Focus On Life - Week 52 - Goodby....

I can't believe the year is over. It seems like it just started. But so much has happened this year to me. And through it all you, my FOL, friends were with me.

In a challenge I did at the beginning of the year, we were asked to pic a word to focus on for the year.  Mine was "growth".  I look back and I can see that I did indeed grow.  I took on jewelry challenges and saw my techniques mature and grow over the year...I not famous yet...but hey who knows.

I stepped up to the plate when losing both my parents this year. Becoming the matriarch of the family. That wasn't easy.

I started out the year dealing with my husband being in the hospital for 3 months with a shattered ankle and then almost the rest of the year dealing with it healing, which is still hasn't.

I had to deal with a child moving out...and one moving back in. But now wish all three were here!

Then just the daily grind on top of it all.  Keeping faith in face of all that was around me.  So I think it has been an interesting year, not one I want to repeat but one that I really think I grew as a person, a jewelry designer, a crafter and a better child of God.

And through it all, my FOL friends were there.

So I say good by to 2013 and my FOL friends, 2014 is just around the corner, and I know I will be seeing you all again.

Hugs to all!

Focus On Life - Week 51- Togetherness

Togetherness - that act of being together...NOT! At least not for me...this week has been so chaotic for me, finishing up Christmas gifts and getting them in the mail...so this week...I "threw" some pictures TOGETHER of warm and fuzzy moments for me....hopefully next week will be calmer....

For more pictures check out the links below....

INLINKZ CODE FOR WEEK 51:

Focus On Life - Week 50 - Pop Of Red

When I saw this prompt I first thought of the red ball on my Christmas Tree but then when looking outside...I found some other pops of red..

Being in Florida right now made it easy as it is still kinda warm. Though today it is really gray and dreary looking and we are in for some rain.

But on with the prompt.

My tree with my beautiful ornament from my Face Book friend Theresa Frank in our Ornament Exchange, then the rest are just some pictures I had on hand with pops of red in them.  The third and last one are jewelry that is going in my Etsy Store the first, second, and fourth ones are of flowers in my yard. 

To see some more great pops of red head on over to the link below. 

Focus Week 49 - Add Sparkle

Merry Christmas - early...I am slowly getting into the mood....it has been crazy since Thanksgiving.  I haven't had a chance to get around to the blogs from last week...and I will...I am trying to finish up my Jackson Hewitt Tax class.  I have an interview on Monday and I must be finished with all the classes.  So I have been trying to do 2 -3 chapters a day. Needless to say I have been busy!

I haven't had a chance to get out and see the Christmas lights yet, but have started with decorating my living room.  Below is a favorite of mine. The Nativity Scene.  I bought it yyyyeeeaaaarrrssssss ago...I have to have it out each year or it doesn't feel right...Same with the little train station. We bought that in 2002 for my son (now 21) as he was into trains.  The plant is my dads Christmas Cactus.  It is just covered in blooms. This was from a few days ago.

As many of you know...this will be my first Christmas without my parents.  One of the many first I know. I will have to go through. But it still isn't easy.

I know we will have more great prompts before the end of the year and I promise to have my living room finished so I can show my tree.

For more great "sparkle" head over to the links below!

Focus On Life - Week 48 - Giving Thanks

Well I know all of us have been slammed, I know I have....and the week was here with family showing up and enjoying Thanksgiving...then hitting the shopping tour...ON FRIDAY...we didn't stick out noses out on Thursday!  Now everyone has gone back home and I can relax...but I did put together this collage to show my thanksgiving.  My oldest in SC, couldn't get down, but the rest of my crew were here.

Hopefully everyone had a great time. And now the mad dash to Christmas and New Years.


What a Year!!!!

Til Next week!!!!

For more great Thankful pictures check out the links below...

Focus on Life - Week 47 - Centerpiece

Wow, the weeks are just flying by...I can't believe the end of the year is almost here! What do we do then....(sad face).

Anyway, Centerpiece. At first I thought a center piece for my table...but then I opened it....Then it was a piece of cake.

As most know, God is the center of my world, being, soul.  I know I am not perfect, but God is there just the same! Then around him are some of the gifts he has given me over the years, my husband, my children, my sister and her son, my niece and her family, my parents and even my dog. Memories that will be with me for ever, forever keeping me tethered because I know that they are gifts from God.

May all of you have a solid centerpiece and may this Thanksgiving and Christmas time be a time of remembering old memories and making new ones!

For more hop along the links below.

Focus On Life - Week 46 - Reflect

Ok...at first I am thinking shiny reflects...mirrors...windows...jewels....but our wonderful Hostess is thinking ahead of the game and knows as the year winds down...(can't believe it has already) that we all tend to get really busy.  So her prompt for this week was a Reflection on those who are important to us.

Of course I had all these great pictures to choose from....but....as Life will have it..my computer died the other night...power supply shorted out...so ALLLLLLL of my pictures are on that computer of course...

Luckily I HAD moved some of my older folders of pictures to a thumb drive...So I had to scour through them and the hit up Facebook for more....But I was able to get a fair mix...the big one is of my family (minus my oldest who lives in SC) with my parents this PAST Christmas.  Most of you know both passed this year so this if the FIRST Christmas without them...so it will be kinda bittersweet...but I know they are much more happier in Heaven with their heavenly family.

The rest around the edges are of my kids and grand kids.

Starting at the top right is my middle son, Nicholas, then my daughter Sydny, then a sweet picture of them "back in the day". The in the bottom right corner is my both of my sweet granddaughters, Selena and Elfie, then just Elfie, then Larry, my oldest and his wife and Elfie. Then the last picture is of my daughter Sydny and her boyfriend Aaron.

I really love how this came out...I may have it printed and put is on the wall in my studio to look at....

For more sweet reflections check out the links below and thanks for stopping by!

OH and BTW - I have a google friend counter now...it needs some love....

Focus On Life - Week 45 - Industrial Photography

Good morning all!  Let me first say...I am sorry if I haven't been as active as I usually am.  I have decided to take an online Jackson Hewitt Tax course and it has really taken up a lot of my time.  Plus I have decided to take the NaNoWriMo challenge and write a novel in Nov.  So I have been working on that also.  And ....my jewelry, and crocheting for Christmas, and making more healthy from scratch food items, even healthy dog biscuits for my dog.  Add that to taking care of my hubby and helping my son with his college work and I am lucky to get a good night sleep.

SOOOOOO without being too long winded....if I seem absent from the posts...I do apologize and promise to try and do better....

When Sally posted this weeks FOL...I was a little taken aback as Industrial Photography was a new concept to me.  And so it kinda got shoved to the back burner....until last night.....lol.  I haven't been outside or gone anywhere to have taken any pictures so I had to go back through my stash and make a call to my daughter for help....Once I got going though...it all seem to click and I realized what a great medium we were missing out on in life.

So below is my interpretation of our prompt for this week...and before you ask...the picture in the upper left hand corner are barnacles from a beach trip we took a few months ago. The buildings are from Kissimmee and Orlando Florida. The car with the caution tape is from a show in Dunnellon and the car in bottom left is a picture taken in 1940 outside my grandparents house in Orlando Florida.  The bottom two on the right are of the beach and the power plant here in Dunnellon...thanks for looking and for being patient with me.

For more great pictures hop around to those shown below...

Focus On Life - Week 44 - Saints, Souls, Sugar Skulls, and Scares

What a title...and ...Halloween IS ONE of my favorite holidays....so much

stuff and so much 

 stuff!!!!!

We didn't go anywhere this year...and we live in the country..so no cute kids came here. BUT my daughter and her bff did a photo shoot and she sent me some of those. Then she took some pictures of

  stuff in the stores. AND my daughters bff worked Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, so I "borrowed" some pics her mom took. AND then of course the pictures of the cute little witches are my granddaughter, my great grand cousin....and my grand niece....AND then the picture of the three kids in a living room are my son, my nephew, and my niece...mother of the cutie in orange, in the late 1980's....(hehehehe),  I think that covers it...

Oh yeah, the one in red with red hair is my daughter...the guy next to her is just an extra at Halloween Horror Nights that we had a pic of.

Anyway I put them all

in a collage...enjoy...

For more

 pictures hop over to the blogs below and 

 they might be scary toooooooo!

Focus On Life - Week 43 - In The Shadows

Well...I don't think this weeks prompt needs any intro.  I just took pictures of the shadows around the house.....Didn't go anywhere this week, so I just used my yard.  Enjoy...and thanks for stopping by.

For more shadowy pictures search no further than down below.....

PS..For those of you that know how multifaceted Miss Sally is, she is listed in my jewelry blog about teaching those of us how to bead cabochons... www.veradesigns.blogspot.com

Focus On Life - Week 42 - All In A Day....

Wellllllll.....I don't have anything exciting to report this week, no ducks, or wild animals attacking me.....wow, I must be boring....lol

But yesterday..I was very busy so I am reporting on it.  Cringing at the price of food these days, I decided to make my own granola bars...they turned out really well, but took me most of the day to bake since I doubled the recipe. I ended up with 6 sandwich bags full of my bars.  Definitely cost less than if I had bought them. AND I know WHAT  went into them!  So there is a picture of my "bars"

I also worked on one of my challenge pieces that is due next week. I had to pixel it so you can't really tell what it is before I post it.  It is the orange picture.  I also finished my grand daughter's Cinderella doll for her 2nd BD.  The black looking clothing piece is a sweater I crocheted and finished up yesterday also for her BD.  It is black with multicolored metallic thread in it. It was hard to take a picture of but I tried.

After supper, I went outside to relax and got a picture of a squirrel in one of my trees and then the picture of the bird, was taken from several hundreds yard away...it was a hawk. But his back was to me.

So this was my day, my 24 hours.....I hope you enjoy it.

To see what everyone else did, check out below.

Focus on Life - Week 41 Connected

When I first saw this my mind immediately went to all the "stuff" I am connected too. I have always said I feel like the hub of a wheel.  If I break or stop working, the wheel don't work.....So I put together a collage (imagine that) of what I am connected to.  Since my parents have passed, that is one spoke I don't have to worry about.  Though I am thinking this week we will see bunches of "wheels".  Enjoy!

For more Great Connections check out the links below. 

Focus On Life - Week 40 - Smile!

This week, Sally challenged us to get pictures of smiles.  I was busy this week with jewelry making and really didn't see anyone with smiles....so I decided to go back into my horde of pictures and came up with a collage of smiles of my family...The black and white one is a picture of my brothers and myself as kids.  The baby is one of my granddaughters, and the one in the upper right is my other granddaughter. The older people are my parents, the rest are my kids....

For more smiles...check out the links below...and thanks for looking. 

Focus on Life - Week 39 - Your Best Shot

This week Sally gave us the challenge of giving our best shot.  I pondered on it all week.  I have lots of amazing shots.....But instead of going back through the innumerable "stack" of pictures I just went out into my yard and snapped away.  I put the pics into a collage because I couldn't just pic one....

Since I know I would be asked, I will tell you what they are.  The one in the top left and else where that look fuzzy are the beginnings of seed pods from a Magnolia Tree. I have two in my yard and I love the blooms.  Hate the pods once they drop and the leaves once they drop...but while in the tree...they are pretty.  The next one and the one in the right corner and in the bottom row is from flowering bromeliads that grow in my yard. I have several varieties. The one with the purple seed pods is a Callicarpa americana (American beautyberry). I have several of them in my yard also.  They are really pretty. The purple really stands out!  There are two kinds of mushrooms in here also. The one middle bottom has some really cool colors that would look killer in clay and the other one is red in coloration. They are  Polyporus squamosus. Then there is one at the base of a stump that is called Laetiporus sulphureus.  Interesting to look at.  Then I have a couple of pictures with a small butterfly. The bright orange one in the left bottom corner is a flower from a Canna Lily plant.

So there you have it, My Best Shot.   Using the links below, hop around and see what other great pictures are in store for you.  I am sure they will be a wonderful treat.

Focus On Life - Week 38 - Quiet

Quiet....Another interesting challenge by our famous leader, Sally at Studio Sublime.  This was a hard one for me, because even though it is quiet in my house...I am usually working on beads, blogging, crocheting....it is hard to catch me - quiet - ...  But then my husband suggested I let him take pictures of me reading outside on our swing...Ok...I can do that.  I do take time almost every day to read.  Helps me stay focused.  My new favorite author while I am waiting on some others to come out is Clive Cussler.  I have really developed a love of his books and since there are over 50...well I will be reading for a while.  So I went and sat on the swing and let my husband take a picture...of course he didn't tell me I needed to pull my shirt straight...shows all the bulges...oh welll.. ...  Enjoy the rest of us being quiet at Sally's. And thanks for looking.

Focus on Life Week 37 - In Motion

Our esteemed leader, Sally, gave us a challenge this week to take pictures of "in motion".  Hmmm, I don't have small children that are always in motion. I sit at a desk. My dog is old...so she doesn't move a lot.  I thought all week.  And since I have had the chance to purchase a new camera I was ready!

But what to snap pictures of......Yesterday, Thursday, my husband and I wanted to get out of the house (we are retired, but I sit a a desk to work on jewelry).  So I grabbed some old bread and we headed to the springs.  Well since I keep my camera close by, I dropped into my purse, just in case....

Well, on the way there, AHA (light bulb goes off). We are going to feed the birds at the springs..birds fly...motion!    Whoo hoooooo. I had it in the bag!  So while my husband threw bread I snapped pictures. In fact by the time we were finished I had snapped 50 pictures.  DON'T worry, I didn't post them all. I took the ones of the "in motion" birds and created two collages.  Enjoy, I know I did. And after that, click on any of the other "in motion" pictures to see what everyone else came up with.

Cheers!

Focus On Life Week 36 - In Two

Well, I still haven't been able to get a camera.  Can't decide on what I want....anyway since our prompt was about two...I posted a collage of some of my earrings that I made that will soon be on my etsy page. To have a set of earrings you need two!  Reminds me of the Wrigley's gum commercial on Noah's Ark....I bet some of you remember it......lol!

Focus on Life: Week 35- Growth and Change

Growth and change.....well right now I feel like I am in holding pattern.  I can't seem to see the path where I am supposed to go. So I guess I will just wait.

But I did have something change in my yard.  My brother came by and put up the swing that I took from my parent's place when they past away.  The picture isn't that great either, as my good camera died and the only one I had was an el cheapo..but you get the point. For more great sites click the links below.

Thanks for visiting!

Focus On Life - Week 34 - Add Something...

Welllll, add what???? I don't need to add any stress to my life...I don't need to add more outside interest, I don't need to add anything to my life right now...it is quite full..............................

Duh....add to a picture.............OH, that I can do. And I had great fun. I had these two pics from our beach outing a couple of weeks ago....They are of my two youngest....Enjoy!

For more check out the links below!!!

Focus On Life - Week 33 - In Season

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I saw this prompt, my first thought was that song from the 70's -  Song: Time Of The Season Lyrics by The Zombies...  Ok, so I am showing my age....but it was a cool song.  Also later that day my husband and I had to run an errand and saw this sign....(suppose to say Rainy Season is Here!
























Thought it was kinda catchy...but we all know what season it is...especially in Florida....SUMMER! And finally we got the chance to go to the springs and beach....here is collage of what we did.  The two girls in the water is my daughter (standing) and me (in water...it was COLD water). Then the mural with my daughter in was on the side of a restaurant in Crystal River, so I convinced her to pose.....then there is one of the hundreds of crabs that were coming on shore...what a sight.  Then my son is striking a pose...that's me behind him...hehehehe. And of course some seagulls...when I took the picture of the single seagull with the buoy's behind him, I didn't realize there were seagulls on each one... what a hoot!

That my day in the "Summer Season" For more hop over using the links below....Have a sunny day!