Showing posts with label light the world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label light the world. Show all posts
11 December 2024
20 August 2024
New Attitude
I joined this Facebook group because I want to believe Parkinson's does have a silver lining. There are many days when it sure doesn’t feel like anything good could ever come from Parkinson’s. Thank goodness for people like the author of this post, who help me put things in proper perspective! (shared with permission)
24 December 2023
23 December 2023
22 December 2023
12 December 2023
Light the World
Each year, Light the World comes up with a new list of ideas for sharing our light with others. I love trying to check off as many suggestions on each year's list as possible. I really love trying to complete the ones I didn't get during December all year long.
This year's list has 50 ideas! I'm doing my best to do each one, plus a few of my own ideas. This takes Christmas giving to a whole new level.
1. Laugh with a friend.
2. Call someone you miss.
3. Carry an extra snack for someone in need.
4. Send a homemade Christmas card to a friend
5. Plan some one-on-one time with a loved one.
6. Let a stranger go ahead of you in line.
7. Smile at someone.
8. Learn to say "Merry Christmas" in a new language.
9. Share a link to a holiday song you love.
10. Apologize to someone.
11. Pay for the person behind you in line.
12. Complete an item on a loved one's to-do-list.
13. Make a Christmas playlist and share it with a friend.
14. Send a thank-you note to a health care worker.
15. Help someone research their family genealogy.
16. Support a local small business.
17. Text a photo of a fond memory to a family member.
18. Give your neighbor a compliment.
19. Let someone else be kind to you
20. Learn how another culture celebrates Christmas.
21. Be patient with waitstaff and customer service.
22. Help a loved one clean their home.
23. Contribute to the Giving Machines locally or online.
24. Invite others to a Christmas celebration.
25. Leave a gift on a neighbor's doorstep.
26. Watch The Christ Child with family or friends.
27. Send a funny meme or video to a friend.
28. Give your favorite book to a loved one.
29. Make a meal with a family member.
30. Donate to your local food bank.
31. Be kind to yourself. Practice self-care.
32. Text someone "I'm grateful for you!".
33. Leave a kind note for your mail carrier.
34. Invite a neighbor to a worship service.
35. Leave an uplifting comment on social media.
36. Visit an elderly neighbor.
37. Tell a loved one they matter to you.
38. Clean up trash in your neighborhood or community.
39. Ask a co-worker how you can lighten their load.
40. Stop to help someone having car trouble.
41. Go caroling with a group.
42. Take a walk with a friend.
43. Post about a loved one using #LightTheWorld.
44. Offer to teach someone a new skill.
45. Hold the door open for a stranger.
46. Host a family game night.
47. Pray for someone by name.
48. Volunteer at your local library.
49. Give a hug to a friend.
50. Forgive someone.
24 November 2023
White Friday
Snowflake crochet doesn't always come easy. We'd found ourselves stuck in a hotel one summer night at least 12 years ago when unfavorable weather (dangerous lightning) brought an early end to a backpacking trip. We made a quick run to the local department store, a very mini version of the typical establishment, and I was horrified to find not only NO thread crochet hooks in stock, but no crochet thread either!!! How could that possibly be!?!
As soon as we got back home from that trip, I put my emergency thread and hook storage in the car, and I've carried it around ever since. Everywhere we drove, I always had the tools I need to design a new snowflake, should the inspiration arise.
We don't get to enjoy 14er climbs or cross-state cycling trips these days, but I've still got that emergency stash in the car. White Friday Eve (very late in the evening of Thanksgiving Day) in 2022 was spent winding a big ball of white thread from that stash so I could design a new snowflake on White Friday while we were visiting my mother-in-law.
I'm finding myself becoming more creative in White Friday photography with our adaptive travel limits. We actually did make a road trip prior to Thanksgiving in 2022, but our desert destination boasted no snow and no forecast of snow the entire week of our family Thanksgiving visit. However, during a White Friday bicycle ride along an irrigation ditch, we found white.
Alkali leaches out of the soil (or bricks) when it rains or snows in the high desert. The white residue also can be rinsed off with water. When you're hungry for snow like I always am, alkali apparently can be the next best thing.
Even though I didn't have real snow, I did have snowflake photos from eight days earlier that needed to be edited.
I fully intended to string about 100 white crocheted snowflakes during White Friday 2022, but I was too busy (having WAY too much fun) making jewelry. Including one white necklace...
I did make one white snowflake.
And one white snowflake necklace. I encased a white glow-in-the-dark rock inside the middle of the snowflake.
And I did finish stringing a few snowflakes. Not enough. Stringing snowflakes is pretty boring for me...
The best part of our no-shopping White Friday last year, however, was finding a safe way to climb down into the nearly dry irrigation ditch (and then back out after I was done) to shoot genuine white ice!!! In the desert! Hundreds of miles from my youthful stomping grounds, White Sands National Monument!
25 December 2022
24 December 2022
23 December 2022
25 November 2022
White Friday
This is my eighth year opting for white rather than black the day after Thanksgiving. I am a craft fair crafter, and I have missed running my office craft fair the last two years. There's no gift better than handmade, but I've never participated in a Black Friday event, and I do not Christmas shop on Black Friday. Eight years ago, I decided to take my feelings on commercialization public, and today's blog post is my latest installment of alternate ways to spend the day after Thanksgiving.
Christmas is about giving, not spending. Black Friday, for me, is not a time to stand in line waiting for a store to open, and it's not a time to spend, spend, spend. It's a time to enjoy family, continue the attitude of gratitude and to seek out ways to make the world a better place. This is where I share what I did the previous year to keep my Friday white, even though snow often may be nowhere on my horizon.
The first snowfall of autumn 2021 broke the previous record of November 21, 1934, for the Denver metro's latest measurable accumulation. We got nearly an inch at our house the day before Thanksgiving on November 23. However, Denver International Airport got none, so the official snowless streak extended until December 10, 2021.
Our 2021 White Friday plan was to shoot the sunrise, and hopefully some beautiful white pelicans, perhaps finding some frozen areas along the lake's edge and maybe even traces of unmelted snow in the shadows. The wind was furious, and our completely cloudless skies tricked us into thinking the sunrise wouldn't be spectacular. So we watched from our living room window as feathery clouds began to materialize just as the pre-dawn sun painted them pastel pink and then peachy yellow. Darn! There was a fierce wind... sort of the story of 2021. Bittersweet regrets.
(the next day)
But hey, white is white, right? The feathery clouds lasted the rest of the day.
The moon was pretty awesome, too!
We thought we might drive up to the mountains to find some white, but Lizard has a difficult time being seated in the car more than about ten minutes, plus, we were trying to save money for the replacement of our front and back stairs the following week. So my White Friday began with a photo editing session. I got to shoot snowflakes the day before Thanksgiving 2021 -- my first snowflake photographs since April 17, 2021!
The snow didn't last long, and most of it was clumpy, so I took some not-so-macro shots, too.
Also waiting to be processed were photos from our afternoon walk on Thanksgiving Day 2021. These are some of the photos that inspired my (unrealized) plan to shoot the sunrise on White Friday.
My white picotee amaryllis was still in the basement, and my white Christmas cactus was getting ready to put on a show, but not quite there yet.
The amaryllis had sported its first-ever summer bloom in August of 2021, and it hasn't bloomed again since. Fingers crossed for early in 2023; I didn't get any of my amaryllises down into the basement this year until nearly Halloween.
I made a snowflake with white thread. That actually wasn't too unusual for 2021 because for whatever reason, most of my 2021 flakes were white. Perhaps the shortage of real snow made me crave white flakes?
I also took some photos of some old flakes on white fabric (or a very pale blue batik that looks white via the iPhone). That was something new for me. I typically like true blue batik best as a background, but for a special project I'd been contemplating for a while (my now finished digital temperature quilt!!!), I'd been shooting every new snowflake on a variety of batik colors. But not on white. I don't know why it previously never occurred to me. It looks kind of cool. To me...
I also hunted down and pulled out the fabric for the Christmas snowflake skirt I'd been wanting to create for about 15 years. Unfortunately, that's as far as I got until the following week. But I do have a finished white snowflake skirt with white crocheted edging I finally get to wear this Christmas season! (Finished the edging while visiting my mother-in-law after Christmas.)
I also pulled out my Moda Blockheads project fully intending to get at least one block sandwiched and quilted and then begin the white thread crochet around the edge for my quilt-as-you-go join-as-you-go snowflake quilt. I did make a backing totally from scraps (which included some whites), and I did get the first and biggest block sandwiched (which required batting from my leftover stash, all of which is white or off-white). However, I didn't quilt it until two full months later! The lace edging (made from white thread in my stash)... Well, that finally got going in February of this year. Block 1 is done now! I may be trying to finish another block or two today...
Last but not least, I did not spend any money on White Friday last year. I did, however, spend the following week what I would have spent had I gone downtown White Friday. My employer was still on controlled limits of employees (as well as visitors) allowed in the office at any given time. I reported for two hours on my assigned day. After I finished my work duties, I walked a few blocks to the Giving Machines. To me, charities are the best way to spend money on White Friday. I bought diapers (YES, white!!!) for needy moms and bus passes for refugees. If the Giving Machines are available again this year, you can darn sure bet they'll be receiving some money from Lizard and me! If not on White Friday, the very next week.
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