Fun with Polyvore.com

I'm trying to get fashions for my www.TeenStyleU.com website.  I just LOVE this  www.polyvore.com fashion editor.  You can choose colors and styles and it's awesome.  But... I can't figure out how to create affiliate links in it in my website.  Still, it's a lot of fun. You can try it out.

Our Winter just came... and went

It’s been a fun week.   I can’t say that we passed any milestones, but just getting through weeks is sometimes a victory.

Winter came.  With snow.  And was gone in a day or two.  Now we are back to spring like weather.  It really is delightful… especially since we finally had two days of winter.  For the one day, snow just drifted down.  I can tell you, the chickens didn’t like it.  They wouldn’t come out of their house.

I listened to a live call from AWAI and decided I needed to sign up for elance—a website from where you can get writing jobs.  Let me tell you.  It is no simple thing!  You have to first read all kinds of disclosures.  Then take a training.  Then sign up.  Then take a series of proficiency tests and put your resume up on your page.  I still have a ways to go.  Sometimes progress seems like slogging through molasses.

I have continued working on my Teen Style U website.  I’ve written more pages, and I’ve learned that I may be able to import a great device onto the website that will allow people to create their own styles.  I think I’ve finally chosen the theme I will use and my goal is to actually put the basic parts of the website together this coming week.  Again, the learning curve makes things go slower.

Wednesday I went to our young women and talked to them about color and body type and asked what they were interested in learning more about.  It was nice to know that they were interested in many of the things I’d planned for the site.  They also had great feedback on the questions of “Why be modest?” and “What is modesty?”  It was fun to interact with them.

It’s been fun to go and see the Main Street house progress.  I ended up choosing a darker stain for the floors than I would have liked, but it did a great job of minimizing the imperfections and the floors turned out quite nice.  The outside doors (to a storage area under the house) were dilapidated, paint-peeling, and barely opened or closed.  Those got fixed this will and WOW! What a difference new paint and straightened up doors make.

The side porch was stuffed full of scrap lumber, old doors, trim pieces, leaves and debris.  Slowly by slowly the stuff has either been cleaned up and incorporated into the house… or trashed.  This week we actually got to see the porch.  Whadda know.  It’s actually pretty spacious.  It needs painting.  But now, I can visualize a little table and chairs and people sitting out there for dinner.

Friday we left early in the morning to go to St. Louis.  First we met up with Clay to see the insides of our rentals.  We actually got there before he did and had a picnic lunch in Tower Grove Park.  It was sunny and seemed warm enough in the car… but with the wind blowing… it felt much colder in the park.   But it was fun to walk there for a few minutes.

We got to see all 4 of our rentals units.  Three are doing well.  One… she’s being evicted… and I really hope she cleans up as she goes.  It was not good.  We got rent statements and talked about selling one of the duplexes.

Then we went to the temple to meet our friends the Kelley’s.  We’d wanted to make the 2:00 session.  But it seemed unlikely.  We got to the temple just before two and changed clothes to our church clothes.  We walked in just about2pm.  The Kelley’s were waiting for us and visiting with a counselor in the Temple Presidency. 

He looked at his watch. “Did you want to make the 2:00 session?”  What?  We still could?  We hurried to dress and they held the session for us.  It was a tender mercy of the Lord.  That way we could do the 4:00 session as well.   Then we went to dinner.

We shared a motel room and talked until… I donno… after 10:30.  The next day, we got to the temple by 10 to go through a session with one of our ward members taking out their own endowment.  It was sweet to be there with so many friends.

We hated to part from the Kelley’s.  We had lunch together at Panera’s… and Guess what?  There was a Trader Joe’s in the same mall.  So we wandered there… and finally headed home.  It was a really good spiritual, friendship-filled two days.

Today church was good.  Focus is on sharing the Book of Mormon and doing temple work.  I like singing in the choir.  One of the speakers was a sister I’d visit taught before she was a member.  She’d really grown and changed through the years.  It was great to hear her story.  The second speaker was sick… so I was called on to share an experience I’d had that week. It reminded me of all the times we were in Kenya and were called upon to speak with no notice.

I fought a cold for part of the week.  I think I’m winning.

After church we had Bishops Youth Discussion at our house.  Having been gone for two days, we bought ice cream and chocolate sauce on the way home.  I think they come for the refreshments as much as for the lesson or sociality.  They are nice kids.

Now, Tom is off bishopricing again.  And I’m ready for a nap.

Art and Turkeys

On our way to Bentonville-- just down the road from our house, we came across a flock of turkeys!

 The Crystal Bridges Art Museum has a low footprint from the parking area. Most everything is on a lower level.

 I liked the reflection of Tom in the window.  Much of the  gallery looks out on nature as well.

 The arched copper ceilings let in light... and the inner center of the museum holding the fine art, also has an open ceiling to allow in the natural light.  It was a cloudy day, though, so we didn't see a lot of that natural light.

 I loved how they have created "lawn" paths as you walk further out.  The landscaping reminded me of Calloway Gardens.

 I think this rocky area will be filled with water... but it was not, today.

 Although it was near freezing, we walked up to a natural spring... then back to the car. All of the pathways, the benches, the landscaping had that natural... always-been-there look to it.  Very lovely.  I'd like to come back in the spring.

Crystal Bridges Museum

This was a good week.  On the work side, I spent a lot of time working on writing pages for my modest teen fashion website.  I finally decided on a domain name: www.TeenStyleU.com.  But it is not yet up.  I need to have about 20 pages before it can go online.  Right now, I have about …er…7.   I’m hoping Deborah will help with the webhosting.  And I have a lovely young woman helping with some of the coordinated wardrobes.

I met with our attorney about writing for his website.  He is just putting it up and there is lots to do.  I don’t know for sure that it will work out. As he says, this is hard for him, as he’s sure he can do it better than anyone else.

My sweet little ladies from Gift-Tiques decided to forego a website for the time being. “I just don’t have time to fool with it,” she said.  And she’d posting on Facebook, so her customers are seeing what’s new.  I knew I’d underpriced myself.  And I’d really been putting in a lot of time.  I realized I was happy with her decision when I burst out in a round of the Hallelujah Chorus when I hung up.  Maybe we will continue working together at a later date… and that’s fine.  But I’m glad to be free to pursue other things now.

The Church St. house rented. Yippee! The Main Street house is coming along.  Vanity installed last week.

Upstairs with nice view.

  Floors are next.  We think… cross our fingers… that the wood floors are salvageable. 

 Still.... from the outside... it still looks like a work in progress!

We never seem to stop working while we are home.  So Friday, I took Tom on a trip.  We traveled through Eureka Springs to check out porches on all their “painted ladies” to see what kind of porch we wanted on the Main St. House.  It was fun to drive around this old town with all its lovely architecture.

We also went to Bentonville to the Crystal Bridges fine art museum.  It was delightful.  The first gallery housed American Artists from early American history. There were some wonderful renditions of Indians. Each gallery proceeded with a later era.  I didn’t think to take pictures until we were into a more modern time, but it was delightful.  Tom said, “I can’t believe you got me into an art museum for 2 hours!”… And it wasn’t that bad at all.

 Above: Rosie the Riveter by Norman Rockwell.  Love the strong arms.  Below. Pinocchio and some cute guy.

 This is a close up of a watercolor.  I have not idea how he did the water drops.

 This was an entire room made of marquetry--inlaid wood.

 What do you do with 9000 spools of thread?.. And why upside down? A crystal ball where the men are standing flips the image and you see... the last supper.

 For our jig saw aficionados, this art work is all made of part of jig saw puzzles.

 This self portrait was SO REAL!!  I could see the individual hairs on the head.

 For Sue and Steve- the old clock repair man.

 This piece of art played a piece by Handel when you stomped on the floor in front of the horn.

 I'll post photos of the museum in the next blog.  The design is a piece of art in itself.  It was a fun day.  I remembered once again that the richness of a piece of art-- in oil, in person-- is so much more than it appears in a copy.  We had a nice Mexican lunch/dinner before we started back home.

Saturday Tom attended the World Wide Leadership training.  I did a little thrift shopping, and made Jonathan’s pizza for dinner.  Now if I could only learn how NOT to burn my mouth on the pizza.

Today was Ward Conference.  Good speakers.  (Tom spoke.)  Good lessons. Choir sang… and it really sounded nice. (We have a new choir director and she’s demanding more.) A good day.

Happy February

In my attempts to get more organized, I first got a small notebook to write down my to-do list for the day.  I divided it into work related things and life related things to do.  But after a week or so of that, I realized I really needed a daily planner.  Some things I didn’t need to do TODAY, but I needed to remember to do them tomorrow or Wednesday. 

So now I can remember what I did all week.  And now I know why Cynthia doesn’t write letters.  It looks like the same thing every day.  BUT… you get to hear about it anyway!

Monday night we watched the DVD from the Kenya Nairobi Mission.  We saw some of “our” missionaries… and also how many of the senior couples that were new.  Ahhh.  Made us homesick!  We learned that Kisumu branch had 7 baptisms in December and that the little handful of members we’d nurtured in Nyabondo had 23 baptisms in December!  I’m sure it will shortly become an organized group.  It’s nice to know things are moving forward.  Some of the people we saw baptized are now preparing for missions.

I’ve been continuing to work on the websites.  I’ve solved some technical problems and banged my head against the wall… or the computer… over other, as yet unsolved problems.  I have connected with about 6 other people who are taking copywriting courses and we have decided to organize into a Mastermind Group.  Although we come from diverse backgrounds and locations all over the USA, I think we will be good for each other.  We have a nun who came out of the convent, a home-schooler from Oregon, a retired computer programmer, a videographer, a naturopathic practitioner.  It’s been fun!

Tuesday Miranda, Camden and Dan came to visit.  Dan went off to do work on Wednesday and we delivered Miranda and Camden to Dan in Harrison on Thursday. We did a little chatting, a little cooking, a little hair cutting.   Before...

 The first few snips:

 The last few snips.

The weather has been quite warm, so Camden delighted in going outside to play.  He liked watching the chickens… for a minute.  The play car was much more interesting.

Thursday morning was the second meeting of our Mastermind Group.  We meet on Skype. After that was done, I went and got some mulch.  I’d been wanting to mulch the front flower garden for months!  It has to be done in winter, because once the spring bulbs come up, it’s really hard to get the mulch in.  Well, those silly spring bulbs are poking their heads up!  So Camden, Miranda, Dad and I spread mulch, then we left for Harrison.

 The tulips poking their heads out.

After having lunch at an ok Mexican Restaurant, Tom and I went to Alde’s to shop.  Tom had carefully gotten out cash, as they don’t take a credit card and since our debit card acts like a credit card, the machine won’t take it.  Alas, the money got carefully put into a coat pocket that stayed home (since it was so warm.)  We discovered this as we were finishing up checking out.   They must have had other people do this before.  They suspended the transaction.  We found a local ATM (that would take our debit card) and were back in probably 5 minutes to pay and collect our groceries.

The Main street house continues to progress.  Some days, I don’t see a lot done—like when Ray is working on plumbing.  But this week doors got hung and trim got painted. The light went up in some of the rooms. Toilet got installed in the downstairs along with vanity, top and faucets.  Wow! It looks like a bathroom! Err… it will act like one, once the plumbing’s done and the water turned on.   We traded a local merchant the doors and the shower stall we didn’t need for the vanity tops.  It was a win-win situation.  Slowly, the amount of stuff around the house is diminishing and a nice looking house is emerging.

Mom and I have been chatting.  We’ve bought our tickets and gotten the travel insurance.  We’ve decided on the Swiss Rail passes we’ll get.  Deborah and Miranda are gestating nicely and I’ll go and visit them at baby time in late March and early April.  While Miranda was here, she researched places to see and things to do for the Family Reunion in Branson in June.  All… so exciting!!

Tom has been working on taxes.  Bless his heart!  He’s such a good man.  He’s kept busy raking leaves and doing all the odd jobs that need doing with rentals.  He goes visiting and has meetings.  It’s fun to see his love for the youth of the church.  After some really tough days, I think the drama of the ward is back on even keel.  Today was a good, spiritual fast Sunday.

Tonight I have an in-service training call for my Seminary and Institute teachers.

Web building... wannabe

It seems like I’ve raced through this week.  Monday Mom and I got our tickets to Switzerland ordered!  Hurray!  That makes it real.  Sue found a great place for us to stay.  So right after our Arkansas Fox family reunion, I will fly to LA, and then go with Mom and Steve and Kathy to Switzerland.  Sally and her Steve will already be there as will Sue and Steve.  So we will have a mini-sibs reunion.  Cynthia may be up to her eyeballs in the Laguna Woods city budget, and as she’s the mayor, she feels some kind of obligation to be there.  We think not, and are trying to persuade her to bail for a week.

I have been taking this website building course.  I have decided on a niche that I think will be successful. 
It is on modest teen styles.  I want to be able to showcase wardrobe planning so teens can see where they can purchase modest clothes that look cute and stylish. I also want to have pages on fabric care, why be modest, solutions to common teen problems—self-confidence, making friends, how to be happy, as well as pages on choosing your fashion personality, how to choose styles best for their figure type, and eventually move on to accessorizing, makeup and hair styles.  I want to develop a community of teens who want to be beautiful and modest.  I want it to have a spiritual side, but not LDS specific.  Christian, Jewish, Muslim all have teachings that reflect modesty. 

So I’ve been researching key words and outlining the site, and choosing what I want to write.  I’ve pulled out my old “More Beautiful You” folders from when I did color analysis and fashion coordinating.  However, I’m missing a lot of stuff.  Sigh.  Hmm.  I wonder if I can find it on the internet.  I had someone who was very fashionable who was going to help me with the fashion coordination part… but she’s too busy.  So if any of you know someone who has a good sense of fashion and style that teens can relate to, (and is computer savvy) please let me know!

I’ve decided it’s time for me to start doing more family history.  I finally got to the family history library on Thursday. We had an “in-to-lunch Bunch” lunch.  It used to be “out-to-lunch” but they figured some might want to chat and participate but couldn’t afford it.  So now we meet at the church and bring a sack lunch or potluck.  In the past it’s been mostly sack lunches.  But this time there was some really tasty pot luck. So after that I wandered down to the library. I ended up inputting names onto the new.familysearch.org.  I can actually do that from home.  And I need to scan and upload pictures that I have as well.

Thursday Tom went to a bishop’s training meeting in Branson and got home late.  Friday I went to Gift-tiques and got the website approved and moving forward.  It’s still in baby stages, but you can see it at www.gift-tiques.com.  Check it out.  You may see some familiar faces there.  Hurray!  I got my first check for copywriting!  Gift-Tiques started selling Vera Bradley.  I like it.  The colors make me smile.

I came back on Friday in time to finish making pizza for the missionaries and Barbara for lunch.  I used my new paddle and cook stone—and they turned out pretty well, even if I accidently turned off the oven.  Then I had to figure out something for the High Priest’s potluck dinner that night. I made bread sticks with the bread I’d planned for lunch.  I’d started the dough in the bread maker before I left for Gift-tiques at 8:30am with a delayed start.  Um… really delayed.  It was still sitting there just flour and water when I returned at 11.  So bread sticks sounded good.  And broccoli salad.  We played games after dinner.  Some played games. Two at our table HATED games.  So our table visited.  And it was great, too.

Saturday Tom went to the temple with the youth.  I thought I’d have all day to get lots of things done.  I weeded some.  I cleaned some things.  I fought with the website… and the website mostly won.  (I wanted to get the comments off the pages and only have them on the blog.) I wrote a couple of web pages.  About 10pm I checked my “to-do” list.  Make something for Sunday’s pot luck pre-seminary centennial event.  AKKK!  What to make???  I wanted to do something kind of healthy, but didn’t have the right macaroni for salad, and I did have a bunch of cream cheese.  So I made miniature cheesecakes.  Tom came home as they were in the oven.  Fortunately they cook quickly and we got to bed about 11pm.  Another late night.

Sunday was a busy day for Tom.  Lots to do.  One crisis after another.  Stake president was there (a good thing—helped with several events.) Combined meeting of Priesthood and Relief Society the 3^rd hour—that Tom was responsible for.  Seminary centennial broadcast and brunch, and so on.  Tom was conducting—and somehow the program had different speakers than those he’d asked.  When he slipped into the bench next to me for a few minutes he said, “Tommie’s having a werry bad day.”  Poor boy.  Then once we came home after church he had phone calls, visits to do, home teaching… and more. About this time he says, “I just want to relax.”  Maybe in the next life.

Magic

 Here are the before pictures:
 Kitchen                                                                      Living room

The Church Street house is done!  Plumber came Monday and for a small fortune hooked up a new water heater and installed the vanity in the bathroom.  Vanity was a bit tricky.  You see, we got a good deal on the vanity… but as it got installed in the bathroom the water and drain were actually behind the drawers.  Who knew? The former vanity had no drawers, and the sink was off to the left.  We got a new vanity with the sink off to the left.  But… huh… underneath… underneath… the plumbing was actually off to the right.  But it’s all done and looks splendid!

The after pictures:  Kitchen, living room and bath:

 

Ray continues to do great things with the Main St. house.  Tile will go in this week.  Then painting the trim.  Then sanding and finishing the floors.  Then the carpet guy comes… see. Piece of cake.

We ordered a new printer.  Our old one functioned… but the yellow would not print.  It made it difficult to make any kind of professional looking colored copies.  Our new one is a Cannon Pixma MG5320.  And I’m very pleased with it!  First, it looks smart.  Second, it acts smart.  And third, it’s magic.   When it goes to print, it automatically opens the print tray and spits out copies.  But more magic is that it’s wireless!  I can push print on my laptop and in a few seconds I hear the whirr of the printer.  Wahoo!  I’m so pleased!  I had read of others having difficulties getting their wireless printers to work, so I was especially pleased this went off without a hitch.

We went visiting teaching on Wednesday.  One of my sisters was ill.  So the next day I went shopping for her. I had intended to finally make it to the family history center, but by the time I gathered stuff, went shopping, picked up my artwork from the framers, (It looks great, Mom!) I only had a little over an hour for the family history center and they bailed out early.  So next week—next week I’ll get there.

The week started off with a call for my web-writing class. I had also been working on a spec assignment for a business.  I haven’t heard back from them… so I think that’s a no-go.  But still, I learned a lot and I did my best. I have also been working on my own website and plans for one that will generate income.  It’s been interesting doing the research.

I have been enjoying my little hens.  Every time I come out onto the back porch they cluck and coo and come over to the fence.  Usually I’m going out to toss them some food, but they cluck even when I don’t.  After the unfortunate affair with the neighbor’s dog and the demise of a few chicks, my hens quit laying.  The Red Rocks seemed to take turns every other day… but the Americana…nada.  But now.  Now I’m sometimes getting two eggs a day.  It seems like magic to open the nesting box and see an egg.

People have been moving on this year.  So far, two funerals.  And there are a few more in our ward that are aged and ill.  Two of the sisters I visit teach are struggling with health issues.  Boy.  Getting old is not for sissies. I guess it’s part of the cycle of life.  We have new babies, too.  

Sunday we had good lessons and good speakers. Between Wednesday night bishopric and youth meetings and counseling with members afterwards, and spending multiple hours on Sunday in various meeting, conducting interviews, counseling with members, dealing with financial challenges… things like remembering to ask people to give talks in sacrament meeting sometimes get overshadowed.  But Tom has had great success in getting speakers—and he’s chosen excellent ones.  We’ve had people who we don’t usually hear from.  They are not polished, but they are so much more interesting.  They speak from the heart.

So that’s our week… or what I remember of it.