And just in case you haven’t seen enough, here are a couple more pictures of my world at the moment.
Mind you, we are at least 80 to 100 miles away from any of the fires. The air quality is terrible.
And poor Benny just wants to go outside and play catch.
Hope you all are safe and well where you are. This year is quite a doozy, isn’t it?
Quick public service announcement:
I am not sure if you know but I am a Creative Memories Consultant and there is a free shipping promotion going on from now until Friday. Usually you can’t get free shipping unless you spend $250 but for now it is only $80. That’s a big deal. My site is here:
https://www.creativememories.com/cm/scr4pl80
I’ve shown some of the cards I’ve made using the kits they sell
And a video to show how easy it is to put together the card kits.
And they also have albums, papers and all kinds of other scrapbooking tools. If you have been looking through your old photos during the shelter in place time we’ve had or are looking for something new to spend your time on, check out the site. I’d be happy to answer any questions or help get you started!
And almost two weeks of it are gone already! I can’t even describe how our sky has been looking lately because of all the fires. Add that to the virus and I really have to wonder if we are in a science fiction novel.
I took Benny for a walk this morning and now my eyes are a bit irritated. Needless to say we’re staying inside for the rest of the day. The pictures do not even tell the true story. It looks like it is nighttime here. I mean, kinda scary.
On another note, I have been watching our Giants play baseball and it has been very exciting at times. Even though we weren’t supposed to be very good this year, there have been some great comeback wins and the new kids are doing some amazing stuff. I haven’t seen many of the American League games but I have to say that our team has the best fan in the stand cutouts. We have over 15,000 cutouts of people in the seats and it really makes it look like there are fans at the game.
We didn’t order cutouts for ourselves but we did put our name in to possibly get a game ball. Since no one is there to catch foul balls, they are sending five from each home game to random people.
While I watch the game, I color. Sharing for Linda’s Escapist Coloring Club.
Please stay safe everyone!
This month is moving right by too. On the one hand I feel like the sooner we get through this year the better off we’ll be but on the other hand I feel like we are losing something.
So many weird things happening between the COVID virus and the weather. I wrote last week about the lightning. Turns out that while it was exciting to watch, it was not such a good thing because it started several fires burning throughout our state again. We’ve been experiencing fires a lot in the past few years. (Old #45 says it’s because we don’t rake our leaves or clear the underbrush).
I’ve shared about our annual Boulder Creek Golf Tournament that my husband and his friend started. This year would be our 24th year. I had not intended on going because the villas at which we usually stay right on the course were not being rented this year due to the virus. We have to stay at a motel a few miles away. This would mean that while the guys are golfing, instead of having a whole house with a yard at my disposal,
I’d have had to stay in the motel room (not even sure they have a pool area). I could go shopping as some of the other wives do, but that’s not really my thing. Another group of wives gets together and parties all day. That’s not really my thing either. After the golfing is done we usually all get together for dinner both nights but, again due to the virus, there will be no gathering. It just didn’t sound like much fun for me. I’d rather have the time alone in the studio, so although my hubby says he will miss me, he’s okay with me not going.
Now, however, the area is in danger of not even being habitable due to the massive fire in the mountains. This is the local store we go to when we are there, Johnnie’s Market.
Farther down the road is the motel:
We are a couple hundred miles away from any of the fires and yet this is our sun and sky at about 7 AM. The sun itself is really that bright orange color but I couldn’t capture it that way on my phone. Later in the day, I still have the notice that the air quality is smoky.
I don’t think that just brushing some leaves would have prevented the fires or stopped them from spreading. Thanks to Linda for the #SoCS prompt of brush.
Cross fingers that the fires get contained soon. Stay safe out there everyone.
Today is Sunday and that means it’s time for Song Lyric Sunday as hosted by Jim Adams, who gives us the prompt of Clear/Dark/Light.
As much as the times are in a state of constant upheaval right now, it is only logical that we’d have some unusual weather as well. The last few days have been extremely warm here in my part of California and the temperatures have been close to if not hitting 100 degrees. Friday night at 8:20 PM it was 79 degrees! That’s usually a midday high.
The sunset as seen from my front porch. Aren’t the colors gorgeous?
This morning we woke up to thunder and lightening. It went on for about 2 hours.
Followed by this sunrise out our back porch:
Almost looks like the sunset doesn’t it? So glad I got up to see this spectacle of nature.
So my song for #SLS today is “Dance Into The Light” by Phil Collins.
Hope you all have a great rest of your weekend. Stay safe out there!
It’s hard to believe (but not really) that a month has passed since I last posted anything. I have been visiting others and leaving comments, but it seems I really have had nothing much to say on my own. Thanks to Erica/Erika for letting me know that she hadn’t seen me around. That gave me the kick to write again.
So what exactly have I been doing in the last month? I have been watching the SF Giants play. It is a difficult year for our team. In addition to the COVID delay and precautions, we have a new manager and our pitching staff is questionable. Our catcher, Buster Posey, decided to sit out this year because he and his wife adopted newborn twins and he doesn’t want to risk exposure to them. I wholeheartedly agree with that decision. Truth be told, I think they probably should have just given this season a pass anyway. I do think from watching the games so far that we have the best fans in the stands cutouts. Our stadium almost looks full and most of them are actual fan photos. The Colorado Rockies put cutouts of only their players in the seats. Lame.
I’ve been doing some coloring while I watch the games. These can serve as my entries into the Escapist Coloring Club for this month. They are all from the Magical Jungle coloring book that I got for Christmas from my son.
I’ve seen lots of interesting uses of the mask.
And we had a bumper crop of peaches from our tree. I think I’m going to try to make a peach pie, although I’m pretty sure that is not going to be a keto friendly dish. Oh well, you only live once, right?
So that’s been what’s up with me. I’ve done a little typing and made a few cards for the Etsy site but truthfully, I haven’t even been crafting that much.
Hope everyone is staying as safe as possible out there. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of blogging on a regular again.
In December I made my vision cards to help me navigate through this year. I keep them in my planner and really don’t look at them much until around June when I take them out to make notes on the back about the progress (or lack of) that I’ve made in each category. Let’s take a look:
My Craft Work: I have not been as active in the studio this year as I’d like to be. I have put up a YouTube video about some cards that I made and I have gotten a couple of Etsy sales but given the fact that I have some extra time thanks to COVID, there are a lot of things I could have done to promote more on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. I have some e-courses to go through to help me with that so that’s going to be my focus for the next few months. I am afraid that we won’t have any holiday boutiques this year and that’s where I’ve made some pretty good sales in the past few years.
Experiences: Well, as we all know most of the country has been in Shelter-in-Place mode since March. Our area is no different. Even the beaches have been closed until just recently so I’ve not gone anywhere except the grocery store and to take our son to work. What I have been doing though is noticing different things around the neighborhood as I walk Benny twice a day. I’ve seen several changes in the houses in our neighborhood as people paint or work in their gardens. I’ve taken some pictures and used them in my One Second Everyday video. We still have some time left this year so maybe I’ll get a chance to get to the beach again.
The house: So far we have done a great job of clearing out the backyard. It was full of weeds at the start of the year but using some weedkiller has helped and it is now back to ground zero status. We plan to get some artificial grass and pen off an area so that Benny can go out there and our daughter wants to plant a garden in a plantar box so that’s the next step. I may get my fire pit after all!
Relationships: Obviously there has been no gathering of friends lately. The last event I went to was a Super Bowl party in the beginning of February! I have been Facetiming with my sister and my niece, at least a monthly email check-in with a girlfriend and talking to my mom on the phone at least once a week is keeping me going right now. I did do a Zoom crafting get together which was fun. Maybe I’ll try another one of those.
Finances: Interestingly, the year started off with a huge change in my transcription business. At first I was in a panic because I was not getting much work, then things picked up but in March it came to a crashing halt again. I had been mainly a medical transcriptionist but I had the opportunity to take over some other kinds of typing and now I do Zoom meetings and interviews. It is still slow going and thankfully I’ve been able to collect unemployment, something that is usually not available to the self-employed. I actually have been able to pay off some credit cards and add to our savings. Hopefully things in this area will pick up again too.
Health and Wellness: Unfortunately I’ve been at a standstill so far with the weight loss progress. I have lost a total of 75 pounds to this point but I have another 20 to go. I know I need to increase the exercise and I have to recalculate the “numbers” so I know what my caloric/carb intake should be to allow for that weight loss. In my mind, I am determined to get to goal this year.
While COVID has changed the course of lots of things this year, I still feel comfortable with progress I’ve been able to make to this point and I have some clear intentions for the next six months. How about you? Did you make vision cards this year?
