End of The Naughties?

I just read on a friend’s Facebook page that “The Naughties,” as in 20-naught-whatever number ends the year, is the phrase the illustrious media has coined to call the decade we are leaving behind. Well, I never used the 20-naught phrase for the years anyway, it was two-thousand, two-thousand-one, etcetera to the year that ends tonight, two-thousand-nine, but I love the double-meaning of “the Naughties.” Okay, maybe I’m the only one who rode the coattails of Santa’s recent visit with that one. There have definitely been some things to award some major world figures a permanent place on the Naughty list!

In looking at the past decade there has been plenty of bad and good, maybe a little more bad on a world and economic scale and maybe more opportunities than rewards on a personal level, but the outlook going into the 20-teens is good. I am a decade older and hopefully that means a decade wiser. I’m definitely a decade richer in the things that are truly important. A decade ago my sweet little nieces were 5 and dealing with the child’s struggle of divorce. They lost their Mom only a few months into the decade and now, with the support and love from all of us, they are well-adjusted and incredibly wise young women. Deaths and births are a normal part of the balance of life. Part of healing from loss is realizing that what you have is still really weighted on the joy side and not the sadness side. I’ve dealt with the pain of losing some very dear people in the past decade, including too many people this year. But I am ever warmed by the great memories of them I hold and I’ve welcomed new friends into my family and new life into the families in my world, including my wonderful husband and a new baby in my family of friends scheduled for the beginning of the year!

As I get ready to turn off the computer for the last time this decade, I remember all that is so wonderful in my world and pray for those less fortunate to find the comfort and security they seek. As I said in a comment on Edna’s blog, we can sometimes hear the wind chimes gently ring in our bedroom because there is a small draft. That’s why I bunker into extra blankets, but we have a ceiling to hang wind chimes from in the bedroom. There are so many around us who don’t have that.

In a year that David and I felt pain reading articles of people who’ve had to take their beloved pets to shelters because they lost their homes and had to move to apartments that don’t accept pets or who just couldn’t afford to care for them, we were able to open our home to another furbaby and donate a little money and time at the shelter events.

In a holiday season when I’ve seen parents with pained faces saying “no” to their kids, I was able to take Tori and Rina out for lunch yesterday. I also got to hear 15 years of wisdom tell me how important the time we spend together is to them and that lunch and coffee at Starbucks was one of the best presents they had this year. What a small price to pay for such an awesome gift for me!!

So yes, 2009 was a year of many challenges and lows but one of so many high points too. My brother’s wedding and my own reception were definite high points, as were the two weeks out west for our honeymoon that David and I shared. As I mentioned in the yearly letter I sent with the Christmas Cards this year, the low points have really let the strength in our marriage shine and left me feeling more secure and in love than I could have imagined I’d feel a year ago.

Now, going into 2010, a new decade, I look forward to the relationships with not just David, but my family of fiends getting deeper and warmer, finishing school and my network certification testing and being able to increase our household income and security and Kaline is finally coming to terms with Carla and even playing with her a bit. The future looks good.

I want to wish everyone a 2010 that brings you more of everything that was good this year and less of anything that as bad and may you find the strength in yourself to find that good and help it grow.

Happy New Year!!

Photoblog Wednesday

Making even a dreary winter day brighter!

Isn't this sun catcher gorgeous? It was a gift from Veelana that came with my Christmas card. When I unfolded it Monday night and laid it on the table it was quite pretty and the hand-made craftsmanship is outstanding, but Tuesday morning when I put it in my window, WOW! When the sun shines through it you see the different nuances and patterns the folds in the paper and natural sunlight create. She sells them at her etsy store and I can definitely tell you they make great gifts that bring another smile every time they're seen.

Wrapping Up The Old, Prepping For The New

YUM! Low-Guilt Holiday Leftover Lunch

That was lunch, baked potato quarters with leftover chunks of Honey Baked Ham and cheddar cheese with a shaken salad in balsamic vinaigrette. The potatoes and cheese are leftover ingredients form my first ever made-from-scratch scalloped potatoes. This is a low-guilt, not no-guilt lunch because I try to keep my lunches around 300-350 calories and this is about 400. Now, true that I’ll resume Wife 1500 with a vengeance on January 4, but the leftovers in the fridge won’t just sit around and wait and I was in the mood for a lighter lunch than the holiday overload of the last week and a half.

There’s been plenty of good food, treats and I will totally confess that I really like my own baked goods too! My favorites from the brownies were the Cordial Cherries and Boughs of Peanut Butter, not to slight the candy canes and well, I think David left one classic chocolate on the tray and I‘ll let him have that for dessert tonight. I’m also a total sucker for the Mr. Goodcookies, which I after all, created to be the best cookies I’D ever tasted! We also have a couple of dishes of chocolates and yesterday, Pop brought the bag Auntie brought for us from San Marino, which has one of the wonderful dark chocolate and wafer tortes, for which the Fatherland is renown in Europe and a large, incredible, milk chocolate hazelnut bar that’s made in Milan. She’s sent us that chocolate before and it is pure heaven to eat! The gift bag also had a box of pocket coffee, espresso filled dark chocolates, and chocolate covered espresso beans. David said those two are for me.

gifts from the Fatherland!

I saw Pop yesterday because he came over after work to pick me up and we rode together to Angola, take 2, to meet Dave and Laura and bring the girls back. Boy the weather has just presented a huge family challenge for the holidays this year! As we sat together, ordering lunch and exchanging gifts in a smoky restaurant just off I-69, Tori gave a line that I wrote down for the scrapbook! “Wow, Christmas at a truck stop. Interesting.” That and another couple quotes will go on the layout from lunch yesterday.

David and I got a new “party camera” from his brother’s family for Christmas! I call it a party camera because it is easy to use and figure out for passing the camera around, unlike my past few point-and-shoots that people have had a hard time with. This one is a Canon and it takes great quality candid pictures, has a good auto setting for sharing the camera and a quality macro setting too. It is also much more jiggle-resistant when the flash is turned off than my old Minolta. The Minolta will still be my train camera for now, though. The Canon doesn’t have a viewfinder, which makes it essentially taking blind photos when the sun is behind you, and it’s very slow in getting ready to take a second shot, the picture quality is a little better, but it’s not a big enough improvement to make up for the limited capability in the field. But what it does for people, cats and ambient shots is wonderful! I was looking forward to getting some good photos for scrapping at lunch.

I passed the camera around, but I didn’t really get any great shots. The best one of the girls is blurry. We’ll chalk that up to getting used to the new auto settings. I took that one and it focused on the ketchup bottle in the center of the table! But I’ll use what I do have and some added journaling to get a good page anyway. A good rule is that just days after Christmas don’t take a new camera to dinner and expect many photos taken with it because people will be checking out the new camera and the niece who also got a new camera will pull hers out to compare and you won’t have good scrapbook photos! I don’t even HAVE one of Dave or Laura! I’ll see if Tori has any to swap from her camera!

It’s been a Christmas of some challenges, most from the weather, but I’m making up for that now. After visiting Grandma tomorrow morning, I’ll stop at Pop’s and pick up Tori and Rina to take them to lunch. There is a Cracker Barrel not far from where Pop is and that is one of our collective favorite restaurants!

Maybe tomorrow I'll have lunch pictures!

Options For 2010

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Safer® brand. All opinions are 100% mine.

As I’m getting ready to ring in the New Year, I’m planning the things I’ll do to make it a better year. Part of this is, of course, thinking about spring and what can I do as a fan to support the Reds and Tigers for a solid start. A big part of that is I can be a healthier fan so I have the necessary energy to be an enthusiastic fan! So, along with thoughts of bats and balls go plans for cucumbers and tomatoes!

I really want to get a bush cucumber plant and a potted tomato plant for our back yard and maybe a small herb pot. Wow. I can almost taste the fresh gazpacho writing about it! I really miss the garden we had in our backyard in Michigan and while I’m not looking to go as gonzo as Pop does with gardening, I especially miss the cukes and tomatoes!

I’ve talked before about my strong desire to keep my personal gardening organic. I just prefer my veggies without added chemicals and the taste is better. I got hooked on organic carrots at Detroit’s Eastern Market a few years back. I love to munch on the baby carrots from the packaged bags, but a quart of organic carrots almost didn’t make it home the first time I bought them! It really does make that much difference in taste! Unfortunately, organic also makes a measurable difference in cost, so while I’m not ready to grow my own carrots yet, growing the cucumbers and tomatoes will save me enough to supplement them with purchased organic carrots! Now I just have to get my plan to prevent bugs on my plants to make this awesome salad work!

Luckily, I know where to go. saferbrand.com is the best first stop to get ready for Organic Gardening. The Organic Gardening 101 section gives you all the information and support you need to get to work on growing healthy and pest-free plants without the chemicals and poisons you don’t want in your body or even just altering the taste of your fresh veggies! Their extensive insect library can help you identify the bugs in your garden and determine if they are beneficial bugs or bugs that need to be eradicated from your plants along with the safe, organic way to do that!

There are even more choices to keep up-to-date on the organic gardening secrets that will keep you in the best tasting and safest fresh veggies this year. Safer brand's facebook page will give you information on their updates whenever you login to your account. I like that affirmation of my commitment to my garden plants and eating better. Safer brand is officially on twitter too! You can friend them and get and give Tweets on your living organic choices and what they can provide to help you help yourself live a better-tasting, healthier and longer life.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful!

AGAIN! This time the winter weather advisory is out for Indiana. I was supposed to meet Dave, Laura and the Girls for lunch in Angola today and bring the girls back to either get picked up by Pop tonight or spend the night and I’d take then to his house tomorrow. This would make up for me not seeing the four of them on Christmas Eve and get the girls to their grandfather’s house for New Year’s Eve festivities. Pop and Aunt Judy take the grands for a family fun New Year at Frankenmuth every year. My cousin John’s daughter, Kendal, was the first teenager to say, “Not this year.” She’s only a year older than the girls, but she sees her grandmother a lot more than Tori and Rina see their Papa, so they may want to go and run babysitting duties for the younger kids a couple more years to have the time with Pop. We’ll see what happens when they start driving!

I got a text from Dave this morning while David and I were making breakfast to call if I was awake. It was 9:30 and I usually wake up at 7. Silly brother! When I called he said he wanted to change plans because of a weather advisory until 1 AM. I assured him I didn’t want any of us to be on the roads with an advisory. He’s gong to call Pop after his shift at Meijer is over to make evening plans for Monday or Tuesday and he’ll call and, update me.

So, now aside from a small errand, I get a free day I hadn’t expected! I’m going to do a little laundry and spend some data entry time with our card database. I got a Windows address book program that would work on both of our laptops. Now we are entering all of our Christmas card addresses. It’s a pretty big task! We ordered 75 of our family and friends cards and 75 train cards for each of us. We send one of each train card per envelope to our railfan pals, so we’re talking 150 cards-to-mail ordered, most of them used and only a few addresses that both cards go to, so there is a LOT of data entry to do in the new book. Unfortunately, the old data is on the Mac in a Mac-unique program, so I can’t just transfer the data and update. This new program is a Win-Mac program, so if I get the one written for the Mac too, the data will transfer. I’m going to do data entry for a while and then some Scrapbooking!


Speaking of Scrapbooking, I found a totally sweet freebie mini kit by Shelleyrae Designs at her blog. The kit is a perfect match for the centerpiece Grandma gave us for Christmas 2007 and last night I did a couple of pages for Christmas Day with it!

Credits: kit – Snowdrop by Shellyrae Designs,
Templates – Christmas Tree Templates by Digitalegacies Designs

That brings me to my Christmas week gift! The pair of templates I did for the layouts! Template one is in my usual multi-photo style with the large tree and snowflake sunken into the main paper. Template 2 is me stretching my style a bit. I’m not a big fan of white space layouts for me, but I realize that many people love to do them. I believe that you should give as a gift either something you would enjoy receiving as a gift yourself or something you absolutely know the receiver will enjoy, whether or not it’s your cup of tea. Since this set of templates is my Christmas gift, I’m serving both my ”cup of coffee” and many others‘ “cup of tea” together!

Click the preview to download
Password is Merry-Christmas

I’d love to read your comments here at The Chronicles of Nani, which is where I see them sooner and more often. What do you think about the embossed shapes for the background layers? Do you like a pair of templates with a white space and multi-photo page together?

Off to do an errand and get to work on data entry and more scrapping! I hope you’re all enjoying this holiday weekend!