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A Potpourri on Monday

February 25, 2013 at 9:30 am by Claudia

littlepinkchair

The past week or so has brought the usual adventures and misadventures.

• One morning found me filling up the glass coffee carafe with water, then dropping it on the wood floor where it shattered in a zillion pieces. Not a good thing for a girl who needs her coffee in the morning. I figured out how to insert a bowl where the carafe should be and catch the coffee. (Where there’s a will there’s a way.) Once that bowl was full, I had to insert another. And another. Then I poured it all into a thermos. The sad thing was that I had to do this for two days as I was snowed in and couldn’t get to the store to buy a new coffeemaker. Must have coffee. Peets French Roast.

scout7

• Right before I was to leave to get Don at the bus station (after 2 months apart) I was trying to wipe Scout’s dirty paws, as she had just come in from outside. Scout does not like me wiping her paws and she is very impatient. By the time I’m working on the third or fourth paw, she manages to elude my grasp and I have to chase after her as she trails water or mud all over the kitchen. This time, I happened to be near one of the kitchen chairs and as she squirmed out of my grasp, my head went down, meeting the chair. Result? Stinging pain and a gash in my forehead. As you can imagine, I was not looking my best for the reunion.

New nickname for Scout: Bronco Scout. She bucks her way out of my grasp like we’re at a rodeo.

bride&groom

• Now that my husband’s back home, I’m being treated to far tastier dinners than I managed to put together in his absence. Don’s the cook in this house. I’m the baker. Cooking bores me. Thankfully, it doesn’t bore Don and he’s been whipping up all sorts of appetizing meals. Heaven.

He even made a special dinner to commemorate my Five Years of Blogging! How’s that for a good guy?

guitar

• I’ve also been treated to the sound of my husband’s voice and his new guitar. For those of you who missed it, Don’s childhood friend Rob, who lives in San Diego, is a wonderful musician who has his own recording studio. The two of them just might have recorded a CD of Don’s music while Don was in town. Rob has lots of guitars and he lent this one to Don to use during his stay. It worked so well for Don’s voice and the kind of songs he writes that Rob gave it to him. Rob is one of the most generous guys I know.

Don is over the moon and loves this guitar. It’s a Martin. Named Maggie. (Have you noticed that we tend to name things around here?) Now we have two Martins in the cottage. The other one doesn’t have a name. Get going, Don!

• I have a couple of blogs to recommend to you.

First up: Heart Handmade UK. Claire, who I believe lives in Ireland, gathers the most gorgeous design posts from the web – most of them in beautiful pastel hues. She manages to find blogs and sites that are absolutely beautiful. When I first discovered her, I was so enthralled that I went back through most of her archives. She’s on my blog roll now and I look forward to her daily posts. And she has a sense of humor. Always a good thing.

Next: This blog is written by my friend Lynn. When I first moved out east, I worked part-time for a Veterinarian. Lynn was also working part-time at the same animal hospital as she pursued a post-graduate degree. She is a great girl; funny, kind, compassionate and talented. Fast forward a few years: I no longer work there because the commute was too long when we moved to the cottage and Lynn no longer works there because she got married, moved to a farm in Virginia and had a little boy. We are friends on Facebook and I was thrilled when I discovered Lynn has a blog! It’s called Kid and Goat. Lynn’s personality shines through on her blog, with pictures of life on the farm and of her house and her darling little boy. And wait until you see her goat, Sarah. Sigh. Stop by and visit her.

pjparty

• Don’t forget our Flannel Pajama Party next Monday! We’re going to share our pajamas, adventures in our pajamas, thoughts on pajamas…be there or be square.

scarfgiveaway

And finally:

The winner of the Obsession Scarf Giveaway is Debbie Hibbert! Debbie, I sent you an email last night. Pick one of these colors for your scarf and I will merrily crochet one for you. Thanks to everyone who left such lovely and kind comments on that post. They warmed my heart.

Happy Monday.

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What Blogging Forces Me to Do

October 21, 2012 at 9:27 am by Claudia

Short answer: See the world with fresh eyes.

Like many of you, we are going through a tough time. My father is struggling and fading at the age of 89, my mother is in a nursing home and will be for the rest of her life, my beloved dog just died, my other dog is older, has trouble breathing at times, is slowing down significantly and I worry about her, both Don and I freelance and work has been alarmingly slow if not non-existent, we are older and in a world that is youth-oriented, it’s not so easy to find another job, we struggle to get the money together for our ridiculously high mortgage payment every month and we seriously wonder if we’ll be able to stay here, I seem to worry about money constantly, Don has been ill (but is now getting better, thank goodness.)

There’s more, but enough of the list.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself. There are people everywhere who are battling even bigger things, whose list of woes would make mine look puny. I’ve heard from fellow bloggers about their own struggles and am keenly aware that everyone has a story or two or three about their level of stress and worry at this moment in time.

Life can be hard and unforgiving.

This act of writing a blog, of writing a virtual daily journal, has saved me more often than you could ever know.

I have to come up with something every day. I blog about my life. I’m not a niche blogger. I can’t take refuge in a post that shows pictures of things I found on other blogs or websites. I don’t work that way. So, as I would be in any case, I have to be honest. Sometimes that honesty results in a post in which I pour my heart out. Sometimes it allows me to be silly. Sometimes it results in a fresh look at the world around me. As I think about a post and walk around with my camera, I see the world with fresh eyes. I see the beauty in bare branches of a tree against a blue sky, in the fading of a flower, in the pattern of sunlight on my wooden floor, in the animals who share our land with us, in the beauty of a piece of pottery – oh, the list is endless.

Often, I start to write and the humor of a situation suddenly becomes apparent and I find myself smiling.

I see the beauty in the landscape around me and I find myself smiling.

I see the simple pleasures of my everyday life that have nothing to do with stress or worry or money, but have everything to do with thankfulness and gratitude.

I let go of fear. I let in love.

Blogging has given me that. Writing is cathartic. Healing. The camera lens offers me a look at my world that I never really experienced until I started this blog. This daily exercise of writing a blog has helped me work through so many problems, has helped me to see the joy of simple things, the funny side of something I might have considered negative without the aid of writing about it, the blessings that I do have.

The important thing

is to pull yourself up by your own hair,

to turn yourself inside out,

and see the whole world with fresh eyes.

Peter Weiss

That’s what blogging has done for me. That’s what it forces me to do. And I’m so grateful it does.

Happy Sunday.

Working on My New Site

October 18, 2012 at 9:38 am by Claudia

Shredding Status: Pending.

Yes, my friends, I managed to avoid it yesterday, as well.

I have an excuse. I’m working on my new blog/website that will be devoted to helping you with your blogs. I’ve spoken about this before in this post. I’ve helped several fellow bloggers in the past, including my pal Brenda. And she’s the one who has urged me to hang out my shingle and offer my help to anyone who needs help with Blogger or WordPress. Brenda also has a new blog where she will talk about blogging, with interviews, conversation and helpful information. We talk about blogging all the time and we think our sites can work together to help all of you.

I consider myself a Blog Tweaker. Maybe a Blog Whisperer. This is how I explained it in the earlier post:

You see, I’ve learned a lot along the way during my 4½ years of blogging. I’m not afraid to play with html coding, I’m learning a lot about CSS coding, I’ve designed my own banners, I’ve tweaked my sidebar, added graphics, and many other things. I changed my Blogger blog many, many times. I figured out how to build on and tweak the design elements of my WordPress Blog. I helped Brenda do the same thing with her blog. I held her hand as she followed Sharon’s instructions on How to Move from Blogger to WordPress (in my sidebar.) I’ve helped many fellow bloggers in tweaking the elements and design of their blogs.

I am going to work on the details this coming week, but I plan to offer my services as mentor and coach for my fellow bloggers who use either format: Blogger or WordPress. I will make sure my prices are reasonable and affordable for most anyone.

But let me state clearly, I’m not a blog designer or a graphic designer. I’m not going to move your blog for you. Sharon, whose book is on my sidebar, has written clear-as-a-bell instructions on how to do that. But I can hold your hand as you cope with WordPress or Blogger. I can answer questions. If I don’t have the answer, I’ll research until I have it. If I can’t answer your question, I’ll be honest with you and direct you to someone who does have the answer.

I’ve set up the new site. I’m trying to determine how to handle pricing – which will be very reasonable. Since I will handle a variety of requests, and I’m not a blog designer offering a menu of packages, I’m leaning toward an hourly charge. If the question posed can be answered fairly easily, perhaps the fee would be for half an hour? And if the project or work on a blog were more involved…?

Do any of you have thoughts on this? Do you have experience with charging a fee for a service? I want to figure this out so I can get the site up and running – but the more I ponder it, the more confused I become. I would greatly appreciate your input.

Am I crazy for doing this?

Happy Thursday.

A Potpourri on Monday

What Blogging Forces Me to Do

Working on My New Site

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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