Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Blogging Day 3 Addicted to Magazines


MY NAME IS JEAN AND I AM ADDICTED TO MAGAZINES!

Ok now I got that out of the way.  Before we moved I downsized big time.  I got rid of a lot of my magazine clutter.



Yes I still have a few piles of magazines I want to go through, like my Writer's Digest issues and The Sun magazines. I think I got rid of my pile of Twilight Zone magazines but there are still some boxes in the shed to go through, so maybe I didn't.  I sort of hope not.

Now I have other ways to get magazines that satisfy and feed my addiction. (I don't consider all addictions bad).  My library offers RBdigital.  Here is where we can download magazines electronically as in "borrowing" from the library. This includes Readers Digest, Our State (NC), National Geographic, Taste of Home, Better Homes and Garden, Oprah, Food Network, Quilting, Rolling stone and more... I can enlarge the pages on my ipad, phone or computer to make the print easier to read. It's like reading a large print book.  Oh yes, we can borrow books and audio books on RBdigital too.

I also subscribed to Texture.  What a fabulous place this is for feeding my magazine addiction.  I got a 30 day free trial and after that I had to pay.  I love PEOPLE magazine so that is a bit extra.  But my office isn't cluttered like it used to be.  All my magazines are online now.  I even subscribe to Writer's Digest and The Sun online.  Every time I get groceries I look at the magazines as I stand in line and before subscribing to Texture I would impulsively grab a People or Woman's World as a reward to myself.  Now I look at these displays and realize I really am saving money and clutter.


No more piles of magazines!!!



Blogging Day 2 --The Miracles in my Instant Pot



I have always liked the idea of cooking in a pressure cooker but I was terrified of them.  We bought one from QVC and were both afraid to use it even though they are supposed to be safe. No more exploding pots with peas on the ceiling or mashed potatoes on the walls.  But still we were too scared to try cooking in it and I don't like to admit it but we gave it away brand new.

Ok fast forward awhile when I started reading about the Instant Pot.   What is an Instant Pot? I didn't know so I went to You Tube and started watching videos!  I was mesmerized.  "I can do this!" I told myself. So I went to Amazon and ordered the 6 qt one.   I joined several online Instant Pot groups on Facebook and Googled Instant Pot recipes.  So the fun began.

I bought a 3 lb boneless chuck roast and followed a recipe I found online.  Because my IP is not oblong I had to cut the roast into 3 or 4 pieces. It has a saute button so I pushed it and put some olive oil in the pot and put in the meat to brown.  After the meat was all browned I took it out with tongs and put it on a plate. Then I started adding my vegetables - sliced onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms and seasonings.  When they were lightly sauteed I added the meat back, added a can of beef Consume (beef broth works too) and a half a can of water and whole peeled potatoes.   I pushed the off button, put the lid on, turned it to seal and pushed the manual button the + adjusted it to 55 minutes. The pot had to build up steam, so it took longer than 55 minutes but basically about ten minutes. Then I checked to see if the little silver button was popped up, show it had built up to pressure.  Then it started counting down. After it reached 55 minutes it beeped and I released the pressure by turning the release knob carefully to let out all the steam.  When it stopped hissing and the silver button was down, I opened the lid and took out everything onto a serving plate.  I mixed up some corn starch slurry and whisked it into the remaining liquid, making a delicious thickened gravy.

Here is the result:  A delicious, melt in our mouths tender pot roast with cooked vegetables and potatoes.  A One pot meal.   

I've made this several times along with pork chops, the most delicious rice and chicken I've ever eaten and spaghetti where I push uncooked pasta into the sauce, cover the pot and cook for TEN minutes!  Yes, 10 minutes for delicious spaghetti with enough left over for 3 more meals.

I call these my miracles in my Instant pot. I bought a second pot which has come in handy.

I am not an affiliate for the Instant Pot but one can make yogurt in it,  and it can be used as a slow cooker, and more.  I've even read about people making cheesecake in the pot and cooking hard boiled eggs.  It's amazing what this little pot can do and the price is under $100! I will never be without one now.

 Spaghetti in my Instant Pot

Spaghetti on my plate.




















Miracles

Day 15 Today's nudge - What is something you know for sure?

We are Miracles!  All of us!  Life is a Miracle! Even though we can create life in test tubes we can't actually make the cells and put all the atoms together to create a human. We cannot put the veins and blood vessels together or make eyes or ears that work.  So if anyone doubts that Miracles don't exist just think of how we are so wonderfully made.



We don't know how to make a cloud that stays in the sky, we don't know how to make the sun rise and set.  We don't know how to create a tree from a seed or how to keep a bird flying.  









Angel Card Readings


Today is give something away day -  Blog 11:

What would you like? I've been thinking about this all day.  Do I share a piece of writing?  I have a couple of videos I created but I'm not sure that is exactly a give away.

I decided to pull an angel card for you if you want one. 

You can comment on this post and tell me you want an angel card and I post it for you.  Or you can friend me on Facebook, private message me that you want me to pull an angel card for you. Whichever works for you.  I think 






I hope this sounds like fun.



Photography is one of my Passions


DAY 9  "Share something you've created that feels like it's part of your autobiography" is the topic for today.

I love creating videos and taking pictures.   



I didn't even know I had any talent for photography because my husband always had the fancy cameras and filters.  But I played with my cell phone camera and uncovered a passion.

I also love making soup so I created a video about how I make soup.




This is my chicken noodle soup with a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and a lot of the same vegetables I use for the vegetable soup.

This next video is a fall ride along the Blue Ridge Parkway here in Western North Carolina.





One last picture for now is Saturday night in downtown Hendersonville, NC with people dancing to the music of Tom Brown, one man band.  These were always fun to go to.



I hope you all enjoyed one of my fun hobbies.  Thank you for reading and watching.

Joyfully Flinging Glitter

Day 8.  What brings me Joy!

Having a deep connection/conversation with someone who understands.

Sitting on my porch with my husband enjoying the fresh air or looking at the stars.

Talking to my son and daughter in love.

Thinking of all I have to be grateful for.

Helping someone find their joy.

Cooking delicious meals. 

Going out to eat.

Posting funny memes or sayings on my Fun page

Listening to music.

Meditating with some relaxing Guided Meditations and creating them. 





Playing online games.

Writing.

Oh and I LOVE glitter and sparkly things.  

I'm sure there are lots more too.  I'm feeling joy writing this and posting it.






Life before TV's to chatting live with a friend In Sweden.

Today is day 6 of Artfully Wild Blog Along.  Effy blogged about how the internet is her hometown.  I have been trying all day to figure out what to blog about until I read hers.

I was born before TV.  Yep, we used to listen to our stories on the radio. "The shadow knows..",  Sky King,  The Green Hornet.. We used our imaginations picturing what they were saying.  It was fun, like reading a book and picturing the characters.



When we wanted to make a phone call we'd pick up our phone and wait until the operator said, "Number please."  Sometimes we could hear a conversation because we shared party lines and had to wait until the other conversation was done to make our call.   We were trapped in our homes if we had to wait for a call.  Not anymore. We have our cell phones and can go anyplace and still get our important and unimportant calls.





In the late 1940s we got our first TV but there weren't many channels and they always signed off at midnight.  I remember watching the Milton Berle show on Tuesday nights.  Of course they were black and white. We didn't get a color TV until the 70s.

I've kept a diary since before I was married and during my high school years. But when I got married my stepfather and I burned them. Burned them? What was I thinking?  I guess I didn't want my husband to find out.  Ha ha, I sure was brainwashed.  I started keeping a journal in 1963 before JFK was shot.  I have 15 filled books and many are numbered, all are dated.  I would love to do something with them but so many of my entries were fights between my mother and myself.  Not sure the world needs to read these.



I was pretty agoraphobic during this time but in the 1970s Citizens Band Radio came along (CB) and I took to that like a duck out of water. My mother was an amatuer radio operator (Ham) and she wanted me to become one too.  I wasn't interested and didn't have the money for all the equipment anyhow.  But CB radio got me to be more social.  I remember telling my husband that I didn't want to meet any of them and wasn't going to any of the get togethers, which they called "breaks."  But I did and they were fun.  I remember he and I dancing to Country music and wondering what happened because before we didn't like that kind of music.   Hubby got involved in raising money for the Leukemia society and I was furious at him until I got involved too. I ended up staying up all night talking to the truckers kidding around and asking for donations.  We raised a lot of money. I called myself The Confessor because I wrote and sold Confession stories to True Confessions and True Romance magazines.



Next came computers.  I got the first color computer where we had to type in code to get a silly little program to run.  I loved to type so it was fun for me but I wanted more.  I had been writing stories on typewriters.  Hubby was a typewriter repairman so I got to try out different models. But boy when I made a mistake on a story I wanted to submit it was either use white out or type the whole darned page again.  Computers changed all that.   I graduated to a more sophisticated computer called the Commodore 64.  I had fun with it but it wasn't a writing machine.





I remember my brother had a program online called My Cozy Kitchen. These were bulletin boards where people could sign in and chat or play games. It was just before the internet became popular.  I was logged into my brother's computer and saw a link leading to something called the internet and got curious.  It took me to something that made no sense at all.  Brother came home, saw me messing around and asked me what I was doing. I said "I don't know, I'm lost."  LOL I am glad for my curiosity though, it keeps me from getting bored.




So my brother taught me how to create my own web page and I got my domain and started offering readings after taking a lot of courses.  Then I got hired to work on a chat line that was a lot of fun. I made a lot of money too.

A few years later I discovered blogtalk radio and had my own radio program for 3 years.  That was such fun.  Now I go live on Facebook sometimes. I want to do more, learn more and have more fun.

So, like Effy, my hometown is also the internet.  I have a dear online friend in Sweden and once a month she and I co create together an EFT/tapping call as Team Leaders on the Thriving Now site we belong to.  We help others release some of their stuck energy.  She was traveling in a car from where she lives in the southern part of Sweden to the northern part and I was chatting with her LIVE on Facebook! I was blown away by just thinking of what we were doing.  Who would have thought when I was a child listening to my stories on the radio that 70+ years later I would be chatting live with an online friend in Sweden?

What's next?  I don't know but I'm experimenting with creating an angel webinar or ...  That's another blog.


500 Words a Day. Day 1






500 words a day –





DAY 1

I just joined the write 500 words a day challenge. What was I thinking?  I’m not sure if I will work on a short story or just blog every day. I do have a lot to write about  - angels, astrology, eft, tapping, crazy thoughts and more.

I wonder what a story would be like if a gal was going through her mother’s FB page because the mother wasn’t able to for one reason or another and she found some startling private messages.  Or should I say shocking.  What would she do? What would the shocking messages be?  Why isn’t the mother able to get on FB.  Or would the girl find stuff on the mother’s computer or Ipad? Or even iphone?   I was thinking sort of like when the son and daughter found the mother’s letters in the book/movie The Bridges of Madison County.  I was sort of sorry that she didn’t run away with the photographer but I can see why she didn’t.  I probably wouldn’t but it sure would have been tempting. I cry buckets every time I see that movie.

Another movie I love is Defending Your Life with Albert Brooks.  Albert’s character dies and goes to the judgment place.  He gets a chance to see a review of his life, but they show him only times that he was afraid and didn’t act on something because of the fear.   They ask him about it and he always has an excuse.  In other words, he fails and is getting ready to get sent back until the last scene with Meryl Streep.  I won’t give it away but what an awesome movie.

This made me think what good Is it to die with good credit?  If I died with good credit and went before the judgment place they could show me all the times I didn’t do something because I thought I couldn’t afford it.  They’d show me all the fun or trips or nice things I could have bought.  Now that I was dead they could show me how little being out of debt matters.  Unless it was to help my family by not being in debt.

Wow 368 words already. That was fast.

I’m thinking of taking some of my old confession stories that I sold 20 years ago and re doing them. I sold them for all rights so I can’t sell them again as is.  I could change things and bring them up to the age of technology.  I wrote a CB (citizens band) story where the boy who went surfing with friends was late getting home and his family communicated with other CBers along the network to find out where he was.  Ha, I don’t remember where he was. Guess I need to read the story again.  I wonder if CB radio still exists like it did back in the 70s or was it the 80s? I enjoyed it. We went to dances and found ourselves dancing to country music.  We didn’t used to like country music until then. But that was the time when country music was going through it’s own changes.

Until tomorrow.