A Sunday Sampling

Today, I've been all over the map.

Figuratively speaking.

Eating.

Reading.

Card crafting.

Organizing/Purging.

Munching.

Then, crafting some more.

I did venture out of my house once today to attend Mass. (And what a treat it was to sing the introduction to Joyful, Joyful at church!)

Oh, and I put the garbage cans out by the curb, too. (Now, that was an experience; you can read the rest of the story below.)

Here are my activities in a little more detail:

1) Eating. For breakfast, I wolfed down some Life cereal (my favorite) and lucky for me, it was on sale at Safeway recently for $1.99 a box. What a steal-of-a-deal!


2) Reading. After breakfast, I grabbed Change of Heart, the Jodi Picoult book I began reading on our Europe trip. With just 25 pages left, I really wanted to finish it....like yesterday. Not so much because I was dying to learn how it would end (the conclusion was obvious), but because I wanted to be done with it and move onto another novel. Jodi is a prolific writer--every time I walk past a shelf of books in the bookstore at least a few of her titles are in the bestseller's section--so apparently some people really like her novels. And if you've read and liked other Jodi Picoult books, then I'm pretty sure you'd like this one, too. But I wasn't impressed. One of the biggest problems I had with this book was that it was written from many different perspectives...too many in my opinion. From beginning to end, Picoult would jump from one character's perspective to the next. For instance, you'd read a brief chapter of say, five or six pages from Michael's perspective (typed in a particular font), and then Picoult would abruptly switch to June's perspective and write another brief chapter in a different font. As I was reading, I sometimes found myself accidentally skimming over the name at the beginning of the chapter, only to be completely confused as to who was speaking, where they were, what was happening, etc. I'm sure some readers embrace Picoult's many-perspectives writing style, but I found that it only served to chop up the story line. Big time.

2) Card crafting. After finishing the book, I was off to my workshop where I made a few birthday cards for my mom. (Thanks for the card order, Mom!)




3) Organizing/Purging. Next, my bedroom closet was in need of some organizing. I moved most of my winter clothes across the hall to the guest bedroom closet and transported my summer clothes from there to my bedroom closet. As I was shuffling my clothes from room-to-room, I took a hard look at what I had worn recently and what hadn't been out of the closet in a long while. Those pieces in the latter category were quickly thrown into a plastic bag and will be headed to Goodwill soon. (Along with Change of Heart!)


4) Munching. I'm officially hooked on Pirate's Booty! This afternoon, I munched on Pirate's Booty, a puffed rice and corn snack with white cheddar cheese that is all-natural and simply delicious! A friend turned me onto it and we purchased it at Safeway, but it's also at Costco, too.

5) Crafting some more. While working on designs for Santino's thank you cards (which will be featured in a blog post soon), I played with SU! stamps from the Refuge and Strength set. I stamped a bunch of these brown branches, punched them out, and then adhered them to a strip of brown cardstock. Lastly, I mounted the strip on a white card and added an SU! rub-on. Very easy, quick, and cute!

And one more story before I go...this evening, I put our garbage can out front, followed by our greens container. The greens can was incredibly full and therefore, very heavy! I could have sworn it held a dead body or a big boulder or a chunk of concrete. As I rolled the can down the driveway to the curb slowly--so as not to pull my arm out of its socket--I could feel water trickling down the backs of my thighs and calves. Here's what I was thinking: Eww. Eck. Nasty. And no doubt, my facial expressions were priceless!