DOA's Monthly Wrapup

Gardening

It was mostly a gardening month.  I'm now looking at a big fall list that includes bringing in all my clay and ceramic pots for the winter, and tucking all of my garden shelves and plastic ornaments into the shed.

Also on the fall list is washing all of the windows and screens.  Someone nearby has a Cottonwood tree that floats little cottony bits out that my screens love to snare.  Also, in the dead of winter, there are those rare bright sunny days and you want every ray of the sun to sparkle it's way right into the house.  My houseplants will thank me.

State Fair

We visited the fair this year, and walked just about everywhere but in the Midway.  I used to like to stroll down through The Midway because there were exciting, thrilling new rides each season.  It was fun to watch them, and hear all the screams of delight.  It seems that the danger days are over.

Book Groups

I joined two book groups, both Mystery.  I really like them both.


Recipes

I only tried one new recipe this month.  It is Chocolate Chip Loaf from the Love From the Oven site.  It was simple, not too sweet, and surprisingly filling.   I need butter on top of any quick bread, and that made it extra lovely.   I made it yesterday morning, and it tasted just as good this morning, sipping some nice coffee alongside it.

https://www.lovefromtheoven.com/chocolate-chip-loaf/

Mine looked pretty much like this picture from the site, so ta da.

Speaking of recipes, I wrote up the new Baking Blogs I've found, but logged out of blogger without saving the configure blog list box.   Zzzzz don't mess with your blog at midnight.   I've fixed it and the links are now all there.

I'm hoping to once again to try one new recipe per week.   I've a nice little stack of printed and saved recipes from various sites.  If I could get myself to rough out a full month's menu, I could get the one per week.

Craft Ideas I Admired This Month

I wanted to note here a couple of neat blog posts from others on my blog list.

From Flamingo Toes, a set of embroidery hoops with a combination of painted/embroidered little houses.  It is so wonderful.  

https://flamingotoes.com/stenciled-neighborhood-embroidery-hoop-art-gallery/

 In My Own Style had a great post on tackling projects large and small.

https://inmyownstyle.com/free-printable-diy-decorating-project-planner.html

It is so hard to know where to start sometimes, and she gives good advice, plus has a project plan template you can use to organize and visualize how to get your project done.   I think it could be adapted to any type of household or craft project you'd like to work on.

This post puts the blog at 26 posts for the year.   As we know, the goal is 100.  I'm planning to make good progress towards my goal in September.

Lots of TV to talk about despite not a single new broadcast television show being of interest to me.

Monthly WrapUp

I've been enjoying writing my posts here lately.  Looking at my post count for the year, it stands at a whopping twenty.  This will be 21!

Pretty much as soon as I challenged myself to writing 8 posts a month to easily get to 100 posts for the year, I stopped writing.  Too odd.  I guess I can't fool me into anything.

This month has been about the garden.  There are a few flaws, but I have loved my garden this season.

I have other topics in mind but they haven't made it to the page yet.   I am hoping to write some up regularly so I'm not doing my November post challenge to jam in a year's worth of writing into a month or so.   That's the old me.


I've moved my blog rolls around.  They're all still there, just rearranged as to what's on top.

My Podcast list is still here, it's just waaaaaay down at the bottom.  I added in quite a few new ones, particularly fiction.   I haven't had a chance to listen to them all, I'm sort of bookmarking them for myself.  And for you, of course.

Monthly Wrapup

One of my goals for the month was eight posts, which if done consistently, will give me the desirable 100 posts for the year.  This post makes eight for January!

I seem to have written mostly about crochet this month, but I'm still dreaming of crochet most nights (no more aircraft) so it's on my mind.

I should be organizing my seeds from last year and making out orders for this year.  There was supposed to be a cool post by me about how I used this method of storing seeds and I even have the pocket pages and the little plastic seed holders (Ordered from from Amazon as the author did) , but zzzzz.   I have this suspicion  I don't want to cut up my seed packets to make them fit into the slots.  Some companies like Botanical Interests actually have packets that are small works of art.

February (less than an hour away) is National Embroidery Month, and I'm getting geared up for that.  I binge bought a bunch of pink shades of embroidery thread today in anticipation.  Don't tell my husband.

I hoped to try a bunch of new recipes this month, but I've been skating by on standard recipes all month long.

Let's hope for a tastier February!

Sincerely, Librariandoa

Monthly Wrapup November 2017

I've had a ton of fun with the posts this month.  I tried for a wide variety and think I have that.  I'm still a fair few away from my goal of 100 posts for the year, but I'm confident I'll get there.

I learned new things!

Taxgedo the word cloud maker lets you put your clouds in shapes.  Love my cat shaped cloud.

I finally learned how to resize pictures in Photoshop Elements, and could fit pictures on my Thanksgiving cards.  They had to be 3x5 to fit the blank cards I have.  Voila.

 I just need to figure out layers.  I've found several good YouTube videos that might help.


Podcasts!   While looking for five for each topic I found many more interesting podcasts to try out.  Now that the pressure of daily posts is done, I'll re-do my podcast list and include some of the others.  There were enough to do with gardening and books to consider giving them their own link lists under their blogroll categories.

I am enjoying the Fiction podcasts.  Limetown will return in 2018!  There was a little mini-cast this October saying they'd return then. The original set aired in 2015, so how lucky to just listen to it now and be all ready for it's return.   A little bit mystery, a little bit radio show, a little bit X Files.


The Most Popular Posts This Month, In Order:

1.  DOA's Ten Favorite Star Trek Episodes: The Original Series

2. Movie Monday: Five Upcoming Films

3. Embroidery Tuesday: Embroidering Rudolph

4.  DOA's November Blog Challenge! En Garde!

5.  Quotable


I still need to hit 100 posts!  I've ideas for but not planned dates set for some fun December topics.  I enjoyed many of the memes/post subject ideas I tried and they'll appear again sometime.  Particularly the monthly wrapup.