healthy.” I’ll write and scrap this week’s theme tomorrow or Tuesday. The theme is “fresh fruit.” Tuesday starts “scrapbook” week.


Employment Goal:

Perhaps the most disheartening goal I completely blew off last year was the job search goal. I have always been a person whose external area reflects the internal balance. When my rooms were in order in my suite at my parents’ house, I was mentally in order and could tackle anything. I tidied my office before I went to Chamber of Commerce meetings with my business because if the office was straight, I had more power, more confidence at meet and greets. It enabled someone on the shy side to be more professional and aggressive. I’m trying to redirect that concentration to my computer now and it does make sense because so much in the job seeking process is done through online applications and email now. If my hard drive is organized and my desktop is clean, the confidence level should be up, no matter how many dirty dishes are in the sink.

With a change in insurance, the power chair process is on hold. I’m not going to wait for someday when I have a power chair to get to work on this very important part of my world. I’ll use the manual chair to go to appointments at the Vocational Rehabilitation Bureau and get started on evaluating my abilities. I have the determination and resourcefulness that can fit many places. Plus, hey I’m a disabled woman, a double click on the minority scale! I learned in one of my trade school classes some 20+ years ago that it was foolish to be “too proud” to take an opportunity offered to you because an employer needs to fill a quota you fit. It’s your opportunity to prove that there were even better reasons you were a perfect fit! With a decent job I can save up to get the power chair outright, to heck with insurance. I’d love to tell the insurance companies I don’t need them.


So there are my 2013 goals and projects. They are slowed down and toned down a little for me than in years past. I also have a few outs to accept a smaller accomplishment on occasion; as an example, while I have 2 folders that have January pages in them in the scrapbooking project, completing just one of them is a job accomplished As always and especially now, if a preferable goal can be met, I have the right to change a goal to better suit my needs. I feel cautiously optimist about 2013. I have many smaller goals that are parts of larger ideas, but no large goals will go totally unmet. Perhaps that meets the biggest goal of all; keep my own attitude positive and strive to always make meaningful contributions, no matter how small, to the world.

All of this, or something better.

And by the way, that goal to have these posted by midnight tonight? NAILED IT!

Coffee, Coffee, Buzz, Buzz

It’s been a slow week in Naniland. Yes, allergies are slowing me down a little. The trees pollenate within a couple of weeks, so I really only have to deal with it for a little while and like I’ve said before, they don’t hit me nearly as bad as they do some people, for that, I’m grateful. Still I have to reprimand myself often for acting like a baby for a couple of weeks in the spring. Breathing is more difficult, but I can still breathe. I can even still smell! Really a couple days without coffee is harder on me than allergies.

Allergies and the general more planning for things to go on soon than anything going on now has kept me from blogging as much this week. But I am here full-on for Friday Memeing!









1. Groceries are high right now what is easiest way you have found to cut back?

Groceries and gasoline are two places where I don’t cut back.

Living an hour away from the closest member of my family to whom I’m not married, I may plan a visit where I see a few people instead of just one and we try to fit a baseball game and some trains in when we go to Cleveland for medical visits, but no matter what the price per gallon, you have to suck it up.

Same thing with groceries. We could spend less buying cheaper food, canned instead of fresh vegetables, fattier meats, ramen noodles instead of whole grains, but the money saved would disintegrate quickly when we're both on more prescriptions because of what we’ve done to ourselves with the poor food choices.

I make my economical cuts in other areas. I have cut out a couple of the vitamins the doctors suggested because while the prescriptions have a relatively small copay, the price on OTC vitamins is outrageous. My 2010 scrapbooks are ready to print, have been for over a year, but they are still just digital files. I’ve needed new bras since last summer and haven’t bought them. (I’m 46, handicapped and married; no one should really care if I could look “perkier.”)




2. What are the top 3 things on your "bucket list"?

Well, number one is Immortality, so that gives me time to think of other things. I think the term “bucket list” is morbid and I refuse to put that expiration label on myself.


3. Would you rather give up AC or heat?

This one’s easy! Sorry David, they can completely disassemble and take away the air conditioner, just don’t take my heat! I am always cold in the house. In the winter it’s the draftiness in places of an old house, my feet get so cold! In the summer, it’s just that David and I have a real different opinion of a comfortable temperature! I always have socks and slippers with a sweater in the house. I’ll go outside for a couple of minutes to warm up. I find stores, grocery to dollar, to be too cold in the summer too.

I’m really only comfortable at home in the late spring and early fall.



4. What's your favorite cocktail??

I love Mai Tais! I usually order Kahlua and Cream in a restaurant if I have a cocktail because restaurants that have Mai Tais are less common, but if a Mai Tai is available, that’s my choice. A while back I found a sugar free, with Splenda, Mai Tai mix at Meijer. It was kinda pricey, but I wanted to try it for a treat. It was definitely a treat. I drank it alcohol-free, just me, and the 32-ounce bottle lasted 2 days. Good thing I didn’t add the rum, huh?


5. What was your first job & how old were you?

I was 16. My Dad was going to buy me a car once I found a job because while he would pay for the car and insurance, gas and maintenance were up to me and he wouldn’t buy me a car I couldn’t drive.

Pop was also responsible for the lead that got me that first job, at the Italian bakery-deli he frequented! That was my part-time job until I was 18. When I started my advertising consulting business just after high school, Maria, the owner, was my first client. I also still worked there as a deli clerk and supervisor on Sundays for another year.










This week's statements:
1. I always forget___
2. I never __without___
3. Recently I started to _____, and it has helped tremendously!
4. If I had to find a date, the last place I would look for one is _______.


1. I always forget to take pills in the middle of the day. I have one that I have to take as close to 12 hours apart twice a day and an antibiotic I’m taking twice a day right now. I have alarms set on my phone to remind me to take them. I’m pretty good with the morning and bedtime pills I have in a pill-sorter in the bathroom, but the ones in the middle of the day will sit untaken without my alarms!

2. I never pull the door closed when I’m leaving without having my house key in my hand so I'm SURE I have it. I think I was locked out of the house after school too many times before I was driving. We had great neighbors that let us stay at their house until Mom got home from work, but it was still embarrassing.

3. Recently I started to buy the 100-calorie pack almonds and it has helped tremendously! It’s a day’s worth of healthy fats, all nice and portion-controlled!

4. If I had to find a date, the last place I would look for one is anyplace my husband would find out.   :) I’m a married-lady. I have a built-in date for any reason I need a date.

***  Look at Mr. Celery!

I decided that it was okay to name him after my favorite Wilmington Blue Rocks mascot since the celery is a phoenix; after you pick it, cut off the bottom and it grows back, which is totally cool. I’d call him Fawkes, after Dumbledore’s phoenix, but since he’s celery, he got the name Mr. Celery. He’s growing faster than a kitten!

Because I’m looking at Mr. Celery as a phoenix, I’ll also NOT be looking for a t-shirt when the next incarnation of this celery starts to grow that says “Ask me about my grand-plant!”


***  After a few blissful months of no doctor visits, I feel like I’m touring medical facilities again. –sigh—

Next month, I return to Cleveland Clinic for my post starting Gilenya check-up. They have all the tests I did in March and haven’t called to ask me to come in sooner, so I feel like those turned out okay. But, they’ll probably have me get another MRI.

Two days later, I get my baby-spider-ectomy. It’s just a cyst, but it needs to be removed. It’s minor out-patient surgery, but I have to stop taking Ibuprofen for a week before. That is the scary part to me! My doc is impressed that as messed up as my back is, all I take for it is ibuprofen. I’m worried about what the pain will be like for a week without it. I’m planning on using the walker and going in on my own for the surgery and I’d like it not to be painful just getting there!.


***  I’m at a stopping point in the White Tornado this week. I need some boxes and heavier things moved before I can continue upstairs and David and I are finishing up a big editing project this week, so I have sort of a vacation. I think he’s trying to uber-caffinate me as part of the vacation. He moved the Keurig maker the other night and won’t put it back!

I can’t lift it to do it myself, so I moved the lighter regular maker in. Now I’ve gone from 2 cups to 5 a day! Bigger pot and if you only make a couple of cups, it takes pretty much the same amount of grounds, so it’s a waste to make that little. I’d kinda forgotten how good a mild coffee buzz feels!


Going for a refill now. Everyone have a great weekend!  :)

Hats Off Wednesday Hodge Podge

I'm trying to take it easy today. We'll see how well stubborn me does with that.  In the mean time, I'm joining Joyce, as I do on Wednesdays, for the Wednesday Hodge Podge.  Let's get on with the questions!

1. Have you ever played golf? Any interest in playing? Do you have a significant other who loves to play? Did you watch The Masters this past weekend?

I’m not a fan of jumbo golf. I used to be a mini golf fiend! Notsomuch now because they don’t have wheelchair or walker friendly mini golf courses. I still enjoy seeing the fabulous scale-architecture on a well-done mini golf course. I heard that Tiger Woods putts well. I always said I’d love the opportunity to golf with him.



2. Hats are back in fashion this spring...how do you feel about wearing a hat? (fyi-I'm not talking baseball caps) When was the last time you wore one?

I take it if baseball caps don’t count, neither do visors, fishing hats or canvas bucket hats, right?

July 4, 2000

I’ve always had an assortment of hats, hair-bobs and whimsical headgear.

In 1969 I had a stylish Easter hat.

Dave, Mums, Nani

In 1972 as Auntie’s flower girl, I wore the same hat as all the bridesmaids!

A decade later it was a nice gray dress hat to match my suit for The Tempest in Stratford

And 12 years later, in 1994, I had my favorite hunter green hat that I wore when we visited Mums to introduce her to her great-great-granddaughters.

It was a cute little camera compared to 

what I used at work,but since that’s what I did 

for a living, I was asked to woman the camcorder.

1994 is the last photo of me in a hat and I think some time in the mid-90s is the last time I wore anything other than a casual hat. Although I wear baseball hats and canvas bucket hats often!



3. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 meaning proficient and 1 meaning "I'd starve", how adept are you at using chopsticks?

10! Even with the decreased sensitivity in my right hand, I still use them when I eat Chinese.



4. Has technology taken over?

That’s such a broad question! If you look at production of goods and business practices, technology has made those things easier and more efficient. I know some will say that those things have phased out workers, but with technological advancements there are needs for workers in different areas. Many of the simpler jobs needed with those advancements have been outsourced to countries where costs are cheaper for labor. I am NOT saying that’s a good thing. But I don’t think technology has taken anything over – GREED has.


5. In the course of a day how often do you look in a mirror?

I pass the mirror when I use the bathroom and I do notice myself, but really, I don’t so much remember it unless there is a hair sticking straight up or a growth I didn’t feel on my nose. Depending more on my mood than what I see, I usually will smile at myself, sometimes I stick my tongue out at me.

Even if I know someone is taking a picture of me, I seldom think to check myself out in a mirror.


6. Tulip or Daffodil?


:( That’s such a touchy topic this year. My daffodils fared best of all my spring flowers, although they looked much better last year too, except the ones that have been there forever, the wimpy winter wasn’t so hard on them, so this year, I guess I’d have to say daffodils.



7. I am proud of myself for __________________.

I’m proud of how much I’ve accomplished in the White Tornado project so far. It wouldn’t be much if I was a completely able person, but considering how bad my mobility is and how tired moving and going through boxes makes me, I think I’ve done well.

I’m looking forward to taking the “after” photos so I can sit back and tell myself I’m incredible. ;)


8. Insert your own random thought here.

Every now and then I like my coffee sweet and when I am truly craving sweet, not even Splenda will do the trick. The brown sugar I got at Christmas was much more than I needed and brown sugar won’t last until next Christmas baking season before it’s hard, so I tried it in my coffee. The taste is mildly different and better than white sugar. Both are only 1 WW point for a tablespoon and, like anything, fine if used in moderation.

Checking Back In!

I know, I know, I’m a slacker this week, but really, I’m only a blog slacker! I’m been doing lots of work in the future woman cave this week, although I may be taking a break tomorrow. I’m having some tricky numbness in my right leg. It happens sometimes. I’ve mentioned before that it’s one of those warnings that I’m over doing things a little. I’m just impatient. I want things done faster than I’m capable of doing them. –sigh— I just have to learn to live with me! :)

I need to do some moving and photographing with my mugs. I have the disadvantage of being shorter than most of the mugs I haven’t done on my rack. Also the mug rack only holds about half of my mugs. I’m going to need to get David to help take down mugs on top, they need cleaned or dusted anyway. I’ll photograph them all before they are out back! If you are just aching for the memories attached to collectables, may I suggest, no, encourage you to visit Jennifer at Just Another Day for Shot Tales on Sunday. Same concept as the Mug Shot, but Jennifer’s collection is shot glasses. It’s a cool feature one her blog! Of course, you can just follow us both and get all the fun stories!

I didn’t do Tell Me Tuesday last week. The prompt was about something from your childhood you still have. I realized I have things from my mother’s childhood and things from Tori’s and Rina’s childhood, but not a lot from my own childhood! Now I suppose the one thing I was given as a child that I still cherish could be a lesson or a memory, but I wasn’t thinking that way last week. It’s probably because in going through all of my boxes of things, I was focused on the things. I had just found a card that my Mom made for Grandma when she was little; we’re talking construction paper, paste and crayons. It held up pretty well. As the White Tornado goes on and I get to the finish where I am adding a couple things to my cedar chest, that’s when I’ll discover something special that I kept and want to talk about. But then I’ll be able to take a picture and tell more anyway. But let’s move on past what I didn’t say last week to what I will say today!



Tell Me Tuesday

This week’s Prompt is

I’d be lost without my ___________.

Hmm… There are lots of things I’d be lost without. My glasses, Kindle, purse and as much as I hate it, I’d be lost without my phone. I’d be lost without my Gilenya…no, I’d be fatigued to the point of falling asleep with my head in dinner, perfectly aware that it was dinner I’d been sleeping in when I awoke, without my Gilenya.; not lost, just frustrated. Of all my things, I am quite lost without my wedding ring.

A couple years ago, David and I were going to Grandma’s for a couple of nights. We were leaving late Saturday morning after brunch. We’d planned to stop for brunch on the way out of town. While we were at the restaurant waiting for our orders, I looked at my left hand. No ring!

I gasped and told David we had to stop back at the house. He asked why and I told him that when I had done some dishes and cleaning in the kitchen that morning, I took my ring off and out it in the ¼ cup measuring cup by the sink.

David said it would still be there when we got home, but I didn’t want to leave for the weekend without it. I didn’t want to visit my Grandma without my ring. He was a little flustered with how panicky I was getting and we stopped to get my ring.

It seems silly. The ring is a symbol, not the marriage. It’s not like our relationship is on hold if I’m not wearing it. Still, most days it’s the only piece of jewelry I have on. And it’s an important symbol to me.

Tell Me Tuesday

On Tuesdays I join Suzanne at The Coloradolady for some brain exercise with thought provoking prompts for Tell Me Tuesday. Here is today’s prompt:

What should you avoid to improve your life?

I think my White Tornado project is all about avoiding clutter, which neither David nor I do well. I have a gazillion reasons to avoid clutter, the most obvious is that with clutter comes crowding and running things over with the walker or just plain tripping and falling. In a very tangible way, clutter should be a number one enemy to me. But clutter is a friend and foe from way back.


“If you kept things neater, I wouldn’t have to throw the baseball cards away in the winter. You’ll get more next year.” She even threw my Pete Rose and Al Kaline cards away and those ones were in my jewelry box. The clutter is hereditary. Mom got it from Grandma, but Grandma didn’t collect baseball cards as a kid. Mom threw away Mark Fidrych’s rookie card but Grandma threw away Al Kaline’s rookie card! It’s a cycle of abuse I say!

I paid $8 as an adult to replace one of the Pete Rose cards I’d had as a kid. The same time I bought the Pete Rose, Mom bid on an Al Kaline card that was on an auction style board at the card shop. At the end of the week, she paid $25 to replace that childhood hero. I’d have bid on the Kaline too, but I wasn’t going to bid against my own mother and I could not have swallowed the eventual sticker on it! Today those two cards flank the top of my chest of drawers in the bedroom in thick Lucite protectors.

But you see? Clutter cost me $8 as an adult for something that was one in a pack of 20 for 15 cents when I had it originally. Those cards won’t be for sale again until my estate sale.

As a kid, I saw a movie where someone woke up under a blanket and a pile of papers to answer the phone. His home was total clutter and he was renowned for his success in the movie. I thought that would be me when I grew up. No one would ever tell me to clean my room or throw away my baseball cards because I was successful. But that was a movie and I didn’t grow up to be a movie.

As a teenager, my room was often incredibly cluttered. It was also often neat organized and pristine. I found that a little clutter was good for creativity, but when my room got too cluttered, my mind got cluttered. When the clutter was too much for my usually very organized brain, I’d stop and clean. I pulled all-nighters organizing my room and moving furniture. I think it was subconscious Feng Shui. The point is cleaning the room cleared my mind, moving furniture inspired new ideas.

That’s what I need right now, the White Tornado. This is the first time it’s had a name, but not the first time it’s come to my world! At 46 and physically challenged, I can’t do it as fast as I could at 16, but it has the same effect. While working in the woman cave today, I took a couple short breaks and just sat in front of the bathroom vanity.  It was like a Zen garden.

My life will improve when I get rid of and avoid too much return of clutter. Right now, I need to avoid living in my bathroom!

My Zen Garden

(The souvenir popcorn helmets are just placeholders until I get the proper baskets.)

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Happy hump day! Not a ton of detail this morning. I want to have the kitchen done at the end of the day, which means I need to have everything for David to move out ready when he gets home. Words can’t express how cool it feels to have one of my 9 targeted rooms, including both bathrooms, almost finished!

Now, on with the Wednesday Hodge Podge, courtesy of Joyce at From This Side of The Pond.

1. The first day of spring is here...do you enjoy working in the yard? Weeding, raking, mowing, planting-your favorite springtime garden chore? How about your least favorite?

I enjoy planting flowers. I enjoy it because it’s necessary for watching them grow! My physical problems keep me from doing a lot of lawn work. David and I are not home and garden enthusiasts at all. We keep the lawn treated and mowed and landscape, well we landscape enough that our neighbors next door and across the street, who are lawn and garden hobbyists with beautiful lawns, don’t throw things in our yard! ;)  My least favorite is pulling weeds. The only thing I like less than pulling them is looking at them in my flower bed.


2. What puts a spring in your step?

Sunshine. Feeling it warm on my skin just makes me happier than usual.


3. Describe a time when you had to spring into action?

I sprang into navigation action on a stormy evening in Atlanta in 2000, after I flew in that morning for a job interview. In the waiting area for the plane, we saw lighting hit the tarmac and the entire airport’s lights flashed off then on. Our plane with several others was still in the air and did not land. The airport was a mess for the whole weekend and I couldn’t get a flight until the next morning. I was going to have to sleep in the airport because I didn’t bring enough cash for a hotel room and they were filling up fast anyway. A woman scheduled on the same flight I was asked me if I knew the area well enough to get to a hotel if she got a room. We talked a bit and she offered that we could share a room if I could navigate the subway. It was a business expense for her. It worked well. She wasn’t searching all over for a hotel she couldn’t find and I didn’t have to sleep on the airport floor!


4. We're having carrots for dinner...would you prefer yours raw or cooked?

I’d definitely prefer raw and organic. The organic ones are just like candy!


5. Do you take the shampoos and other sundries from your hotel room when its time to check out?

Yes! I use them to travel with in case we’re in a hotel that doesn’t offer them, some of the small4r or cheaper places don’t. Also, everyone should take the shampoos and such. Did you know that shelters are always looking for little shampoos and soaps? If someone seeks shelter after an emergency or in the case of abuse, they usually have not packed toiletries.


6. What's the most enjoyable team or club you've belonged to and what was it that made it so?

My hockey team when I was 9 years old. It was enjoyable because we were girls playing ice hockey in the 70s. We were special!


7. Is cloning a sign of progress?

Depends what you’re cloning. Cloning athletes to make an unbeatable team, no. If they could clone healthy myelin cells from me and replace the spots where my nerves are bare, then it’s awesome progress, bring it on!


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I’m getting pretty good at this coupon thing. We’re averaging about $20 saved when we do the big shopping trips. That helps to make up for organic carrots and almond milk being more expensive than regular carrots and milk. We have a big grocery trip coming up soon and it’ll be Eater candy time! I’ve always regarded Easter as the candy holiday. Halloween is the pumpkin spice holiday! Gimme jelly beans, gimme chocolate bunnies! I got coupons for them!

Meet Me in Marietta Monday with a Mug

Oops… It’s PM not AM and I’m finally posting Monday. It’s been a busy day, lots of phone calls, errands and White Tornado stuff. I’m working on the kitchen right now. That’s the toughest one to have done because it’s one of the rooms we use all the time, but the pantry cupboards are becoming wild confusion for the places I can’t reach. So, I’m recruiting my tall hubby to help organize those cupboards to have the less everyday things out of reach and the total everyday things, like soup, closer. I’m ready for lots of “shorty” jokes!


When I went out this afternoon I swear it smelled like summer! In fact, the record for the warmest day in Toledo history for March 19 was 78 degrees in 1921. Today it was 79 degrees at 6:00 PM! I’m happy to say I’m again part of Toledo history, but sad too. This winter was so awful for my flowers! This is only their second spring and perennials need the cold and snow to “rest.” Just like people need sleep to be their best. The crocuses bloomed way too early after our practically snow-free and mostly too warm winter and they just weren’t pretty like last year, not robust at all. March isn’t even over and the crocuses are all gone.

Friday - March 16, 2012

(Notice the withered remains of a purple crocus?)

Last year I took photos of the very first blooms on March 28. My gorgeous purple stripe crocus and the daffodils were in bloom April 10 and the rest of the narcissus joined in after the crocuses were done April 22. The narcissuses are all bloomed after yesterday morning’s rain and they just look weak compared to the photos last year. This is web-published, so feel free to come back to it and link me up to myself if I complain next January, but I really hope it’s much colder with a lot, a real lot, more snow. They say that after the nuclear winter there will be robust growth and there were definitely beautiful flowers after Snowmageddon!

Okay, there’s my crying over spilled petals. There will be fewer flower scrapbooks pages this year and the photos won’t show as much of spring’s splendor. I’ll concentrate on the older daffodils that predate me living here. They are more established and are much stronger on short rest!

April 10, 2011

Meet Me On Monday

And now I join the bloggers who share with Heather at Acting Balanced for Meet Me On Monday...only mine is Meet Me On Monday Night!

1. How do you like your eggs?
I prefer Egg Beaters, omelet style or as the Quichettes I talked about Friday. Oh those are so yummy! When I do get the mood for a yolky regular egg, I like them over medium, better if they’re overdone than underdone if it’s in a restaurant.


2. Who is the last person you spoke to on the phone?

David. Even though it’s his Sunday, he’s been monitoring the temperature for work so they can report it.


3. Do you have a place you keep 'junk' in your home?

Yes, our home. *See White Tornado Project


4. What is on your 'spring cleaning' list?

See answer for #3.


5. What blog post have you written recently that you'd like more people to know about? (don't forget to link it up)

I’ve actually been pretty happy with the hits to my blog since I started blogging daily during the week. I’ve become a regular reader of more blogs too. I don’t always comment but I still read. Although right now I have a bookmarked file I need to catch up!

If there is a post I wish had more attention, it’s The Main Event, from January 2009. It’s not so much that it needs attention, but I’d love to share it with my newer blog friends. It’s the post where I revealed to my cyber coffee shop regulars that I’d eloped.




Monday Mug Shot

Marietta, Georgia

When I was bound and determined to end up in Atlanta, Marietta was where I hoped to live. The visitor’s center is the old train depot and freight trains still run past it when you visit. I got to see a Piggyback train th3e first time I was there with my Mom in 1989. It was double cool because the construction company I worked for at the time got shipments of upgrade lumber from Canada via piggyback; semi containers already on the trailer ready to go from the rail car and be attached to a waiting truck. Yes, that was a vacation, but I liked trains anyway and it was an opportunity to see the headache I wasn’t having at work; “Piggyback, and I don’t care where it’s going!” They are very cool cars to watch!

I stayed in Marietta when I went to Atlanta on my own in 1990. That was the trip where I sat with a Headline News writer at lunch and talked. His advice to me was to enroll at Specs Howard Broadcast School when I get home and come back. I took that advice and a year later I was back. John came with me that trip because I had an interview with a production company in Marietta that did train videos and he wanted a trip with lil sis because I was about to become a 12-hour drive away and he wouldn’t see me as often. We stayed in the same hotel I had in 1990.

On the day of my interview, I drove John to the bus lot. He was going to go to Six Flags since I wasn’t a big theme park fan and he was, and I’d drive back after my interview and shop at Underground Atlanta a little before we met and got dinner in the city before we took the bus back to my car.

I thought the interview went okay. It would be a dream job, videoing trains all over the country as an assistant producer for the small company. I also knew I was really inexperienced and the job was a bit over my head as my first interview after broadcast school. When John and I met back up downtown I was excited to tell him about how the interview went. He had enjoyed Six Flags and told me about th4 roller coasters he’d ridden. He was 32 years old and put him near roller coasters and the inner child just blossomed! Then he gave me a plaque, which hangs on the open wall in our closet area today. There was a booth where you could get personalized plaques done and he had my very unusual name in wood letters next to a carousel horse, which I had a modest collection of at the time. SO perfectly me. It was to hopefully be my congratulatory gift. John always had more faith in me that I had, but everyone needs friends that can lift you up that way.

I called the company on Friday, just before we were leaving. I didn’t not get the job. They had done some number crunching and decided that the new position for which I had interviewed was one they would have to put on hold. They gave very positive feedback about my interview and welcomed me to keep an eye out because when they did decide to hire it, they’d post in the same magazine I’d originally gotten their address from and welcomed me to apply for it. They could have not told me where they’d post it and not said to apply. I took it as a good interview. I got a week’s vacation with a dear friend and one more week in Marietta.

Tell Me Tuesday Evening

Posting late today because I’ve been non-computer busy!

What a gorgeous, sunny day it’s been! After rain that knocked out power for a while last night, it was brilliantly sunny and warm. David says warm. I say warmer. 67 is very nice, but it doesn’t get to "warm" before 75!


I started working on the table in our dining room where the radio/CD player and all the CDs are. Some serious need of a White Tornado there. For audio news in the house, I just turn on the TV and I usually get my news reading the local paper online and the various news sources that Google links to. I listen to my playlist online and seldom use that radio except to listen to the Christmas station during the holidays. I also found out last November that the CD player in it no longer works. So the radio and a few stacks of CDs and old phone books were sitting on the table where the radio goes, all covered in dust and cat hair. (Cough, cough)

I want to get the CDs from all over the house collected to match boxes and really to decide which ones can go the a used CD retailer for cash or trade. What we really need is a couple of MP3 players. That radio in the dining room has a connection for an auxiliary input. So a little MP3 player can sit right on top of the CD compartment and take up a lot less room than all the CDs on the bottom shelf of the table where they hide and push out the phone books. I put a 2009 phone book in the recycle box this afternoon! The girls loved me cleaning out the area where the radio is because their carpeted play house is there too and I found so many mousies! One thing the White Tornado project is doing for them is turning the place into a giant cat toy box.

So now, I feel a little bit accomplished for the day, but not enough. I have a couple dining room things for which I need David’s superior strength. But I’m a little gravelly-throated from dusting. Also, how dumb is someone who showers, dresses in dark pants and then does the dusting? I now have dusty brown leggings.

Well, now it’s time for Dusty’s, I mean Nani’s, Tuesday stuff

Here is this week’s prompt for Tell Me Tuesday:

What is the one lie you keep telling yourself each and every day??

I’m really not a good liar, even to myself. When I lie, even exaggerate, to myself I will say, out loud, “Who are you kidding?”

I guess the one lie I’ve used is that profanity helps dispel pain, or at least that it releases negative energy so you can refocus. I read it online somewhere and I decided I’d try it. I don’t try things on other people and I don’t try things that might be dangerous, but if it won’t harm anyone, I’ll try things that sound like a “could be.”

Now, profanity therapy was a totally new idea for me. As a rule I don’t use profanity and although I know the words and their meanings, I didn’t really know where to put them in a sentence, still don’t. So one frustrated day I experienced some pain in my lower pack while trying to move something and I tried it. I was home alone so I screeched the expletives loud. They didn’t make sense because all I did was say a bunch of them. I felt good for having gotten the energy out, but ashamed for sounding so stupid. I’ve always considered, and my nieces were raised knowing, that profanity was for people who couldn’t use English. I did include the exception that when people are in pain or scared they sometimes get temporarily stupid, but using profanity all the time in relaxed speech was just plain dumb. But they were in no way to accept the definition from anyone who called it “grownup words.” That was the dumbest thing I’d ever herd said to a child. (“Boy I can’t wait until I’m BIG so I can say…” come on!)

What I did find was it’s not the profanity that dispels the negative energy, it’s the yell. Much like a weightlifter grunts when he or she lifts the barbell. So I’ve mostly replaced the profanity with grunts and growls. I sound like a cave-woman, but it helps get the job done. David is really the only other soul who’s heard my attempt at profanity therapy. By nature I just don’t use those words around other people. I couldn’t help but think it was fair if they judged me for it.

There is a little humor in what David has heard.  I use it very awkwardly and well, my personality and inflection, I sound like an unhappy cheerleader yelling the cheers that are banned. “Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep-beep” begged to be followed by “score for the other team sucks, sucks, sucks!” It's not really a good career choice for me. Banned cheers and a short skirt in a wheelchair? Yeah, they wouldn’t even let me in the stadium. I’ll stick to grunts and growls

And with that confession, the lie to myself will never fly again! Thank you!

Join Suzanne for Tell Me Tuesdays at The Coloradolady.

The Rest of Monday

Happy Monday lunchtime! I’ve said before that I do lunch late. David and I spent the day, the whole day, driving around chasing trains and looking for Bicentennial barns yesterday. Those days are a wonderful way to spend a first day of our weekend! But that much time in the car leaves me a little stiff and sore. I didn’t think it was too bad this time, until I decided to make hot breakfast for us both. Almost falling over the stove while flipping turkey bacon and burning the butter for his eggs, I realized I wasn't as ”perfectly okay” as I thought. He had asked me because he figured I’d be sore this morning. It just took a little bit of actually moving to realize he was right!

So now, I’ve taken some blog reading and relaxing time. My lower back still hurts, but it’s a little bit better. I rest and it’s always a little better. I just have to baby it a little today. Maybe I’ll try to finish up the dusting and organizing in the dining room after lunch. We’ll see. I’m committed to not overdoing it today.


I finished washing dishes, including 8 brand new, discontinued, Beige Coupe Correll salad plates! I’d put in a search request to Replacements Ltd to see if they could be located at in February. The way my unemployed income goes, I can get a little extra something on the quarterly months and I thought if they find them in April or May, I’d be able to get them, if they find them. Well as Murphy would have it, I got an email at the beginning of this month telling me they’d found my salad plates! Yay that they found them! Boo that they found them so soon, I couldn’t get them. I was a little bummed about that.

Well, my wonderful husband, who is totally fine with having the larger plates and the dessert plates without having the sandwich/salad sized plates said that if it was something I really wanted, and he sensed it would make me really happy, “go ahead and get them.” So this morning the very well packed box was in our driveway. It was kinda like “Nani’s dreaming of a White Tornado Christmas!”


I have 2 regular features that I do on Mondays, The Monday Mug Shot and Meet Me On Monday. Sometimes that’s one post, others not. I didn’t mean to infer I was skipping out on the meme today when I visited MMOM posts before posting mine! There was just a little thought required. And remember I was nowhere near my computer all of yesterday!

Every Monday, Heather at Acting Balanced supplies us with 5 questions to share some thoughts and get to know our fellow bloggers better. Here are this week’s questions:


1. What are your plans for St. Patrick's Day?
2. What is your favorite room in your house?
3. What 'gadget' do you have that you can't live without?
4. What will your first thought be when you learn that you won a lottery?
5. Other than Acting Balanced and your own, what is your favorite blog to read?


And my Nani-Answers:


1. What are your plans for St. Patrick's Day? Well, let’s see… Being that St. Patrick’s Day is a Saturday this year, maybe I’ll try to talk David into making green waffles…or orange waffles.

On St. Patrick’s day I usually wear my green Siena Heights shirt. My school colors are blue and yellow, so the green shirt really is a St. Pats shirt. It’s a Catholic University, so it’s oaky that there is a green shirt for St. Patrick’s Day. Having earned my degree is how I avoid the haunting when I wear it!

The Irish in my roots that gives me the green eyes and fair completion that freckles if I don’t wear sunscreen is not Catholic Irish; it’s Protestant Irish, the orange side of Ireland’s flag. When my mom was a kid, she wore green to school on St. Patrick’s day, and her Grandfather always grumbled about her wearing green because “we’re not Catholic Irish.” I like my green eyes and you can bet, on St Patrick’s Day I honor my Catholic School but also accessorize with something orange to honor my Irish roots.


2. What is your favorite room in your house? This is a White Tornado question for sure! The truth is I don’t like any room in my house. I want to, and that’s the whole point of the White Tornado. Clutter and lack of organization make me batty. So right now, I really don’t like any of the rooms in our house. After the White Tornado project is done, I think my favorite rooms will be the woman cave, I’ve done something terribly wrong if it’s not, and the Kitchen Annex. The table in the annex will be the staging area for food prep and finishing. It will be where the Davinities are displayed at Christmas and where I’ll likely have the laptop when I scrap because it’s in front of a large window and it’s the brightest room in the house.

3. What 'gadget' do you have that you can't live without? My Kindle. It goes with me everywhere and contains the books I read, notes on weight watchers points when I eat out, baseball schedules when we travel and my grocery list when I’m shopping. It’s really become indispensable to me. And bonus – it doesn’t receive phone calls! LOL


4. What will your first thought be when you learn that you won a lottery? Who bought me a lottery ticket?


5. Other than Acting Balanced and your own, what is your favorite blog to read? This question is why it took me so long to post MMOM today. There are a few blogs I truly enjoy reading and on any given day and given post can make one blog or another blog of the day. For today, I’m going to say that the blog I have been reading every day the longest and truly adore the blog and its blogger is Miss Edna’s Place. Every morning it’s sitting down and having coffee with a good friend and I miss it when I’m away from the computer and don’t get to read her latest post.

Meet Me Monday Night

Been a busy day for me and I spent it lazy in my jammas! Well, Jeans and nightshirt. Only kinda looks like in my jammas. I’m wearing my wedding gown!

And I am a typical woman in any excuse to pull out

one of the pictures from our wedding reception...

I haven’t worn the hat and veil since the day of our reception, but I really wanted to buck the rules of the Wedding Industrial Complex and find a suitable shirt to go with David’s Tuxedo shirt for the day we celebrated with our friends and family that I could wear again and again. What better way than an oversized t-shirt that I can use as a nightshirt?

Yeah, I’m still rebellious against “the establishment.” I said before that I eloped and didn’t “walk” after high school diploma or college degree was earned. I value prize over pageantry. I got a cool nightshirt and bonus; an awesome husband too!


After David got the heavies out of the future woman cave yesterday, I was able to move things around a bit and better organize my sorting. I actually got another good bit taken out of sorting boxes. And I now have an interesting vintage find that I’m really debating if it’s something that would be a fun laugh Vintage Thingie for Thursday or if it would be too risqué. Remember my grandfather was a sailor in World War 2! I have a few days to think about it.

While you’re here, if you haven’t already and have a moment, check out today’s Monday Mug Shot. It was an interesting little chill that day in June 1994!


Now, let’s tackle those Monday questions!

1. What is on your bedside table?
2. Hardback, Paperback or E-Reader?
3. What is your 'go to' drink of choice?
4. How do you like to spend your birthday?
5. Finish this sentence - I would never be caught dead in ...


1. What is on your bedside table? Lots of stuff and not very organized right now. My bedside table is actually an assemble-it-yourself round accent table, so it’s kinda small and just a table top, no drawers. It’s going to be replaced with this:

 

 Having a couple of drawers will really help unclutter things! On top will be my cellphone which is my alarm clock, my Kindle or whatever book I’m reading at any given time a candle and the kitty cat soap dish Rina gave me for Christmas when she was in second grade which I use as a trinket dish.


2. Hardback, Paperback or E-Reader? Usually my Kindle. It’s the only way I’ve ever been able to read a book like everyone else, no dyslexia! I LOVE my Kindle!! But I’ve read and still read any good or important book in whatever format is available at the time. I read the first two Harry Potter books in paperback and the rest of the series in hardcover. I have the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in paperback and on my Kindle.


3. What is your 'go to' drink of choice? In the morning, I gotta have my coffee. I’m a water gal the rest of the day with occasionally a Ron and Frank’s hot chocolate or a specialty hot beverage of my own creation for an afternoon treat.


4. How do you like to spend your birthday? I celebrate my birthday as a festival that runs from 5:00 the Friday before my birthday until midnight the Sunday night after it. If my birthday is on a weekend, it’s Friday the weekend before until Sunday the weekend after, for a 2-week festival. During my festival, I try to spend time with as many of my friends and family as I can. Sometimes it’s dutch, sometimes someone pays my way, sometimes I pay theirs. It’s not about presents, but presence!



5. Finish this sentence - I would never be caught dead in ... a coffin on display. I’ve always found that to be a morbid part of funerals. When I’m gone, I’m not in that body, I’m on to something better. Put up lots of photos of me alive and happy and celebrate me. If I’m not smiling it won’t look like me anyway. And I want the money that’s not used for a fancy coffin and grave to go to a plaque at a playscape and upkeep for the playscape. When people come to “visit” me, I want them to be surrounded by the sounds of happy, laughing children.



Join us for Meet Me on Monday every Monday, courtesy of Heather at Acting Balanced

Happy Leap Day!

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Gioachino Rossini, great Italian composer born on leap day 1792. Rossini died in 1868, which made him 18 at the time of his death. Question my math?

I just found out in a discussion with my trivia man husband that the leap day is skipped in 3 of every four century years. There was a leap day in 2000, but not in 1700, 1800 or 1900. Which means Rossini’s second birthday was skipped. Since there was no leap day in 1900 either, he’d be 53 today.

I read in Canada’s National Post, “It takes the Earth about 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to orbit the sun, so (almost) every four years, a day is added to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. Occasionally, the calendar will leap the leap day to adjust for the fact that the extra time isn’t exactly six hours per year. ” The link will take you to the page. It has some interesting facts and a couple points of giggles. I think it’s pretty cool!

I still have a little bit of a froggy throat…but my silly punny self is feeling a little better today! After a good night’s rest I woke up a little better, but I’m still a tad congested and a dull pain in my throat. And it’s been raining, like crazy! Gotta love this insane winter!

I have a White Tornado board on Pinterest. I pin everything I want to purchase or make as part of the White Tornado project. It’s more productive than adding more bracelets to the “My Style” board…although I still do a lot of that too. Club Pandora re-obsesses me every month. I want wallpaper for my desktop that’s a mound of decadent chocolate with a green, gold and silver Pandora bracelet draped over it. Ahhh….

But I digress; this isn’t about chocolate or Pandora. I was talking about White Tornado, organizing and accessiblizing! My mission last night was locating salad plates that go with my Corelle set. I love my dishes! They are plain smooth beige Corelle.

I have the salt and pepper shaker, gravy boat and cream pitcher and sugar bowl that match the beige. The accents are in the Forever Yours pattern

I have the tea kettle, crock pot, oven bowls and a few other accent pieces in that pattern. The description says the hearts are pink, but it’s a very peachy pink that matches my peach and light sage green kitchen theme well! So I thought maybe if I can’t find the plain beige salad plates, I’d get the beige-based plates in the Forever Yours pattern, which I did find...for $10 each. I kinda wish I’d kept Grandma’s salad plates. They were plain white and matched her brown-trimmed white Corelle.  I could have lived with plain white to have the right size plates. I just never got the salad plates 20-some years ago when I bought the dishes and the plain beige was readily available. I have a search out for the plain beige ones with a replacement/search company online, but I might do some inspecting to see if I can culminate the money for the Forever Yours salad plates and be done with it.

When the dream kitchen becomes a real kitchen, the salad plates will match great, and in the meantime, they’re in the cupboard when not in use anyway.


I have several things on my undecorated plate today, so before I go, let’s check out the Wednesday Hodge Podge hosted by Joyce at From This Side of the Pond.

1. The Hodgepodge falls on the last day of February this year, a leap year. How will you spend that extra day?

I don’t know that it’s any different. I’m going to scrap a few pages, get through at least two more boxes in the future woman-cave and drink lots of tea to try to get my throat back to normal!




2. What has recently required a leap of faith on your part?

Starting my MS meds. The one I take has a reduced heart rate, kidney infections and optical damage as possible side effects. I was thoroughly tested before I was prescribed the drug, but it was still scary. I’m glad I did it. I feel a lot better now and no side effects that I can feel.



3. We're one week into the season of Lent...are you marking these 40 days in some way? Giving something up or adding something extra to normal life? How's it going so far?

Lent is supposed to be a time of sacrifice and I kinda lost my desire to really discuss it when I realized how much was spent on fish dinners on Fridays in the name of religious observation. The idea of Lent was created to encourage the wealthier to sacrifice their expensive meat habits and eat fish and support the poorer fishermen. In the true spirit of lent, give or volunteer to the less fortunate and pass on the lobster. Have a hamburger on Friday and support the minimum wage workers at McDonald’s.



4. When was the last time you sat beside a fire?

Assuming that my Christmas Video Fireplace doesn’t count, probably the fireplace at home in Michigan before I moved. That’s been over 5 years ago now.




5. Surf and Turf is on the menu. Do you order as is or do you ask for just the surf (lobster), just the turf (steak), or a menu so you can select another option?

Lobster is fine, just anything that doesn't taste like steak!



6. If you could have any television program back, not in reruns but in new episodes, what program would you choose?


Cold Squad, Canadian cold case program I watched on Sleuth.


7. They say an elephant never forgets. These days would you say your memory is more like an elephant or a gnat?

Oh, I have a decent memory, more like an elephant for sure.



8. Insert your own random thought here.

I think today the next White Tornado boxes are mine! Progress!!

Five Question Yesterday

I read Five Question Friday, hosted by Mama M at My Little Life, on several blogs yesterday and the questions this week are very cool! Since the Linky stays up for the weekend, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This could be a meme I start adding on Saturdays when I’m home. We’ll see!





1. What's your favorite way to spend down time (alone or with a significant other)?

Down time? hehe… Okay, since I do need break time when I’m physically working on something, we’ll call break-time, or break days sometimes, my down-time.

Alone time, I read or scrapbook. I don’t think of meditation and reflection as down time because that’s something I make a point of having time for.

With significant others, like my husband, nieces and friends, it’d be a movie with David or coffee/dessert. David and I have plenty of talk-time and we do talk about things that aren’t household/relationship things. With Rina and Tori and with my close friends, male and female, coffee is all about communication, keeping our relationships strong by keeping our souls bared to each other. And yes, that’s something that is scheduled from time to time too, but it’s scheduled to make sure there’s a break from “priorities.”


2. Are you the kind of person that wants things more as soon as you know you can't have it? 

 I don’t think so. There are things that I really want that I never was able to have, yet. I call those dreams or goals. But if you mean did I “wanted him as soon as he was engaged,” or something like that, no. There’s never been anything I didn’t get or take that I’ve regretted for more than a day.


3. If you were given $1000 to spend on yourself, what would you buy?

Everything on my IKEA and Amazon wish lists to move the White Tornado up about 2 months!


4. Do you ever go out to eat by yourself?

When I travel alone it’s stop at a restaurant or eat fast food behind the wheel and get no break from the road. Besides, I like having some me time where I have no distractions and can enjoy a meal, read and relax with nothing to clean up afterwards! When I went to physical therapy sessions, Cracker Barrel was right across the parking lot and I stopped for lunch after therapy once a week as a treat to myself.

I may not as much now because eating out entails using the wheelchair and I need help with that. I can take the chair out of my backseat, but after wheeling myself in, having lunch and wheeling back out, I need help to put it back in. But I suppose in the summer as long as the weather is decent, I might stop at Cracker Barrel in the afternoon, when it’s not so busy, with the walker. Putting the walker back in the car is easier. We’ll see.


5. What company would you want to do a blog review for?

Assuming there is free product for doing the review, I think IKEA. If I don’t get that $1000, I wouldn’t mind that chunk of my planned spending taken care of for me!

Everything

I’m posting later than usual today, so that means all of my Tuesday stuff gets to share a blog entry!

I have started going through boxes and piles in what will be the woman cave today. The woman cave will be in the room that used to be “the office” when David and I were both on the older desktop computers. David’s actual desk is in the basement. It needed brought upstairs, but it was not a job he could do on his own, so his “desk” was the door to the room on top of two stacks of totes he had old clothes in. When I first moved in, my Mac and I were in the corner next to the door-desk on my card table. Later my desk moved in when my furniture was moved from Michigan. It was cozy, but it worked.

What made it cozier was that my banker boxes, all of my office and craft supplies from Michigan, lined the wall opposite the door-knob desk waiting for shelving units to be assembled. I bought 2 shelving units to start. One I assembled and put in the “train room,” which was the guest room, but all of David’s model railroad stuff lived there. That shelf freed all my photo albums and scrapbooks from boxes and gave them someplace to live. Assembling the other shelf for the office had to be done in a particular order. David’s real desk had to come upstairs and be switched out for the door knob desk to make enough room to assemble the shelves and move the banker boxes to place the unit. That unit is the one in the kitchen annex now and I still need more units! LOL

But where claiming the room as my woman cave becomes more of a challenge is that since the laptops moved in and allowed the desktops to catch some dust, Grandma passed and a half year was spent cleaning out her house and settling her estate, that put more boxes added to the old office which became a storage room, my MS symptoms blossomed and took a year of running around from doctor to doctor to figure out what that was and start to treat it and the office/storage room sat untouched. Last year, just before Christmas we heard a loud boom coming from upstairs. Something fell. After locating both cats to make sure they were okay, David went upstairs. He came back and told me “you don’t want to look at it.” After years of supporting the desktop computer and the peripheral supplies and accessories, one of the clothing totes holding it all up gave up. It cracked, collapsed and slid the entire contents of the door top onto the floor blocking passage to my desk! Miraculously, nothing, except the one tote, was broken. Even a glass candy dish survived the fall!

So, as I embark on sorting my way back into the room, because right now I couldn’t access the Mac if I really needed to, I have those original banker boxes of supplies, the rest of the boxes from Grandma’s and everything that fell off the doorknob desk. I did take some before photos. I’ll want to scrap this whole thing after I finish and earn my superwoman cape!

As of this morning I have access to the room’s closet again. I’ve also decided where the shelving unit for the M&Ms collectibles will go. Eye on the prize, I can’t wait until that collection can be displayed again!

Tell Me Tuesday

Once again this week, I’m joining Suzanne at The Coloradolady for Tell Me Tuesday. This one was harder to think about than write about! This week’s prompt:

What is the most unique thing you own?

First off as people are all unique, I think every collection is unique. I could say my mug collection because although it’s not unique to collect mugs, the specific mugs in that collection are unique to anyone else’s collection. I have other things that are probably pretty common, but the story behind them is unique. So I’m going to show you one of my very special and unique because of the story things.

I just unwrapped this from one of my one storage boxes:

Anchor Hocking Apple Jar

These jars were a promotion at Dunkin Donuts. I did some looking to see if I could get help to remember the year, but it seems the apple jar is pretty unique after all! I guess that’s not super surprising. When I started unwrapping it, I remembered what it was and the fun story that goes with it, and I said a little prayer that it wasn’t broken. The glass is thin and it has a valuable and fragile feel when you pick it up. Perhaps they are unique, or at least rare to still exist.

It was a Christmas promotion that Anchor Hocking co-oped with Dunkin Donuts in the 80’s. In going through my memory banks, I think the three years Anchor Hocking and Dunkin Donuts did the glass canisters were 1984, 85 and 86. I own all three canisters and the apple was the first one. I think I remember that it was before I was 18 and that was part of the tease in the story.

As I’ve credited many times before, Dunkin Donuts was and still is the place where I hang out with my friends in Novi, Michigan. Anita worked the counters in the evenings during the week then. Her kids are my age, so she and Mom were peers and Mom was in on the joke too.

When the posters were up all over the store promoting the deal for Christmas that you could purchase an Anchor Hocking Apple Jar filled with Dunkin Munchkins, I was intrigued. I thought the jar was really cool, but a little pricier than my part time job could afford after gas and gifts for others. I asked Anita “What’s Anchor Hocking was and what do you do with the jar to help you anchor hock?”

I did know that Anchor Hocking was the brand. I didn’t know why it was a big deal that it was an Anchor Hocking jar. But, as was natural for me at the time, and still is, I was being silly. Anita joined in.

Addressing my Mom, “you never had 'the talk?'”

I realized they were ganging up on me. Scotty and John were there too and they just loved it when I got zapped. So I asked Anita if she was going to tell me what Anchor Hocking is and how one anchor hocks.

She told me, “You’ll find out on your wedding night.”

Our collective joke that Christmas was anchor hocking the verb! I’ve been married for three years and I still don’t know how to anchor hock!


Now, if you don’t think my apple jar is unique, please leave a comment telling me how to anchor hock!

Join us to tell us about your most unique things at Tell Me Tuesday at The Coloradolady!

Barn Charm

Morenci, Michigan

I got this green-roofed barn on March 26, 2006, while railfanning in the Motherland.

See more fabulous barns at Tricia’s Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily.