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Showing posts with the label Life Snapshots

Reconnecting to My Joy of Knitting

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 Knitting is very cathartic, meditative, and soul-soothing. When I put it down for long periods of time I often forget that. I walk away from projects and leave them in a WIP (work in progress) state, often for years. Knitting projects often get finished, but on occasion, they get frogged (torn out).  A couple of weeks ago I picked up one of the WIPs in my knitting basket. I finally finished a cowl that’s been on the needles for in the ballpark of a year, maybe a touch longer. The knitting mood has finally struck and I’ve reconnected with the joy it brings me to create with two sticks and some yarn. Upon completion of the cowl pictured above, I cast a new project onto the needles. I pulled some yarn from my stash and after doing a rabbit trail of a pattern search, I pulled out my much loved Gradient Shawl pattern. Gradient Shawl by Ola Grefling is available on Ravelry if you’re looking for what I’d call a relaxing pattern. It’s very beginner-friendly and perfect for knitting with frien

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

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This morning I was thinking about this as we ate breakfast. Our oven igniter went out two weeks ago and we’re waiting on the part, translation I’m unable to bake our weekly loaf of bread. Instead of a loaf this week we’ll be eating flatbread and pita pockets, both of which could be made on the stovetop. I kind of smiled to myself, we’ve been overcoming cooking challenges our entire marriage. Improvise, adapt, overcome is an unofficial slogan of the Marine Corps, and 16 years ago when I married a retired Marine this phrase became a way of life. We’ve lived in four states, owned three homes, and faced countless challenges along the way. Life has given us a lot of lemons, but that never stopped us from figuring out the challenge and moving forward.  When we moved to Missouri, in an ice storm, as newlyweds and took up residency in our first home we had no kitchen appliances. No biggy, we improvised. It was December so a cooler could be put outside our backdoor with groceries until we could

Drawing and Painting Home

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Home is and always will be Wyoming.  Home is not really about the town I was born in, but more about the state where I spent the first nearly three decades of my life.  I'll always be a Wyoming girl no matter where I live.  At this point in my life when I talk about going home, I'm referring to my brother's ranch, that's home.  My heart is there, my family is there. I've always loved taking photos at the ranch, and when we were home for Mom's memorial it was no different than all the other trips.  Spend a little time here and you'll also learn I have an infatuation or maybe even an obsession with trees, and the ranch has many old cottonwoods and cedars to make my little dendrophile heart.   One afternoon Hubby and I were sitting in the yard listening to the birds and talking about family and what's next in our lives.  I kept studying the same tree.  Eventually, I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick pic.  I mentioned to him that I wanted to draw that

2024 - The Year of Release

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I've been selecting a word since at least 2019, with the exception of last year.  The month leading up to 2023 made for a lost year, but more on that another day.  The word I've chosen for 2024 is release .  I don't have clarity yet on why I chose this word, or perhaps it has chosen me; the year will tell.   In the days leading up to the new year, I reread past journals, searching words, and while I found several that I liked release seemed to keep calling me back.  Then, while I was reading articles about resolutions I found one writer who talked about the origin of the word resolution.  It comes from the Latin  resolvēre - meaning to loosen or release .  That sealed the deal for me, release would be my 2024 word. I find it interesting, that the cultural norm is to vow to be a "new you in the new year" and each year we we put all these expectations in place.  Then reality comes colliding in around February and many of the chosen resolutions are on the curb like

Life Snapshots June 2017

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I took Friday off last week and gave myself a long three-day weekend to rest, relax and reflect.  The 2017 year has been a bit tense and I needed some time to just chill.  I'll spare all the details, but I can say I definitely needed this weekend to unwind and recharge. Day 1 : I enjoyed an iced coffee and a good book after running a few errands in the morning.   Snapped a pic of the honey bees that are enjoying the dandelion field where my garden usually is.   Sat on the grass and supervised Hubby repairing our garage roof. Day 2 : Enjoyed a homemade waffle for breakfast while doing a bit of journaling. Spent some time hanging out in the yard with the pups, enjoying a large glass of iced tea. Did a bit of reading about Nature Journaling. Grilled some chicken and bacon for dinner. Which I turned into a delicious spin on a cob salad, to go with my red wine and Sunset magazine. Took an evening stroll around our property.  I

Routines

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Good Morning.  Have you started to settle back into your daily routines?  Or are you still sorting it all out? I'm happily getting back into my everyday groove.  Loved being on vacation and celebrating the holidays, but I'm a creature of habit.  Having a routine helps me stay grounded.  There's a quote I pulled out of something I read a while back that is so very fitting of my nature. Highly sensitive people, having daily rituals in their lives can help them feel at one with their world, instead of just being overwhelmed by it most of the time.   I love my mornings.  They are slow and filled with daily rituals, or habits if you will.  I read blogs, sip coffee, post on Facebook & Instagram, write, enjoy breakfast with my Hubby and work through a yoga routine.  I'm blessed with a part-time job that allows me these luxuries. This year I'm considering adding an art journal to my mornings.  I've been thinking about this for quite a while and late last

Back From Break

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Where have you been?  Oh, wait.  You're probably asking me that, aren't you?  Well, I ran away to paradise for a couple of weeks.  I've been on an island, soaking up the vitamin D, and enjoying 10 hours of daylight.  Did you just read that and think "What?  Who talks like this?"  If you aren't from Alaska and have never lived here then this might sound like some fresh brand of crazy talk, but it's not.  Okay, fine I'll explain. When you live in the Interior of Alaska, you experience the shortest day of the year, known as "Winter Solstice," in a totally different way.  On this day our area has only about four hours of daylight.  No, don't adjust your glasses or your computer screen.  You read that right.  FOUR FREAKING HOURS - that's it!!  You view this day as a right of passage and begin counting the minutes that will become hours of daylight.  You've survived the darkness.  With the lack of light, comes a lack of vitamin D.  

Currently December 2016

The flu!  Is there anything worse?  Yeah, I can't think of anything either.  I got sick over the weekend, spent most of two days in bed.  I finally feel human again, after three days!  The only upside, I lost 3.6 pounds.  It's a hell of a way to lose weight.  I'll spare the details, but this little bug sucked.  I'm thrilled it was just a few days of hell.  I'm not a good sick person, not that anyone is a good sick person, but I'm a terrible sick person.  I'm whiny, hard to be around, and unable to make decisions about anything.  I also spend a lot of time apologizing for things that I really can't control.  These are all things that are not a part of my natural personality, but we'll save that discussion for another day. So, now that the flu is over where do I go from here?  Moving past the flu, I've added a couple of new blogs to my reading list: Against All Grain - really inspiring to me, as of late I've been giving a lot of thought t

Alaskan Winter December 2016

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Winter storm warning, it's started snowing since 5:30 am yesterday morning.  It's more of the fine, dry snow.  The kind that limits visibility when a car passes you on the road.  The temp has risen to five below zero.  Regular heat wave here in the Interior.  I'm guessing when I say we got about four to five inches. I've officially reached an age where the cold bothers me.  This is the first winter where cold has really bothered my hands, as in my hands hurt and I'm still looking for the right gloves kind of hurt. Up until now, I've always been loyal to Isotoner gloves.  I love them.  They were the perfect gloves, warm enough, yet still great for functionality.  I own a pair of what I'll call ski gloves for lack of a better description, they're the big bulky kind.  Super warm, but totally dysfunctional for handling anything but ski poles.  Currently, I'm wearing a pair of Hubby's mittens with the flip-top, that exposes fingerless mitts.  Wh

Life Snapshots November 2016

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Good Morning, Are you ready for your day?  Did you start with a glass of water?  Have you had your coffee?  What about breakfast? I don't know if I'm ready for my day just yet.  I did start with a big glass of water and enjoyed a smoothie for breakfast.  I'm enjoying my third cup of coffee as I write this.  Yes.  I said third.  There's something about hot coffee on a cold morning.  It's 26 below again this morning. We had a bit of snow last night.  It's the dry, fine powdery snow.  The kind that blows away the minute the wind comes up.  We need a good, heavy, wet snow to insulate the ground and provide moisture.  It's been pretty dry in this neck of the woods. What are you reading?  I'm trying to finish Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp .  It's not a bad book, it's just that I keep picturing the cast from Tombstone while I read.  I've seen the movie a dozen or more times.   Don't judge.  It's on

26 Below Zero

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It's 26 below zero today.  Winter has finally made it's way to Alaska.  We've seen it colder many times, but it's always a shell shocker when the mercury drops this low. We have a slight ground covering of snow, not more than an inch or two.  It's a fine powder and will be gone as soon as the wind brings the temperatures back up.  That's how the winters are here.  You wish for something above zero on the thermometer, you'll be wishing for the wind as well.  Most of us will accept the super cold to avoid the howling winds. The light is sitting around the five-hour mark.  What I mean is we currently have about five hours of daylight.  The sun rises at about 9am and sets around 4pm.  I could live here for 20 years and never really adjust to the dramatic changes in weather and light this time of year.  Since I am neither a fan of the cold nor the dark, winter in Alaska is a bit of a struggle. It's that time of year where we put boots on our littlest

Midori Traveler's Notebook

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Last night I set my Midori up with its 6th journal insert.  I've been using a Midori Traveler's Notebook for nearly a year, and it goes everywhere with me.  I thought I'd share what my setup currently looks like. The exterior is starting to show some lovely scuffing and wear marks.  I've added three charms to my elastic closer and beads were added to the bookmark you see peeking out the bottom.  The happy binder clip serves to hold my pen. The first thing inside is the handmade Midori folder, I created last weekend.  In my setup, it hugs an insert. Inside the folder are a few samples of washi tape and a couple of extra paper clips.  The right side is a generic insert that I picked up at Michaels a while back.  This insert is the one I did some of my InkTober pen and ink in. This is the back of my folder, the inside pocket is currently empty.  The other side is the grid insert from Traveler's Notebook.  This is the insert you see in many of my dai

The Alaskan Moose

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The Alaskan Moose - big, grand, beautiful creatures.  Big, grand, pain in the tuchus!  These marvelous beauties have done grand things like eat our garden, drive our crazy dog crazier, and hold me hostage in the house while laying in our front yard. Morning Moose - Alaska (02 November 2016) Outsiders, yes you who watch the "Alaska Reality" shows, think it would be grand to see these beasts from your living room window while sipping a hot toddy and watching the snowfall.  Yes, that a beautiful Hollywood vision, but it's just not reality. Reality is checking your yard before letting your dogs out, as moose have been known to stomp dogs to death.  Reality is they are 500 pounds and will take on a human they see as a threat.  Reality is they are near-sited animals and who see humans, smaller than them, invading their space. Yes.  Big, grand, beautiful creatures, when they aren't found bedded down in your yard from the night before, keeping you from getting to y

5 Reasons to Use a Feed Reader

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What is a feed reader?  Simple answer - a feed reader is a place to gather and display RSS feeds or web feeds if you will.  Translation - This is one page you can visit daily that will contain all of the blogs you don't want to miss stories from, and it eliminates the need to visit each individual page.  There are dozens of feed readers out there - Feedly, Bloglovin', Feedbin, Flipboard and many others.  There are even extensions for Chrome users to add to your toolbar.  Do some research, experiment, you'll find the one that fits your style and needs.  I'm a Feedly user, more on that later.  Let's talk about why I use a feed reader first. 1. All Your Blogs in One Place I don't know about you, but I don't have the desire, nor the attention span, to click and read dozens of different blog pages.  I follow 53 blogs.  Don't judge.  By putting it all in a feed reader I open one page and read all my blogs in one place. 2.  Full Article Feed Now,

Currently October 2016 Part 2

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Struggling with: My Weight - Yes, I'm opening that door.  I started this battle, and yes I see it as a battle, in January.  It's  now October and I've yo-yoed my way to a total loss of 7.6 pounds.  Hubby and I are working on this together, and I think many days that's the only thing keeps me going.  I will continue to move through this battle and move toward my goal.  I will also accept that there will be bad days and maybe even bad weeks.   Blogs I'm Loving: The Healthy Maven - I read this post first , which hooked me, and then this morning I read her post about Knowing Your Value .  Loving this blog.  Lots of foodie goodness, but also a good bit of real life too.   Shutterbean - I stated following Tracy when I first started writing my own blog in 2008.  I love her recipes, her photography and her unapologetic writing style.  You know if I've been reading for eight years, and I'm still reading, she's got it going on. Recipes I Need to

Currently October 2016 Part 1

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Yesterday's post was pretty intense, so let's lighten things up today.  It's Monday, the day most people like the least.  Let's savor our morning coffee and be thankful for the day.  Spin things in a positive light to set the tone for the week. What I'm Reading: Woman Code - reading small chunks of this at a time.  Too much of it at once is really overwhelming.  (Kindle book) Rising Strong - haven't picked this up in a few day, but it's on my list of things to pick back up this morning.  (Real book) Present Over Perfect - I grabbed the Kindle sample of this and after reading a few pages last night I'll be grabbing the full book. (Kindle book) Curly Girl - Bought this over the weekend.  While I'm not into all of the "bible" steps they talk about I've been meaning to read this one so I can add some curly coping skills to my bag of tricks.  (Kindle book) What's Happening in the Studio: InkTober - Daily drawing in