Friday, September 30, 2016

One way or another

If the skies insist on being gray and gloomy then I'll get my sunshine another way.




These are all growing under the bird feeder. Courtesy of my feathered friends.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Feel like a slacker

While I was on vacation I tried to keep up with my fitness goals but I found it a bit difficult. I had 2 days where I didn't even make the 10,000 steps for the day. This week I'm back to work and no problem with getting the steps in but after work I'm not going out for the walks like I was doing before. The colder weather has me slowing down.

The good news is thought that I haven't been digging in to this bowl of chocolates

These were left over from some thank you gifts I made for a few of the girls at work. They have been sitting on the table for over 2 weeks now and I've been very good only occasionally having one. After all at just 42 calories each a little indulgence can't hurt. My daughter has graciously offered to assist in removing the temptation and has worked on decreasing the little goodies each time she stops over.

Without my consent

Summer has left us and fall has taken up residence. Since I can't stop it I may as well just enjoy it.


I'm sure there are plenty of warm days ahead yet but the temperatures have been cooler during the day and down to the 40's at night. Pull out the warm pajamas, long sleeve shirts and put on some water for a cup of tea. Fall is in the air.

I read somewhere the other day about heating up apple cider and plopping in a chai tea bag. Sounds rather yummy and I may need to buy some apple cider.

What is your favorite thing about fall? I think for me it's the colors.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Monday, September 26, 2016

Not a bad deal

Last Friday I was out for my morning walk. I spotted a yard sale on the opposite side of the street and almost kept walking. Instead I decided to pop across the street and just see what they had. I was pleasantly surprised to see these ladies had things priced to sell and I saw several things that I wanted. Unfortunately I had no money with me and even if I did I wouldn't want to have to carry the stuff home.
I walked as fast as I could up the street to my house, ran in and grabbed my purse and keys and drove back down the street.

Here's what I brought home

The doilies were marked 25 cents each and I grabbed 4 of them.
The little ladder was 50 cents. I gave it a bath when I got it home and I think I'm going to paint it.
The fabrics which were about a yard each were marked 75 cents and 1 dollar
The wood embroidery hoops were 10 cents each. I took all of them (a total of 15) When I was checking out I counted the hoops for the lady and I counted 18. I must have had a few that were separated. I paid an extra 30 cents but I'm not complaining.
The shutters were 3 for 2 dollars. I plan on painting and decorating those.
My grand total was $7.05. Not bad for all that stuff.

I was tempted to go back for a few other things I spotted. They had so much stuff marked at just 50 cents. I showed a little self control though and was happy with what I got

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Silly me

I know it's a bit early for Halloween decorations but my daughter was over a couple weeks ago and went through all my Halloween stuff and took what she wanted. This was left out because I wanted to keep it. I made this years ago.



My silly story for the day:

Thursday I was out shopping. I was coming out of one store and headed to my vehicle. By the way do you realize how many black SUV's there are with similar body styles? Well anyway, I was headed my my vehicle and I was looking at my phone as I was walking. I hit the unlock button on my key and opened the drivers door. WHAT? Why is my seat back so far? Did I hit the button when I was getting out? I got in and as I sat down in the seat I looked over at the cup holder. WHAT? What is that stuff in my cup holder? OMG, this is not my vehicle. I quickly got out and looked around to see where MY vehicle was. Oh, there it is. I made a mad dash to it and hopped in hoping no one had seen me.

On a side note. If you happen to hear strange screaming and crying noises today, don't be alarmed. That's just me going back to work after being on vacation for a week.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Dongle dilemma

This is a dongle


Why it's called a dongle, I have no clue. This is what plugs in to the USB port on the desktop to sync my fitbit. Normally I would use the app on my phone, however I managed to use ALL my data up already and have to wait until the 3rd of next month.  I hate Verizon but that's another story.

So I tried to sync on my computer. It wouldn't work. I go to the help section and got frustrated because I wasn't understanding what it was saying. Finally I figured out I needed to download an app. Only problem was I downloaded the wrong thing. What I needed was Fitbit Connect. OK, got that on the computer now plugged in my dongle and it tells me no dongle.  I gave up in frustration. Later that evening I went to use my laptop only to find out my cordless mouse wasn't working. Turns out I took the little USB thingy from the laptop thinking it was the fitbit dongle. AHA!!! I switched the two and now Fitbit Connect says I have a dongle and it synced my tracker.

Friday I go to syn again and now it can't find my tracker. I give up. I have had more trouble with the fitbit syncing. It often takes a long time on the phone app. I don't know if my short fuse can handle going back to the help section again. Since this is the last day of my vacation I'm not going to ruin it by getting frustrated. Syncing will just have to wait some more.

Friday, September 23, 2016

A new hat

Someone got a new hat. I can't tell if he likes it or not


Come on Gibbs, show everyone your new hat.


Seriously? I better get an extra treat for this one.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Why did I do it?

Yesterday I finally did something crafty. Maybe my craft room has been clean long enough. Although I did pretty good at putting everything away after I was done.

I pulled out the sewing machine


I've been wanting to try free motion embroidery for a long time and I finally decided to do it.  Free motion embroidery is kind of like drawing with your sewing machine. First to get a feel for it I just moved the hoop around and scribbled on the fabric. Then I cut out some felt pieces and outlined them on the machine to make an acorn.

Next I drew a a pumpkin shape. As an experiment I shaded it with markers. The reason the colors are running is because I also decided to see what it would do if I sprayed it with water and then I tried spraying it with alcohol. Now I know what it does. It makes a mess


Oh and to answer the question why did I do it? Well...

I've also been wanting to try making some fabric postcards and I thought I could turn this into one. I still need some practice but I think this could be fun. Now I just need to come up with some designs to do.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

One picture three ways

Believe it or not, I actually found myself feeling a bit bored yesterday. I had things I could do but I didn't want to do any of them. Instead of spent a whole lot of time playing around on the computer.  Oh what an exciting life I have.

I found a picture in the files that I took about a month ago. All I did to the first version was to use auto correct and sharpen. I always love the look of water drops on petals.

Next I added a texture and a mask.

For the third and final I sharpened the picture for a second time and added another texture
Now, what shall I do today?

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Bad blogger

I feel like such a bad blogger lately. I haven't been very attentive to it lately.  I have no excuse. I haven't done anything exciting or even interesting the last few days. Saturday we went to the fair for to eat and walk around a bit, Sunday I spent all day cleaning and then we lounged around in the living room


Monday I didn't do much of anything other than taking Gibbs to the Groomer. Now he's all handsome and he smells better too



Hey! Are you trying to tell me I was stinky?


Sunday, September 18, 2016

Rain on my parade

No fair week is complete without rain. Although we did have pretty good weather for the entire week it did rain yesterday for the last day of the fair. It let loose during the parade in the morning.

So what do you do when it rains on your parade? Well you do some puddle jumping of course.


Bad picture but I was sitting across the street under my umbrella and trying to get a picture. I laughed when I saw this little one jumping in the puddle but laughed even more when a clown came down the street and joined him. Sorry no picture of that because when the clown jumped in the puddle the little boy ran back up in the yard. I think it kind of scared him.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Home stretch

I think I'm going to survive this week. Today is my last day of craziness and then I'm on vacation for a week.
My email inbox has been quite empty and I think I heard an echo in there so I figured I would pop in real quick before everyone forgot me.

Today you get Gibbs edits. All done in Prisma. That's the latest app obsession on my phone. I had seen several posts about it and decided to try it out.


Hopefully tomorrow I can get back into my walking routine too. I've been too tired all week to go out after work. I've been hitting the couch when I get home and going to bed early.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Think pink

While I was out walking yesterday I headed to the local park where they hold our fair. They are in full swing setting things up since it officially opens today.

I had the phone with me and snapped a quick picture of these tractors.
That's the first pink tractor I have ever seen. Must belong to a lady farmer.

I'm considering taking the rest of the rest of the week off from blogging. With the busy work week ahead and trying to get my walking in at night I don't know how much ambition I'll have left over. If I post it may be wordless. I'm playing it by ear for now.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Fun day

Saturday my friend Debbie and I went out for a fun day. We started out in Edinboro, Pa for the Highland Games and Scottish Festival. Maybe our timing was off but we didn't get to see much. Mostly we saw people standing around practicing their bagpipes.


From there we headed to the Bayfront in Erie, Pa to see the tall ships. We both chose to pass on the steep admission price to gain closer access to the ships. Instead we got some shots of them from a distance and enjoyed the exercise we got from all the walking.


We also got to see the worlds largest rubber duck.
 Craig Samborski, a tall ships festival organizer in Duluth, Minnesota, created the World's Largest Rubber Duck in 2014 after one of his business associates dared him to come up with some kind of inventive attraction to showcase at tall ship and maritime festivals. (source: http://www.goerie.com/entertainment/20160908/5-things-about-rubber-duck-at-tall-ships-erie )


A phone edit of one of my pictures.

After this we headed out for lunch at Eat n Park. When I got home I took care of a few things, then dinner time and by the time I could get around to sitting in front of the computer the weather was turning. We were expecting severe thunderstorms. While it didn't turn out as bad as we thought, it did take out the internet and tv for a bit. I gave up on trying to get a post done.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Gophers

I had a song stuck in my head the other day at work and it led to a discussion about old cartoons. The line I was singing was "go go gophers watch em go go go". The girl I was working with said she never heard of that one. I posted this video on Facebook yesterday to see if it jogged her memory. Since I'm not motivated to do anything more I'm sharing it with you today.





Friday, September 9, 2016

Tubing

When you hear tubing you probably think of sliding down a snow covered hill on an inertube.  Well when I was out walking the other day I spotted a sign I had never noticed before and I did a little investigating.

This caught my eye


So just what is maple tubing?



I'm assuming that the white container is where it all runs to


You can see on this tree (sort of) the blue tubing is tapped in to the tree near the bottom.

This was the first time I had ever heard of this being done. I've always seen the buckets hanging from trees but never the tubing before.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

I need a vacation

Yesterday I went back to work after having two days in a row off. Let me just say I was not a real happy camper.

Instead of going in to a big long whiny rant I think I'll just take this opportunity to make an excuse for myself. This week and next are going to be crazy crazy. I have tons of work to do to get caught up today and tomorrow and then next week is fair week. If you've been with me a while you know how crazy fail week makes me. If I make absolutely no sense in my posts during that time just blame it on the work load.

Now how about another before and after picture. This was the other morning. I went out at 6:30 am for a walk and I snapped this picture.



While there was plenty of light for walking it didn't help the picture. I loved the view though and after a little tweeking it looks pretty darn good

I've been trying lately to get myself back in to a crafty mood but apparently the mojo is on holiday.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

The good and the bad

Like any town we have all kinds of houses around here. Some look good, some not so much.

I've always liked the looks of this house. Quite a while ago they totally restored it.



This one has sat abandoned for as long as I can remember. I've been in the area for 28 years and I don't remember it looking any other way than it does now.  It would make a good haunted house but I think I would be afraid to walk across the upstairs floors.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Just walk

I've become obsessed with walking. I'm getting at least five miles a day now. When I'm working most of those miles are spent walking around in the bakery but on my days off I've been slipping on my walking shoes and heading out the door.

Yesterday as I started out I asked myself why?


The answer was simple. Because I can and because it makes me feel so good. It clears my head and just makes me feel energized. I can also feel myself getting stronger. I can walk without my hip hurting any more and that is a major accomplishment.

The next question I asked myself was which way should I go.

This guy said he didn't give a hoot which way I went just so long as I moved it along and stopped staring at him.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Happy Labor Day

Saw this on facebook and had to share it here.



I hope that everyone's Labrador weekend has been something to bark about.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Been down that road before

But I went down it again because it's more pleasant walking on roads that don't have a whole lot of traffic.


As an added bonus, when I walk down roads like this one I get to see all the pretty stuff growing along the side of the road. On this particular walk I stopped frequently to snap pictures. I have no idea what any of it is called, I just took pictures of what caught my eye.


Ok, so I do know this first one is Queen Ann's Lace and I loved the way this looked all dry and curled up.

Love the color of these

Blue, my favorite color

Pretty puffy pink balls.

Thanks for walking along with me.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Before and after again.

Wow, what a busy but productive day I had at work yesterday. I am so going to enjoy not going to work today.
Before I get to the before and after I want to mention that my friend Debbie is getting back in to blogging now that she is retired. To kick it off she's even doing a giveaway. Why not pop on over to her blog, say hi and enter to win. You can find her at  Debs Rustic Quilting

Go ahead, hop on over, I'll wait right here for you.

Now for the before and after.

This is a wooded area in front of the high school. For the first time ever I noticed a sign (just out of sight of the picture) that says this is the Northwestern cross country 5k trail. I'm thinking this may be a great place to walk.


 Now it sort of has a storybook feel to it. What do you imagine you'll find if you walk down that path? Maybe the big bad wolf is hiding behind a tree just around the bend.

Hope everyone is getting their weekend off to a great start.

Friday, September 2, 2016

A bit of a rant

I was going to do another before and after picture for today's post but I needed to throw in a rant first.

When I got to work Thursday morning, this was sitting on my table.


I make these cakes that are a 1/4 sheet cake cut in thirds. A nice size for 2 or three people. I do different flavors  and obviously this one was strawberry. It's not totally damaged just the icing is smeared all over the top of the lid. I did transfer it to a clean container and put it back out.

Even though I didn't have to throw it away the point her is, why was that mother or father not paying attention to that kid. My first thought was that the small mother needs to pay for the item that her kid damaged. Seriously people need to pay attention to what their kids are doing. To make this whole thing worse, when I talked to the girl who left me the note she said she didn't even see an adult around. She heard the cake drop on the floor and when she looked out she saw the boy running away. REALLY, do people think that a grocery store is a great big giant play ground for their unruly children? My manager said that he wants to put leashes by the front door for people to put on their kids. What happened to the good old days when the policy was "you break it, you bought it"?

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Before and after part 1

Sometimes pictures taken with my cell phone look good as they are and sometimes they just cry out to be altered.

This one is a prime example.

I loved mother natures arrangement in this field but it looks rather flat, the sky is washed out and the golden arches, telephone poles and buildings take away from an otherwise perfectly pretty scene.


I played around with it in the phone's editing section and it made the wildflowers stand out a bit more but it also emphasized the telephone pole and McDonald's golden arches.


On to photoshop elements. I added blue in the sky I cloned out the distractions and I added a canvas texture.  Yep, now I'm satisfied.


Happy September everyone.
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