Things Mother never taught me (and a few she did)

Organization, schedules, sunscreen and lipstick

Just do it!

My life doesn’t lend itself to traditional organization and schedules. I have a hard enough time remembering to use sunscreen in the summer or apply lipstick when going out in public. Now most of my friends know about my lack of lipstick. That’s pretty obvious. What they don’t know is how totally chaotic my life really is. I can organize an office or a file room, but not my life.

About the only thing I do on a regular daily schedule these days is take medicine when the 10 o’clock news comes on each evening. Weekly, there are church activities and a hair appointment. I work from home, so I don’t have to clock in every day.

Yes, I’m one of those “old biddies” who goes to the hair dresser once a week and gets them to wash and style my hair. The rest of the week, I brush it out and that’s it. And no, I don’t have short silver, gray, or even blue or purple hair. My hair is down past my shoulders and it’s thick and naturally brown with just a few silver streaks thrown in to let you know I’m really over 50. It’s just so thick that I can’t manage it when it’s short and I can’t manage the washing and drying myself in less than two hours out of my life and shoulder pain for three days afterwards. It’s worth the $15 a week to get somebody else to do it, and yes, I know that’s a very reasonable price!

Back to the thing about schedules, I just can’t seem to manage to keep one. Believe me I’ve tried. I’ve always managed to get to work or classes or meetings, but the rest of my life is pretty much unscripted. I’ve done the Daytimer thing, the computer calendar thing, the email yourself reminders thing, the stickynotes all over everywhere thing. It just doesn’t work for me. I start the week with a list of stuff that absolutely HAS to get done that week and by when. If it doesn’t happen, then I guess it didn’t have to get done after all. I don’t recommend that lifestyle for most folks, but for me, fitting into a strict schedule is like eating a strict diet or fitting into a tight girdle. Way too confining. (If you don’t know what a girdle is, ask your grandmother.)

What brought these scheduling thoughts to mind was the blogging assignment for class that said “Create a schedule for posting on your blog.” Oh I can CREATE one, all right, but I can pretty much guarantee it won’t get kept. I will try to get in here and write at least a little something about once a week. I did finally get my “about” page written sometime this last week. That counts, right? Well, only sort of. If you’re subscribing, you probably didn’t get notification of that addition. Now you know and you can go look and see just who is this crazy lady.

Here’s the hints and tips for this time!

Meanwhile, back to sunscreen and lipstick, and they really are related, even for the guy folks out there.

Lips get dry and sunburned just like the rest of us – sometimes worse than the rest of us. Even guys who wouldn’t get caught dead wearing colors need to grab a tube of some sort of lip moisturizer with sunscreen in it. Grab several tubes while you’re at it and keep on in the car and one in the bathroom and one in the desk drawer. That way, if you’re as unorganized as I am, you can apply it whenever you DO think about it. Otherwise you’ll be thinking about it in the one place where you don’t have any!

Same goes for regular old sunscreen for face, ears, arms, and whatever other exposed parts of your body need it. Keep several containers and place them where you are most likely to USE it. The DH keeps some in the garage as well as on the bathroom vanity. I keep some in my car console as well as with my other toiletries.

Ladies, and you very adventurous guys, here’s one for you. To keep tinted lipstick lasting for more than just the time it takes to walk out the door, apply lip moisturizer first, then lipstick on just the bottom lip. Smear and smack it onto the top lip for even coverage. Now blot with a tissue and re-apply the same way. If you REALLY need color to last all day, apply powder over it before the blot step.

That’s it, I’ll see you again when my schedule allows.

Have fun!

Val P.

Updates, Diversions, and a new Painting in GIMP

I’ve almost caught up from being out of town, one more time. I’ve even almost caught up from my DH being away on grand jury duty for a week, followed by a week of business trip. Sunday, the church installed a new pastor (yea!) and I returned to teaching 2-3 year olds in Sunday School for the summer. (No, I wasn’t the interim pastor. I was on the pastoral search committee.)

Teaching toddlers Sunday School isn’t too hard, since I actually wrote the material we’re using. It’s a LOT easier than learning to ride a bike again at my age!  (Not something I’m planning on doing real soon.) The material is free to anyone who wants to drop me an email.

The backyard landscaping project is more or less complete as far as the contractors are concerned. We may move a few sprinklers around later this week, but we may not, too. That’s optional. Now I’ve got to go find some more plants to stick in those nice raised beds to get them looking like they’re supposed to be there until the things I’ve transplanted into them get a chance to grow and take over. I’m thinking a couple of bellpepper plants might be nice if it isn’t too late in the season to find them at the nursery. That and a bunch of flowering annuals of some sort for some instant color out there.

I did take a bit of a break from work, gardening, and housework to catch up on my classes I’m taking at LVS Online. Yes, I’m a teacher there, but teachers get to take free classes, so I always sign up for one or two and hope I’ve got time to work on them. This session I’m semi-actively taking blogging and Digital Artists Studio and lurking in the MS Word 2007 class.

Hopefully I’ll be refining and updating this blog as a result of the blogging class. I’ve also taken a look at some of my classmate’s blogs and left some comments there. For example, Terry has a very interesting blog coming together with some fascinating stories of life, travel and time at the zoo, like this one about Chris, the Gorilla. http://armstronggraphics.com/MyBlog/the-zoo/chris/

Jan has a great looking blog about a healthy lifestyle. Check out her blog on No More Dieting. http://blog.jlpixels.com/diet/no-more-dieting/

On a slightly alternate track, Mary raves about real butter and salt in popcorn in her blog. http://blog.ode2themonkey.com/

Maureen has taken a Painterly track with her new Artz Blog http://creative-designs.com.au/maureensartzblog/?p=3

In the mean time, I thought I’d show you the latest painting I’ve done for the Digital Art Studio class, using a little program called GIMP. I prefer Corel Painter, but figured I’d try out GIMP and see if it might be a solution for folks wanting a free program for digital art or computer graphics. With enough tweaking, you can create some decent looking brushes. Photo editing isn’t too shabby either, though again, I prefer Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo. Here’s the painting:

Garden Fountain painted in GIMP

Ok, it’s time for Hints and Tips!

If you’ve got azaleas or rhododendrons, coffee grounds added around the base of the plant give it a nice gentle boost of acid that these plants love.

Aloe vera should be in EVERYONE’s kitchen garden. I keep one plant on the kitchen counter all the time. They love sunshine and just enough water to keep the leaves plump. If you see the leaves thinning, that’s the time to water, and not before or you’ll end up with rotted aloes. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to kill these sturdy plants. If you keep the plant in a small pot, it will remain a small plant. Put it in the ground in the tropics, the same plant will suddenly grow to 3ft or more in diameter and height! Outside of the tropics, if you get frost, you need to keep the plant indoors when frost threatens.

Now, why should you keep Aloe? Well, for one thing, it’s a nicely shaped plant and in a dish garden can be quite striking. On the practical side, though, you can break off a leaf and rub the cut end on minor burns or sunburns for a very natural relief and moisturizing that’s hard to beat with anything short of something with numbing qualities. Of course, I hope you never need it for anything but aesthetic purposes.

Have fun!

Val P.

Sometimes things just aren’t the way they’re supposed to be

I was supposed to spend the Memorial Day weekend filling up a dumpster with the remaining trash left at my Mother’s house. The dumpster was delivered a day late, but we got it filled anyway. Meanwhile, I was supposed to also get someone to pick up the last charitable donations of a few remaining furniture pieces and some miscellaneous household goods like laundry baskets and the coffee pot that I no longer need to keep there.

I left lots of messages on Wednesday with different agencies who were supposed to call me back, but got no call-backs. The couple of places I did reach couldn’t pick up anything until this Wednesday – after I’d left town – or else simply didn’t want furniture of any sort. Even the places that would pick up later said they wouldn’t come into the house to get anything. We’re talking big old dressers and a recliner here and I’d thrown my back out the day before I left home and was only making it at all on the miracles of prednisone. There was no way I was going to get anything heavy out of the house. Needless to say, that stuff is still sitting just where it was and nobody is getting any use from it.

I did bring back several nice plants that I’m supposed to add to my garden from hers if the weather and my back will ever start cooperating. In the mean time, they’re all in a bright yellow garden cart sitting on my front porch to stay out of the way of the work that’s supposed to be going on in the back.

Speaking of the back yard, I’m in the middle of a major landscaping project in the back yard – contracted out because there was NO way I was doing all that heavy lifting of stones and dirt, etc. It was actually supposed to start the first week of May, but the weather didn’t allow it so they started last week just before I left town.

Today they were supposed to add the gravel to the walkways, but I didn’t see it until it was mostly done, and they used the wrong gravel. I’ve got a call in to the company and I’m expecting the boss to show up any minute now. THAT ought to be interesting. [Update: They're supposed to dig the wrong gravel out and replace it with the right stuff before they go home sometime tonight. The dogs think they are supposed to go out and play at about 5pm, and they aren't going to be happy!]

On an entirely different note, a plant that I transplanted from my old house to this one has surprised me. I’ve never had good luck with purple cone flowers, though others seem to not be able to kill them. I’ve planted them both from seeds and from transplants and they never managed to bloom. Last year, this one finally did with a show of bright purple blooms, just before we moved. SO, when we moved, I dug it up and transplanted it to the new house. It actually managed to live through the winter and this spring put up a flower bud that turned into a bloom. However, the bloom that was supposed to be a PURPLE cone flower, no longer is. The bloom is the same beautiful shade of green as the leaves, LOL!

This is the not-so-purple coneflower. Actual colors!

Such is life around here.

This blog was supposed to be ongoing from when I took the blogging class last session and here it is week 2 of the new session. I have a theme that I’m not supposed to have until week3 because I made it that far into the class last time.

Oh, yes, I’m supposed to give you an off the wall tip at this point in the blog, so listen up.

Tip #1. Take classes at http://lvsonline.com – where learning is fun! They’re the best! (OK, We’re the best, and I don’t mind saying so myself even if you’re not supposed to talk about yourself that way!)

Tip #2. This one is not supposed to be for the diabetics among us, but it may help keep their families happy. I keep about a quart of what is called “simple syrup” in the refrigerator. It’s basically plain old sugar dissolved in an equal part of water and heated in the microwave until it will all dissolve when stirred.

I use simple syrup when I make up unsweetened tea for iced tea and can serve both sweetened and unsweetened at a moment’s notice. (I can’t use artificial sweeteners and sugar doesn’t dissolve well in cold liquids.) For you northerners and folks in the UK, sweet iced tea is a staple here in the southern US where I live.

Simple syrup is also good for sweetening a quick glass of freshly squeezed lemonade. A teaspoon or so of syrup, a teaspoon or so of lemon juice in a glass of ice water is all you need.

If you happen to have a diabetic around, it’ll be the easiest thing to get down them for a quick pickup if they drop too low and you don’t have any of the fancy glucose syrup they sell for the purpose.

OK, I think I’ve fulfilled all I’m supposed to put into this week’s blog, plus a bit. If you want more, you can check out my CorelDRAW blog.

Have fun!

Val P.

Blogging, Themes, and this Week’s Schemes

In our blogging class at LVS, we’re supposed to be defining a new visual theme for our blog and getting in at least two new blog posts. YIKES! It’s only Monday and I’m already behind. (And yes, in that way, I’m following in my mother’s footsteps. She never taught me how to be organized and I had to teach her how to use a computer.)

Tuesday and Wednesday are my errand days, then Wednesday night is church dinner and choir practice – not something I can miss since I direct the choir. Now that reminds me that Mother really enjoyed singing, and had a lovely voice. I don’t think she ever sang in anything but her high school glee club, though. I started singing in choirs as a kid and never really quit except when there wasn’t some sort of opportunity around. The church choir I was in almost 20 years ago lost their director and somehow I ended up doing it as a volunteer. That was three churches ago and I’m still directing as a volunteer.

Anyway, Thursday I’m headed out to a women’s retreat with the church ladies and won’t be back until Saturday night. Hopefully the DH will be back from Jury Duty by then so he can keep the dogs or they’ll be off to the vet’s. Not that they’d mind. For some reason, there’s a mutual admiration society going on between my dogs and the kennel techs at the vet. They probably get better care and spoiling there than they do at home. I’ve never seen a kennel so well run. Each dog – not just my two – gets walked and played with at LEAST four times a day. I don’t know what the standards are elsewhere, but around here, most kennels only promise a couple of times outside. If you want more, you have to pay extra for it, and there’s no guarantee they’ll actually do what you pay for.

Widget in particular loves to go to the vet’s office because they let her play in the water. She doesn’t get that very often around home – especially not in the winter.

Yes, one of my dogs is named Widget. Just like those things we’re supposed to be installing on our blogs this week. I think I got a couple in there. We’ll have to wait until next week to get any more.

Now, a helpful “things Mother never taught me” tip:

This one is mostly for the ladies, but gents, your women would appreciate it if you paid attention also. Keep a pair of rubber gloves in your car – the kind you use to wash dishes with. If you have to work under the hood – or just raise it manually for someone else, or change a tire, or have to move something nasty out from where you want to park, you don’t need to get your manicure messed up. A roll of paper towels and a bottle of water are also life savers! Wet wipes aren’t a bad idea either. (And yes, there are greener alternatives. You can let me know what YOU use instead!)

Of course, the heat buildup in the car will eventually ruin the gloves, so they may need replacing every couple of months depending on the climate, but it beats ruining a fresh manicure or getting grease all over your steering wheel once you’re done. When you’re done with whatever nasty chore you’ve got, simply turn them inside out as you take them off so the gunk doesn’t get all over anything that matters. Wash or replace the gloves as needed.

So what absolute necessities do you carry in your car? I may not get this theme finished, but I’ll try to keep up with your comments if I can.

Have fun!

Val P.

Barking dogs and deodorant marks – Getting started with things my mother never taught me

Don’t get me wrong, my mother was an exceptionally capable and formidable woman of many talents. However, in the 50 years I knew her, there were some things she knew but never passed on to me. Others she tried to pass on, but her teaching style and my learning style never meshed. A few more, she never knew, so couldn’t have passed them on if she wanted to. (And a very few she didn’t know but tried to instill in me anyway.) Same goes with my Dad, but I only had him for 20 years.

I figure most folks have similar relationships with their parents if they are blessed to know them for any length of time. This blog will include hints and tips about the little things in life that I’ve managed to pick up along the way. I may even show off some new things I’m still learning. I have no children of my own to pass these things on to, so I offer them up to the world and if you find them useful or they give you a smile, be sure to leave me a comment or two and stop back by another day for more. Here’s a couple of tips to get you started. The first one is one I’d still like a better solution for!

Tip #1: The quickest way to get your dog to stop barking is to offer him something he wants to put in his mouth, like a treat or a favorite toy. However, this is not the best way because he’ll think you’re treating him for barking. If you’ve got GOOD ways to accomplish this task, I’d love to hear from you. I used to use water sprays, but now I’ve got wood floors, so I’d end up mopping umpteen times a day (and that’s a whole other post for a later date.)

Tip #2: Say goodbye to deodorant marks on the outside of your T-shirts. Some folks accomplish this by putting the shirt on, then adding the deodorant underneath the shirt. Others buy expensive clear gels that aren’t supposed to leave marks. I simply fold the T-shirt inside out from hem to armpit before pulling it on over my head. The only thing that touches my pits is the inside of the shirt. Once it is in place, pull the hem on down right side out. Works for dresses, turtle necks and sweaters, too!

Tip #3: If you want to learn to blog, take the Blogging Basics course at LVS “Where learning is fun!“ I’m taking that course now, and highly recommend it.

Have fun!

Val P.