Weekly Simplicity Tips

I think I forgot these last week, but that's ok...

1. Make simple meals with lots of produce this week. This would have been a helpful tip *before* we did the grocery shopping... And we're already doing that the best we can anyway! LOL!

2. See your things with new eyes and enjoy the abundance of what you have. Good advice for any day! ^_^

3. Be yourself. It is much simpler than trying to be someone else. More excellent advice!

4. Save up for quality products, rather than buying many shoddy items. Sometimes this is worth is... Sometimes it's not...

5. Create a maintenance schedule for your car. When we have enough money to pay the bills; for now we're doing the best that we can!

6. Use Mobissimo.com search engine to find the best travel deal. Wonder how much she got paid for this... This of course assumes we need to find travel deals...

7. Plan a back to school barbecue or another fun tradition. And this assumes we *go back to school* which we don't... Maybe next year or the year after, we'll start that tradition... ~_^

Scrapping

24 Things I Love About Scrapping (in no particular order)...

1. a better use for all those cute stickers I've been collecting since I was in 4th grade
2. a reason to buy all those gorgeous colors of cardstock
3. hours of quiet solitude absorbed in creating the perfect LO
4. hours of chatting and creating with friends and family
5. reliving good memories as I scrap the photos
6. finding the perfect paper combination for each set of photos
7. trying a new technique and getting it right
8. an excuse to keep just about anything and everything
9. the smiles on people's faces when you give the gift of a scrapbook (small or large)
10. GLITTER!!!!
11. embossing something still makes me go "OMG that's so cool!" at a pitch that makes small animals run away
12. alternate storage for all the photos I take besides sticking them in a box, in a drawer, in the attic, or onto those sticky pages with no decoration whatsoever
13. a reason to buy all those cute patterned papers
14. reliving memories when perusing completed albums
15. putting eyelets in tags as a stress-reducer  *BANGBANGBANG*
16. a reason to keep the ribbon off packages and little scraps of fabric from clothes
17. a good excuse to buy those beautiful yarns and fibers without knowing how to knit or crochet
18. remembering 10 years from now who that weird guy next to Auntie Rachel is
19. it reduces gift-buying-stress for all my friends & relatives, a gift card to Michael's will do
20. a reason to buy all those wonderful handmade papers
21. oh my goodness, can you believe how much they've grown in last (year, 6 months, week...)???
22. being able to use all those beautiful paper images as backgrounds and textures and filters on my digital artwork too!
23. finding just the right embellishment
24. making new friends online who like to scrap too

My day thus far...

Last night I was trying so hard to do the right thing. Lights out at 11pm so I could get a full 8 hours sleep by 7 when the alarm was set for Es to go to work. Then I could get up and enjoy a quiet morning with Jacqueline before taking her to work. I finished my chapter at 11:14, shut the lights out, and fell asleep. At 11:48, Bunny requested noisily that I let her out. At 12:13, I was itching so bad that I had to get up and run the bites under icy water to make it stop; then again 3 more times before the alarm went off. Even calm breathing and imagining a force field pushing the itchies out didn't work... :( Then I had dreams... the kind of dreams that make me miss people I don't know that I ever want to see again... I woke up late, almost 12 hours later. Sore and cranky. Jacqueline cuddled with me a tiny bit even though she was running late because she forgot to make herself a dinner and made me feel better.

Showered, dressed, took her to work, got a cheap cola on the way home and even filled my tires with air. (Yes, some people only worry about gas, I worry about the air and oil too...) Once home, I caught up with my email & LJ and started on some dishes! JoAnn cleaned the counters and stove while I did that and she really did a great job! Then I made myself some brunch (an Italian pasta salad with chicken, lots of veggies and a little cheese), did more dishes, and then had some ice cream which I gave 1/2 of to Jo. Meanwhile, Es & Ant have gone to Sam's, Lia is already there playing with Jordan, and as soon as JoAnn is showered and ready, she's going too... Wow. I'll be alone. I plan to blast my music, wash dishes, and clean off my desk! So, since JoAnn is on her way now, here I go! ^_^

My Very First Scrapbook Page

MyVeryFirstLO
Originally uploaded by bunnykissd

I did this in November 1998 at a Creative Memories party. I decided right off the bat that I didn't like the strap-bound albums, and the cult-like mentality of the "CM Consultants"... I do like some of their products though; I just wish they weren't so over-priced!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Weekly Simplicity Tips

From Encouraging Coach...

1. Start paying off your smallest debt. How about we start with the most important one first - electricity! Then we'll work on getting current on the other important monthly bills, and when we have those under control, we can work on the other debts...
2. What is one self-care habit you can create? Flossing, going to sleep on time, drinking water? I have some I've been trying to work on for a long time now...I think I'll just keep working on those...
3. Give away or sell at least 3 items of clothing. Are you insane? I haven't got enough clothes to make it through a week and you want me to give some away???? ... Ok ... so maybe I have a lot of clothes I don't/can't wear... I think I can do this... I'll do it now... Done!
4. Have everyone put their dirty clothes in their hampers daily. Well that's not the problem! The problem is the the laundry baskets never get from the room to the washing machine!
5. Don't clean it unless it is dirty. Well, duh. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
6. Plan Labor Day. Labor Day? Is that a special day or something? I imagine it'll be just like any other Monday around here... No need to plan anything...
7. Look for a free music concert in the area or make your own music. Um... Ok... How about I put the speakers on and play some mp3s... Stupid speakers don't work right...

Mindfulness, Clarity and Self-Awareness

From Sandra Dodd...

In a way I think mindfulness, clarity and self-awareness are all the same thing, but they're not, quite. I recommend figuring out how they're different, examining them all, and then letting them melt into one thing in your thoughts and actions. If you try to melt them together before you know what they are, you might just have a waxy lump, so first...

Clarity

From my handy desktop dictionary, on clarity. The third definition is what I'd like for you to think about for self-awareness purposes, but the others are good to consider along with it.

Dictionary

clarity

the quality of being clear, in particular
• the quality of coherence and intelligibility : for the sake of clarity, each of these strategies is dealt with separately.
• the quality of being easy to see or hear; sharpness of image or sound : the clarity of the picture.
• the quality of being certain or definite : it was clarity of purpose that he needed.
• the quality of transparency or purity : the crystal clarity of water.
ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [glory, divine splendor] ): from Latin claritas, from clarus 'clear.'
The current sense dates from the early 17th cent.

They don't have synonyms for the third definition above. Bummer. We might be back to inventing words.

Thesaurus

clarity
1 the clarity of his account lucidity, lucidness, clearness, coherence; formal perspicuity. antonym vagueness, obscurity.
2 the clarity of the image sharpness, clearness, crispness, definition. antonym blurriness.
3 the crystal clarity of the water limpidity, limpidness, clearness, transparency, translucence, pellucidity. antonym murkiness, opacity.

You need to be coherent and lucid with your own thoughts, as much as you can be. How do you know if you're moving toward being certain and definite if you're not certain where you definitely want to move?

This is interesting: ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [glory, divine splendor] ) So in a medieval sense, clarity is Godly. Striving for clarity is clearly striving to be more perfect.

Mindfulness
Some of this is adapted from something I wrote a few years ago about parenting

Once upon a time in an unschooling discussion, someone seemed unhappy with the way I used "mindful." For years, some of the regular writers there tried to find a good word for what we were trying to convey— making infinitesimal decisions all the time, day and night, and basing those decisions on our evolving beliefs. We finally settled on "mindful," in the sense of being fully in the moment. Though "mindfulness" is used as a term in western Buddhism, the word they chose when they were translating from Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, Vietnamese and whatever all hodgepodge of ideas were eventually described in English, "mindfulness," is an English word over 800 years old. It's a simple English compound, and has to do with the state of one's mind while performing an action. It creates a state of "if/then" in one.

IF a person wants to live in the light of his goals and intentions, then the "better choices" need to be made in that light. The clearer you are about where you intend to go, the easier your decisions are.

When you come to an intersection, how do you decide which way to go? It helps, before operating a motor vehicle with all its attendant expenses and inherent dangers, to know where you want to go. When you DO have a destination, then each intersection has some wrong ways, and some better and worse ways. It's the same with anything. When you know where you're headed, there are some wrong ways you can avoid simply by being mindful of your intent.

Self-awareness

Master Bela the Kurgan told me this story January 28, 2007:

One zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating."
The second said, "My teacher has so much self control, he can go days without sleep."
The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."

That might sound simpler than it is. Many people don't know when they're hungry or tired, but they live by the clock, or do what they see others do, or stay up as late as they can, or wait until they're cranky and starving to eat instead of recognizing it earlier.

Sometimes the simplest aspects of self-awareness escape people.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a good little self-awareness tool they call HALT.
When you're feeling out of control, stop and ask yourself "Am I hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?" The ideal isn't to use that tool for life, though. It's to grow past the point that you feel out of control, because you've learned to recognize those triggers sooner and to be more serene. An alternate, more humorous but still useful set of words that spell HALT is: Horny, Arrogant, Lazy and Tragic. Being dramatic or arrogant can probably be even easier to resolve than tired and hungry are, for those who know that they want to move toward being more honest, humble and modest. "Honest and modest" is quite a bit like serenity.

Part of self awareness is to be physically self aware.
I've gotten better over the years.

When I was younger I lived too much in my head and would look through the lens of what should be, or could be, or might be, instead of stopping for two seconds to consider what actually, at that moment, was. If I'm not careful I can be cranky before I know I'm tired, and head-achy before I know I'm hungry.

Now, while I'm taking stock of how and where I am, I take a deep breath while I'm considering it, and that one deep breath leads to another one, and no matter where I started, I'm better already.

Behold, My Desk...

This was taken on the 7th; my desk is now slightly more cluttered...



Top left has my stuffed animal collection, starting on top of our medicine cabinet and continuing over to the top one shelf (plus some) on the wall. 

Under the stuffies are some boxes and baskets of pictures to be sorted and some smaller albums, not yet filled. 

Under them, there are larger unfinished albums and paper storage.  The drawers in black have embellishments and one drawer of punches; the small white ones (behind the Hello Kitties) have pens & pencils & notepads (general office supplies). 

To the right of that is a cup of tools (hammer, tweezers, exacto knife, etc.), tape, stapler, and my CDs for the computer (mostly program backups, photos burned to CD, some blanks, and some music). 

From right to left on the shelf above that is a small container with little drawers filled with buttons, charms, beads, jewels, eyelets... and 2 containers of the same on top of that, and my very old chalks on top of that! Next to that in the white drawers are more embellishments, a few embossing powders, and glue. Then there are some bottles and jars with sparkles and glitter and buttons and glue and more... And then I have this really pretty box, with a glass sliding lid, that I've filled with my sparkliest shiniest fibers, and next to that 2 boxes of paper scraps (you know, like for making tags, and matting and framing). And then some toys of mine (Disney fairies, Skel-animals, and some from McD's Happy Meals *blush*).

Directly above that little crowd is a bunny shaped frame and another little doll from McD's, and going right this time, we have 3 baskets of tins and CD cases to alter, a container of 3 inch floppy disks with things I someday mean to burn to disk, and then some jars, and more dolls and toys, and a pretty fairy tin...

So those are the walls... LOL! Now for the desk and below... Right to left, before the computer keyboard & monitor is a paper tray with envies and other odds and ends, a pencil cup, my drink, mouse, etc. Then the keyboard & monitor and the printer/scanner, with no ink so there's my old printer below, and squeezed in between those & the monitor is more envies and more blank CDs. The blue thing in front is a digital postal scale, and then... well... the top of the desk gets scary... Piles of books, magazines, bills, papers, and not just in piles but in a box even! Behind the box, you can almost see, I've got my deco-scissors poked through the holes in the shelf for my scanner - awesome way to store them! And more paper trays with paper behind the box that line the wall and end of the desk. (You can see the ones at the end of the desk with my 8.5x11 paper in it.) Note the bag of Lindt Chocolate between the evil box and paper tray! A necessity...

Moving around to on top of the book case we have 2 bags of ribbon and other fibers, big paper cutter, more unorganized scrapping things... On the shelves of the book case are binders filled with school papers I want to keep, as well as paper for the computer, and some weights for if & when I ever decide to work out with them... LOL! (Big plans! I've got BIG PLANS!)

UNDER the desk... sticker binder, paper accordion files, fabric hidden under caboodle box which is filled with drawing supplies, cushion for kitty, boxes of things to be scrapped, magazines & catalogs to go through, additional craft supplies in purple drawers almost completely hidden, white drawers behind chair full of photos to be scrapped, pink bag is BIRTHDAY GIFTS!!! FROM JULY!!! that still need to be put away, garbage basket, bag for recyclables, my purse and tote bag!

And that, my friends, is a lot of junk... So who wants to help me sort through it all and get it organized???

EDIT: And please note, we have not painted in here. That's the color the landlord painted: a dark maroon. I'd prefer a nice bright white or pale pale green or lilac...

Swimming

Today we went swimming and there were lots of big waves... it's always strenuous to swim then, but so fun! I am so glad I am not as afraid as I was last year... The waves today were much higher than the waves in this video that Terry took last year. That's Lia, dancing around like a monkey, and Jacqueline & I behind her on the rock letting the waves wash over us. The man with his kids in the background is doing what we all did today, only like I said, the waves were bigger! ^_^



EDIT: You may need to give the video a while to finish "processing" at you-tube before it will show here...

Horoscope

Here is your horoscope
for Wednesday, August 8:

Take a step outside your comfort zone and see what happens. You might surprise yourself as well as your coworkers or family -- and things might just take a turn for the better afterward! It's worth a shot.


So I've been thinking about talking to my dad about my relationship with Jacqueline... I don't think he understands that we are a couple... I've tried to explain it before because he and my grandmother seem put out that I want to bring her and often the kids when I visit. Well, we live an hour away and if I'm going to spend the money on gas to go all the way there, I am going to bring at least her, so we can visit both our families... I know it's not like things were with Terry, but he didn't like to socialize, and certainly not with my family. But to tell me not to bring her or the kids... well that shuts *me* out too... But I am so scared to disappoint him... I have no idea why...

(Oh yeah, mom knows, she's cool with it all...)

Quote of the Day

Dean Koontz (Author) said this about slippers shaped like rabbits:  "Bunny slippers remind me of who I am. You can't get a swelled head if you wear bunny slippers. You can't lose your sense of perspective and start acting like a star or a rich lady if you keep on wearing bunny slippers. Besides, bunny slippers give me confidence because they're so jaunty. They make a statement; they say, 'Nothing the world does to me can ever get me so far down that I can't be silly and frivolous.' If I died and found myself in Hell, I could endure the place if I had bunny slippers."

Now someone get me some slippers to go with my ears...

Weekly Simplicity Tips

1. Start saving so you have at least $1000 cash for an emergency fund. This is a nice dream. We were doing it, but got so far behind in everything that this is impossible right now...
2. Raise your energy by getting more sleep, listening to upbeat music or taking a 10 minute walk. Um... yeah... not walking in this humidity... head is already aching... and sleep comes as often as possible...
3. If your kids are going back to school spend 10 min a day prepping with them. Here is my Back to School Checklist. Well at least we don't have to worry about this... *OUR* children learn all year long!
4. Plan for an extra fun weekend. We are! ^_^
5. Put your favorite articles on a topic in a binder. Do you know how many binders I would have? It's best if I just read them, glean what notes from them I can, putting them in a word doc, and then chuck the article...
6. Are you up to date with your receipts and bills? Bills=no. Receipts? How does one keep up to date with receipts...???
7. Read in a hammock or in a lawn chair. You know, I don't have either of those...

Fishing with my NeoPets

Blounsi's fishing skill increases to 83!
BunnyKissd's fishing skill is 81.
Dreamy_Phin's fishing skill is 83.
GrundiGolem's fishing skill is 91.

Weekly Horoscope

Cancer Horoscope for week of August 2, 2007
"I tell young people that the greatest paintings in museums are made with minerals mixed in oil smeared on cloth with the hair from the back of a pig's ear," says artist James Rosenquist. I hope that thought incites you to achieve pragmatic breakthroughs in the coming weeks, Cancerian. It's time to play in the mud and risk making a mess, if necessary, in order to translate your beautiful visions into earthy realities.

From Free Will Astrology...

Email

OMG... what happened??? I had been keeping it below 50 in my inbox, now it's over 120!!! Eeep!

Birds in our Meadow

Do you know what's amazing about our yard? We've got the feeder up, right? But it's perches are really too small for the cardinals or blue jays, but they still come! The blue jay always wakes me up in the morning and the cardinals are out there now feeding on the seed that dropped... The chipping sparrows and chickadees are still the most regular visitors, coming all day, everyday, but the goldfinches have also been coming regularly, but not just to the feeder; I see them on the ground pulling the seeds off the flowers! Earlier it was the hawkweed that had gone to seed, now it's the chicory! I've never ever seen birds do that! They can't if you don't have a meadow!