It's March?

So it is!  Sorry I've been out of the loop.  A bit about what's been going on lately...

February brought some snowfalls I loved, and I finally got to do some cross-country skiing!  Unfortunately my boot came apart mid-trip, and I wound up up having to walk back. It's okay, I was out in the snow, which made me happy.

I sang again for St. Francis of Assisi's pasta dinner fundraiser, this time with guitar instead of piano (thanks, Colin!). I'm beginning to think I like singing with guitar better than piano.  A BIG thank you to everyone who came out that day, including my amazingly supportive neighbors!

I was so happy, the Pope got a big smooch.

Early in the month, John officially became a Delta MD88 captain, and I tagged along on his first trip.

I also had MY first flying lesson of 2018. I flew us to lunch at the Urbana airport.

My tomato seeds came and now I can get them started. My favorite gardening author, Gayla Trail of You Grow Girl, offers her own garden's seeds for sale on Etsy, and I just love knowing my tomatoes literally got their start in HER garden.

I started some sewing projects. Since I freelance from home, it's easy to spend waaayyy too much time in my pajamas. Yes I could change into work outfits, but I like my pjs!  So I thought maybe if I sewed up some pajama-esque, work-y loungewear, maybe I would feel less slovenly yet still enjoy one of the huge perks of working from home.  I found this 60's linen print in the clearance section at JoAnne's and think it will make the perfect home-office twinset: cropped flared pants and a halter swing top.  Will model it for you when finished!

Yes it's still Christmas in our house.  Yes it's a real tree.  Yes it's crispier than crackers.  No we do not leave the lights on when we leave. But we love the lights so much and it still smells so wonderful. Until I move to a forest of pine trees, the tree stays up until... well... last year it was late April.  The year before it was June...

Finished a few books and am starting All the Light We Cannot See. I didn't know if I'd like this one or not, because I sometimes have a tough time getting through stories set in other time periods, particularly war settings, but I just love this one so far. 

I had my appendix taken out. It was my very first time staying in a hospital or having any kind of surgery, so I didn't know what to expect. Of all the hospital first-times one could experience, I'm glad it was an appendectomy and not something worse.  Still, it felt weird to sign the "you might not wake up again" waiver and say goodbye to someone I love. Needless to say, I was very happy to wake up. And tomato soup never tasted so good.

I'm still on the mend from surgery, but everything's going well, and the sunny warm weather last week, while a bit disconcerting for all the obvious reasons, made me happy. I've been enjoying some sofa time too (with kitties), which feels like a luxury.

It's also given me some time to start Italian lessons on Duolingo...

Anything new with you? Lemme know!  As always, thanks for reading... Cheers!

Last Fall's Flying Adventures

Part of the fun of going through last year's photos at this time of year is reliving warm-weather adventures in the middle of winter. It's making me look forward to spring! I thought I'd share two of the Starfighter trips John and I made last fall...

SWANK AIRFIELD in Butler, Ohio.

This grass strip (see it right behind the wing there?) is one of my FAVORITE places to go as it's got everything you could possibly want. You can camp right next to the river, go swimming in the summer, there's a shady gazebo for picnicking, it's right on one of Ohio's major bike trails, and there's an amazing diner right in town. It also has an old-skool water pump and a bathroom. The Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) is working hard to get places like this spiffed up and put on aeronautical charts. For a long time, Swank Field was a bit of a secret and not everyone knew where it was. (Hopefully it still kinda stays that way.)  From our neck of the woods, just fly north-northeast, pass the south end of Delaware lake, keep on going until you pass in between two small-ish lakes. When you see the three radio towers in a row off to your left,  look for the river and the town and swoop in over the valley. No GPS required!

Butler is perfect for scootering, and we went straight down the bike path toward The Whiffletree.

The Whiffletree, famous for its John Wayne decor, is closed on Wednesdays, and the last time we flew in I got so excited dreaming of their amazing home fries, only to have my hopes dashed by the CLOSED sign. (I think our airport home base needs to create a restaurant reference list of what's open when. Maybe a fun summer to-do list item...?) This was not a Wednesday, though, so all was well. Breakfast accomplished!  

NORTH BASS ISLAND in Lake Erie.

First stop: Port Clinton for lunch at the Tin Goose Diner (there always seems to be food involved in these trips).  It was our original intention to head to Kelly's Island, but we got a late start and really wanted to save that for a day when there was more time to ride around the island.  The Tin Goose NEVER disappoints, and their soups are the best I've had ever.

I always love looking at this part of the Ohio chart.  Just past the Cedar Point roller coasters... all these little tiny islands with airstrips on them.

We've gone to Kelley's and to Put-in-Bay, but not the others, so I asked John if we could try a different one, and we chose North Bass.  We bought some cookies and hot cocoa to go at the Tin Goose, and took off. It was a perfect day for a cookie picnic.

Most of the island was bought by the state in and is now North Bass Island State Park. People still live there, but not very many. It's beautiful from the air! I want to go back again when we have more time to go exploring.

This little building is the post office and airport of the community, Isle Saint George. Somewhere on the island there's a museum in an old schoolhouse, and next time I'd like to go & find out more about the island's history.

This was our picnic view. The beach was rocky, but there were enough flat spots to put down a blanket and have a nap.

Even without the salt, Lake Erie feels just like the sea, which makes me feel not so far away from New England where I grew up. I wonder sometimes about living someplace like this, isolated and remote, even just for a season.  Winter with all its snow and ice, or summer with storms and fireflies... 

Photo Organizing Tips

A few of you wrote to me after I posted about my new year's goals to ask how I sort my photos.  Apparently just about everyone in the universe has piles and piles of images on their phones and computers, and/or paper envelopes full of prints and negatives in boxes. It took me a while to figure out a system that worked for me, but since it does, I thought I'd share it. *Although I write here about digital files, the same process works for film.

1.  Once a month I download all the photos from my phone and cameras onto my computer and into my photo software. I use a program called Adobe Lightroom to organize photos on my computer, but iPhotos or whatever program you currently have is fine if it works for you, and as long as you can rename your files and sort them into folders and subfolders.

2.  I download all those files into a folder I call “TO SORT”.  Creating this folder has helped enormously because I know exactly where stuff is that I haven’t looked through yet.  Here I weed through the images, getting rid of duplicates, etc.  If I have 5 photos of the same thing, I’ll pick the best one to keep (two if I can’t decide).  Then I delete the ones I’m not keeping.  Be ruthless!!!

3.  I've created a folder structure organized by year and month, with special trips & events having a folder of their own within that particular year.  I found this to be the simplest solution.  I thought of trying to group stuff by category: garden photos, flying photos, etc, but I liked having a chronological order instead.  I can always tag or label my images to reflect a category if I want to.  I put the number of the month in front of the name or they’ll arrange themselves alphabetically and, thus, out of order.

4.  Once my “TO SORT” folder of images is culled, I’ll add them to the proper month’s folder (eg, 04-April), and then rename the images once they're in the folder.  I name each image with the year, month, and then a sequence number: 201704-01, 201704-02, etc.  You should be able to automate this process within your photo software.

5.  After I've sorted & renamed files, I make sure to back up my hard drive and then I delete images I don't still want on my phone.

* The secret to making this work is to be diligent about setting aside time to do this.  Start NOW with the new system, and then just catch up with the rest slowly.  Yes, I am overwhelmed with years of a backlog, but now I just spend 10 minutes every morning going through photos.  Eventually they’ll get done. It’s amazing, too, how many photos I'm able to delete after some time has passed because I'm not as emotionally attached.  Also, because I’m so sick and tired of the mental energy required to hang on to everything forever, I’ve gotten kind of fired up about getting rid of anything that I don’t truly love.

* At the end of the year, I delete everything off my phone except my few favorites from past years.  If you take a ton of photos, try doing this more often :-)  I also look through & delete images from my phone when I have a few random minutes, say, waiting at the doctor's office or standing in line somewhere. It beats wasting time on social media.

* For those who have film and actual photographs, this system still works. Just use envelopes with the month/year system.

An older box of my photo envelopes

If you are feeling ambitious, you could get archival sleeves to store your negatives, and even have them scanned so that you can get them into your computer. (If you're local to Columbus, McAlister Photoworks does this, and if you're not getting giant pro-level scans, it's pretty inexpensive.)

Negative sleeves

I hope this helps!  If you have a different system that works for you, please share it... I'd love to know how others tackle this overwhelming task.