Saturday-5:30pm

Just a quick note.

[Very funny! This has taken me two hours to post!]

My days and nights have flipped again. Was trying to prevent it by setting the alarm all last week, but that never works so I don't know why I keep thinking it will.

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Isn't that the definition of insanity? ;)

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Anyways, I wanted to tell you that the first Circle Letter arrived!

The lady from Texas who sent it to me made her recycled envelope (notice the hole on the flap)...

...from a calendar page!

I will be the only one who sees it, though. All the letters came stripped of their envelopes. I had expected to see them each tucked away, intact, inside one bigger envelope. I don't know why? I have never done a Circle Letter before, so I have no clue as to how it's normally done. I guess I had been wondering about matching stationery and possible envelope art. Was waiting to see what they did.

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Envelope art is a whole other artsy/craftsy thing. People recycle odd papers, as my lady from Texas did--cudos! You can hand paint, use calligraphy, stickers, rubber stamps, collage...lots of things. No one else will get to see her cool recycled envelope....unless I include pictures next time....hummm...?? ;)

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All the letters were short and basically introductions. Was such fun to read each one! There's something about handwritten letters that I will always cherish. :)

The lady who started it off used the most elaborate, delicate stationery I have ever, ever seen!!

Look at that wide paper lace all around the edges. Amazing!! Blew me away!

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Since everybody kept their letters really short (by my estimation) and on actual stationery, I dug out these two boxes of parchment stationery I bought many years ago (on sale, of course) on my very first trip to the Mega Mall in Minneapolis.

One is an ivory/cream color and the other is a pale lavender. I used the lavender and, much to my surprise, despite being able to see through the sheet so easily to use the line guide I made...

...this paper held up to a fountain pen and didn't bleed through so I could write on both sides in my Noodler's North African Violet ink--tada! I managed to keep it down to one sheet (my letter folks, you can close your gaping mouths) and sent it off to the last lady in Ohio in a plain pink envelope.

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Except for these two boxes of parchment, even tho I write letters constantly, I don't have actual "stationery" around here. For decades I have used small legal pads and folded the many sheets and tucked them inside of handmade cards. And then for the last few years I also use my handmade bookcards for letters. But...stationery?!?! Naturally, it is exciting to have a legitimate excuse to browse through beautiful stationery--whoohoo! I could probably jazz up some of the plain sheets I have around here...or maybe figure out a way to make an even lighter weight bookcard? (They do seem concerned about the postage.) My mind reels in anticipation. :)

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Well, there has been a decent pause in the endless rain (predicted to continue straight through Tuesday) as I have been typing this and fighting with Blogger. [I was done and tried to post--it refused my post and only saved half what I had written! So I am re-writing right now. *sigh*] Anyways, there is sunlight! The chatty geese are flying overheard. A young guy on a dirt bike is revving all over the field. The road crew is off for the weekend. Kids are playing in the yard. A basketball is smacking against cement. Karma is snoring in her cat bed. It is an unexpectedly nice early evening. Too bad the porch is soaked--ROFL! :):)

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Let's hope Blogger will let me post this time and I didn't forget something I wrote the first time. This time I am going to make a copy before I try. ;)

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"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

Duke Ellington

Thursday-11am

Karma soaking up some rays...

...by the open porch door.

Dagan and Leah both came over last night--and brought Pita Pit for dinner! The wind did change and we had to close the windows.

They were both on their smart phones when I took these pictures--hehe!

Dagan has a new "tablet" that is really cool, too! I got my questions answered about the new phone. Turned out I had gone offline somehow and wasn't on the internet. That's why I couldn't get to the "market" to look for free solitaire games. (Obviously, I hadn't tried to go online on my phone for several days.)

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I picked out a whole slew of free games that I can now slowly make my way through and decided which ones I want to keep and which ones I'll trash. They even had a good free "Yahtz Me" app that is, of course, like Yahtzee. Dagan was playing some game where he was building a bridge trestle for a train. It was obviously difficult to do because we kept hearing trainloads of people screaming as they crashed into the valley--and then Dagan laughing so hard I thought I might see a tear roll down his cheek! ;)

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[We really had an extra, extra dose of laughter last night because Dagan's squealing giggles are extremely contagious! It was above and beyond our norm.]

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Screaming people falling to their deaths, Dagan's breathless laughter, endless cups of dice shaking, and yet Leah diligently persisted in making her birthday present tags--LOL! She finished up what she needed for right now and will complete the rest of them in a couple weeks. (Not meeting next week unless it rains as Leah wants to golf if it's nice out.)

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Leah, the recycler extraordinaire, is making permanent birthday present tags. She'll just save them and reuse them every year. I had her take some pictures before they left. This one shows the front and back sides.

The scalloped and plain circles were cut out with Spellbinders dies using the trusty Cuttlebug. She embossed the "Happy Birthday" on one side--scallop matching purple for the girls...

....and the rusty/bronze color for the boys. Three layers of paper sandwich.

She can attach and detach the tags like she shows on the scissors handle here. Looping the double ribbon over what you want to attach it to, splitting the tied ribbons at the end knot, pushing the tag in-between the split ribbons, and then snugging it up as you see.

I showed Dagan and Leah the rock and was telling them what Spruce wrote to me about it. We got to discussing whether 1,000 million was a billion, as Dagan said it was. He's probably right. I just wrote down what Spruce wrote to me. Math is not my thing--in any way shape or form. And maybe it's not Spruce's thing, either, right--hehe! So I looked it up on Wikipedia this morning:

"1,000,000,000 (one billion, short scale; one thousand million, long scale)" I guess Spruce and I are in the clear! ROFL!

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FYI--both Caroline and Leah thought the rock looked like a dried poop patty of some kind when they first saw it. That just makes me giggle!

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Oh, and I was looking over the pictures I saved from the tripod box and saw "gear level handle"? What?

Well, I'll be danged! Look how high I can get this thing to go up from the base of the tripod! It was so high that I'd need a stool to look through the camera to see where I'm aiming! Cool! Might be able to get a more overhead shot.

This morning I took a picture of the tripod in smallest mode next to the little flexible gorilla tripod I have been using on my craft videos since I started making them two years ago.

Love my little gorilla, but I had to make a huge stack to perch it on top of in order to get it up high enough to film me at my craft table.

At first I had a stack right on the table, but then I shook the camera quite a bit sometimes. (Even just talking with my hands I can be a table pounder, I discovered--and that's not counting what I am doing when I'm actually crafting.) So then I moved the stacking pile on to a TV tray and put that right beside the table. That is how I filmed most of them. Now I can try it with a real tripod! True. I am too sore to go near the table for a day or so because I sat there all night last night when Dagan and Leah were here. (Dang! I keep forgetting to set my timer lately!) But soon! :):)

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Anyways, we had a grand time. It is a glorious day again. I am heading out to the porch to read. Karma's already waiting for me. :):) Have a super-duper day!!

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"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out."

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Wednesday-3:30pm

On these glorious perfect spring days (sunny, 60s to low 70s) Miss Karma and I have been spending time on the porch. Ahhhh!

Got to get while the gettin' is good, right?

I took out the camera and Karma starting stretching, and pawing, and showing off.

She's been loving this porch sprawling the last couple of days.

I got two packages in the mail today. One was the cheap tripod I bought thru Amazon (less than $20). Has a carrying pouch. (I saved the part of the box that has pictures until I am sure what I am doing.)

Here it is pulled out of the pouch on the table.

Just spread out the legs and viola! The table was so full of stuff...

...I set it on the floor for a better picture.

Anyways, this is the shortest version.

This is the next highest version.

And here is the tallest it will go. Karma was right there to check it out, of course. ;)

The legs telescope out really easily and you can clamp the clips anywhere along the line, I guess. So, I could use the short version right on the tabletop, I suppose, or the tallest version right next to the table. We'll see how the angles are and what works the best. I have to figure out how to get the camera on and off. I think it has quick release. Leah will be here tonight and she can probably figure it out faster than I can--hehe!

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So, now I just need to get back on the stick and back to business with the birthday cards that have been sitting here waiting patiently for me this past week and a half. ;)

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The other package was really heavy and I had no clue what John/Spruce would have sent me from Nain in Labrador?

A big rock! A couple smaller pieces broke off in transit, as you can see. I thought I could feel it was very old just by holding it before I read his note.

Here's the other side. You can almost sense the eons embedded in its memory. Hard to put into words.

There are rocks up in Nain that are 3,800 million years old...oldest known rocks in the world, I guess. I will never touch an older rock, I am sure! He wasn't sure if this was amphibolite gneiss (the really old rocks) or proterozoic anorthsite from the Middle Proterozoic period (1,000 million years ago) which are more common in Nain. I don't need to know. It is ancient earth.

Imagine how old this lichen might be?

Fascinating!

I'll have to find a special spot for this to sit quietly. :)

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Caroline was here this afternoon (she had a funeral yesterday for a co-worker) and it is Craft Night tonight. I haven't heard from Dagan or Leah yet today. I kind of assume Dagan may opt to golf tonight instead of paint--hehe! Leah wanted to work on cards and I have a few new phone questions for her. ;)

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It's such a perfect day! All the windows are open and yet the wind is not much in my direction, so it shouldn't blow everything right off the table, I don't think--hehe! These days are my dream days...the ultimate favorites in the spring and fall. Of course, they are saying rain again by Friday, but we so seldom have had a stretch of good days that Miss Karma and I are both in seventh heaven!!

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Hope everybody is having a good week. :):)

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"Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let you feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth."

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Saturday-10:30am

Cold and dark and drizzly up here. Good snoozing weather, Karma says. ;)

Well, Blogger has been just nuts! Deleting all posts and comments from 7:43am on Thursday until who knows when on late Friday afternoon. I couldn't access my blog at all ("unavailable") but other people could go read it? I lost my Thursday post and any comments I made. I think we'll all have to just go from here. If I missed commenting on your blog it may be that it was just lost in cyberspace with my post--LOL!

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And you can blame Blogger for the sideways pictures (I can never fix) below as I re-post. Once I put pictures in my document storage system with Apple's Safari they will revert back to sideways if they had shown up that way for some reason from my camera--even if I had fixed them and clicked save. Maybe I should blame Apple? Or my camera? Or maybe I am too dumb to figure it out? *sigh*

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Anyways, Dagan and Leah came over on Wednesday with this box! My new fancy cell phone!! LG Optimus S.

Here's my old flip phone. Compared to the new one, this one is like using an old dial phone!

I bought this leather case for it as soon as I got it (my first cell phone)...

...but this is what it looks like naked--hehe!

Here's the old and new phones side by side--and sideways--LOL!

I didn't notice the flecks of dust on the new screen until I saw this picture of the new matte purple phone.

Side view.

Leah spent the whole evening getting my phone set up for business. I have a "home page" now like on my computer. Have shortcuts to the internet, weather, email, contacts, texting, voicemail, maps, calendar, clock...and I have four other pages I can put shortcuts on!

Tilt your head and you can see my blog on my phone! (Still seems a bit strange to me.) Leah taught me how to enlarge with a finger and thumb so I can read things easier, too.

Most awesome--a keyboard for typing texts or emails!! And I have this swiping thing on there where I can just slid my finger from letter to letter. I'm getting more used to doing it now after a couple of days. Yup! Most awesome!!!

OH--and I got to choose an old ringing phone for my ringer!! LOL!! Startles me every time, but I don't think I could ever sleep thru it. ;)

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I still have booklets to read...

...but I can tell you that I love my new fangled phone already! :):) Thanks Leah for all the work you did to set me up and teach me how to use this "smart" phone. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you in the future, but I'm doing amazingly well so far! Surprising myself! ;)

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And thanks for jumping the car , you guys!! :)

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Yes, the Paseo is up and running. I took her out for a spin on Friday, too. Plan to do that a couple more times before I make any appointments--to make sure she's holding a charge. I guess I do have to drive her more often. Can't let her sit for months or the battery can totally drain down, I guess. So, I am going to try to take her out and about every 2-4 weeks--even if I just drive around for 10-15 minutes and come right home. I am so thrilled that it wasn't anything bad! Whoohoo!! :):)

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The last couple days I have been working on letters owed (five!). I figured I should write those before the Circle Letter arrives for the first time. I guess it is on the way to North Dakota--tada!

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I haven't heard back from Goulet Pens about the piston pen, but Rachel's had bad morning sickness and their part-time help is gone for two weeks, so I figured it might take a while. Life happens, right? ;) I have no doubts they'll answer me as soon as they can.

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I've been on a low this week. Not state of mind, just the usual fibro stuff. Which means I haven't worked on the birthday cards or made the video on how to apply the caulk frosting yet. I will get back on task as soon as I can. :)

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Meanwhile, I am feeling about as energetic as Karma--ROFL! We're supposed to get some sunny, spring weather again soon. I hope so! I want some porch reading time. I've only managed to get one day out there so far this spring. Been wet or too cold. Of course, I need a day of sun to dry out the soggy carpeting first and it's been hard to find two warm days of sun in a row so far. But we're supposed to see the sun for days starting tomorrow. I hope they're right this time! Several sunny days in the 60s--yippeee!

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Have a great weekend!! :)

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"Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Wednesday-1:30pm

Sometimes I am the CatTV. ;)

On occasion Karma likes to spy on me from the porch--hehe!

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Well, I have a warning. Be very careful taking the covers off the divided Ziplock containers after they've been frozen. As you can see, the covers don't necessarily come off easily and pieces can crack off.

I have been keeping the Mother's Day roses up here next to the TV to keep you-know-who from eating them. She loves to eat flowers!

I was watching Human Planet 1 & 2. Have one more DVD yet to watch. Very good! That scene on the TV is an ariel shot of rice patties, I think.

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I got my new Ink Drop order. Filled my three empty Preppy pens half full with ink samples. :)

I am still having trouble with that new Noodler's piston pen drying up. Have tried three different inks. So, I emailed the Goulets to ask them if this is a normal thing or did I just get a lemon?

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The roses!!

Most of them have opened up now and they are even more beautiful! :)

The noisy construction in the field continues.

I never made it to the dentist's for the checkup on Monday. The car was dead as a doornail. Dagan and Leah think the battery just drained down to nothing because I haven't driven it for so long. I hope they're right. They're going to try to jump it when they come over tonight after work.

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Tori is a fairly new vegetarian, too. I finally went and looked up when exactly I watched Earthlings and quit eating meat. Was on May 4, 2010. Hard to believe it's been a year already!

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Well, that's quickly what's been happening up here.

Hope you're having a good week. :)

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"Light tomorrow with today."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning