Mixed Bag Of A Day

Hi Dear Folk,

Not sure if today was a fruitful day, it was a bit of a mixed bag.  I had a 10:15 am appointment with the dentist for a biannual cleaning, which all went well.  My last one under this insurance, before retiring.

Drove over to Sam's Club, there is not one near me, only to arrive there thirty-five minutes later to find out I could not return the item, an iPad case that landed up being the wrong size for my older iPad, even though I had the receipt, because I did not have the member card, I had purchased it under a friend's member card, when out with her.

Being rather bummed out at that point, I stopped off at Clothes Mentor, found a nice grey cardigan, Jones of NY, 30% off for summer which will go with a couple of my skirts.  Also a Jones of NY top and some crazy Betsy Johnson fish earnings, I think you'll like them.  Clothes Mentor is an up scale chain for profit thrift store.

Home, and then my sis BB phoned, so a chat with her, about dates of the Boy's and Tierney's arrival, which is fast approaching.

Mr B. got home and we took out the wood that he had bought in for the fire, but we had never used, plus we had to restock the wood pile from the wheel barrow of wood which was by the door, because although chilly this evening I am using my gas stove in the Simla Room and not our wood fireplace, now the fire needs cleaning up.

Also a neighbor left us a note, that they had wood for us.  After the tree people Asplungh, who subcontract with the telephone people, to cut down all branches that will pull their wires down, they decided that their two maple trees had been so decimated by them over the years, that they might as well chop them down all together.  So Mr. B. and I transported wood back to our wood pile for next winter.  I must say since we installed the new gas furnace we do not use our wood stove as much.  I think next winter I will burn it more as will be at home more.  Also roped back a flowering bush that was decimated in the snow storms, one whole center section was broken, so will take a while to come back to where it was.

After the winter it takes so much time and effort to bring the garden round to where I want it to be.  I don't think of the overall garden, or the task of cleaning up would seem too monumental.  I just go one area at a time and take joy that that is done and move on to the next.

I know I'm procrastinating on the sewing of my 1920's dress and I shouldn't be, don't know what's wrong with me.  It is now all cut out.  Last Wednesday I cut it out on the floor, and it has been many years since I have cut out a pattern, so have now come to the conclusion, that this old body cannot crawl around on the wood floor cutting out a pattern.  Even with a cushion my knees don't feel the same.  I'll have to get my two long fold up tables which have been at my friends house for at least five years in her garage.  They got left there after a party and she hasn't sorted the garage and up until now we had no need of them, so they just sat.

Have been crocheting a Bruge lace stitch scarf and I'm thrilled with an idea I came up with for one of my crochet hats.  I was not happy with the frilled crochet edge and was fiddling, pinning and coming up with ideas to make it work and "bam" an idea sprang into my mind and love it, it so makes the hat.  It's just pinned at the moment but will work on that another time and take photos.

Got a letter today in reference to Mr. B's pension.  Up until about ten years ago he had a Union job, so with that goes a pension, so few people get a pension today.  Since there are less and less Union jobs there are less and less pensions.  In any case that's not the point.  A couple of years ago the company offered to buy out his pension.  We discussed this and decided it was a bad idea.  It turns out it would have been a very bad idea, because in two years he would get back what they offered in the buy out.  But there must be some people who go for it, or they wouldn't offer it.  I remember they did the same at my dad's job in the UK, and my dad's wise words and thinking on the matter came back to me.

That was my Saturday.  How was yours?

Christine

Influence or Inspire?

Hi Dear Folk,

Do you like Blogs that Inspire or Influence?

I started Blogging in 2008, and since then we have seen many Blogs come and go.  When I started it was a sharing of ideas, a little snippet into a person's life all over the world and I found that to be stimulating and thought provoking, because these were shared lives, family, home and crafts.  Very down to earth.

Somewhere along the line people saw the potential to make money, as with everything to be as they like to call it an Influencer.  Now some Blogs seem to be able to balance the two seamlessly, but others with all their pop ups become intrusive.

Really what is an influencer?

From the word influence - Medieval Latin influentia emanation of power from the stars, from Latin influere to flow into, from fluere to flow.

Influencer - Individuals who have the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of their (real or perceived) authority, knowledge, position, or relationship.  In consumer spending, members of a peer group or reference group act as influencers.

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on influential people rather than the target market as a whole.  It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers and orients marketing activities around these influences.  To affect or change how someone or something develops, behaves, or thinks.

Yvonne on Yvestown Blog wrote about this here

She writes about how she is a blogger who wants to inspire, but somehow got dragged into a lot of roles, one being known as an Influencer and she said she thought that was the way to go, but doesn't want to anymore.  Yvonne has decided to take a different direction in life and open the Yvestown Tea Room and Shop. Always a great idea in my book.

Personally nobody is going to influence me to spend what I don't want to spend, but I really do get fed up of Xing out those darn popups.

How do you feel about this?

Christine

Comcast Building, Philadelphia

Hi Dear Folk,

This photo today of the Comcast Building Headquarters in Philadelphia.  Comcast has put in a bid for Sky Network, 31 Billion I think.  Fox and Comcast are in a bidding war.

The building melts into the sky.  One more month left in the city, up until now it has been so cold and dull, but everything is beginning to awaken after a long winter, so a few lunch time walks are in order.

Christine

My Week In Pics

Hi Dear Folk,

It's Sunday morning and everyone seems pretty worn out from a long week.  Tierney is down for the weekend and they've been busy.  They went over to the King of Prussia Mall, which is actually the largest retail mall in the States.  If I get over there once a year I would say that's the most I ever visit, not my thing and way too expensive, but interesting to wander around if you've never been, and occasionally I have got a bargain.

The other Saturday my friend and I went over to Produce Junction and I picked a few plants up besides veg and fruit.  This Bromeliad, which I actually love in the brass pot on my Indian table.  Pot might need a little cleaning, will add that to my list.

Rearranged a few things when I was cleaning out a corner of my Simla room.

A little posy of flowers from my garden, I love this old vase split in two.

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm sitting in the Simla room crocheting when my friend Janice phones, she says "Weren't you meant to be at Joni's this afternoon?"  I said "Was I?"  she said "Yes, the get together!"  I had totally forgotten.  Fortunately my friend Joni has moved into an apartment just half a block up.  In fact we've been helping her pack up and move for the last couple of months.  So I got ready and walked over.  So glad I didn't miss out on that.  Honest to goodness, don't know where my mind is.

It was very nice to be with old friends, who I have known since I first came to live in the States in 1976, we have a lot of shared history, travels and fun with each other.  Lots of laughs.  Some friends live right in the area others in Delaware and up in the Amish Country.

My friend Joni keeps everything and still had the original receipt, typed, from the travel agency for our trip to California, including four air tickets, one week's hotel room in San Francisco and rental car for two weeks, total $1,500.00, $350.00 per person. Our three week trip to CA back in August 1977, in fact the year Elvis died, we were in our hotel room when it was announced on the news.  One week in San Francisco, out to Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, back to the coast and Big Sur, down to San Simeon and LA to visit friends, out to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, back to LA and home.   A potted outline of our travels.

Also she had a map of the UK with our 1978 trip all marked out where we travelled, and where we stayed. My mum had got us an old Hillman Imp to use, Joni my sister BB and I travelled up to Yorkshire, across to the Lake District, down to North Wales, back out to Bristol and down to Devon, where we met my parents at Clovelly, a prearranged meeting place.  Remember no cell phones.

Our old car had a few problems, which we had to have seen to on the way.  Sunday evening about one hour from Clovelly while I was driving, the engine blows going up a hill, I just had enough momentum to swing it into a Pub parking lot which was right there.  We asked if we could leave the car there and they said yes.

What are we going to do?  We started to hitch a lift, the one and only time I've done that, or in fact any of us.  A nice guy from the RAF base picks us up and drives us all the way to meet my parents in Clovelly, where we continued on with our holiday for another week.  Mum had got the AAA relay coverage on the car and they picked it up and took it all the way home.  Amazing when your young how you take everything in your stride.  Of course you've got mum and dad who help, lovely memories and to recall the details of our trip together, while pouring over the map.

This weekend has been sunny, but most of the week was cold and dull, but at least my cooking was bright.  Sweet potato and beets.

Shepherds pie, with a few left overs thrown in, oyster mushrooms which are very dense, I tried them for the first time this week, in a salad and the left overs went in here, along with a sweet potato topping odd veg on top and cheddar and asiago cheese.  Tasty.

Christy

Love of Words

Hi Dear Folk,

I love words, how they sound, what they mean and where they originate from.  A couple of words I ran across this week are:

Shambolic - Chaotic, Disorganized, Mismanaged.

Woodshedding - To practice or hone skills, applied to music, periods of intense practice privately in the woodshed.

This could be applied to any creative endeavor, the mulling over, sifting of ideas, refining, until the creative form is given birth to.

A word I just like the sound of is -

Reciprocity - The practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit.

Do you love words?

Christine

Catch Up!

Hi Dear Folk,

View from my office this morning.

I feel like time is flying by, on the other hand it seems still some long days until I retire, which I just have to get through.  Busy training someone at work.  Feeling over whelmed by the weather, lack of spring cleaning and lack of any gardening what so ever.

I need to get stuck into my Dress Like Your Grandma dress that I chose, but before that could happen the sewing machine had to be liberated, which meant de-clutting the corner of my Simla Room, and of course that uncovered all sorts of cleaning jobs, which meant I spent a whole day moving the sewing machine cabinet, cleaning the glass sliding doors behind that and all the door jambs and that was only inside and just one corner.  Some semblance of order has been bought to my sewing corner, but now the sitting room is a mess until I sort out where I need to stash all the yarn, fabrics and other sewing things.  When you have an old small house it's always a juggle of where to put things, plus I'm a bit of a collector.

Must, must cut out my pattern this weekend and then sit down to sewing it up.  Also need to work out if I need to make alterations to the size of the old 1920's pattern that I bought.  I do want to do it, but time is in short supply for me at the moment.

Saturday week, shot up to 78f , from freezing to 78f, it's hard to keep up with those kind of lows and highs, and will only make me want to be out in my garden and I've got too many other things going on for that.  Now has been down in thirties, cold, dull and windy.  Seeing the sun today.

Hope your weekend is great.

Christine

I'm Working on the Irresistible

Hi Dear Folk,

I'm going to keep this in mind.

Little black dress is the go to number.

Classic Channel tweed suit for any season

Tea Dyed Glovelette

Hi Dear Folk,

Another soggy dull day.  Last week I caught a terrible cold or may have even been flu, so was off work three days with that.  I had already scheduled Monday to get our taxes done at the library, so had to soldier on.  What a fiasco that was with their government software that would only take certain ID codes.  Long and the short is we couldn't get are taxes done, which really made my day.  I said well will do them myself, got all my W2's entered online when the darn thing froze up.  By then I was done, so phoned an accountant who was recommended and said did she have time for me to drop off my taxes and she did.  Mr. B and I drove over and dropped them off.

Today we just finished signing everything so is a done deal what a relief.  But not good because the Boy is no longer a deduction and we got whammed big time.  Next year we will be better off under the new tax law but I feel bad for families because they are so much worse off under the new tax law. The American Dream of owning ones own house and having a family is hit big time, it's a sad state of affairs.  Rich people never could deduct their dependents because they made too much.

I am wishing for some sun and feel somewhat blue coming out of what has seemed a long winter.  As I had to go to another town to get my taxes done, not somewhere on my beaten track, I stopped off at a produce and plant store that I like, but don't usually get the time to drive over to.  I cheered myself up by getting a lovely orchid and also a pink hydrangea which I will plant out in the garden.

Minuture daffodils from my garden, a little past their best, what a burst of color.

This is my latest project, I think I can call it a glovelette, for evening wear.  I started off with an old battenburg lace doily that had seen better days, in fact it was in the trash basket when I had this brain wave, so took it out and tea dyed it.  Bought some brocade and dug into my store of beads, and this is what I came up with.

I hope to wear it with a grey blue calf length tea dress I have, I think they will look nice.  Maybe wear them on my cruise one night.  A girl has to have some bling.  Maybe a pedicure and work on those hands.

I'm busy at work training the new employee and find it most tiring.  Yes it's time.

Hope you have cheer in your day.

Christine

PS:  I have to tell you this because it so blew my mind.  My son needs some special cream, prescribed by the doctor, when he went to pick it up from the pharmacist he said it cost $600.00 yes you read that right six hundred dollars, because it is only made by one pharmaceutical company and they have the monopoly.  It would have been $700.00 but his health insurance would pay for the $100.00 big deal!  Really the government allows this?