Roses and Bird Feeders

Today is Mother's Day, or it was still an hour ago.  I got a beautiful surprise yesterday from the neighbors across the street from me.  They are a cute 80-ish year old couple, the wife of which was my roommate when I was in rehab after my second knee replacement surgery.  Yesterday the husband of said couple knocked on my door for the first time since I got home from that surgery and in his hands he had a bouquet of freshly cut long stem pink roses.  They are gorgeous!  It's been years since anyone gave me a bouquet of roses and never have I had any fresh cut from someone's yard.  The funny thing about it was that I was occupied when he knocked on the door and by the time I got there, he was about to leave.  He didn't have the roses in his hand immediately.  He said "Oh, just a minute," and he went into the apartment next to mine.  I could hear him talking to the lady there.  She's probably in her 80's as well.  What I heard was, "I'm going to have to be an Indian-giver..." and then he was back with the roses for me.  Her family was visiting her at the time so I let it pass.  I guess he thought if I wasn't home he would just give them to her instead, but when he saw I was home, went and retrieved them for me.    It made me laugh, smile, and wonder at the same time...did he have more and split the bouquet so she could have some too?  I hope so.  I'd hate to be the one who got roses and had them taken away in the same instant.

My daughter and grandson got me a bird feeder for my yard.  Since they got me my dog I have been outside a lot more and they helped me plant a lot of flower seeds this spring.  I thought a bird feeder or two (or three?) would be a nice touch.  I mean if I can't get out to see nature for my photography, let me bring nature to my own yard.  So they got me my first ever bird feeder.  I figured they would get me one since they asked me what I wanted.  But I didn't figure it would be such a nice one!  I don't have a shepherd's hook yet to hang it on so for now it hangs in the cluster of small maple trees in my back yard.  Eventually I may move it, or I may just try to get at least one more to put in the front flower garden so the neighbor (yes the one who had the roses taken away) can see and enjoy the birds too.  I told her about all the flowers that we planted in the flower beds and she seemed pretty happy about that.  The flower beds have been needing attention for the past couple of years.  I can't do much about it and neither can she.  Maybe at least the places the new flowers will be growing will help it looks better.  My mom loved feeding and watching birds in the years after she retired and she got me interested in it too.  Hopefully this summer I will have some photos of both the flowers we planted and the new birds attracted to the yard.

Living Life

I just wanted to check in since it's been awhile since I've been here.  Mostly I've been busy with my continued "work" with the online support group I belong to Scams of the Heart and starting a couple new blogs here and lenses at Squidoo.  I've also just finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy and loved it!  I won't attempt to see the movie until when and if they complete movies for all three books.  My daughter and grandson spent yesterday afternoon, after a nice lunch at one of my favorite local restaurants, planting flower seeds for perennials around the flower beds and big yard here where I live.  I live in a big old house that was turned into a tri-plex and this is the first chance I have had to really enjoy being outside since I moved here 3 1/2 years ago so I can't wait until the flowers grow and start blooming.  Once they do, you can surely expect some new photos in my photography blog here.  Overall I am looking forward to getting out more this spring and summer.  My newest blog may be one that I keep updated much more often than the rest for awhile.  It is about my weight loss goal for this year. I really think that blogging about my goals will help keep them fresh on my mind and help me reach them as well as make them fun.  

So there you have it.  If you don't find me updating one spot as often as you would like, check out the others because you will most likely find me there.

Irish Recipes For St. Patrick's Day

Recently I created a new Squidoo lens as a "quest" project to earn extra points on Squidoo.  The quest was to make a lens about some type of Irish recipe for St. Patrick's Day.  Instead of just one recipe, I made my lens about a variety of Irish recipes and cooking ideas.  Also included are several Irish blessings, videos, and more.  This lens was one of the more fun ones I have created.  You can see it if you click here. I hope you enjoy it and also find something good to cook for St. Patrick's Day.

Pretending to Be an Artiste

A couple of weeks ago I found a new local business for local artists when they created a Facebook page.  It inspired me to pick up my paint brush, dig out my acrylics that I haven't used in years, and see if I could do anything worthwhile...at least to me that is.  Ever since I saw paintings that one of my cousins created when I was still in my teens I have loved blending the paints to see what kinds of magic that could be made.  I've always loved drawing and doodling with colored pens, pencils and anything else I could find to use.  I'd never tried acrylics before seeing his paintings.  After that I also tried creating pictures with colored chalk which I found easier to control than paints and brush.  Abstracts seem to be more my style although I am rarely satisfied with anything I paint.  I don't draw very well, and am such a perfectionist that my self-criticism outweighs the enjoyment of just creating something and having fun doing it.  But this past couple of weeks it has been different.  Maybe age has caused me to be less critical and to allow myself to just paint and see what happens.  

With the internet available and people putting how-to videos on YouTube, it is possible to find instructional videos on just about any subject you want to find.  This gave me the opportunity to watch videos about painting as well as videos on using other media such as oil pastels, and even crayons!  I've also found quite a variety of Squidoo lenses on the topic of art, painting, acrylics, and other creative subjects.  

I don't consider myself to be very good at artwork.  For me it is just fun and a creative outlet.  I have no idea what to do with anything I've painted once I am finished with it.  I've got collections of sketches, paintings, and chalk art that I've done over the years and this past week or so have added a lot more to the pile.  The most fun thing is sharing painting with my daughter and grandson.  I wish my son and his wife and kids had more time to join in, but they are a full house with lots of activities to keep them busy.  It would also be nice to have a special location where the kids and I could paint, or use chalk, or whatever we feel like using without the worry of making a mess.  Ha!  That must be the child inside of me talking.  I remember seeing artists on television in the distant past setting up studios with big draping sheets of plastic, huge canvases, and lots of paints.  Then they would take their brushes and load paint on them and literally throw the paint at the canvas.  To me that would be such fun...as long as I don't have to deal with the cleaning up afterwards.  

I would like to share some videos that I have enjoyed watching, and maybe some Squidoo lenses that have inspired me to dig out my paints.  Maybe I will even share some of the paintings here as well.  One question though:  even if it is not very good, is it still called art and are they still called paintings???  Maybe this is why so many of the famous artists of the world lived as starving artists.  I know I could never make a living from what I paint.  Honestly I don't care if anyone ever considers what I've done artistic after I am gone either.  I'm better with a camera than a paint brush.  But it's still fun.  It's also been very soothing to do this painting so I hope to keep at it instead of putting away the paints and brushes again and forgetting them for years at a time.

This was the first video I watched and really enjoyed painting my own version of the flowers, especially scratching texture into the painting with the other end of the paint brush.  I'd never seen that before.  I've found Karrie's paintings fun to look at and her style fun to try myself.  Here is another of her videos I enjoyed watching.

Here are some of the Squidoo pages that I found on art and really enjoyed.  If you like to dabble in painting or chalk or any other kind of artwork, you may enjoy these.

How To Use Oil Pastels 

Artists That Paint on Stone 

Easy Acrylic Painting Projects 

Acrylic Painting: Two Secrets 

Those are just a few of many Squidoo lenses I found on art, painting, and letting your creative side flow. 

These are a few of the paintings I have done over the past week or so.  Sharing my own art is difficult for me because I judge myself so harshly and I figure others will judge me just as harshly.  But again, maybe age has changed me so that I can share more of myself than I used to.

 This week after watching a video of an artist creating a painting with odds and ends, objects instead of brushes, I did a little experimenting of my own.  I don't have photos of those results to share yet, but it was fun to do.  Ask yourself this:  If you have ever painted with sponges before, have you ever tried to use a copper scratcher that you use for cleaning pots and pans?  Now that was interesting.  Maybe I will share those next time. 

Squidoo

For those of you who have never heard of Squidoo let me tell you a little about it.  Squidoo is a website for writers, bloggers, or other people interested in making extra income while having fun at the same time.  They have a pretty good deal going because they realize that without all of us who are using the site to write or do our thing, whatever that may be, they would not have a site at all and would make no money themselves.  So they have a deal set up so that people who create lenses on Squidoo will earn a good sized percentage of all the income generated off that specific page through various ads and modules we put on our lens.  Squidoo also puts advertising on our lenses and we earn from those as well.

My lenses that I have been working on so far are listed on the sidebar but I wanted to list them here and give a brief overview of what each one is about.

By far my longest and most involved lens is one I have done on movie musicals.  I've probably gone way overboard on this one but I do love movie musicals a lot and it was very hard to not include all my favorites.  Probably I will end up adding more to this one as I think of any I might have forgotten to include. 

The next lens I have been doing the most work on is about my new adventure into extreme couponing.  I've been learning how to take advantage of the "money" that we all throw away every week or every month in the way of coupons. I'm not exactly going to the huge extremes that have become so talked about, but I have realized that coupons are another form of money and that if I can get products for free, or for whatever amount (even double or triple the amount of the coupon) it saves that much in my shopping budget.  This lens is all about my trip into learning just how to make the most of the coupons I get.


When I got Jonah  for Christmas from my daughter, I decided I needed to find a way to make some extra money to help take care of him.  So I created a lens all about him.  He's my cute little Shih Tsu if you haven't already seen pictures of him here in the blog or on my Facebook profile.  Jonah's lens is for information about Shih Tsu dogs and other house pets as well as specifically about Jonah himself.  He's such a little cutie.  He's a rescue dog and has had a lot of medical expenses so far, all of which my daughter has been taking care of.  I'd like to be able to start contributing back to her and I'm hoping that this lens will soon take off and start making enough to do that.


How To Care For Cast Iron Skillets, I've Lost My Marbles, A Puzzling Situation--Jigsaw Puzzles That Is, and Indoor Grilling   are the other lenses I have created so far.  They have not received all the attention that the first ones listed have yet, but they are ready for anyone to check out.   So if any of these topics are of interest to you, I would love to have you visit any or all of my Squidoo lenses and see what it is all about.  Remember, if any of the products listed on the lenses are of interest to you and you might want to purchase something, it helps if you can do so there on the page rather than going elsewhere.  There are Amazon, eBay, Esty, and maybe some other locations available.  There are also polls and discussion modules that you can participate in.


One special lens I would like to mention here is one I have been working on for many months.  It is part of a place I volunteer my time to online called Scams of the Heart.  This is an information sister site to the Scams of the Heart Chat Room.  This organization was created to help people who have in one way or another become involved in a relationship online that turns out to be false.  Usually Ghanan or Nigerian, and part of the 419 email scams, romance scams have become big business over the past 5-10 years and the results can have a devastating effect on the victims. Most of the victims are hit up at online dating websites, all of which have scammers listed as members.  Among the many real people who are members, these scammers create fake profiles using stolen photographs and sometimes stolen identities as well as created fake identities to lead unsuspecting singles into emotional relationships that these singles believe is with someone real.  Many thousands of people have suffered financial loss and loss of trust because of these scammers.  Scams of the Heart is there to provide a listening ear, a shoulder to lean on, and friendship that is real to help victims of romance scams heal.  The Squidoo lens was created not only to put educational information out there to help prevent further scams, but also as a means to raise a little money to help defray the costs of keeping the chat room in operation.


There you have it.  These are just some of the things keeping me occupied this past fall into this winter.  Squidoo lenses are fun to make, and might make me a little extra income to help out with my budget that is just a bit too tight.  It is a slow process since promotion of the lenses to gain traffic is up to the lens creators.  But then, that is how it works for any website anyone creates.  If we want it seen, we have to promote it.  I hope you enjoy my lenses.  I've enjoyed working on them.

Need You Now

It's just after 3:30 a.m. and I'm still awake. Not a little drunk, but very tired and unable to sleep. This song always feels just right on nights like this. I'm glad I'm not keeping someone else awake by my not sleeping, but it sure would be nice on these long nights just to have someone to talk to. Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube only go so far for entertainment and Facebook friends are mostly all asleep, or pretending to be.

Outside the wind is whistling and blowing the falling snow around, making the trees and shrubbery look alive as it glows softly in what little light is outside. The wind when it is like this makes such a forlorn and lonely sound whistling like it is calling for someone who isn't answering.

So now it's 3:45 and I am all alone and I need someone now. There just is no someone. Long lonely nights like this then call for sleeping whatever amount I can during the day when I am left alone to sleep. It seems like those days when I really need the sleep are the same days the phone rings constantly, and yes I do shut it off many times. It's those days that people need me to help them with something, especially babysitting. Unfortunately, the older I get the less able I am to keep a cheerful countenance during all these sleep depriving activities.

So, tonight enjoy the song with me if you are awake at this lonely hour too. This snow storm is supposed to be over at 4 so hopefully nothing has changed and it will all die down. I know the wind is part of the reason I am awake. It's messing with the temperature of the room quite badly. There is a lot of draftiness in this room with so many windows. I don't mind the chill for sleeping. But when it is this cold outside I can't afford to turn the furnace down as much as I would prefer, so the furnace kicks in and I go from cold to hot in seconds, then when the furnace stops I go back to cold again. It's pretty disagreeable for trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. Blanket on, blanket off, blanket on, blanket off, and so on through the night while I just wait for things to adjust by the time daylight starts to show it's face. That's when I usually can sleep. Please everyone...don't feel bad if you find my phone not being answered later. I need to sleep.

2011: Summing It Up

When I look at the calendar and see that there are only two weeks left of 2011, I start thinking back over the year to see how well I managed to live it.  This particular year started out on a special note because I chose not  to make any "resolution" but instead it was more of a generalized goal.  Now with only two weeks left of the year, it should be pretty clear about whether or not I actually managed to reach my goal.  In many ways I think the goal was pretty lofty, but when I made it, I was sincere.

For the year 2011 I wanted to be as happy, healthy and strong as I could possibly be physically, emotionally, and spiritually whether I was with someone special or alone.  

That was the goal.  After going through the second of two total knee replacements in mid January of 2011, getting physically stronger was a given.  I would have therapy, obviously, and the improvements made after the first knee replacement would surely be made again after this second surgery.  And it started out wonderfully.  For the most part, everything in my life was going very well except for a few stressful events.  But nobody's life is totally perfect all the time, and judging by my previous few years, 2011 was off to a great start!

Somewhere in June/July I somehow sprained my right ankle.  The sprain was bad enough that had I not already known what to do from previous bad sprains, I would have gone to the emergency room.  But I had been through this many times over my life including within the past three years.  I was the "proud" owner of not one, but two fracture boots, or moon boots, if you prefer the nickname.  I didn't like them but knew that they worked well for being able to keep walking with a bad sprain.  So for a couple weeks I wore the moon boot whenever I got up to walk.  What I did not expect was the effect it would have on my knees since the boot makes you walk a bit lopsided being that it makes your bad foot about three to four inches higher off the ground than your other foot.  It made the whole effort of standing up from a seated position very rough on my knees.  By the time my ankle had healed totally, my knees were beginning to flare up into a lot of pain.  Eventually my left kneecap of the knee I had just had the most recent surgery on started flip-flopping around until I was in so much pain I could not walk without my crutches, which was where I started out before the first knee replacement surgery.  Now here I was on crutches again and very discouraged emotionally as well as in pain physically.  Something was not going in the right direction for this 2011 goal.

The best part of the year was that at the beginning of August my daughter decided to take a vacation, and not only that, but she was going to take me along!  I had never had a real vacation before and was really looking forward to this trip.  She was also taking her four-year-old son, and her mother-in-law.  I was excited as well as nervous because of the implications of going on my first vacation ever and being disabled as well.  I wasn't thrilled about having to take along my wheelchair but I knew it was a necessity.  So, plans were made and I couldn't wait.  And the weekend before we were to leave was when I ended up on the crutches in so much pain I could hardly walk.  This was not a good way to start this vacation!  My daughter took me to the Emergency Room where we were told that my kneecap was dislocated.  I was given a strong shot of pain medication, and a shot of steroids to help it heal as well as a prescription for stronger pain meds than I had at home.  By Monday when we were to leave for vacation, I was ready to go.

2011 was also a year of struggling.  The sprained ankle was only part of the problems I ended up dealing with.  As part of a group of online friends in a chat room that dealt with romance scam victims, I felt I had something worthwhile to contribute back to the world even though I was pretty much home bound with only my computer to keep me in contact with others.  I made some really good friends during the ten months I was part of the group and had some challenges within the group with helping a couple extreme cases.  We were a peer support group and we all loved being able to help others who had come into the group dealing with the same heartbreak that each of us had faced at one time or another.  In mid-July, the owner of that chat room decided she no longer wanted a chat room to be part of her group that was fighting against romance scams.  So she pulled the plug.  Many of us felt very betrayed by her actions, however, not only because she closed the chat room, but because of her methods of doing it which were severely underhanded, to say the least.  However some of us expected it to happen eventually so when it did, we were ready with an alternate plan of action.  Within an hour or two of first being told that the chat room would be closed that same night, we had a very temporary conference chat going where we made hurried plans to set up a temporary chat room location until we could come up with funds to create our own permanent chat room where we could reach out to others who had been devastated by romance scams and needed a place to talk to others for support in real time chat.  Before the night was over we had a temporary real time chat room set up where all of the members of the newly closed chat room could come and still be together.  We lost only one regular chatter and one new chatter that night.  It was an emotionally devastating night for all of us but we stuck together and came out stronger.

Because of the efforts of everyone involved in creating the new chat room, we also created a whole new chat community along with supporting websites to help new victims of romance scams find a place of support, strength, and hope for their journey to healing emotionally and financially.  It did me good to feel a part of the whole process.  In doing what we did for our new site, at least two of us were motivated to get back into productivity with our own personal goals.  The one who did all the website graphics for the chat room website got back into working with her own graphics programs she loved so much before she had been scammed.  I did the html coding as well as set up a couple other pages that are all part of our "site".  Doing this got me back into blogging more, writing for the Yahoo Contributor Network, and creating Squidoo lenses again which I had not done in several years.

Around the time my daughter took me on vacation, we were also talking about how she wanted me to start going to church with her at her church instead of me continuing to wait and hope that things would change with the church I had been a long-time member of.  So slowly and gradually, I started going with her and getting to know some of the people at her church.  Now I am going there almost every week, and sometimes to the middle of the week service as well.  Physically, I am still not back to the level I was spiritually before I got sick, but I am slowly working on that.  It's been maybe the hardest struggle of all because I lost a lot of people in my life that I thought were close friends when I got sick, as well as the church home and family I was so attached to.  A lot of trust in the human church was damaged and rebuilding that trust has not been easy.  But with being back in church with a new group of people I am getting to know slowly, including the pastor, I am feeling a bit more like I am on the right path again.

A little over a week ago, my daughter surprised me again.  It gets lonely living this disabled life and I don't get out as much as I want to.  I also don't get to talk to people as much as I would like to.  I had been praying that somehow God would get my landlords to change their minds about my having pets in my apartment.  I wanted a little lap dog so much.  Waiting and hoping that someday God will bring me a husband and trusting Him with that doesn't make the lonely days and nights go by any easier.  People would ask me what I want for Christmas so I would say if Santa can't bring me a husband, then I want a dog.  A little over a week ago, my daughter and grandson brought me the cutest little Shih Tsu dog and said he was mine!  She got him as a rescue dog and she's paying for all expenses up front including vet bills, food, toys, a doggy bed, and more.  Not only has the dog, whose name is Jonah, helped make me less lonely, he has become a "therapy dog" just because of  the responsibility of taking him outside as many times as he needs to go every day requires me to go up and down a short flight of 7 steps that have intimidated me ever since I moved here in 2008.  This process is strengthening both of my knees which have not totally healed yet.  I know that, as much as my mind struggles against it, having to take care of Jonah's needs helps me take better care of my own.  Right now after a little over a week, Jonah and I are bonding, and my knees hurt like I am in physical therapy daily.  I am sleeping more regular hours because of the timings he has for needing to go outside.  I'm exhausted by the time bedtime comes around.  I am hoping that all this stair-work will make my knees and legs and back stronger with each passing day, and I also might continue losing weight as well as rebuilding muscle lost over the past few years.

So, looking back over the year of 2011 and contemplating on my "resolution" I made this time last year, I have to say that it was a total success.  There have been ups and downs all year long, but when I look at the whole year together it was good.  I have been as happy, healthy, and strong as I could possibly be physically, emotionally, and spiritually this year.  Two weeks from tonight it will be time to make another New Year's Resolution.  I might just have to do a repeat of what I planned for 2011.  Maybe 2012 will bring the husband!