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Random Thoughts.


To Do's - To Done!
The month of August was crazy for us. We went on two trips. Although fun and deserving it messed everything up. I've been spending the past week trying to go through my huge list of To Do's. I'm happy to report that a large majority of my To Do's are now To Done! What a huge relief! Some of those suckers have been hanging around for several months!!

Is Fall around the corner?
The last two days it has been - dare I say - Cool outside. We have opened our windows and I've even put on my new David Letterman sweatshirt. I LOVE fall. It is my favorite time of year. I love wearing comfy clothes, sitting by the fireplace (with it on - gas), having a glass of wine and watching tv and/or reading something. I also like working in the fall with the windows open. It somehow makes the work a little bit of fun. I work from home which is WONDERFUL. I get to wear what I want and watch TV throughout the day. Ok - most of the time it's off or on Mute but still having that as an option is really great. I've even been in the mood to begin thinking about Christmas gifts. As a matter of fact I'm going to put that in my planner (see previous posts) as a reminder to make my master list. Days like today make me smile.

Scrapbooking
I really need to set time aside and get some things done. Right now I have photos and memorabilia dating back many, many years. I really want to put my sons albums together but I'm stuck on exactly how I want to do this. I've finally organized all my photos so I can get to them quickly (physical photos I'm talking about here) but the memorabilia is out of control. I've decided the best way to tackle it is to put it in albums. Just get it done!!

Weight Loss
Ugggh. The dreaded weight loss issue. I've never truely had to worry about my weight until the past few years but I have gained substantial weight and I have to do something about it. Sitting at the computer working non-stop, stress, no exercise, Coke and oopherectomy have combined taken a toll on my my stomach and well other places. DH and I did go look at some exercise equipment (Bowflex and Treadmill) but we haven't pulled the trigger yet on it. I've cleared a nice space in the basement where it all will go. (That was my scrapbook area which I moved upstairs). It's just a matter of time.

I'm now being forced to exercise a bit because we were in a car accident and I've sustained Whiplash. I've always thought of whiplash as having a negative vibe about it because it's not something one can see from outward appearances usually and a lot of people have taken advantage of their diagnosis. But I'm learning it really is something real. My neck has continued to cause me problems since the accident like sporadic cricks in my neck, loss of range of motion and pain of varing degrees. My husband set up a doctor appointment for me and the xrays revealed substantial whiplash. I didn't believe an xray could show that but the doctor walked me through it. Sure enough, my neck is messed up. My neck does not look like the picture of what it's supposed to be. Part of my treatment is physical therapy. They are going to teach me to do certain exercises to stregthen my neck and back. I'm hoping this is going to sike me up to do more exercise on the rest of my body parts. Fingers crossed.

Decorating and DIY.
Love this so much! I'm an Interior Design major but have never officially practiced it. I love decorating, designing and building things. That's a picture of our fireplace mantel I designed and built. There isn't much to it but we love it. (It looks a lot better in person then in the photo). The pieces on the front are old porch balustrades we got at a giant flea market. My latest project are drapery panels in my family room. The fabric has been chosen, bought, cut and literally hung up but not sewed. That's a To Do that's been on my list for at least six months. I'm thinking I might need to tackle that one sooner then later. Hold on while I add that in my planner...

Estate Sales...
My dh's Aunt and I go to Estate Sales on the weekends sometimes. It is SO MUCH FUN! I'm checking the papers Saturday morning and if there are some going on this weekend we are going! We have a great system in place. I check the papers and print out mapquest to all the ones we want to go to. I then put them in order based on location. We have been doing it long enough that we know the areas we prefer to go to - you know the areas with the big old houses. We take our car (Yukon XL) so there is plenty of room for any goodies we want to bring home. She drives though. We have found that I'm a much better navigator and she doesn't get distracted when driving. LOL! It goes much smoother and faster this way.

We also have a system of where we go once at the house. We immediately go through the family room, kitchen while finding our way to the basement and garage. If there is an extra building outside that is added bonus because the good stuff is usually out there. Of course you have to check out the backyard . All equally important. My best all time can't believe it type of find was my old (I'm not saying antique because I'm not sure) drafting table. I got such a steal on it I almost hyperventalated. Seriously. It is such an awesome story which I'll save for another day.

Another thing that I get excited about when going to Estate Sales is when the sale is at one of the big old houses. It's like double bonus points here as we get to tour the house in addition to the stuff. I've been caught googling over architectural details of houses instead of the items in it on many occassions. I've even called my best friend from one of them to tell her about the details. I just LOVE everything about houses and the older the better.

Oh, I'm so siked to go. I hope with this weekend being Memorial Day that doesn't mean it will be a slow Estate Sale weekend. Will have to let you know.

That's it for now. Just some of my random thoughts for the day. Hope you have a great day too!



Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

How many blogs do you read?

Reading blogs is a lot of fun but can be extremely time consuming. I have been limiting myself to a select few but on those rare moments when I don't have a lot to do I treat myself to some blog surfing. It's amazing how fast time goes by! On one of the blogs I was checking out (I will get better with giving proper credit eventually) I discovered Bloglines - a site they recommended. Bloglines offers a service (among many others I have yet to fully check out) to help speed up the time it takes to check out the blogs you visit regularly. Although it did take me a little while to initially set it up.

To get things going you just enter the sites that you want to visit regularly. Bloglines then keeps track of those sites that have been updated so no more checking on a blog to find out it hasn't been updated - which is absolutely no fun! I have my Bloglines link on my toolbar. When I want to see who has updated their blog I click on this link. I see immediately who's site has new information. I just click on the link provided and viola I'm there. Huge time saver! I can quickly scan the information and soak up others bloggers words of wisdoms or tips and go on with my day.

So if you visit many blogs throughout the day, or would like the ability to do so without consuming a lot of your time, check out Bloglines. I highly recommend it.
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

Organizing digital photos.




Digital is good, really really good. Taking photos is so easy and nothing beats the ability to be able to immediately see what you took. I also love the fact that when my son(s) comes to me with a school project needing a photo from his life I can immediately print one. No more running to the store for me. And no more physical photos lying around everywhere. I never quite grasped the best way to organize them so this was going to be a blessing.

What was I thinking?! Yes, I no longer have physical photos to move from place to place but I still needed a strategy of organizing my digital ones. It got to a point that I could no longer continue with my previous process of dumping each and every photo in to one folder. It was impossible for me to find anything! So I began experimenting; organize by events? by individual? by subject? I found myself having the same problem - I didn't know what to do!!

I came to the quick realization that in this day and age there had to be some sort of software program that would solve all of my problems! I did a little bit of research and purchased one that allowed me to add endless amounts of detail to each photo. One that I could do quick keyword searches to find any photos. AWESOME! - until I accidentally deleted the special identifier the program created for me. Hours of work down the drain. (Note to self - guess it would help to actually READ the instructions first!). Faced with the task of re-entering the data I decided that maybe this software wasn't going to meet my immediate needs. I didn't have time to devote to entering all this data. I needed something quick and easy. Then it came to me.

I ended up creating (within My Pictures folder) separate folders for each year. Within each year are subfolders containing each month. I put all the pictures taken in a specific month into that months folder (ie: all pictures I take this month will go in my AUGUST 2006 folder). At the end of the month I archive that month - which simply means I back up that entire months folder onto a CD and I print an index sheet of that months photos which I place in a three ring binder - that is tabbed by years. I quickly write on the bottom of the index page the month and year it covers - so in this months case it will be AUGUST 2006. And that's it! What I'm left with is all my photos are backed up and I have a quick reference sheet in my three ring binder. The index sheet lists all the photos names - the default names which is always some weird number that I can never remember.

I just finished putting this system in place and I've already run across the need to use it several times to find a picture taken. It's simple. I have a general idea of when it was taken so I quickly scan through my three ring binder; year, month - oh there's the photo. I then go to either the specific folder on my computer or pull the proper CD and I scan for the photo. Ta Dah, I'm done.

Eventually I will use the software program I purchased (although I have since found out about some FREE ones that work just as well). I love the idea of being able to do keyword searches. I have one photo in particular that I can't wait to just type in "GOOFBALL" and up pops the photo. LOL! Until then I have a quick and easy way of finding what I need. Plus I have the piece of mind knowing I have backed up my photos. Now that's a good thing!
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

New York is AWESOME!

New York is awesome! Can't say enough about it. I knew we would have fun but not that much! Of course we were with some great friends - that didn't hurt. We were gone five days with three of those days available for sightseeing. What's great about going with friends on trips is the pressure is off when deciding what to do. The responsibilities were split up and it worked great. I hooked us up with the hotel and a great price for said stay. They planned our activity schedule. They were also experts on taking the subway and boy was I glad. We are from the midwest, we don't have subways. I was nervous but a bit giddy the first time we rode. I was sitting there trying to act aloof but was having a difficult time fighting the urge to take pictures and to quit smiling. It was a lot of fun! We ended up riding it quite a bit and by the time we were done I had gotten over the initial newness of riding and did get several good subway shots.

I want to know whoever said New Yorkers weren't nice! Our experience was that New Yorkers were more than nice. On several occasions we had residents go out of their way to give us directions, give us their input (they overheard our conversations) and in one case lead us directly to where we were going. Actually I remember two other cases where we decided NOT to follow the people. We only ran into two people that weren’t “nice” – not a big deal at all.

Here is a list of I think *everything* we did:

  • Rockefeller Center – Today Show taping with Brooks & Dunn
  • Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island
  • SOHO
  • Greenich
  • Little Italy
  • China Town
  • World Trade Center
  • Wall Street
  • 2 Churches
  • Central Park
  • 5th Avenue Shopping
  • Trump Hotels (3)
  • Time Square
  • Off Broadway Show – Stomp
  • David Letterman theatre / Hello Deli (Rupert’s Deli)
  • ESPN Zone / MTV / NASDAQ

I'm sure I've forgotten something. I've taken over 400 photos. Time to get a scrapping!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

Off to New York!

I've been there before but I was young and I don't remember anything. So as far as I'm concerned this is my first time to New York. My oldest son has wanted to go to NY since he was five years old. We have no idea why but my dh came up with the idea that when he turned 13 we would take him. So here it is! The fantastic thing (or rather extra bonus) is our great friends who live in Detroit are meeting us there. We are trying to get adjacent rooms - whoo hooo! They have two boys the same age as our boys. It's going to be fun.

We are going in full tourist mode. We are hitting all the normal attractions and some extra ones along the way. When I was getting my nails done this morning I was reading PEOPLE. I saw two pictures of stars walking in SOHO in NY. I saw that on the map! That's one of the areas I want to go to. WHOOO HOOO. So exciting for me!

I want to go to the Today Show and David Letterman studio and Ruberts Deli. My son wants to go to Trump Tower - or one of them and 9-11 site (as do I). My youngest son wants to hang out with his friends (as do I!). My dh doesn't care what we do - he's been there before. He's coming along for the ride and to experience New York with the freshness of our eyes. Will post pictures upon return.
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

A day at the race track.

My boys race go-karts. My boys are 13 and 10. We've been into racing for the past three years. When the issue of racing go-karts (offically called "karting") was introduced to me I had no clue what it was all about. I didn't understand the excitement my husband and boys had in their voices when they were telling me about it. My best friends son had just started racing and they went with him to the track one day to see what it was all about and give it a try. In my mind I was picturing the go-karts at amusement parks, fun but not overly exciting. You know, the ones that you floor and you still go slow. Well, if you aren't familiar with them, these are NOT those type of karts. On average, at our local track, they go on the straight-away about 50-55 miles per hour. Last year they did a charity 24 hour race at a track where they were going 83 miles per hour. My little boys! It's been fun but it's challenging. I've learned a lot about myself during these past few years of racing. I've learned a lot how I don't want to be. I don't get into controlling parenting. I don't get into cutting edge competetive sports - at these ages. Unfortunately not everyone has these same thoughts. This weekend the boys and their karts ran the fastest times they have before. Unfortunately they weren't top in their class but I can say proudly that they have the best sportsmanship I have seen. I'm so proud of them. It's sad when we see other kids that haven't raced as well as they had hoped come off sad and disappointed but it's very upsetting to see the kids that come off mad and angry at everyone. Not shaking hands with the winner or offering up congratulations. It makes me wonder what type of conversations their families have. No matter it makes me even more proud of my kids. Racing has taught them a lot and they are getting to do something most people will never experience. This weekend was filled with challenges for our family but it was filled with good times as well. Between races we get to sit and talk with our friends, enjoy the weather - when it's not too hot or too cold. We get to sit with not only our kids but all the other kids that hang out at our PIT with us. Parents migrate over and we all just hang out. That is so cool! We get to cheer each other on and the boys (of all ages) talk strategies. It's a big deal. The karts aren't that impressive to the untrained eye but once you get into it and begin understanding what they are all about you quickly realize there is much more to this sport. Afterall, some national races are shown on ESPN. It's so cool to see our friends on ESPN. We are not sure how much longer we will be doing this. I believe the boys are slowly starting to grow away from the sport, although they haven't officially come out and said it yet. I'm growing away from it. It's a big time commitment and to move to the next level (which many of our competitors have done) it takes a lot more money. Karting is not an inexpensive sport. I'm not ready to go down that path. But no matter what happens we will always have these memories and some good friends (old and new) as a result of this sport. Plus it's awfully cool to say we've done that!
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

Another day...

Ok, not quite the day I had planned. I did pick up the house (although it was clean it had somehow gotten messed up again - how does that happen?), I did make it to Michaels to pick up the cool new tote. My other tote is going up on ebay. I did make it to a shoe store to take a peek at some Birkenstocks (did I spell that right?). For the first time in my life I'm thinking of wanting a pair (LOL - not getting a pair but wanting a pair). Not sure the style but I'm looking for comfort and fit. I've come to the conclusion that I can't do inexpensive shoes anymore. My feet hurt, I get blisters. Then when I got home I had two surprises in the mail. First was my Jenni Bowlin Monthly Project Kit for scrapbooking. This was the my last month of my three month subscription. Sure was a lot of fun getting this in the mail. I may have to extend for another three months - or maybe I'll try another kit. If that wasn't exciting enough I finally got my custom stamp that my friend bought me for my birthday almost a month ago. It's a stamp of a fun picture I took. I'll post pictures and links to all of this in the next few days. The stamp is AWESOME! Then all the boys came home and I hung out with them, making dinner, talking racing... It wasn't until about 7:00 pm this evening that I finally made it into my scraproom. What happened to my day? Even though it wasn't exactly what I had in mind (visions of scrapping ALL DAY LONG) it still was a good day.
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

Sweet dreams.

I do have more to talk about then pillows and planners but since I've already started these thoughts I'll finish them now so I can move on to something else. I picked up the Franklin Planner pages a few days ago and put them in my new "defective" binder this evening. They refunded my money and I'm on email notification once the new binders come in. I was going to use my old binder (which is still in pretty good condition) but I just had to try out the picture slot on the new binder. It's really awesome and the less then stable feel of the binder is actually growing on me. I'm LOVING having my planner back. I'm quickly filling it up and so far it's working out well coordinating between my online and paper planners.

Pillows... I found out what pillows the hotel had. I began with the hotel and only had to speak with three people before finding the person that knew what I wanted. The pillows are made by Northern Feather who has a website (DreamMakers) but the wonderful pillows aren't on the site apparently. The pillows I'm longing for are called Luxuriously Feather & Down - firm. The king sizes are $100 each, 20% down/80% feathers. Yummy! I'm siked. I'm not in a position to buy them now but they will be on my WISH LIST. I want four just like the hotel had. They are AWESOME! What was really cool was once I got past the initial person on the phone, the remaining two women didn't think it was an odd request to get pillow information. Apparently I'm not the only one that has wanted this information. I really appreciate that and the fact they were able to give me the information I was seeking. AWESOME!

It's late now and I can't sleep. Tomorrow is the first day in quite awhile that I will have the house to myself most of the day. All my boys are going racing and I'm staying home to take care of the neighbors dog children. LOL! My house is already clean and most of the laundry is already done. I think tomorrow will be a great day to work in my scrapbook room. It's something new I've put together. About a month ago it was decided (dh and myself) that there was really no need for a quest room since we only have 1 guest a year. We converted it into my scrapbook room. Since we've done it I haven't had any time to really finish pulling it all together yet alone do any scrapping. Tomorrow may just be the perfect day! I'll keep you updated.
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post

Let's talk Canada!

Just got back from Toronto, Canada. Was a lot of fun but one of those times where it's necessary to take a vacation from a vacation. It was a work conference with a lot of fun thrown in. We stayed at the Royal York Fairmont Hotel http://www.fairmont.com/royalyork/ (I haven't yet figured out how to make a word a link). It was wonderful (except the bathrooms were a little small - but that's a story I'll spare you). The best part -- the pillows. As a matter of fact I'm trying to get back in touch with them to see if I can find out the type of pillows they are because I'm having a heck of a time finding ones that produce a good nights sleep at home. These were really the best I've ever slept on. Plus they looked pretty too!

When we arrived and when we left we had to go through customs. I was so upset that I didn't take the time to get a passport. I didn't think I needed to do it because they weren't required - birth certificates are acceptable up until December 31, 2006. What a bummer to see them stamping everyone elses passports and we get a stamp on our lousy boarding pass. Well the boarding pass is now going into our scrapbook. Next time I'm getting a passport. My dh was even a little bit bummed.

Paper Organizer.
Well, when I got back from out of town the binder I had order from my previous post was here. I quickly opened up the package and was disappointed to find out that the quality of the binder was not the best - far from it. But, it still is cool looking. The problem however was really the fact that the binder itself looked like something had been spilled on it. It had spots of all shapes and sizes scattered over the front and inside. ????????? What's up with that?!!!! So now I'm in the process of deciding whether I want to replace it with another one (which by the way they are on BACKORDER) or whether I'll just return it. I'm leaning for the latter because I've ended up pulling out my old Franklin binder and I feel whole again. It's like an old friend. As a matter of fact I'm off to the Franklin store tomorrow to pick up current "papers". I'm not waiting on the paper system I previously found to get off backorder. I've come to the conclusion that nothing beats a Franklin.

Good night.
Off to bed. I'll be dreaming of soft fluffly pillows tonight. Seriously.
Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy | edit post
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