Quick chat: Strange weather

Hello! It’s me. I don’t know why it’s such a surprise but the weather has been so strange for the past month.  August was brutal with insane heat. September is starting off crazy too. Two days ago, I hoped in the car to bring my oldest son to school and when I was backing up (thank goodness for rear cameras), I noticed this rather large tree limb had landed on the fence and I was about to back into it.  I am usually rather good about looking around at the trees in my yard (nature geek) whenever I go outside but that morning we were running late and I still had to go and get back to take my younger son to school. I also didn’t hear any crashing of limbs the night prior only heavy rain and wind.

I have been watching the news to see how North Carolina fares in their upcoming storm. I pray no one is hurt and that minor damage occurs. It’s incredibly stressful to see how fast our weather has gone to such extremes.  We experience really high wind storms more than I remember while growing up.  I have a lot of trees on and around our property and it makes me nervous when we have high winds.

I really love Fall and can’t wait for it’s arrival. It’s one of my favorite seasons and I hope we don’t skip it and go straight to winter.  But only time will tell.

Well, I am going to get back to work. I was just taking a break and started thinking about it so I thought I would share.

Have a blessed day friend!

Belinda

Happy Monday: Summer Vacation Recap!

Hello Everyone! Wow, it’s been a long while since I have written a Happy Monday post. I didn’t plan on stopping my blogging but I had decided to take the summer and enjoy my family so I think crafting and blogging took a back seat.

This summer we had an amazing vacation in Hawaii so I thought before we get back to crafty happenings, I would share a bit of the fun. Although this was not our first family trip to Hawaii, I am still in awe.  We have family that lives in Hawaii and the last time we visited my youngest was practically a newborn! Both my boys are now of age to really file these new memories in the forever bin. Despite my multiple visits, I spent a large amount of time, ooo and aaaing over the continuous mountains surrounding us and the exotic vegetation. While preparing for this post this morning, I had a hard time selecting photos to share. I took so many and they are all so very special. So I selected some and grouped them together. The first batch you see is of the amazing house that we rented with our family (my husband’s family). This is our third time renting a house together and we all have a great time. This house had an amazing pool and loads of open spaces for us all to hang out. We would spend evenings eating outside near the pool. I also included a photo from a beautiful hike and of course our trip wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Dole Plantation. Yum!!This next set of photos are of our visit to Pearl Harbor, a sneaky date night Leao and I had, beach time, and taking photos on the property of the house we rented. They had amazing trees, flowers, and even a mini putting green! The boys got a lesson from our family on how to make a yummy Hawaiian dessert. I had one of the yummy finished products.I took so many pictures while we drove around of the mountains and trees so I had to include at least one in this grouping. We had a family bowling night and I have to say I am pretty convinced that my Hawaiian family is in a league because they sort of wiped the floor with us!  Beach time and books were a priority, of course, being the book nerd. The last two photos are of a few of us out for sunrise photos.Each day we made dinner together and on one night our Hawaiian peeps made us some traditional Hawaiian food. It was so much fun to try the dishes and hear stories about some of them. I decided that I wanted to pack more educational activities into this trip since past trips we spent a lot of time on the beach. So we took a trip to Iolani Palace. It was extraordinary and I was glad to be able to take my boys to see this place and learn about the history of how the US. overthrew and took control of this country. It’s not talked about when you hear about Hawaii. Most often you only hear or read about Pearl Harbor but these magnificent islands were self-governed prior to that tragedy. So I included a few photos inside and outside of the palace. This last grouping is beach scenes, Pearl Harbor, family hanging out at the house, visiting Hanauma Bay and cousins hanging out at the pool.

I had such a wonderful time that upon my return home and after jetlag faded, I fell into serious withdrawal. Just didn’t get enough. Definitely a highlight of our summer.

Ok, now that we have caught up, I will be able to resume a regular posting schedule so do come back.

Happy Monday and have a blessed day!

Belinda

What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday – #483

Good morning my crafty WOYWW friends! For those of you that aren’t familiar with WOYWW (What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday),  head on over to Julia’s Stamping Ground and you will find desks from all around the world for What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday where we get to snoop on other crafter’s desks.

Well, stop the search parties because I have once again resurfaced to play. The last time I participated in WOYWW was #470!! Since then, I had a fantastic summer and Hawaiian vacation to really crank things up. I am a self-employed crafter and this was the first summer I decided to stop putting so much pressure on myself and took the summer off to be with my boys and dear husband. So that’s what I did, so with it came me abandoning my blog too.

As both my boys are both in school again, today is my first day back to work and boy is it a bit crazy. I hired my youngest son, yesterday to help me create an inventory of all my stamping inks.  Let’s just say that I have been crafting for years and have amassed quite a collection. So the first thing I did was give my son specs for the creation of a spreadsheet so that once I establish this system, I can maintain moving forward.

Because let’s face it, we all know the feeling of ordering some craft product only to find out days or weeks later, that you already own it!!  I wanted to track the manufacturers, the type of ink, the color and how many I own, also have it tell me if I need to re-order any.

Once he created the spreadsheet, I duplicated it and removed some of the fields for printing purposes and added a ‘swatch’ column so that I could visibly see my entire inventory. I found a fun leaf stamp and got to stamping.  Boy did it take time. I had no idea how many ink pads I own. I am extremely impressed that almost all of them were still juicy. I have some of them for so many years, I think some of the companies might have even gone out of business by now. But the fact that they are still moist is surprising.

But now I am left with an awesome system to help me when I am creating products. I can find just the right color and type of ink to use in minutes. So it was well worth the hours to create it.

I will leave you with one photo from our vacation and then later I will write a proper post to share some more of the fantastic details. I hope you all are well and I look forward to re-connecting with you talented WOYWW friends.  Keep craftin!!

Belinda

Happy Monday: Summer Reading and Summer Vacation

Hello! It’s been a while since I have written a post. I have to laugh at myself because I always have big plans in June and then I get into the month and realize that my kid’s school schedules consume my time.  So stuff gets left undone. Like painting the accent wall in our living room, sticking to the 30-day coloring challenge, prepping the laundry room to re-arrange the furniture and appliances, cleaning out my craft closet.  Yup the list goes on and on and I haven’t scratched the surface on any of them.

To add to this crazy time, it is the month of my birthday and wedding anniversary. So yes, I am writing to you a year older. I had simple requests for my husband to celebrate my birthday. Drop the boys off with my in-laws for the weekend, breakfast in bed with a book (naturally), spend a few hours on the morning of my birthday at the beach, visit a new independent bookstore so I can do some birthday book shopping, lunch at a cafe and then dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  Oh did I say simple requests? Haha. Well, a lady must make the most of each birthday so I was compelled to have a fun but busy day. It turned out better than I imagined and the weather was fantastic.

The intro picture above is in our library. I am writing this post here today while the boys look at options for summer reading. I am such a library geek – always looking for a reason to visit. It’s rather peaceful right now. Some days there is so much activity here.

We are going on vacation to Hawaii in a couple of weeks so I will be rushing to prepare so might not post as much as I should but I will resume when we come back.

I think I better go check on them because my boys might get “distracted” from selecting their summer books. But I hope you are all enjoying the beginning of summer and savoring every moment!

Belinda

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