I’m betting most of you can tell from the title that I’m not having fun with my new smart phone. In fact, you might be wondering why I have a new smart phone? Simply put, the old phone died. Like really died, is completely Dead, can never ever be revived.

There are days I truly dislike technology. It is great stuff for staying in touch with friends, family and my fans. But when it really comes down to it, I’m a low-tech kind of person. I like to make things with my hands, which is why I have a blog and video channel about crafting and art.

My old smart phone was a Samsung Note 2, I had it for 4 years. All I had needed to do in that time was replace the battery and the case a couple of times. I had wanted to upgrade it this past Fall, but the Samsung Note series was having some difficulties. Primarily, the batteries were catching on fire. So there were no Notes to be had. I don’t even know if the Note is ever coming back.

With the death of my old Note 2 I needed to replace my phone. It died the Monday morning before I left on my trip to Phoenix for CHA. So it was a bit of a scramble that week deciding on what phone to get and then getting the new phone set up so that I had what I needed on it while traveling.

After consulting with my husband, and whinging about the unavailability of the Note series, I decided to get the Samsung s7 Active. It’s a hardy phone and I’ll probably have it another 3-4 years.

Unfortunately, getting it to talk to my computer has been a pain. Which is what the argument has been about. I was able to use my old phone as a media device with my computer, making it very easy to upload files from the phone to the computer using a USB cord. This was especially handy for my videos and photos.

I know there is very likely a simple fix for getting this new phone to play nice with my computer. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of patience for figuring out new tech, so it has been an painful and frustrating couple weeks. I’ve actually decided to take a break from it for a few days as I tackle other tasks.

I’ve been swatching and sketching this week in preparation for submitting some proposals to publishers. We will see if anything comes of that. Submitting proposals is not a guarantee of them being accepted for publication. I like what I’ve come up with and may publish these designs in my own pattern line if the publisher doesn’t want them.

This weekend my husband has promised to help me figure out all the smart phone and computer stuff. Hopefully that means I’ll be back on track very soon.

I hope everyone’s New Year has started off well. Ours is beginning with cold and snow. As you may have noticed, I took a little break from posting on the blog. The boys have been on their Winter Break from school and I’ve been enjoying some family-time. Far too soon these 2 will be too grown-up to want to hang-out with their folks, I figure I better take every minute I can now. Today they are back in school and I am playing catch-up.

We did a lot of traveling to visit family during the boys’ school break.  We celebrated Christmas on Christmas eve and day with my husband’s family in Ohio. The Tuesday after, we headed to Kansas to celebrate with my Dad, brothers and niece.

There was a lot of driving on this trip. Driving to Dayton, Ohio is a 20 hour drive from our house, so we break it up in 2 10-hour sections. We drove to Topeka, Kansas the first day then on to Dayton the next day. That was 2 days of pretty much solid driving. I spent part of the drive time finishing some crochet design samples. I’ll be sharing those patterns with you over the next couple of months. We were very lucky that the weather was unseasonably warm and clear, so no frightening roads or getting stuck along the way.

We made a stop in Hays, Kansas the first day at the Sternberg Museum and met up with my nephew, his wife and their new little baby. I got to give the baby her bottle and get in some great cuddles with her and hugs with her parents. I hadn’t seen my nephew since he was a little kid, he towers over me now.

Christmas Eve we drove around Lincoln Park in Kettering to look at the lights. The weather was warm enough that the boys and I ran around the lit pathways.

The morning of the 27th we left Ohio to drive to Topeka, Kansas. The weather was a little cooler, but it was clear and sunny out. Always sad saying good-bye to my Mother and Father-in-law, but the boys were looking forward to seeing their cousins and uncles.

We spent 3 nights in Topeka, to have some visiting time with my Dad, brothers and niece. Wednesday we had lunch with my niece and then played at the park with my great niece and nephew while my niece went to her doctor’s appointment. It was such fun playing with the kids. My great niece loved having us push her on the swings, while my great nephew was having a terrific time playing “hide-and-seek” with the boys.

Afterward we went to my Dad’s to have dinner with him and my younger brother, Cy. On the drive Tuesday I had gotten a text from Cy that he and Dad had a Christmas gift for me that I “must” take home with me.

He texted me a photo too. Oh Boy.  So we were really looking forward to at least meeting the “gift”, though I wasn’t too sure about bringing it home with us.

I got in some cuddles with the kitten, but we all decided she was better off with my Dad and Cy. Their dogs were getting along with her well and we were really uncertain about how she would do with our big cat at home.

Not to mention that some serious “kitten-proofing” needs to happen at our house before I would feel comfortable bringing a new kitten home. It was tricky getting a photo of her as she was quite active even when I was holding her.

The next day my older brother and his kids joined us at the hotel. All the kiddos played in the pool, then we had a pizza party for lunch. After lunch we headed out to see the latest Star Wars movie. Then we all went back to the hotel and played some board games and swam a little more. Finally had to say good-bye to the cousins as we would be heading out in the morning for the drive back to Colorado.

The drive home to Colorado went by fairly quickly. Once again the weather was staying clear and warmer than one would expect during the last week of December. We made a few stops for meals and gas, but got home before 8 p.m. Mountain Time.

It’s good to be back on the mountain. I’ve been taking down the Christmas decorations and sorting out all the laundry from our trip. Hard to believe 2016 is over now, hopefully I can catch up with myself before I fall too far behind in this new year.

I have a few resolutions this year:

1. Learn to do Calligraphy. This is something I have always admired and I’ve some ideas for art work that combines words and images. I want the words to be as beautiful as the images.
2. Open my Etsy Shop. My plan is primarily to sell art and jewelry pieces, but I may also have some crochet patterns for sell thru my shop. This will be an experiment. Some of the items I will be selling will be related to resolution #3.
3. Clear out a lot of the clutter. Use up a good chunk of my art and crafting stash. Get rid of out grown clothing and other excess in the house that is just taking up space.
4. Make more videos for my YouTube Channel. Not just “how-to” ones, but ones for entertainment/inspiration too.

Happy New Year to all my readers, I hope your 2017 is full of joy and health.

 

 

 

The past couple of months I have been working steadily away at getting my home, office and studio areas more organized. My most recent project in this endeavor was getting all my beads that I use with yarn corralled into a single container.

This was the sorting process today on the Loveseat in my living-room. It is always astonishing to me how big a mess one ends up initially making when you start trying to organize and de-clutter. I did succeed in getting the majority of the beads into containers that make my collection more manageable, though I think I will be taking another run at it soon.

This is the box that is the current home for the beads. It is a hanging file box similar in size to a typical “bankers” box. It’s a good size for this project since most of the beads are glass and a larger box would become extremely heavy. Inside the box are smaller boxes and other containers to keep the beads grouped.

I’ll be teaching this coming Saturday at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe. My class: “Stitch Chart Bootcamp” where I’ll be introducing students to the ins and outs of reading crochet stitch charts and diagramed patterns. If you are in the area and want to join us you can enroll thru the shop website here.

After teaching on Saturday it will be all about the holidays for me and my family. Usually December gets pretty wild here and I don’t post on the blog as often. I’ll try to have  a new post for you at least once a week. Meanwhile I hope everyone is having a wonderful month full of holiday celebrations with family and friends.