Pink Saturday 10/30/2010

Welcome once again to Pink Saturday. Please visit with Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for more participants.

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And Happy Halloween, all your spookie chicks! I made this a couple of years ago and it still sits on my front porch all year round. I just wiped it down and added the sign for this weekend. I told you I don't "do orange" so this is my contribution to the autumn season.

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It's been a rough week for me. I'm always smiling and a truly upbeat person, but when I laid this body down on my masseuse's table on Wednesday I just lost it. I'm glad I was face down because the tears started falling the second Maria put her hands on my body. She's a very, very caring person, and I'm just glad she couldn't see the tears flowing. Just her touch relieved a lot of stress in this old body. And trust me, this has been very stressful trying to get relief from the fall I took.

Anyway, I thought I'd just ramble a bit today. The earth is taking making its autumnal glory for the year and that perhaps is one of the things that can depress the human spirit, realizing I'm in the autumnal period of my life.

Our last 2 tomatoes from the garden and the last gardenias from the plant. You can't believe how fragrant these smell. Beautiful.


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Random Thoughts:

I read recently where the schools are providing DINNERS for school children! My parents would have been appalled at this. Where in the world are their parents? We're paying for this with our tax dollars. I find this appalling that anyone even thought of this. Parents are stewards of their children, not anyone else. I fed my kids when they were home. I never let them starve. Just boggles my mind.
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Did you know that P&G uses supercomputers to make sure that Pringles go into cans without breaking? I just love high tech stuff!
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Why do models stand with hands on their hips in those photos of them attending events? Do they realize how stupid they look? Standard pose: Hand on hip, looking over their shoulder, one leg crossed over the other. As I said, stupid looking!
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AND some of them have such huge breast proportions that I'm wondering if the world is facing a serious silicone shortage!
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I love all the pictures I see of the English, Italian and French countryside but it's always perplexed me why they build them on hills or steep windy roads. Sheesh, there seems to be flat land around them. Why make it hard to build and to go to and from the grocers? Weird. Beautiful, but still weird.
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My friend and I usually announce the end of our phone calls by asking each other if we've solved all the world's problems lately. We generally answer each other with this statement: No, but we haven't created any world problems lately either! Gives ME hope. ;-)

Until next time, my sweet chicks.
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Back(!) and What I Did with Some Pretty Papers

First, some eye candy for you chicks. :-)
Me and Miss C when we were visiting with her last month.

First of all, I'm feeling pretty good to where I think I'll start posting once more a week—perhaps mid-week—other than Pink Saturdays. If this doesn't work out I'll let you know. It's just a trial to see how it will affect me. But truthfully, I have missed blogging a LOT. I love it! I'll just have to take care and watch how much I do. I absolutely cannot spend hours on here so if I don't get to you and comment, please try to understand. I'm doing the best I can at the moment.
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Also, I need to tell you that I've thought of that elusive song I was trying to capture in my memory. My authority for 80s songs is my daughter. She can always come up with the song or the recording artist. After trying to remember some of the words I came up with cadillac and pink and she guessed it right away. I've never been a fan of Bruce Springsteen but it was one of his songs: "Pink Cadillac". I don't listen to music around the house as a general rule so I truly don't think I've ever heard any of his songs other than that. Needless to say, it is now in my iTunes! I like to exercise to it.
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Oooooh, and another thing. I wrote a comment to Blogger about keeping the Old Editor. It now does not have the "going away soon" by its name in the "Settings" tab on Blogger. I guess they listened to me and one other blogger who told me she was going to ask them to keep it also. Gals, this is the easiest editor of the two. Much more stable. If they do indeed keep it, I'm ecstatic. Pictures appear where they should. Spaces between pictures and text is closer together and much more stable (I could not get it to do correctly even if I used the Edit HTML tab above, AND the issue of spaces being further apart on the New Editor has definitely come up from people emailing me for help.) Plus I can upload 5 pictures at one time with it instead of one at a time. AND if you need to have strikethrough text or background color for some of your test background, you can change to the New Editor for just that one thing while composing the post and switch back to the Old Editor for the rest of it as I did in this post. However, I must warn you that if you switch back and forth the colors may be inconsistent in some of the text and the spaces between the photos can be a bit off. Me? I stick to the Old Editor until everything I want in the post is good and then I go back to do the "strikethrough" or any other thing for which I might want to use the New Editor. The best of both worlds, although, I don't think I've ever used colored background text and don't especially like it, you can have that option if you wish. A win-win situation for all.
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I showed you some of these gorgeous papers the first of October, but I thought I'd show you the rest and what I did with some of them.

These are some of the candlesticks I pulled out of our garage sale in July and kept. Remember the 2 in the back, right at the top of the photo?

This is what they look like now. Nice, huh?



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Pink Saturday 10/23/2010 and a Refurbished Lamp

A hint at what I'm working on today.

Happy pink saturday! Please click on the logo below for Beverly's How Sweet The Sound and see the other participants.

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Again, I apologize for not leaving any comments, but as I've said, my health is the most important thing at the moment. I hope to be back within the next couple of months blogging more. It usually takes me several times sitting at this computer to do a post for Pink Saturday. Prayers are gratefully accepted and appreciated.
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Also I have a request. Last monday at physical therapy I heard the song Achy Breaky Heart for the first time ever. It reminded me of a song in the 80s that we used to jazzercize to in class. It had that kind of beat but I can't remember the words or the name of the song. I know this seems like a worthless cause but I cannot get the song out of my head and the words won't come to me. I just loved that beat to jazzercize to though. Can anyone think of a song with that beat? And no, it wasn't Achy Breaky Heart. We didn't do country/western in San Francisco Bay Area at that time. Sorry.
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Some of you might be interested in knowing how I'm doing, maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. :-) I'm doing great! I haven't exercised this much in years and I need to make an embarrassing confession. While this has been going on and I'm exercising diligently 2x a day, every single day except for sundays as it is a day of rest for us, I decided to get out some DVDs I had a woman make for me from some old tapes I had. When I put the DVD on my Mac iBook I thought I'd just sail right through it for at least part of the 60 minute video. I got 10 minutes into it and just about had a heart attack! Very embarrassing. I told hubs that I couldn't go anymore. That was very embarrassing but he said, "It's 10 minutes more than you did yesterday, which was zero." He's right. There has to be a beginning for everything. So I've been trying the treadmill for the last few days and that's much better for an old lady to start out on. You'll be apprised of my progress henceforth.
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I'm going to ramble for a minute or so. You KNOW how opinionated I am and how certain things just set my teeth on edge, right? Well, yesterday I was "visit teaching" a woman in our ward (this is a monthly thing we do in our church to visit and see if they need anything or to help with anything they might need and also to bring the spiritual message of the month.) During the visit her cell phone rang and she answered it. Now, she has voice messaging just like the millions of other cell phone users but she chose to answer it. It didn't sound like something she couldn't have waited to talk about until we had left. I was frothing!!! The look I had on my face could have peeled the wet off water! I know my face had to show my anger to my companion. I never, ever answer the phone when someone is visiting with me. THEY are more important than just about anything that could come over a phone line. I always let it go to message. What is wrong with us that we don't acknowledge the people in our presence as being as important as those that call us? If she had been waiting for an emergency, that would have been different. I'm talking about someone who just wanted to chat and she probably knew that. Please, women, give your attention to someone in your presence who has come to visit with you.
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This lamp is one I did many years ago in white but I decided recently I wanted it more pink. I'm also doing projects I can stand up doing instead of sitting. This is, of course, driving me nuts! But hopefully it won't be much longer before I can sit with a modicum of comfort.

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Pink Saturday 10/16/2010 and Kitchen Cabinet Redo

Happy pink saturday! Please click on the logo below for Beverly's How Sweet The Sound and see the other participants.


I'm still alive and still doing massive amounts—for me anyway—of physical therapy each day and also having to take ibuprofen. I truly don't want to get hooked on pain killers and ibuprofen does help with the pain. I met a woman in PT who had this problem and she said it took her 8 months! I can't/won't be away from blogging for 8 months so we'll see how it works out.

I am still skimming through the blogs a few minutes each day but I simply can't sit here long enough to comment, so please, please forgive me.

Hubby and I received free movie tickets a couple of months ago for my birthday and couldn't find any clean PG movies to go see until I heard about Secretariat. We saw it today and if you haven't seen it, run to your local theater and see it. It was one of the most wonderful movies we've seen. Kids will enjoy this too. We loved it! Just like a movie should be. Great, great movie.

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I finally finished with the kitchen cabinet I bought a couple of months ago since it was easier for me to stand than sit with the ham string and groin muscles pulled. I am very happy with it. Love Bunny, however, thinks I'm nuts taking a perfectly good oak cabinet, painting it and then sanding the heck out of it so it will look vintage, distressed and romantic!

This is what I purchased at Home Depot originally.

This is what I've been doing to it for several days. This is the door.

The cabinet.

The side panels.

Sanding/distressing

With all the decals I already have, I was wondering which one to use on it. That was a big decision. I loved this one but it was a bit small for such a large door.

The only brush to use as far as I'm concerned. This was a fantastic brush. If you use a cheap brush, you are wasting your time. It was well worth the money I paid. It made a world of difference in applying Zinssers primer.

When I tell you all something that can make a huge difference in what the outcome will be, I like to give you the reason why it is so. The man at Home Depot explained it to me this way in its simplest form. One, it is made in the USA and that makes a difference to me most times. Two, it's put together much better for that reason alone. Three, the bristles are frayed—as you can see by the closeup photo and that makes the stroke much, much smoother. A friend of ours painted houses while putting himself through college and said he's got the same brush he used 30 years ago and continues to use it to this day and it's a Purdy. That's how good they are. It is definitely worth the few dollars extra you would pay. And I didn't even get the highest priced one for which I paid under $20.00

More distressing outside when the weather turned nice.

The left side will be where it opens, hinged on the right. I scruffed it up a bit more there where wear and tear would naturally occur.

The decal I finally decided I liked best for the kitchen cabinet.

The finished door. I do have a white ceramic knob with a rose decal on it that hubby will have to put on it when we decide to hang it, which should be in the next few days.

This is the knob I'll be putting on it.

This was put up early this morning. Things were changed around on the kitchen walls though.

The white cabinet after I painted it and shabbied it up to look vintage.

Side view and a little bit of the shelf we changed to that area.

I had to find 2 places for 2 shelves that were there the cabinet is now.

Close up of the view when I'm at the sink now. I love looking at roses and these two arrangements do the trick for me.

The other one went on the other side of the kitchen near the patio door on the left. These may not stay decorated exactly like this, only time will tell.

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Pink Saturday 10/9/2010

Happy Pink Saturday. Please be sure and click on the link below to take you to Beverly's How Sweet The Sound and the other participants.

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As I've said, I'm taking a break from all blog surfing and commenting until this ham string and groin get better—as per the physical therapist's instructions—except for Pink Saturday posts. I love Pink Saturday. So here is my contribution this week. I think I'll just put the random thoughts between each picture. I also have to tell you it's been weird to not view or comment on posts, but I'm determined. Please forgive me for not visiting. Plus it's taken me several "sit-downs" at the computer to get this posted as I'm only allowed 10 minutes at a time to look at the computer. You'd have to know me to know how hard it is to keep myself off the computer as I Skype with my granddaughter and great granddaughter every day to see her sweet face.
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I photographed these from my garden yesterday. I know I've posted roses from the garden before saying it's the last of the summer roses but they just keep coming. It's hard to fathom this but they are still in bloom going into the middle of October. I wanted to do some closeups practice and these did come out very nice. See the little bug on it. 

 Yep, it's that time of year again—school fund raising with the chocolate bars. I've bought so many when my kids were in grade school (theirs!) that I've personally funded an entire elementary school in the San Francisco bay area. Isn't this forced labor?

 

I got a call the other day and they asked for Jamie. I said you must have the wrong number because no one by that name lives here. He then asked what my name was or who I was, can't remember which. I said, "None of your business." If they had a wrong number then it was a wrong number. I hung up so fast I think his head is still spinning. I have changed the message on my machine. I now tell them we do not accept solicitor calls and to hang up if they are. Duh, did the fool really think I'd give him my name?

Just curious. Why do our heads go up and down for a yes and side to side when it's a no? Anyone know? I don't.

Sometimes a measure of paranoia isn't a sign of mental illness but instead a necessity for survival. Personal experience!

 

Our youth are sowing so many wild oats that they need a government subsidy. What's the matter with them? Sheeesh...

Do you ever feel like you're running out of enough fingers and toes to plug the dike? I do frequently. That's when I simply hibernate with a good book.

 

When we first moved to Idaho we lived in a town so small it didn't even have a Taco Bell, McDonalds or Burger King. I stood it for 12 years and then told hubs to get me to a town with a WalMart and a restaurant that was owned by a conglomerate and not a local person. He did and I'm loving our town of about 100,000 instead of 4,000. *Sigh*...

A paper rose.

Sometimes it feels like the only ones with constitutional rights are the criminals among us.

 Until next saturday, my sweet chick friends.

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