This is a sample of one of the envelopes.
This is a sample of the back of the cards.
There are five cards and envelopes in the package. Each card has a different design.
The designs are enhanced with a bit of pastel.
A happy way to say, “Thank You!”
The cards are blank on the inside for your message.
These will be available later today in my shops on ArtFire and Etsy.
Filed under Uncategorized
We’re still due for some freezes before spring officially starts, but it sure LOOKS like spring in my yard and flower planters!
My husband and I are going to go to town in a few minutes to see if we can find some veggie plants. It’s too soon to plant them, but I’ll put them in the greenhouse to hold over until it’s time to plant. I also need to see if I need to start spinach seeds.
My heart goes out to those suffering through the series of nor’easters and power outages. I’ll try to send some spring in your direction. Stay safe and warm.
Filed under Mother Nature
“Forever Country”
“In honor of the 50th annual CMA Awards, the CMA Country Music Association released one amazing video. They brought together 30 most famous and award winning superstars to sing a mashup of country music classics.” It’s called “Forever Country.”
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
If the link above doesn’t work for you, please paste this into your browser – http://www.viralmirror.com/30-country-singers-song/
Source: ViralMirrow.com via Carla Morton on Facebook
Filed under music
Mairtown Kindergarten
I added the “Thumbelina” note card package added to my ArtFire and Etsy shops a few minutes ago.
Now I’m going to go upstairs and play in my art room, working on the stationery and the thank you notes in the same theme.
My good friend, Marsha, suggested I do some thank you notes for boys – “Thumbys.” Please tell me what you think of the idea. I could add a bow tie instead of the hair bow, and lose the eyelashes.
Yea or Nay?
Filed under Uncategorized
3xM-International
Sharing what you have makes you feel good.
Years ago my husband and I gave monthly donations to two organizations. Sadly, we discovered that WAAAAAY too much of the money being donated went to the top leadership and other administrative costs, rather than to the people who needed the donations. We became cynical.
Lately I’ve found some tools that allow you to check out charities, illuminating their worth either by grades, by accreditation, or by stars. You can find out what percentage of the money received goes to the actual people for which the charity was founded, as opposed to salary for the leader of the organization and other administrative costs. I found three of these services on the net: Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance. I personally found Charity Navigator the easiest to use, providing a list of 4 Star Charities. Charity Watch was second. It looked like you had to join the site at first, but after looking around, I found a list that provided ‘grades’ for many of the charities I was researching. BBB Wise Giving Alliance ranked third, as far as I’m concerned. I only found one of the charities I was interested in that was ‘accredited.’ Mostly, they said that the charity hadn’t filled out the paperwork to be listed.
If you try to choose charities by name, you’re likely to be disappointed, as we were years ago, by the money not being used wisely, or being used to line someone’s pocket, or even an actual scam. If the charity is considered good by two of the three services, you can be sure that your money is going to the people you’d like to help.
I spent some time researching this morning, coming up with 5 charities I thought deserved our money. I took the list and talked them over with my husband. He chose two, and I arranged for monthly donations to each of them. Locally we do what we can to help our local library and the Veterans Thrift Store – formally called Disabled Veterans Town. We love to choose a child each year from the Salvation Army Christmas Tree, taking their list and buying as many things from it as we can, imagining a sweet, delighted child on Christmas morning. :0) We contribute on a sporadic basis to political organizations and candidates, but mainly give them a piece of our minds….
You Tube
Filed under giving
I’ve had great fun working on these “Thumbelina” note cards. They come in a set of 5 cards with corresponding envelopes. This is the front of one. The inside, of course, is blank for your message.
Here is the back of the card.
Here is the envelope.
Each card is different, and the colors of the note cards will be different for each set.
These can be used for special occasions, holidays, or ‘just because.’
They make me smile when I look at them.
These will be listed on LindaLewis on ArtFire
These will also be available as stationery and thank you notes. Pics to follow.
Filed under Uncategorized
Evergreen Choice
“Old age is always fifteen years older than I am” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
Funnyjunk
“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up” – John Wagner
Mari Chris – Deviantart
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm” – Henry David Thoreau
___________________
Source of quotes – Holidappy.com
Lessons Learned in Life via Jennifer Mitchell Carroll
“A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, ‘At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas.'”
– Claude Pepper
Filed under Are YOU also older than Dirt?
AmazingPict.com
Thank you for all the birthday wishes yesterday. I had SUCH a nice day. You made me feel special and I’m truly grateful. I had lunch with my long time good friends and my husband, we finished getting the veggie planters ready, I planted onions, I ate some mashed potatoes with my dinner (YES! I DID! And I enjoyed every mouthful! :0) ) The only thing I didn’t do was get up to play in my art room. With any luck, I can make that happen today. THANK YOU for my special day!
Filed under Family, Favorite Things, Friendship
My husband is asleep in his chair, snorking away, while I’m at the computer. All of a sudden, Amber shows up, trying to stuff her ball into my lap. Being a multi-tasking smart dog, she simultaneously lifts up with her head, making my left arm bounce up, over and over, off the keyboard. This is quite distracting, to say the least. Finally, she looks up at me with her beautiful, liquid, big brown eyes and my heart simply melts. Knowing she has manipulated me once again, she laughs and leads me to the door, impatiently waiting as I find my jacket and I am herded out to the front yard, accompanied also by Molly, our schnauzer/cocker spaniel extremely fuzzy white dog.
The biggest problem in all this is that I’m never sure what game it is that we’re playing. Amber wants me to throw the ball, but she doesn’t want to give it up. I finally throw the ball for her. She snaps it up on the run and returns to me. I try to get her to drop the ball into my hands. She doesn’t, of course. She runs around squeaking it madly, smiling with glee, around the ball, over and over. She wants me to play tug of war with it, but she has the advantage – teeth over fingers on a ball slimy with dog spit.
Finally, she gives it to me and I throw it across the yard as hard as I can. Molly knows to stay out of the way, having been run over many times, but she barks encouragement as she watches. Amber runs like a mad thing, snapping the ball up and running a victory lap or two around the yard, squeaking the ball and laughing. Then she comes to me and we go through the whole process again. For a time she doesn’t seem to need me there at all. She teases me with the ball, then runs with it squeaking around the yard, drops it, grabs it up again, runs…..
I may never know what game we’re playing, but I don’t think it matters much. We play until one or both of us are tired. Then we all troop inside, I wash the ball and my hands, leaving the ball on the divider for the next time. Amber drinks a ton of water and collapses into a satisfied heap on her bed or by her dad’s foot.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
The Rusted Vegetable Garden
Well, shoot!
I was looking for a photo of onion sets and came upon their suggestion for giving your onions a good start when you plant them: Soak the sets in water for 15-30 minutes to make them easier to pull apart and prepare the roots for planting.
The sad part is that I planted yesterday and just found the photo and suggestion above today –
I feel good. My husband and I mixed enough Mel’s Mix yesterday to finish topping off the two brick tomato planters on the east side of the house. All the veggie planters are now ready for planting. As I said, I planted the two onion sets we bought. I planted 4 in each of 30 squares in the raised bed square foot garden. I need to make markers now to stick in each of the planters, but the onions are in!
The forecast is for scattered showers during the day and heavier showers this evening, so hopefully they’ll get a good, thorough watering. We won’t hook up our irrigation system until all chance of frost is past, March 30th or so.
Monday I hope to get more plants. (I’m hoping to get spinach and broccoli). I’ll probably keep them in the greenhouse until it’s time to plant. I found a nice guide to planting today –
The plan this year is to grow fewer things, but try to do succession planting so that we have a longer harvest.
Filed under Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
If you’re living in the United States, reminder to move your clocks AHEAD one hour tonight before you go to bed.
The Daily Dot
No one happened to ask me, but I hate Daylight Savings Time. It’s aggravating to have to change all our watches, clocks in the house and in the car. It’s aggravating to have to REMEMBER to do it twice a year. It was sold to us, saying the farmers needed to be able to take advantage of more daylight hours, but that never floated with me. I think farmers get up when it’s light (or before), work until it’s dark (or after), and go to bed when they want, just like everyone else. In the winter if the kids are waiting for the school bus, parents can wait at the road with them.
Maybe it’s selfish, but I have enough trouble remembering the difference between the time zones in the United States without having to factor in Daylight Savings Time and whether each state practices it or not.
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup
“Among the Trees” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
BoredPanda
We just got back from our Friday Lunch Bunch and errands. Linda and Kay helped me celebrate my birthday. I told them that I really appreciated the gifts, but that the REAL gift was their friendship. Linda asked me, “What are you doing special for your birthday?” I thought a minute, then smiled, saying, “Absolutely nothing. My whole life is a celebration.”
We got the mushroom compost that the good co-op people had ordered for me and some onion sets. We’ve just come in from mixing a while bunch of Mel’s Mix and we topped off the two brick tomato planters on the east side of our house.
I’m hot (even though it’s a really beautiful day), breathing a bit hard, and gulping some iced tea as I type. I’m going to rest awhile, and then go out and plant my onions.
When I come back in I’ll play in my art room awhile, working on a new theme for thank you notes, stationery, and note cards.
My friends and relatives have made me feel special today. How could one ask for a more special day than this?
Filed under Attitude, Encouragement, Family, Friendship
8cutepuppiesdoingyoga
I’m trying to do some good stretching each day. I began this last year, when I found the “Gentle Yoga” DVD series taught by Cat Cabira and offered through Sixty & Me.
It’s designed for older-than-dirt ladies like me who might be physically challenged and/or intimidated by the idea of trying yoga. To be honest, when I first started, the biggest challenge was getting down on the floor – and up again. I hadn’t been practicing because I thought that ANY exercise was good and the fact that I’ve been seriously cleaning out our house, one room or closet at a time was exercise enough. The problem is, it isn’t. It’s good exercise, but it doesn’t take the place of what yoga does for you.
One of the biggest problems I have in getting older is that I seem to tie myself up in a knot. My muscles get sore. My joints get creaky and painful. When I try to lie down on the yoga mat, it takes me a minute or two of simply lying there, trying to get my back to stop hurting, to finally RELAX enough to do this without pain. I don’t know why I’m like this, or if everyone who gets older has similar problems, but it’s a major one with me.
I started about a week ago doing relaxing poses on my mat again. I’m already feeling the good effects from it. Even though it takes me a long time to relax, if I get into the stretching pose and just hold it, breathing into the discomfort, my body finally lets go. I can FEEL my body give and stretch out. I take my time, getting into whatever pose I think will do some good and just let my body decide how long I need to hold the pose. When I finish, I simply lie on my back, arms and legs spread out, and RELAX.
I spend about 30 minutes or so daily on this now. I’m feeling looser and it’s easier for me to get up out of my chair. I’m not stiffening up as much as I was just a week ago. I’m going to keep on keepin’ on until this is a lot easier, and then I’ll start with the DVDs again. I actually look forward to my time on the mat.
Filed under exercise
Ian-Davie-PatternblankBlog
Redbubble-Printscapes
Filed under Creativity, Feather Art
My friends and relatives are making me feel very special today – feisty and sassy – though I’m definitely getting long-in-the-tooth. The day has only begin and already I’ve been showered with cards in the mailbox and e-cards, songs and gifts. The very best gifts, though, are the people BEHIND all the attention I’m getting today. What a lucky, lucky lady I am!
Filed under Are YOU also older than Dirt?, Attitude, Family, Friendship
This afternoon I stretched string across in two directions to create the ‘squares’ of the square foot garden in the six raised boxes. I’m now ready to plant! I’ll go get some onion sets because they can go into the garden directly. I also have some iceberg head lettuce plants, but I need to wait to plant them until all danger of frost is past.
Tomorrow I’ll mix up some more Mel’s Mix to top off the two brick planters on the other side of the house that we converted to square foot planters for our tomatoes. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow, so I’m anxious to get this part finished before we get rain Saturday.
Filed under Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
BOOMSbeat-YouTube_MrFunnyMals
I have a good start on the ‘reboot’ of my low carb eating and exercise plan now. I’ve been good for a week now, even managing to lose a bit of weight when we went out to eat. I lost 3 lb this week. My totals are: a loss of 17 lbs and 10.5 inches. I’m still playing catch-up and re-lose from my ‘stumble-and-splat’ when I was concentrating on my husband’s need for low or no sugar, rather than paying attention to that AND low carbs. Lesson finally learned. I’ve also learned that just working hard isn’t a good substitute for actual exercise.
I’m finding some low carb recipes that are real winners lately. My husband is requesting that I include them on the menus for the week! I’m trying to post – if not the entire recipe – at least the link to it. (One lady asked me very nicely to only give the link to the recipe on her website, rather than posting the whole thing with credit, so I’ll comply.) You can find some of them under two categories here: “Cooking/Canning/Recipes/Low Carb” and “Cooking/Recipes/Low Carb Lifestyle.”
One thing that is really helping me keep my head on straight on how many carbs and calories I’m eating is the MyFitnessPal.com website. This has the best database of foods I have found. On other websites, you have to list each ingredient in a recipe in order to get a total carb count. I just don’t have the patience for that. On this website, you type in what you hope to find already listed. If it isn’t there, you can add it, all on one short form and then click to share it with others or not. This is really great. They also have a reasonable exercise database. You can record what you did and the number or reps or time you spent. I’m trying to stay under 40 carbs and 1200 calories per day. I can change what I’m planning to fix for dinner so that I stay on track. I like that a lot.
For exercise, I’m on my elliptical trainer in the garage most days. I also do careful stretching via yoga, concentrating on trying to convince this old body to RELAX. After all the work I’ve been doing cleaning out my house and working in the yard lately, I find this takes longer and longer. I just hold a pose – breathing into it until I feel my muscles ‘give’ and I’m comfortable. This is helping me feel better. Today I had extra help with that because I enjoyed a wonderful massage! My therapist, Lynn, really listens and does all she can to help me. Today we discovered that most of my sore muscles were on my right side – I guess from all the hauling of Mel’s Mix to the garden. I’ll have to concentrate on carrying the basket left-handed and see if that helps. :0) If you live in the Greenwood area, you can contact Lynn Moody at 479-629-7601 or via email at lynnmoody42@yahoo.com. I’m so lucky to have found her.
I feel good that I’m again on the way to getting the lard off and feeling better.
Filed under Challenges, DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating
“Seagulls Near Water” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
We built this robot several years ago and placed him at the bottom of our driveway to welcome visitors by doffing his hat and tell people our address. We put a chain around his neck and attached him to one side of the pull-down gate so he wouldn’t topple. He weighs around 200 lbs., so it’ no easy thing to work with him.
As I told you yesterday, the latest gusty winds blew him down. We could only see his feet sticking up at the edge of the driveway. The land slopes really steeply there, so there isn’t much place to stand securely, put a ladder up, etc. I was really dreading trying to put him up today. The last time we had to do it (the only other time he has fallen) I was really afraid one or both of us would end up in real trouble.
Today we used a come-along
to help pull him up the hill and over onto the driveway again. From there, we were able to get on both sides of him and boost him up onto his pad again. I encouraged my husband to think of something more we could do to keep this from happening again. We’re getting a bit long-in-the-tooth around here, and if we can keep from having do to things like this, we might manage to stay in one piece longer. We talked about it, deciding to add another length of chain – this one running from his neck to the tree down closer to the road.
My husband re-welded the top of his hat on, and we put the arm with the hat in the back of the truck. We had already put his head in the truck because it’s too heavy to try to lift it over your head and fit it into the hole on top. We got some chain and some couplings at the hardware store. After lunch we loaded a ladder in the back, put Amber in the back seat, and went down to the bottom of the driveway. It was easy to attach the second length of chain. The robot can LEAN off the driveway to the right if we get a high enough gusty wind, but we thing that’s ALL he’ll do. We can easily pull him up from that. My husband wedged the ladder down the slope against a tree, and climbed up. I handed the heavy head to him and he was able to drop it into the neck hole, and then we did the same with the arm holding the hat.
He is now again welcoming visitors to the Lewises!
Filed under Lewis projects
as Popeye would say.
We had really gusty winds yesterday. I decided it was nuts to try to do any mixing of Mel’s Mix, since I knew the vermiculite and the peat moss would just swirl around my head and end up inside my ears, nose, etc. We didn’t have any tree damage, thank goodness, but we did have a casualty.
We left to go to the Chinese restaurant in Greenwood. When we got to the bottom of the driveway, all we could see of our robot was his FEET!
He weighs between 175 and 200 lbs, my husband estimates, and he’s really unwieldy – heavy, bulky, and really hard to work with. He’s blown over one other time and we practically killed ourselves getting him to stand up again. I made two suggestions of what to try to get him up again. My husband blew both of them off right away, so he’s thinking about how two old folks can tackle the problem. We need some good luck, if you could send some in our direction.
Filed under Challenges, Mother Nature
Filed under Creativity, Feather Art
As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too many daffodils. Happily, this year, they’re pretty much in full bloom right now, not having been caught by a freeze (though one is forecast tonight.)
After years of spreading them around, they are finally going all the way across the front yard. I’m trying to move some each year to the rest of the flower planters and across the back yard, if I live long enough. :0)
This was the original patch of daffodils I planted beside and around the base of the well house. Then we decided to dig them up and plant them elsewhere around the yard. No matter how many bulbs I did up and plant, more come up here each year.
This is Debbye’s bouquet that I told you about recently.
These are in one of the two brick planters we’ll have to take down and rebuild.
We have a trio of planters that divide our driveway area from our front lawn. This is one end of it.
This is the middle of the trio.
You can get an idea of the trio here.
These are some growing in the back yard.
I absolutely love this time of year where old friends sprout up and smile at me.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
Coffee Lover Guide
I have enjoyed coffee since I was 12. At that point my mom insisted I have only one cup per day mixed with a lot of milk. I gave up the milk when my husband groused about having to put it in when he brought me a cup of coffee. (This was even though I was expected to add TWO spoonsful of sugar to each cup I brought HIM). I always drink it black now, unless the coffee needs help for some reason.
Over the years, coffee has been good for you or bad for you, over and over. I think right now the ‘experts’ are saying it’s okay. I’m glad they’re happy. I don’t pay attention. I drink coffee all day long. Now I drink a bottle of water in-between cups of coffee, which results in more exercise going to the bathroom several times per day…
I even drink it right before bed. It doesn’t keep me awake. I guess my system has developed a tolerance for caffeine.
I’m plebian when it comes to coffee. I don’t like the fancy-ness of Starbucks. I don’t even like special blends. I don’t like flavorings of any kind added. I just want good, black, plain coffee. My husband got a Keurig coffee maker that we use when I’ve drunk the pot of coffee we make in the morning and would still really like ONE MORE CUP. We got a really large cup and put in lots of water when we make a cup. And then I dilute it with hot water from the tap and put it in the microwave. The brand that suits me the best so far is Donut-Shop Regular.
Coffee is good for what ails me. I could even give up chocolate before I would stop drinking a good cup of coffee.
Filed under Attitude, Favorite Quotes, Favorite Things
Seraphin Art
thatartistwoman.org
Filed under Acrylic Paintings I Love, Creativity
creativeartworksblog 