Curiouser and Curiouser

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.  -- Walt Disney

I love that quote by Walt Disney, and it is a good reminder to me to make sure I remain curious and that I keep trying new things.  I think one of the reasons I have been so enamored with digital scrapbooking is because there are always new things to try, new techniques to learn, new looks to be inspired by, new kits and artwork to use, and of course, new pictures and stories to be documented.  I participated in a virtual digital crop this weekend, hosted by my former teammates, the fabulous pixels2Pages Pixies, and I completed 20 pages!  That was my goal, and even though I didn't get to spend nearly as much time cropping as I thought I might, I am pleased to have gotten those pages done.  Having a 'reason' to get back to my scrapping was fun, too, as my flu recovery had robbed me of the joy of doing things I normally enjoyed.  I'm happy to say I am almost back to normal and I'm glad to have that behind me!

I know that one of the 'new' things I love doing is traveling, and I'm excited to be heading to Colorado this week to do some digital scrapbook training in the Rockies.  I get to get out my Forever and pixels2Pages shirts and be temporarily unretired! Can't wait to see my friends in the mountains - this is my third year with them.

But back to last week, where we had winter and summer here in the space of a few days.  It got so cold here (19 degrees, which is really cold for the southeast Texas coast!) that we had to protect trees and pipes for three days!  So many people on Tiki had frozen (and burst) pipes that we had to go on water restriction one afternoon - yikes!  In Houston, home to MANY high overpasses and interstate bridges, the 1/10" of ice that we got wreaked havoc.  I know my northern friends laugh at we Southerners and our aversion to all manner of winter precipitation, but I'd like to point out that not many people are able to traverse iced over roads and bridges safely.  Imagine being 100 feet up in the air on a 6 lane interstate covered with a thin layer of ice.  No thank you.  I stayed home, and Crockett and I used the elevator to get downstairs instead of risking our necks on the iced over metal outdoor stairs.

The cold days were followed by two days of intense fog in the morning, which is what happens when warm air meets cold water.  Here on the bay, the fog can be surreal - I literally couldn't see the island across the channel from our house.  Once the sun came out, the fog burned off and we had lovely days - it was in the low 70s yesterday - the kind of 'winter' we expect down here.  We even got swarmed by mosquitos on our walk yesterday - seriously?  Shouldn't they have frozen to death?  Today is so beautiful - sunny and 68 - that I can't wait to get out for a walk!

I've even made progress on the Christmas removal project, but it's still not done....  The tree has been denuded (we usually put it away with the ornaments on it, but the addition of a crib to our Christmas closet made that impossible this year!) but I still have ornaments to put away and store.  Tiki is having a shredder here this weekend, so I'm madly going through boxes in the closet so that we can get rid of some of the paper that threatens to drown us.  Now to pray Rex remembers to take it all to the shredder while I'm away...

Before the holidays, I was in major declutter/renovation mode, and it's been hard to get back to it.  We have a tremendously huge closet upstairs that holds all of our Christmas stuff and then some.  It's the 'then some' that needs some dedicated work.  You know, the boxes that got stuffed in there when we moved here (7 years ago!!) and haven't seen the light of day since.  But then when you look at the stuff, you find reasons to not get rid of it, so you stuff it back in the box and put it back on the shelf.  NO!!  That is insanity!  So I am working myself into a 'throw it out/give it away/find a use for it' mode so that I can clear some space.

While I was decluttering, I was also getting some things done.  We had the concrete area down below our house covered with a non-slip epoxy like we have on our back deck.  The deck was supposed to be redone to (changing from brown to Tiki Turquoise!) but the weather didn't cooperate, so we are still waiting for that.  We replaced the black chain link fence with a higher white PVC 'picket' fence and I am so happy with the way that looks.  I've ordered a new mailbox - you'll have to wait for it - but it is not here yet.  Let's just say it will fit in great here on Tiki, home of many cool custom mailboxes.  As is often the case with home improvements, when you fix one or two things, other things choose that time to break.  Did I mention our heat went out again last week?   Twice.  While it was 19 degrees.  Our garage door, and outdoor outlet, and the light in our clothes closet went out while all of the fence/epoxy work was being done.  We are still waiting for the garage door to be fixed, which has made me very grateful for garage door openers that work.

So, enough about my fairly uneventful week - I have a walk to take, papers to sort, and ornaments to put away!  Here's hoping you have a curious week and that you take time to learn/do/go/try something/someplace new!

Jan

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