Passport to Your National Parks Program

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books." ~Sir John Lubbock

I can't recall the first time I visited a national park as a youngster. Pinpointing the first visit with hubby and kiddo is just as difficult. I think (?) we started around 1996. Back then we didn't know about the Passport to Your National Parks Program. When we found out about it we purchased a big huge book of maps and descriptions and checklists and plenty of space to stamp the pages at each park visit. As we downsized we moved to a much smaller version of the huge passport book. Which required chopping up the pages of the big book and gluing the passport stamps into the new book. But we still had years of visits we hadn't documented with stamps.

So how to get stamps for the national park visits from way back?

Make your own. Microsoft Word + searching old pictures to pinpoint dates + hours of WordArt insertions - many deletions - jammed printer = sheets of individual, dated passport stamps.

More cutting and glue stick action and our National Parks passport book is downright pretty with stamps that look darn close to being official.

Digital Junk

"Do you really need to keep everything that is in your Documents Folder? Doubtful. In fact, you could probably delete half of those documents and never regret it." ~Joshua Becker

Two laptops. Two flash drives. Two memory cards. One external hard drive. Many, many hours spent over the last few days erasing our past work lives. Gee whiz, we had a bunch of crap that used to be important to us.

No more. I feel so free.

Bookshelves

"Imagine what it would be like to have a bookshelf filled only with books that you really love. Isn’t that image spellbinding? For someone who loves books, what greater happiness could there be?" 
~ Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Five years ago we had over 15 large bookcases throughout our house. Our hundreds of books have made their way out the door, on their way to homes where folks can appreciate them. We've shifted to ebooks, relying heavily on our public library. Don't even have to leave the house to check those out. Yay, Boise Public Library! Now we have three small shelves, holding only those few things we love.

The other shelf-hoggers on our bookshelves were photo albums. I used to do the whole scrapbooking thing. Large colorful and decorative pages with fun, cute, embellishments. Many, many photo albums with many photos and many pages. Until today.

Finally, our explosion of photo albums has been eliminated. Thank you, Shutterfly and Snapfish. Each one of our big, bulky, shelf-stealing photo albums has been reduced to its own photo book. How much of a difference in shelf space? Take a look.

On the left, one of the new books that came today. On the right, the original scrapbook pages from the photo album. No more bulky photo albums here. Just beautiful, lovely books.

Simplicity

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Many of Henry David Thoreau's quotes have spoken to me at different points in life. I even felt strongly enough about "suck out all the marrow" to have it tattooed on my arm in 2013. (Here's the pic.).

But today is about simplicity, not sucking the marrow.

My husband and I have been on a journey these last few years. A simplification journey. I'm guessing close to 80% of what we owned five years ago has been donated/sold/recycled/shredded/trashed. We've given up furniture and electronics and clothes. Tools and Christmas decorations and even trash cans have been sent away. Nine trash cans were in our house back then, one for almost each room. Now? Only two cans.

Just when I think I can't find one more thing to send out the door something else pops up. Check out what dropped out of a word search book today. A word search book from 2013.

It looks like a tag from when my mobility scooter was checked at the aircraft door with Alaska Airlines. From a (complicated) lifetime ago.

In the spirit of simplification, I'm going back to basics with the blog. A picture a day.

Happy New Year!

Money Bar, Cozumel

Balloo? or is it Baloo?

When my daughter was growing up she watched Disney movies over and over. While Beauty and the Beast was (and still is) her favorite (she's now 28 and just can't wait until the new movie comes out!) she obviously also has found memories of The Jungle Book.

Good ole Baloo the bear. It took me several times of texting before I finally realized it is spelled Baloo, not Balloo.

Why would I be texting the name Baloo over and over? Because she and her husband adopted a puppy at Christmas. A puppy who needs training. One who they don't want in his crate every day while they are at work. A puppy who needs a puppy-sitter. Which is where I come in.

Except I DON'T LIKE DOGS. Dogs jump and lick and bite and bark. No thank you. But in the interest of making the world a better place for people and animals alike, I agreed got roped into puppy sitting a couple days a week. I may be slow moving but I'm tolerant. And patient.

He's the cutest little guy. I keep telling myself he's just a trainable cat because I DON'T LIKE DOGS. But I do like him.

I think he's trying to tell me something.

I'm Tired of Being a Cheerleader

I told hubby today I'm tired of being a cheerleader for everyone else. After another sleepless night, icky rheumatoid arthritis medications, frustrations at a medical-related delay, a separate and non-related rude lady concerning a different medical-related issue, a car that needed several visits and more than a couple weeks and several hundred dollars to fix, and then a busy couple days trying to be the cheerleader for others, I'm done.

But I didn't get to be done yet. Because then there came another phone call requiring me to get out of my pajamas and make a drive to take someone else somewhere else. And now I'm past done. Then add in me sitting in this waiting room and having to overhear a loud conversation about all the political crap I've been trying to hard to avoid?

I AM DONE!

I long for rainy days.  On a cruise ship.  In one of the bars. As we pull out of a Bahamas port stop. I wanna be there. NOW.

Stop the Insanity

The craziness in this country is just too much for this person to bear. While I can't stop all this insanity I can stop my exposure to it. Time for me to keep away from the Internet and the television. Blog included. Hope I can be back when the negative nastiness is gone. I'd rather spend time with the foster kitties anyway.

 

Stay or Go?

I love traveling. I love seeing new places, doing new things, and pushing myself beyond my limits. I love airports, people watching, hotel breakfast buffets, watching movies on a big screen by the cruise ship pool, snorkeling, and rum punch made by island locals. If I had my way I would be doing one of those things every single day of the year. But after a few weeks I begin to miss my daughter. And my sewing machine. (Now if I could have my daughter, a kitty, and a sewing machine with me on a long trip life would be just about perfect.)

Then when I get home I want to stay home. I don't want to leave. I don't want to travel. I don't want another pat down at the airport (thanks a lot, knee replacements) and I don't want to be around another person on a tour. I don't want to get sticky from the salt water and I don't want to walk in the heat and humidity or the cold rain. I don't want to do anything but stay in my pajamas all day. (I'll keep the pool time and rum punch.)

How I feel about wanting to travel but then not wanting to travel is somewhat like the picture I took of the foster kitties. One is excited to get moving and the other decided to just hang in the recliner and take a nap.

What to do? Stay home for now.

Now if I could just get some really good rum punch.

Just a Few of the Fosters