Thursday, September 27, 2012

Thursday-9am

I had time to play this week--whoohoo!  So I will show the challenges first because I have lots of pictures to show you today.  :)  
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First of all Erin's zendala challenge #24 for this week over at The Bright Owl.  You can visit there to see what other talented people have done with this template, too.
Here's mine. 
See!  Proof I am being sloppier--I mean looser.  ;) 
And then the Artist's Play Room over at Just Add Water, Silly was whatever we wanted to do this week ("you choose"), so I decided to do my latest lesson in the Doodles Unleashed class and kill two birds with one stone since I wasn't able to play until yesterday.  We were supposed to do a background, draw flowers or shapes with ink, color them in with colored pencils, and then use white and black for accents.
More proof of my slow transformation into... 
...a loose woman!  LOL! 
Not much to look at, but it was fun!  And quick!  You can go check out what some truly wonderful artists have done if you click on her link above.  
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Yes!!  I finally finished the huge reorganization project on Tuesday!!  The double decker wire shelves in the hall closet...  
...my bedroom closet shelf... 
...the new bookcase is empty again and waiting for the wooden shelves... 
...can't forget I also took this entire bookcase apart by the front door... 
...the bookcase and wire shelves in the bedroom...
...this entire dresser filled with craft stuff (note that the second shelf from the top is filled with aromatherapy supplies--you'll need to know this later--LOL!)... 
...this entire half of my living room wall... 
...and the bookcase and art table and new wall shelves...
...are ALL finally cleaned and reorganized...while the trees turned rust colored.  
These little trees in the yard are very pretty in the fall. 
A lady who lives here was walking by as I was taking pictures of the trees.  We have quite the international diversity here.  The women who wear these colorful outfits must be so glad it has cooled off.  I felt so sorry for them when it was 100 degrees. 
And they have been building something out in that field. 
Cement trucks have been coming and it looks like walls for a large building. 
Okay--remember the aromatherapy stuff?  Karma's favorite way to eat her cat food (well, she thinks they are cat treats but it is actually diet cat food) is to dig them out of this metal tea tin. 
It's hard to catch a shot of her doing this because she has very quick, darting paw capture. 
Anyways, there was a new, clean tea tin in with some other empty bottles and jars stored right next to the box of essential oils.  Being lazy, I thought--I'll switch the clean tin for the old dirty one and just toss it.  Then I don't have to clean anything and I really don't need two tins, right?  
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Karma was crying and in a foul mood that night.  The next morning--well, after she gets her canned treat and I heat up some coffee, Karma gets her tea tin refilled with about a half cup of dry food.  But I can see she has over half of it left and has actually eaten some of the other food out of the bowl (for which she normally has to be desperate and out of the tin food).  I fill the tin, but she just sat and stared at it.  Finally she got up and walked around and around it...sniffing the air with this disgusted look on her face...and crying.  We humans can be a little slow, but it finally dawned on me...that tin smelled like essential oils of all kinds--ROFL!!  Karma was having none of it.
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Luckily the old tin was on the very top of the trash I hadn't taken out yet!  Put food in the old tin and she plopped down and scooped away with great relief!  How could anyone eat food that smelled like ylang ylang, cedar, roses, eucalyptus, and patchouli--LOL!  Still makes me giggle.
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And lastly for today--I grabbed a few pics of Dagan and Leah's house!  With siding...
...and a front door.  The prep work for walls is being done on the main floor...
...upstairs... 
...and in the basement. 
Ceilings are starting to take shape. 
It is really starting to look like a house now with the siding and roof done.


And the garage floor and the driveway are done now, too. 
They spent a couple days wiring the house for the internet.  Oh, and Dagan's checkup went well.  They're putting him on blood thinner as a preventative because he's high risk for strokes, but he's doing fine.
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Speaking of Dagan--he stopped by Monday night and...guess what!!  Between my asking my techie angels to heal the TV computer, not touching it for many days, and Dagan's famous magic touch with electronics...he came over and Media Player worked just fine for him!!??  And it has been working for me ever since!?  I don't care why.  I am just so thrilled that it is working.  I even finally got to see who won Big Brother...and was so happy it wasn't the really evil liar (swore lies on the bible, his marriage, his grandfather), Dan!  That young fellow, Ian, won!!  Nice!!
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Yes, I must confess that I have been watching (or half watching-I do FF a bit) Big Brother and Survivor since they first came out.  I keep saying I won't watch any more, but then I end up watching again, anyways. 
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Goodness sakes!  That's the big wrap up for Thursday.  I am finally DONE with the big reorganizing project after nearly two months, the TV is working again, I am pretty much caught up online, I got four letters written this past week, even got the paper shredding done, I am free to play again, and Karma's not mad at me for stinking up her food.  What more could a person ask for?  How about that it's suddenly supposed to be back up to around 80 for the next few days!  Whoohoo!  It won't almost smell like snow in the air for a while.  Might even need those fans again, after all.  :)
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Have a stupendous weekend, everybody!!  :):)
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"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."
Zig Ziglar

Monday, September 24, 2012

Monday-7:45am

We had a few more of those sunny mornings...
...turning into cloudy afternoons.  No rain that I ever saw, but that's probably a good thing because it's been cold enough to snow with it being 30s overnight! 
Pretty soon it will be time to store the fans for the winter.  Feels cold enough right now, but I don't trust fickle Mother Nature.  I haven't been using the fans for some time, but Karma has. 
Yes, she's using the fan cord as a mid-air pillow. 
Karma and her hard pillows. 
I got a surprise in the mail from Linda, my oldest friend.  Well, not oldest in age--LOL!  I've known her since we moved in next door when I was five years old.  
I was talking about wanting to make paper again this winter... 
...and she went right out and picked tiny flowers from her yard... 
...pressed them... 
...and sent me all these beauties!! 
Linny!  Linny!  That just tickled my heart to pieces!  Thanks so very much, girlfriend!!  These tiny flowers are just perfect!  And taping them inside the tagboard in the wax paper sandwich worked perfectly.  They arrived in beautiful shape, as you can see.  :)  Many thanks!!
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Meanwhile, Karma and I have been being lazy bums.  (This photo really isn't upside-down...Karma was.)  
Other than writing four letters, making up meals that can be nuked this week, washing clothes...well, all the usual...been staying away from the bedroom, moving carefully, and watching Netflix.  But today it will be back to cleaning and organizing.  I am hoping to finish up this week and be done-done-done!!  Even this stubborn Swede has had about enough.  Going on two months now--geez!  Years ago I would have finished all this in one weekend.  But talk about feeling like I have accomplished something when I am finally done.  Wow!
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Oh, and I did another marathon catching up online this weekend, too.  Read everything, even if I didn't comment on every blog.  :)
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I'll be so glad when this project is done and I can spend some of my good hours actually playing with some of these art and craft supplies I've been moving around for lo these many weeks--LOL!  My goal was to be done before October and it looks like I should make it--whoohoo!!  Wish me luck!  Then things can get back to normal around here...well, my normal--LOL!  ;)
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Say!  I've been meaning to ask...how do you like my only posting on Mondays and Thursdays?  I'm thinking of trying to keep it like this, but maybe throwing in an additional post once in a while.  I know I am chatty and always have pictures.  Maybe this takes up less of your time, you know?
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Anyways, have a fulfilling week with lots of giggles!  :)
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"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another."
Walter Elliott

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Thursday-9:30am

Good Morning!
We've had some sunny mornings where Karma could catch some rays... 
...and some dark days.  Sometimes in the same day--LOL! 
Really cooled off!!  Been 50s-60s during the days and in the 30s at night!  More like late fall/early winter weather.  Despite the dark days there hasn't been any rain that I've noticed and the workmen are busy each morning bright and early.
My order from SuzyScraps finally arrived--all of it!   
I now have all the refills for the discontinued Ancient Page ink pads.  In fact, every ink pad we have now has a refill except one...that isn't discontinued.  ;)  Not bad. 
And what have I been doing all week?
You can see the floor in the bedroom!!  Stop laughing.  Yes, I need a stool to feed the fish up on top of the dresser.  Some of us are short on one end.  ;)
I have made tremendous progress in here, but don't get too excited because I still have all the drawers in another dresser to sort through and neither of these shelves is finished yet and...  
...remember the sliding number puzzle?  ROFL!  Now I have various empty boxes in the bookcase in the hallway and stacked next to it...that I will use as I sort and organize.  It seems never-ending, doesn't it?  LOL!
But, I do think I am about halfway done in the bedroom now--tada!  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...and I am headed for the light, folks!  Ahhh!  :):)
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After a break. 
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I will be on R&R (rest and recovery) for a while again.  I am about 150 blog posts behind and have 80 emails and comments to go through...which is good, I guess...since I have no TV.  :(   
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Yup!  My cursor to the left method only fooled the mentally challenged Windows Media Player for a day.  Then it decided it wasn't even going to open up at all for me--period.  I've emailed Dagan, but I'm not sure if he'll know what to do with it, either.  He'll check online, but they're super busy with the house and I told him I knew he wouldn't be able to do anything about it for quite a while.  
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They're wiring the house for internet right now in the evenings after work and then leaving for Minneapolis for his annual heart/pacemaker check-up on Friday.  I told him it looks like it's recording shows, anyways, and I do have Netflix--knock on wood.  [And a ton of books on my TBR (to be read) stack and letters to write].  So, I have stayed away from going anywhere near Media Player (TV) the last couple days because I can still use the internet and get to Netflix.  I don't want Media Player's nasty attitude to spread, you know, and crash the entire computer for good.  *sigh*  TV has gotten complicated in my world.  Oh well, I'd be much more upset if I lost the internet and couldn't use my laptop.  ;)
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Meanwhile, the construction goes on.  Looks like maybe a huge building might be going in.  They have been digging out earth and hauling it away. 
Which made me wonder if that is what is being dumped in the other noisy spot--LOL! 
Karma keeps her ears open to all the interesting new sounds... 
...even when she's trying to relax.
But she's no watch dog.  
She's softly snoring next to me in her cat bed as I speak.  The beeping and rumbling may be interesting, but not enough to keep her from her numerous naptimes.  ;)
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Well, have a good weekend.  Oh, and my back held up pretty well...but I promise I will ignore the bedroom...and the hallway...for a couple of days or maybe till Monday.  Even though I do see that very tempting end-light...that was a lot of lifting for me, so I'll be good.  Maybe I can manage to catch up online little by little...and see what everyone's been up to while I've been away this week.  So nice of you all to keep me company while I recover--LOL!  ;) 
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Be well and happy!!
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OMG!  I'm turning into a genius!  ROFL!!  Thanks, Ben.  ;)
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"Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience."
Benjamin Franklin