Blogging A to Z. Let's do this!

So despite, or perhaps in spite, of my current blucky blogging mood, I have once again  signed up to participate in Blogging A to Z in April.

I might just be crazy.

But I'm pretty sure it's the good sort of crazy!

I had a lot of fun last year with the posts which were memoiry and fun to write. I'm not sure of a theme for this year. I'm not niched into any sort of blog type. I write about all sorts of things and I plan on keeping it that way, so I'll see what I come up with. Although, honestly, I'm totally open for suggestions.

In addition to that I think I might take a crack at fatmumslim's photo a day again now that I've resolved my photo issues.

Land of Pollen

I like spring. It isn't my favorite season (autumn holds that honor) but I like the whole blooming and growing that happens. Or at least I did until I moved to Florida. My daughter's pediatrician told me shortly after both girls were diagnosed with seasonal allergies that people come to Florida with no allergies but it never stays that way. Instead of picking up some little trinket in a souvenir shop we all got allergies!

And spring is the worst. All of those plants all wanting to procreate pay no heed to the sneezing, wheezing, and watery eyes. I'm pretty sure that Florida chose to eliminate winter this year. It got cold for about two days in December before deciding to just skip right into spring.

Today, for instance, it is 80 degrees outside. In the shade. I'm ready for AC and January isn't even over yet! Now 80 degrees sounds nice I bet, especially to you northerners (how many feet of snow do you have on your back 40, Ken?) but the amount of pollen in the air and on everything is making it darn hard to appreciate the warmth!

That coat of apparent grime on my car? Pollen

That "dirt" on whatever plant this is on my patio? HA! Pollen!

There are little rivers of thick, yellow pollen running along the driveway, the pond has a near glossy sheen of pollen floating on top. The irony would be, of course, if all the trees and plants listening to Barry White CDs and spreading their love get hit with a frost come February.

I Made It Monday

So last year I made a valiant attempt at chronicling our year in a scrap book. My goal was to go from December 21, 2011 to December 22, 2012. I called it Waiting for the Apocalypse. I got to about March before I stopped. The problem was I take so many pictures that I ended up with an overwhelming amount to go through. I got frustrated and, not a big surprise, distracted by other things that were slightly more pressing than scrapbooking.

But I still liked and clung to the idea of scrapbooking life as it happened. And it was in the course of looking for new scrapbooking resources that I stumbled across a few blogs that were talking about something called Project Life. I traced the links back to a woman, Becky Higgins, who had hatched and sold a scrapbooking system that cut out time consuming layout dilemmas and matching papers.

Project Life is a streamlined system. Something I can take out and spend an hour or two with and put away. I liked that.

I did not, however, like the price tag associated with all the accessories. I’ve got accessories out the wazoo! Paper, stickers, vellum quotes and sayings, albums…and did I mention the paper? I’ve got a lot of scrapbook paper. I’ve got enough scrapbook paper that I’m probably going to have to include it in my will.

The one thing I didn’t have was the nifty photo pages (photo page protectors…what are those things called anyway?).

So I ordered some (FYI - Becky sells her supplies through Amazon). Just a small pack to see how it would go. While I was waiting from my package to arrive I spent my evenings going through my shoebox full of scraps cutting them down to sizes that would fit the photo pages. I spent hours combing through the photos I’d taken trying to narrow the ones I loved down to a reasonable 5-8. Five to eight photos to capture the week. Reasonable and doable.

Once the pages arrived, I established a routine. Oh how I hate routines (more on that later)! But I knew that if I didn’t establish a day to scrapbook, it would just collect dust like the Camping book, the Apocalypse book and the Birthday Fiesta O’ Fun books. Mondays, I decided would be the day. Mondays I go into town and run my errands. I do the grocery shopping, I pick up the miscellaneous things I need from Home Depot or Target. Mondays I would print my photos and Mondays I would scrapbook.

And, my friends, I do. I am. It isn’t overly elaborate or crazy with crafty and creativity but I’m getting what I wanted to accomplish done. And that, my friends, makes me happy. And slightly proud because really right now, I need to show that I can start a project and finish it.

Friday Photos

Hey all! Me again back with a post. Remember way back when in November when I was doing the Photo a Day challenge and blogger so kindly informed me that I had reached my storage limit? I got quite frustrated and angsty and I took an Internet break.

We didn't break up mind you. I just needed some...space. I certainly don't need an apology from  Internet not will I bore Internet with a 30 page letter expressing my disappointment.

This is what I have discovered: in order to resize the photos on my blog, I would have resize them in picasa then delete from the original post and then repost them. That's a lot a photos, people, over 600. But I found a loophole. If new photos are resized under a certain limit then they don't count towards that 1 GB of space we are allocated.

So here I am testing that theory.

Back in November Cyra found a turtle in our yard. A beautiful turtle that, if it wasn't a protected species, I totally would have adopted then and there because, I loved him right away.

Meet Wilfred (or Winnefred) the Florida Box Turtle

PS - Yay! It worked!!

This isn't a "Real Post." Seriously.

In my mind, I've been off fighting pirates in the Caribbean, making life-altering crafts out of pine cones and duct tape, saving the world from alien Bigfoot invaders (again) and baking the heck out of some nice crusty bread.

In my mind, that is. The truth and reality is never that exciting and excuses are so 2012. So I'd like to just jump right into things, pretending that I've not been ignoring my blog so much as...

Heck. I can't even come up with a good "so much as."

Forget it. I said this isn't a real post and it's not. I just wanted to take a minute from my excruciatingly normal and slightly boring day to give a couple of shout outs. It seems in my absence I've gotten some Bloggy Love (that doesn't sound...dirty...does it?) and despite my utter apathy for the Internet and blogging and socialization right now, I really appreciate the recognition.

I have received no less than three Liebsters! Serious blogging love going on there and while I am in no way capable of answering all those questions or actually, really passing on the award right now, I wanted to make sure that recognitions was recognized.

So, first a big thank you to Ruby at Whispering Thoughts. She is one of my earliest followers and always has a kind word for me! She also writes some very thought provoking poetry and short stories on her blog. And she has a photo blog too!

Next a couple of bloggers at Moonkissed. New followers Hannah and Holly host a fashion, artsy blog that is cute and informative - especially to someone like me who pretty much owns nothing but jeans, tee-shirts and polos (man I love polos!).

Finally, my BFF Sara at A Bend in the Road. She is the reason I started blogging in the first place and one of my biggest fans (if I do say so myself). Sara blogs about her grief of losing her daughter Lauren, everyday life and food.