Housekeeping and More Thrifty Finds

Many times I have made schedules - some simple, some complicated - for getting my housework done.  Somehow I've never really hit on one that works for me.  I have read all the housework organizing books, Confessions of an Organized Homemaker, Side-Tracked Executives, Speed Cleaning, The Messies Manual, etc.and when the web came along, I would read all the home organizing sites that I could find.  I would get very enthusiastic about it, but in all too short order, it would become boring, or impossible to keep up with, or something would come along to get me off track.

Now, I have been keeping house for over 50 years and I still haven't solved the problem - so I guess it is hopeless.  In my defense, a good bit of that time I had 4 children and worked part time.

Hope springs eternal, I guess, and I still keep trying because disorder does bother me. My idea of  heaven includes having everything in place and clean.........all done by someone else, of course!

I've said all that to say this - I have got to get menus planned for next week or we will spend too many evenings eating out!  And I have got to clean my house for company next weekend!

Here are other thrift store, etc. decorating finds. The little glass jar was 75 cents and the red and white saucer 50 cents.  The flowers were cut from one stem at the dollar store.  They sorta match my wall paper and the salt and pepper shakers that were given to me by one of my children who knows I like floral (especially roses) designs. The vase  was recycled from a candle jar.

Yardwork, Thrifting, and Knitting

Well, it 's a very nice day outside today which means...........yardwork!  It was nice to be outside but I am not a yardwork person.  However, since I don't have one (yardwork person), I got out and raked those leaves and started pruning the lantanas in the back yard.  And that is just a start!

Back to knitting:  that afghan I said was simple - well, lately it has been driving me nuts. Morning before yesterday I pulled out 4 looong rows  because I discovered a mistake. This morning I thought I had knitted an extra row in the pattern, pulled it out, and then discovered that it was not a mistake and had to knit it back in.

Probably nobody would have noticed those mistakes except me.  However, I have made a lot of mistakes in my life that I could not go back and correct.  These I could and so I did. (The italics are because I said something profound!)

Like many women, I love bargains.  I think garage sales, thrift shops, and estate sales are great.  Some of my favorite things in my home have come from them.  Recently I went to an estate sale and got several good buys.  Here is the one I thought was the best bargain.  It was my husband's valentine and it cost a quarter (we've been married 53 years so he appreciates any valentine he gets).  In addition to being a copy of a Mary Engelbreit print, it plays music to the tune of "Just the Way You Are".......and that is the way I have to take him. (and also how he has to take me)

New Blog Header

I have spent all morning making a new header for this blog.  Finally figured out that 1175 pixels will fit across the template (Minema Stretch) that I am using.  The width of a new header doesn't seem to matter.

I thought about changing the name of this blog to "Over 70 and Counting" inspired by  this blog I ran across last night.  It has a blogroll for bloggers over 50 with a lot of interesting looking sites on it.  If  I ever figure out how to make a bloggroll, maybe I could do one for over 70's!!  We could talk about our aches and pains and the trips we've taken :) .

I need to get out in the yard and rake oak leaves and cut back all of the dead stuff, but Thankfully unfortunately it is wet and rainy outside, as it was yesterday. This has been a weird winter.  We have lived here almost 50 years and I never remember another like it.

Doll Sweater

A couple of blogs back I mentioned that progress on my afghan had been slow.  One of the reasons for that is I stopped work on the afghan to knit a couple of American Doll Sweaters.  The above photo is one of them.  The other sweater has been sent to a granchild who lives in another state (and I am still not happy about that - in case a certain someone is looking at this!)

This is a free pattern from the web, and it is found here.  If you are like me, free is good!  I used some leftover sport weight yarn to knit it.

HTML

This morning my husband and I went to Ikea. I had something I needed to return and wanted to look at their shelving. We were there early enough for their free breakfast (that's how I got him to go!).

While we were finishing the meal with an extra cup of coffee - and their coffee is really good - he mentioned a newspaper article that he had read about how some people have been able to go into blogs and find out where the blogger lives. I reminded him that
1. I don't think a predator would be interested unless he has a thing for old, wrinkled, slightly overweight women.
2. We certainly are not rich and famous, and
3. Neither of us is running from the police.

I don't really think this is going to be a problem.

What makes me very excited about the above is that I am doing this whole post in html instead of composer. About.com has a 10 week class on XHTML and I am plodding through it. Don't know if it will really help with blogging that much but will see.

By the way, if anybody reads this and has advice or criticism about the set-up of this blog, I will be very appreciative of it!

Strawberry Festival and Current Knitting Project

Yesterday, my hubby and I went to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City.  It is an old festival here in Central Florida - started 75 years ago.  You cannot tell from this photo but there was a big crowd.  I meant to take a picture of the huge strawberry shortcake we had, but I guess I was too excited about eating it and forgot!

While there, we watched one of those waterless cookware demonstrations - the one where they cook and let the audience have samples of the food.  We bought one of those kinds of cookware sets about 40 years ago (and still use it) and certainly were not in the market for pots and pans.  But it was free food!  And the chef was very entertaining. And there were chairs where we could sit down for awhile.  One of the demonstrators gave me this website with cooking videos which demonstrates some of their recipes and cooking methods.

In the past year I have started knitting.  I learned how years ago but never did much with it - knitted a few sweaters and would probably be classified as a beginner. Currently I am working on an afghan for our family room sofa.  I found a free pattern on the web at this link and  found some Lion Brand Jiffy yarn on sale at Joann's that I could use with it.  I haven't made a lot of progress but am not really pushing it.  It's a simple, easy pattern and great for working on when I watch TV.   I never remember to change the little row counters that you put on knitting needles to keep track of which row you are on so I made a chart.  Anyone who may be interested in knitting this can access my chart here.

Struggling to Learn How to Set Up This Blog

Every once in awhile, the solution to a problem will jump into my head early in the morning after I wake up.  One morning since I last posted, it dawned on me that maybe blogger will take png graphic files as well as jpg (and it does).  I had been trying to make my own title design with PSE and being able to use png's will make things easier as it enables me to use digital elements while keeping the background invisible.

I also was having problems figuring out how to size pictures to fit the title bar and did not really understand the instructions I found on the web.  Finally, I just right clicked on the title bar of someone else's blog that used the same template as I do and noted the properties of the photo used in their title bar.  The size was 800 x 170 pixels with a 72 resolution.  I still had to tweak this a little.  So now I have my own title though I need to work on it as it is by no means an impressive work!

Another idea I had is to make a quick draft of post ideas for the day early when my mind is working  and expand on it later - when my poor mind is tired and can't do any new thinking.

Every thing I have read on the internet (and in Google Blogger for Dummies that I just got from the library) talks about the importance of picking a subject that the writer is passionate about.  This has stumped me as there is not one thing that I stick with.  I am interested in a lot of things - particulary if there is something new to learn about it.  The only thing I can do is blog about whatever the thing of the moment happens to be……..thus the name “Occasional Pursuits”.   And wonder of wonders!  I was able to get a blogger domain name using the same words.

Blogging and Cooking

I am still having to fiddle around with this blog. Lost my profile photo and photos in my posts and had to figure out how to get them back on.  Took me awhile........

This is a practice blog so I am just posting whatever I am thinking about.

Last night my grandson and his friend had dinner with us. I had the one dish that I know everyone in my family likes - a recipe that I got from my husband's aunt years ago. She called it Beef Stroganoff, but we just call it Beef and Noodles. Here it is:

Beef and Noodles
1 pound Ground beef
1 medium Onion chopped
3 cups Medium noodles
3 cups Tomato juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can Cream of mushroom soup
1 cup Sour cream

Brown ground beef and chopped onions. Drain off grease. Add noodles, tomato juice, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Cook until noodles are tender. Add cream of mushroom soup, followed by sour cream, stirring after each addition. Make sure food is not hot enough to boil when adding sour cream or it will curdle. Yields: 4 Servings

Working on Blogger

Well, it's the first day of March, and now I will have 2 months under "archives"!!  Of course, it doesn't matter that I started practically on the last day of February.

In doing some research on blogging this weekend, I found that Blogger uses Picasa Web Albums to store photos that it's users post.  Upon checking my albums I found that even photos that I had used and then deleted from my blog were in my Picasa Web Album - although some of the photos were repeats.  I deleted the repeats and hope I got the right ones.  The photos are still on this site this morning but, according to the article I read, sometimes it takes 24 hours for them to be deleted from the blog.

This morning, in trying to find the site about Picasa and Blogger - since I forgot to bookmark it - I couldn't find it but I found a lot of other sites about this subject..........so guess I will do some more research.

PS After trying in vain to reposition and add a new gadget, I found I could not make it work using Firefox for my browser but was able to after switching to IE.  (Not my idea - I found it after googling)

My Day

I walked 3 laps around the mall this morning with my neighbor.

Went to my grandson's and granddaughter's basketball games.

Came home and worked for HOURS on this blog and as, can be seen, made very little progress - but I'm getting there - stumbling around all the way!  I requested Dummies Guide for Google Blogger (or something like that) from the library.  Hope they send it soon.

In between those things, I did a little housework and made dinner.

I'm ready for some TV and bed.