Numbers

I am the 3rd daughter, 4th child of 5. I have 1 husband, 1 daughter, 1 son-in-law and 3 grandchildren. My oldest sibling just turned 59, my youngest sibling will be 40 this year, I will turn 50 in a couple of months....just half of Great-grandad's 100. I will reach 30 years of marriage this fall, 5 years more than half my life so far, but just half of my parents 60 years of marriage, celebrated next month. My husband will have been a volunteer fire fighter for 29 years in Oct. I will soon reach 42 years of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint and will have had a temple recommend for 30 of those years.

These are all numbers that are significant to me and my life, but they do not define me. Most are simply markers, references in my life so far. If I'm smart I'll use them wisely.

Since I'm approaching 50, I've been thinking about Great-grandad (Otis Veech) and his 100 years. I remember him sitting at the window at Aunt Dorma's, white hair and mustache, quiet, old, small, twiddling his thumbs.......... sometimes I twiddle my thumbs when I think about him. He would look out the window at the train track and farmland, that I think I understand now, he loved. He was extremely hard of hearing, but if you talked farming with him, he'd hear every word. It was what he did. There are some connections I have to him that I haven't thought about in a long time....I got to live in the house he had built, milk a cow in the same barn he had, drive a tractor on the same land he did.

I got my 1st diamond from him. We all got one, his posterity. They were gifts to us, from him, in celebration of his 100th birthday. Men and boys got tie tacks. Women and girls, necklaces. I was 12 years old. It was so cool. I've never seen another necklace design like the one all the great granddaughters got that day. I put it back in it's box today. I need to take it to our jeweler friend and have it check out. After almost 38 years it probably needs a new chain and I want to make sure the diamond is secure. I want my daughter to have it someday, then her daughter. I'd like them to think of Great-grandad.... and maybe their numbers.

Graphic(s)

I mentioned in my last post, a site that I like for graphics. Lettering Delights and yes this is a link.  I'm not big at promoting things, but if you ask me about this, I'll really talk it up......  sooooo  if you enjoy fonts and graphics and are looking for a good site, read on.

While exploring a site is the best way to learn about it (they do have a take a tour option), let me just give you a few hints about this one:
*You do have to create an account, it costs nothing.
*Their variety in styles is great.
*They have frequent sales and for the past 2 years a $1 sale where most of their stuff is, you guessed it, just a dollar. Can you guess when I do most of my buying?
*They have frequent freebies.  (Gotten quite a bit of good stuff this way!)
*Although I'm fairly cautious (and cheap) when buying things, I think their costs are reasonable.
*You can keep up to date with their products on facebook and or with a newsletter. Both will tell about sales and freebies.
*Once you've made a purchase, they always have a 25% off coupon code that is good for 30 days on any additional purchases. This coupon is even a part of the confirmation e-mails on the free stuff and can be used with any of the sale stuff too! I don't think I've gotten anything recently that I haven't gotten an additional 25% off.
*They have a on-line TRY ME  option that allows you to create a Name or phrases with any of the Fonts or Alphabets you've gotten and download that to your computer as a new and complete graphic to use. (In a png format for the newer stuff, as a jpeg with the older)
*In the past couple of months, they have added SVG's to their product line. This will mean something to you if you have a Cricut and either Sure Cuts Alot or Makes the Cut. SVG's can also be converted to graphics with a free program called Inkscape. This makes most of the one's I've purchased of double value as I can use them in 2 different ways.

There ya go. I thought I'd share a site I think is worthwhile. Wander on over to Lettering Delights and take a look around. Maybe you'll find something you like.

Lost in Time

I've been lost in 2012.  It has been fun, but also disorienting. Sunday at R.S. Pres. meeting, I was off in my time line by a whole week! I guess that's just what you get for playing around in the future. Why? I decided it was time for a change and I just couldn't wait a whole year to do it...... change the family calendar, that is.

I've been making a family birthday calendar for my parents for years. I've also been using the same template in a portrait orientation for calendaring in whatever organization I happen to be serving in at church. I had found a calendar grid graphic that I liked and started plugging in text boxes and graphics and such.....saved it, edited it to use for another month and so on. It worked, but was pretty time consuming and was the same frame over and over, even if the fonts and graphics did change. The error rate was also bit higher with the system I was using.....too many boxes to watch as I changed July of 2009 to April of 2010. (As an example just yesterday I found a month in the R.S. 2011 calendar that has an extra day.)  I was in a calendar rut of sorts, (this is already set, why change it), but this year I finally thought...."there must be a simpler way to do this." So my quest began.

I personally need a jump start for creativity, so I looked around the internet at different calendar formats others were using.  I know, how different can you be...grid or no grid, but when you are stuck in a rut even that can be a revelation.  I looked at the tools I had in my wonderful programs, set up a new, simpler template and voila.....

This is the offering for Sept...our busiest birthday month.  The format is quite a change for us.....no grid and more room for fun graphics! My daughter and I like it, so we thought we'd try it for a couple of years to see if everyone else can adjust.  (A side note on adjusting.....it made me giggle, but the R.S. Calendar will continue to use a grid. With more to keep track of,  the lines do help. Yea, for the new template so it's no big deal.)

Am I back from the future, no longer lost in time? I don't know, maybe I'll move on to 2013 while I'm still in the mood or maybe I'll redo this year's calendar....now that it is simpler. I'll be keeping my eyes open for new graphics (oh how I love letteringdelights.com) for that's half the fun. We'll just have to see what time brings.