Monthly Archives: January 2019

Cyder

“Cyder” – Niki Firmin Pet Portraits – LinkedIn

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The Art of Hari Willy

Hari Willy via Beatriz Arroyo Carrasco – LinkedIn

 

Hari Willy via Beatriz Arroyo Carrasco – LinkedIn

 

Hari Willy via Beatriz Arroyo Carrasco – LinkedIn

 

Hari Willy via Beatriz Arroyo Carrasco – LinkedIn

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Polar Bears

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

*These photographs by talented photographers all over the world are gathered and shared in an effort to increase people’s awareness of how wonderful and diverse our wildlife is, and how threatened it is by our society.

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Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Jeff Jett Photography, R.J. Bennett

Happy Sunday

Fashion Design Images

 

I’m feeling happy today – on top of things – empowered. My plans are starting to come together.

  • I told you that I got an iPhone 8 this week. Every day I’m figuring out new things. I’m finding it amazingly intuitive. I love the noise it makes when I get a text or a phone call. I like that I can actually FEEL a small vibration when the tone sounds with someone replying. I had a nice text chat with our son this morning, reaching out to him because he’s in Florida now, visiting friends and a client and will leave the country soon to go back to Thailand, PLUS he has an iPhone 8 and encouraged me to ask him questions on getting it set up. After talking to him, I have a starting list of apps I want to install, and he was able to answer my questions. I think I’m going to love this phone!
  • Before going to the grocery store with my husband this morning, I cleaned out the fridges in the kitchen and the pantry, cut up fresh veggies for our lunches this week, and put out the resulting trash. We shopped, put the food away, cut up the fresh celery we bought, and started a roast beef in the crock pot.
  • I’ve figured out my exercises for the coming week. (When it’s on my calendar, I tend to do it particularly if I put a gold star on the day.) So I’m planning to do dancing to a music exercise video Monday; yoga and abdominal exercises Tuesday; walking and exercise video Wednesday, Wii Fit Plus balance, reflexes, etc. Thursday; and elliptical trainer Friday. (I’ll ad lib on Sat and Sun.)
  • My kitchen drawers are now cleaned out and organized. I’ll list the donations we’ll make on a spreadsheet so we’ll be ready when we have several bags full of things we hope others can use.
  • I decided to go back to recording my food and water intake and activity on NuMi, the online tracker for Nutrisystem starting this morning. I’m basically into the routine now, but we’ve splurged with the holidays and our son being home for a visit, so I want to be sure I’m not fooling myself about eating during the day.

This afternoon I’ll vacuum the 1st floor carpet and then the 1st floor tiles. That’s going to be it for work today.

Finally, I’m giving myself permission to go up and PLAY in my art room this afternoon. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but my juices will start to flow when I start looking at the nice supplies I have. :0)

I hope that you are feeling happy and productive today, too.

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Filed under Attitude, empowerment, Encouragement, taking care of yourself

Kitchen Reorganization Project is Finished!

EMGN

I’ve spent about 3 hours cleaning out the four junk drawers in the kitchen. I finished – finally – and then fixed some lunch for us.

The drawer on the right is the original junk drawer, and is still the most averse to organization. I mostly took things OUT. The drawer on the left is now tools.

 

Drawer # 3 on the right is left-over tools, such as levels, stud finders, razor blades and holders, and measuring tape. The last drawer is my microwave steam cleaner, rolling-pin, extension cord and toothpicks.

Not perfect, but I threw away a ton of stuff, relocated things, and then reorganized what was left. We should have a much easier time finding things now.

I have officially called the end to the kitchen project now – at least for this Phase II pass.

I’ll decide the next project tomorrow.

Right now I may curl up in my chair and take a nap.

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Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob, Lewis projects, Organizing/DeCluttering

Seeing Spots?

Catherine Lee – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

Dave Welling via RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

 

Catherine Lee – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

*These people are advocates for saving our wonderful wildlife all over the world. Many talented photographers are represented here – all sharing the same wish – that these beautiful animals are not allowed to go extinct.

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography, Catherine Lee, Jeff Jett Photography, R.J. Bennett

Wonderful Drawings You Don’t Want to Miss

Saverio Scoleri – LinkedIn

 

Paul Mellender – LinkedIn

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“Bridge Between Two Worlds”

“Bridge Between Two Worlds” – Paul Militaru Photography

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Morphing Junk Drawer

Yesterday I cleaned out four more kitchen drawers.

We have always had what we call a ‘junk drawer’ in any kitchen we have. It’s the place we put nails, screws, twist-ties, tools, and other odds-and-ends We might need.

The problem with living in a nice home for over 30 years is that – unless one is a good housekeeper, which I’m NOT

ONE junk drawer morphs into FOUR!

(The one we had set up got too full, so my husband moved some stuff out of the drawer next to it and put the new junk in there. And then, the next, and the next….)

Now we have FOUR junk drawers in the kitchen –

shutterstock.com

 

Drawer 1 – this is the ‘original’ junk drawer

Drawer 2

 

Drawer 3

 

Drawer 4

I know. We’re slobs. But we ARE trying to do better.

Today I will take EVERYTHING out. I’ll pitch a lot of things, relocate other things that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and then try to organize what we’re keeping.

I’ll try to keep it to TWO junk drawers.

Junk drawers will never be ‘neat,’ but we are wasting lots of valuable space.

 

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Filed under Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob, Lewis projects, Organizing/DeCluttering

Your Awwwww for Friday

Catherine Lee – LinkedIn

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Friends

My friends made me feel special today.

I’ve told you about the Lunch Bunch, and how two good friends (and sometimes others) meet me for Lunch every Friday. My husband has been made an honorary member of the group. We share what is happening with each other as we eat.

Recently we exchanged Christmas presents. My friend Kay gave me this gorgeous scarf. It’s a southwest design with lots and lots of metallic copper shimmering all through it.

When I told my friend Marsha about the pretty scarf, she had me choose from some copper earrings she made to wear with it! I received them this week and wore the scarf and earrings to Lunch Bunch.

 

I loved wearing the combination of the scarf, my furry brown vest, and my hammered copper earrings!

My friends made me feel special – another gift.

 

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Kitchen Reorganization Project Update

Original copyrighted work by Betty Ming Liu

(These aren’t MY kitchen drawers, but I wanted to give you a feel for what I’m dealing with.)

_________________

 

I’ve been through my kitchen and pantry once last year and made a lot of progress. Two drawers in our kitchen island, in particular, were jammed full of ‘stuff.’

I pulled everything out. I washed out the drawers and lined them with rubber sheet liners so things wouldn’t slide around in the drawers.

There were things in the drawers I honestly had no idea what their purpose was! I like having more than one of something, but enough is enough as far as duplicates.

I filled a large leaf bag with stuff from the two drawers, plus some things on my counters, plus things from a decorative wooden bar my husband mounted over the island where we have things hanging.

We took a donation to the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store yesterday – two leaf bags of Christmas decorations, a two-piece 8-foot-tall fake Christmas tree and stand, and the leaf bag full of kitchen stuff.

Here are the two drawers after the purge –

Drawer 1

 

Drawer 2

Today I’ll do more in the kitchen purge, but I feel good to have a start on Phase II of getting rid of ‘stuff’ from our over 30-year-old home!

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Misuse of Imagination

Linda Sweigart via Cathy Ruggiero

In trying to make the most of 2019, I’m trying to put some of my bad habits behind me.

I am a CHAMPION worrier. I am not being boastful – this is one of my worst, most destructive behaviors and I would really like to change it.

My son and I had a good talk about this while he was home visiting.  The gist of our talk, I guess, was the Serenity Prayer, but personalized to lots of my  (and my son’s) particular worries.  He is much more at peace since he became serious about meditating and he tried to share some of that with me. We talked openly about our fears, whether or not anything could be done to lessen or alleviate them, and at some points cried with each other. It was a really special time for us and I feel lucky we were able to share gut level feelings and help each other deal with them.

I’ve decided that this year I will –

  • write down my fear
  • explore honestly how valid the fear is
  • if there is something I can do to lessen or alleviate it, I’ll do it
  • if there is really nothing I can do about it, I’ll try to let go of it, leaving it in my journal

I’m hoping that facing each fear as it comes up will help me be more realistic and spend less time ‘playing the recording’ over and over in my head, causing me stress and anxiety and not changing anything for the better.  My son and I have agreed that – even though he will again be across the world from me – we will both feel free to express any fears and help each other work through them.

I will try to use my imagination for my next art project!

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Arrrgh!

Sonia Figueroa

I’m feeling older than dirt after our morning errands.

  • First, we drove to Fort Smith to give a donation to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Store. They are always very nice, but the man today was looking at the fake Christmas tree, clearly puzzled. He said he had never seen a tree like this one. (It’s in two pieces, the top pole fitting into the bottom pole, and both fitting into the larger pole in the base my husband made.) He asked if WE had made this tree by hand! I told him we had bought it years ago. Then he was amazed that it was in such good shape, which got my nose back in joint a little bit….
  • We stopped at the AT&T store when we got back to Greenwood. My husband decided, all of a sudden, that he wanted me to upgrade to an iPhone from the android ones we both had. I was happy, because I wanted to do this years ago and he was adamant he didn’t want to do it. What changed his mind was that he found something on the net saying if you pushed two buttons on the android phone simultaneously, a message would pop up, asking you where you wanted to send the photo you just took. He tried it. It didn’t work. So, he finally decided “I” should upgrade. We went for a two-year contract on an iPhone 8 – not the newest model, but more affordable. I now have a pretty new phone. No manual came with it, so the nice girl – who said, “Wow. You’ve really had this phone a LONG time, haven’t you?” was nice enough to transfer my contacts from the old phone to the new and get me signed up. I very graciously did NOT bite her in the leg for insulting me via insulting my OLD phone….

Now we’ve ordered a manual for it on the net. I’ve just spent quite awhile figuring out how to get the main screen to show. I also found the texting app and the make a call app. This was such a delight that I took a break and peeled, de-veined, and cooked the shrimp for our dinner tonight to rest up for the next ‘figure-out’ session…

  • I guess being shown that you’re older than dirt is one of the many perks of living this long. We’ve endured exclamations about our thermostats – and have now changed them out for the latest that is good with our geothermal heating and cooling system. We have a security system for the house now and have managed to set it off erroneously only once since we’ve had it, managing to enter the code before police/fire/ambulance, etc. descending upon us. We have a new phone system that actually screens our calls pretty well, allows people who follow the directions to leave a message, etc.
  • One of the latest assaults on our advancing age was when I was trying to list our DVD collection on Amazon for resale. They are quite specific on what is acceptable and what is not – particularly on DVDs, rather than books – requiring not only that the picture match, you indicate regular or Blu-ray, etc., and ALSO that your DVD is not considered too old. We matched on all but the copyright year, and Amazon wouldn’t list it. I guess the different copyright dates might indicate a different format. We ended up listing the ones that were ‘acceptable’ and giving the rest to the local library for their next fundraiser.

Otherwise, except for being shown time after time that we are OLD, we’re doing quite well, thank you!

pinterest

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Lion Love

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

*These wonderful photos are taken by multiple talented photographers, all interested in preserving the habitat, lives, and futures of these wonderful creatures.

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Beautiful Memorial Portrait

“Hitch” – Niki Firmin – LinkedIn

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Niki Firmin - Pet Portraits

DeCluttering the Kitchen Project

Pinterest

I have been through my kitchen and pantry once in the past year, after 30-plus years of living in our home on top of a ridge line in Greenwood, Arkansas.

Last year I promised myself I would start somewhere – anywhere – and work my way through our home, taking everything out of a drawer, a shelf, a closet, and keeping what I wanted, giving away what I thought others might use or enjoy, and pitching the rest. I made it through everything with the exception of our garage and our shop – areas my husband protects with his life. He doesn’t actually stand at the doors and guard, but he does it verbally.

Now I’m in Phase II of the big clean-out.

Today’s project is going through the drawers in the kitchen. Too many of them are full of ‘stuff,’ – gadgets that haven’t been used, too many duplicates, etc. Too many ‘junk’ drawers!

I’m going to see how much I can accomplish this afternoon. I have a donation ready for us to take to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith tomorrow, but I might be able to fill another large leaf bag before then that I can add to the list and we can take at the same time.

I hope that you are starting 2019 with energy. I’m trying to make each day count.

 

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Challenge

Michael David Chapman – LinkedIn

 

This is a very alien concept for me. I tend to look in the mirror to make sure I have all my clothes on straight and that there is nothing on my teeth, and then move on quickly.

Part of this is because I’ve been trying to lose the lard. I’ve lost about 30 pounds so far. I would like to be as healthy as I can be, plus it’s nice to be able to fit into some of my smaller clothes now.

Part of this is because I have always felt that it’s what I DO that matters. I’ve never looked in a mirror and told myself that “I am great,” or that “I love me.” I have certainly never told myself that “I’m beautiful.”

My son and I had several good, long talks while he was here visiting. He is deeply into meditation and, in fact, will be going to a monastery in Nepal soon after returning to Thailand, where he lives and works. He has been accepted for 3 weeks, and may extend with the permission of his teacher. He would like to stay two months.

He is making me see a lot of things differently than I did. Big things, like living, purpose in life, and dying. Other things, too, such as fulfilling your purpose in life. I have always seen things like ‘beauty’ differently than how it relates to outer appearance. I look at ‘beauty’ as coming from the inside, as in beauty of spirit, loving others, kindness, and acceptance. The so-called beautiful people CAN be beautiful in my eyes, too, but I don’t see it often.

So, looking in the mirror and trying to be honest, saying – and meaning – the words above will be difficult for me. I really think, though, it’s a good challenge. You are learning to accept yourself, learning to see and appreciate your self-worth, and – most of all – when you do that, you might be able to share those feelings with others.

I’m going to try it. What do you think? Will you try it, too?

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Awesome Elephants

Joe Bailey – LinkedIn

 

 

Fran Duthie – LinkedIn

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Sweet Kisses in 2019

“Sweet Kisses in 2019” – Paul Militaru Photography

 

 

“Hey – Sweet Kisses From Me, Too” – Paul Militaru Photography

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Gentle Giraffes

Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

 

 

Johanz Wiegers via RJ Bennett – LinkedIn

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Delicious Drawings

 

 

 

 

 

Kitipong Ti – Thai Painter via Elena-(Livia) D. – LinkedIn

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Hugs and Love

The Journey Home via Carol Auclair Daly

 

I’m feeling a bit blue right now – AND feeling guilty that I’m such a greedy lady. We took our son to the airport this morning after enjoying a JOYOUS 3 weeks together. He was here for his birthday AND Christmas AND New Year’s.

I’m blue because we have no clue how long it will be before we can see him again. This time it was over 3 years, since he lives and works in Thailand. His trip home was 28 hours all told – and that was the SHORTER way. I hate for him to have to do this, but I’m SO glad he did.

I’m feeling guilty because – truth be told – there is no ‘long enough visit,’ or enough hugs.

Our son is a champion hugger. It brings tears to my eyes when I get one from him, and he’s super generous with them. My hugs bucket is filled up at the moment after a long drought.  My heart is full.

We are so proud of the man he is and his plans for the future. We are lucky that he knows how much we love him and how proud we are of him. We know WE are loved, and he enjoys being with us – a truly wonderful thing.

 

The Fresh Quotes

Our son went around to the driver’s side of the car at the airport this morning to hug his dad. My husband said, “If I never get to see you again, you’ll be okay.” Then our son came around the car to me, eyes red, giving me a last, hard, long hug.

It’s a beautiful thing to love so hard.

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Filed under Family, holidays

More Wonderful Paintings

“Bold and Shy” – Alina Ciuciu – LinkedIn

 

Fernie Parker-Tate via Elena-(Livia) D – LinkedIn

 

Kenn Erroll Backhaus – American Painter – via-Elena-(Livia) D – LinkedIn

 

Julius von Klever (Russian -1850-1924-via Elena (Livia) D – LinkedIn

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Filed under Acrylic Paintings I Love, Oil Paintings I Love, Watercolors I Love

Truth

Animals Are Angels via Laufrain Taylor

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes, kindness

Making the Most of 2019

Kelly Mizell – LinkedIn

 

“New Years is all about getting another chance. A chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more. And stop worrying about “what if” and start embracing what would be….” 😊❤️� ~ Kelly Mizell – LinkedIn

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Filed under anticipation, empowerment, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes, Good Thoughts