What a Dreary Ol' Week

What's that saying? April showers bring May flowers? I hope that's true. After the snow we had one day of sunshine and now two days of rain. It's more than just a little gloomy and it seems to be reflected in my mood. I haven't been feeling well the last couple of days. I'm not sure what it is. I'm thinking it may be something to do with my sinuses as I'm feeling dizzy and nauseas when I'm up and about. It's similar to how I felt last year after the flu with the secondary infection I had. Of course it's come at the wrong time. We are leaving to visit daughter on Saturday. I'm taking things easy as I don't want to get sick while visiting her again this year.

When I first started feeling 'off' on Sunday afternoon I thought perhaps it was because of all the stairs we'd walked up and down on our walk, but it has persisted.

There are ALOT of stairs at this park - over 300 in all. Yikes. I like the view and the walk down, but the stairs are horrible! I'd forgotten how bad they are.

Anyway, I haven't been doing much since getting back Sunday afternoon. As I said I'm trying to take things easy and not aggravate anything. The cold rain and damp doesn't help. I feel like one big, achy mess.

Whinge. Whinge.

To end on something other than my moaning - I did take a photo of a trio of really shaker cards that I put together. The kit had six cards in it and was something I found at Tuesday Morning (shop in the states). I love Tuesday Morning! If you're in the states and a crafter I'd definitely give it a visit. They have all sorts of crafty goodies at bargain prices. I've found a lovely lot there. These cards will be great to have on hand for birthdays.

Somebody somewhere is laughing at us...

It's snowing. Yes, snowing. Sigh. Son had come up to visit and drove back when it started snowing. He said the roads were lousy and the snow was heavy and wet. By the time he got back home some of his car had ice chunks on it. Hopefully this will not last. The poor birds outside weren't sure what to make of it. No wonder they have been eating like crazy all day! I suppose I should pay more attention to them than I usually do.

After Skyping Mum and chatting with son for a while I spent the rest of the afternoon reading. It was the kind of day where I just wanted to curl up beneath my blanket and have a nice read. Oh I did spend time setting up a space where I can take flower photos. I am taking a course on flower photography. It really isn't my thing but it is something I want to learn. I'd love to be able to take some lovely flower photos to make into an album for my Mum. I feel so outside my comfort zone though. Other people on the course are already posting beautiful flower compositions and I'm struggling just getting through the first lot of reading. I will persevere though. I shall keep in mind the final goal. It does mean setting up a space, working out how to use my tripod and timer properly. I hope I'm not taking on more than I can manage!

I took a couple of beginning photos thinking to use them as comparisons for the end result.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Another week done and dusted

I was going to post earlier but I got distracted by the seven deer I saw in my back garden. Yes, seven!! It's the most I've ever seen in our garden at once. I saw them this morning too. A couple came right up to the bird feeder table and ate some nuts and bird seed. The others decided to chew on the grass and what little else is growing in the garden. While watching them I saw a vulture sitting in the tree at the back neighbours. Yesterday there were two vultures in another neighbour's tree - I think those two were mating lol. I do live in a large-ish town - 76,000 or so, not particularly small, but we do regularly get a couple of deer as there is some green space near us. I think they are clearing out some of it so maybe (sadly) these deer are being displaced.

Anyway, this week has been quite productive. I got everything done on my list except I didn't list any Ebay items. I thought about it and decided not to. We are leaving for daughter's next Saturday for a week so there really isn't any point doing it before we go. I also only managed to sort 8 books so far. I do like having the list though. It forced me to get a couple of silly little things done that I'd been putting off.

The weather is turning colder. I had my tee shirts out a couple of days, but I think I'll be back in my jumpers this weekend. Sigh. We're under a winter weather advisory and might actually have some - gasp - snow!!!! Please say it isn't so! Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't happen.

I did splurge a little this week. I really enjoy reading Sue's lovely posts over at The Cottage at the End of a Lane blog and saw these books and they reminded me of some of the things she posts. Hopefully I'll have time to read them this weekend (especially if that cold weather comes!)

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Monday or Tuesday?

We went away Sunday and Monday and now I keep thinking it's Monday instead of Tuesday. Grrr. That makes this a short week. We had a lovely couple of days away and the weather was just fantastic. We visited a new-to-us state park and two nature reserves that we hadn't been to before. It was just beautiful! More places to add to the revisit list. We saw lots of birds we haven't seen before and it was just so marvelous. I'll be sorting through photos for days lol.

I did get most of the things on my list done last week. It certainly helped having the list. So I've created another one for this week.

* clean out bottom shelf of towel cupboards.
* sort through 2 cubes by husband's chair
* create a set of animal cards (photography)
* wash and put away extra bed blanket and blanket on sofa. I am hopeful these won't be needed anymore.
* 10 books

Not a long list, but I find if they are short I can manage them lol.

Here's a photo from the lovely walk I took Saturday afternoon. It was just such a lovely day after all the days of clouds and rain that I couldn't bring myself to stay inside!

I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend. There are no extra days off here in the states but we took an extra day anyway! Mum said the weather had been just gorgeous, so I hope people managed to get out and enjoy!

Books

I love books. I love reading. I have a Kindle, but there is no comparison to a physical book. There is just something about them. I love browsing the bookshop, reading the backs of books and even taking a peek inside. I love reading to learn new things, brush up on old things or to escape to a new romance or solve a mystery or even living in fantasy land. Which brings me to my problem - I have a lot of books. Some of them are old friends, others are waiting to be read. I really want to get rid of some - and have managed to donate/resell quite a few - but I'm struggling to let go of more.

I pull out a whole bunch, read the backs and decide it's something I really want to read. The problem is that there are so many of them! Grrr…am I the only one that has this problem? I suppose there could be worse things than being a book-a-holic, but they certainly take up space! I suppose I could keep going as I am, making sure to read them and then let them go but it seems so...slow. Or I could just purge completely - though that would not be easy at all.

Anybody have any tips? If you're a booklover, how do you decide what to keep or let go of? Do you have lots of books in your house?

The good news - I did take two bags and two small boxes of books to the library on Thursday! Woo!

Ups and Downs

Of course I have to talk about the weather - might as well get it over with first. It's been a week of ups and downs. Monday morning when I woke there was snow on the ground. Sigh. I thought we were done with that. There was quite a bit on my car so I had to dig out the snow brush and clear it off before I even started. Luckily the roads weren't bad so I decided to go out. We hadn't gone walking on Sunday and I admit that I needed to get out for a walk. 

The poor daffodils in the woods were covered with a layer of snow. 

It did warm up a little during the day and the snow melted. I'm thinking hoping that this was winter's last stand and it shall be the last we see of the snow, though I won't hold my breath! The weather for Tuesday was going to wet and cloudy. It wasn't raining when I got up. I hurried around, got dressed, ready to go out the door and it started raining! Instead I did a few jobs and thought that was it, there would be on walk. A little later when I looked out the window I could see the clouds starting to break up and the sun peeking through! I quickly hurried out - it was still spitting - and started to walk. The clouds parted, blue sky broke through the grey and the SUN came out! It turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. So we went from snow to temps where I actually opened the windows. Ah Spring!

This week has been a little strange due to son's weird work schedule. I think we'll just have worked things out and got used to the change when it will be back to normal again.  The books that should go to the library bookshop for donation have actually made it to the car! I cleaned out my car yesterday as the weather was so beautiful and decided to load them up. I shall take them tomorrow or Friday. 

I've done a little crafting. Not a lot. My tailbone is still bothering me and I haven't broken down and bought the cushion thingy for my chair (though I think I shall have to just spend the money) so can't sit in my crafting chair for long. I've been on a colouring streak. I had printed out lots of colour. I also found up some more decoupage pages and did those. I have enough that I need to start putting together some cards. 

The cowl is still waiting to be finished. 

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Sunday

What a horrible day it's turned out to be! At least it was sunny yesterday if not cold, but today we've had rain and wet snow and it's cold and grey. Just a horrible, miserable day. We didn't stay out long at all as the weather was so horrible. We were going to go away for an overnighter but  postponed it until next week. So glad we did! Today would not have been a good day to be outside!

Procrastinator's Unite - I'm trying to be better this week so have made a list of things I HAVE to get done. It's not a huge list but it's some things I want to get done, that I keep meaning to get done and have been putting off or just not doing.

- take bags of books to the library bookshop for donation
- at least four lots up on Ebay for auction
- sort out magazines sitting by chair
- pick out a new cross stitch project
- wash & iron finished cross stitch project
- sort out more books for library donation (this should be done before taking the bags that are sitting waiting to be taken lol)
- finish knitted cowl - I'm SO close to finishing this!

There are larger projects that need to get done, but I'm struggling to get things done right now. I have really good intentions, but seem to get so easily distracted. This week is going to be a strange one as son starts working (6) 12 hour shifts from 7pm to 7am for the next two weeks. I'm hoping that with him being gone at night and me being able to be up in my craft room while he's at work that I might get things done. I feel more creative at night, but usually he's upstairs or in bed and I don't want to disturb him (even if I don't think I'm that loud lol)

Yesterday we did manage to get out to the Bird Sanctuary for another trip. We went for the first time last week. It's a really lovely place. The weather wasn't the greatest - sunny, but quite cold. There are lots of swans there. One in particular was NOT happy at all. It looked kind of how I feel sometimes when I'm in a 'mood' or don't want to be bothered with being social. It was chasing after the other swans and making a lot of noise! Even when it was resting, its wings were all out like a warning to the other swans.

Where has the week gone?

I'm not exactly sure. It's Friday tomorrow and this week has been a definite bust. I feel like I'm slipping backwards in things. Sigh. At least when a new week starts maybe I can wipe the slate clean and try harder next week. We were going to go away on Sunday Night/Monday, but I postponed the reservations until the following week as the weather over the weekend looks horrible - rain/snow and cold. We wanted to do some outdoor things, so hopefully the next weekend will be different.

It's been a quiet sort of week. Middle son came up on Tuesday so I made a batch of sausage rolls and it was nice enough to have a salad. Talked to Mum on Wednesday. She went into town on Monday and booked our coach holiday. We will be going to Weymouth. I haven't been there before and the excursions included look lovely.

I still haven't taken a photo of the cross stitch  - not really a revelation when I've said what a horrible fail this week has been. I shall have to pick out a new cross stitch project to start just so I can keep busy when sitting.

I do hope everyone has had a more productive week than I have!

Thank You!

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post. We were really excited by the news. Mum and I spent time on our Saturday Skyping session to talk about where we'd like to go away on holiday. She's feeling better now too, only a little croaky. That thing she had really hung around for a while!

It's been beautiful here in Michigan for the last couple of days. There were actually people out in their shorts and tee shirts. Not me. I wasn't quite that brave lol. I even spotted these really tiny flowers (probably the size of a penny) in my garden.

And these starting to grow at the local park where I walk. I'm SO excited!

It seems to be a long old winter!

I've spent time this weekend working on my cross stitch and it is finished! I'll take a photo and post it on my next post. I opted to leave out the name of the squirrel as I personally like it as is. I'm glad this one is finished, but, to be honest, once I got going on it things came along quite nicely.

I am failing at my monthly goals. Last month wasn't good either. I am still working on emptying the freezer. I did good for a while but then found a bargain on a couple of items and stocked up again. It's time to work on getting through some of the meat items. I have to come up with some new recipes too especially once the warmer weather comes.

One thing I am proud of is that I am sticking to my savings goals. I have put money in the two holiday accounts each week as planned since the beginning of the year!

Book buying - I have bought a few BUT not as many as before AND I have let go of a lot more books than I have bought into the house! I have two bags ready for donation and several more to list. It does seem like I am finally getting somewhere. The goal is not to loose momentum.

Crafty Items - I had a fail on this one. Sigh. Michaels had a really good sale on some paper pads I had wanted. They were $5 for 12 x 12 pads. I bought three of them. I also bought a scrapbook album for $5 that was the size I wanted to do my Mum's album in. I shall do better this month.

Good News!

Not a long post today. Just a little update. I am pleased to report that Mum's test came back okay. She is clear for a whole year! The Oncologist says that her next appointment and scan will probably be her last. I am so pleased.

It's time to start planning our hols...

Another Day...

It's almost mid-week and I'm failing at this one too! Tomorrow I'll call Mum and find out her results - she saw the oncologist today to find out the results of the scan she had last week. So far they have come back pretty good, but I'm worrying a little as she hasn't got her voice back yet and I'm hoping that's nothing more than her cold/flu hanging on. I'm sure it will all be alright. She's waiting to hear before we make plans for my summer trip (I've already booked ticket).

Sunday was pretty cold and it's taken a couple of days to warm up. The trip we took on Sunday took us up where there was still ice on the lake - quite a lot of it actually.

When I was talking to Mum on Saturday we were talking about Felixstowe (seaside) and how some of the older people take a drive down to the front for a few hours and sit in their cars with their sandwiches or some fish and chips. The photo below reminded me of that. There were several cars along the lakeshore with people just sitting in them - not that I blame them as it was really cold and windy.

I endeavour to do better for the rest of the week! I have been sorting out some more books and now have almost two bags to take down to the library bookshop. I even popped in a couple I haven't read and knew that I probably wouldn't within the next six months...the struggle continues!