July 11 2019

Cheap Summer Fun

Did you miss my post last Thursday? Sorry about that, but I decided to take the day off from my usual writing routine being as it was Independence Day here in the US. Hubby and I also decided to take the time to do something we haven’t done in quite a while. We decided to work a puzzle. This is a great way to spend some quality time with your loved ones and it doesn’t have to be expensive. I bought this puzzle at our local Goodwill store for $2.99. It was one of two identical puzzles they had but for whatever reason, the other one was marked at $4.99 and the back of the box said “3 missing”, so I took it as a sign and bought this one. Now you might turn your nose up at a “used” puzzle, and ask how I could be sure that all the pieces were there. Well, I had to take a chance that they were and decided to ask if it could be returned if we found that it wasn’t all there. Shockingly, I was told I could return it with my receipt within 14 days. So that kind of motivated us to get busy and work it. The 90-degree temps we have had here in the midwest lately was motivating too, along with the new ceiling fan we install in the living room. Note we pushed the table with the puzzle directly under the said ceiling fan and did so mostly for the lighting, but knowing we could stay cool didn’t hurt either. As we began sorting the pieces to find all the edges, I decided this had the potential to be a sharable experience, so I took photos along the way just to share with my readers. It occurred to me that maybe not everyone works puzzles the way we do, and if you don’t perhaps this will help you rethink the way you have always worked them or encourage you to start working them for the first time.

So here is the puzzle in its box. I have to tell you this is of the particular type that Hubby and I really enjoy working. It is a fun picture with so much chaos going on in it. Every time we work it, we will see different things.

So when I met Hubby’s family and they asked if I liked to work jigsaw puzzles, I said sure. Then they pulled out an assortment of every baking sheet and pan they owned and started laying out the pieces. I was in shock. Who does this? It changed the way I work puzzles. Hubby got the stack of six lined and matching cookie sheets from his mother as a gift one time. It is super handy to have all the puzzle pans the same size and stackable. The lining was needed because the pans are slick Teflon coated and without it, the pieces would slide all over the place. The white also makes the pieces stand out better in my opinion.

Just start setting the pieces out on the tray close together, keeping the edges out to work the frame first.

This is what a full tray looks like.

This was a 1,500 piece puzzle and six trays were NOT enough, even with the edges removed. So the pieces on the table are the edges we found. We thought this was all of them, but, of course, we were wrong. The ones left in the box would need to wait until we made room on the trays to spread them out too.

I personally gather a bunch of similarly colored pieces together and start trying to fit them together. In this case, I was looking for the sand colors. I have found that it really helps to turn them all the same direction. In the photo above, note that all the flat edges are up.

In the photo above we were looking for the puffs of smoke along the road. It would be easier to have all the sand color going in the same direction.

The basic frame is complete, or mostly anyway. We always keep the box nearby to reference, especially with the chaotic picture puzzles we like to work.

However you work the puzzle, from here on out, it involves searching the tray for pieces you need then looking at the next tray. This is nice because several people can be working the puzzle at the same time and everyone can be searching a different tray for the pieces they are looking for.

I began to wonder if it would be a good idea to kind of sort the various colors on different trays, so I made this tray of red, pink, orange and similarly colored pieces. it was a bit chaotic, and this drove Hubby crazy, but I kind of liked knowing that if the piece was even a little bit in the red family, it would be on this tray. I kind of tried to do the same with the greens and browns, but Hubby was on to me so I had to act like that was purely accidental.

As the trays got emptier, we condensed the pieces and set the empty trays aside out of the way. As the puzzle gets closer to being worked, it gets easier to find the right piece because there are so few to look through. In the case of this used piece, we kept thinking all the way until the end that there would be missing pieces. Two were missing when the trays and table were empty of loose pieces, so we looked on the floor and all around the area where we were working. Eventually, we found the other two pieces. We had many days and hours of puzzle time both together and individually. What a bargain! We will most definitely work this puzzle many more times over the next few years.

I almost forgot to tell you that when you take this puzzle apart, you take off the edge pieces and keep them separate from the rest of the puzzle pieces by storing them in a plastic bag or large envelope to make the start of working the puzzle again that much easier.

This has been my “take” on cheap summer fun. Do you work puzzles the way we do? If not, let me know what you think of our method, or share your way in the comments below. Maybe we can learn something new from you. Enjoy! If you don’t have a puzzle to work, you can always borrow one of ours, we have a couple dozen to choose from.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Take
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Depth Year, Family, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Cheap Summer Fun
May 30 2019

25 More Facts About Me

Today is the 5th Thursday in May, so that means it is Blogger’s Choice. So I thought you might like to learn a few more things that you might not have known about me. So here goes:

  1. I have been hooked on Genealogy since the 5th grade
  2. I have coded hundreds of websites using HTML and Notepad
  3. I love solving problems and finding more efficient ways to get things done
  4. I love to read books (I usually read over 150 books a year)
  5. My new favorite way to read is listening to audio-books
  6. I’ve been sewing since the 2nd grade
  7. I named both our kids (with approval on the names from Hubby)
  8. I can avoid most sweets unless there is pumpkin or chocolate involved
  9. I have hand-fed wild squirrels (and have the YouTube videos to prove it)
  10. I can’t dance, but I still try
  11. I struggle with self-confidence
  12. I am the 2nd of 4 kids, the middle girl (I grew up believing there was nothing special about me)
  13. I have never tried smoking anything, ever
  14. I have had less than 8 oz alcohol my entire life (most of that was due to spiked blue wedding punch)
  15. I used to be a model (hair model for SuperCuts, think free haircuts from trainees)
  16. I once broke a bone in my foot then broke 4 more because I kept walking on it and had no clue it was broken
  17. I took Spanish from 5th through10th grades and even a semester in college but never learned to speak it
  18. I enjoy playing Pokemon (the video games, not card game)
  19. I am a low maintenance spouse (cheap to keep)
  20. I have never had a manicure or pedicure by a person that was paid to do the job
  21. I used to have long hair
  22. I can no longer get permanents in my hair (it makes my scalp peel and gives me a chemical burn)
  23. I am an introvert
  24. I slept in a Honda Civic on my wedding night
  25. I once played a yellow candle in a school holiday play

So, now that you likely know way more than you ever wanted to about me, you can go to the About Me page to learn even more. If you know me, perhaps you realized a few things I have neglected to mention. Feel free to send me a message or post them in the comments below. Stayed tuned, I may do this again in a couple more years.

Category: Confidence, Depth Year | Comments Off on 25 More Facts About Me
May 16 2019

What Matters Most

When it comes to organizing, one of the most important things we can ever make the effort to organize is our lives. Get your ducks in a row. Get your sh*t together. However you say it, you need to actually DO it. I recently had the privilege of listening to my library’s copy of the audiobook, What Matters Most by Chanel Reynolds (affiliate link). None of us is getting any younger. We all think we are too young to need a will. I know I thought this back in the early nineties when our kids were still babies. We loved our kids, so we did it anyway. We went to a lawyer and had our wills drawn up, the whole nine yards. It was such a relief. It wasn’t terribly painful or even all that expensive when you consider the peace of mind it gave us. But here we are some twenty-five-ish years later with the same wills, never giving them a thought. When your life changes and your family grows up, things like our last wishes need to change too. We need to update them to reflect the life stage we are in now, the assets we have the people in our lives. All of these things change with time and as we age.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but I will say that this book is written by someone who went through the worst and lived to tell about it and use it to help others learn from her mistakes or oversights. She even includes a 31-page checklist that you can use to get your own sh*t together before you find you needed to but never got around to it.

There is a website called Cake that helps you through the process and gets you started.

If, like me, you still have work to do in the Get Your Shit Together department, you really SHOULD read this book. This book was published 3/19/2019, so it is likely to be the most current book on the subject. Do you have to read the book? Of course not, but it is an excellent book, so why wouldn’t you read it. Ms. Reynolds has shared the most painful part of her life with us (when she was too young to have to deal with this sort of thing) in order to show us how important this is. You could just click on all the links, download the checklist and work your way through it, but it won’t seem as imperative to get this stuff done if you don’t read the book. If there is ANYone in your life that depends on you or that you depend on, just do it. Do it for them, do it for yourself, but you need to do it.

Each of the links on this page leads to an awesome resource to help you through this process. By sharing them with all of you in this post, I can no longer use the excuse of having forgotten or lost them. With any luck, I will have spurred at least one person to get their sh*t together because I took the time to share this subject with you here.

Feel free to check back in with me and keep at me until I can honestly say everything is in order and up to date. Hold me accountable, please! I have mentioned to Hubby that we REALLY need to update these legal papers, and sooner rather than later. Maybe we need to make a list of all the things we have been putting off that we need to do during a typical business day and then make the appointments and take that day off work together and just get it all done. Our reward for a day of doing stuff that sounds like something less than fun could be dinner and a movie afterward.

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Category: Book Review, Depth Year, Goals, Organizing, Planning, Review | Comments Off on What Matters Most
February 7 2019

Bullet Journal Update

I thought I would check in and let you know how I am doing with bullet journaling. This year marks my third year using the Leuchtturm1917 A5 sized dot grid notebook in the purple color as my bullet journal. I am happy with this notebook but would have been fine trying a different notebook this year as well. I was gifted all of these notebooks, and they really are great. This year, I was also gifted all four packs of the Zebra Mildliner markers that I had been wanting to try for so long. That is twenty colors of highlighters in all, though some colors are very similar. I decided to try to use these markers as much as possible in my bullet journal this year. Here are a couple of examples, nothing fancy.

The weather and life have gotten in the way of a few of my crochet meetings, so I am kind of behind on crocheting hats this year.

Each of the last two years, I have made a double page spread to record the books I read. Then sometime during the year that fills up and I need to create a second spread further back in my bullet journal. So this year I got busy and created a four-page spread all together in the front area. I also liked the idea of coloring every other line with the highlighters to add color and visual interest, so I made each page alike but used four different colors for the lines. It isn’t perfect, but I rather like the casual messiness of how these pages turned out. I discovered that the highlighters worked better when I put them on the page first then use the black around or on top of them. This is taking a bit of getting used to.

Yes, I have read a few books already, but as you can see they are almost all audiobooks, which are much faster because they allow me to read while I commute and do household chores. At this rate, I might fill all those lines and still need to make another spread before the year ends.

I have also been experimenting with my weekly spreads using the mild liners in various ways.

Yep, I made a mistake on the dates, but I just fixed it and moved on. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The spread above is a combination of one highlighter and 2 colors of my PaperMate Flair markers left from last year.

The spread above allowed me to use the yellow Flair pen I rarely use along with the highlighter. I think it turned out alright.

It is a little tricky figuring out what you will want to highlight ahead of time and putting the color down first, but it is coming along.

I am also keeping four colors in a pack by themselves so I can always find them to record my tracking.

I decided to do something slightly different with most of my trackers this year and that is to fill the box completely for doing a little more. As you can see I am a bit behind logging in these trackers, but everything in them is found in my weekly spreads so I can fill them in later. This is an example of my going deeper by using the familiar tracker spread but tracking in it in a deeper way and giving myself extra credit when I go above and beyond.

In case you are wondering I have been counting my physical therapy as strength training which explains a couple of things. I have been extra busy because of all the extra time this takes from my schedule. I also got more exercise in January this year than I did most of last year combined. Hey, I’m a work in progress, so don’t judge me too harshly!

I am still enjoying the bullet journal system and adapting it to meet my needs. I DO feel like it has helped me get more done and accomplish so many more goals than before I started paying attention to the goals I set at various times throughout the year. If you haven’t tried using a bullet journal yet, what are you waiting for? Grab any notebook and writing utensil and get started.

I’d love to hear about your adventures in bullet journaling and especially like to see your spreads, so feel free to share, please.

 

Category: Bullet Journal, Depth Year | Comments Off on Bullet Journal Update
January 17 2019

Better (Five Minute Friday)

It’s been a couple of weeks and I am kind of out of the habit of regularly writing already. So, let’s get better about writing a couple of times a week and see what happens.

The start of any new year makes all of us want to be better and do better at whatever our goals are. This year I struggled with choosing the right word to guide my year, and to be honest, I still don’t know what my word is for sure. I’m leaning toward “finish”. I know I want to try to follow the ideas from the article I read recently, Go Deeper, Not Wider, by David Cain, which was brought to my attention by Burgess Taylor in the video below. (THANKS, Burgess!)

Watch from about 0:55 to 2:00 to hear more about it.

Basically, the “Depth Year” is a year to use what you have instead of buying new stuff, finish projects you’ve started and set aside, learn more about subjects you are already familiar with instead of some new shiny thing. I think this will be better for me. “A big part of the Depth Year’s maturing process would be learning to live without regular doses of the little high we get when we start something new. If we indulge in it too often, we can develop a sort of “sweet tooth” for the feeling of newness itself.”

I am really excited about going in depth this year. I already know I want to dive back into genealogy research. I have been out of it for too long. I might want to branch out with my crochet for charity and do something besides hats, or maybe at least try a new pattern or two. I would also like to bring some closure to the numerous novels I have started writing and written enough to win NaNoWriMo, but never even reread after November was over. I’m not saying this is the year any of them get published, but I need to make myself read them, examine them, decide if they should be forever shut away in some dark drawer, or edited and rewritten until they are ready to query perhaps. I feel like this depth year will be a great way to practice being fearless (2017) and having confidence (2018) which were my most recent words of the year.

So I encourage you to read the article, it is only one page long. I wanted to keep it handy, so I shrunk it down, printed it out and glued it inside my new 2019 bullet journal after the yearly calendar and before the index/contents. Yes, it is that important to me. I want to reread it often to stay focused on my depth year. So, what do YOU think? Does finish sound like the right word for me in 2019? Can you think of a better choice? I’m open to suggestions, please email me directly or leave a comment below. Please subscribe using the box in the side margin so you can get notified by email when I post something here and feel free to check in and ask what I have gone in depth on. Should I choose something new each month? Each quarter maybe? If you been here long, what do you think I should choose to go in-depth on first?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Better
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Depth Year, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Better (Five Minute Friday)