Hi Everyone

Happy Sunday afternoon to one and all : ) It might be hard for you to believe, but I am not a person who loves change -- I like things to be a certain way and I like them to stay that way and not keep changing every time I turn around. Although I am not crazy about change sometimes it takes me a while to get something just the way I want it so it doesn't have to keep changing and I am in that process with my blog right now. I think I have things figured out, but please be patient with me if I am not quite there yet.

Because of something I didn't understand when I signed up on Blogger I have changed my blog address slightly. I apologize to anyone who has added the previous address to a blog list and ask that you would be so kind as to change it to the new address. I will leave this address available for a little while, but all of my new posts will be at the new address -- I even transferred all of the posts you see here to over there -- I am so proud of my ever expanding computer knowledge. I really have learned a lot through this process of setting up my blog. I am also going to disable comments here at this address so please come over to the new one which is --

http://simplybeingme-telling my story.blogspot.com

If you have any trouble accessing the new address please feel free to email me at - talk2bettyanne@live.ca
I do look forward to meeting many new friends in this journey of blogging.

Pictures – Just For Fun

Last night hubby and I decided to do something fun together. We went to a mall for a quick supper at the food court and then gave ourselves about 45 minutes to separately walk through the mall and take pictures of 10 unique things. What we didn’t realize was that we would both feel very uncomfortable with cameras in hand looking for things to photograph – I think we were expecting the mall police to come after us -- but we did get a few nice shots and had some fun together.

 

                                                                                        Do you see the heart?

                                                                             Any guesses of what this is?

Bloghopping

The spell checker does not like the title of this post, but that is just too bad – I think it is the perfect word for what happens when you visit a blog and then decide to visit a blog from their blog list or someone who left them a comment and then you end up on some one else’s blog and you do the same thing and so on until you really can’t remember where you started. When I do this I save a lot of blogs to my favorites bar and then go back later and sort through them to see which ones I will add to Google Reader and read whenever they post. I seem to do this every now and then to see what I can find. I have some  blogs that I have been following for about a year now and then there are others that interest me for awhile and then my interest fades. I find that you can only follow and really enjoy a certain number of blogs at a time so I check through my list making sure that it doesn’t get too big. Recently I stumbled on some photography blogs and am currently sorting through which ones will stay on my list. There are so many wonderful, beautiful blogs out there in blogland – enough for us all to choose the ones we like at the moment and spread our bloggy kind of love around.

That was a very long paragraph to let you know that I found this really cool idea on one of the blogs I hopped to recently. It is called ‘Team Up Thursday’ and I really like it. Two blogger friends started it in January this year and lots of others have joined them. You can find those first two here and here. I would like to do this – anyone out there want to be my partner ?

Because I have a hard time doing a post without a picture I will leave you with this Stuffy Friend that I made in April – just to give you a little smile : ) 

On A Rainy Afternoon

Watching this . . .

while eating this – mmm – tasty and healthy . . .

and then working on this – a very nice afternoon : )

Making Changes

I have changed my blog template -- it still has dandelions : ) The first one was putting limits on what I could do with my photos and my posts are all about the photos -- so I had to make some changes. I have learned a lot in this process and am having fun doing it, but it is way past supper time and I am hungry so I must take a break -- this post in case anyone tries to read my blog before I finish the changes -- so you know what's going on. Be back later.

Look What I Found

 

While taking a shortcut through the drugstore into the mall yesterday this jumped into my hand and decided to come home with me. I love books that have actual photos of colorful things AND I love ‘I Spy’ books AND I love reading to my grandson – so, this just had to be mine. Last night I went through each page finding everything, quite enjoying myself. Most things were pretty easy to find, but some were a bit of a challenge. Of course I took pictures to share my treasure with you : )

 

Just Say No – To Ice Cream

Yesterday we went to some friends house for a barbeque. We had some yummy burgers, potato salad and a big lettuce salad – it was all very good and I probably ate more than I should have. And then there was dessert – chocolate ice cream and oatmeal cookies. Although it was hard, I didn’t have any. I said – NO – to ice cream – in the presence of witnesses.

I really like ice cream – actually I really LoVe ice cream – especially CHOCOLATE. I have been know to polish off large amounts of it in a very short period of time. There is no such thing as having just a small bowl and  rationing out the portions so that it lasts longer and the calorie impact is spread out. When there is ice cream in the house I will eat it 2 or 3 times a day. I have tried the idea of just not bringing it into the house and only having some when out – but, do you know how easy it is to drive by the neighborhood ice cream stand? And they even sell cones at the grocery store where I shop. What about limiting it to only special occasions ?  The problem is there are just way too many special occasions in life – at least where ice cream is concerned : )

Recently, due to some health issues I was told by my doctor that I must get serious about losing weight. That was not going to happen if I continued my love affair with ice cream. I had a decision to make – my decision was to just say NO to ice cream and all other sugary stuff. I seem to be an all or nothing type of person in this area.  That decision is starting to pay off – I have lost 15 pounds since March 7. I still have a long way to go but, I feel like I am making progress.

So this will be a summer without ice cream – except for one day in August – our anniversary – which I have decided warrants as a special occasion – 31 years together is definitely something special to celebrate. Maybe I will skip the nice steak dinner and go right to a VERY BIG big bowl of Chocolate Ice Cream. Now how many more days until . . . . . ?

Father and Son

Son got a new softball bat and needed Father to pitch balls, catch balls and . . . chase balls. Father and Son are now hot and tired, in need of a cold drink : )

Lilacs and Garden Flowers

A lilac bush in my backyard – I love the scent of lilacs – wish they would bloom all summer : )

I bought some flowers for the garden today. I will show you some after pictures once they are planted.

Windows Live Writer

I called the computer wiz daughter last night and she was just as baffled as I was and although that still left me frustrated at least I knew I wasn’t just stupid because I couldn’t figure it out myself. This morning I had am email from my loving hubby with some blogger help sites – he is really a wonderful guy. Through a comment on one of them I decided to try Windows Live Writer. I did a test post before this and it was so easy and so fast and so not frustrating and it has some extra features like adding special effects to photos. If this post works the same I will be a definite convert. So here goes . . .

Just for fun I am posting some silly pictures of computer wiz daughter. I was able to crop this picture right here in the post as well as chose the size I wanted – and it was so easy : ) Oh – there is even spell check which is great for all the typos I make.

These pictures were taken in 1981 and scanned into the computer so the quality is not very good, but they still make me smile. I am going to try one more and then I really must go – adorable grandson is coming for a little visit.

This is my loving hubby kneading bread for me when I was pregnant with the daughter in the above pictures – he really is a keeper.

I am so excited about this new way to post and would love to keep going, but I will be back later.

Monday Meanderings -- Part 2

We also found the Grand River in our travels on Monday.

Hubby dropped me off on the far side of the bridge so I could walk across and take pictures -- he parked the car at the other end and we met in the middle. I really liked the shadows of the railing.

Some more shadows and looking through the railing down at the waters edge.

Two views of the river from the bridge.

Looking back after my trek across the bridge. Time to go to the gas station up the road for a cold drink.

Frustrated

I have just spent a good part of my day getting quite frustated with Blogger -- why don't the pictures go where I want them too? I really do not want to go back to wordpress because I really like this template and I don't like any of theirs right now, but after today I am reconsidering that option. I see lots of Blogger blogs with pictures so it can't be that hard -- which makes me feel pretty stupid -- a feeling that I really do not like. I am trying one more time with this post and then . . .

It happened again -- the picture went to the top of the page and I had to move it -- which I guess is not that big of a deal except that sometimes it messes up the spacing of the text or other pictures. Maybe a call to my computer wiz daughter . . .

O.K. I give up -- time to call the computer wiz and see if she has the answer.

Oh -- these are just some pictures I took in a mall parking lot awhile ago. The sky was a perfect sky blue and the clouds were perfect puffy cotton-like clouds. The light post looked cool too against that perfect blue sky.

P.S. I have now edited all my posts so that they look right, but I decided to leave my frustation post here anyway -- just as a reminder : )

Monday Meanderings -- Part 1

On his day off  hubby and I like to drive the back roads, often with no particular destination planned, but just to relax and enjoy the drive. I even bought a map that shows all the back roads in Ontario. Hubby would probably skip the map and just drive, but I like to know where I am and more importantly, I like to know how to get home from wherever we end up.

This week we drove on some gravel roads and came upon this really cool railway bridge. Part of the fun in these drives is to take pictures of things we see and do along the way.

Hubby bravely ventured into the ditch to get this picture of the water tunnel at the side of the bridge.

I took this picture inside the main tunnel.

It always amazes me when I find grass growing out from the rocks.

My hubby -- the rock climber -- whenever there are rocks to be climbed -- he will climb them.

To be continued . . .