One Thousand

Holy moly! This is my one thousandth post. Who'd have thought back when I started blogging in September of 2006? Certainly not me. Of course, I'd have been here a lot sooner had I not neglected this blog so severely the past couple of years or so. But that's water under the bridge. Time for moving forward.

{randomly gratuitous photo}

I really came over here to continue my belated Dallas series (no, not the TV show - I never was a fan). But then I realized that this would be #1,000 and it seemed that I should at least acknowledge that. So what's happened in 1,000 posts over seven years? Well, here are a fewsome of my favorite posts. And because I apparently am not good at getting off the far ends of the over/under whelming spectrum, there are a bunch. Read a few. Read them all. But, please, read something. Those with asterisks are my favorite favs. Just in case you were wondering. Never mind that. I would have to asterisk all of them. Besides, 21 out of 1,000 is a pretty good culling, I'd say.

1. A little sisterly silliness from back in the day
2. My strangley inconsistent views of food expiration dates as they relate to garlic and guacamole
3. Thoughts about the little things in life
4. Hubby's Jeep
5. The phone call from my Dad about exploding eggs
6. My youngest niece dancing music at two and a half
7. The day I was brave enough to participate in the morning face challenge on my blog. Either that, or I wasn't awake yet.
8. No wonder I can never focus on anything for very long
9. The day my son wanted to put glue on the stairs
10. I seriously have a LOT OF HAIR
11. Yep, I still like listening to the Talking Heads while randomly meandering about
12. Trouble in Rivet City
13. As if my 13 year old son (at the time) really had any idea what old school meant
14. My interpretation of signs at the laundromat
15. Join Jenny and me on a trip to Crazy Tasty Town
16. The kid who wears shorts and sandals year round
17. More random silliness
18. The post in which I decide we need an extra month
19. My awesome manly man
20. Six Degrees of Fish
21. Lessons learned from a week of being psuedo-unplugged

Kudos to you if you got this far! Kudos to you if read any of these. And a big old thank you, from the bottom of my little bloggity heart.

Baby Steps

So maybe the answer to getting back into blogging isn't to think I'll post 4-5 times a week. Maybe it's to do this in baby steps for now. Perhaps the goal should be one weekly recap. Posted on Saturday, Sunday, or maybe even Monday. Then start filling in what I can during the week. If you've seen What About Bob? you know all about baby steps. I think I'll give it a try. Sans Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. Because they don't know me. And I wasn't in their movie or anything.

Last Sunday, we celebrated my Dad's birthday in our usual way. Dinner, presents, and cake (sometimes including ice cream).

Everyone should get some Cheetos for a birthday present, right?

I hope he gets them all!

My pretty Mom.

Cousins

The things that happen when you sit in front of a white board!

We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was very, very yummy! We hadn't been there in a long time, so I think that made it taste even better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caleb really likes to dress in nice clothes. He got the green tie for his birthday and hadn't had a chance to try it out. Or learn how to tie it. Come to think of it, I still don't know if he knows how. I think I did that one. Guess I'd better make him practice if he's going to wear one of those!

Naturally, he throws in an interesting expression.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday was my last day doing two Bible studies on the same day. It was a little crazy keeping up with that schedule, but at least one of the studies was lighter and we only met every other week. The other study is Beth Moore's study on the book of James. The James study has been just incredible. I'm amazed at the things I learn in her studies that I never knew or heard before, even though I may have been through a book of the Bible many times. It's always good, but sad to reach the end of a study. Good because of what I've learned (and hopefully seen implemented in my life), but sad because it's over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning, my niece was in a play. This was her third play since she started taking acting classes. She's so good at acting. It's just in her. That's probably why she's such a fantastic model for my picture taking. This one was called To Be or Not To Be and she played a portrait. Okay, she played Cinderella in a portrait in the library and she (along with Peter Pan, the March Hare, and a couple others) came to life. It was really quite cute.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the years, I've done a variety of arts and crafts. The one thing I could never do is knit. Mom has taught me numerous times and I don't know what the issue is, but I just can't keep the tension correct. Either it's so tight the stitches won't move, or it's so loose, it's a big, sloppy mess. I can, however, crochet. Which is even stranger to me - I can keep tension just find in crocheting. Not sure what that's all about. Anyway, I don't do it much any more because of the problems with my entire upper right appendage. But since I've separated the keyboard from the laptop and raised the laptop monitor to a more ergonomic location, my hand and arm aren't so bad.

When I take Zach to bowling, there are a few moms there who crochet. Which made me feel like perhaps I should crochet again. So here I am, dabbling in the world of yarn and hooks. I mostly only do it while at bowling. That way, I won't get carried away, crochet too long, and cause myself more pain.

My current project is a shawl/scarf. It started out to be a scarf, but the not-really-a-pattern that I was creating wasn't working out for me. So I opted for a pattern out of a magazine I'd recently purchased. Sadly, I've run out of yarn and it's not done. So it will either be a scarf with angled ends, or I'll buy one more skein of yarn. Yes, I know...it will probably not be the right dye lot. But I don't think I care.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom and I had some more stamping time this afternoon after the play and lunch. I'm about to the half-way point of total number of cards needed. It looks like we'll have to plan one or two more stamping days, though, if I'm going to get them all done this year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remaining activities sans photos:

• Homeschooling
• Birthday lunch with a dear friend and Mom at Panera
• A trip to the annual Holiday Food & Gift Fair
• An evening of cleaning up the scrapbooking bench
• A meal delivered for a new mom whose husband is deployed
• Birthday cake shared with a new friend from church and her kids, dogs, and cat
• Attempting to resolve our lack of voice mail notification
• Fun and laughs at the grocery store with Lucy
• Impromptu visit from another friend and eating pierogies together

Weekly Recap 2/5/12

I really miss the days of blogging. Writing posts, visiting others, and commenting. Even though it wasn't that long ago, I still look back at that time fondly. Every once in awhile, I take a look at my list of blogs I like to visit (over there on the right) and go check out a blog or two that I haven't been to in awhile. Tonight I popped over to catch up with Bev at Numbering the Days. She's the sister of the second blogger I ever followed when I entered the blogosphere. Anyway, I'm sort of rambling, aren't I (imagine that!)?

All that to say that I like the way Bev posts various recaps - monthly, weekly, etc. And I thought maybe I'd give that a whirl. Maybe it will get me blogging again, more than just once-a-week Wordless Wednesday posts.

So here's a peek at my past week:

I started (yet another) planner/organizer/idea notebook. In a purple Moleskine. Long story, but I'll post about it (with pix) probably this week. Lucy and I attended the monthly homeschool meeting. Not without a quick stop at Starbucks first. So I could take my Iced Venti Nonfat Chai to the meeting and promptly knock it off a table and dump half of it on the floor. Definite sad face moment.

I completed a proofreading/editing project for a dear friend. Can't wait for it to be published. It's a good one if you're a woman who'd like to learn a little more about the elusive Proverbs 31 woman.

I participated in an online moon photography class. There's a very talented photographer here named Paul who has recently begun live streaming some free photography classes. The week prior, it was a night photography class. Since there's a full moon coming up this Wednesday, he wanted to get the moon class out for people to be able to put their newfound skills to work. So hopefully I'll have some moon shots up this week, too.

This is not from the class or this week, but last May. I just felt a picture was necessary here.


I had dinner with one of my dearest friends, Nan (we've known each other over half our lives now - we met as sophomores in high school). Mexican, of course. Because it's what she and I always have when we eat out together. Always good conversation and good food.

Friday we woke up to snow. And it continued to snow for a good portion of the day. Well, in parts of town anyway. Some parts of the state got loads more than we did. But I'm glad we got anything. We sure need the moisture.



Spent some time at Starbucks with my mom and Lucy in the afternoon. And some more time visiting at Lucy's house and introducing her to Choco Tacos. I mean, how can you go through life without having experienced a Choco Taco?

Today was pretty busy, but fun. Our nieces were over this morning. We had lunch with and visited John's mom. I picked up one son who'd spent the night at a friend's. John dropped off the other son at his writer's group. I worked on some school plans while at home. We headed over to my sister's home to eat pizza and watch the Super Bowl. John picked up the son at writer's group. And we came home and watched Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Or at least what was left of it.

My oldest niece and me


And of course, there was the toe incident on Wednesday. Goodness.

Thanks to the fact that I have not been getting to bed on time (yeah, big surprise, right?), I'm going to hit the publish button on this and go to bed. Early...er than usual. Perhaps I could start a much-needed trend for myself.

On a happy note, I find that just recapping my week already gave me a few things to potentially blog about this week. Hmmm...this could be the start of a good thing.

What did you do this past week? Anything exciting? Anything mediocre? Tell me about it in the comments.