You know I love me a good 10-minutes-or-less project, right?
I had this one stepping stone from Lowe’s. I think I was contemplating using it for another project or something and I brought home this sample. But didn’t use it.
I had also thought, at some point or another of painting or stenciling a simple greeting on my front porch, “hello.” Didn’t do that either.
Then 10 minutes happened my way, just after brewing my morning coffee.
On hand: 1 fake-slate-travertine-type stepping-stone, approx. 12″ x 6″, some latex paint, a photocopy and packing tape and a sponge brush and~
I told you about PicMonkey before {HERE} so you can see what the heck I am talking about.
1// I uploaded my handy-dandy “white” jpg to PicMonkey.
2// I selected a very simple and casual font and added the word “hello.” Maybe 2 minutes to decide which font?
3// I saved the image to my computer and threw it into a Publisher doc and stretched it to fit within the paper’s parameters, so my finished image would be about 5″ x 10″. And hit print. 1 minute.
4// I put two strips of packing tape over the printed word to make it sturdier for cutting and painting over. Then I cut out my word. 3-5 minutes. Didn’t go for perfection. It is a stepping stone.
5// Use teeny-tiny little tape donuts on the backs of the “insides” of letters. 30 seconds.
6// I tried {and tried} to get my brown, gold-flecked enamel open, but couldn’t, so I used brown latex paint and sponge brush and just “stippled” the paint onto the letters. 1 1//2 minutes, if even.
7// I ripped away the paper and voila! It was not perfect. :)
8// I wiped excess paint off with my finger and then used some creamy white to just barely make a couple of edges more perfect.
Done and time to dry. I may or may not put a thin coat of tile sealer or satin poly over it before it takes it place on the front porch after Christmas decorations come down. Either way, aren’t I just the friendliest?
One teensy-tiny drawback to listening to your music via vinyl (I love an LP, people), is that sometimes, since I have purchased some albums from a thrift store, there are records that are in less-than-pristine condition and there might a scratch or two.
Our countdown Santa
It doesn’t really bother me, though. Part of the fun of a record playing on the stereo is some of the crackly sound you get with it. I even digitize my favorite songs from my favorite albums because I love the sound of the needle dropping onto the record and the heightened anticipation of the crackling turning into the sound of a song I love on the surround-sound. {schckskrschkdkschhhh, not sure, but I think my spelling on that is right} ;)
Today, as I prepare for all the grandbebes to descend (for our annual Christmas overnight), I have gone quite traditional by listening to The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas.
And oops, it got stuck as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops were performing {just for me} their medley of Here We Come A-Caroling/O Tannebaum/I Saw Three Ships. At the precise moment my steak reached perfection in the kitchen and I reached for a plate to enjoy it, the phone rang and there I was, plating and talking and in the background, the Pops, just singing away
And God bless you and send you a
And God bless you and send you a
They must’ve sung that line 37 times before I got to the stereo. So you know what I did? I received it as an early Christmas blessing from the Father of Lights. Yep. I think it was just a sweet message from God to me. I bless you and I am sending you a Happy New Year – don’t miss this message, busy-girl!
A scene from the family room
I didn’t. It may have taken 37 times, but I got the beautiful message. And since it is mine now to share, I bless you with it, too:
God bless you, BLESS you, and send you a Happy New (fresh as the driven snow) Year!
Averi was trying to chase Hunter around to get some pictures but he out-ran her efforts. So she did the long arm shot of her little four-year old self. Blue-blue-blue. A portrait by Miss Averi. Not one iota touched up!
On yesterday’s post, about the NYPD officer who bought boots for a shoeless, homeless man {click here, or scroll down}…I contemplated Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 and so when you look at the photo, you have to ask:
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 25
They turned out pretty cute and were so easy. I am a total graphics novice, but I am going to show you how I created them in less than 3 minutes.
Step 1: I googled “white” and grabbed the first image of a white rectangle and saved it to my pictures. THREE SECONDS! Here is the image I got if you want me to make it easier [click].
Step 2: I opened www.picmonkey.com and uploaded the white image. Maybe 5 seconds? 7?
Step 3: I rotated the white image to vertical. 1 second.
Step 4: I opened the snowflake image (Winter Wonderland) from the tools to the left side of the PicMonkey screen.
Step 5: I selected a font from the ones they suggest in this holiday collection. In this case, I typed these words (2 separate word boxes) December, and 23. I resized the word and then the number and then selected colors for them. Maybe 30 seconds trying to decide.
Step 6: The longest of all steps, just because they have so many fun flourishes and branches and wreaths. You can do whatever you want. I used two different sprigs of holly on the bottom, then I use a sprig up top. Since I already knew that my sign needed to be simple, I didn’t play much and it was done in less than a minute.
Step 7: I saved my image to my computer. 2 seconds.
Step 8: I opened a blank page on Publisher and used the page-setup feature to make sure it was the 11 x 17 size I needed.
Step 9: I inserted the image I had created onto the blank (from my computer) and enlarged it to fill the space. The dimensions were not exactly correct and they didn’t have to be for this project. But please note that. This is why it took such a short time to design and finish. It is a casual sign. If you are going to be precise, your original background needs to be proportionately exact to the size you’ll be printing. :) Mine didn’t need to be, so: 5-10 seconds.
Step 10: Add a thin line around the edge with Publisher tools. SAVE IT! Print. :)
Three minutes or less. Seriously.
ALSO the cool thing with PicMoney.com is that after I originally saved the December 23 image to my computer (name it, of course,), I was able to just change the date to 24 for my second sign and save it without having to start over. So really, I made TWO signs in 3 minutes or less. Oh, yeah, baby!
These have been mounted on a piece of black foam core (cut in half) and will twinkle away onstage at the opening night performance tomorrow night.
A little bit o’ glitter.
I am trusting you all to NOT let Stormie know that while adding just a little glitter to the signs (for that extra sparkle every show needs) I accidentally may have dumped a pile of red Martha Stewart glitter on her camera. I am not saying it did happen. Just that it may have happened. So, don’t talk about it.
Dave’s first stage-performed play (that HE has written) is coming up soon – 5 days!!! We are so lucky and grateful for all the people who have worked to put this together. AND it is pretty exciting to see posters in store windows and on coffee shop bulletin boards! Have you seen them???
There will be 2 performances and a lot of our kids and grandbebes are involved and the niece and great-niece, too. Plus the greatest friends on earth, acting and taking tickets and building sets and helping us spread the word.
So if you see this and you are in the area, you should come! Friday November 30 at 7 om or Saturday December 1 at 7 pm. The cost is $5 per person (children under three are free) and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Adams County Cold Weather Care program (Mission: To provide life saving shelter and support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Adams County). You can buy your tickets online (www.callbacktheater.com) or at the door.
Be watching the local newspaper for an article this week!
The location is the totally cool Armory @ Brighton. Here is how to get here, 300 Strong Street:
Plus LIVE music by some pretty cool-awesome-amazing musicians, if we do think so! :)
FABULOUS way to kick off your Christmas season, I promise! Please plan to come and tell everyone you know about it. And LIKE the FB page and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
“In computational complexity theory, a probabilistically checkable proof (PCP) is a type of proof that can be checked by a randomized algorithm using a bounded amount of randomness and reading a bounded number of bits of the proof. “
I will never use it that way, but I will use it, you may be certain of it. :)
I find it crazy the amount of food we gobble-gobble up on Thanksgiving. But there is something so ingrained about it, isn’t there? I was watching an old movie the other day and they mentioned the Thanksgiving meal: there was turkey and ham and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry, too. For all the dishes that come and go, the menu doesn’t stray too much. Even when we get crazy and add Cajun or Mexican sides (or even go vegetarian), it is pretty hard for most people I know to do away with these traditional fixings all together.
My own very cosmopolitan and trend-setting children by day, at Thanksgiving, are among the most traditional in their desires. They will gather here today, Dave and Tara and Hunter magoo, Steph and Tris and the three Kelley kids (Guini, as always, will have first dibs on the wishbone), Tredessa and Ryan (this is their first Thanksgiving as a married couple, because the wedding was 2 days after Thanksgiving last year). Rocky and Jovan and the 2 little girlies will be here and Stormie and Saber-the-German (Shepherd) and The Garcias and Leif (Ryan’s younger brother) will join us, too.
And as I stood at the counter this morning chopping vegetables and mixing ingredients in a quiet, sunny kitchen (Christmas music drifting in from the room where Dave is rearranging every piece of furniture we own to accommodate our little table for 23), I just found myself loving that we go to the trouble anyway. There is something in the ritual of it, in fixing this huge meal that reminds us of the sacred and sweet and all the blessings we have had and all the blessings that will come to be. And it is just this bountiful moment in time to thank God for all of it.
In everything GIVE THANKS for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 Thessalonians 5. 18
And standing there, knowing we will have more than we need to eat and eat too much, I remembered all the Thankskgivings of my life (there have been more than 50, now) and how the crowd has changed so much. All the Grandmas and Grandpas are gone now. Some of the aunts and uncles have passed, too. I remember thinking as a kid they were all trying to starve me to death because the meal was never ready “on time,” but when finally we could eat, ooooooh-delish! Then later: mommy, my tummy hurts, I ate too much (Tara was 4 the first time this happened to her). How glorious to have all the pumpkin pie I could ever want (and my mom always made THE BEST pumpkin pie, until Stormie came along).
I thank God for it all, the family I was born into and all the times they crammed all of us into tiny house with tables and tables and food and we ate all day long (pre-microwave, people!). Mostly at Grandma Bakers, we also met Aunt Sue’s once. But Aunt Rosie’s quite a bit, too…Aunt Rosie introduced me to the romantic notion of one very long table for all of us eat together – no kid table! I am doing that for my grandbebes now. They like it! And I love that the aunts and uncles and all the cousins would descend from near and far because even though we were wall-to-wall people, the importance of all of us together saying “Thank-you, Lord,” was valued. Stop life and say thanks – this was the message imparted to my heart. We may not have a lot, we are just regular people, but we are blessed and we say thanks to You, Lord.
Oh my, in spite of their humanness and mistakes and oddities as a family (plentiful, for sure), oh how I cherish the fact that they all helped me settle on the solid foundation that is Jesus Christ.
Then there were the years the extended family times dissipated as grandparents died, and my siblings and I, with our growing families, would gather with my parents (the new matriarch and patriarch). The last time were all together for Thanksgiving was 1991, I believe. That era ended too soon as we were living all over the nation, but we’d always touch base and today I think of each of them with so much love my heart actually hurts. Happy Thanksgiving, my brothers (by birth and the one we got when my sister married you) and my little sister and all my beautiful sisters by God’s design (and marriage to my little brothers). Happy Thanksgiving to the nieces and nephews and to the whole big, colorful family I married into. Be blessed, I decree it.
And how blessed and grateful I am to get to have this Thanksgiving feast with my own babies and their families today. The little cousins will file away so many details of this day as trivial: running up and down the stairs, playing dress-up, maybe coloring and painting together or playing a board game. They will eat and eat and be back in an hour for more. They will go home totally unaware that in 40 or 50 years they will be standing at their kitchen counter assembling food on a sunny morning for a Thanksgiving meal for their beloveds and suddenly the memories in sharp detail, of being at Nonna’s house so many Thanksgivings past, will suddenly rush back in “like waves upon the shore” and they will, like I am today, thank God for all the Thanksgiving Thursdays family gathered just to show gratefulness. And they will know that is it good to give thanks unto the Lord.
Psalm 71.17-19
Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your mighty acts to all who are to come.
Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
you who have done great things.
Who is like you, God?
My intent in writing this blog, when I began it a thousand words ago, was to say this (I am so wordy, huh?) in ONE paragraph: Happy Thanksgiving, from our family to yours. Like all families, the treasure must be guarded and tended like a garden to make sure it lives and thrives. We are just normal people with issues and oddities, too. But today, we gather in His name to tell Him we are grateful. This foundation is firm. So, I pray you will be blessed and happy in all things today, just as I am praying for my family.
I simply cannot help being so graphomaniacal. Just can’t. xxoo
I love the Bing Crosby song from “Holiday Inn” that he sings (while missing his love, who has recently become engaged to another man) on Thanksgiving. So he is a little grumpy, but the song on its’ own is a happy, grateful, true story!
Best lines from this clip?
Mamie: Women has to have them things told to them the right way. You could melt her heart right down to butter, if you’d only turn on the heat.
Jim considers what Mamie is telling him.
Jim: Well, sure. [He is now resolved] Women has to be told things the right way.
Uh, yeah. Right. Anyway, I am singing this song all day today! Sing with me, come on! I have included lyrics! Because I am nice like that.
Of course, they were Danny and Sandy from “Grease” (1978) And they are back for Christmas, almost 35 years later. Kitschy or not, I had to check it out.
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