TODAY I AM JUST WISHING FOR A SAFE RECOVERY TO THOSE OF YOU STRUCK HARD BY HURRICANE SANDY.... I FEEL VERY FORTUNATE THAT WE WERE NOT HIT THAT HARD HERE IN GALLOWAY. THE TOWN I GREW UP IN , SEASIDE , WAS PRACTICALLY DESTROYED COMPLETELY. VERY SAD.....

WE WILL CONTINUE WITH THE "BALCONY BLOGGER" CHALLENGE TOMORROW AND PICK UP WHERE WE LEFT OFF ON SUNDAY............

BE SAFE, BE WELL, AND WE WILL SEE YOU HERE TOMORROW.................

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Day 30

Sunday's are just crazy as I'm up from 2:30 AM for a weekend gig..... I always push it too and sometimes I fall asleep early. Didn't even get through the Amazing Race. LOL
So  now we have to get through Hurricane Sandy ! In here while I can be...... You know what Sunday's are.... Our Day of "Change".... Hope you saved enough for the envelope.....
Let's not make the next few days too many "Days of Boats"....
Be safe everyone dealing with Sandy and we will chat again soon. !

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Day 29

Interesting...... I was so tired from my weekend job today. Took Brie to the mall to shop for boots and by the time I got home, I was just totally exhausted. Feel asleep over the "blanket" (Gotta love multi-tasking) LOL
So I woke up and I hadn't done a thing today that was all that different from the norm. I mean, I hadn't gone to the mall in quite some time just to walk around , however, THAT wasn't something I really wanted to blog about.
So all that being said, what I did that was different  for me, was I watched 5 min. of the Telemudno television channel. Hey, I know a little French, a few words in Spanish, I'm sure I could pick up
SOMETHING!  Well, I picked up nothing in the language..... I happened to catch the last 5 or 6 min. of some movie.... Funny thing was, I didn't have to understand one word to get some kind of message. It's amazing when we think about it. Body language, situations, events that make it easy to understand people..... I got a lot of the emotion and circumstance just from the last few minutes of this film. I loved the actors as I watched them surround a cemetery plot and toast to a fallen soldier.....I couldn't understand what they were saying but I could understand what they were doing. You know they say a smile is universal. When you smile at someone, most of the time it's just natural for them to smile back. (and it doesn't matter what language it is )
Enjoy your night !

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Day 28

Well today was interesting..... literally the calm before the storm.... LOL.....the day was just so gorgeous.... I was riding home from a great lunch with Brian and Art and I had the windows down, the fabulous Dog Soldier Society blaring tunes and I was feelin' great !
Well, THAT was not the 5-10 min. of today but it certainly felt good.
So a few posts back, I mentioned that I had started a blanket. Well I can remember when I used to make those things all the time and sometimes the yarn didn't always want to cooperate. Now I know why  the old movies show women making the yarn into balls so they don't have to deal with what I did today. (Definitely not the normal routine of the day) That all being said, it got me to thinking......
I had to put the blanket down to work on the mountain of knots that were inside the shank of yarn.  As I untangled each knot, I started thinking about life.....How it twists and turns..... how it sometimes gets tied up in knots and how if you go slowly to untangle it, eventually it comes out right again. I also know how I had to leave the yarn and get back to my life for a bit....... the good yarn on one side of the chair and the knotted yarn on the other. How many times do we have to walk away from a mess, so we can come back with clearer head and clean it up. You can take that any way you like ! Hahahaha
So now I can go back to it. (Much more than 5 or 10 minutes) It's all good. Eventually the knots will be out and the yarn will be ready to roll into a ball and be useful again.  It's funny how things like that are easy to compare to life. Sometimes it just gets you to look at things a little differently. Isn't that what the general purpose of this blog was? Well we made it to day 28. What are you doing these days? Feel free to comment if you like. I'd love to hear what some of you are doing. We have about 10 followers to the blog. We have over 1700 people that are viewing it. Yes, I check that everyday !
Let's see what happens with the storm. If we lose a day, we will pick it back up again when the storm moves out. Let's hope it's not too bad and I wish you all to be safe.......and dry !!!
Have a great night !

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Day 27

Wow! Today was interesting....well,  my "off the beaten path time" was more in the realm of my business however I have not done anything like this before and I got so excited when it all came together in 10 minutes that I have to share......
I added a page to my web site called the "Triple Lenz Group". This is going to be a way for me to give back to the many photographers that have helped to make my business thrive. Although we are still in the building stages, I thought of a cool way to give back. The Triple Lenz will meet two times a year for a social hour. They can be in the group in 3 categories and they have to qualify to get in.
1. They can be a professional photographer
2. They can be a novice with photography as a hobby
3. They can be a film maker/production company that also had an interest in stills
The qualification is that they must have done some kind of barter exchange of photos with my company.
I'm going to secure a venue. It will most likely be cash bar set ups or if in a meeting facility I will provide coffee/tea etc.... Ordering food would be off a menu and pay as you go. I will be giving away prizes that could help these people in their business in some way. I think this is a great way to build camaraderie ,  to network, and to have like minded people work on their businesses in a professional manner, by working WITH each other whenever possible.
It's a win win for all of us.
So after this all came together, I emailed the photographers that are already in the "fold" so to say. I already had one tell me she would open up her home for the very first one and cook for everyone! How awesome is that.
I also did a blog at the Galloway Patch about the whole idea of giving back and how we should think outside the box to do that. You can view that blog at the link below  under local voices !

So I've been thinking about this for a day or two , but it all actually unfolded very quickly today in about 10 min. and then about 1/2 hour emailing and setting up the web page and the other blog. It felt really good.
So even though your little escape from the day may be related to your business or your regular day.........make it something interesting and do it with style !

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Day 26

Today we allocate time for some pre-Halloween "stuff"..... below find an original poem....yes, I have written poetry before. I even have a published poem. That being said, I haven't written one in a little while............given my Halloween tale of sorts, I thought I would re-visit some poetry today to add to my experience and keep my mind working! :)

Before we get to the poem, let's take a step back. On the way to and from an event today, our car full of people (Brian, Stevi, and myself) mentioned cool Halloween stuff several times. It was a long day. We were all up before the crack of dawn to work this event. I met Art for Pizza when I got home and we talked about what I was going to do for the blog today. I said, "Since we are here in Smithville, let's go look at the lake".......get a take on it when it was dark out.............Naaah, we decided, too chilly..... so as I was thinking and walking..... something strange happened.... A BAT FLEW OVER OUR HEADS............Art kept missing it but I saw it plain as day ( or night in this case...hahaha). It flew over our heads, over a truck near our path and out into a tree !  Not the first time I've sen a bat fly near me before..... AMAZING! At least it was outside and not in my house !!!! Thus, taking a 2 minute or less experience and turning it into 5 or so.... I thought I would write something.........
                    
                                                 BOOH
                                        (BATS OVER OUR HEADS)

    IT CAME OUT SO CLEAR IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
    FLYING OVER OUR HEADS
    WE HAD NO FEAR IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
    AS THE FEAR LAY WITH THEM
    BOOH......BATS OVER OUR HEADS
    THEY FOUND A TREE TO REST AWHILE
    WHILE WE WALKED IN THE COOL CRISP BREEZE
    THEY MUST HAVE BEEN ON A QUEST FOR AWHILE
    TO COME OUT AND SEE WHAT WE SEE
    BOOH.......BATS OVER OUR HEADS
    GONE IN A FLASH OVER THE LIGHTS ....TO THE TREES
    GONE INTO THE NIGHT OVER THE LIGHTS ....TO THE TREES
    HALLOWEEN IS COMING AND I GUESS IT WAS TIME
    FOR THE BAT TO SAY HI............AND THEN QUICKLY SAY BYE
    IS IT LUCKY, IS IT SCARY, IS IT FUNNY, IS IT FAIRY.....TALE.....
    NO, IT WAS CLEAR AS THE COOL CRISP NIGHT
    BOOH........BATS OVER OUR HEADS
    TAKING US IN
    THEN TAKING FLIGHT
by Ava Holly  10/24/12

Have a great night.........see you tomorrow !

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Day 25

Today, I found myself looking forward to posting on the blog page.... doing this everyday is starting to feel good in my soul. I love the different things I have tried so far and how I am forcing myself to enjoy life. I hope you are doing the same and at the end of this, will find something coming out of this whole experience to enhance your beautiful life.

I went to a mixer with my SJN group this evening and on the way home a light caught my eye..... So I drove down an extra street to see what it was..... It was this beautiful house decorated for Halloween. It wasn't over the top, nor was it one or two lights. It was just so engaging, so peaceful and so pretty. I have enclosed a picture although the picture doesn't really show it off. You can't really make out how it looked but at least you can see the colors. Over on either side was a big pumpkin lit up. There was also a green Frankenstein lit up near one of the pumpkins. There was a big spider clinging to the side of the house. The rest of the place had beautiful lights in trees etc.... Everything was positioned in a way to bring out the best. For a "scary" holiday, this house was absolutely gorgeous. I was tempted to knock on the door and talk to them about it, tell them about the blog............ Naaah !
I spent a few minutes there, going out of my way for one extra block and enjoying that memory enticing me for Halloween....
Hope YOU had a great experience or adventure today !

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Day 24

So today I did a couple of things only amounting to a few minutes.... first, I bought ingredients to create these marshmallow "witches" for my neighbor's children for Halloween. I haven't done it yet but I got the ingredients and I got the idea right from Pinterest.... cool stuff there.....just sayin'

The other thing I did was I actually tried the apple experiment that I spoke about a couple of days ago. I was in Shop Rite and I got an apple to try it out.....

Well, at first, I thought I was going to have this great time telling you that it didn't work..... but I am no quitter.... I had to keep re-positioning my hands and I had to try it again........

IT WORKED!!! It was so cool ! My daughter even said, "I want to do it now too".... LOL

So try it, it really works.......probably will relieve some stress too !

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Day 23

What is today????? It is the Day of change....... Just to refresh, gather all your change on Sundays and take it to a coin counter. Most banks have free ones..... If it is under 1.00, save it for next week. If it is 1.00 or more dollars....you change that out so it's even (1.00, 2.00, 3.00  etc...) , put that into a plain envelope, seal it....DO NOT WRITE ON IT.....and put it away in a safe place.
Try to restrain from going into those envelopes for the entire year.....or most of the year, utilizing that money for something important. (maybe a small trip or something)..... The trick is remembering where you are hiding your envelopes !!!!
Have fun..........

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Day 22

So this day was quite interesting. What I did I haven't done in quite some time. I actually sat and started training someone to come aboard in my company. He's going to be awesome. Funny thing is , while I was "so called" working, I got to go out to the lake in Mays Landing and then wound up doing a short overview outside on a picnic bench at the service plaza on the parkway. I had my wonderful pumpkin spice coffee from Wawa and we both ate, drank and talked some.

So even though I was working, I was doing it in a very enjoyable way .  This is the first time I'm bringing someone into the business in this fashion.

Take the opportunity to see how you may do things differently. Is it just having your breakfast or lunch in a different place. Is it taking a coffee break with a co-worker you don't normally spend time with. Is it going out to enjoy the sunshine while you work.

Today was awesome. I wouldn't change the way the day went for anything. I feel truly blessed !

Thank you Brian, Justice, Darci and Amy for making the day extra special !

Of course, I have to thank Art for a great lunch and I wish Brie the best to feel better....That has to go along with the day............ :)

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Day 21

Wow ! What a day today.... I feel like I'm saying that a lot lately ! Had a wonderful meeting with the eWomen group today.....Michelle Ray....awesome speaker and I won a copy of her book ! Yay!
After that, Art's car broke down and it took all we had to get it repaired today. So such is life....
So my little extra side of life today is very short, but I did fit it in. I decided to go and find an on-line tutorial. Now I've heard you can find tutorials for just about anything on line. I went to you tube and as I was typing in the word tutorial, some interesting things came up........I even posted this one to facebook...... see if you like it.........

Now when this one was over, I saw another one set to music that was really cool too. That's the one I have on facebook, but THIS is the one I saw first. Now I haven't actually tried it yet, when I do, you will be the first to know. I thought this was really cool, though !

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Day 20

Well I did several things today but none of them were the thing I intended. We were going out to eat this evening so I thought it would be nice to go to a place nearby that I have not been to. Well, I couldn't find anything that close to us so we decided to go to another place we like, Bulldogs. I figured I'd order something that I have never ordered before . Well the parking lot was so jammed that we changed again and thought we would go to Strike Zone for Pizza. Drove out there and THAT lot was jammed . We wound up at our old standby, Denny's. (and although I ordered something  I haven't gotten in awhile, it was so NOT the plan)
So I think I'm cheating a little today yet I did work on something relaxing and fun for me. I worked on the blanket I started and really made some headway. In fact, I'm going to work on it a little more this evening .  It really puts me at ease......
Have a great night !

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Day 19

What a day this was for the challenge ! Today we allocate time to Vent ! Yes, I said it..... and it's OK. There are always going to be things we do that we don't like or that we feel is not for us. So I'm going to tell you that I tried something today, very popular out there, and it SUCKED !
So let me back track. Several posts ago I talked about a blanket I was starting. I was so looking forward to working on the blanket and watching the X-factor. Well, 1st, the X-factor was delayed due to the baseball game rain delay. That was fine except when they finally aired it, they cut off the last 45 min....inserted 10 min. of a sitcom and went back to the game. Very strange.... while I was waiting, I thought I would take my 5-10 min. and play a computer game. Yep !!! A long time ago, I used to play roulette on the computer. It was fun. What I did today, was not fun. I went to facebook and looked up games. I found this "Ava Tingo Bingo". OOOOOHHH that sounded interesting, even had my name in it. It was a slot game. Didn't understand it at all. So then I thought I'd go and find a roulette game. THAT took 20 min. and I never got to a spot. In fact, I never got to the blanket and after the strange TV thing.......I fell asleep over the computer (lap top) and I got up now to post this !
Let's just say, I'm so happy that I've told people to keep their fish and their farms. They can keep their facebook games too. That 5-10 min. leap was too much for me. It turned into an hour of junk. Well, on a positive note, it sure got me away from the norm.
Hope your experience was better !

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Day 18

Today I left my house at 6:45 AM and got home about 20 min. ago.... around 10 PM....
How many of you have had days like that, where you feel like you are out forever.....
So what I did today was a still five minutes to think to myself and reflect on life. That is something that I do on a regular basis however today it was done just a little differently............
I came home for 10 min earlier before we went out to dinner this evening and I found my beautiful little bird dead...............she was sick for a few days now but it happened very fast. It was still sad.....
On the way home from dinner, I got a phone call from a dear friend. She proceeded to tell me that another friend of ours was needed in our thoughts today. That friend has a child with Cancer and the doctors said today they could do no more for her.
So my first thought , as I layed on my bed and stared at the ceiling, was one of gratefulness..........
Be grateful that you rise everyday to a white sky and chirping birds.........be grateful that you can get out of bed...........there are people that can't...... Just be grateful for you life. Instead of finding something to complain about, get up and do something so that the world can be a better place for all of us.  Be grateful that you CAN do that...........
When loved ones are lost, or hurting, we feel sad.........but I always feel that things happen for a reason. Be grateful we can think that way and get through the next difficult or sad time. Find solutions, not more problems.
The world is filled with people that watch things happen and people that make things happen.
Be grateful for your life. Think about which type of person YOU are. Encourage positive energy everywhere you go and with everyone you meet. Even under the most dire of circumstances, there is positive energy to help ............
I think I spent my 5 min. today in a very peaceful place...... YOU?

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Day 17

Well this was an interesting day as I felt a little run down all day today. Just over tired. Did 21 straight hours yesterday..... Extremely exhausting. Today, I found that a 6 min stint on the Internet was really a break away from the norm. (and something I may not do that often when it comes to taking away 6 extra minutes of my precious time)
In this case, it involves something I saw on my yahoo home page. This was a video taken by someone about his son. So I spent 6 min in a space that millions visit everyday, yet I spent it watching something about a stranger's son..... it was moving and interesting.... So this man took 75,000 photos of his son and mashed them into 6 min. He started out slowly with a min. or maybe a little less on his son being born. Then it goes to a fast paced flash drive of pictures from the newborn stages to his son's 21st birthday. In watching it, I got flashes of my own daughter as she just turned 18 last month. The journey is wild to see as it flashes so quickly before your eyes. It was definitely interesting to watch. I enjoyed it so much that I shared it on facebook so if you want to see it, you can check it out on my personal fb page.....
How was YOUR day today?

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Day 16

Hello. I've been up for 20 hours mostly working on various projects..... so I'm making this short and sweet...... today is Sunday............

A DAY OF CHANGE...............

You should know what to do now..... refer back to Sunday posts if not and we will catch you tomorrow !

                                                               
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Day 15

I'm really very excited that I have made it through 15 days of blogging and I'm having a great time doing cool things..... you really need to try this and break out of  rat-race lifestyle. Anyone can do something for just 5 minutes. Today, I actually spent a little longer than that......
The day was so beautiful. Art and I jumped in the car and decided to go down some roads we had never taken in our town. So we went all the way down Leeds Point Road..... ( I was looking for the Jersey Devil- LOL)  We wound up coming upon the Oyster Creek Inn. What was special about driving out there was along the sides of the road leading up to the Inn , were several areas of ....sort of... pink grass ! At first I thought they were pretty pink flowers but to me it looked like a patch of pink grass. It was so beautiful I had to stop and take a picture of it. (see below)

Next, we decided to go to Smithville, one of my favorite places, and go into a couple of shops we haven't been in before. When we got there, we found ourselves right in the middle of an Irish Festival. It was so cool..... hundreds of people, 2 Irish bands, food, drink, lots of dogs , kids, etc..... Had a great time. Even made a small donation to Big Brothers/Big Sisters..... We stopped in a small store called "Sweet Things". I got a chocolate covered pretzel that was black and white ! Yum ! I had never had one like that before. This made for a fun and refreshing afternoon...........not just the pretzel.......all of it !

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Day 14

Today's escape was short and sweet, yet different. I went with some clients and friends and family to an open house. This was not just any open house. This open house was for Ninja Martial Arts !
The Ninja Martial Arts studio is in Ventnor. A small yet powerful place for the learning and understanding of Martial Arts. I ran into several people I know at the open house. I spent a little time with one of the instructors and really just took a quick look around. I learned a little bit about 2 different styles of Martial Arts and got a chance to see what classes they offer there.
It was just a small yet different escape for me. I'm planning another different escape tomorrow too.........let's see if I actually make it to that one.
Ninja Martial Arts...... gets you thinking a little differently.
What did you do today?

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Day 13

Well this was interesting..... my "5 min." escape could turn into an addiction! Naahh.....
So I thought I would go onto the internet for no business purpose, facebook purpose, other purpose than just to have fun in the search bar.....
First, I typed in balloons.com. There was a site there....it opened with NFL balloons. Cool ! ( or Coo, as they say now)
I always knew that you could pretty much type in anything and find SOMETHING.....however, I wanted to see what we could find just playing around.
So next I typed in hearts.com. Here I was taken to a site promoting a Disney Movie, Kingdom of Hearts. Then I typed in stars.com and found a note that this site was "under construction".  So of course, after stars, I typed in angels.com and was immediately taken to the Los Angeles Angels Baseball Team site.  So then I went to fashion.com. This was interesting as the site name has been registered and trademarked since 1994. That was it. The site existed.................
Next was animation.com.  Here I had some choices. One of them was to "create animation". Under that title was a link to Full Sail.  (Full Sail is an institute for the artist/actor) I've been to their site before and actually spoke to a rep. there concerning a strategic liaison with my company............this was awhile ago.
So then I went to chocolate.com. Here I found a place where you can order fine chocolates. Lots of chocolate Halloween candies to look at and drool over. Hahahaha
Then I went to hair.com..... where I found this site to be an online guide site to hair, fitness, and relaxation. movies.com was next. There you could search movie show times, trailers for movies etc.... you could even put in your zip code for local theatres and like the page at facebook !
The last place I went to (for now) was dresses.com. I loved this site for it was taken by a California company.....dresses.com by Odette Christiane.... I even subscribed to their free newsletter.
Being involved in the fashion industry, with my company, it was just a great place to visit.
These few minutes on line, yet away from the norm, were fun and interesting......

What did you do today?


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Day 12

Wow! today I did something I really haven't done in a LONG time. It was a great 5 min. break from this long day.
When I was really young, growing up in Brooklyn, the kids on the block played real physical games.....not that there is anything wrong with "bejeweled" or anything like that, it's just that we didn't have that and we played other types of games.  .....ball games, bike games, races, card games and one of my favorites.....JACKS !
I knew I had this Jacks set in the drawer so I took a 5 min. break to see how rusty I was.....
Funny thing is when I went to open up the case, it still had a seal on both sides..... Must have got these at a party or something with my daughter. They were just such a pretty set of Jacks. I couldn't believe that they were never opened. I did try to show my daughter Jacks some time ago. She didn't seem that interested. Why I still had this set so readily available is beyond me.
So I open up the seal and take out the beautiful gold and silver Jacks. I began by just bouncing the ball around a few times. I was able to get to "onesy's" and "twosy's" without any problem. Pretty good I thought. A little rusty on "threesy's"...... the rest needed work. I think I would like to revisit those Jacks. I was one of the best Jacks players in Brooklyn when I was a kid. (at least on my block........everyone wanted to play me). This was a really fun break today. I am going to brush up so I can get back the skills I had when I was younger. ( at least a little bit )  What a nice way to spend 5 minutes. It definitely put a smile on my face.
What did you do today?

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Day 11

Today is a weird day. The 5 minutes I'm writing about today was just something I had never come across before. It reminded me of a time when I was growing up in Seaside. We had this walk-in pantry. It was really cool. It used to be a stairway and it was turned into a pantry. That alone is weird.... LOL
Anyway, one day I was in there and I found these bugs crawling on the shelves. Little tiny bugs.... After several hours and several hundred dollars of trashed food, it was all cleaned out. When I sold Tupperware, I was able to relate to this story a lot.
Well, tonight, I was making pasta for dinner. A friend gave me this bag of food recently and in it were 2 boxes of pasta. Why I didn't put them in Tupperware is beyond me. I guess I just didn't get to unpack the bag yet. So I boil the water, dump in the pasta............and.........GROSS.........little 'buggies' floating in the water............... In all they times I've made pasta, I have never had that happen.
Well, it took me a good 6-7 min. to clean it all up,throw it all out, check the other boxes of pasta and start all over again.
THAT is definitely something I have never done before !

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Day 10

So today we allocated time for Day 10 of the "Balcony Blogger Challenge". I made it to day 10. How are you doing? Don't worry if you are just joining us today or tomorrow.....jump on the challenge...challenge yourself to do better, to be better, to just enjoy life..........even if it's only for 5 or 10 min. a day.........

Today, I did a couple of things that I haven't done in awhile. I've done all of them, but not recently. First, I am crocheting a blanket. Wasn't in the current plans but I decided I was going to do it. When I can, I'll elaborate why but for now, I've made it to the first 3 rows. Took about 15 min.

The other thing I did was peel 2 whole garlic heads. I peeled ( and ultimately smashed ) each clove and put it in a container with some olive oil and now it's set in the fridge. Yum.... The only problem is that my hands smell like garlic....even after I've washed them. The upside to that is I'm sure I got some good "juice" in my system from the garlic on my skin. LOL

I felt great doing these things. Things I just haven't done in a little while. What did you do today?
Join us in the challenge.....
See you tomorrow !

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Day 9

Remember, this is "A Day of Change" Sunday..... Sunday's are our day to save change....to refresh you....
Take any change you have or you can find on Sunday. When you make it to the bank ( prob. on Monday) You convert your change into anything over 1.00. (if it's under 1.00, save it for next week) You put all the dollar amounts into an envelope. Do not write on the outside. Seal it and tuck it away someplace safe. For example....if you find what amounts to 2.10.... the 2 single dollars go into an envelope and the 10 cents is left over for next week.......
Who's up for the challenge? Go back to original post and you can see why I've set up Sunday's to be
"A Day of Change"

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Day 8

Well today was interesting.....this day had no wiggle room ! I didn't think I was going to be able to do this today. That said, I forced myself to make time for the smallest thing, and I did it......
On that note, one thing I did ,that I don't get to do that often, was to sit and enjoy a beautiful Italian Show. "Amore" A tribute show to the Italian Tenors was at the Golden Nugget tonight. I helped initialize getting it in-so tonight I was helping there and got to sit back and enjoy the awesome performances. all the entertainers were from Italy..............how often do we get to do things like that....

The short thing, was that I decided to just send a text to a few people I hadn't seen in quite some time. First, I called my childhood babysitter. If you remember from yesterday's post, I found a thank you note from her.....I got her machine but I'm sure she'll get back to me. I made about 5 calls to peole I haven't spoken to in awhile for one reason or another. Among those were a High School friend, a casting director that I wanted to say hello to, and another friend I haven't spoken to in awhile. I sent texts mostly however I did call my babysitter.... ooh that sounds so funny ! LOL
I got her machine.

That 5 min. I spent squeezing in some time for the challenge, was so cool. I got a text back from my H.S. friend..... how cool.

Ok...remember tomorrow is "A day of change".....
Are you up for this challenge???

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Day 7

OMG....what wonders we find when we take just a few minutes and stray away from the path and look !
So today I felt a little under the weather. It isn't too bad. Just winding down from a long day yesterday, an early morning board meeting today and a busy weekend ahead. So last week, when I was going through some never ending boxes, I came across this cool bag I used to use as a purse when I was a teenager. Later on down the road, I put something interesting into this purse/bag and when we moved I even put a few more things into it. So when I came across it, I moved it to the side to look through it when I had a few minutes. I made that few minutes today and I found 3 things that I wanted to share with you. Funny how things happen in 3's. Ken Kragen calls it the magic or the power of 3's....
I don't know that there is any magic in anything I've found today, however, it was magic finding it and the smile it put on my face in just 5 minutes away from the normal routine.

The first thing that I came across was my grandmother's Blue Cross Blue shield card. It's effective date was 4/4/58 . Not terribly old among things that I find around from the family yet it is 54 years old which is older than I am.

The second thing I found was a thank you note to my grandmother.It's stamped on the envelope Oct. 13th, 1973 in a faded postal stamp. (had to use a magnifying glass to see it ) The physical stamp on the envelope is of Eisenhower and it is an 8 cent stamp. One of my favorite numbers is 13 and how funny is it that I find this in October.... My grandmother lived with us for many years when I was younger. So this thank you note was addressed to my grandmother in c/o my Father at one of his business addresses. The funny thing is that this note was from my babysitter. We are still friends with her today. We experienced  a lot of life with her, after she became my "live-in" babysitter. THAT was truly a great experience and I am so honored and blessed to still have this lady and her family in my life. I can't wait to share this with her.

And the last thing I found that I wanted to share was a unique pastime. I don't know the exact age of this item that I found but I know it's at least 30 years old. Wonder how many of you remember doing THIS!
The item is a chain of gum wrappers.... it's about 6 feet in length and is in pretty good shape. There were even more gum wrappers to continue the chain. It's folding the wrappers in a way to make them look like links.

I guess you could say , at least the gum chain, was something I hadn't done in quite some time. The other 2 items are each over 30 years old. Interesting way to spend 5 minutes..............

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Day 6

What a day today was..... First of all, I have to share that it is exactly midnight ! I finished blogging for Day 6 about a minute or 2 ago..... I hit a button by accident and deleted the post !!!!!! Now I have to re-create it. That's pretty much how my day was , except it was all good. (just a little frustrating). First I was up early to set up and work at an intern/career fair. The I went home for a few hours, re-paced bags and headed to my tri-annual "Knights of the Round Table" mastermind series.  I live 3 flights up, loaded all the stuff for the morning event into one trip and then when I got to my car, I realized I forgot my phone. The great thing is that I did the same exact thing heading out to the evening event.........and of course, now I deleted my first post and have to do it all again. Other than that, the day was awesome! No, it really was.....
So I decided that today I was going to do something I haven't done in awhile. THAT was listen to my classical radio station on the way home from my last event. It was great. I couldn't tell you who performed the piece however the DJ stated at the end that there were 13 wind instruments in the song as well as violin and piano. When I flipped into it, the piano and violin were fighting.... sort of like my day.....then in the middle - all the instruments were fighting........at the end it was back to the piano and violin. It even ended in a way that makes you say, "Hey, what happens now?".  It was not what you would expect to hear turning on the classical music. That said, it was still engaging and relaxing even though I could relate it to my crazy day.
Those that know me know that I love all kinds of music. I just hadn't listened to the classical station in some time. I enjoyed it.  How was YOUR day?

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Day 5....
....of the Balcony Blogger Challenge....
Well , it's 8:35 AM and I've done my challenge today. Another early one for me. Worked out well as I have to spend most of the day planning for 2 events tomorrow..... So if you read yesterday's blog, you know I took the business cards from Shea's, purchased a 2nd holder , and was able to clean them up a little.... I delivered them at 7:30 this morning. On the way home I thought I would stop at Historic Smithville and see if anything caught my attention early in the morning. First , When I turned at the light, 3 ducks were crossing the road. 2 white ones on either end and a grey on in the middle. Of course, I had to stop and wait for them to get to the other side. I know there's a joke in there somewhere.... LOL
 I stopped in at the Smithville Bakery and said hello to some of the workers there.  Particularly, Kelly, who is always a breath of fresh air. I used to have staff meetings in the bakery and Kelly would always take care of us. Just haven't been there much over the Summer.
Next, I walked over to the bridge.... I stopped on the bridge and just looked at the misty sky.....It reminded me of being back in Virginia with my friends Joe and Cec.....It was so peaceful, no one else there. I waited til  these 2 little ducks in the distance swam across the lake.... it was funny, what seemed like Mama duck was waiting at one end with another little duck. As the 2 swimming ducks made there way across and got closer, you started hearing the squawking some. I could just imagine what the mama duck was saying...... "What took you so long?"  Funny how the one duck just waited for them all to get together and then they went off together towards the banks of the lake.
Well that was good enough for me and it took all of about 6 minutes to just stop and smell the roses..... or in this case watch the ducks..... It was a good feeling, seeing Kelly, watching the ducks and enjoying the beauty of life early in the AM......

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Day 4

So I was wondering what I was going to do or try today...... I remembered that I had said in the beginning, even do something that you haven't done in awhile.....it doesn't matter.....whatever you do that is something different than just a hum drum day is fine.....
Today, I visited the ever popular  Shea's restaurant in Galloway, NJ..... for almost a year now I've been telling the owner, Lou, that I was going to fix up his container of business cards that he keeps on the counter for anyone to partake in. Actually, I did fix them up a little while ago. Sometime in the Winter, I believe..... yet the container wasn't large enough to fit all the great cards that were in there. So today, as it poured down rain, I made my way out to the store and got another business card holder to sit next to the original one. Lou was so nice that he let me take the cards home. Yippeee !!!  LOL
I set all the cards on my kitchen counter top and began to work. Obviously, there are many more cards than spots to hold them. I just took them and put all the like cards together, I put about 3 or 4 business cards together in one spot and now they look great. I'm really happy that I took the time to get this done for Lou. He is an amazing person and if you haven't stopped and eaten at Shea's..........make it one of the things you do !  Enjoy your day !

Day 3
Good Morning! Today we allocate time for the Balcony Blogger Challenge Day 3.... whoo hoo
I'm even getting in here in the morning today. Just a matter of doing something I can write about early today.Monday's are an office day for me so I love to sleep in. However, today, I had to schedule something that I couldn't do on any other day. That being said, I thought I would try having my breakfast out on my landing today. Interesting..... I have a stairway on both sides of my complex. I am on the top floor. I use the one set of stairs all the time but I hardly ever go to the back set of stairs. (once in a great while) It is beautiful back there with lots of trees and all. So I took my nice bowl of cereal outside, stood at the railing and marveled at the trees. At one point, the trees looked like they were raining in between. I even looked at the sky to see if there was a sun shower or something like that. It was only a few seconds later when I realized that the trees were spilling "dew". I don't think I've ever seen that where it looked like rain. I liked the morning air so much that I went inside and made some toast and then went back out for a few more minutes. Not a lot of time on my hands today but I was able to do that much. I think total it was all of 15 minutes. The second time  I went out, I wanted to bring a chair.....just not enough time for that. Who knows, maybe I'll do this again sometime. Also, the second time, the trees "rained" again. This time with a whirling wind that was just loud enough to make me look over at the tall trees again. It was gorgeous outside. I little chilly...... Next time, I'm bringing the chair..................and COFFEE !!!!
                             

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