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​Top 5 Money Saving Tips

1/26/2017

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Let’s face it, we could all stand to save a little more money. If nothing else, use the money you save to treat yourself to something that you’d feel guilty spending the money on otherwise. Perhaps you could save up for a trip, a new computer, dinner out, ice cream after work or any other treat that motivates you. Maybe you want to pay down debt extra fast or build up an emergency fund. Give some of these tips a try and let me know how much you saved.

1) Put a clean mayonnaise jar into your toilet tank and let it fill with water. Make sure it sits upright and is safely out of the way of all mechanisms. Every time you flush you will use about a quart less water. This can really add up. Note this might not work in the newer water-saver toilets. Another hint, if you don’t have room for a quart sized jar, perhaps a smaller jar will fit instead.

2) Put some ice cubes in a plastic zip-top bag or plastic container and put them in the basket in your deep freezer or the freezer in your refrigerator. Just don’t bury them in the back or on the bottom. If the power ever goes out for a long period of time and then comes back on, the ice cubes will have melted and refrozen into a solid mass. If this happens, you may want to discard things that may have spoiled in your freezer. As long as the ice cubes are still cubes you can relax. No sense poisoning the family unnecessarily! 

3) Pack your lunch for work or school every day. Well, alright, you can treat yourself to lunch out once or twice a month if you need to. Look back over your spending last year and see how much of it was for eating out for lunch. More than you realized I’ll bet. Same goes for breakfast or hot beverages. Make and pack your own. Buy yourself a nice lunch box, thermos, travel mug or whatever you need to motivate you. The cost will be earned back in savings in no time.

4) Use your local library! Don’t think just because you use an eReader that you can’t do this. Using the Overdrive free app, you can read library books on practically any electronic device. I use it on my nook, my computer, my phone. Note that you can download the library books (eBooks or eAudio Books) on only one device at a time, so decide which you want to read any given book on, try different books on different devices. Before buying any book, check the local library to see if you can get it there first. If you read a lot think of the money you could save! Another plus is that if you are not buying all those books, you won’t need to have as many book shelves at home so you will save additional money that way. You will also save time because you won’t have to store and dust all those books! Packing to move to another place will be much faster and easier on your back too!

5) Don’t be afraid to try generic or store brands. These are often packed on the same production lines as the name brands but with a different label. Most come with a satisfaction guarantee on the package. Cheaper doesn’t mean lower quality. Try one new store brand or generic thing each time you do a major grocery trip. Keep a list of those you liked and make it a practice to always buy that brand in the future unless the big name brand is on sale and actually cheaper.

I have many more tips, so I may have to make this a regular feature. Leave a comment and let me know what your favorite money saving tips are. Also let me know if you try any of these.
Happy saving!
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​You Deserve to be Inspired

1/22/2017

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(NOTE: I am participating in the Writing Contest: You Deserve to be Inspired. Hosted by Positive Writer: http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-you-deserve-to-be-inspired/ This blog post shall serve as my entry.)

Hello, my name is Karen and I am a writer. For many years I have felt I was supposed to write a book. The feeling wouldn't go away, but I never got the sense of what sort of book I should be writing, so I waited for the same sense of purpose that I got with needing to write the book. I waited and thought about it, but still no still small voice whispered to me what this book I was absolutely certain I should be writing should be about. Nothing, not even what genre I should be writing. I tried to be patient. After all it hadn't been my idea to write the book, so I figured I should wait to get further guidance on the matter.

Then one night, in the wee hours of November 1, 2013, I was surfing the net and searching for instructions on how to write a book and came across the NaNoWriMo.org website. I read about the annual challenge that happens every November where people all over the world spend the 30 days of November trying to write a 50,000 word novel. It was as if the voice I had been waiting on was now smacking me upside the head and telling me to stop thinking and talking about writing a book and just write it already!

Alright. But what should I write I asked out loud? Suddenly the age old advice to write what you know popped into my head. Well...that was something but when it comes to writing a book I don't exactly KNOW anything I thought. So I thought and thought and finally decided that what I know is my life and what about my life might be interesting enough for someone else to want to read I asked myself. I finally decided that I should accept the challenge and that I would spend the next thirty days writing about our adventures in parenting our two, now adult children. I figured since they were now both in college and we had survived thus far will very little drama, perhaps we were doing something right and should write it all down to see if there was anything worth sharing with the world. So I worked on writing for the next thirty days, all the time wondering if I was crazy to have taken on this challenge. But I kept at it and also decided to join my local region and see if anyone else in my city was interested in writing. I fully expected to be the only crazy one in our mid-west city to want to write. I didn't know anyone else who called themselves a writer, so I thought I was all alone, but was comforted by the thought that somewhere else in the world, others surely must be taking the challenge with me.

I discovered that there were write-ins happening a regular intervals all around my city and figured if I was in for the challenge, I should be all in and attend a few write-ins and see if they would help me. After the first write-in I was hooked. When the gathering of writers did word sprints I had to write because they would know if I wasn't and I wanted to fit into this writer-ly group in the worst way. So I wrote and you know what? I wrote more than I thought I could. I was typing out one memory after another with twenty plus years of parenting under my belt to draw from. I learned that writing is a group sport. Who knew? After reading over some of what I had written, I realized I could write in a way that might actually enjoy reading. 

I made it through the month, and I learned something else about myself. I could write every day. Maybe not a lot some days, but I could write EVERY day. I also learned that I could reach the goal of 50,000 words in less than 30 days! I felt like a million bucks! I was on top of the world. I was a writer, a REAL writer and I could do ANY thing. I gained so much confidence in myself as a person. A person who never used to try new things like writing, like meeting and talking to total strangers in places I had never been before, who never ventured out to strange places because I might get lost. I had a reason to do all those things. I had a goal to achieve. Little old me, a forty-something mom with grown kids was doing all this and being accepted into a group of writers that were mostly young enough to be my kids. There were a few in their late twenties and even some in their thirties, but I was definitely one of the older ones and yet I was taken at face value as a writer and even praised for my enthusiasm. I AM a writer! I am a WRITER! Having met the goal in the time allotted, I am also now a WINNER! I have gained so much from participating in NaNoWriMo  these last 4 years! I am a winner and I am a writer and I will likely do NaNoWriMo for the rest of my life.
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Books I’ve Read This Year

1/19/2017

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This year began with my reading the book, Miracle Mornings by Hal Elrod. I kept seeing folks in the bullet journal community doing level ten life spreads and when I searched to see what they were all about, I discovered it had to do with this book and since I had been hearing good things about the book too, I decided the time had come to add this book to my TBR list. As it happened it came in on hold from the library in time for me to read it and take it to the cabin weekend. It was a fairly quick read but did require a bit of thought. Luckily I had already gotten to the part where he told you to go to the website and download the Fast Start Kit (http://www.miraclemorning.com/start-here/). This includes the questions you answer to figure out where you stand in the various areas of your life so that you can begin getting all the areas up to level ten.
Hal also suggests the idea of getting up early every day and doing the SAVERS as a great way to begin your day. I am intrigued with the idea of the miracle mornings and believe it will work, but realize that I must first get myself to the point where I am getting at least seven hours of sleep on a consistent basis. I have it in my goals for the year to try the Miracle Mornings 30-Day Challenge at some point in 2017.
This was a good book and it inspired me to want to do better and try to un-do some of the bad habits I have developed over the last few years. I would totally recommend reading this book. 

I decided that my word of the year to focus on would be FEARLESS, so I chose Why Not Today? Face Your Fears and Chase Your Dreams by Eric Dodge as the second book to read this year. I have known about Eric Dodge for years. I have met him and even had my picture taken with him in 2006, it didn’t turn out great but I will include it here anyway. He is a country music artist and an awesome performer. I had bought his book when it came out because I really wanted to support him and knew I would eventually like to read his book.
Eric wrote an excellent book and opened up and told the reader about his early years of being bullied, dating, depression, anxiety, weight gain and other adventures and things that lead him to be the person he is today. This book is a very uplifting story about how he overcame the obstacles in his life to become the wonderful man he is today. If you have ever dealt with any of these things in your life, you will enjoy reading this book. When I finished reading Eric’s book, I felt very hopeful, like I could do anything. If Eric could do it, then maybe I could too. I was willing to try.


The next book I found was one I had downloaded on a whim as an audio book from the library and I found I really enjoyed finding ways to “read” when I normally couldn’t, like while I was making dinner or driving. A great way to read that I don’t take advantage of nearly as often as I should. It was even better that it was read by the author. The book I listened to was called The Gratitude Diaries: How A Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life by Janice Kaplan. Now I consider myself a grateful person who usually looks on the bright side, but after listening to this book I realized that there are numerous times in my life when I am more negative than positive. The author tackles a new area of her life each month and sees how it will react when gratitude is applied. She tackles marriage, love, family, money, career, possessions, health, fitness and more. I really liked her mix of real life applications and scientific research. I began testing some of her suggestions right away, so we shall see how the attitude of gratitude will change my outlook on life. Again, this book is one that I highly recommend.

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Me with Eric Dodge Fall 2006 St. Louis
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My Writer’s ToolBox

9/1/2016

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No matter what task you plan to do, you must first gather the necessary tools to get the job done. Some would say all a writer needs is pen and paper, but I would have to disagree. I almost never write with pen and paper unless making a grocery list. Since I don’t really count grocery lists as writing, perhaps I should tell you about my writer’s toolbox and what tools I consider necessary to get the job done.

The most important tool for me is my computer. I currently use a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 as my portable computer. I chose it for the portability of it and the fact that is was not merely a tablet (though it can function as one). It is a full-fledged computer capable of running any computer software that I could run on a Windows desktop computer. It is very portable, and much lighter than any laptop I have used in the past. The battery life is so much better than any laptop anyone I know is using. While they must plug in to use their laptops for more than a few minutes, I can watch an entire movie without plugging in or write for hours. I rarely have to carry a cord with me unless I am traveling or going to a write-in for more than four hours, and even then I usually just put the cords in a zip-top bag and leave it in the car as a backup. It has a detachable keyboard that closes to protect it and thus acts as a cover. Oh, and my favorite thing about the keyboard, besides the fact that it comes in purple, is that the keyboard can be back-lit so I can type in the backseat of a darkened car or in a dimly lit bar. One less excuse not to write, right? Anyway, it took me a while to choose this laptop/tablet, but I am still happy with my choice even three years later. If it died tomorrow, I would replace it with whatever the latest version of the Surface Pro was at that time.

After the computer, my next most important and useful tool would have to be Scrivener. Scrivener is the most amazing writing software ever in my humble opinion. It helps me to stay focused and organized. You can learn all about it at https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php and if you want to try it before you buy it for $40 (for the Windows version) they have a free 30 days of use trial. That is not 30 days in a row, but thirty days of actually opening the software. I will be the first to admit that Scrivener can be a tad daunting to get familiar with, but there are tons of helpful tutorials on YouTube to help you learn the tips and tricks. My favorite tutorials are those by The Scrivener Coach, Joseph Michael. Scrivener can help you outline, research, write and publish. It can do so much more than I know how to do with it. I learn new ways to use it all the time.

I also find that using bluetooth headphones for writing while out in public to be essential. Gotta love the no cords thing and they can connect with either my phone or my computer. I actually have two pairs one that is a tiny set of earbuds and another that is much larger (less portable) but does a better job of blocking out the noise around me while listening to music.

Another important tool for me is music. I keep a decent selection on my phone and have a playlist without words for writing, because sometimes hearing words while I am writing is distracting. It is amazing how the speed of the music helps me write faster. One of the best songs to help get me to write fast is Dueling Banjos, because when the tempo picks up, I write faster, and this song keeps getting faster and faster. There is a huge variety of songs in my writing playlist and the only rule is, no words in that list
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Another tool in my Writer’s Toolbox is other writers. I have joined several groups that meet with varying frequency and purposes. One group gets together weekly to write. We have writing sprints where everyone is quiet and focused on writing for a set amount of time and then in between sprints we catch up on life events, talk about our novels and what we are struggling with, ideas for new projects and any difficulties we are having with our current work in progress. They are a fun group and sometimes that meeting time is the only writing I get done during the week.

I also need a Word Count Tracker of some sort because I am nerdy like that and need to see that I have made progress. I created a really cool one in Excel 5that is open on my computer almost all the time. I also share one that someone else created on Google Docs where we can check in and see how each member of the group is doing. The important thing about any word count tracker is remembering to actually use it.
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I also include various writing craft books in my tool box. I don’t usually buy them, but rather check them out of the library and read the parts that pertain to whatever issue is causing me trouble at that time. I do have a few I have bought on my Nook and Kindle accounts, but I find that while I love to read fiction books in electronic format, I find that non-fiction books I prefer to read in the paper form.
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While I don’t always carry my entire tool box around with me, I need all of my tools to write. Please let me know what you favorite writing craft books are. I would also love to know what is in YOUR writer’s tool box. (1,006 words)

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My Muse Woke Me Up Today...

8/27/2016

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​I woke up early this morning after having gotten only a few hours of sleep. I was too tired to get up, but for a few minutes ideas were flying around in my brain about writing. This doesn’t really happen to me, so I was tempted to get up and write it down lest I forget by the time I had slept enough that my body decided to get up for the day. I asked God to help me remember what I had come up with later and to let me get back to sleep now. I knew if I got up I would not be productive. I would wander through the day in a sleep-deprived zombie-like state. I was able to go back to sleep and once I had gotten more than the eight hours of sleep I wanted to get, I woke up ready to face the day. I was calm because I remembered what I had been thinking during the wee hours of the morning and was rested enough to think clearly about it. Thank God!

I know, now you are waiting to hear what ideas were flying around in my brain. A while back, I had been stressing out about the upcoming November challenge called NaNoWriMo (http://nanowrimo.org/). I even wrote a blog post about it. I wanted to participate fully again this November because I really love the energy and support I get writing with the NaNo Indy Group every November. It is unlike any other time of the year for me as a writer. The challenge, the deadline, the meetups and write-ins all help to keep me going even when I think I can’t do it, that my ideas stink worse than garbage and that I really have no idea what I am doing with this whole writing thing. I mean ideally, I would love to be able to support myself by writing. Even more ideally as an inspirational fiction novelist. I know several authors who have written and published numerous books, both traditionally and the self-published route, but they are all quick to let you know they are not doing it for the money and you should hang on to your day job. 

Anyway, I wanted to write another 50,000 words this November on a fiction novel, but didn’t see how I could do it because I have started no less than five novels since November 2013 and none of them is what I would consider finished or ready for anyone to read even as a rough first draft. How could I start yet another novel? Last Saturday I took a class at the Indiana Writers Center (http://www.indianawriters.org/)  called “It’s A Mystery -- A four hour intensive mystery writing workshop” taught by local author Larry D. Sweazy (http://www.larrydsweazy.com/). I took another class a couple of years ago about writing Mystery from another local author, Tony Perona (http://tonyperona.com/). I chose mystery as my sub-genre on my first fiction novel attempt written during the November 2014 NaNoWriMo. I wanted to get it right but really had no idea how to plan and write fiction back then. So I pants’d it. Thinking back to what I remember of the novel I wrote, I know there is some good stuff there, but I did so many things wrong too. So my big moment of inspiration had to do with using the premise for that original novel and the knowledge I have gained from the classes I have taken over the last three years to start from scratch on that novel. I am considering a second draft, but this time, I am planning things out ahead of time. I’m not editing the original manuscript or adding to it, I am starting over. I now have a plan. I signed up for the class “Planning for National Novel Writing Month, You Can Do It: 30 days, 50,000 words, 1 novel” taught by a wonderful teacher/author/friend, Cameron Steiman, in early October. Cam is part of our Thursday Nights Writing Group. She usually helps inspire us to actually get lots of words written and stay on task. I know I can do this. I have more knowledge this time and more support. I CAN do this. I have a plan. I already know the characters. God is there to lean on and to get me through it. I have time to get myself together and make a decent outline for the novel this second draft. Yep, I got this! I am excited for November now, no more panic and confusion. Thank You, God! (773 words)

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​NaNoWriMo Is Coming!

8/12/2016

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This is August already. Oh My! November will be here before we know it and I have n o idea what I should do for my NaNo project. I feel like I should tackle the whole writing 50,000 words on a new fiction novel thing as is the intended thing for NaNo. But, I have currently got no less than five previously started novels that are as yet unfinished. Quite honestly, I can’t say I am particularly jazzed about finishing any of them right now. I plan to finish all of them eventually, but probably not until I figure out whether I have written workable plots and where they need help. I just don’t feel like I am ready to tackle the editing of any of these projects yet.
 
I know I shouldn’t start yet an other novel until I finish some of the ones I have started but I know I don’t have time between now and November to do any of them justice. Three of them have between fifty and sixty thousand words written on them and the fourth has just over thirty thousand words written. The fifth book is a different animal altogether. It is a non-fiction book that may be mostly finished it is about sixty pages and have right at ten thousand words. I kind of want to spend August and September working on polishing this book and getting it self-published either on Amazon or on a website of my own in PDF format. Doing that would require a lot of research of the pros and cons of self-publishing with Amazon. I should probably admit here and now that while I really, really want to be published and have confidence in the need for a book like mine, I am also terrified that I will do thye publishing thing wrong somehow and mess up my chances of actually successfully launching my first book. I wish I had someone I could trust and then get to lead me by the hand through the entire process and have confidence because of their previous success and experience that it would all go smoothly and turn out exceedingly well. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone like that who I would feel comfortable asking to help me publish the book.
So, that is where I am as an author. I DO consider myself an author even though I have yet to finish a book or be published. I would love to figure out a way to make a living on my writing. That is my goal, my dream, my torment. I may present myself as a confident person, but inside I am a small child cringing in fear that I will do something wrong and disappoint someone important in my life. I know this is not realistic or founded and I don’t even know who it is I think I would disappoint. Maybe I am afraid of disappointing myself. Maybe I am scare that if I fail everyone will know and laugh at me and then I won’t want to try writing anything again because if I fail, no one will take me seriously as a writer. If I never try to publish anything I have written, I need never experience rejection, there will always be hope of being published…someday.

Another part of me says I should just go for it. What do I really have to lose by trying? Should I use my real name, or assume a pen name? If I succeed, of course, I would want to have used my real name so everyone would know it was me. If I fail, I would rather it be a pen name so I could have a do-over without ruining my real name as a writer. There are so many decisions to be made when you are a writer. 

So I am listening to music while I write this and the song Day One by Matthew West just came on and I am wondering if that is Divine intervention telling me I should just do it already. I feel like I am supposed to be writing a book, but have no idea what sort of book I am to write. I feel like I pray for guidance a lot but have yet to hear that “Still Small Voice” I have heard and read so much about. This causes me to question whether I am doing God Will with my life. Am I following God’s path or wandering down my own path selfishly? How is a writer to know? 

So sorry, I seem to have gotten off track. I was talking about what to write for NaNoWriMo in November which is only about ten weeks away. I want to write another of the Crafty Ladies Series books, but have no idea which of the Crafty Ladies to feature in the next book. There are seven ladies in the group and so far I have attempted to write a mystery (Marni’s Story) and a romance (Lu Ann’s Story) so the question is not only whose story to tell next, but what genre it should be. Can you have two or more different genres in a series? Should I try to write in yet another genre in hopes of finding the one that clicks for me? The five books I have begun were, in order: memoir, mystery, romance, historical romance and non-fiction. Obviously, I am still trying to find myself as an author. I have no idea what genre to write or whether I should focus on one or just write what feels right? While I am at it, I question what sort of things I should be blogging about as an author, especially as an unpublished author.
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I am getting better about writing throughout the year instead of only in November, so I am happy about that. I still don’t feel driving to write with any kind of regularity and often question what I should write when I do sit down to write. Most of my writing outside of November happens on Thursday nights when I join the ladies in the Thursday Nights Writing at Panera group at various Panera Bread Cafes around our fair city. Sometimes if it weren’t for meeting every week with this fabulous group of ladies I don’t think I would be half as far along the path as I am now. I actually participated in Camp NaNoWriMo in both April and July this year and have successfully met those goals as well as completing the November challenge of 50,000 words in 30 days three years in a row. This makes me feel sucessful even if I haven’t finished any of these books. I know I must keep writing, because I can see a lot of confidence and understanding that has come about as a result of these five “wins”. I KNOW I can do it again this November, I just have to figure out what book to write.
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Please leave your comments and suggestions below. I would love to hear from you. If you have a favorite go-to book for story structure, outlining a novel, plotting, story arcs, character development, etc. Please let me know what they are in the comments. I need all the help I can get! (1,224 words)

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LONDON Day 1

9/20/2015

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We made it safely, even got through customs without any trouble. We have a tour bus that will be our transportation when we travel places as a group.
It is nice. We got to the hotel after driving about 30 minutes only to have to wait for others to check out of rooms and get them cleaned so we could check in.

Our room is nice but compact. It has a very small refrigerator and an electric tea kettle.
The coffee here in the room consists of little tubes of soluble instant coffee. There are also of course tea bags, mostly English Breakfast Tea, but also a chamomile and a spearmint.

We are meeting the group at 6pm in the hotel lobby to go to Barley Mow Restaurant for our pub dinner. There are 29 in all, only one younger than me and she is 31, so technically I'm old enough to be her mother. Most of the rest have about 15-20 years on dad and I. Most of them are characters, as Robin would say, "Old people are adorable!"
One just turned 84, it is his grand daughter who is the youngest.

So far I have crocheted 1.5 hats, the first was done entirely on the flights over, started the 2nd during the wait for our hotel room.

We will have limited cell phone access, we paid $40 each to get 100 minutes of talk, 100 texts and 100 MB of data for the week/month. Have disabled cellular for now to conserve it to use as needed, still can use wifi.

Email I will plan to check at least once a day, so if you need us let us know.

Odd thing I saw on the way over that threw me was a sign that said "no hard shoulder next 250 yards".

We are exhausted because sleeping on the planes wasn't exactly successful for me anyway. Hard to get comfortable. I had a window seat on both flights and a stranger to have to inconvenience if I wanted to get up and walk around or go to the bathroom.
They have Dominoes Pizza but the delivery vehicles are little scooters with boxes on the back, I took a picture to show you.

Well, enough for now. Really just wanted to check in and thought this would be the best way.

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The bathroom has an under sink nightlight.
Closet doors and refrigerator cabinet have this save mirror and lattice design.
The lights only work if the key card is left in the slot by the door.
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Youthful Activities

3/3/2015

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When I was growing up, I was one of four kids in a family with two parents. I was a bit of a minority because my parents were both my blood parents and still married to each other. All my siblings were full siblings, not steps or half siblings in our family. Both my parents graduated from high school and valued education for us kids. They always expected us to do our best no matter what we were doing. Mom always said as long as we could honestly say we had done our very best it was good enough. We were all good kids and did well in school. The three of us girls were avid readers reading most anything we could get our hands on. My brother read well enough, but never seemed to take to it like us girls did. I can still remember mom yelling at us older two girls to get our noses out of the books we were reading and help her clean the house. This usually happened on a Saturday mid-morning.

Mom had a system for assigning who cleaned what area of the house. She had four kids and areas to be cleaned each week, so she made up a chart and set up a rotating schedule. We each had a turn cleaning each area once every four weeks. We got our cleaning assignments that first week and were told the rules. We had to clean our area once that week and if we didn’t clean it, we would have to keep that area and get the next area to clean also for the next week. Whoever was supposed to rotate into the area you didn’t clean would get the week off from cleaning. This almost never happened, because after the first person messed up by not cleaning and we figured out Mom meant what she said, we knew we better just clean our assigned area each week. I used to like when it was my turn for the bathroom because it was such a small room it didn’t take all that long to clean it and have it looking really good. That chart is still inside the cabinet door where Mom taped it all those years ago, written in red ball point ink on a 4 x 6 index card, a little piece of parenting history err genius just waiting to be discovered.

Mom was full of parenting wisdom. With four kids, she had a rule that we could each be in only one activity. My older sister and I were in Girl Scouts and the younger brother and sister played Little League. That rule changed when we got to high school. Mom didn’t seem to mind how many activities we were in then as long as we found our own rides to and from or walked. She worked at Stokley Van Camp’s (which later became Quaker Oats) when we were in high school and her work hours, whether by her choice or not, were from 7:30am to 4pm. She was happy to drop us at school on her way to work as long as we were ready to go when she needed to leave the house, and more than willing to stop by the school on her way home from work to pickup any of us who were outside waiting for a ride a little after 4pm. She made it clear she wasn’t waiting around on us. If we wanted a ride we would be waiting and watching for her to pull up and ready to jump in and go. If we weren’t there, that was fine, but she wasn’t waiting on us. Sometimes we had band that went until later and she would run errands while we were finishing up then come by and get us so we could be home at a decent hour to help with dinner or do our chores. She would often bring us back and drop us off for play practice of an evening, then come back and pick us up at nine or ten when it was over. We just had to make sure we let mom know what we had going on and where we needed to be. We had to be flexible enough to be willing to arrive early or stay late. A lot of our extra curricular activities met before school so getting dropped off around 7am was great.

If we didn’t have a meeting to go to we could always sit and read or do homework in the band hall or go to the cafeteria to meet up with out friends. During my freshman year I was not in a lot of clubs and such because I was so tired of doing the same things as my older sister, so if she was in it I avoided it. I was tired of being her little sister and expected to be just like her. I wanted to be seen and appreciated for who I was not because I was next in line after my older sister. I know it got much worse by the time my brother got to high school because there were two of us to live up to. There were high standards to live up to too. The older three of us were all a year and a half apart in age but in school the oldest was one year ahead of me, then my brother was 2 years behind me in school with our younger sister following three years behind him. All four of us graduated from high school in the 1980s, 1983, 1984, 1986 and 1989. The older three of us were all in band together for one year. There is a photo taken of all of us in our band uniforms standing together outside the house. I wasn’t very musical, probably the least talented musically of all of us. I finally joined band my junior year after taking a beginning band class for a semester. I was never good at sight-reading music. I knew the basics and could figure it out if given enough time, but it was a slow painful process for me. I would write the letters of the notes above my music and then write the letters of the notes in permanent marker on the various notes on my bells for marching band and I could keep up that way until I had the music memorized. I guess they needed bodies more than they needed musically talented students. I was willing, able and teachable, so they took me on and let me play. I always knew I wasn’t good and sometimes had to fake my way through performances rather than mess up where everyone would know and hear my mistakes. (1,127 words)
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how I learned to crochet

3/1/2015

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This is the story of how I learned to crochet. Many years ago, before my daughter, who is now twenty one years old, was born, I took a class to learn to crochet fabric into a rug. I worked at the JoAnn Fabrics store in Greenwood then and found a beautiful madras plaid in bold turquoise, red, yellow and orange colors. It was on clearance for only one dollar a yard. So I bought the ten yards the instructions called for, took it home and washed it then ironed it and tore it into strips, sewed all the strips end to end, then the long strip had to be folded in half and ironed again, then wrapped into a ginormous all of fabric, that ended up looking a lot like a football as I recall. All this prep work had to be done before the class. I got the basics down during the one class session, then was turned loose to finish the project on my own. Once the second baby, my daughter, was born, there was very little time to work on things like crochet and they project got put away in a closet and forgotten. Many years later, I found it and had a little free time so I tried rereading the instructions from the class to figure out how to finish the rug, but could make very little sense of the written instructions. So, I took the size N wooden crochet hook out of the last stich I had out in and gently pulled a stitch out thinking I could, perhaps, reverse engineer it and figure out how to put more stiches in that way. I took out first one stitch, that didn‘t help, maybe if I do it again and pay closer attention I will get it. Nope, the second stitch didn’t make it any clearer so I repeated the reverse engineering experiment several more times with pretty much the same results until I realized I had to stop before I unraveled everything I had previously crocheted. I reread the instructions in case they would make more sense after the reverse engineering experiment, but it was no use. I was stuck. I couldn’t go forward and didn’t want to continue going backward, so I was really and truly stuck. So I wrapped the part of the rug that was done back around the football shaped bundle of unstitched fabric and put it back into the bag to deal with another day. I thought about that unfinished rug often and felt like a failure for not finishing it and not being smart enough to figure out what to do to get going and finish it up. Then I remembered the unfinished rug again as Thanksgiving was upon us and we were getting ready to meet up with my extended family for a group meal before going to my in-laws for the second round of eating for the holiday. I figured I might be able to get my Aunt Mary to help me figure out how to continue and finish the rug. So after the food was eaten and things were calm again I asked Aunt Mary if she knew how to crochet, and she said of course she did. I knew she made things with yarn, we had the granny square multi-colored (turquoise, brown and sunshine yellow or maybe pink) tank top style vests, and red, white and blue ponchos that she had made but I was completely unclear on whether these items had been knitted or crocheted. She asked what I needed help with and I showed her my half-finished rug project. She looked at it for a while and seemed hesitant. When I asked her if she could help she said that she had never worked with anything on this big of scale before but she thought she could help me. After a couple of fumbling attempts with the big wooden hook and the thick folded fabric she got it going and showed me how to continue. I decided then and there that I was going to keep at it until that rug was finished, which would be when I ran out of the fabric. So I sat at the table and while my cousins and aunts looked at the lack Friday ads from the newspaper and planned where they might shop the next day, I kept adding stitch after stitch to that rug until finally, I was within a few inches of the end of the fabric. I realized I didn’t know what to do to finish it so it wouldn’t unravel, so I went back to Aunt Mary for a last bit of advice and she helped me to finish it off. I was so proud of my newly finish rug, I gladly handed it to anyone who asked so all could see that I wasn’t just a starter any more, now I was a finisher too!

The next time I considered doing anything with crochet was after seeing something online about making yarn out of old t-shirts, called tarn. They showed how it could be used to crochet rugs, and my mind told me I could do that since I already had one crochet rug under my belt. I did a lot of research on just how to cut the tarn and found several websites with instructions and links to YouTube videos to show me how. I also found many videos on how to crochet on YouTube and bookmarked several to come back to after I had my tarn ready. I put out a call to my friends that if they were decluttering old t-shirts I wanted them. One of the ladies gladly gave me enough t-shirts to fill a big Rubbermaid tub. I sorted them by fabric content and was excited to see a whole batch of Old Navy 4th of July shirts in various patriotic colors. I had red, maroon, navy, light blue, and a few gray heather shirts. There were eight size medium and one size extra-large in gray. So I decided a patriotic rug was just the thing. So I got all the t-shirts cut and all the tarn rolled into little balls, then went back to the internet to find the videos on how to crochet with tarn. It still looked easy enough so I was game to get started. Red seemed like a good color for the center, so I watched the video about chain stitching and got that part done, then watched the one on making ovals and learned I would need to increase in the corners to make it come out an oval. So I worked and worked on it and finished that rug after only about five hours of crocheting. It was somewhat less than flat though, so I took it to work and laid it out on the table and put two cases of paper on top of it to make it lay flat. We left it like that for several days then took the cartons of paper off to see if it had worked. It had worked to an extent, it was flatter, but I knew I had done something wrong. I was so happy I had figured the whole thing out with only the help of YouTube videos and had finished the project this time, but I knew I would have to take some of it out and redo it but wasn’t sure what I had done wrong or how to fix it, just that it must have something to do with the increases at the corners. So I put it away until I could figure it out. I wasn’t happy with the fact that it looked more like an infant sized basket than a flat oval rug. I missed having Aunt Mary to ask, she had died several years ago. 

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Then one day I was searching the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library’s class and workshop offerings and noticed that the library near our house was having a monthly stitchers group meeting on the first Saturday of each month. It said, “College Avenue Stitchers - Adults are invited to join other knitters and crocheters for a fun social gathering. Attendees can bring their own projects and supplies, but free help and lessons will be available for those who are interested.” Hey, this sounds like just what I need to get help fixing my rug! So the next meeting was the first Saturday of December 2014 and I made sure I was there. The ladies were very nice and welcoming. We introduced ourselves and told what we were currently working on, so I showed them my rug and told them I needed their expert opinions on how to fix it. They seemed hesitant to tell me that I needed to take out most of it, but I told them I had figured that out but didn’t know what I had done wrong or how to keep it from happening again, so they helped me figure out that about seven and a half of the nine shirts needed to be pulled out and re-stitched. Denise the leader and expert in all things knit or crochet was super helpful and we decided that while I had thrown in an extra stitch every now and then, I simply hadn’t increased enough in the corners to get it to lay down flat. So, after making a huge volleyball sized tarn ball out of all I had unwoven, I started crocheting the tarn again making sure to add extra stiches in the corners more often this time. I told them all not to worry I was happy to redo it so I could learn from my experience and was so glad to have found this group. I went home that day and worked a few more rows in and then picked it up from time to time throughout the month, but time in December is hard to come by with all the holiday stuff, so I didn’t have it finished when the first Saturday in January came around. I went to the meeting and they welcomed me back and were glad to see I had made so much progress on the rug. I sat there and finished it that day, so they told me I needed to find my next project and come prepared for next month. 
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Between the January and February meetings, I looked for crochet books and had requested a few on hold from the library. They had told me to look for books geared toward teaching children to crochet as they were easier to understand. They also promised to teach me how to read and follow patterns. I had told my sister that if they came across any yard or knitting and crochet supplies in their adventures buying storage units that they didn’t want, I would gladly take it off their hands. So she told me she had a bag of yarn and some assorted needles or hooks or whatever for me. On the first Saturday in February, I went to the library knowing that a book called “Crochet for Kids” was waiting on hold for me. I also went armed with the yarn and other supplies my sister had gladly passed along to me. Denise helped me to start the hat from the book waiting for me that day and I finished making the hat within the week. It had called for a size K hook and I had used a J because I didn’t have a K. The had was supposed to fit a kid about ten years, but the white hat I had made following the patter except I had left off the bill, was very small. 
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I spent the next week searching the internet for hat patterns. The criteria for my search was that the patterns had to be easy, use single crochet and most of all be free. I created a binder with various hat patterns but had only found one that looked doable to me without help. So on Friday, the 20th after work, I got out the red yarn from my sister and got to work. The beginning was a little rough, but after a few rows I became more confident and kept going. I kept at it little by little and finally finished it on Monday night the 23rd. 
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 It wasn’t perfect but I was planning on donating these hats to homeless people or something and figured it would be warm and welcome even if it weren’t quite perfect. The next one would be better. My friend Ruth had brought me a bag of yarns she was decluttering on Saturday and they were all variegated. I was excited to get started on my next hat. I picked a pretty pasted variegated yard with no wrapper, but it felt like the red yarn, so I figured it was fine. I decided that since I had used the K hook like the white hat pattern had called for on the red hat and it came out big, I should use the H hook that this pattern called for and see how that turned out. There wasn’t a whole skein, so I figured I was going to call the hat done when the yarn ran out. I worked on the 3rd adult hat all that week and finally finished it just after work on Friday. Hey! I had made two hats from start to finish in just a week! The pastel hat was a bit snug, but looked darned good to me.  
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So Friday night the 27th I started the next hat, this time with a Red Heart rainbow colored variegated yarn and since the H hook had made the hat snug, I decided this one would be with the I hook. That is where I am now, crocheting the rainbow hat. Over twenty years since I first attempted to crochet and I now have two rugs and three and a half hats as my claim to crochet fame. (2,341 words)
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My March Challenge

2/28/2015

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My goal for this year, well one of them anyway, is to become a year-round writer. For the last two years, I have been a November only writer. I want that to change. Today, February 28, 2015, I stumbled upon the website, http://goinswriter.com/my500words, and decided this was just the challenge I need to help me become a year-round or daily writer. I know I just have to make myself do it and that a challenge is the way to get that habit started. I am giving myself a break, and letting the idea soak in for a day before I have to start. Besides, it is a 31 day challenge and tomorrow is the first day of a month, March, with just that many days in it, how convenient! So beginning tomorrow, I will write 500 words a day. I know I can do it. I have done it during November before. I have written as much as 5,000 words in a day during the panic mode I call NaNoWriMo, err November. I love the rush of writing as part of a massive group in November. I have joined a few regular writing meetings this year in an attempt to keep from putting writing on a shelf only to take it down again when NaNo time comes around.

So, I have no idea what I will write about each day, but have a few writing prompt sites saved and a book of prompts in my Kindle library. I actually have a short story in progress that began as a writing prompt a few months ago. Maybe if I ever finish it, I will have the nerve to post it here. Not feeling confident in my writing capability, is part of the problem. Feeling like nobody would want to be bothered to read anything I have to write about is most of the problem. I'm not sure what to do to get over all of these feelings of lacking when it comes to writing. I DO know that I won't get better if I don't actually write, and if I don't get better I will never get over the fear of letting others read what I have written. I have this blog I created a fairly long time ago, if you are reading this, you have found it. I'm not sure how anyone would find it, because I haven't shared it with anyone until today. Today after signing up for the My 500 Words challenge, there was a place to link your blog as a participant, so I did it! My blog, Lighthouse Life Lessons, is blog number 1,854 on the list. I feel safe that it is so far down the list, that nobody will bother reading it, but I feel better knowing I was confident enough to link it there and someone just might bother to read it. I am assuming no one has ever bothered to read anything I have written before because there have been no comments on any of the posts. That makes me happy because that also means there are no negative comments. No news is good news, right?

So I may post some of my daily writing here. I might actually get brave and decide that just for the next 31 days, I will post my 500 word offerings here if only to prove to myself and the world in general that I did it. I like having a picture or graphic in each blog post. Somehow, that makes my writing seem more interesting so maybe I should go search Google Images for some inspiring photos I could write about for a few of the next 31 days. (Word count = 614)

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my Top 3 favorite new places of learning...

5/6/2014

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Probably my absolute favorite new place to learn is the Indiana Writers Center. I asked for and received a membership for Christmas. I have always wanted to write and publish a book. I decided that this is the year I am going to do something about learning how to write a book. So, far I have taken lots of different kinds of classes there. There is a good discount on all their classes for members and I have met some wonderful writers there. I am still exploring and trying to learn everything I can about writing, structure, etc. Perhaps as my confidence as a writer grows, and I have no doubt that it will with every class I take, I will feel comfortable posting some of my writing here. If you have ever wanted to be a writer, but don't know how or where to start, this is the place! Check it out and maybe we will see each other in a class one night. (Thanks for the gift of knowledge Austin!) http://www.indianawriters.org/

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I only discovered Trade School Indianapolis this year and have taken 3 classes through them so far. They have some very interesting and unusual classes to offer taught by real people like you and me. If you have yearning for learning and live in or near Indy, you should really take a look at the most recent class offerings. It is always in the back of my mind that maybe someday I could teach a class for them, but I want to get a little more experience taking their classes before actually offering to teach one myself. The best part is that no money changes hands. You sign up for the class and choose one of the instructors barter request items and then bring that to the class as payment. The list of requested items varies greatly. I have taken post-it notes, dark chocolate and AAA batteries in as payments for the classes I have taken. Part of what keeps me from teaching is thinking up things to request as payment. Anyway, have a look and see if anything on the class list sparks you! http://tradeschool.coop/indianapolis/

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The Indianapolis Marion County Public Library is not a new place of learning for me but one of my oldest and most treasured friends from early childhood. When I want to learn something new I always check the library to see if they have a book on the subject. What some of you may not know is that they have a plethora of classes available for FREE all around the city. They even have an extensive selection of computer classes. I have taken classes on all sorts of things through the library over the years. I have learned about Diabetes, how to knit, about genealogy topics of all kinds, about German cooking and foods, about how to archive my photos, research my house, write my life story, download eBooks to my Kindle app on my smartphone and on my Nook Color wirelessly. So do yourself a favor and go to their website and look through the offerings under classes and events. You just never know what you might learn if you do! http://www.imcpl.org/

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