Changes

So many changes taking place these days. Some just require going with the flow and letting things work themselves out. Others require a littel more effort. Some I can ask for a little help from my friends.

That would be my cell phone sitting on the counter charging. The little stone sitting next to it? I have no idea where that came from.

Any way, My phone is with Metro PCS. Wade and I had 2 lines for $90 a month. It's paid up until the 13th of July. I'm not sure if I want to continue with them and just cancel out his phone. More likely it will be closing out that account and opening one in my name. The phones were under his name. Or maybe I want to switch to someone else. So tell me who is your cell phone through and do you like the service?

Another change is internet security. Wade always insisted that we had to have Norton. Every year we paid somewhere between 60 and 80 dollars to renew. I know there are others out there that are free and I've heard they are quite good. So tell me what you use for internet security.

Third change may be the cable. I know I have to have the internet but I'm wondering if I really need the cable. My daughter has sling tv and she really likes that. I know some of you use roku or hulu or other services.

So now it's your turn. I'm all ears ready for your adivce and opinions.

Short and sweet

Just a real quick post today since yesterday I wanted to get the lawn mowed after I got home from work. Starting today the temps are supposed to start going way up so I had to get the lawn done before it got too bad.

That's the look I get when I say "No, you can't have another treat, you just had one." He has a serious addiction to treats. I normall give him one when I have to pen him up if I'm leaving or at night when I go to bed. He also gets one when he comes back in from doing his business. Lately, every time I come out of the bathroom he makes a beeline to the treat cupboard. I keep trying to tell him he gets treats when he goes, not when I go. Silly dog.

Something different

I've been thinking about making a label to put on the back of the cards I make. I mean why not? Hallmark has their logo on the back right?

I sat at the computer the other day to try and come up with something. I want to use my initials because AMT doesn't just stand for Anna Marie Thompson, it also stands for Ann makes things. Well I have three different ones and I can't decide which I like. Now I need you to vote for either 1,2 or 3.

Or maybe something altogether different with maybe different fonts? I can't decide.

Just me

I keep catching myself saying "we" and I stop and realize there is no more we, it's only me. So now I need to learn how to be me.

The rose

Several years ago Wade and I had gone to a Medieval fair. He bought me this metal rose and I never did anything with it. It just sort of laid on a table and then ended up in a cupboard during Christmas.
There is also a vase that he had before we were married. I always told him that it was the ugliest vase ever. Not too long ago I had pulled the vase out and put something in it. He said "I thought you said that was the ugliest vase you ever saw" I told him it was but I was still going to use it.

Now the rose and the ugliest vase ever sit on my dining room table.

Today is my first day back to work. Wish me luck.

Dutch door

The house I grew up in had a dutch door off the kitchen leading in to the garage. I remember opening it up and coaxing the dog to jump it. Why I did that I don't know other than it must have amused me.

Thee are no actual doors in this post. I felt the need to get in to my craft room and make something even if it was something small. I chose to try this Dutch door card.

The reason it's called a Dutch door is because the front is half the height of the back. You might not be able to tell from the picture above so I've got this one below to show you when it's opened a bit.

On the circle I stamped the word hello, the leaves and the outline of the flower. I finished it off by coloring the flower with colored pencils. Too bad I didn't notice I had ink of the edges of my acrylic block that ended up in places it shouldn't have been. Oh well, no big deal.

Green pastures

No cows here today and it's not even a pasture, just my neighbors lawn. I couldn't resist taking a picture of this rabbit who kindly waited for me to go get my camera. Luckily Gibbs didn't spot him or he would have been barking his head off.

Wondering

I posted this picture of Wade on Facebook yesterday. It wasn't often that I could get a picture of him where he wasn't flipping me off. Even rarer that he was looking right at the camera and smiling. He hated having his picture taken but this day he was having too much fun riding around the yard on this old mower.

So blogger is back to delivering your comments to my email or at least most of them. There are still some that won't come through but that's the way it was before the problem started. Now I can reply to comments through my email like I did before. I'm wondering though if there are any of you who would prefer to have me reply here on the blog. Here's what I'm going to do. Let me know where you want to see my reply and that's where I will put it. For now I"m going to leave comments embedded. I may change that at a later date but for now it stays.

Filling in the blanks

There are a lot of blank spaces that I need to fill in. Some are easy some not so much. Some I can fill in alone, others require asking advice but there's no one here to ask any more.

I used to have just one hook on this rack and Wade spread his stuff out over the other four. Now my things hang alone filling blank spaces.

Speed of lighning

Yesterday went by at the speed of lighting but thankfully there was no roar of thunder. Is anyone humming the Underdog theme song? I had so many things going on yesterday that before I knew it the clock said 9:00 pm. It didn't leave much time to write a post before heading off to bed.

If you were wondering what the Underdog theme song was here ya go.

A break

Yesterday involved too much adulting and later in the evening I needed to do something to break away from it. I'm still working on figuring out the bills but I've made a dent in them and the biggest one (the mortgage) was taken care of yesterday. Of course my checking account is now feeling quite depleted but nothing you can do about that right now. I finally got my lawn mowed and I thought I was going to keel over when I was done because I mowed start to finish without stopping. I used the push mower because even though Wade kept telling me I needed to learn to use the rider in case something ever happened to him, I always said I would rather push. Tell me, just what was I thinking there?

So before I go in to what I did to relax from all the adulting I want to take a minute to thank all of you for your kindness. I'm deeply touched by the comments, emails, cards and phone numbers. If I don't call you please don't think I don't appreciate it, I do, I think I just wouldn't know what to say. Oh and did I mention that sweet Grace even sent me a virtual lasagna. The blogging community is simply wonderful and I feel deeply blessed to know all of you.

So on to something else. I played with a cell phone picture that I took on my walk through the park. This is what came off the phone. For some reason the pinecone and stick laying there like that caught my eye and I snapped.

I tweaked and toned and adjusted and then it looked like this.

Still needed more anti-adulting therapy so then it ended up like this.

After that I figured it was time to throw a post together to schedule for today and here it is.

Flowers

Not too long ago I posted a picture of the lambs ear in my front yard. I think there were a couple of you who said you had never seen the flowers it gets and I had promised to take pictures when these flowered.
From further back you can see how it gets tall stalks that flower on the top

They haven't fully opened yet but you can see the little purple flowers in this closer shot.

Oh and I just noticed there is a spider web on this one.

Today

I do believe that today is going to be an exhausting emotional day. It will be spent with Wade's family, None of mine will be able to be there and for various reasons that are all valid. It isn't that they don't want to be and if they could they would. I understand and it's OK. I'll head out about 9:30 this morning and no telling when I'll get back home.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures I took while out on my Sunday morning walk

I walked through the park and looking up into the trees it gave me a peaceful easy feeling.

Distraction or avoidance

I keep saying I'm doing things to keep myself distracted but I'm starting wonder if I'm not doing these things to avoid taking care of some things that I really need to look into. Bills are one example. Wade payed all the bills. We had separate checking accounts and it all came out of his so I never saw what was paid when. I really need to look at what is due for the month but can't get myself to go into his computer. That's another thing, all the bills went to his email so I don't have a paper copy to look at.

Any way, I've been going out for a walk every day, not a fast one, or a long one but one where I head down the road one foot in front of the other. I always have my cell phone on me and I stopped to take a couple pictures on one walk.

This may just sound odd and I know that everyone handles things like this differently but I just feel like I'm acting too normal. Example, I HAD to get my hair cut, it was atrocious as in couldn't have it out of a pony tail it had gotten so bad. Friday morning I drove over to Walmart to get it cut. As I was sitting in the chair while the girl was cutting I thought to myself should I really be here doing this now after what just happened. Maybe I just think too much and need to just let it go because I really need to mow the lawn too but that's another thing that just feels too normal.

One day at a time

That is a phrase I have said quite a few times over the last few days. It made me think of the song. I never knew all of the lyrics to it so I looked it up.

These words shall be my new mantra.

One day at a time, sweet Jesus

That's all I'm asking from You

Just give me the strength to do everyday

What I have to do

Some of you already know but for those of you who haven't heard yet, my husband passed away on Wednesday. I found him when I came home from work. Although he hadn't been feeling well and I had been  bugging him about calling a doctor to make an appointment, he was a typical stubborn male. I certainly didn't think he was that bad. Cause of death was listed as natural causes
His obituary can be found at this link  http://lewisfuneralhomeinc.com/wade-c-thompson/

For the near future I really have no idea what will happen. I do want to continue to post because I need the distraction, I'll also continue to read your blogs because again I need the distraction. Commenting will likely be spotty because I just don't know how well I'll be functioning.

How I do my decoupaged jars

This of course excludes the step where I spill the mod podge all over myself.

1) First you have to eat something that comes in a glass jar. Of course you could always just go buy a glass bottle or vase or whatever but what's the fun in that.

2) Spray paint the jars in the color you want to show through the cracks you'll be making in a later step.

3) When the spray paint has dried, brush on a layer of Elmer's glue.

4) Give the glue a few minutes to get a bit tacky and then sponge on whatever color you would like for your top coat. I used an off white acrylic craft paint.

Left) as soon  as you finish sponging on the paint grab your blow dryer

Right) with the blow dryer set on high start drying your paint and watch as the cracks appear.

Left) Prepare your napkins. Rip out the parts of the napkin that you want to apply to the jar. I use a water brush to brush around what I'll be using, It makes the ripping much easier and the uneven edges look much nicer once applied to the jar than perfectly straight edges. Separate the white backing from the printed layer of the napkin and lay each piece face down on a piece of plastic wrap.

Right) From the inside out to the edges brush on mod podge to cover the entire piece of napkin

Now take that piece of plastic wrap and lay it sticky side down on the jar and smooth out any wrinkles in the napkin. Once you have it applied well peal off the plastic wrap and brush on a layer of mod podge. I give it several coats of mod podge to seal it well.

Finish off the top of your jar with ribbon, twine or whatever else you want. This jar has a wide enough mouth that a small votive candle holder will fit inside. If the jars have a smaller mouth you can use them as vases or pencil holders or whatever else you may want to put in them.

A paper project

Before I go on to the topic of the day, the answers from yesterday are 1) I finished putting the napkin on the jar before I cleaned up the mess and 2) I scooped up as much as I could and put it back in the jar.

Today's project involves paper and my cricut machine. These are little post it note holders.

I should have done a picture from the side too but I forgot. There is enough room in these to hold a pack of post it notes and a pen. The back has an extra piece so that it stands up nicely without falling over.

Are you kidding me?

This is not the post I was planning on doing for today but this one is just too good to not share now. I will say that this is not one of my shining moments but the stupidity and lack of attention is just too funny. Really, you can't make this kind of stuff up.

So Monday morning I decide I'm going to do a little more work on the glass jars. I had the jar and the mod podge sitting side by side on my desk.

I was preparing the napkins to adhere to the jar. I had them laid out on their individual pieces of plastic wrap and I had just spread the mod podge on the back of the napkin. I reached up and grabbed the jar and laid it on my lap, picked up the plastic wrap with the prepared napkin and went to place it on the jar. The problem came in when I realized it was the open jar of mod podge sitting on my lap, NOT the glass jar I was supposed to be decorating. These are the pair of pants I had on.

And here is the puddle on the floor. Luckily I have one of those clear chair mats there and this spilled on that instead of the carpet.

Now, I have 2 questions for you once you get up off the floor and stop laughing at me.
1) Did I clean up the mess first or finish applying the napkin to the correct jar?
2) Did I wipe that mod podge up off the floor or scoop up as much as I could and put it back in the jar?
Tomorrow I'll tell you what I did

Sleeper

Not much for a post today since I"m throwing this together last minute. I came home from work exhausted yesterday, which was surprising considering it was an extremely easy day. I parked myself on the couch and did nothing but sleep until I went to bed around 10. In between napping I did think about writing a post or maybe reading some blogs but in the end decided I would rather just close my eyes and go back to sleep.

Blind shots

Just for the fun of it I took my camera out in the back yard. Rather than compose a picture I set the camera on the ground, pointed the lens up and snapped the picture. I like the angle of these even though they aren't the best pictures.

Miscellaneous

Since I have so many different thoughts mingling around in my brain today is a good day to clear the clutter and put them on the blog. I'm including random pictures from the archive to break up the rambling.

 I found out through an email yesterday that not all comments are showing up on the blog. I decided to check to see if things were going to the spam folder by mistake. I found several comments dated between last December and March of this year from several of you. I remember reading some of them so I know that they did originally publish to the blog. Not sure what's going on there.

 The weather has been cooler here for the past week. Temperatures have only been in the 60's. For some of you that would be downright cold but it's actually been pleasant. Yesterday it started warming up again. Hopefully it won't include high humidity.

 I haven't been very crafty lately. Remember the jar I showed you not too long ago that I decoupaged? I do have one more made and another one started. I brought home 6 more jars from work that were headed for the garbage. My plan is to get busy and work on them today. Lets see if I can follow that plan.

Yesterday I mentioned the forms I made for the person I'm training. This is a guy. He's 21 and a pretty good worker. Several people find him annoying because they think he's a bit arrogant and bossy. I don't see it though. He's the only one that runs around full steam ahead like I used to be able to. He gets things done, although he's a bit on the messy side. He's confidant which I think is the reason people find him arrogant. Best of all he takes constructive criticism well and he listens to my instruction.

Paperwork

I want to thank everyone for  helping me feel better yesterday. That's why I love blog pals. 

I still don't have much to blog about but yesterday while I was at work and had papers spread across my table I decided they would be my topic. I mentioned here before that I like to make different forms to help keep things organized in my department. Well I'm training a new person so there will be another person to cover for my days off and vacations. Some of my forms needed to be updated due to changes in products and procedures. Along with jotting notes on them so I could bring them home to fix them I was making lists too. Now to put it all together into a nice neat little package to help make the new person's job a little easier.

The truth

I would prefer to write about positive, upbeat things. The truth is I'm not feeling either today and it makes it hard to write a post. I could skip it but I set out to make this the year that I write a post EVERY single day and I'm not about to blow it just because my mood stinks. So yes, today I am sad. I was sad yesterday and I may be sad again tomorrow. The bright side is that this too shall pass. In the meantime here's a random picture from the archives.

The sun over Mill Run

On Monday I went to lunch with my friend Debbie. We stopped at a place called The Marketplace. The upstairs has what I would call an art gallery. Not sure if that's what it really is or not. We were going to have a look around but they weren't open on Monday. Anyway, the stairs going up has a really nice mosaic mural. I'm sure I've shown this on the blog before but it was quite some time ago.

This is looking up the stairs.

The top of the stairs looking down

A Plaque on the wall next to it.

You can't have one without the other

I have peonies planted in the front of my house. Every year for the last several years when they are getting ready to bloom I've had a problem with ants in the house. This year I started seeing them around the front door so I set out an ant trap. No ant problem in the house but no peonies either.

They've looked like this for about a week now. I think I may have spotted one or two stray ants the other day on them but that was it.

Maybe I should just move them to the back of the yard so they're far enough away from the house that I won't have to worry about the ants coming in.

I went into the way back machine and pulled out some old pictures because I have nothing else for today.

I found a couple before and after edits from who knows how long ago. They aren't necessarily better in the after picture, just different. It's all a matter of taste.

Before.

After.

Before.

After.

It's knot what you think

It's amazing what I can come up with sometimes when I'm bored. While I was standing out on the deck I looked down and noticed all the knots in the wood.

I thought this one looked like a feather.

This one looked like an eye.

And this looked like a butterfly.

Since I was bored I decided to see if I could highlight the butterfly with some color.

That is all. You may fly away to the next blog. Thanks for stopping by today.

Warm and fuzzy.

The temperatures are warm and these are fuzzy.

I grabbed some of these from the house Wade lived in before we got married. They haven't spread much over the years but they come back each year and spread out a little more.

Love those soft fuzzy leaves.