The Latter Half of 2014

My modest snowman collection, which I'm leaving up through the end of February

The last few months my life got caught up in a whirlwind.  Some of it was good.  My daughter played volleyball for a small team, and we spent August through October going to practices and games all over rural north Texas.  They mostly played small public schools, a few privates and a few homeschool teams.  One school was so small it wasn't even located in a town - just a building in the middle of some fields.

This precipitated lots of driving on my part, but as long as the drives are primarily rural, I don't mind. It actually is stress-relieving to be in the car and at the games, because there is nothing else you can do but BE there, all the other pressures and responsibilities of life temporarily melt away.  (As an aside, I took one of those little personality quizzes on Facebook, and one thing that rang true about myself that I hadn't previously thought of is that I am a very in-the-moment kind of person.  I'm not looking to move on to the next thing; I'm just happy being in the moment I'm in.  Which has its pros and cons.......).

There were so many things I wish I could have taken a photo of to show rural Texas to you:  oil pumps bobbing their heads up and down like some kind of dinosaur relics; wind farms; LOTS of cattle, longhorn and otherwise; LOTS of horses, too.  The trees are much less in number here than in the east of the U.S., but the ones we have tend to be low and spreading, majestic in their own way.  Rolling countryside, and of course, the big sky. Also, the little towns, often with a traditional square.  I enjoyed it all so much, which confirmed that I am definitely a small-town girl at heart.

I live NEAR rural Texas, but not really in it.  I personally live too close to what I call "subdivision hell", where huge look-alike houses completely cover their lots and are built so close together you could hop from roof to roof, and highways look like mazes and traffic jams are all too daily. There is beauty to be found there too, but getting out and away from all that was a balm to my senses.

Unfortunately for the blog, I had to enjoy all this rural beauty without any photos, as I was the driver and I was speeding down the highways (one nice thing about Texas is that you can drive fast, speed limits are sometimes 75mph!), and while the stress was less, there was still a volleyball player pushing me to get to our destination on time: no dilly-dallying!!

The volleyball season ended at the end of October in a national tournament in Springfield, Missouri.  My daughter, my two youngest sons and I went for a long weekend.  Her team won the title for their division in the tournament, which was very exciting and a great ending to the season.

I assumed things were about to slow down, but when we returned to Texas, life took another turn.  First of all, we had a very disruptive bug infestation, which was a major deal and I will talk about that at some later point.  Then, my husband needed surgery, which he had right before Thanksgiving.  He is doing fine now, but it was two months before he could eat normally.  The first couple of weeks everything had to be liquified, and I was glad I had the Ninja blender!  Then, right after his surgery, his dad's health, which has been precarious for several years, started plummeting. My husband did have good talks with him on the phone, but he couldn't go see his dad because he was still unable to travel.  Hospice was called in, but less than a week later his dad just went to sleep for a couple of days and then went on home to heaven.  This is actually what we were praying would happen.  We didn't want his dad to have to suffer in pain, and he was ready to go.

However, the memorial service had to be postponed until we were able to travel to Tennessee (and my sister-in-law who lives in Florida could travel), and my other sister-in-law who lives in Tennessee had a son who was getting married right before Christmas, so they rolled the wedding and the memorial service into one long weekend, the weekend before Christmas.  Like I've said before, these major life events are spread far enough apart that my two younger sons had grown again and therefore had no appropriate clothes to wear, so they got new suits out of the deal.  My daughter made herself a dress for the wedding, which will eventually get blogged, and I wore a lace dress  I made a couple of years ago.

There were many misadventures along the way and while we were there, which probably best remain unblogged (sometimes family stories need to stay in the family, at least for a few years;).  The two-day drive was grueling, and it was also sad because now there is only one grandparent left.  But it was good to see family - however briefly - and it was good to hear from so many people who had loved my father-in-law.

We wanted to be back home in time for Christmas, so we pushed through and pulled back into town about 2:30 p.m. Christmas Eve.  I didn't even go to the house.  I had them drop me off at the grocery store and then my husband came back and got me.  I rushed around Kroger (along with everybody else in town!) and grabbed stuff to festive up the holiday.  I went home and in about an hour made sugared pecans, peppermint bark, sausage balls, fudge, and some other stuff I can't even remember now.  Suffice it to say that I amazed myself, even though my family took it in stride!

Christmas came and went.  Uncharacteristically, we had wrapped most of the gifts before our trip East, we actually had outside lights up and our tree had been up since the weekend after Thanksgiving.  All that helped since we had so few hours to get ready to celebrate. I was also uncharacteristically efficient after Christmas: all the decorations were taken down and put away by New Year's.  I left the snowmen up through January February because they are cheerful and can be considered 'winter decorating'.  So far though this winter has been very cloudy and gloomy but snow-less.........

I do think we should consider hibernating during the winter.  Everything feels like a slog. Too much death in 2014 for me; too much grief. It is still a bit difficult to look at 2015 with hopeful eyes, instead of wondering what unhappy events lie in wait around the corner. Which is not a good attitude on my part, and not one I want to have!  This year I will reach the half-century mark, which is also daunting, mostly because I don't feel like I 'have arrived' or 'have it all together' or anything like that.

Thankfully, my hope is not in myself and my coping abilities or accomplishments, but in God who holds all things in His hands.  My desire for 2015 (and following) is to find joy in the midst of the uncertainty and the messes and the bumbling along of me in my life.  I want to enjoy my family, my home, cooking, making things, working here and there, gardening, friends, church, nature, etc. All these and more are good gifts, and "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" - James 1:17."  There are good gifts every single day.  I want to have eyes to see the gifts and the Giver, and to let my heart be glad.

 "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." - Psalm 118:24

"Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, rejoice." - Philippians 4:4 KJV

A Short Stop on the Around the World Blog Hop

Beverley (also known as BeaJay) of On the Road to Sew Wear has graciously nominated me for the 'Around the World Blog Hop.'  BeaJay is a relatively new sewist who has sewn up lots of great Style Arc  patterns, many of them especially for workwear.  She lives in Australia (where Style Arc patterns are native) and I'm jealous of all the fun get-togethers Aussie sewists seem to have!
Anyway, this particular blog hop is more focused on the actual creative process, and if you would like to know a bit more about BeaJay, you can read her answers here.

There are four questions to be answered.

1.  What am I working on?  

From L to R:  white batting on back of lining, black nylon lining, silver and black coat fabric

Having just finished a summer dress right at the beginning of fall, I am trying to get ahead of the season (for once) by working on my first coat.  The pattern is Katherine Tilton's Butterick 5960, a duster style with no closures.  I know I will wear this style because I have had a similar maroon coat for probably 20 years and I still wear it.  I love this kind of coat over jeans and with boots.  I am using a silver and black rose-printed double-knit ($4 thrift store purchase!) for the outer layer, and am lining it with a black quilted nylon fabric that I bought off ebay.  This is somewhat experimental for me, but so far, so good.

2.  How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Not much.  There are lots and lots of great sewing blogs out there.  I will say I don't totally consider this to be a sewing blog.  I am interested in lots of things -- quilting, crochet, sewing clothing, aging, personal history, travel, Christian faith, cooking, etc. - and I purposely chose a broad title for my blog so that I can put any of that in that I choose.  Currently my time is rather squeezed, with five teenagers/young adults still at home, so I have mostly been keeping my sanity by sewing clothes. This is something my daughter and I are enjoying together.

As far as sewing goes, one small difference is that I'm sewing for a rectangular/cylindrical/brick-shaped (pick an adjective) figure.  Most sewing blogs that I have found are working around other figure issues.  A lot are curvy and/or petite, and are making adjustments for that.  I, on the other hand, am tall, non-curvy, and not particularly thin;)  I'm also approaching the big half-century mark next year.  So if this is the kind of sewing role model you need.......

3.  Why do I write/create what I do?

I will start with sewing.  I come from a long line of creative women.  Almost all of them were poor, but they did beautiful needlework, quilting, sewing, cooking, gardening, etc.  I grew up believing that what women did was make things and feed people, and on some level that's how I still operate.

I knew how to sew but was discouraged by a very temperamental sewing machine.  When it finally broke, I began to research blogs about vintage machines (I eventually got a Singer 401A, which I love).  It so happens that a lot of vintage machine owners also sew clothing, and from there I became a reader of sewing blogs.  What a revelation!  There were all these people -- all ages, shapes, styles, skill levels, countries -- who made their own clothing and then wrote about it - with photos!  It had been since the early 1990s that I personally knew someone who sewed clothing for adults.  Sewing blogs gave me access to a community of technical help, style inspiration, and friendly faces.  And finally I lived in a town that actually had a fabric store. So I jumped in!

I was already blogging about other crafty things - quilts, bags, toys, etc.  However, it was a leap to post about the clothes I was making.  If you don't read sewing blogs, then sewing posts (featuring yourself modeling the clothes you've made, no less) might seem a little bit odd. It can feel a little vulnerable and a little exposed.  However, I love reading and seeing what others have made, and I love that they are real people with real lives and real bodies.  I find that to be empowering, liberating and encouraging.   In fact, I rarely read magazines any more because it is so much more inspiring for me to see and read what these real people have been up to.  I decided to be as brave as these other sewists.

Besides, it is fun to share what I make with others who like to make things. And hopefully somebody will think, "if she can do it, so can I."

4.  How does my writing/creating process work?

I get most of my inspiration from sewing blogs and Pattern Review.  Also I keep a style inspiration file on my pinterest board.  I do almost all my sewing from McCalls, Vogue, Butterick, New Look and Simplicity patterns.  I'm not opposed to other pattern companies; it's just that these are affordable and I can buy them locally, and I really haven't had many problems with them.  I try to keep the patterns catalogued on my pinterest boards too, and if you look you will see that I have WAY too many, but I am buying them for both me and my daughter, and the truth is, a lot of the fun of sewing is in the dreaming of possibilities:)

I start with either the pattern or the fabric, but usually they are not purchased at the same time.  The patterns are only purchased during a sale, so I buy any I am interested in then.  In general I try to only buy fabric for a specific project, but there are a few fabrics that I just had to have (like here), and the idea of what to do with them comes later.  I make exceptions for any usable fabrics I find at the thrift store; I go ahead and buy those.  (Despite these policies, I have amassed a considerable fabric stash!)  With sewing (unlike crochet and quilting) I am a one-project-at-a-time gal.  It just gets too chaotic otherwise and this forces me to finish things instead of giving up when I run into problems (which is almost always:)  I am a slow sewer -- I have to work in small bits and pieces of time -- so it takes me awhile to get things done.  I also usually take my own photographs, and there can be a big gap of time between finishing an item and getting it photographed.
.
The actual writing of blog posts usually begins with the photos.  Then I blather on about the construction details.  It may not be the most exciting content, but I try to include information that will help me (and possible readers) if I decide to make this particular pattern again. This is also a good way for me to keep a record of my projects.

My very very favorite part of blogging (and why it is so different from keeping a private journal) is the interaction with others and the making of friends.  One such friend is Coco of Coco's Loft, and I am passing the blog hop baton over to her. Coco is a beautiful lady, inside and out.  I love what she makes, and she also occasionally shares about her life in South Florida.  I married a native Floridian and two of my children were born in Florida, so seeing her posts reminds me of those days - in a good way.  Be sure to give her a visit:)

Postscript

A large rainbow that appeared over my neighborhood this past spring

It has been awhile since I posted.  I have to confess that for the last few years I have been feeling a bit squeezed by life.  Reading blogs by others (one of the most encouraging to me is Brenda at coffeeteabooksandme and if you haven't read her blog I 'implore you to exert yourself' and give it a try) and blogging myself has been helpful, but sometimes blogging itself gets squeezed out by life.  I have four boys and a daughter, all now teenagers/young adults, ages that bring with them a lot of relational, parental, emotional, and financial challenges.  I love them all to pieces, but I don't always know the best way to maneuver in these difficult waters.  Add to that the reality of aging/dying parents and the awareness of our own growth in years, job stresses, etc. and my husband and I looked at each other one day and said "This must be what a mid-life crisis feels like!"  Hmmm........

I appreciate so much your kind comments about my mother's death.  It is strengthening to have the support of friends.  I just returned from spending a week and a half with my siblings cleaning out my mom's house in Tennessee.  As an adult I have never lived in a house with a basement and often lamented that fact.  I am rethinking that now:)  Apparently, a basement is a place where you can just put all the things you don't know what to do with, and after 30 plus years in the same house.......let's just say my brothers became very good friends with the man who ran the dump!  We didn't get completely finished, but we made a good dent in it.  We each chose some things to keep (and I am now trying to fit my treasures into my house), and the rest will go into an estate sale.

We coped emotionally because the work just kept driving us forward.  We didn't have much time for meditation.  We boxed up the photos and decided that maybe next summer we will get together to go through them - there was no way we would have been able to do them this time.  My two brothers and my sister and I all get along very well, so while the task was difficult, the time spent together was comforting and relatively stress-free (I just realized I made a pun;)  We really didn't want anyone else to help -- it was a job that needed to be "just us."  We got to spend some good time with my dad and his wife as well, taking him dinner three different times.

There were some fun things.  My brothers and I stayed up late one night laughing at old photos:  all I can say is the 1970s and 1980s were not kind, style-wise......  My sister and I found our wedding dresses and prom dresses (all made by my mom).  Lots of things we had forgotten about.  But a lot of my mom's possessions (her "nice things") were acquired in the last 25 years, after we were all grown and out of the house.  The grandkids associated all the nice things with her, but my siblings and I remember instead the naugahide couch that we used for building forts and for sliding down the stairs on the cushions and things like that.  (For the record, I totally understand waiting until the kids are grown before having nice things because kids break things;)

There were other fun things.  Over the weekend I spent the night with two of my high school friends, and we had a wonderful time staying up til three in the morning reminiscing and catching up.  Also, another friend and her husband came and took me for dinner one night, and a fourth friend came by one afternoon and we spent about an hour catching up.

I thought I would have a little more downtime for memories and driving around significant places, but it was really too busy.  I did spend one night alone in mom's house (I flew to Tennessee, but my husband drove in the next week so he could pack my stuff up in a trailer and we could haul it back to Texas).  That night it was hard to go to sleep -- very, very seldom in my life have I spent the night in a house by myself:)  But as I lay there thinking about life now and life after death, I realized that the things that are the most solid, and most central, and most real, are God's truths.  When life's hard or sad or happy times come round, those truths will hold.  Sometimes Confessions say it best.  Here is Question 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism (1563):

Christian, what is thy only comfort in life and in death? 

That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. 

Also, the words of Paul:

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." - Philippians 1:21 (KJV)

Happy Connections

Last summer I was contacted by email by someone who was searching for an out-of-print pattern, New Look 6751.  She had seen a review I had done of it here and asked if I might be willing to sell the pattern.  I wasn't quite ready to do that, but I suggested she could borrow it, and she took me up on that.  Little did I know that she was in Queensland, Australia!

So, I went down to the post office and sent the pattern off from Texas to Queensland.  I was not in a big hurry to get it back, but in December Christine contacted me saying she had put it in the mail.  We missed a week of mail in December due to an ice storm (hard to believe since this week we are in the sixties), but a little before Christmas I got a fat envelope from Queensland.

I was only expecting the pattern, but when I opened it there was a lovely notecard with a kookaburra and some Christmas paper!

Inside the paper were some lovely gifts.  A beautiful tea towel with a map of Australia (whose photo needs to be rotated but I'm not blogging this from my computer so I don't have access to my photo files at the moment):

Also, this little pouch --

which unzips into a tote bag:

And these adorable little clip-on animals, all icons of Australia:

What a lovely surprise to open all these gifts!  My husband was quite impressed that I had received a gift all the way from Australia.  Thank you, Christine!

I have to say that making these kind of contacts through the internet has been so much fun and so nice!!  It really gives a boost to your day when someone on the complete other side of the world has given you a little thought.  I have always enjoyed making connections with people, and even though a lot of us may never meet in person, it has been (and is) such a pleasure to get to know some of you.

Here's to many more happy connections between us all for 2014!

Under Pressure

Chemical Weathering of Limestone

Inside this mason jar a limestone rock is soaking in vinegar and is slowly disintegrating.  The rock started out much larger and very smooth.  (This is an example of "chemical weathering" for those of you who don't have a student in general science this year;)  I have been observing this rock disintegrate for several weeks now because it is sitting on the windowsill above my kitchen sink.

On the other end of the windowsill is a different mason jar filled with dirt, sand, gravel, and water.  After jostling the mess around for a day or so, the contents of the jar were left to settle and over time they settled into distinct layers.  Most of the sand is on the bottom, then a layer of gravel and dirt, then a layer of light sediment, with fairly clear water on top.

The Laying Down of Sediments

Sitting nearby on the counter is a bowl, which used to contain a big square of pristine steel wool. The steel wool has been transformed into its current state by nothing more dramatic than soaking in household vinegar for a few weeks (just like the limestone rock, a victim of "chemical weathering").

Chemical Weathering of Steel Wool

There was a time I tried to keep fresh flowers on my windowsill, and hopefully that time will come again.  But right now science experiments surround me, and in some sense they serve as metaphors for what is going on internally as well.  A lot of weathering, a lot of rubbing away of sharp points, a lot of transforming.

This fall has been a time of pressure in my home.  Five teenagers/young adults in the house is a lot of food and laundry to keep up with, but just as importantly, it is a lot of conversations.  Conflict resolution conversations, talking-someone-off-the-cliff conversations, listening-to-venting conversations, reassuring conversations, attempts-to-motivate conversations, crisis-avoiding conversations, temper-cooling conversations, faith-building conversations, asking-(and hearing)-questions conversations, late-late-night conversations, late-late-night-waiting-for-the-last-person-to-make-it-home praying conversations.

This has also been a time of increased academic pressure as everyone has more homework, more papers to get done, more decisions about the future to make, etc.  And some students are more motivated than others.....

Financial pressure has also increased this year, a combination of poor planning with some unforeseen and unavoidable expenses.

Plus, I am at the age where I am starting to have health pressures, both my husband and I have parental (our parents) worries, and there is not any one standing in line to buffer any of it anymore.....it's just us.  I have felt very squeeeeeezed.......why?  Well, I need a lot more wisdom, discernment, patience, hope, discipline, authority, energy, frugality, creativity, encouragement, perspective, endurance and love than I've got.

I think I have unconsciously been living my life under the delusion that things will get easier when (substitute whatever) happens, when a new decade arrives. That is not how it works (at least so far as I can tell).  Every season has its good  parts and every season has its hard parts.  Also, everybody's story is different; we don't all have the same burdens, nor the same joys.  It does me no good to compare my story to yours -- I am called to live MY story, and it may require different things from me than yours does from you.

Which brings me back to the limestone rock.  There is another way that limestone rock can change.  If, deep in the earth, it is subjected to intense heat and pressure over a long period of time, it can be transformed, or metamorphosed,  into marble, through a process called 'recrystallization.'  I am hoping that all this pressure will have this good result in me (and everyone else in my family), that the character of Christ is being formed in us.  It is certainly not something that can be seen on a day-to-day basis, but I hope to one day look back and think wow...the Lord has done something beautiful with all of these messy lives.

On my windowsill is one more science experiment:  a bowl of crystals that were formed by dissolving alum powder in water (you can get directions here).  Not quite diamonds and not quite marble, they still are incredibly beautiful. The same God who has power to change things on a molecular level has the power to change people on a spiritual level, bringing forth beauty and order and love and peace and perseverance -- all the fruits of the Spirit -- from people who once walked in darkness.

Alum Crystals

Squished behind all the science experiments on my windowsill is an index-card stand.  For a long, long time the only verse written there has been John 16:33.  Every time I would think about changing it, I would think No, I still need that verse.  I finally feel like I can add another verse, one that has been hanging around my thoughts for awhile, to remind me that God is able to do so much MORE than all that we ask or think:

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.  Amen" -- Ephesians 3:20-21 (KJV)

Shoes for Fun and Work

Last week I found these three pairs of shoes at the thrift store.  They were all cute as a button, in my size, and in great condition, so I snapped them up.  I didn't have to feel a bit guilty since all three pairs together cost me less than $13.  I wasn't particularly looking for shoes, I was looking for jackets (no luck), but when shopping at thrift stores you always have to keep an open mind -- and open eyes -- because you never know what you are going to find.

I love all three pairs but I have to say that I don't necessarily have anything to wear with them (although I have already worn the brown suede pair with the tiny bows).  I am far from a fashionista, and other than church I have a very minimal social life.  But I can afford to be less than practical at the thrift store, and take a little more style risk.

If I want to be totally practical, these are the kind of shoes I really need for my day-to-day life:

In my real life I mostly wear jeans and tops and I am mostly busy doing work around the house, grocery shopping, and running kids hither and yon.  I also spend a lot of time cleaning up messes.  When you live in a house with this many people and two horribly-shedding dogs, it's a job.  This past month has been particularly busy.  My mom had emergency heart surgery, so I flew east to stay with her a little over a week, and since I've been back it's been hard to catch up with everything. (I do have to give my kids credit:  they kept everything going while I was gone and actually did a great job:).

Also this time of year is fraught with birthdays at our house and holidays that have to be prepared for.  My kids requested we have Thanksgiving here this year (last year we went to a friend's house), so I will be doing all the cooking (you people with all the relatives nearby don't know how good you've got it during the holidays).  And I am just not great with the holidays because no matter how old I get, I am always slightly surprised they are already here.  While many of you are happily working on Christmas gifts, I'm still not finished with my summer projects.  Sigh....

 I have to remind myself not to compare, because the reality is I have to make sure there is something to eat and something clean to wear and somewhere semi-clean to be for seven people every day.  And try to keep everyone on an emotional even keel.  It is unrealistic of me (and others) to think that that is not going to take a lot of time.  And that is okay.

Anyway, despite being a perpetually-behind kind of person, and despite being envious of you people who are always prepared :), I have mostly kept up with exercise, I have still done some sewing, and still am plodding along.  I have a little more leisure this week, so I will try to catch up on blog posts and blog reading.  I look forward to seeing what you all have been up to.

I was going to say that my mom is now doing pretty well, but I just got a call that she is back in the hospital.  Prayers are appreciated.  Thanks.

***Update***  11/20/2012 -- My mom is now out of the hospital.  All her heart tests came back good and they think her pain was caused by abnormally tightened muscles in her back, probably due to her surgery and recovery period.  Thank you so much for your prayers. -- Angela

Blogger and iPhoto Woes

A while back Vee had a post where she talked about photo storage for her blog and how we should check ours and how she keeps from using up so much by resizing her pictures.  While I found the discussion interesting, it was all a bit above my head and I thought it didn't really apply to me since I uploaded my photos directly from iPhoto onto my blog.  So I went blithely on my way.

Well, ignorance is NOT bliss, and two weeks ago I got the notice that my Picasa Web Albums file was nearly full (and I have been blogging only a few months, not for years like Vee!).  So, if you too have been blogging "unawares"  here is what I have learned so far (don't laugh even though most of you already know all this).

Blogger keeps all of your uploaded photos on a Picasa Web Album, whether you knew it or not.  You get to it by having your gmail account opened and going to picasaweb.google.com.  There you will see your photos, and at the bottom of the screen it will tell you how much space you have left (you are allowed 1Mb of free space with your blog).  BTW, your photos are not really THERE, they are still wherever you left them, so if you delete them from your original file they will also be deleted from your blog!

I have been doing two things wrong.  First of all, I uploaded photos willy-nilly to the blog because I like to look at them on the preview before I decide what I will actually publish:  the idea being it is easier to take away photos I don't want than to go back and look for more photos to add.  This would have been fine IF I had gone into my Picasa Web Album and DELETED the ones I didn't use, but I never did this because I never even went to my Picasa Web Album at all.  So if you are committing this error, get into your Picasa Web Album and delete those unused photos -- they are wasting valuable space -- even though they are not really there (confused yet?).

The second error I made was uploading directly from iPhoto without resizing.  I click the photo icon when writing my post, go to "choose files" at the top, and then enter my iPhoto Library and choose the photos I wanted to upload. Easy.  BUT when I do this there is no option for resizing the photo, and my photos were uploading often around 4,000 x 3500 (resolution -- is that the right word?).  Apparently a good choice for blog/web photo size is around 800 (-- resolution?) and medium quality -- a big, big difference.

I am not opposed to purchasing extra space from picasa, but the price has gone up ($36/year for 25 GB), and I really don't NEED the extra space yet if my photos were a more realistic size.  Easy fix, right?  I simply need to resize my photos.  But HOW TO DO THIS?

I am hoping there are some straightforward answers, but the search for them has been anything but.  Pretty much any information prior to summer 2012 is obsolete.  Part of the problem is with iPhoto and part is with picasa/blogger.  As far as I can find out, you can only resize photos in iPhoto if you are exporting them.  That's not so bad, as I do want to export them to my Picasa Web Album, but I cannot find out how to do this.  There was a simple plug-in for this that you downloaded from Google, but Google has now done away with this.  Now they want you to download Picasa 3.9 for Mac, but I'm not sure I want to do that.  That seems unnecessarily complicated.

Picasa could make this whole problem a lot easier if they had a setting that you could choose that would automatically resize your photos.  They actually do have this setting -- it's just that they decide when to use it, not you.

So, I have a lot of questions.  Googling for information on this issue has not really gotten me anywhere.  I think I am going to have to break down and go take an iPhoto class from the apple store,  but that's kind of a pain because it's an hour or more away.  If you have any answers or corrections, please send them my way.  Right now I will be spending less time on blogging and more time on learning how to use my computer, which, even though I do it reluctantly, might not be such a bad thing;)  I didn't realize that this fall was going to be back to (computer) school for me!

Eleven Things

The very nice (and very smart) Elizabeth at MrsThomasinaTittlemouse tagged me for a game of eleven things.  Here are the rules:
1.  Post the rules
2.  List 11 random things about yourself
3.  Answer the 11 asked questions
4.  Ask 11 questions of the next players

I'm afraid you are going to find out how boring I am (for those of you who still don't know;), but here goes.

The 11 Random Things (about me):
1.  I'm from East Tennessee and have a strong Appalachian accent
2.  I am famous among my kids' friends for my good toast :)
3.  I have a mind for trivia, especially about people I have never met
4.  I am pretty good at Etch-a-Sketch
5.  Even though I do it, I am afraid to drive over bridges
6.  When I am alone in the car, I listen to the radio very loudly
7.  I do not like to go to bed and I do not like to get up -- a dumb way to be, I know
8.  I love trees
9.  I love some bling, especially earrings and bracelets
10.  I am happier on a sunny day than a cloudy day -- it's almost embarrassing how much my mood is affected by the weather
11.  I paint my toenails but not my fingernails

Answers to the questions from Elizabeth:
1. If you were invited to make a piece of art, what medium would you use?  Hmmm....perhaps I would use the Etch-a-Sketch (see number 4 above).
2. What clothes are you most comfortable in? Mostly I wear jeans, knit tops and sandals in the warmer months.  Although I'm thinking about getting a maxi dress for this summer -- those look really comfortable.
3. If you had an unexpected afternoon to yourself and not a care in the world, how would you spend it?  I'm normally not much of a shopper, but if I had no worries about time or money, I just might go shopping for some clothes.  Or I might go get an icy drink and drive around out in the country just to see the sights.
4. Do you have things that you 'don't do', like my wheelie bins, and if so, what are they? Wheelie bins are not an American term but I'm guessing they are the garbage cans (right?).  I don't do the car maintenance or outside house maintenance. I also do not like to deal with sales people, but my husband does, so he gets that job.  Also, I don't mow the yard.  With five males in this household, I feel I shouldn't have to;)
5. What do you panic most about losing? I don't want to lose any of my people, nor do I want any of us to lose our health, or our hope for the future.  On a more trivial note, I can lose a piece of paper in about one second flat, so I ask my husband not to give me anything like that if at all possible.
6. What is your favorite quotation? This is not my favorite, but it is the first one that comes to mind:  "Go ahead -- Make Mistakes -- Get Messy" from Mrs. Frizzle of The Magic Schoolbus.  While it is not a very elegant quote, I refer to it quite often because I am easily lost in a sea of procrastination or fear of not knowing where to start, which can lead to doing nothing.  Sometimes a bad plan can be better than no plan (or should I say an imperfect plan is better than waiting on a perfect plan that never comes).
7.  What is your ideal holiday? I think I would pick summer family reunions because there is no pressure of gift-giving or the perfect meal and you are free just to enjoy being together and reminiscing with all your relatives that (if you are like me) you don't get to see very often.
8.  If you wear lipstick, what shape is its end, once it's no longer new?  It is slightly slanted up on one side.  (Let me know when you find out what this means).
9.  Do you have a habit you would like to drop or one you would like to adopt?  I am trying to adopt better housekeeping habits (a la Flylady) and I REALLY need to adopt better paper organizing habits (see number 5).
10.  What everyday article would you most miss if it were suddenly unavailable?  I would have to say my eyeglasses or my contact lenses because I can't see very well without them.  Also, I love cellphones.  They are so handy when you are looking for your husband, your late-running teenager, when you need directions or your car broke down, or when you need to ask someone to pick something up at the store.
11. What is your favorite perfume?  I wish I could give a more sophisticated answer, but I usually use scented lotions from BathandBodyWorks.  My favorite of those is Warm Vanilla Sugar.

And since these questions are about me personally, I will even be brave and actually show my face so that you know who you're talking to.

Although I've gotten older on the outside, on the inside I haven't changed much since I was a first-grader and supposed to sell fund-raising tickets for my class, and I sold none except for what my parents bought.  So......I'm no good at tagging.  BUT, if you wouldn't mind answering my questions, please do so -- consider yourself tagged. Just leave a note in the comments so I know where to go to read your answers (and I would love to read them :)

Here are my 11 questions for YOU.
1.  Do you have any pets, and if so what are they?
2. What is a happy activity for you?
3.  What is the name of a good book you have read recently (I will let you define "recently")?
4.  What food do you most hope they have in heaven?
5.  Are you more people or task focused?
6.  How many places have you lived?
7.  If money were no problem, what country would you most like to visit?
8.  How do you best learn (from watching, reading, listening, doing, etc.)?
9.  How many siblings do/did you have and where do you fall in the order?
10.  Do you have a memory you could share about a grandparent or other older relative?
11.  What is a game that you enjoy playing?  Or, do you not enjoy games at all?

And do go over and visit MrsThomasinaTittlemouse.  She has a lovely blog and right now is also giving away a lovely spring apron here.