POTD Day 22 Morning

This is what my day involved...lots of rocks...LOL. I figured out the night before that we needed to get some rocks to fix a spot in the back and reinforce a spot in front, so after running another errand, I headed to the rock store.

This is 750 lbs of rock and 550 lbs of it had to be taken from the truck in the driveway up hill into our backyard...it was a very good workout.

The full post on the fix is located here if you want to check out the before, during and after pics.

I took this pic with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Project Progress

POTD Day 21 Full

So I have been on this quest recently to try to find a new body lotion that I like that uses less chemicals. My doctor told me to try to stick to "creams" over "lotions" because they have less alcohol in them, which can be drying. I have been a Jergen's Original user forever.

My issue is that I like a lotion or cream to absorb in so that when I start sweating, I don't feel slippery but at the same time, I don't get ashy skin from it being dry. A few weeks back, I took the doctors advice and bought two different "creams" to try. One from Aveeno, and one from Eucerin. Both of them were okay, but because they were fragrance free, they both smelled like oil to me, which is not really a good thing. I don't want to smell like mineral oil which is one of the main ingredient in them. I liked the Aveeno better, I could put it on once a day and it would last 24 hours, but it didn't absorb that well.

So the other day when I was at Target, I decided to give the lotion aisle another look. I found this lotion (it isn't a cream) in the natural section of the aisle and I liked the idea of raw Shea Butter and it has a great smell with things that are good for you. I have been using it for 3 days now. It is super thick so a little goes a long way, but it seems to work well, absorbs well, and the smell lingers, which I like.

Well see how it goes after the bottle is no longer full...(see I did get the word in there...LOL) and making sure it doesn't turn on me. Some fragrances on my skin will turn, this is why I normally put perfumes on my clothes unless they are essential oils.

I took this picture in our living room, with my Fuji Finepix f50, and no flash but with macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and to add the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Stinky Lotion

POTD Day 20 Letter

One of our cousins is in basic training for the local Nat Guard right now.

He had a hip fracture during the beginning of training so after being home for the holidays, he went back to recover and do physical therapy. He is in the Fitness Training Unit until he heals and then he will go back to regular training.

We have been writing back and forth since he has been there since I know being cut off from family and technology is hard and letters and packages can make all the difference in the world. I have sent him one box with some puzzle books and writing supplies, but that was before the holidays.

Right now, I just try to keep the back and forth on the letters going. I got this letter a few days ago and I sent off a postcard today and will get a letter off in a day or so. I am a huge fan of snail mail so it is a lot of fun to have someone to write to.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash, but macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light, and to smudge out info for privacy reasons. I then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...The Negative Of Facebook

POTD Day 19 Cropped

I was going to search for a picture that I had cropped well to make it into a better picture but then I remember this yummy "crop" I got at the Grower's Market. I had never had pea sprouts before and we were given a sample to try and they were really good, so I bought a bag of them.

I have used them so far in scrambled eggs and salads, and really like the flavor. If I made sandwiches at home, I am sure they would be great on those as well since I get alfalfa sprouts on my sandwiches all the time instead of lettuce.

I took this picture in our dining room with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but macro turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then to add the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Flowers

POTD Day 18 Five Years Ago

This picture is of my friend's foot in tabi socks and geta sandals with her kimono at my first traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

I joined Okinawa International Women's Club (OIWC) the fall of 2008 and in March our culture group had a tea ceremony. One of our members and her mother were tea ceremony senseis and they had a tea ceremony facility connected to their home. When we did this same ceremony the following year, I had all my kimono parts and was actually able to dress in kimono for the event and it was such an honor.

I really took advantage of our time in Japan during this second opportunity we had to live there and tried to submerge myself in the culture whenever I could. OIWC was a huge part of that. I made life long friends in that group and will forever be thankful for the adventures, experiences and friends.

I took this pic in the morning with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP for color, light and to add the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Kimono Adventure, this has pics of my kimono parts and then some images of me in it at one of our luncheons.

POTD Day 17 Today's Weather

Our weather has been pretty wonky the last few weeks. March, I think is always like that but we always forget. So we have had sun and warm days, then frosty mornings, then windy evenings, and then clouds with some rain...you never know from day to day so you have to sort of just go with the flow when it comes to the To Do list.

This morning we woke up to clouds and rain even though we really weren't supposed to get rain, just clouds. I am not complaining because we really need the rain, but it made it so that instead of yardwork, laundry ended up on the docket.

This pic is from near our house looking out over the hills nearby. You can see that the sun is shining on the bluff but behind it are some dark rainy looking clouds. The sun did come out to stay later in the day and that was nice, but we never did warm up much.

I took this pic in the morning with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Cr@p, Cr@p, Cr@p

POTD Day 16 Beautifully Ordinary

I was walking downtown getting some exercise and running a few errands and came across this little sprig of rosemary in a pot in front of a store.

I love how rosemary is so ordinary, but when its little blue flowers erupt, it is quite beautiful too. Both of the rosemary in our yard are in shadier spots so we don't always get blooms on the ones we have.

I was able to get a few pics during my trek but mostly was enjoying the warm weather, sunshine and spots of spring, springing...maybe I will be able to post more from this walk.

I took this picture in the afternoon enjoying the sun with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...Chicken Soup

POTD Day 15 Evening

Well, I was volunteering tonight, but I don't have any pictures of that, however I did pull this off the traffic cams for the accident I was stuck in for 20 mins. If you look on the left side, you can see the backup...I was in there. I was on my way to the volunteer gig.

Never did hear on the news what happened or if the people involved were okay, but I did watch 3 state troopers, a EMS supervisor, an ambulance, and a fire truck all go down the shoulder while we were waiting, so I assume someone got hurt. I also noticed that there were three smashed up cars, and 1 Budget truck. There was also a semi truck but I don't it was anything, but a witness to the accident.

Fortunately the wait wasn't longer and I did get where I needed to be with time to spare.

I didn't take this picture, but I did edit it in GIMP 2.6 for privacy and to add the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Car Crash (my accident in Japan)

POTD Day 14 Care

This is one way I care for our computer systems and the memories we want to keep that are stored digitally.  I highly recommend a regular back up schedule for everyone. I probably go a bit overboard on ours but since all of our backups are on mechanical drives, I feel that doubling up might be prudent.

So because I use the laptop the most and that is where I process all new images, I do the following: an auto Windows update of all the data and image files onto an external harddrive, 2 manual copies on external different harddrives of all the same files, 1 manual copy of all the images/videos on another external hardrive. I do the same thing with the PC except not as a frequently because the PC data and images are not changed much.

I used to burn DVDs for backup, but it just seemed like I was going through tons of DVDs and the externals are portable and pretty easy to use.

I took this picture as a snip of my screen while in the backup/restore area of the control panel on my laptop. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 to add the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...PC Rebuild Part Two

POTD Day 13 Fresh

I am not sure what kind of tree or bush this picture is from, but I thought the blooms were pretty.

I was in the park doing a 2 mile route that I have for exercise while running errands downtown. I stopped to take lots of pictures of all the spring blooming around.

Everything felt very fresh to me. Today the sky is cloudy again but it isn't supposed to last. We need the rain so if it were to rain, that would be nice for the vegetation and our water reservoirs.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 in nice afternoon light. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Ikebana #2 Basic Upright

POTD Day 12 Partial

Here is a one of the hostas we have around the house, and it is already coming back up, but only partially at this point.

I love hostas, got hooked on them when we lived in WA and owned our first house...now we have two in big pots on our backyard, and we have 5 more in gallon containers that need to go in the ground on the shady side of the house. (And they all survived the winter!!).

This one hosta in particular gets some good spring sun right now so I think that is why it is higher than the others at this point.

I am excited to see some stuff sprouting already, gives me hope that the winter didn't kill everything, but it also makes me a little bit stressed because we have so much to do before it all gets out of hand...lots of weeding to do!!

I took this picture in the afternoon light on our back porch with my Fuji Finepix f50. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and to add the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Repotting

POTD Day 11 Something Good

This is the second baby blanket I am making this spring. This niece is due in late spring so I started her blanket after the one I made for my niece that is due in April. She is having a boy so this blanket has more blues than the other one did (which you can see progress shots of that one here and here).

I am using a granny square stitch but instead of doing squares, I am doing rows with it. I have been varying the width of the rows to keep it fun and non-symetrical. The navy blue is the "field" color so it is in between each color (and set at 3 rows) and it is also at the top and bottom and will be the color that I border the entire thing with.

I really love how this one is coming out...super fun (once you get past the first starting rows) and fast. I might be making one of the same stitch but different colors for my sister soon.

I took this picture in our living room with my Fuji Finepix f50 with the macro enabled but no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Sharp Items

POTD Day 10 Far Away

This is a picture of Lake Elsinore from up on the hills above the city. One of our cousins from this area was married last summer and we went down for the occasion and did some sight seeing as well.

My SIL and I took this drive up the Ortega Hwy over the hills to meet my MIL down near San Diego and we stopped at this view point to take some shots. So not only is the lake Far Away in the image but the location overall is Far Away from us since we live a long distance from there.

The trip as a whole was really great, we had great weather, and visits will all the family. Couldn't have asked for a better occasion!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...In Other News

POTD Day 9 10am

This is what I was doing at 10am this morning. And of course, today is the first day of the standard time, so I am feeling a bit tired since I stayed up too late reading and then got up at regular time on the clock which is an hour earlier than it would have been yesterday.

Anyhow, this picture is a slide I built this morning to diagram the vegetation we have planted in the main front bed in our yard. I decided last spring that I wanted to put mostly perennials in that bed so that it would not be as much work each year. I will put some annuals in the gaps but for the most part, with a little weeding, it is pretty low maintenance.

Last year, it took me a few days of weeding to get all three of those beds cleaned out and then I planted the perennials, and mulched them. This year, I was able to weed all three beds in about 2 hours and most of the perennials are already blooming so it is nice spring bed with little work. I will probably put some more mulch down just to keep the soil nice and moist once it stops raining and we have to turn on the sprinklers.

I have a binder for the house that I track paint colors, landscaping, appliances, etc, and these slides from Powerpoint will go in it with the tags from the plants on the back so we can see the information at a glance.

I got this image as a export from Powerpoint as a jpeg and then added the fuzzy border in GIMP 2.6.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Final Draft (another landscaping project)

POTD Day 8 In The Corner

I started this one out with a boring picture of our recycle bins sitting in the corner of the dining room, but then I was out driving doing errands and took the back roads home and saw these awesome corners and couldn't help myself.

So this one is obviously near a lot of orchard farms and I loved the lines. The leaves aren't back on the trees yet, but their rows are still very obvious.

There was a red tail hawk at the top of the electric lines looking for something to eat, and he took off right after I took the picture and he was so huge. You can see him in the pic of you look closely.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash around lunchtime. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Dead Gecko Movement

POTD Day 7 Fly

One thing about spring at the Grange is that the chicks some in!! They are kept in two huge metal tins and you can hear their little chirps from the door when you walk in.

Obviously they will not be flyers but they are still cute litle birds and totally fit this word for me today! I could sit and watch them for hours, but I am sure the crew at the Grange would not appreciate that.

I found a couple that were falling asleep while they were standing and then would wake up when one of the others bumped in them. It was so cute!! These guys were just a bit older than newborns because you could already see some of their regular chicken feathers coming in.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border. The pens had these reddish warm lights in them so that is why the color is a little bit off.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Observations

POTD Day 6 Chair

Not really a chair, but definitely a spot to sit and one used a lot since it is nice to be in front of the fire.

I am not a huge fan of the tile that was used but it is the same tile that is in the kitchen on the counters and backsplash...so I am hoping that someday when we replace the kitchen counters, I'll get to knock this stuff out. If not, it won't kill me either, but it would be nice. Also not a huge fan of the brass around the fireplace and on the glass doors but thinking of maybe spray painting it flat high heat black...as you can see, the to do list of home improvement never ends...LOL

I took this picture in our livingroom with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Kick Ass Lightening

POTD Day 5 Something Beginning With I

My word is Ingenuity...or at least I hope it is. We have kind of lumpy grass in our front yard. Part of this is due to lack of maintenance by our renters, but also due to the slope of our yard and the difficulty in watering this poses.

Anyhow, on the project for this spring is reseeding a few spots in the yard. We have the little tool to turn up the dirt a bit before putting down some seed and then putting some soil over it. Our past experience with seeding before always involves figuring out ways to deter the birds from eating all the seed before it has a chance to germinate.

So I thought I would put these whirlies in the yard near the seeding to see if perhaps the motion would keep the birds at bay a bit...fingers crossed. I also picked up two to hang from the plum tree but I won't be putting that in until I prune that tree down a bit since they will just get in the way. I am sure the neighbors will be confused as to why we are "decorating" for Easter so early...LOL.

Fingers crossed that this works since they were only a dollar each at the Dollar Tree, but I am prepared to get another plastic Owl if necessary. We used the plastic Owl technique before and it seemed to work but this would be much more economical.
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Last Year on In My Words...Purple Plums Abound

POTD Day 4 On My Mind

This is a beautiful blossom on the Purple Plum tree in our front yard.

Last year, we had so many plums on that tree that we actually lost a large branch, so I have a plan to not only thin the tree a bit, but also to knock out some of the blossoms or pick some of the unripe plums before they can become a problem. Last year's bounty was a bit of an abnomality but I don't want to have to worry about it later. Working on this tree has been on my mind a lot the last few days because I can see the new blossoms from our bedroom window and know I need to get to it.

The blossoms are so pretty and it reminds me of the cherry blossoms in Japan...this would be the time for the Cherry Blossom Festival in Nago.

I took this picture on a cloudy day in our front yard with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Kimono Adventure

POTD Day 3 My Name Is

Gracie Ray...well, it isn't my name but it is the name of my soon to be born great niece. I don't use my real name on the web so I had to make a executive decision for this particular photoday, and I thought that this might be a nice compromise.

I found this cute little dress for her today and am sending it in a box with the blanket I crocheted for her along with some other small outfits I picked up.

I worked on the blanket for a few weeks and when I got it in the box, I realized I had some extra room, so I thought adding a few little things would be fun.

I took this picture in our livingroom on the floor with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Open And Moving

POTD Day 2 Something Borrowed

This is, but one example of the bikes that are available for use by anyone while on Google's campus. I have only been to the Moutain View campus but I imagine they have bikes like these on all their campuses of decent size.

As visitors, we of course were enamored with them....they are just so cute. We were even able to ride them (although I didn't) if we wanted. I think it is pretty cool that the promote the use of bicycles and public transit like they do (they have a shuttle system that brings workers in from the local cities so they don't all have to commute in cars everyday). I like to see big businesses taking responsibility for helping our environment.

I took this pic with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP with cropping, light and color and then added a fuzzy border.
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Last year on In My Words...Red Skies At Night

POTD Day 1 Yellow

A little bit of spring making its appearance early. Sadly, I am hoping for more cold weather, so we don't have a really bad bug season, and if we could get more snow, that would even be better. Those wishes don't overtake the fact that seeing the spring flowers make their way out of the ground is still nice.

These guys are at the top of one of our front flower beds. And they were pushing up a while back...I hope we don't get frosty weather while they are in bloom because I would be sad to see them wilt too soon.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited in  GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Ikebana Lesson #1

POTD Day 20 Peace

This is one of my favorite spots at our house. Even though the posts are a little too close together for the optimum hammock location, it is better than nothing.

There is a nice shade and breeze in this spot and I love being able to take a break from projects and sit in the hammock with some iced tea and a good book.

So this is my peace spot...at least for now.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 on our back porch with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Cell Phone Free Zone

POTD Day 19 Feet

These are my feet during this last summer when I was having an issue with one of them cracking pretty badly.

I tend to go barefoot whenever possible and my soles can get pretty dry so when it happens, I am forced to treat them and then put a sock on. Normally I would put socks on both feet but since I was just running around the house, it was cooler to keep one foot "nak3d"....LOL.

This happened after a week of camping where it was super dry and I was in sandles the whole time. Even while we were there, I had to treat my foot once and wear socks with my sandles which was kind of weird...LOL.

My sister in law gave me some really good stuff to put on them and I am hoping that this year I will be able to avoid the cracking, bleeding and pain by being a bit proactive about it.

I took this picture in our kitchen with my Fuji Finepix f50 with the flash turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Thanks To Everyone

POTD Day 18 Magic

I am always amazed when I see spring starting to break through the ground. Here we are only in the second week of February and all sorts of things are shooting up.

I am afraid that they will get surprised and end up dead because of a late freeze but perhaps nature knows better than I do...

This is a little bed we have in the front yard in between a couple of boulders. The irises have been there for a while but a lot of the rest of it is transplanted stuff from my SIL's yard. While I was out there taking the pic, I did go through and weed out anything that wasn't supposed to be there and tried to make sure nothing was getting too crowded.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and then added the fuzzy border.
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My blog that details out the projects being done around the house called The Bamboo Lagoon.

POTD Day 17 Vegetable

This was a little dish I stirfried up tonight. I had zucchini in the fridget I needed to use up.

I sliced it up pretty thin, and put it in the wok with some olive oil and garlic and started stirfrying since I knew it was going to take longer than the shrimp to cook. I thawed some raw shrimp and removed the tails.

Once the zucchini were mostly cooked (still al dente), I added the shrimp, fish sauce, sugar, grated ginger, lemon juice, ground white pepper, and chili paste. I cooked it for three minutes more (which is the bare minimum for fish sauce).

Shrimp and the zucchini were perfect. It was a great meal and healthy too!

This image was taken before I added the other ingredients with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added a fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...Soup And Tea

POTD Day 16 Create

Two of our nieces are expecting this spring, one right after the other. One is having a girl and one is having a boy.

I decided as soon I heard they were expecting that I would be making a baby blanket for each of them. I started the one for the neice having a girl first, since she is due first.

I decided to do a granny square blanket because I haven't made her one like it before. I wanted to use bright colors, but also use black so that it would have an old fashioned feel to it.

My post from POTD Day 5 is just of the squares as I was lining them up to see how the pattern would work.

This picture is from while I was still working on it (I am done with it now), I had it mostly connected, but not bordered.I took it in our living room with the blanket on the floor with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and added the fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...All Connected

POTD Day 15 My Drink Of Choice

This fountain sits in the plaza of our town. It has been here forever and it provides a water source that has a ton of history.

I wouldn't call this my drink of choice to actually drink, but it is a unique drink of choice and it is a place I have drank from many times. There is a second, less noticable fountain farther up in the park, but this is the one that all the tourists see and sample.

The water has a lot of minerals in it and is very bubbly. It doesn't taste good, but supposedly has many heathly properties. The research into the benefits of the water and living near the springs is very encouraging...

I took this picture in the sunlight with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Four years Ago on In My Words...Flashback

POTD Day 14 Heart

These hearts are from a display I walked past on a errand/exercise trip downtown a few days ago. All the little store fronts had Valentine's Day displays of some sort and this one was pretty cute.

Valentine's Day this year involved a evening play (that I will post about later). It was great to see the season start out. I am excited for the new group of plays being done this year. Always something new to discover!

I took this picture through a plate glass window with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...Mister Scary

POTD Day 13 Perfect

This is the perfect lunch or dinner. I don't usually do rolls, but on occasion it is just the ticket. Some good edamame and a hot pot of green tea almost always compliments this. Finding really good sushi is kind of hard when you live 3+ hours from the coast.

Most of the sushi restaurants around here are actually run by Korean families, but that is okay because that means not only do you get good sushi but you also get good Korean food too!

This picture was taken at the restaurant I treat myself to when making the trek to the grocery store.

This picture was taken with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but with the macro enabled. I edit it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added a fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Musubi

POTD Day 12 Out And About

I had to go shopping for a gift for a 4 year old and her mom told me she would like books, so I decided since I already had to go to the local library to pick up some stuff, that I would also shop at a bookstore downtown and I would also get in an hour of walking as well.

This shot is the view looking down into the plaza of our downtown area. The christmas decorations are down and the spring/summer ones are up. The day was unseasonably warm. There were hockey players at the skating rink, and all the ducks were at the upper pond because they were working on the lower one. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of our park deer but none were about.

I found a few benchmarks, got a good walk in, some pictures for my POTD project and both errands done. Overall, pretty efficient use of my time!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Caching It High

POTD Day 11 Mistake

I don't know who made this mistake but it is a doozy and it is one of the things on the "To Do" list for the house. I already have the fasteners and the joist supports for it...it is just a matter of getting under the front porch deck and knocking it out.

There is also a lot of trapped moisture under the porch, so I also have all the stuff to put in some ventilation holes with covers. I won't be able to paint them to match the house until the temp warms up.

At some point in the future the porch needs to be redone in some way but for now, even without the joist supports, it is pretty darn stable and safe.

I took this picture while under our front porch with my Fuji Finepix f50 with flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added a fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Family Reunion

POTD Day 10 I Am

Waiting...

My cousin gave me this amaryllis flower for my birthday in November. At the time, it was just a bulb with a plastic pot and a compressed clump of potting soil. It sat on my table for a while because I wasn't totally sure what to do with it. I was showing it to my sister in law when she was over and I realized that it was starting to actually grow (probably because our house is warmer than the store was).

It was time to get it going for real. I think I was hesitating because the instructions said it needed 75-80 degree temps and direct sun, which in the middle of winter, our house is never up to 75 degrees and there is no permanent place in direct sun for plants in the house. I decided to go for it anyhow...and when I have a chance, I put the pot in the sun on the floor in one of the rooms.

I took this image in our bedroom with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. This pic was taken a while ago so now the the stems are about 18 inches tall but still not in bloom yet. I edited the picture in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Shutter Sisters For July

POTD Day 9 Details

This is the finished drawing from the Chinese New Year 2014 Festival demo that Yeh Fei Pai did for us. I wrote a bit about it in this other post.

He was working with his son during the demo and they both signed it. As he was drawing each of the eight horses, he explained their representation to us. It was really interesting. Both of them had great senses of humor too which made the demo all that more interesting and entertaining.

He is a pretty well known artist and his work is showing in a few different places. He is known for the celestial horses so his visit during the Chinese New Year celebration was ideal for this Year of the Horse!

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...New Art

POTD Day 8 Water

This picture was taken in the middle of the wading pool of our city park. The wading pool is a shallowed out area of the creek that runs through the park. I was looking down stream right near the "waterfall".

When I was a kid, my cousins and I would spend our entire day in this park for the whole summer. We would do chores in the morning and then make a lunch and head to the park. We would return home around dinnertime.

Our activities in the park would vary from day to day, but we would almost always eat our lunch at the lower duck pond. We would then pick from a number of things. Some days we would climb the big slide and take it over as a castle and turret to defend. Others, we would spend the day in the trails above the park (where I would inevitably get poison oak). Sometimes we would walk in the creek all the way up to the upper duck pond or even to the swimming hole.

I took this picture earlier in the year with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Happy Fourth Of July

POTD Day 7 Utensil

This is one of the beautiful Chinese brushes that Yeh Fei Pai uses when doing his celestial horses. He did a demonstration drawing at the 2014 Chinese New Year Festival we went to and it was amazing to watch. He did a drawing of 8 celestial horses and it was so appropriate considering that we just started the Year Of The Horse.

Apparently he came to the festival a few years ago and promised to return from Taiwan when the Year Of The Horse came around...and he did. He learned his trade from his father and is now teaching it to his son. His son actually worked on the drawing with him during the demo, filling in background, and shading. It was so cool to see them both.

They had great senses of humor too, and kept talking the entire time they were going through the process explaining some of it to all of us, and keeping the audience engaged. The weather outside was cold and rainy so it was fun to come in, have tea, each a few fortune cookies and watch their artistry. In a couple of days, I'll be doing another POTD that shows the finished drawing.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash, but macro enabled at the end of the demonstration. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Kanda's Grabs

Reading For Research

Saw this cool article on NPR and decided I wanted to check out these books. I have had a couple of children book ideas for a while and even took a children book writing class last year and thought that these books might be good research material. I immediately added them to my Goodreads "To Read" list and put requests in for them on my library card.

So far 5 of them have come in and today, I went and picked them up. While I was there, I picked up a couple of books that have been made into movies that I want to read before I see the movies.

I plan to read the children's books tomorrow and take notes in my writing notebook. I'll take the books back when the last two come in, and hopefully I might have one or both of the "movie" books done too. I am also in the middle of a couple of books on my Nook so there is no lack of reading material on my plate....LOL.
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My Reading Blog is located at http://mishkabook.blogspot.com if you want to check it out. I need to update it but plan to get on that in the next day or so!!

POTD Day 6 C Is For

...completed! It is not too often that my To Do List of the day is actually all crossed out! Mark your calendars...LOL. What was lovely about this one was that it always required a bunch of errand running but still I managed to pull it off.

I think normally I just put way too much stuff on my To Do list and it is just not possible to get everything done. Like today's list for instance is already way too big, but that is okay, it keeps me motivated! Now if I could just get caught up on my POTDs...haha.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Productive

POTD Day 5 Square

Two of our nieces are pregnant right now. One is due in late March and the other in late April. I am working on baby blankets for both of them.

These are the squares for the blanket I am making for the one that is due in March. The blanket I made for her first child was a different pattern, so I thought I would make her a granny square one this time. I wanted to do bright colors on a black field for two reasons. Bright colors and contrast are supposed to be good for baby brains, and then the black field is reminiscent of the old style granny square blankets you would see.

I tend to do solid colored squares because they are just faster and less complicated, although I have done a few blankets with variated yarn so the squares were multi-colored with no additional effort on my part...LOL.

When I have a multi-colored blanket, I like to stack the squares in order of the pattern so that when I start to connect them, I am able to keep track of the rows. At this point, I have 6 of the 8 rows connected (you can't see this in the pic because I hadn't started connecting them yet). Once I finish the 8 rows, I will start connecting the rows to each other and then finish off by bordering the whole thing.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 in our dining room with no flash, but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and adding of the fuzzy border.
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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Finished The Blanket (this one was for another niece)

POTD Day 4 Childhood

This picture is of my sister and I on the front porch of what we call the 3rd St house. We lived in this house for a few years. It was a rental, but I would guess it is probably the first house that my sister has memories from. We had a big yard with a garage in back and like many houses in this part of our hometown, there was an alley that ran behind it.

Our hometown is very safe, even more so when we were kids, so we played all over this neighborhood, riding our bikes through all the alleys. We would find honeysuckles and blackberries to snack on. I have memories of eating apples and pears off the trees, and playing in the sprinkler in the front yard and then laying on the warm sunny sidewalk to warm up and dry off.

I remember climbing this super high cedar tree down the street and making forts all over the neighborhood with my friends. We lived in this house when Mt St Helens blew, and all of us kids would wear hankerchiefs over our faces (which I am sure did nothing to protect us from the ash)...LOL. Now that I am an adult, I am sure we irritated some of the neighbors cutting through yards and making noise, but it was still a fun safe childhood that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Our dad had a screen printing setup in the garage and I was his number one assistant. We also had a darkroom on the backporch that he would develop and enlarge images for the silk screen. Our grandma lived with us in this house until she married our grandpa. She had a little room off the kitchen, my sister and I shared a room, and our parents had a room in the front of the house. The livingroom and dining room were open to each other with some built in cabinets. It was a craftsman styled house with a huge front porch and pillars. I have driven by it recently and it is updated quite a bit and the yard is now fenced in front as well.

This picture was taken in the late 1970's by one of our parents with their manual 35mm Pentax camera. It was then scanned in on our HP printer and edited in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and adding the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...In A Pinch

POTD Day 3 Something Orange

I have been buying a bag of clementines each time I go to do a stock up at the grocery store. I try to eat one a day if I can. They are quite refreshing.

So when this POTD came up, it seemed logical to go with the obvious choice in this case. They just looked so perfect!

The clementines are lovely and they provide vitamin c and other great benefits I am sure. I am fond of tangelos and tangerines as well but seem to have a harder time finding them.

I took this picture in our dining room with no flash on my Fuji Finepix f50. I edited in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Last Year on In My Words...New Hike

POTD Day 2 Favorite

Oh my gosh...Norikane is one of my favorite artists, and I only discovered him a few years ago. I had gone to a fundraiser at a local gallery when we were in Japan and saw this piece and fell in love. For me, a lot of the time, art is about the story and when I saw this print, I just felt there was a story and I loved it.

We actually now own 5 or 6 of Norikane's prints and they all make me smile, each one with a story, which I think is kind of just his style. This one is called Miyajima-2 and I thought that the shrine torii with the water beneath just was so cool. I wanted immediately to know what the story was. This link explains part of it, if you are interested.

I took this picture in our office in our house in Japan with my Fuji Finepix f50. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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My other posts about Norikane's works that we have.

POTD Day 1 You

Staying with my theme of not posting my face on my blog, I have once again a pic of my feet. This one was taken on a geocaching hike to a lake near here.

The water in the lake (which is an irrigation lake) is super low because we are in a severe drought. This allowed me to walk along the lake shore at a level that is not normal and see some really cool rock formations. My feet are on one of those cool looking rocks. I love taking pictures of texture in nature and this trip really gave me a lot of opportunities.

It gets really muddy in the clay here when it rains so I was glad to get this hike in before we got any rain.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Geocaching Craziness

POTD Day 31 Polka Dots

This hankerchief doesn't really have polka dots in the traditional sense on it, but I love the design, and color and it felt like it met the requirements for this POTD. I got this hankerchief for Xmas a few years ago just in time for a 5K that was done in the middle of the night and was super cold.

I still take it with me on runs or walks that are on chilly days to keep my nose from running. It is big enough to tie up in my hair if I want, but I tend to keep it with my running stuff instead, since it was purchased for me as a running/walking tool.

I took this picture in our dining room with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light, and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Brushing

POTD Day 30 Best Invention Ever

I became hooked on rice cookers when we lived in Japan for the first time. Many of my friends had them and I found them to just be amazing. The first one we ever bought was just a 5 cup one and we still have that one. It has a little tray inside for steaming veggies and fish. We have used the heck out of that thing.

Once we got stateside again, we purchased our newest one, which is a 10 cup one and the tray for steaming is at the top. It has several different settings on it besides just steam and warm which makes cooking things other than rice much easier. I steam fish and veggies in it for lunch at least three times a week and it couldn't be easier.

Thanks to my awesome friend Jai, I know how to do Thai sticky rice in a rice cooker and it saves me so much soaking time...and it comes out great!

I took this picture in our  kitchen with my Fuji Finepix f50 with flash turned on. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Bunco Success

POTD Day 29 Window

This is one of the views from our front window of the house we had in NC for 3 years. I took a pic during each season from this same spot and this particular one is from the spring when the beautiful dogwood in front was just starting to bloom.

We knew we weren't staying forever so we didn't make a ton of changes to this house (hence the old fashioned pull down blinds), but nothing could take away from how cool the view was and how you could see each season through that window.

We had a lot of fun at this house. We did a big landscaping project in the backyard, discovered a bunch of new birds (being that we normally didn't live on the East Coast), and practiced up our skills in some home improvement areas we hadn't ventured into before. J's work didn't keep him away as much so he was able to divulge in some of the hobbies he enjoys like wood working, and we both got to play tons of golf which was awesome.

I am thrilled that the word for today really let me go back to some old pictures and check them out. I took this picture with our older Fujifilm Finepix f601 camera with no flash. I edited it in GIMP for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Birds

POTD Day 28 Dinner

This was a lovely stirfry I made the other night. It was so yummy and I took pictures because I am probably going to write the recipe up for our family recipe group on FB. It isn't a hard one to make...as with all stirfries, you definitely need to have all your prep done since the cooking itself goes pretty quick.

I usually make this one with chicken but I decided at the last minute to do shrimp instead and it came out so nice and light. Another key thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to cook any of the veggies too long because you want them to to stay crunchy and bright. This means knowing the cooking time of various veggies so you don't end up overcooking one because you put it in too early waiting for another to cook. I always cook the green beans first because in this list of ingredients, they take the longest.

I also use fish sauce in this recipe so I definitely make sure to add it early enough that it gets the required three mins of cooking so it gets rid of the fishy taste and smell...key to the dish, that is for sure.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash, macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and then added the fuzzy border.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Two Favorite Things

POTD Day 27 Something I Bought

This is the vanity that I bought for our downstairs bathroom. When we had the water damage last year, the vanity in the downstairs bathroom was one of the things that was ruined. I wasn't all that sad about it because it was this ugly 96 inch long particle board cabinet, but not having anything in there has made that bathroom a little less functional.

Right now 1/2 of the old vanity is sitting in the garage being used as a counter since we don't have any of our stuff here yet and it gives us some place to put things but I will be taking it apart soon, so that we can take it to Biomass. I will be excited to see it gone. I have to remove all the laminate and hardware from it, not to mention the sink that is still in it before they will take it.

The new vanity is not installed yet since we have to tile the floors before it can go in permanently. You can see that even the drawer knobs and the faucet are not on it. I plan to rough in the plumbing just to make sure it will all fit. Once I do that, I can recycle the boxes it came in (which are taking up space in our garage). I am keeping the boxes just in case the vanity isn't going to work and we need to return it.

The top is separate so I can actually plumb it while it is off and that will make reaching everything, much easier. The majority of the vanity itself is solid wood which is what we were looking for, which also means it is super heavy.

I took this picture with my Fuji Finepix f50 with the flash turned on.  I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color and light and then added the fuzzy border.
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You can follow along on projects on our house at The Bamboo Lagoon blog.

POTD Day 26 Fun Stuff

In May the year before we returned to our home, I went to a city festival with my sis and her husband. It is a week long event that includes a parade. We decided to hit the fair during the week to beat the crowds.

We bought tickets and went on a few rides. This is the ferris wheel type ride they had that we all three went on. We each hit a few different rides, my sis and I went on the Scrambler together which always makes me laugh uncontrollably. My sis and her husband went on a the Graviton (which I can't do because of the spinning) and another one I think was called the Tornado.

My BIL and I went on a ride called the Kamikaze together...it was an upside down ride but you were completely caged in so it wasn't that scary. My issue was with the gap between the shoulder harness and my shoulders. I should have pulled the harness down tighter before we started because as soon as we started to go upside down (and the hanging upside down part), I started to bang up against the harness. The next day, I had blood blister marks on my shoulders and upper arms. My feet hurt from wedging them under the footrest to keep myself from lifting up more than I was already.

The weird part was that the next morning, I woke up with this weird cold sensation all over my skin where ever it was exposed to the air. My legs in shorts would feel like I was wading through a creek if the wind were blowing. This continued for about a week before I finally went to the doctor. I just assumed the jarring of the ride had caused me to pinch a nerve or something. The exam was inconclusive and I was referred to a specialist.

Right about that time was when we moved back to our hometown and then a week or so later, I realized that I wasn't noticing it anymore...so I never went to the specialist. I haven't had it return since then but then I haven't jarred myself since then either...
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Chase's First Cut

POTD Day 25 A Taste Of Winter

This pic is from earlier this winter, when we actually had some precipitation...any pics I would take now would not really reflect winter here (other than frosty), so I opted for a snowing one.

So strange to get 8 inches in December that hung around for over a week and then to not have a drop since then. Last year hit some records for dryness and this year is not starting off very good. Our local ski resort is not even open yet because there is just not enough snow on the ground.

The snow was nice while it lasted but fortunately, I had no where to drive to, so I didn't have to risk our truck in it. At the time, we didn't have the canopy on the truck so it was super light in the back end. Now the canopy is back on and we have four 60 lbs bags of sand in there so no sliding...

I took this picture from our driveway of our blue spruce covered in snow with my Fuji Finepix f50, no flash. I edited the image in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...Learned My Lesson