Thursday This n That

I got the urge to cut my hair the other day.  I think I went a little too far, but it's not awful.  Short for the height of summer is all.  I think Hubs' reaction was 'wow, you went short this time'.  Not quite as short as 2001, but close.  I think this is the shortest I've had my hair since we got married.  Here's me in 2001, by the way...

You know, back in the day when this was the best way to take a selfie... in the bathroom mirror.  ROFL

I've spent a lot of this week over at a friend's, helping her pack up her house so she can move away.  :sadface:  Since I've moved like a gazillion times, it's old hat for me.  Still, I'm having nightmares that something I packed will get broken in transport.  It's never happened, but she has so many beautiful things, the fear is real.  Most of my stuff is cheap and easily replaced.  I think today, we'll be tackling her back bedroom. You all know the room... the 'room of requirement' we all have in our homes, where everything we don't use on a regular basis gets shoved because we're sure we'll still need it someday.  

I don't have a room like that anymore.  I have a walk-in closet of requirement.  LOL

I keep finding little bruises.  Moving bruises.  Thank goodness I'm not the one moving.  Hubs and I swore when we moved here, it was our last move.  Ever.  The other day, we were talking about the housing bubble that's going on right now and whether we should sell this place.  By about halfway through, I was laughing so hard I was crying.  You'd have to have been there.  The only way anyone will get me out of this house now is to render me unconscious and pack me in a box alongside my books.

Owl turned 28 this month.  How on earth do I have a child that's almost 30?  I swear I'm too young for... Umm...  Never mind.  Here she is at her first Easter:

That's me helping her with her Easter basket, with Dad in the background.  What a little baldy she was.  And my hair was so dark.  Now, it's mostly gray.  Time marches across us all.

Edy's Salted Caramel Pretzel ice cream isn't as good as I'd hoped.  Too salty.

It's been so hot and humid here lately my mouse-arm is sticking to my desk, so I put a piece of paper there.  Which is fine, but I've been writing on the paper, so it's kind of trashed out now.  Still, it's a good place to jot things.  I'll probably switch it out for another one when this one gets full.  Heaven forbid I use one of my umpteen notepads.  LOL

Okay, I think that's quite enough out of me this morning.  What's up with you?

Digitizing the Past

Yesterday, I talked about the slide project I've been working on.  Like so many others in a certain time, Hubs' Dad made a lot of slides.  At one point, he divided those slides and sent them to his sons.  Recently, one of Hubs' brothers bought a device that allows for digitizing those slides.  Bro1 did his and then sent the device on to Bro2, who did his slides (as well as their Mom's) and sent the device along to us. 

So, I took the device - finally - and converted all the slides we had.  Bro2 also sent a memory card thingie with all of his digitized slides.  Between Hubs and Bro2, they had 743 slides in total.  Which I am now looking through and noting what each slide is for future reference.  The important thing is all the slides are now on media and will be going to the safe deposit box.  

It's neat walking through the past like this.  It gives me a richer knowledge of Hubs.  I look through the pictures and we talk about his childhood and his father, who I never got a chance to meet.  Makes me wish my dad had been into slides so I could do this and Hubs could get a richer knowledge of me, too.  And he could know my father better, who he never got a chance to meet either.  

I think his dad and my dad would've liked each other.  It's nice to think of them somewhere, fishing together and shooting the shit.

The next project will be to scan all the photos.  I have tons of photos.  He has photos.  Scan 'em in and make them safe from flood and fire.  And make it easier to flip through them all.  Dragging out the albums is a pain.  

Years ago, my brother scanned in a bunch of Mom's pictures.  I can visit those any time I want from the comfort of my desk chair.  There are pictures in there I don't ever remember seeing.  Like this one of what I assume was the church choir when my father was a teen.  (He's in the top row, just to the left of the adult.)

Neat.

I mean, I knew Dad was in choir, but having a picture makes the knowledge richer.  Know what I mean?  

What about you?  Do you get a kick out of looking at old photos?  Have you ever tried to digitize the past?  

Sunday Update - Week 33

 At least I think it's Week 33.  :shrug:

I'm still plugging along on the edit notes for Untitled Fantasy.  I think I'm at 49%.  I had a new idea last night that would seriously slow this whole thing up but might make it all so much more awesome.  We'll see if I move forward with that.

Tomorrow marketing starts up again with the freebie deal for Wish in One Hand.  

In reading news, I actually finished a book last week.  Woohoo.  Go me.  

On the baking front, I did cake cookies in bar form and zucchini bread this past week.  Yes, the zucchini bread was from one of the plants I grew from seeds.  But it was one of the ones I gave to a neighbor.  

One of the things I spent time on this past week was a project Hubs and I have been thinking about doing for a while now - converting all of the slides his Dad left him to digital format.  One of his brothers bought a device to do it with and after he did his, he sent us the device.  Which was weeks ago.  Part of the delay for us was looking through all the boxes to find the slides.  Which I did a while back.  Then I procrastinated.  Then I sat down to do it and realized the cable was not in the box.  Ordered a new cable and waited for it to arrive.  It arrived Friday and I got to work.  All the slides are now digitized.  Yay.  Then I made a spreadsheet key to what each of the picture files actually is.  Tada.  I need to do a key for the files his brother sent us.  Next up... scanning our photos so those are digitized, too.  

Another thing I've been busy with is cleaning.  Specifically, dusting.  I started dusting early in the week and then noticed how cobwebby the ceilings were.  So I high dusted the house.  Then I was too tired to complete the regular dusting.  I did finish the room I was working on when I stopped and another room.  I did the rest of it yesterday.  1500 square feet of various flat surfaces, knick-knacks and tchotchkes, bookshelves, etc.  It's a bear, but it looks nice when it's done, so that's why I do it.

Another thing taking up my time was watering the gardens.  It has been hot-hot-hot.  I do the container garden every day, but with this heat, Hubs pointed out that my in-ground gardens were looking peaked.  So, I've been outside, dragging the hose all over the yard drenching my plants.  Takes me about 30-45 minutes.  Between that and the dusting, there's my activity for the week.  Woohoo.

I also did a Wallyworld haul.  Man need food.  Ug.  

Other than that, it's been a lot of laying around in the AC trying not to melt.  We did get one hell of a rainstorm a couple days ago, which cooled the temps off some, which helps.  

And now I'm off to get back to my cleaning to-do list.  What was up in your worlds last week?  Anything exciting for the week ahead?