Welcome to the Fabulous Fishbowl...We're glad you stopped by!

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

PhotoShop

They were not kidding when they said there was a learning curve using Photoshop. And by "they" I mean all the computer gurus and reviewers out there. I knew they were right, I just never anticipated it would be this difficult. I mean, I consider myself somewhat computer literate. Somewhat.... But this program... Let's just say, I am quickly learning to hate it!

I purchased an older version on Ebay, because I was so not going to spend big bucks on something that has all kinds of bells and whistles, that I really didn't need. My goal: Just to make my own blog backgrounds and headers. Really is that so hard?? Apparently so!

Why I haven't just found a cool premade template to use I'm not sure.

I guess I'm stubborn like that.

Or I feel the need to re-invent the wheel.

So, my $17 dollar purchase is now requiring a $20 tutorial for me to learn how to use the dang thing. I take solace in the fact that if I had purchased the newer version of Photoshop, I would have been even more confused. Not to mention that I would also need a tutorial for the new version, as I am sure no Photoshop program is easy to use.

On top of that.... (as if that wasn't frustrating enough)... when I moved to my own domain, I inquired through blogger if I would need to change my feed at feedburner. The response I got was about as clear as mud. Seriously, it sent me to a website to read all about the technical aspect of feeds etc.

Come on people, just tell me yes or no, and give me a step by step how to do it! I'm not asking for much.

SO, paralyzed for fear of messing up my dumb blog I didn't do anything for a few days. I just continued to research what to do. Let me tell you, there is not a lot out there. Nothing gives a clean and simple answer.

So, I changed my feed.

What does that mean? Well, I have no idea, except that I think I have to have people re-subscribe to The Fabulous Fishbowl. I'm sorry about that! You can click on the subscribe button in the top left column. Or you can click on this link Subscribe and it will take you right to the page to subscribe. I'm sure I messed that whole process up, because I think it was supposed to be seamless. I'll probably take down the old feed in a few weeks. I also probably lost something articles call a "page rank". But I have no idea what it is, and I really don't pay any attention to it. I wouldn't even know where to find it, quite frankly.

I just don't want the folks reading in a subscription like google reader or whatever to be lost. So, having said that... please re-subscribe. Thanks so much!

With all this techy stuff going on, I failed to mention that The King Fish is home all week. Yay! I am glad he is home! We have cleaned out the garage (my Christmas present), and hopefully this weekend he can start building a workbench. The garage needs a re-design badly! This blog needs a re-design badly! And my life needs a re-design as well... See a pattern here?

Have a great weekend, and please don't forget to re-subscribe!

Jackie

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Blog Changes

Hey everyone... well I finally did it. I mustered up the courage to get my own blog domain. You can find me with your bookmarks for awhile still. I believe eventually blogger will re-direct you to my new address.

While the header hasn't changed much.. (I'm working on it- slowly but surely).... The name has. You can find me at The Fabulous Fishbowl. As in
"Our Life in the Fabulous Fishbowl".

I swear this will be the last change I make to the address of this blog. Though I might one day switch to Wordpress. I can guarantee it won't be anytime soon. I'm still trying to figure out what I am supposed to do here on blogger with feeds and old links etc.

So, if things aren't working right. (Like my entire blogroll that disappeared). I will be working on fixing it behind the scenes.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up!

Jackie

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Road Trip? Not!

So I've been kind of quiet here since Saturday. In my last post we were supposed to head to visit the King Fish for a couple of days. We were originally supposed to head up there for Valentine's Day weekend but our area got snow on Friday. Then we thought we might try Saturday, but his part of the state was getting snow! So THEN we thought we would try Monday after the kids co-op classes. They were actually canceled because of snow.... though we didn't even get a flake! But, once again in his part of the state it snowed almost the whole day. There were a ton of accidents on the highway because of black ice beneath the snow. So we made the very wise decision to stay put at home and wait until the King Fish returns. We miss him!!

So what have we been doing this week? Just
livin' life... School, piano, basketball, laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, bills, paperwork, messes.. etc. etc.

We've had some moments this week for teaching life lessons. It's been interesting teaching my boys how to handle a situation when you ask someone for forgiveness, and they don't forgive you. So hard!! We've also been dealing with character issues and have been looking up verses on pride and humility.
I need to look up a few verses for some character issues as well.. like patience. Hmmmm.

There have been lots of great one-on-one times with Small Fry this week. Lots of pretend play and interaction! I think it is really helping his speech. Let's just say that he's been talking up a storm. I
think I'm understanding more and more of it too. He's been hiding in his "house" while his brothers... (The minutemen) go out and fight the British. (Can you tell what we are studying?) They have also been pretend playing restaurant. A box serves as a table, and some lined notebook paper as the menu. Play food and paper plates, plus an old pot and wooden spoon make up the rest of the pieces of their restaurant. I love that my older two children are so creative, as this kind of pretend play is awesome for Small Fry. Plus it gives each of them some individual bonding time with their little brother. The other night as I was rocking him to sleep, I asked him if he had fun pretending with his brothers. He smiled a huge smile and said, "yeah, we play tonado, I hide in house. " Hmmmm..... tornado? The boys laughed when I told them, apparently he got a little confused with the tornado and the British coming....

So, what else have I been doing? Cutting and using my coupons again. I'm just gonna say this. It is worth it! I have been tracking how much I save just with coupons. Do you know how much I saved over the past three weeks? Just with the value of the coupons, not on store sales.... Fifty-six dollars! Yep, $56.00. It's worth it.... time consuming..... but worth it.

And finally- we've all been watching the Olympics, and staying up way too late! Oh well, the winter Olympics (my favorite over the summer Olympics) only come around every 4 years. So, I guess staying up late is worth it too!
LOL! Shaun White and Scotty Lago in the Halfpipe were amazing! Lindsey Vonn winning the Gold was awesome too. Shani Davis skated so well, and was so eloquent in his interview. Apollo Ono, good grief he makes it all seem so effortless. Hockey (men's) awesome! (But we are hockey fans!) Figure Skating, Luge, even curling... (Okay, curling is a stretch for me... but I'll watch it. Not terribly exciting, but it is interesting.)

So, that's how we've been passing the time as we wait for the King Fish to return. Friday can't come soon enough!

Hope your week has been a good one!

Jackie

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

My sweet husband is away this Valentine's Day and it stinks. Well it stinks that he is away.. period. He has been on an 11 day stint where he is from home. Bleck. I've been thinking of my friend Kelly,whose husband is away for months playing baseball in Venezuela. Oh my word, I could not do that! Seriously, I really don't think I could. So hard! I think this is hard, and then I am reminded of her. She's amazing!

Anyway, in light of Valentine's day I decided to post some photos of an idea I got from Andrea over at Babe of my Heart. I have been wanting to be more intentional about affirming my boys, especially the big guys. They have had to step it up with their daddy away and help by being young men around the house. My oldest particularly. Too often I get busy in life and don't take the time to stop for a moment and positively affirm my children. I get tired and worn out...and I miss these moments. Lately I have been acutely aware of how fast they are growing and how that time goes by in the blink of an eye. I want to be intentional about encouraging them and positively impacting them as I "train them up". This was the perfect avenue to do so!

I made felt Valentine fortune cookies. Fourteen per child, one for every day from Feb 1st through February 14th. In these little felt cookies, I put a strip of paper like you would find in a fortune cookie. About 1/2 were bible verses and the other half were positive words of affirmation that I printed out especially for each child. Here are a few photos:

Here is the best shot I could get of the "fortune cookies... don't they look cute!
The King Fish was impressed.

Here are a few verses that were tucked away in each one.
(Sorry about the quality)


Here are some of the affirmations for each child!

Each child had his own jar of cookies. They were small mason jars, and the "cookies" were kind of squished in there. Next year I'll probably find some larger jars.

My children loved these. There is something about having this in
written form, that makes such a difference for my kids. It's one thing to say it, but it seems to have a double impact to have them read encouraging words. They have loved opening these with me, each one taking a turn for some special one- on- one "mom time". My older two boys understand the affirmations, but the surprise of all has been Small Fry. I wish so much I could capture his expression when I hold out the jar to show him it's time to pick a "cookie". His face just lights up and he knows it is special and it means LOVE! Mommy loves him, and God loves him. Precious, precious, precious.... and a great reinforcement for his bonding and attachment.

Today we will be baking cookies and perhaps some cupcakes, because I promised the boys. Church and Awana tonight and then tomorrow after their homeschool co-op classes we hope to visit the King Fish for a few days. Everyone is looking forward to seeing Daddy again. I think Small Fry the most. He asks me everyday.. "Mom? When Daddy home?"

Hopefully soon my sweet son, hopefully soon......

**Edit to add**- So many people have asked for the directions on how to do this project. I got the idea from Andrea at Babe of My Heart... and she gives detailed step by step instructions at this link. Valentine Fortune Cookies She takes amazing photos too.... so enjoy!!

Participating in: Toot Your Horn Tuesday! at A Silly Little Sparrow

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A "Not Me" Kind of Day

I did NOT go grocery shopping last Wednesday afternoon on senior citizen's day with my three kids, long list of groceries and coupon binder.

One of those three children did NOT have a nap.

While pushing said child in the race car shopping cart (or buggy as it's called here in the south), I was NOT carefully checking out the grocery flyer and my coupons all at the same time for the best deals.

I then did NOT completely ram the back of a senior citizen gentleman who had stopped his cart in the main aisle to discuss something with his senior citizen wife.

He did NOT practically yell "Ow!!" when I did NOT ram him with the cart.

He also did NOT turn around and glare at me despite the fact that a very cute blond three year old stared at him from inside my race car shopping cart.

I did NOT exclaim... "Oh my goodness!!! I am so sorry!!!" as soon as this tragic event did NOT happen.

I did NOT shuffle away mortified while my 10 year old asked appalled, "Mom WHAT were you thinking?? Let me drive!!"

I did NOT feel like my own version of a senior citizen when I heard my child say that to me, nor did I flash forward to what that might sound like in the future when I do become a senior citizen!

I did NOT almost slink away when I headed to the shortest line at checkout only to see the senior citizen I practically did NOT maim standing in that line.

I DID however put on my big girl panties and head to that line and sheepishly apologize again, and suggest that my license to drive be revoked.

His lovely wife DID smile at me and said, "Don't worry his life insurance premium is all paid up!"

Hmmm.... Good to know!

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Updating on the minutiae.….

Minutiae-n. pl. – small or unimportant details
(you can’t say I didn’t warn you!)
I decided to actually use my windows live writer today. And maybe try a fun font in the process. Hmm… tried the font and published it.. but it drove me bonkers, so I switched back to a normal font. (Good ol' arial)
I’ve been consumed busy with programming HTML and CSS code on my blog. I’m telling you it has taken hours! I’m sure a programmer could have finished it all in about a 1/2 hour, seriously… and I have hardly a thing to show for it! But I did take pride in what I was able to accomplish, and began my own little list of things I would like to change over the next several months. You can’t see any of the changes…. yet. They are all being slowly worked out behind the scenes until I am sure they are working, and then I’ll transfer them over.
Do you know that I have found that I can sit at a computer for like 4 hours engrossed in figuring out computer code, that I hardly know the time has passed? It’s true! I' am extremely grateful for The King Fish for taking all the kids for the weekend, so I could work on some of my stuff. I even had dinner out with some girlfriends on Saturday night! Amazing!
I’ve also been working on our school lesson plan, trying to make sense and order out of all the coupons I am printing and cutting once again, and trying to keep a house clean and de-cluttered. Those last two are SO not working out here! The coupons are on just about every table surface, and the rest of the house looks like someone tossed everything in every room, and just left it. I have a group of women coming over for a bible study in two days…. Yikes!
That’s it for now…. until my next minutia update!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Hi there....

Gosh, this thing that I type on and put my thoughts into is a blog. Hmmm... Nice to know! I've been ignoring it for a week or so, too busy to write, and quite frankly not motivated to do so either. Same with Facebook. But I love to comment on peoples' blogs. So, I'm still out here in blogland commenting away.

I just love comments. Giving them I mean. Well, getting them too, but that can be infrequent. It's not that I feel I have a lot to say, I just want people to know I am reading their blog, and perhaps I can encourage them, or empathize with them or even pray for them. I'm an encourager at heart... what can I say???

So anyway, this post is to let folks know that I'm still around. I have several things I want to share about some things we are doing at home that I LOVE. (NOt remodeling... Oh how I wish!) I just have to upload the photos first on my blog. I am also working on a blog change up, but I am so technologically unsavvy, (is that a word?)... it may take me awhile to figure out the programming and what I want to do.

Hopefully I will have an update on our life very soon. (Well as soon as my hubby returns the camera to the house so I can upload those photos!)

Be Blessed,
Jackie
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