Trying To Quiet My Inner Magpie

My original title was “Quieting My Inner Magpie,” but I realized very quickly I’m only “attempting” to quiet her. The actuality is that I’m not doing a very good job at it.

Photo “borrowed” from Wikipedia – much as a magpie would do!

I’m not sure there is an actual scientific basis for it, but anecdotally speaking, magpies (all crows, actually – but ESPECIALLY magpies) have a reputation for being attracted to shiny things. So when I find myself easily distracted, I like to joke that it’s my inner magpie’s fault!

But I’m finding that by giving my “inner magpie” free rein, a lot of my time is getting eaten up jumping from one thing to another. And as fun as it is, (and it IS fun!) it is not leaving me with a feeling of having accomplished much at the end of the day. More and more I am feeling the need to get control of her and re-focus my attention of the things I “should” be doing.

The internet is a major source of “shiny things” in my life. I sit down to look up one quick thing, and that leads me to another, which leads me to another, and the next thing I know, 3 hours have elapsed. Repeat that several times a day, and by bedtime I’m wondering where the day went. Few things are crossed off my to-do list, and the next day’s list is already in the hole. Or whatever it was just doesn’t get done. Ever.

But wait. Maybe this is what old age (older age?) is supposed to be like? Time to just enjoy life without having to feel like every day is full of actual, physical, tangible accomplishments? Hmmmm….I like that. This is going in a direction I hadn’t anticipated! Maybe my whole premise is inaccurate. Instead of trying to quiet my inner magpie, should I be embracing her as a reward for having been a focused, productive person for all of my adult life? Okay. I’m liking this.

Ha! Yet another of those shifts in attitude! I wonder if I can do it. Can I go from measuring my success not by what I’ve accomplished, but by whether or not what I did gave me pleasure? Is it even desirable? Yet another interesting concept that is going to take some reflection.

Getting Ready For Baby

We have a baby on the way – our fourth (and last) grandchild (the 3rd granddaughter) could be making her debut any day now.

So Gawgs needs to get a move on! I have announcements to make as well as her name (Alexis) in wooden letters for the wall of her room.

Mama decided on a cute pattern called “Zoo Garden” for her room, and I’ll be designing her announcements (and letters) to match. This is a photo of the quilt that goes with the set, and I’ll be attempting to use a similar giraffe motif for the announcement.

I made the announcements for the first three babies, but this will be my most ambitious undertaking yet.

So I have stacks of paper and envelopes waiting to be transformed.

We’re lookin’ at about 80 announcements, so I’m going to be one busy Gaga! I’d better get to it!

To Cruise or Not to Cruise…

That is the question!

There are pros and cons, I’ll tell you! (More pics to follow thoughts!)

I was NOT looking forward to our cruise, other than having two weeks of Mr. Tattered to myself. But he was really excited to see the Panama Canal, and there really isn’t a better way to do it, so we went.

My biggest objection to cruising is the focus on food. Having such terrible issues with my weight, I HATE putting myself in the position to have so much available whenever the urge strikes. ESPECIALLY when it is so good. But, I was remarkably good. I didn’t deprive myself (see peanut butter pie post!) but I didn’t over do on the quantities.

We avoided the buffet as much as we could, and when we did go, I was pretty selective in my choices. Being a vegetarian helped because it’s a pretty meat intensive place, so my options were often limited. Even in the dining room where we were encouraged to try more than one dish in each course, I was good, often just taking a few bites of each, rarely cleaning my plate. My poor waiter was concerned they weren’t satisfying my needs. My outsides look like I rarely miss a meal, so I couldn’t blame him. Anyway, the point is, I wasn’t too bad, so the food issue can be dealt with.

My other main concern going in was “formal nights.” Mr Tattered wanted to go, I didn’t. But then he looks great in dress-up clothes. I look like a cow. Dressing up. BUT, at the last minute I was able to put together a few outfits I felt good about, and it was actually fun. I hadn’t worn high heels since I broke my ankle a couple of years ago, and I thought those days were over. But, I hadn’t disposed of them, so I tried on my favorites (ones I bought just a week before I broke my ankle and had NEVER worn) and I could walk in them! Slowly, carefully, but I could do it! YAY! So, objection number two resolved.

Then there were the plusses. We really don’t like living out of suitcases or packing and unpacking to go from place to place. That limits options. With cruising you pack once, unpack on the ship, then your room goes with you from location to location. I LOVED it. Plus, “on the water” is my happy place and we spent a lot of time there! There were eight sea days on this trip, so I spent a fair amount of time hanging over the rail looking for sea critters and generally enjoying the wind in my hair. We also walked around the deck every day, and even in the humidity, most days the wind made it comfortable. Even more time was spent on deck lounges reading away (thus the photo of toes with ocean in the background!) With an iced coffee close by. There are worse ways to spend days.

Our cabin steward was friendly and so very helpful. He brought me a bucket of ice every morning and evening, made the beds, brought fresh towels, anticipated our need for beach towels on shore days. Except that I had to dress myself, (thank goodness!) I felt a little like “Lady Mary.” Spoiled rotten!

But the best part is that sleeping onboard makes it possible to see places that normally we wouldn’t feel safe going. Take Columbia, for instance. The chances of EVER going there by plane and fending for ourselves were slim and none. This way, the cruise line vets the tour company, and if there is an indication there is unrest at the port stop, they change the itinerary. It isn’t perfect, but it adds a degree of safety that made us feel more comfortable.

This has opened up the potential for going places that I know we NEVER would have gone otherwise. Well, we’re actually in negotiations, but at least I’m not getting a flat out “NO!”

The minor issues are the focus on shopping, and paying for entertainment we aren’t interested in. So. Just because they are encouraging you to spend money hand over fist, doesn’t mean you need to do it. I bought a cute sun hat onboard. I had brought my REI ball cap for tours, but it looked kinda hokey on the ship, and the one I found was VERY reasonably priced and travel friendly. Good purchase. I ignored the gold and jewels and all the other stuff they try to tempt you with, even when they funneled us through the cruise-line-owned shops on shore. I bought a few souvenirs and gifts, but I tried to go with the locals, and spent very little.

And the entertainment? Well, we just did an attitude adjustment on that. We were paying for stuff we didn’t want or need, but so what? We had a great time. And, we heard that the comedian onboard was quite good, so we went to two of his shows and really enjoyed them. I can see a show or two in our future.

Hahaha! Our future! Yeah, I think we’ll be cruising again! Oh, yeah. I almost forgot, duh…we prebooked another yet-to-be-named one – guess we will! I’m thinking the 28 day cruise to Hawaii, Tahiti and Bora Bora. I know. I’m very spoiled. I know it, and I appreciate it. But, once again, it’s all a product of having lived frugally for the majority of our lives. I find myself very glad that we drove cars ’till they died, didn’t try to keep up with the Jones’, never wore designer clothes, and bought our bedroom furniture at a garage sale, then kept it for 20 years. This is the pay off (assuming we both stay healthy. If we don’t, I might be a little unhappy!)

So, how about a few more pics for the road? These will be the last for this trip!

Cemetery – Aruba

California Lighthouse – Aruba

Ocean Sunset

Street Signs – Cartagena, Columbia

Me and Me. Tattered – Cartagena, Columbia

Travelers -Panama Canal

Lake Gatun – Panama

Another  Ocean Sunset

Suspension Bridge – Costa Rica

Steps – Costa Rica

Blue Heron – Costa Rica

Ginger – Costa Rica

Old Capuchin – Costa Rica

And that will do it! Next trip, Lake Tahoe this summer. I’m sure my tattered lens will be out and going crazy again! Thanks again for sticking with me for all this!

Ooooh, I Arted, I Actually Arted!

For the first time in weeks and weeks, I actually took the time to do some art.

My local art group had their twice a month meeting today. I missed the first one of the month while we were gone, so it was wonderful to get back and participate today.

It’s a time for working on whatever you want to do, and I chose to pull out the gelli plate today. Man I love that thing. I did a bunch of backgrounds, some in my go to palette of beiges, browns, blacks and reds, and some in greens, blues, beige and brown.

None of these are complete. I will be photocopying them onto thinner cardstock, then adding stamping, more paint, and a variety of other embellishments to use as “tip-ins” for my journal.

One of the things that is so fun working with the gelli plate is that you never know what you’re going to get! Some of the areas I like the most are the result of laying the paper on the messy plate to clean up extra paint, pulling it off and finding that LAYERS of paint have pulled up in ways you didn’t even know were there! It’s just a blast!

It suddenly dawned on me that I could lay down book pages, music sheets and scrapbook paper onto the watercolor paper before laying it onto the plate. Seriously, there are so many options. I’ll be doing this again soon – it makes me smile!

Through a Tattered Lens – Panama Canal Cruise

Whenever I go on a trip I take all the obligatory photos. I try to do them in an artistic way, but let’s face it, there are just so many ways to photograph all the iconic views of a given place. Yesterday I gave you a normal view of the cruise.

My favorite photos are the ones that depict the more goofy things that strike my fancy. Those are the ones I group into what I call “Through a Tattered Lens.” The photos taken BY Ms. Tattered, FOR Ms. Tattered. I like to share a few here and there, just so you can experience a little of the world through my eyes. So today I’m going to show you the things I notice that others may not. Just a sampling. I take WAAAAAY too many pictures. Or so I’m told. Bear with me here, I whittled them down as far as I could. These are just my very favorites…

Onboard ship, this was a common view for me!

California Lighthouse – Aruba

Fort – Cartagena, Columbia

Wall at Fort – Cartagena, Columbia

Fruit Vendor – Cartagena, Columbia

Balcony – Cartagena, Columbia

Wall, Old Town – Cartagena, Columbia

Grate, Old Town – Cartagena, Columbia

Containers on Ship – Panama Canal

Bridge Over Lake Gatun – Panama

Maintenance Vehicle – Panama

(This cracked me up – a maintenance vehicle obviously needing maintenance!)

Underside of Bridge in Lake Gatun – Panama

Tile Roof – Putarenas, Costa Rica

Bromiliads on Roof – Putarenas, Costa Rica

Rainforest Tree Truck – Putarenas, Costa Rica

Vines – Putarenas, Costa Rica

Leafcutter Ants – Putarenas, Costa Rica

REAL Coke, made with sugar cane, not sugar beets like in the US.

I’m sorta glad they don’t make it like this here in the states…

Puerto Chiapas, Mexico

Sea Turtle – Coast of Mexico

Dolphins – Coast of Mexico

Port – San Pedro

If you’ve made it all the way here, thanks for sticking with me. I promise not to do it too often. Hope you enjoyed the off-kilter side of the trip!

Cruise Photo Central

I know. Vacation photos. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to stay. They can be hard to take. But there have been those who have actually asked to see them, so I’m going to oblige. I have picked the most representative three photos from each of the 5 stops on the cruise, so as not to bore you completely to death. It’s not an easy chore since I took nearly 1000 photos, but I’ve now that I’ve gotten them whittled down to under 600, it’s a LITTLE easier.

Today will be a sampling of normal pictures, like anyone would take, then tomorrow I’ll show you the ones that are my faves through my “tattered” lens.

Aruba:

Natural Bridge

Arid Island

Very Colorful Houses

Cartegena, Columbia:

Surprisingly Large City – New Area

The Old Fort

Architecture of the Old City

Panama Canal:

Heading into the Locks

In the Lock – Double Gates

Approaching the Man Made Lake Gatun

Puntarenas, Costa Rica (our favorite stop):

Coastline View From Suspension Bridge

Rainforest From Safari Boat

Tropical Vegetation

Puerto Chiapas, Mexico:

The Bay

Busy City Streets

Restful City Square

This is only the very tip of the iceberg, and I hope a good overview of the land portion of the trip. There was sooooooo much to see. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was not terribly excited about going on this trip initially, but I’m so glad I did. It was hot and humid, and I wouldn’t want to live in this area of the world, but I’m so glad I got to see just a little of it in person!

Stay tuned tomorrow for some of the more unusual things that caught my eye!

Checking In With Organizing

I’m not NEARLY through sharing my little trip with you, but I’m going to take a break tonight to talk about my word for the year, ORGANIZE, and give you an update on how that is working in my life. There are both mental and physical reasons for the lack of organization, but the physical is easier to deal with, so I’m starting there.

I’ve mentioned before that we’ve been going through “growing pains” (for lack of a better word) around here. Now that we’ve combined two homes into one, our space is just no longer adequate. But, we love the house, and love the location, and we’re determined to make it work.

So, something has to give. It took awhile to figure out what that “something” would be, but we did it. Or at least part of it.

The beginnings of the idea go back a few weeks. We were enjoying a glass of wine at the home of some friends in the neighborhood. They have a house much larger than ours, but they have it set up in a non-traditional way that makes it very functional for the way they live, using rooms for things not as they were originally intended. When we applied that principle to our house, we realized that we don’t EVER use our dining room. It is very pretty, but it, for all intents and purposes, wasted space, using it as it was designed.

What we really need is an office, not a dining room. So, Mr. Tattered and I put our heads together and figured out a way to convert it without it looking completely horrible. Rather than doing an actual remodel, we re-decorated. We moved hutches to create walls around what was an open dining area, purchased functional, but attractive office furniture to put in there, and a gorgeous curio cabinet for the space in the family room where we used to have a large, but not very functional desk. The result is a reasonably attractive office (which we have dubbed the “man cave”) and a more spacious family room that has more storage space.

The curio cabinet is my favorite new piece. It’s from Pottery Barn (one of my favorite stores.) I initially saw it months ago, and although I fell instantly in love with it, I had all the furniture I had room for, so I pushed it into the back of my mind, thinking it would never be mine. Then the new plan was put together, I remembered the cabinet and set out in search of it, not really thinking it would still be available. But,  lo and behold, it was still in the on-line catalog, and best yet, on sale. And did I mention it’s red? Yeah, red. How could I POSSIBLY resist?

I can’t fill it yet, because we have wiring issues that need to be addressed before it can go against the wall, but it’s going to look GREAT!

Those wiring issues represent yet another organizational problem, and this only about half of it.

Technology is amazing, but it seems that no one has been able to overcome the mess that all the wires associated with technology come with. We’ve tried a number of different systems, but none of them work. I swear we sort them all out, turns our backs for five minutes and they’re all intertwined again. We lessened the mess by separating the wires into two different areas, but someone could make a gazzillion dollars if they could come up with an actual solution.

We’re still working on the office, so I’ll wait to take photos in there until it is a little more together, but trust me, we’re off to a good start. AND the process is getting me excited about continuing the process in other rooms. Ya hear that studio? I’m comin’ for ya!

The Critters of Central America

Most of you know that wildlife is an important part of my life, and when we take trips, one of my priorities is to scope out the critters living in the area.

My favorites on this trip were the monkeys, iguanas, and crocodiles. Crocodiles! Yep, we went on a mini safari in both Panama City and in Putaneras, Costa Rica, and saw crocodiles right by the side of the boat. Just like on the Jungleboat Cruise at Disneyland, except these were real!

The guide on our trip got out of the boat and fed raw chicken to the crocodiles. We were amazed.

There were 3 types of monkeys who call the areas we visited home, the Howler Monkeys, Capuchin, and Tamarind. We were fortunate enough to see them all, but the Capuchins were my favorite.

The howlers are the mean monkeys, the bosses who decide where all the other monkeys get to live. We saw all three varieties on this island, which the guide said was unusual.

The Tamarinds are the littlest monkeys – sweet and a little shy.

The biggest surprise was that there were iguanas all over the place.

They were incredibly cool, and walking around all over, city AND country.

We also saw a lot of different birds, but didn’t get any particularly striking views, and really none that were very exotic, except this pair of Scarlet Macaws. They were pretty far away (we could hear them much better than we could see them) and this is as much as I could blow up the picture without pixelating it.

The Macaws are approaching extinction because poachers raid their nests and steal the babies to sell. Only a small number survive. Why do we have to do that?

Anyway, we have become accustomed to bears, buffalo, elk, etc. so seeing critters sooooooo different was awesome!

Seriously, I’m Talking About Pie?

Well, by now you may have figured out that I’ve been away from home. I mean seriously, when you blog every day of your life, then suddenly you don’t, isn’t it obvious? But Mr. Tattered worries about mentioning on-line that we’re gone, so I respect his desire that I not. Except that really I do, just by NOT blogging. Oh, well.

Anyway, I’m back. And I’m like someone who has been in solitary confinement – I could do three blogs a day. But I won’t, I promise. I’ll just catch up a little at a time.

We went on a 15 day cruise through the Panama Canal. It wasn’t on MY bucket list, but it was on Mr. Tattered’s and you know what they say, “happy husband, happy life.” Oh wait, that doesn’t rhyme. Heeheehee! As it turns out, it was a wonderful trip, and I’m glad we went.

There wasn’t a single stop I was looking forward to, but they were all a lot of fun. Aruba, Cartegena, Columbia, Panama City, Panama, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and Puerta Chiapes, Mexico. All nice surprises. And there were DAYS at sea. One of my favorite places to be.

And food. OMG. Food. I was seriously scared to see how much weight I would gain, but I was careful when I could be, and managed to only gain 1.6 lbs. I happy danced all the way from the scale in the gym to the car! Woohoo! One of my favorite story is about peanut butter pie. Seriously, pie!

On the second night of the cruise, I had a piece of peanut butter pie for dessert. It was heavenly. Night 3 it wasn’t on the menu, so I asked our waiter if he thought there might still a piece hanging around from the night before. (Hey, if you don’t ask, the answer is ALWAYS no. If you do, there’s a chance it will be yes!) He checked, and there wasn’t, but he mentioned my request to the head waiter (Catalin from Romania.) He came over and asked if there was nothing else on the menu that sounded good, and I said, yes, there was, but it had been SO good, I was just hoping for another piece. (It’s been suggested there was some eyelash batting going on – I can’t SWEAR there wasn’t.) So he said, well, let me see what I can do. That  night I had a GREAT creme brulee, but after that, I had peanut butter pie EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for the rest of the trip, even though it was never on the menu again (and they NEVER save the food from night to night, so the poor pastry chef was making a pie every day, just for me!) One night they even sent an extra piece up with room service! It got to be a running joke at the table every night – my MAN looking out for me! I’ll be hearing about the flirtation with my “Romanian friend” for a long time, but when it comes to peanut butter pie, a girl has to do what a girl has to do!

I’m not going to bore you with tons of photos, but over the next few days, I’ll show you a few here and there. We had some fun adventures, and most of them require at least ONE photo!

I missed you guys!!!