Here We Go Again!

 Yup, more snow! The little juncos don't mind. I made sure to sprinkle some sunflower seeds on top of the snow. We have 3 inches or so, and it's still coming down. But at least the temps are mild. 

Micah and I are trying to declutter some more. She's much more into it than me. She likes the minimalist look and with all of her kids she really needs to keep things (toys and clothing especially) under control. I sent her a large tote full of paper photos and told her to see if she wanted any of them. I told her to pitch what she didn't want unless she saw some she thought her siblings might want. She sent the tote back with a little pile of photos for me to send on to siblings. I'm trying to get down to two large binders of paper photos so I have representative photos of people. That's all I need. With the thousands of photos on memory cards I shudder at the thought of trying to keep track of all of that. I'll probably have a small ziplock bag in my albums containing some memory cards so they can look at them if they want to, but I'm really trying to simplify. My main "photo album" is a collection of photos I have up on the wall in my bedroom. I can look at those any time, and smile and pray for my wonderful family. That's really all I need. Anyway, THIS was also in the tote Micah returned to me!

Adam's uncle gave these to him years ago and he hasn't used them much, so they got passed along to me. I've wanted to try this brand of watercolor pencil for a long time, but they're so spendy I never got around to buying them. Should be fun playing with them! And I love the cool wooden box they came in!

So, my attempts at minimalizing things may not be too successful. With my love of art materials and books, things will probably look cluttered no matter what. But I do want to keep digging into closets and drawers to get rid of stuff I don't really need or use. 

Oh, remember that object I showed you last time and asked what it was for? I put an update on the post, but most of you probably didn't see it. 

It's for holding sewing machine attachments. I'm pretty sure my mom had one and that's why I found it so interesting. I'm using it to hold my hand carved stamp collection. I recently bought a little vintage metal recipe box that I'll use to stash stuff in, too.

I practiced with a small choir of folks on Thursday before Easter with the intent of singing with them on Easter morning. I came down with a fever on Saturday night (just a couple of degrees) so thought I'd better not go and maybe spread something around. I watched the livestream instead and everything went well. It was a good service. When I went to "in person" church this past Sunday one of the guys in the choir ran up and had to hear the story of why I wasn't standing in front of him on Easter morning, ha ha. He's just a really extraverted guy and asked out of concern. It was nice to know someone missed me! :) We don't ordinarily have a choir at our church. It's usually a worship band, but our new worship director is trying to get more people involved, so there may occasionally be a choir song. I'm still on the list for future opportunities. I also got to have a good visit with my friend, who is also a widow. We hadn't seen each other for a few weeks because she's been traveling around visiting kids and had lots of company over Easter. So, it was a good Sunday morning! It's always a big event when I can get myself to leave the nest and go see actual people! :)

Something else I unearthed while cleaning out closets were these taekwondo medals that Jordan won almost 20 years ago! I packed them up and mailed them to him. He was excited that I found them. We weren't sure what had become of them, and there they were in my closet!

I don't recall the reason behind Josh and Jordan competing in North Dakota at the state championship when we live in Minnesota. There was some reason for it. 

My current book. I've enjoyed reading about the history of Israel's return to their land since I was a teen. Have you gotten your copy, Glenn? I thought you would like a good spy story! :) Happy birthday!

Okay. Let's see if I can dig through the weed patch that is my memory card and find some new artwork I haven't shown yet. I really need to delete a bunch of stuff. Maybe that's a project for today?

This swap was called Circles Around Us, and the cards just had to have some circles on them. Otherwise, open to interpretation.

The Ballpoint Pen swap. Only ballpoint pens allowed.

Hazel with her unicorn mask!

The Found Poetry swap. You take a square of text from a book page and then put boxes around some words and black out the rest of the page. Voila!

The Tiny People swap. Just make your people look tiny...

I bought this Venus Flytrap for the grands to enjoy. They think it's pretty cool. 

I also got a few more succulents which I hope I can keep alive. Couldn't resist this planter from the thrift store, lol. 

Can anyone identify this thing I used as a planter? It looks like a giant dried seed pod. Kind of woody and very light weight. I found it at the thrift store and thought it would make a good pot. 

Oh, came across a few more ATCs. Everything is WAY out of sync on my memory card. These were toward the bottom so I almost missed them. 

The Postage Stamp ATC swap-Space. You just had to include a space themed postage stamp.

The Background Music swap. Include some sheet music in the background somewhere. 

In bird watching news, a couple of Sandhill Cranes landed in our neighboring field a couple of days ago. And I heard my first loon of the season about a week or so back. Some robins finally showed up, so that makes it official!

Well, I think it's past my lunch time. Can't miss lunch! I hope you're all doing well. I'll be by to visit sometime soon!

Shalom and love to all!