Janet's Smiles

I know there are a lot of folks who are taking the rest of the year off from blogging and social media and I have been frequenting it less and less because of the general busy-ness of Christmas and spending time with family.  Still, I have to get my fix occasionally so I may post something on Instagram or Facebook from time to time.  Here’s a recap of the last week. 

From the December Reflections prompts: 

Day 17 – I said Hello to…  I skipped this day.  It seems like I can use the same pictures over and over for some of these things (like Benny and the studio).

Day 18 – Favorite Photo of me.  I have posted a few pictures of me in the mirror demonstrating the weight loss this year but beside those, my favorite picture of me was a toss up between these two. 

I think I like the vibrant colors in the first one and that’s the one I posted on Instagram with the #Decemberreflections2019 tag but I do like my hat!

Day 19 – Cold – skipped this one too.  I think the day it came up it was a warm one so I just wasn’t feeling cold.  Still, I asked for a ski mask for Christmas so I can keep warm on my Benny walks.  I got one too!

Day 20 – Memorable meal in 2019.  I used the dessert we had when we went out for our 35th anniversary back in May.  It was a restaurant similar to the Benihana style but not as good.  Still, the meal was memorable for the occasion and I splurged off of my eating restrictions for the bananas foster!

Day 21 – I said goodbye to a bunch of stuff that we are going to try and sell at a garage sale when the weather is more predictable.  The picture is sideways but I don’t feel like taking the time to turn it over. 

Day 22 – Solstice light – skipped this one. 

Day 23 – A secret – Presents under the tree are all about secrets now.

Day 24 – Paper – could have used the wrapping paper all over the house but instead I used a picture of my tower of paper in the studio.  This is just the 12 x 12.  I have all kinds of paper in lots of different sizes.  I believe I mentioned once I am a paper addict.

Day 25 – Today is – Family – The family indulged me in getting a picture in.  I took only two the whole day.  I’m sad about that. 

Day 26 – Delicious – Our dinner last night was delicious but as noted above, I only took two pictures and the food was not one of them!  We had ham, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, asparagus, twice baked cauliflower, cranberry sauce and tortellini – something for everyone.

Up to date for now.  Are you getting things done or taking the rest of the year off?

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As promised, here are the vision cards I made for this year.  I have used basically the same six themes but tweaked them a little bit.  They are the same size as last year, an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock cut in half. 

Last year I had “Health” but this one is “All About Me” because now that I have lost a significant amount of weight, I know I need to focus on other aspects of my wellbeing.  It is time to do a little more exercise rather than just walking the dog.  I need to get some strengthening in my arms and tighten the core muscles.  I also need to focus on my mental health as well.  Self-care is an important thing that gets overlooked a lot. 

“Money” is now “Show Me The Money.”  The goal is to get some of our debt paid down and continue to save for the things we want to do.  Hopefully more work and some attention to non-essential spending will help with that.  Fortunately we on Social Security got a raise!   

“Connect” is now “Making Connections” and I think it continues to be important to keep the connections with friends and family as a top priority.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the work that I don’t take time to be with the family.  As an introvert, social gatherings are hard for me and I need to try and get over that a little.  

“Home” is “The Old Homestead” and again, we can’t afford much but we do need a new fridge and could use a fence around the front yard so Benny can go outside sometimes and play.  I’m still holding out for my fire pit in the backyard too!  I love cacti as a garden because they don’t need much care and can be really interesting.  

“Go Places” is now “Experiences” because the focus will be on new experiences in familiar places.  The beach is free and so are things like walking across the Golden Gate or just getting in the car and driving to the City to do touristy activities or down to Carmel and Monterey.  Even Yosemite can be relatively inexpensive.  Gotta get out there.  

Last but not least, “Craft” is now “My Crafty Business.”  I loved the word Phoblographer because that encompasses a lot of things.  The goal chart is to help me get more specific with the direction I want to take my business in.  Plus, as part of the self-care, I have a lot of personal projects that I want to work on, not just to be sold.  The kids each have an album that is seriously behind and my concert album is certainly not up to date.  Those things are important too.  

If you are interested in making your own vision cards, I highly recommend the class by Jamie Ridler.   If you’d like to see some of my past years, here are the links:

2014, 2015, 2016 are in one post.

2017 and 2018

Again, one of the main reasons that I like doing these cards is to take the pressure off of having failed an attempt at a “resolution.”  As you can see, some of the things that I wanted in 2014 are things I still want but there has been a lot accomplished in each area as well.  I know that Jamie makes 10 or 12 cards but I think six is about all I can handle, at least for now.  So what do you think?  What would your vision cards be about?  Love to hear your ideas.

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It’s time to make the vision cards for 2020.  I use vision cards instead of making New Year’s Resolutions because we all know that resolutions don’t always get resolved.  Instead I take different areas of my life that I’d like to work on and make collages to help identify goals.  I’ve been making these since about 2014 when I heard about it from Jamie Ridler.  She has an excellent course on making them if you are interested.  Anyway, before I get to next year, I like to take one last look at the ones I made this year and see how much I have accomplished for each area.

I called this one “Go Places” and it is probably the one that got the least attention this year.  Except for the concerts and our annual Boulder Creek mini vacation we really didn’t go anywhere.  We didn’t even go to Reno which is something we’ve done every year for the last four or five years.  I had in mind that we would just do local fun things but money was really tight and so we didn’t.

The Health card was very different.  I managed to lose 55 pounds from March to December and that actually is a 70 pound loss from what was my highest weight.  In addition, I am off all the medication I was taking for diabetes and my blood pressure is normal. 

Money is such a tricky thing and some of it is not in my control.  Unfortunately we had a reversal of finances between having to spend money on the studio and a lack of expected income on my part.  I have starting increasing my transcription by taking on work that is not strictly medical in nature and hopefully that will help in 2020.  Asking the Universe to help with the craft business a bit as well. 

Connecting with friends and family was a little more successful.  We did have a few dinners out and got to take a boat cruise around the San Francisco Bay with friends.  I did visit my sister more and talked with her by phone a lot as we went through the process of moving my mom out of her apartment.  Also got to have breakfast a couple of times with my best friend who lives quite a distance away.  Hubby and I also started some counseling to help with our connection with each other.  Even though we’ve been married for 35 years, I was starting to feel disconnected. 

As far as my Crafty life goes, the studio was the biggest accomplishment.  I love it and have been able to make some videos and start experimenting with different techniques.  I am using a lot more of my supplies than I had been because everything is more organized and accessible.  I participated in four Holiday Boutiques too.  I also did a purge and got rid of some things that I will not use. 

Finally, we have Home.  Again, the biggest thing here was getting the backyard down to bare bones and building the studio.  I did do some deep cleaning to some parts of the house and we went to a flea market where hubby actually sold some of his tools and made some space in the garage.  I have a ton of things that I was going to sell in a garage sale but the year got away from me and now the weather is too unpredictable so that will have to wait until the spring.  We also got our Benny dog and that has made a big change in our home. 

So that’s the update on the vision cards I made for 2019.  All in all I think I did pretty well and even though some areas got more attention than others, I feel a lot better about things than if I had just made some New Year’s Resolutions that I didn’t keep.  Also, by doing it this way I have some actual record of what was done every year since I write it on the back of each card.

Tomorrow I’ll show you the ones I made for 2020.  Bet you can’t wait. 

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So there are days when I have lots of time and days when I have none.  While I love the freedom that working from home has given me all these years, I think it’s time I try to figure out some sort of routine.  That’s one of my goals for next year.  I’ll be making my vision cards soon so I’m gathering bits and pieces to do that.  Blog post about that coming. 

For now, we have a few days of the Reflections that I have only posted on Instagram and I’ll share them here. 

Day 10 – Gold  – Some little ornaments I have hanging in the studio. 

Day 11 – 10 years ago.  This showed up in my newsfeed for that day.  I don’t remember anything specific that happened on December 11 but I do know that 10 years ago is when my husband hurt his back at work and our lives have not been the same since. 

Day 12 – Made me laugh. – interestingly, I have nothing for this.  Do I not laugh enough? 

Day 13 – 5 things about me.

I always find it hard to think about different things about myself.  For this I said:  1)   I have 3 sisters and all of our names start with the letter “J.”   2)   I’ve been to Alaska and seen the “North Pole.”   3)   I love Koala bears but owls are starting to capture my attention.   4)   I’ve lived in 7 places but they are all within a 5 mile radius of each other.    5)  I love blackberry or boysenberry pie better than chocolate. 

If you are really interested, you can see five more things about me here.

Day 14 – Floral – Have to admit, I just added this one today!  One of the pictures I colored earlier this year. 

Day 15 – Best decision of 2019.  Deciding to try different types of transcription instead of just medical.  It has been interesting and will be of financial help as well.  Never too late to teach an old dog…

Day 16 – Hot  – Struggling with this one as it is definitely NOT hot here but “cold” is coming up later in the month so I guess I’ll use these:

I may come up with something else for hot later in the day but I wanna get this out for now.  How’s your December going? 

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I did not do as well at the Holiday boutique last Saturday as I had done in the three previous ones but I did manage to sell a few cards and since it was a new to me venue, got some additional exposure.  It was free to participate and they only asked for a 20% donation from the total profit so I’m afraid they didn’t make very much money from me.  It was also raining very hard off and on all day so that may have kept some people away.  At any rate, that was my last show for this year.  Now I can start working to build up the inventory again.  I’m also going to keep my eyes open for opportunities throughout the year next year so it doesn’t all come down to the last few months.

On to the December Reflections posts, Day 6 was “Angel.”  I didn’t take a selfie and didn’t find any other angels to take pictures of so I missed that day.

Day 7 was “Favorite Photo of 2019” and there are so many but here are three.

The girls and I at Backstreet Boys concert

My little gnome garden

Sunset at the beach

Day 8 was “Quiet” and I used this picture of the sky.  The quiet before the storm.  It has been pretty rainy here this week.  

Today’s prompt is “Biggest Change of 2019.”  I think losing 57 pounds since March is a pretty big change.  

September

Also, getting the studio in the backyard and adding Benny to our lives were pretty big too.  

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I am participating again this year in Susannah Conway’s December Reflections.  The prompt for today is “Through the window…”  There have been a lot of window shots posted in the group and at first I was going to try and get a picture when I walked Benny this morning as there are some folks in the neighborhood who already have their Christmas trees up.  I didn’t find any good shots so I’m taking a different approach.  I got this message this morning from WordPress:

So I guess you could say that 1000 times I’ve let you look “through the window” of my mind, right?  Hope you continue to enjoy the view 😂 👀🤔.

If you’d like to play along with Susannah and I (and the other great bunch of people doing this December Reflection), here are the prompts:

There are some fun ones on here don’t you think? 

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Our prompt today for Song Lyric Sunday is chin/ears/eyes/face/mouth/nose.  I don’t know why but I thought of the song “Spanish Eyes” as sung by Al Martino.  It takes me back to when I was about 18 or 19 and went to a few Knights of Columbus dances with my parents.  They figured it would be a good place for me to meet a nice Italian Catholic boy.  Unfortunately, they had me in the wrong generation and all of their friends had children older than me so there weren’t any eligible young bachelors around.  It was a fun night anyway because I got to see my mom and dad dance and I got to dance with my dad a few times. 

Mom and dad at my sister’s wedding.

This song was one of the ones I remember dancing with him to.  He’s been gone for about 38 years now and I really miss him around the holidays especially.  Elvis Presley, Englebert Humperdink and Willie Nelson all have versions of this song too but Al Martino’s is the one that reminds me of dad. 

The lyrics:

All righty then.  December is officially underway.

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I sincerely hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday with their families and friends.  Ours was very small and low key since our eldest daughter spent the day with one of her friends and my mom spent it with my sister and her family.  That meant there was only the four of us and to be honest, we didn’t even sit at the table, we ate in the living room but at least we were together.  I took only one picture:

I also ate a few more carbs than I usually allow myself but I just can’t resist the stuffing and cranberry sauce.  Today it will be pretty much back to my usual eating although I may still have some stuffing, just won’t stuff myself – LOL.

I have a whole list of things I am grateful for, as I’m sure everyone does.  I try to remember them even when it is not Thanksgiving.  In addition to those, I am really grateful that I connected with my famous author friend, James J. Cudney, IV.  He has done a great service by featuring me in his latest blog “Tips and Advice” post.  It is wonderful to have people support you in your endeavors and Jay is gracious about doing that.  If you haven’t read any of his books, you really should.  You can find them all on Amazon and I believe he has some specials going on.

Also, I am grateful for the partnership I have had for the last 15 or so years with JoAnn Wall of JSTS Transcription Services.  We met at a picnic organized by a mutual friend, Gloria Merino, and we started discussing what our jobs were.  We found that we both did transcription work.  Mine is primarily medical transcription and hers is more general transcription.  She asked if I wanted her to send medically related transcription requests to me and of course I said yes.  Since then we have been working together and recently, as my medical work has been decreasing, she started sending other types of work my way.  It has truly made a difference.  There is a learning curve of course but the topics are interesting and I feel like I can handle the challenge.

Each of these connections came totally by accident.  You never know where a chance meeting will take you.  It’s that Universe thing again, you know?

Now it is my turn to share.  I am an affiliate for several different companies and while I may receive some compensation if you use my links, it doesn’t affect the prices for you.

The first is Creative Live.

There are so many interesting online courses in a variety of subjects including photography, writing, money, crafting and personal growth.  I have taken a few of them and have found them to be very helpful and informative.  Through today they are offering 70% off but they have specials all the time and even offer some classes for free.

CreativeLive Black Friday Deals: Take 70% Off Sitewide

The second is Let’s Roam.  This is a scavenger hunt type adventure that you can take.  We did the one in Reno and it was so much fun.

 https://www.letsroam.com/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=uwdsb5zx 
  
If you are looking for a unique gift for that hard to buy for person, consider these.  They are inexpensive and fun and there are a lot of different places and subjects to choose from. 

Grateful also for all of you who read my little tidbits.  Thanks! 

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