Well hello friends! Had some technical difficulties and didn’t get a chance to finish this post yesterday. I have been meaning to catch up with you for some time now. Happy New Year! Can you believe it is 2019? I am still wondering how last year flew past me so fast. I made a promise to myself on my last birthday to stop wishing for weekends and enjoy what every day brings to me, good or bad. This is what older people say because we recognize that every day is a gift. I didn’t do too bad last year but I think there is room for improvement. So I will wish that again for myself this year.
I spent most of our vacation week with loads of family and we had a great time playing games, catching up and I even organized a couple crafting times for us to let loose and get our craft on.
My boys are getting older, so their Christmas wish lists were shorter with yes you guessed it, more expensive items. So I was a bit worried about our gift opening time but I have to say, despite the lack of endless gifts, my boys were genuinely happy. Hopefully they will learn that it’s really not about how many gifts you open up. It’s one of those things that can be challenging when kids turn a certain age and they don’t play with toys anymore.
My mother-in-law bought all the ladies Christmas PJs so we all decided to where them Christmas day!
Then we had to have a male vs. female challenge and what better way than with puzzles. So each group selected a 500 piece puzzle. The men of course talked a lot of trash and anticipated their win from the start. While of course we quickly started plugging away at ours.
We had confidence that the monochromatic puzzle they selected would be more challenging but they thought our puzzle had too much details and that they would slow us down. Well I am happy to report the ladies came out on top and we pulled off a fantastic win!
We played a lot of board, dice and card games.
We even had a hot chocolate bar for a few nights. Apollo has just recently discovered whip cream and had fun adding it along with other goodies to his hot chocolate!
I even had a cup!
I had a surprise myself when my husband and boys bought me a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 tablet and when they surprised me right before Christmas, I did my happy dance and couldn’t stop smiling. I am so thrilled. You have to first understand that I haven’t owned a brand new laptop. I have always been quite fine “inheriting” my husbands old laptops. But as time has gone on and my demands have raised, I have been dreaming of a new machine of my own. So it was a pretty big deal to me. It is a really powerful computer. I bought a really cute case for it because I often work in cafes and lugging my old laptop around was a bit of a drag. So this tablet is a game changer. I can carry this and my books without breaking my back. I love the ability to draw/touch the screen. I have been using it mostly in laptop mode but have just installed a fantastic drawing program for work so I will be using it in tablet form quite a bit in the near future.
The only software I had to replace was Photoshop Elements and I will not embarrass myself and tell you what version I was working on up to this point. Let’s just say, I am truly loving exploring all the new features in the 2019 edition and so excited about the things that have been automated.
Enough of that. I have lots of ideas for the blog and Belinda’s Crafts for 2019. I even came up with some creative craft goals for both work and fun. I will share some in upcoming posts. In the meantime, I hope you all are well and take time to enjoy your day!
Belinda
Good morning my friends! It’s been a while! I have been rather busy and frankly full of deep thoughts throughout the past few weeks. But today I am in high spirits and welcome this new day. So much so that the photos I am including in this post were taken this morning after dropping off my boys to their schools. This first photo is such a beauty. I like that you can see all the detail including little imperfections. The color is amazing – it looks like someone painted a yellow flower with red. This one I grew from seed and since the weather is still going strong, they keep on blooming.
Apollo’s birthday was a success and I will share a few photos later this week. Now I am preparing for Nick’s birthday which is this Friday and he is turning 14!! What? How did that happen? I mean really, I don’t believe it. Top that off with the fact that he will be my height in a minute! So no big party plans but a nice intimate dinner out and maybe we will catch a movie as a family to celebrate.
The Celebration of Life service for my cousin, Frank Buntin was amazing. For a wonderful man whose life was cut short, there was so much love in the room you could feel it. People from all over flew in to share stories and photos about my cousin Frank. I saw my mother’s brother (Frank’s dad) who is the last living Buntin of that generation. Although many of my family could not make it, I did catch up with some cousins I haven’t seen in years.
Despite the sadness, we all cherished the opportunity to catch up with each other and reconnect. I know that my cousin smiled on that day watching us all gather together. Especially since my generation has been awful about family reunions. So I am hoping we can all aim to change that now that we have been given another chance.
This last photo is of Frank’s younger brothers. I remember them when they were babies and now I felt so small standing there with them. My renewed interest and work in genealogy only made this day more precious.
Dalhia’s…can’t get enough of them and love that they are still blooming in my garden.
