Tag Archives: camping

Miscellaneous Monday…NEW stuff i gotta share

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Happy Monday!

It’s been a while since I’ve randomly rambled off some miscellany on a Monday, so here’s what’s up:

I rented the macro lens from the library again, and this little bee posed for me this morning.  A macro lens for my Nikon is definitely going on my Christmas wish list!

I’m loving a gardening YouTube channel called Garden Answer.  This YouTuber is knowledgeable without being overly talkative (aka wasting my viewing time with a surfeit of blah blah blah). Laura just comes across very “real” – very genuine. She’s a sweet young gardener who has worked at her parent’s nursery for a lot of years and has picked up a lot of knowledge that she shares with her viewers. I like her a lot.

I sometimes listen to Gretchen Rubin’s podcast on my way to work.  I had to laugh at a recent episode, when Gretchen challenged her listeners to make something that they’d normally buy. I laughed because if my family would have been listening with me, they would have yelled “Don’t encourage her!!!”  I have family members that tease me about trying to DIY a lot more things than I probably should. Doing a lot of DIYs means having my fair share of FAILS – thus the teasing! Ultimately, I’m just a cheapskate and know I can make most things for a lot less than I can buy them.  The trick is balancing  time expended with how much you actually save, right? I enjoy this podcast and wish Gretchen would record more than one episode a week, but oh well – I’d probably get behind if they did.

I made this really, REALLY easy cookie recipe call Oreo Pan Sugar Cookies,  Did I mention they were quick and EASY to make? I took the entire batch to work on a day I only worked a couple of hours, so I’ll have to ask around and see how everyone liked them. Personally, they were a bit too sweet for me, but then when has “sweet” been a terrible thing? I have a son who loves Oreos, so I’ll have to make these again and get his review.

Lastly, we’ll be renting a camping trailer later this summer and camping at a lake, so I need to get to get planning.  I need fun activity ideas, good, but quick meal ideas, and generally NEW fun family together time ideas.  If any of you have some good ones for me, please chime in!

Have a fabulous Monday.  Do or learn something NEW!

 

 

The NEWness Explorer is BACK…

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HELLO again, Blogland!  I took an unplanned 9-month break from blogging, but I’m back!  Things have settled down (at least for the moment), and I’m excited to document the upcoming NEW things I plan to be doing or learning about!

I started this site on 5 September 2012, so I gave myself a deadline to ‘get-back-at-it’ as of TODAY, 5 September 2017!

The main reason I was MIA was because of a huge work-related project I had to work on, but “regular life” got in the way too.  Some fun stuff though…

We went on a trip of a life-time to Europe this summer (pic above of one of the hotel’s we stayed at).  We cruised around the Mediterranean (Spain, Italy, France) and then hopped back over to England to visit our ancestral stomping grounds. The entire trip was fabulous! I’ll probably share some more pics from the trip in upcoming posts.

We worked on a couple of NEW house projects…we tore out a wall in our workout room and stuck a sauna in there so the door would face the bathroom (and therefore be accessible to the shower), and re-did the workout room including a ballet barre.  My hubby teases me and asks if I use the “bar-A” for my workouts.  Well, YES, today I did a HIP HOP BARRE WORKOUT! Thank you very much! :o)  The plan is to finish up the room with mirrors behind the ‘Bar-A’, …still need to get a bid for those.

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A LOT of time went into planning a summer camp for teenage girls from our church.  It was time-consuming, but also fun and rewarding…and the girls will probably always remember getting totally rained AND hailed on!

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And I FINALLY started on my “Secret Garden” that I posted plans about way back in May of 2014!   My hubby made this arbor that I LOVE, and little by little, I’m adding plants – but it still has a long, long, LONG way to go!

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So! That’s {some} of what I’ve been up to.  I’m looking forward to catching up with many of the blogs I follow as well as get great ideas for NEW things to do or learn from YOU!

Have a great day! Try to do or learn something NEW today!