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I am particpating in a 30 days online photo adventure: Collecting Color. M-F, we have a prompt to shoot color in our everyday lives. Last Friday's prompt was to visit a paint store and select paint chips that resonated. Sunday was my monthly FriendStitchin' day and the lovely Hibiscus greeted us at our hostess's home. I was struck this morning by the color palette of both...totally unplanned.
What bits of color do you see as you look around?
Cheers~
*...that I plan to work on/meeze this week...
Carole's on vacation this week, meeting up with a very special friend, so we are on our own for today's prompt. As I was firing up the Mac and thinking about my day/week, I had a brilliant (my assessment, not necessarily yours) idea: I am in need of a topic for today's post and why not share the top 10 *Frontburners on my WO|RK Clean Mission Control List?
I downloaded the app a couple weeks ago and have been playing around with it. A Mission is a basically a goal or a project. You can break down each Mission into various steps and rank them as frontburner, backburner, etc. The neat thing is you can arrange/rearrange the burner (Action) items within and among the individual Missions...There are some tricks one discovers as one uses and I have a few questions for the app developer team...have sent an email & waiting for a reply...
Discovering the app's features/capabilities is fun...and no, I don't think it totally replaces paper & pencil: the only way to coordinate with a calendar is to cut/paste. It's faster to write - and better for your brain, too...
So, with that said, here t'is (and my comments are arranged to coincide with the order of the screen capture):
And just for good measure, here are some action items I've added to today...now that I have completed #1.
What's on your list for the week ?
Cheers~
**The geraniums may have to wait 'til Thursday/weekend...looks like rain today and it's s-o-o-o muggy out.
Once a week, Karen shares SNAP - four fantastic photos that she takes of the same subject: flowers, sky, stairs, weather, etc. Her photography is excellent and I like her takes on the subjects, always creative and interesting. Today I thought I'd share a take-off of my own version and show the same photo also in its Waterlogue version - since I try to post a Waterlogued photo on Wednesdays. So above, you have my original and below, the Waterlogue version:
I have to say that I am a tad disappointed with the Waterlogue version of the upper left photo - which is a shot of the Strawberry Full Moon, this once in a lifetime event that occurred Monday night - the first night of the Summer Solstice. And I'm really not sure what the yellow flowers in the upper right are...but, whatever, here you have it - today's blog post of summery colors.
Summer began with avengeance in these parts yesterday: torrential rain and even a tornado that touched ground in a neighboring county. Fortunately, all seems well today and it's definitely cooler, thankfully!
Enjoy your day!
Cheers~
Today, Carole's prompt asks us for ideas of ten things we can do while listening to an audiobook. I am fairly new to the audiobook/podcast game and I find that the more I listen, the more I listen. Here's what came to mind for me:
My first inclination is always to read with my eyes rather than my ears but I think that's mostly several decades and then some, of habit. How about you? What would you add to the list? Do you prefer to read print or listen?
Visit Carole's blog for more fun and creative ideas. Enjoy.
Cheers~
I have had on my daily/weekly menu: "write today's blog post..." for the past 9 days. Meezing, notwithstanding, didn't happen. Days came, days went and here it is another Friday and week's end ... so here I am with a 'post script' and update, of sorts:
Thursday 9 June: My friend Diane made the trek from Columbia to Washington DC - about a 35 mile trip. On Thursdays, several friends gather to spend a couple hours chatting and stitching. We usually meet at 1 PM, have a sweet treat and then sit and stitch and solve the world's problems - aha: we wish! - adjourning about 3:30 pm - 4 pm. This time, only Diane and I were available so we started earlier to end earlier so she could avoid the afternoon rush hour traffic.
Friday 10 June: T'was a very rare day in June and I spent the afternoon with two former staffers, whom I'd not seen in several -too long - years. T'was a perfect day to catch up and revel in Mother Nature's exquisite day. A third member was in Baton Rouge LA and she called so we had a chance to talk and also catch up with her. Can't get any better than that!
Saturday 11 June: Quiet; a perfect day for a late afternoon walk.
Sunday 12 June: Bébé's birthday was Friday and we (family) gathered Sunday to celebrate. He was quite intrigued with the bouquet of balloons tied to his high chair and a couple tiny trucks, naturally. I gave him several books and the Crayola No Mess crayons and coloring book - no report, yet on where they wound up on the like-ability scale.
Monday 13 June: My quilting organization takes a summer break from formal meetings and we mark the occasion with an end-o-year potluck. This year's theme was "Going to the Beach;" we all dressed in our favorite beach attire - no bathing suits - and had lotsa fun and good eats. T'was a fitting day for a summer kick-off.
Tuesday 14 June: In addition to being FlagDay it was also Primary voting day here in the District for Democratic presidential candidates and several District Council seats. Also on the agenda, an estimate for removal of photinia bushes that have become trees as well as in the early evening, a long-overdue visit from our lawn service. With so much rain, the grass had grown as tall as an elephant's eye...to say the least. Another nearly perfect June day ended with a nice long walk.
Wednesday 15 June: I began the day at 6:15 am, documenting my monthly Simply A Moment ...something I've done almost consistently on the 15th of the month, since Sept 2012. Most months I've posted the moments on this blog tho' recently I've been slack in following through. Note to Self: Correct this and share the missing posts. Aha: a few more days fodder for future posts! On the heels of this, I had a quick trip to the post office to mail quarterly estimated tax payment - the District hasn't caught up with the 21st Century electronic payment yet...and then my semi-annual dental appointment. Afterwards, a visit to Starbucks to wind down and have a bite to eat - egg white with spinach & cheese on a wrap - and tea. I stopped at the library on my way home to donate some books and magazines. Busy day, capped off by the Nats win over the Cubs! Go Nats Go!
Toby, our hostess' cat...likes lounging in rather expensive yarns...
Thursday 16 June: Thursday again and a lovely afternoon spent stitchin' with friends. We again solved the world's problems and of course, made headway on our stitchin' projects. Mother Nature decided to close out the day with severe weather, even a couple tornado sightings in the area. Fortunately and thankfully, we did not endure any damage nor lose power.
Friday 17 June: And now it's 9 am and time for my 2nd cuppa tea and to publish* this post. Father's Day is just around the corner...best I get busy with planning Sunday's menu and meeze my week's TDL... Enjoy your weekend.
Cheers~
* It is now 6:28 pm.Obviously, I didn't get around to hitting that publish button!
I have been totally - well almost - absorbed by WO|RK CLEAN, the book by Dan Charnas and a few other assorted other things. MSQT has grown longer and longer over the past week as I take/make notes from the book and contemplate how I might implement aspects of mise-en-place in my daily life. One thing I've begun to implement is the Daily Meeze*: an hour at the end of each day (in my case, 5-6 PM) to review my day, plan for the next, empty my IN BOX (both analog and digital) and prepare for the next day's activities. For example: on Sunday, I gathered my hand -stitching project plus my share of stitched DoubleWedding Ring quilt blocks - which went into my OUT box (aka as a bag or two) - to take to my quilting group's weekly Monday gathering.
One activity the author encourages readers to do is to see how many items one actually accomplishes on a daily "to do" list over a period of days. The number of done items then become your "meeze"point: that which you can realistically accomplish in a given day plus the Daily Meeze. Too often we overload our selves, thinking we're super capable of doing a zillion things when it actually boils down to 3-5. And when we don't achieve, we feel frustrated, bewildered and deflated...and always feeling behind. I can just imagine these feelings from my own years of working and for those who currently work and are rearing families, taking care of parents, etc...When one is in protirement, one can be easily lured into thinking "I have unlimited time and all the time and energy in the world." T'aint so McGhee, as my mom would often say. I think there may be a flip side to this and that is: "What am I going to do with all of this unstructured time ?" and then we go and overload ourselves with real and imagined projects and activities - sound familiar?
So, having shared this, I am at the point where I am beginning to set a different structure to my daily agenda/schedule. I plan to continue with the same focus points but in a very different manner...all of what I do - or not - contributes to my experiencing flow - my 2016 word. Exciting.
Since I last connected:
My sister had another out-patient surgery for kidney stones and to remove stints. Outcome: No stones!No stints! Hopefully, this is the last time she'll have the problem.
We remember Muhammad Ali. I met him in Aug 1963, when I was 20 and on my first "alone" trip to New York, alone, i.e., with three of my sorority sisters, attending our annual conference. Ali, then still Cassius Clay, had a suite in our conference hotel and invited us - all the sorors - to drop in his suite for refreshments over several days of the conference. He'd achieved world fame previously during the Summer Olympics. I'd not thought of that NYC encounter in many a year.
On Sunday, I went to a new salon for a pedi/mani - I now have yellow toenails; decided to go bold 'cause yellow makes me happy!
And I'll end with a shot of the Double Wedding Ring quilt - it's not quite done: there are several rows yet to be added and the backing plus the quilting...but this photo gives a good idea of how the quilt blocks look.
It's about time for my Daily Meeze.... Do you have a scheduled daily review/plan time?
Cheers~
*Meeze is the author's play on words mise-en-place.
May was a full month and as I was creating the COLLECT monthly image, I realized I have shared the stories behind most of the images. As I look over the collage, I see lots of pops of color here n'there and very few images of people...interesting and I just don't know why that is. The chair on day 17 is one I was considering...but decided not to purchase. I was really excited that I managed to capture the google doodle - day 26 - just as the girl was in the air; I thought that was a fun google cartoon. The flowers on day 31 are from my neighbor's yard. My neighbor died last summer and her house is still unoccupied. She loved flowers and we still get to enjoy them and think of her everyday. She was in her early nineties.
And since today is Wednesday, I thought it'd be fun to see how the Waterlogue app handled the Collect app...
I like the pops of color and I think it's an interesting mosaic - though I doubt I'd do anything with it. Sometimes, I get inspired by the Waterlogue effect and can instantly see a quilt...not this time. The following photo is a screen saver from Inkwell Press, created by Hillary Butler. You can register with Inkwell Press to receive the free monthly screensaver download by signing up for the free newsletter here.
Welcome June! I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store. One thing I plan to do is get more photos of the people in my life. For starters, both Christians: Auntie and Bébé have birthdays; I imagine there'll be a celebration or two, ya think?
Any big plans on your calendar? Care to share?
Cheers~