April 2, Photo a Day

Yes, I realize I am behind a day, but I think I am just going to do this for a while, that way I have all day to take the pictures.

The first prompt was "What I wore today" And after a lot of tried taking a picture of myself I decided that those pictures were ok, but the ones of my girls doing their "fashion show" were so much more fun.

The second prompt was soil, well we don't have much soil here in the desert. So I took a picture of the dry desert earth.

Picture a day challenge... April 1

So I decided to combine two different photo challenges and I will be either combing them into one photo, or doing both. So here is the link to the first and here is the link to the second

 But Oh the excitement! I got a new Camera! I have finally moved up in the world from my point and shoot to a DSLR. DH got me the Nikon D5100, I'm loving it.


The first prompt is a self- portrait, I am not really a fan of taking pictures of myself, so after many, many, many pictures this is the one I chose. Enjoy!

The second one is Fool. So I thought I would share these that I took of the girls being silly.

And just for fun, one that the hubby took last week at lunch.

Hodepodge

1. What's the last job you did that required elbow grease?

Elbow Grease.... I would say that the last time I needed the extra umph while cleaning something would have been when I disassembled and cleaned out the deep fryer to sell it. It was pretty clean for personal use, but not clean enough to sell, that cleaning required a lot of scrubbing. I am sure I will be using it a lot more in the near future as we get ready to move.

2. March Madness, aka the men's Division I basketball championship, is nearing an end. What sort of 'madness' has your house seen this month?

Definitely none of the basketball sort. We don't watch at all. So other types of madness. Well getting ready for a PCS is always full of all sorts of random madness. No matter how many times we have done this something always comes up that we never anticipated.

3. What's your favorite shop for browsing?

To walk around slowly and just take stuff in? Target? LOL, I don't know. I am not a huge browsing shopper, I love Cost Plus World Market for all of the fun stuff, I love Williams Sonoma because I am a huge kitchen gadget fan. I guess I would say I love to wonder home goods and decorating stores to get ideas.

4. Is there ever a time when giving up makes sense?

Absolutely. Giving up is sometimes the best decision to make for you and those who you love, I think that sometimes it takes more effort to give up gracefully than it does to keep pushing on.

5. What's a song you love that contains the name of a city, state or country in its title?

Chattanooga Choo Choo.

6. When did you first begin using a computer?

Let's see. I am a product of the computer generation, so I have been using a computer for almost as long as I can remember. I didn't have one at 2.... I do know that by the time I was in 1st grade I was using one at school, and that we had one at home when I was in elementary school. I remember getting my first e-mail account when I was 13-14 which was around 1995. So I've always had a computer, however I am not a computer expert, knowing the how's and why's has never interested me.

7. Did you buy girl scout cookies this year? What's your favorite?

Oh yes, my favorite is either Thin Mints, Tagalongs (Peanut Butter Patties) , or the new Lemon ones that we tried this year.

8. Insert your own random thought here

Two things. You still have time to join in the April Arms and Abs challenge.

Second I am going to do a Photo a day challenge for April. I am already doing the 365 photo challenge, but this one gives me a specific prompt for each day. So hopefully it's a lot of fun.  

Springing into Hodgepodge

Welcome! It's wednesday and time for hodgepodge. If you enjoy it please click on the meme above and it will take you to the original post where you can read other hodgepodge posts and also like your own to share.

1. The first day of spring is here...do you enjoy working in the yard? Weeding, raking, mowing, planting-your favorite springtime garden chore? How about your least favorite?

I enjoy mowing, and watering, and planting. I am not a huge fan of weeding. I think that's because our weeds are out of control here, they are so tough weed spray won't kill them, I actually have to scrape all of our rocks away and take a flame thrower to the roots to kill them.

2. What puts a spring in your step?

Music, always.

3. Describe a time when you had to spring into action?

Like an emergency situation? I am very thankful to say that I have never been presented with an emergency situation where I had to jump in and help. It's a great thing to be able to say. If you are talking about a time that someone called me at the last possible second to plan/take over something that they should have finished long ago and now they need em to do it for them? Too many times to count.

4. We're having carrots for dinner...would you prefer yours raw or cooked?

Raw. I do like a good honey glazed carrot at Easter with the salty ham, but any other time I want my carrots raw.

5. Do you take the shampoos and other sundries from your hotel room when its time to check out?

Only if I have used them. I am pretty picky about my body products, and I keep full sized stuff at my house for guests. So if I haven't needed to use the product at the hotel I leave it there.

6. What's the most enjoyable team or club you've belonged to and what was it that made it so?

This is easy. When I was a tween and teen I was a member of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. If you haven't heard of it it's a girls organization related to the Masonic lodge. It was an amazing experience. I gained so much from my time there, including friends, self-confidence and organizational abilities. If it wasn't for the people who helped support me when my Dad died it would have been a much harder time, but they really were my support system in ways that I can't explain.

7. Is cloning a sign of progress?

No. It's a sign of increased knowledge but not progress.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

It's almost a new month and I have created a new workout challenge. Come join in! If you are on Facebook you can join in our support group for the challenge. I will post the day's challenge each morning as well as other fun stuff about health and fitness as I come across it. The group is still under the name Muscular Arms March right now, but I will be changing it on the first to Arms n' Abs April. Here is the link to my blog post about it. I will be posting videos and/or pictures of each exercise just to help anyone who isn't sure how they work.

Arms n' Abs April.

It's that time again. Another month another challenge. Here is the calender. I will slowly be adding specific directions for each of the exercises as well as videos and/or pictures of each one. Enjoy! If you want to join in there is a facebook support group for anyone who is participating.

Green Day Hodgepodge.

1. St. Patrick's Day will be celebrated this coming Saturday...what's a favorite article of clothing you own that contains a touch o' the green?

I am not a huge fan of wearing true Kelly green, so St. Patricks day is always a struggle for me. Which now that I think about it is really strange, I wear almost exclusively cool colors in jewel tones, but all of my greens are hunter. Hmmm. Maybe it's time to buy some green. I do have a shirt set aside for "green day" as my kids call it. It's just an Old Navy t-shirt that is green with tiny white pin stripes. And I will most definitely be wearing it on Saturday.

2. What's a favorite 'green space' in the town, state, or province where you live?

Green space? in Las Vegas? There is very little green here, other than my backyard which according to the photos on Google Earth is the greenest one on base. I do go to the park at the end of the street with a neighbor pretty much every day, and that has the green rubber safety turf stuff. I miss green.

3. Do you wish you were taller, shorter, or think you're just about right in the height department?

I think I am just about perfect. I used to think I was going to be an amazon (I hit this height in early Middle School, needless to say the boys were a lot behind) Some days I would like to be taller, but there are heels for that, I rarely want to be shorter. By the way, I'm 5'7.

4. What's the surest way for someone to pick a fight with you?

I'm not the biggest fighter in the world, but I would say that the surest way to make me mad is to put words into my mouth or to purposely misrepresent something I said. I am really steamed right now over that and I am working very hard on controlling that part of my temper.

5. Broccoli-Spinach-String Beans-Peas...of the four, your favorite green veg? (Or the one you dislike the least if that first option's too hard. I just know there's some veggie haters out there.)

All of them, I eat each of those on a weekly basis, and usually have more than one on a daily basis. It would be really hard for me to pick one over any of the others.

6. March is National Women's History Month...besides friends, neighbors and the women you're related to, who's a woman in history you admire and why?

So many choices, but I don't want to bore anyone with long drawn out explanations of any of these things, I adore history, I majored in it, so there are a lot of women in history that I admire. Elanor Roosevelt. just an amazing compassionate woman living in a situation what was less that ideal much of the time but always finding a way to leave the world a better place.

7. Keep Calm and ____________on.

You fill in the blank.

I am really not a big fan of this whole Keep Calm thing, I don't know why but they tend to drive me crazy on Pinterest. but I just ran a serach for some brilliant ideas since nothing is coming to me and I found these that aren't too annoying to me. So Keep Calm and Pray On, or Keep Calm and Exercise More.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

The move is getting closer, we hope. All of a sudden things are problems that have never been problems before. Like my asthma, it's well controlled with no attacks or issues in 7 years, it has never been a concern in any PCS before, but all of a sudden I am going to multiple Dr's appointments and filling out piles of paperwork in order to beg the place we are going to send a letter saying that I am allowed to come. Seriously? UGH.

Lioness Hodgepodge

1. Did March come in like a lion or was it something less ferocious in your neck of the woods?

Definitely not a lion here. March came in with 80 degree weather and beautiful sunny days. Until yesterday, which had sustained winds at 45 mph with gusts of 65-80 mph. That was not fun.

2. Speaking of lions, which one's your film favorite...The Cowardly Lion (Wizard of Oz), Mufasa (The Lion King), Elsa (Born Free), or Alex (Madagascar)? You may notice I left Aslan off the list. Including him would have made this question way too easy for many of you.

Of those I would say The Cowardly Lion. I love that his goal in life is to love more, what an awesome goal.

3. What's your favorite spot from which to view the sunrise or sunset?

At the Grand Canyon. It's perfect.

4. To what extent is knowledge power and to what extent is truth power? What's the difference?

This is hard, I would say that knowledge and truth are closely related, because knowledge isn't really knowledge if it isn't based in truth.

5. What's something peculiar you've seen recently?

I live in Las Vegas.... there are so many peculiar things I wouldn't know where to start.

6. Bottled water...your thoughts?

Waste of money. We use reusable Camelback bottles and a filter. In my home town the water straight out of the tap is so amazing I used to laugh at people who paid that much money for water. As a storage solution for preparedness (natural disasters, etc) they are a good idea.

7. What's your strongest sense?

I've never thought about it. I guess I would say hearing, but that could be that it is because I am comparing myself to a husband who is going deafer (is that a word?) by the day.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I had so many random thoughts last week and all of a sudden I can't think of anything.