New Button Upload for Blog

Some days your geek side has it all together. This morning was one of those..which makes me entirely happy. I managed to update my blog grab button based on my new header with minimal frustration!

Credit of course goes to the How to Get Your Own Grab Button tutorial over at ShabbyBlogs.com. I also discovered FotoFlexer.com which is a great tool for manipulating images.

So how do you like it?



The only trouble I had was in figuring out the dimension to make it. Apparently my right-hand blog column is right around 200, so once I re-sized the image, I was all set.

So there...I think I've done my blog spring cleaning for the year!

New Blog Look

You ever feel like a change every so often? Well, my blog was itching for some spiffing up, so many thanks to ShabbyBlogs.com and their awesome tutorial on how to adapt one of their headers for your own use. It was as easy as pie and looks cleaner than the old photo which was a little pixely anyway.

So enjoy the look. You never know when I just might get the urge to change it again.

I Sure Do Miss Blogging...

I really do. I have missed blogging, twittering, catching up on my favorite blogs, and in general, being part of like-minded individuals who find a certain release in journaling on-line.

So...what has been going on since June of 2010 when my poor blog seemed to drop off the face of the earth? Well...too much, as each individual item would be worthy of its own post. And in reflection, I should have somehow carved out the time to chronicle each event. I think I would have benefited from it.

I tend to be one of those who feel that if they can't get it all caught up, then don't start anything. Perfectionism at its worst, I know. Sometimes the 'just do it now' mantra should become mine to live by. I just need to pick up where life is now and march forward.

It is interesting to look back and realize that my farm blog Abernathy Creek Farm started to deteriorate about June, this blog started running downhill in July, my 365 Project did not get updated after August, and Twitter fell out somewhere around September. Sigh. I did find more time to connect with my 'face' friends on Facebook which has been wonderful though.

I've decided less lofty goals would benefit me perhaps. Maybe start with posting monthly...sad, I know, or bringing myself to publish a post without **gasp** a perfectly edited photo. Doing a 52 week Photo Project instead of beating myself up for not capturing and uploading a photo every single day. Going back to Tweet Deck to incorporate Twitter and Facebook simultaneously because I do so miss the camaraderie of the contacts I made on Twitter...wonderful people who share similar passions as mine.

So here goes. I'm off to upload Tweet Deck to my netbook. Perhaps I'll see you on Twitter soon!

Truly Not Enough Hours in the Day

I could just post this title and then sign off. Many of you would understand. It seems lately that I just can't even find the time to sign on lately. Homeschool has started along with charter school classes. It's high school varsity football season with its booster club responsibilities and playing injuries. There are an additional three to four hours of work I now do for the care of the ten horses next door at the training barn. It's truly a case of dropping into bed exhausted.

It seems that in order for me to take the time to get on here, I had to have a two-hour window while our son had a Lisfranc fracture surgery due to a football injury during the first game of the season and the luck of having wi-fi at the hospital.

So...I haven't forgotten my little blog here. I promise to be back as random as ever. I didn't think I would miss my time here as much as I have. Perhaps giving myself another week to help rehab my 16yo who will not be able to bear weight on his foot for six-plus weeks, and perhaps another week to see what's left in the garden to eat/take care of if the rains dissipate for the fall, and perhaps yet another week for whatever life throws at us, and then I'll be back to posting with gusto.

Until then, enjoy whatever free time you have to be online. You never know when life will throw you a few good curves.

Custom Signature

Part of the fun of blogging for me seems to be learning new hacks to customize my space. A quick google search turned up My Live Signature which allows you to create your own custom signature. How fun is that?

My 365 Photography Project

One of the most empowering advances of the digital era has been the introduction of the digital camera. Remember the days of carefully selecting photos to take knowing that every print needed to be paid for? At least in our family that enjoying taking photographs, we almost needed to budget for the cost of developing! But with the power to now take hundreds of photos at a time and then weed through them for the keepers, I believe it has unleashed the creative side of many. Hence the development of 365 Photo a Day Projects.  

I have been intrigued by other bloggers who have begun these projects and decided that this was the year for me to do so as well. But what is a 365 Project? I did a little searching but could not find much of a definite answer other than it involves taking one photo per day for the entire 365 day year. As you can see from a few shots from my project that are sprinkled throughout this post, they can be as random as you would like. Those photos are posted to a host site where others can post their projects as well. Flickr where my photos are held allows for the author to leave a few comments regarding the nature of the photo as well. When all is said and done on December 31, you more than likely will look back on your entire year in photos and be amazed at what caught your interest each and every day or may simply just reaffirm those things that are important to you in your life. You will find a Blogger widget by Blogger Buster on the right hand side of this blog which shows thumbnails of my nine most recent photos posted to my 365 Project. I decide to use Flickr as the host source for my photos as they support a 365 Project group there. I know there are other sites as well, but this was my jumping off point. At one time I had a widget by PictoBrowser but went back to the Blogger Buster widget as it was sized better for my column. You can still see an example of PictoBrowser's widget on our hobby farm site Abernathy Creek Farm.  

Because I know that I have a photo to post each day, I have started taking my camera along with me wherever I go. Sure enough, I will quite often be thankful I did. Each evening the photos are uploaded to my computer, and I sift through them for 'the one', which in itself can be a hard decision. Then I edit or crop it if needed. I'm currently using Picasa as it is simple to use and then upload it to Flickr. From there it is automatically updated to this blog. Yes, that seems like a lot of site hopping, but if I hadn't taken the plunge and just started with those applications I was familiar with then perfectionism would have once more taken over and the entire project would not have begun.  

This is a perfect example of what Charlotte Mason, a brilliant educator whose methods many homeschoolers follow, would have deemed 'mother culture'...something that 'mother' can do to improve her own culture and education while being at home with her children. She obviously would have never envisioned the scope of digital photography, but she would have given it her thumbs up, and I couldn't agree more. A few books checked out from the library to read up on digital photography skills, a little more practice with my camera, stretching a bit by researching and adapting this blog to accommodate the project...it all adds up to mother culture accomplishments and a sense of pride.  Do you have a 365 Project? If so, leave a comment with your link if you would like to share. We are all so different but yet so much the same, and it is incredible to now be able to see the world through each others lens, 365 days a year.

99 Things on the Wall

I just learned a new vocabulary word...meme. Now I don't think I could summarize its true comprehensive meaning as it is used online in just a few words yet, but Wikipedia.org does a pretty good job:

At its most basic, an Internet meme is simply the propagation of a digital file or hyperlink from one person to others using methods available through the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, etc). The content often consists of a saying or joke, a rumor, an altered or original image, a complete website, a video clip or animation, or an offbeat news story, among many other possibilities. In simple terms, an internet meme is an inside joke, that everyone on the internet is in on. An Internet meme may stay the same or may evolve over time, by chance or through commentary, imitations, and parody versions, or even by collecting news accounts about itself. Internet memes have a tendency to evolve and spread extremely quickly, sometimes going in and out of popularity in just days...

The term may refer to the content that spreads from user to user, the idea behind the content, or the phenomenon of its spread. Internet memes have been seen as a form of art. There exist websites that collect and popularize Internet memes as well as sites devoted to the spread of specific Internet memes...

Regardless, memes appear to be fun journal-type prompts for bloggers in general to use to generate insightful content on their blogs. I tracked down this site today, The Dailey Meme, which I expect to more fully explore later, just to familiarize myself with internet memes. But perhaps the first meme I stumbled across was entitled "99 Things on the Wall" at the Little is Better blog. True to the spirit of memes, here is my list of 99 Things on the Wall with those which I have done in bold type:

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland/world

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb (Definitely a goat kid!)

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching (From the beach in the San Juan Islands)

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job (If that includes a day care client, walking out on you in anger and never coming back!)

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car (Not since I was 20!)

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper (Local church newsletter count?)

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

Looking back at my list now, I'm thinking I have a lot more living of life to do. So if you're reading this, give it a copy and paste to your own blog and highlight those that you've done in your lifetime. Leave me a comment with a link back to your blog and it will be fun to see how different we all are!

Where Has the Summer Gone?

Well as you can see I have had only two posts this month. I wonder why summertime seems to get so busy for our family. So much happens, so little actual school happens, and so little time to record and blog about it. Definitely need to figure out how to blend it all.

I blame it partly on our Northwest weather. When it's cold, dreary, and raining outside...we hibernate inside. Nothing grows...minimal chores are done...it's dark at 4:30 p.m. on the shortest of days...why there's a ton of time to spend indoors. Once the sun comes out, I like to garden...the kids play with the goat kids...time seems to slow down in some sense...but there seems to be less of it even though the sun shines long into the evening hours. I guess we're thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and it's hard for me to come inside to chronicle our lives.

Until I figure it out, however, I have determined to keep an online journal as you might have noticed from my last posting Daily Journal Entry. It has been updated every day and at least gives me a way to look back at the whirlwind summer we experience every year. I've also been posting our daily harvest over at our hobby farm site, Abernethy Creek Farm. So come take a look at what we've been up to. Perhaps summer is your time to relax or it is your time to catch up from the winter months. I'd love to hear how summer is unique to your family too.

Daily Journal Entry

There are some days that I just really wonder where the day has gone to. Lunch comes and goes, and then it's dinner, and before you know it, it's dark out. The cycle just keeps cycling. And because I don't feel that anything has gotten accomplished other than just "living", I've decided to keep a bit of a daily journal...just penciling in what I have been doing.

I know in my heart that a lot does get done obviously. Perhaps being able to go back over my notes will help me see that. It also may be an eye opener as to where I can become more efficient or lasso in some extra help from the kiddos. So if you're at all interested, I'll have a link on the left post column. You're welcome to poke around and see what's there.

Why blog

One of the beauties of life is that we all can find time to think. Sometimes we like to shut the voices out of our head, but if we take the time to listen we find out a little bit more of ourselves. In the past few months I have entered the world of others by visiting their blogs and websites, listening to podcasts, gleaning information and becoming inspired. I've come to realize that blogging can be an extension of our passion whether it be specific or just in general terms. As Marla Cilley, the FLYLADY and my initial inspiration, says - everyone has a story to tell. It is just inside and only needs a little prompting to come out. She was referring mainly to writing a book in that conversation, but I have come to believe that blogging is just another outlet for that part of ourselves that needs to be expressed. For some, putting pen and pencil to paper is a more natural act than speaking. Perhaps that is the way with me. It is here that I hope to share and in turn learn from myself the lessons of life.

Welcome!

Well, here we go at an attempt to create a family blogger as well as maintain some individual blogs. Hopefully, we will learn a little about blogging along the way!