A Week Without My Kids!

Saturday marked the first day of my kids going camping for the week with their Dad.  Right now they are having fun in Maine.  They've gone to a campground near Bath, Maine where the deer roam parts of the campground.  Sean has borrowed my good camera for the week.

I got to the kids house early Saturday before they left.  I woke up early and went for my morning walk in my neighborhood and got there as my kids were getting up.  I managed to get a hold of my laptop for a few minutes before Julia woke up.  She discovered I was on and was upset as they would be leaving within the next few hours.  So, she lucked out as I only was going to be on for five minutes to check my Ebay.

Later they left and all was quiet.  I have been planning on camping out at their house for the week and escaping my cats for the week too.  Of course going back and forth during the day to feed them, etc...  I love my cats, but sometimes it is fun to spend some nights at my kids house when they are on vacation.  I also tend to their pets while they are gone and get their mail.

So, I began the day thinking and planning out my week in my head.  What do you do when you have quiet time to yourself?  You do whatever you want!!!!

I started out the Saturday by finishing up on my yard saling.  There was a neighborhood yardsale with sales up and down all the streets.  I started out by finding a pretty basket with lovely handmade placemats and a tea cozy.  I ended up listing the placemats and tea cozy on ebay but have kept the basket.  At first I was thinking of cutting up the pink floral fabric but it was much too pretty to do that.  Someone has already bid on it.

Then, I didn't find too much for a little bit.  My money just didn't want to part with me.  I get very selective when there is nothing I need or can sell. Finally, I found things and my money did part with me!!!

I only allow myself a certain amount of money for yard saling each weekend and when it's gone, I am done.

I got back and started listing and uploading my pictures.  I had a delimna for a little bit as I couldn't find my uploaded pictures, but sure enough, they were there.

Later, I decided to cut up more yo yo circles for a while and then towards later afternoon and evening I started watching Shark movies all night on Syfi channel while I deleted lots of digital images.  I have lots of clean up to do with my digital photography.  I ended up deleting 1500 photos that night.  I had for several months found my photo files had about 5 or 6 of the same exact photo.  I think  this was because I forgot to erase them off the memory card and they kept duplicating.

And then I've started to edit my photos in Picasa and I name those photos and save them.  Which in the process creates a new file and I suddenly don't need the original uploaded photo.  But it's going to be worth it to fix all my pictures eventually and delete unwanted stuff.

Then I think I should be trying to save them slowly to a disc or some sort of back up.  I would be crying if I lost all my photos.

As it is, last fall I lost about a month's worth of photos that I took while visiting my Maine Haunts, my sister's kids birthday party and lots of other stuff.  A barmitzpah that I photographed and got some lovely photo overlays of got lost too.  Partly this was when my laptop crashed last year and I had a memory card that went bad and had to be thrown out.  But, when it crashed, I had all my photos saved to a backup hard drive, so one of these days, I need to check to see if they are on there.

Then, Sunday, I was going to walk and I got up from the couch and couldn't walk on my knee.  It hurt so much, I felt like having crutches to walk around all day.  So walking got scratched that day.  I mostly cut out yo yo circles that day and watched some movies.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Gladiator, Bladerunner, The Fifth Element and a short segment of The Twilight Zone.  I guess I was hoping for more shark movies that day. 

I had watched one stupid shark movie, Super Shark, where the shark liked to walk up to the beach and chew up unsuspecting people.  That was the most stupid one.  You know when a shark walks all the way up a beach, you should stop watching.  But I didn't.

Monday, my knee felt so much better.  I couldn't believe it.  I woke up feeling no pain the whole day.  So, I got in Monday's walk.  Got back and started getting excited that I could watch the Today Show like I did during the school year.  Started cutting up more fabrics that I have.  I've had a big pile of fabric that I hadn't wanted to cut up.  I originally bought them for photography backgrounds.

Finally, Saturday and Sunday I decided to cut them up for my yo yo circles and also cut up some large squares so I can still use them for photography too.  It's going to turn into a large photography quilted blanket.  It will get big quick as the squares are really large.

So, middle of morning my boyfriend called and wanted me to come down to his house for a few days.  He wanted me to help him move his couch.  His cats have fleas so he wanted me down there to help with stuff.

His cats got the Frontline a few weeks ago, yet there is still fleas lingering.

What a job that is to spray everything down to kill all those eggs.  I never realized that ever single egg can hatch about fifty fleas.  And we found hundreds under the couch cushions. 

So literally the whole house got a cleanup and daily vacumning and being extra careful.  And I need to be careful that I don't bring it back to my cats.

Even a human can bring in a flea and start the whole nasty process going.  And they are fast at spreading themselves in the house.

But, we got lifting the couch and the chair yesterday and at first I thought both were so heavy.  The chair was worse than the couch.  He's tempted to buy new furniture later on and get rid of the old.  His chair is quite large and the lever for the foot rest is inside the chair.  I told him, he'd do well with a smaller lazy boy chair where the lever is usually on the outside.

So, his cats are doing good today.  I treated them to a cat toy when I went out for extra flea spray.  I tried to put a small amount on my debit card afterwards.  I have recently noticed that some stores will not let you use your debit card if you only spend one or two dollars.  They want you to at least spend five dollars and then you can use your debit card.  So the cats got lucky!!  They got a new mouse toy and my cats are going to get the other one that came with it. 

I almost was going to let them play with both, but then I confiscated my cat's toy.  I got thinking that you never know if a flea egg gets attached to it, then I've brought it home to mine.

And I'm typing now, but I've got a sore pinky so it is a little tricky to type.  I think it was from lifting the chair.

This morning, I got another walk in early on before things got hot.  It's not humid today, so it wasn't bad, but I could tell it was starting to get hot.

I hopped on my kids scale on Monday and I'm down to 190.  I was at 200.  It's a good jump from before kids.  Before kids, I was at 140-150.  I don't know if I'll get back to that but it would be nice to get back to 170.  I don't look super big everywhere except for the belly and I'm sure a lot of the weight has probably settled into the bones or something. 

So, it's been cool to see ten pounds shed so far.  I've got a way to go though.  I'm just going to keep walking.  I want my metabolism increased so it will lower my sugar levels.  I don't want to have to stop eating things I like.  I'm not a big sweet eater, but I do like to eat for nourishment and I do like to splurge with the sugar in my coffee and have a snack once in a while. 

Walking and drinking water and changing the diet all helps and is a good thing.  Right now, I could be pre diabetic.  But that was predicted by tests done earlier in the spring.  A time when I was drinking several cans of soda during each day along with my coffee intake and the extra snacking.  So, I would be curious to see what all the tests would say now after a big change in my diet and everything.

I can already tell the difference in my ankles, legs and butt and a little bit in the stomach.  It just looks like the weight has all shifted and I'm looking better.  My goal would also to be able to see below my stomach and to not look pregnant.

I've already cooked up my pasta salad for the next three or four days.  Yum.

PASTA SALAD WITH FETA CHEESE

one package ziti noodles (cooked)
cut up half a green pepper and one half onion
(chop finely and saute with butter or margarine and a tiny bit of salt to taste)
I also sauted with a little bit of a bell pepper spice mix
I also added about one tblsp lemon juice and balsamic vinegar to the pepper mix.

When noodles are cooked, drain and rinse.  Add the sauted mix.
Add 1-2 tbsps French's mustard
1 cup mayonaise
2-3 tblsp sweet pickle relish
A small amount more of the balsamic vinegar ( not much as you don't want to kill the meal)
A small amount more of salt and the bell pepper spice
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp pepper

Mix it up. 

Well, this is when my salad looked a little bare.  Seemed like mostly noodles and my sauted mix seemed to disappear.  Needless to say, a trip to the grocery store for extra things to put in.

Add two can's large olives (chopped and drained)
Add one can of mushrooms (yum)
Add one small container of feta cheese.  (To die for!)
And chop up half a bag of baby carrots.

Mix it all in and there you have it.

So this is my meal until I get sick of it.

I guess some of it isn't the best for you.  There's probably unwanted carbs in the mayonaise and salt in the olives.  And the butter and margarine isn't the best.

But, you can't sometimes not add a little bit of these things.  It's very hard not to include none of that in the daily diet sometimes.  You can't watch every little single thing that you eat.  As long as you eat in moderation.

I think it is better if you can make meals yourself.  All that canned food isn't good.  But sometimes we do need to add some of it to some meals. 

And those store boughten soups are probably bad.  Tons of salt.  I like to sometimes make my own soups and then I can monitor what I put in.

Well, today is Tuesday and I'm still going to plan out the rest of my week without the kids.  I've got the laptop until Friday and then my boyfriend and I are going camping for the weekend.  Which means no laptop.  But I will be doing the crafting and small things I can bring with me.

Wednesday and Thursday will be hangout days at my kids house and visiting my cats.  I guess that's why they sleep on me all the time when I am there as they miss me.  Luna will climb up and kiss me.  She's so affectionate.

So, I'll let you go for now.  Enjoy the rest of the day.  I'll probably be doing more crafting and hoping that my pinky finger feels better soon.


Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted August 7, 2012

The start I got on sponge painting my hutch.  The blue has kind of disappeared now and it kind of looks like one color.  It's got a ways to go as I want to do collage work to this piece and I'm not sure what I want to do with the inside shelving yet.

My knobs I am putting on the hutch.  I ended up having seven of these left over and have listed them.  Someone is watching them on Ebay right now.  And the wood filler in the background.  The cats did a number to the tops of part of the floorboards in my hallway so I had to fix it and decided to paint the floorboards.  Next month or October, I will be painting the living room and my hallway.

My cool card rack I got for $25 at a yardsale before my kids were born.  It has been used for all my craft shows.  Although, this fall time, I just want to use two card tables for a change instead of lugging this around.  It's not too bad to lug, but my car trunk is filled up with stuff and I don't want to bother putting this in the car for the one craft show this year.  I might do more than one next year.

This rack is great for my paper dolls and my cards and artwork.

Some of my cool ribbon yarns.  The burgandy color is being used right now.  I'm mixing it in with an olive green ribbon.  Not this green one.  Those green ones are a very thin metallic yarn (more like string).  It looks pretty blended in with other yarn.

A cool flower arrangement on one of my walks near my apartment.  I like walking into a neighborhood nearby.  But I think I get a better workout doing my walk at the kids house.  There's more inclines and I think it's longer and there's a big hill on the last leg of it.

My pretty honeycomb cabled headband I whipped up last week.  I want to do more of these.  I like this mannequin.  I'm considering getting her some new wigs next month.  Possibly a red head in Avengers style or a flapper girl wig or Gibson Girl style.  And one of these days I should try to draw her.

Below is a hat I got at a yardsale.  I'm selling the hat on Ebay and someone is watching it.  I will take a photo session of her with the hat before I sell the hat.

Having a mannequin head is a great way to display things.  I would like to eventually get one or two more mannequin heads.

Last year, I was considering getting a full body mannequin (really pretty), but then I thought it would be so big and where would I put it?

Fun idea though.  It's a good thing we don't act on every single impulse buy.  It's  a good idea to wait and figure out if you really need it before you plan to buy.