Category Archives: My Two Cents

10 Truthful Things!

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bluepansiesThe other day, Carol listed 10 truthful things about herself on her blog, and invited her readers to play along!

It sounded like fun, so here are mine. 🙂

(List yours too, if you like!)

10 truthful things about me . . .

1. When I was young, I wanted to grow up to be a teacher.

2. I am still absolutely crazy about my wonderful, smart, funny, and handsome husband after 37 years! We were toddlers when we married.
OK, the toddler part is not true. 😉

3. The first thing I do when I get home is put on my slippers!

4. My first “real” job (besides babysitting) was a summer job as a waitress. I was 15 years old and I rode my bike to work. It was 4 miles each way.

5. I wish I could play the piano.

6. I love to make things and have learned many different crafts. It’s so relaxing and there’s nothing more rewarding than having something pretty to show for your time. Spend an hour on laundry and the hamper is full immediately, it seems. But, spend an hour beading – and you have a bracelet!

7. I hate olives of any kind.

8. I love the internet. It’s like having a library in your home 24/7

9. I make a good hamburger. The chef at the restaurant where I worked as a kid taught me how to cook one. Since then, people have always remarked about how very good my hamburgers are. I think the secret is knowing the precise moment to take it off the heat – so that it’s cooked, but still juicy.

10. I love reading all of the sweet and funny comments that are left on my blog. My readers are the best!

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Need a good gift idea?

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Before I order a product for the first time, I always feel more comfortable if I’ve heard an enthusiastic recommendation from someone I know. Of course that’s not always possible and sometimes you’re just on your own. That was the case for me several months ago, but I thought you might like to hear about my experience.

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Have you ever had your pictures made into a little book with captions and all? I took the plunge around Christmas time and made a hardcover book with holiday pictures of our family at the online photo website, Shutterfly. It turned out better than I could ever have imagined!

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The software was very user friendly. You upload your photos and then use the drag and drop method to “fill” an album. You can choose from a wide array of pretty backgrounds, layouts, colors, fonts, captions, and more. If you wish to change styles from page to page – no problem! This is not necessarily a speedy project, but you can work on it over an indefinite period of time, as all of your work is saved and stored for you. I must have spent about a month or so but I usually only worked for half an hour at a time. You may be more decisive than I was and just plough through quickly. It really is so much fun! In the end, you’ll have a little treasure!

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These days, when we all do so much digitally, we’re less likely to have hard copies of photos to hold in our hands. That might be a good thing from a storage angle, but there’s still nothing like curling up in a comfy chair with your favorite memories of a holiday or vacation. This photo book is the perfect blend of hardcopy pictures and minimal storage. The books are slim and compact, yet they hold quite a lot. I guess I sound like a commercial, but I thought you might need a good “gift idea” in the near future. If so, I highly recommend this! 🙂

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Born to Shop

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Did you inherit the shopping gene? I did and I’ve passed it on to my daughters. We love a good bargain . . . but mostly we just love to shop!

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Today, I thought I’d list a few of my favorite places for online shopping. I’d be delighted if you’d share yours as well!

(Maybe next week, we can talk about our favorite stores to visit in person!)

OK then, I’ll start! 🙂
(Add yours to the comments below and don’t worry if we have duplicates. It will be fun to see what’s popular!)

Some of my favorite online shopping sites:

Godiva
Although they also have local stores, I love to shop on their website and send chocolate gifts to friends and family. It’s a luxury that most of my recipients would never buy for themselves and so they are especially delighted to receive it. I end up spending about the same as I would to give them a “dust collector” that they really don’t need! In addition to chocolates, I often send Godiva’s to-die-for cookies and cocoa, too! Orders are always carefully packed to arrive in great condition.

Stonewall Kitchen
Fabulous specialty foods, condiments, jams, syrups, and gifts for home and garden. They carry a full line of the Barefoot Contessa’s products, too.

Amazon
Everyone’s favorite website for books, music, and video. I will often “shop” for books and DVDs at local stores – and then buy them from amazon because their prices are usually much less!

Vermont Country Store
They call themselves “Purveyors of the Practical & Hard-to-Find” and they sure are. From kitchen gadgets to household helpers, to summer-weight bedspreads, to brand names from the past, it’s a fun place to browse.

Etsy
For an amazing selection of beautiful handmade gifts, you can’t beat the artists on etsy.

Your turn! 🙂

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Keeping the Plates Spinning

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spinningplates Have you ever seen a performance on TV, or maybe at a circus, where there’s a man spinning plates on tall sticks? It’s quite a trick! If he doesn’t pay attention to all of them at the same time – one or more will surely go crashing to the ground.

With our busy lives, isn’t it the same for all of us? We’re in a daily struggle to keep all of the areas of our lives running smoothly so that nothing “breaks” from too little attention. Our “plates” are our families, jobs, homes, school, health, leisure, and of course our blogs!

Some days, it’s really hard to keep all those plates spinning! There are times when one of them seems to be wobbling a little more than the others and we want to shift our focus to just that one. The problem is when we take our eyes off of the rest of the plates – they all begin to wobble, too, and then we feel as if we’re running in circles, trying to keep everything going.

I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I sure would like to figure it out. How can we pay attention to all of the important areas (the plates) in our lives at the same time? One solution would be to eliminate a plate or two if possible, but you may say that ALL of yours are necessary. Another idea might be to rotate the plates – so that they all have a chance to spin, but not necessarily at the same time, or on the same day! They could be organized into “groups” according to importance. The family plate is important and has to spin every day, but laundry does not. So you could decide which “less important” plates to add to the daily spin. I think we sometimes get into the habit of thinking we have to do it all at the same time. Instead of trying to keep 8 plates going every single day, maybe having just 4 or 5 in a changing mix of categories would work.

Hmmmm, maybe that’s it! Certain plates spin on certain days! By the end of the week they’ve all had attention – but it was easier to deal with them in small groups than to try and keep the entire bunch going all at once.

I‘ll work on it and get back to you! 😉

In the meantime, what do you do to keep the things in your life balanced? 🙂

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Sleep Deprivation

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The sound you hear is me yawning . . .

Not much sleep last night . . . new pillow.

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Is it me, or is it hard to get used to a new pillow?

We seem to have a heck of a time finding one that is really comfortable. We buy them with high hopes they’ll be great – but then quickly discover they’re either too hard or too soft when we actually sleep on them for the first time.

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The ones that turn out to be too soft never get any better and we’re simply stuck with them. Those that turn out to be too hard do eventually get broken-in and become more comfortable, but it usually takes a while for this to happen.

Once it does; there are some blissful weeks of restful sleeping! The weeks fly by though, and suddenly you crawl into bed one night and notice that the pillows seem to be getting awfully flat! Soooo, the hunt for new pillows begins – all over again!

At this moment, we’re in the “bought a new pillow a couple of days ago and it’s too hard” – stage of things. It can make you grumpy as a bear and also make you wish that, like Goldilocks, you could easily buy one that is “just right”! 😉

Do you find that pillow shopping can be tough?

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