Summertime family cookout memories.

     Well another 4th of July has come and went.  We spent it in the company of friends!  Was just nice to have time together.  On a side note I did learn tonight that candle sticks from Walmart's Minstay line are horrible as I burned a few in my chandelier and they dripped everywhere!  The Jubla candlesticks from IKEA will have to be my staple use since they burn clean and are dripless.
     Now I sit here watching a Golden Girls Marathon on Hallmark and reminiscing on old family gatherings this time of year.  My great Aunt Mary and Uncle Mike would host a great cookout at their house very close to July 4th.  A great deal of my moms side of the family would get together for this day.  They stopped doing the cookouts roughly around the time I turned 21 and my Uncle Mike left us us roughly three years ago but the memories are still strong to this day and always will.

One of the last family cookouts I remember! This was 2000!

     Uncle mike would make waterice (a frozen desert of sorts similar to italian ice).  We would play volleyball together.  To this day I can still hear Uncle Mike calling out "To ya to ya to ya" as he would set to pass the ball to someone.  I remember one year my cousins wife dropped a baking dish filled with baked beans in the yard and for whatever reason I decided to take a picture of it.  I remember one year my departed Aunt Sadie brought a gift for me that she had wanted to give me the previous year.  It was a nutcracker but the memory that sticks out most was that the tape she used to wrap the present was really a roll of to and from labels.  One year it rained and the family squeezed into the garage instead.  When it would get dark enough all the kids would play Ghost In The Graveyard (kinda like a combination of hide and seek, tag, and flashlight tag together).  Then when all was said and done and the families said their goodbyes I remember the drive home where I would look out the window of my Moms van and see tree after tree filled with lightning bugs!
  

A Fresh Inspired Thought

     So tonight I found myself looking at my previous entries and finding myself inspired to restart my blog.  I deleted my weight loss journey blog since it had very little success.  I want to use my main blog to share my experiences through life, decorating techniques, and tips and thoughts for a better well being.
     I think too often we focus on what we dont have and what we cant do instead of the blessings we have in front of us.  Going forward I plan on focusing more on these.  How long this will take place I do not know!  I just know at this exact moment I am inspired to write!

New crafting project: Recreating a memory while learning to crochet

     I like to be a crafty person but just like writers get writers block and loose their inspiration the same will happen with me and crafting projects.  Then out of nowhere a random thought or idea will pop in my head and BAM im inspired to start a new project and Im all about getting started in it.  This time it was learning to crochet for the purpose of recreating a blanket I remembered from my parents when I was a kid.

The blanket that inspired me to learn to crochet

First skein of yarn and assorted
crochet hooks 

     With inspiration in mind I started searching youtube for videos showing how to crochet.  I found a video series that was making the kind of blanket I wanted to make, which is a "granny square".  After watching the videos a few times I decided that surely this would be a easy task to take on and immediately headed to my local Walmart to grab supplies at two in the morning.  I found the hooks and kept in mind what colors I needed.  I wanted to recreate the same blanket so that meant I would need white, yellow, orange, and brown.  I didnt want to overdo it on the supplies so I just picked up the white for now and headed back to my hotel.

Frustrated with not being able
to figure it out.

     Yarn and hooks in hand I brought back up the youtube video and started attempting to follow the instructions.  Well this is where the fun ends and the frustration begins.  The easy task became this crazy thing I couldn't follow.  I literally restarted numerous times and couldn't figure it out resulting in restart after restart.  I decided to give it a break, posted my frustration with my new project on Facebook and found other things to do till it was time to go to bed.

     The next night I gave it another go and once again I just couldn't figure it out.  I posted yet another Facebook post asking my crafting friend if they could suggest any sites that could help me figure this frustrating, supposedly easy, task out.  A friend suggested www.craftown.com so I decided to check it out.  I found a link on the site showing how to crochet and suddenly they way they were showing things made sense.  I queued up the youtube video once again with a sense of purpose and successfully managed to create my first square.  

Finally I think I figured it out!

     Now granted its not the best but its a start and the important thing is I did it.  So now Im going to keep going with this project.  Lord help me when I have to figure out how to switch colors but I should be good for a while.  Ill continue to post updates on this project as I go along.  With all the alone time I have being on solo projects for work at the moment I should be able to get some decent progress into this!

Winter Poem

I get this poem every winter & every winter I love re-reading it.  It's a beautiful poem and very well written. Thought it might be a comfort to you, it was to me. Shit! It's cold! The End.

Hotel phobia or hotel OCD, you decide!

     So I've become a creature of habit when I stay at a hotel and have decided that I have a certain fear in regards to staying at them.
     I seam to be deathly afraid that once I leave my room my room key is going to magically stop working.  I've gotten to the point where whenever I leave my room I instinctually have to check my room key to make sure I see the little green light before I can comfortably close the door.
     But seriously what am I going to do if I see the red instead of the green?  Quickly run back and the room and hide because I'm afraid I'll never get back in LOL.

Alone

     Sometimes i think its funny how after all the facebook connections, youtube comments, and blog reads I still feel truly alone from time to time.

     I miss having a best friend.  You know someone you talk to almost every single day.  Someone who knows you better then your wife, husband, partner etc.

     I talk to people semi regularly, make comments back, but sometimes i just feel ignored and i miss the feeling of having a very close friend.

Dreams

Had one of those odd sleeping nights where the dreams seem very lucid when I first wake up so I decided to take a moment and post them for my own laughs.

Dream 1:
     Im a cop in a back alley somewhere.  I go to arrest someone and they resist and break away from me as I try to cuff them.  They're trying to run away and out of no where a random lady starts chasing him down the alley hitting him repeatedly with her purse and I decide to leave well enough alone.

Dream 2:
     Im back at a hotel that in my dream I know I stayed in before for a work assignment.  I get on the elevator to go to the second floor and in my mind I know there should only be two floors to this hotel.  Somehow I end up on the 68th floor.  Now this is odd in itself because supposedly in your dreams your not supposed to be able to read but I remember this number clearly.
     This floor contains the worlds largest food court I've ever seen.  It had every type of eating establishment you could dream of.  Buffet style, cafeteria style, fast food, fancy meals, sub shops and so on and so on.  I make my way back to the elevator and get to the proper floor I find my co-workers in they're room (now in my dream the faces I saw as my co-workers were all new to me but in the dream they were surely my co-workers) and explain excitedly about my discovery and they all look at me with a "WELL DUH!" look and the dream fades out

Dream 3:
     Im the director/owner/manager/whatever of a very large, popular, and successful Gogo Boy/whore house LOL!  I remember there being numerous pools, slides, rooms, etc etc etc and hotties to look at everywhere of all different shapes, sizes, and colors.  Right as one of the, for lack of better words, employees is about to show me what skills they have that would encourage me to keep him in my employ I wake up.........

DAMNIT!  Can I go back to sleep please and continue dream 3?!?!?!?!

LOL even in y dreams Im random!