Searching for something...

Last weekend, I met up with some great local blogger ladies, and so enjoyed meeting them and learning from them. One thing they (and others) talked about was Swagbucks.

From my understanding, Swagbucks is a search engine that "rewards" users with points, which can be redeemed for things like Barnes & Noble or Amazon gift cards.

I had heard all of this and written it off as a spammy, gimmicky site. When I talked to these ladies in person, though, they were genuinely excited about it. This wasn't a trick- it was actually working for some people- LOTS of people, in fact! So, today, I decided to give it a try.

I had previously mentioned Scour, and gave up on it not long after posting about it. The search results weren't to the quality I was used to with Google. So far, Swagbucks seems to have a better search quality- and that's really what matters when I'm looking for something! The points are a bonus. These points seem a bit more attainable, too. If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

Anticipating summer

Our big, once-in-a-lifetime vacation is over, and yet there are still trips on our calendar, albeit smaller and closer to home. It's amazing how the summer seems to fill up so quickly.

In a couple weeks, we'll be in the South Bend area for the wedding of Josh's friend since elementary school. He was the Best Man at our wedding, and Josh will be the Best Man at his. the excitement for this trip was finding a place to stay. We were hoping for a nearby bed and breakfast, and then saw that the wedding weekend was also Notre Dame's graduation weekend, which filled all the local rooms. Even if we went with a hotel, we'd be looking at $200 or more a night, more than we hoped to spend. And THEN, the day after we seriously started looking for somewhere to stay, the speaker for Notre Dame's commencement was announced- President Obama. At that point, we gave up finding anything in the immediate area, knowing that everyone who could be in town would have already snapped up those rooms. Thanks to twitter friends, I was able to get some bed & breakfast leads, and we ended up finding space at a place not too far away in Michigan. One of Josh's friends, a groomsman in the wedding, was running into the same problem, and they'll now be staying at the same place! That's exciting. More time with friends is good.

At the beginning of June, I'll be heading to Georgia to celebrate my grandad's 80th birthday! I haven't visited southern Georgia in at least four years, so it will good to be back, and see everyone. Just as my trip to Hawaii was very much about food, and making sure to indulge in foods I can't get at home, it seems my trips to Georgia are much of the same. "Comfort food" is the food we remember from childhood, whether it's musubi or butter beans.

Other events are sprinkled throughout the summer... friends' babies will be born, the annual family reunion, camping trips, maybe a trip to an amusement park, a trip to Chicago. For Casey's sake, I'm trying not to be gone two consecutive weekends. Hopefully we'll work with him enough, and he'll get to join us on some of the trips!

Meet & Greet Monday: Friends & Projects

This weekend was a big Blogging Milestone weekend for me. Not only did I have my 5th blogiversary (which, apparently, is actually a word since the first 2 commenters used it, unprompted), I had my 100,000th page view since I started keeping track, I had my first guest post, and I met blogging friends in real life. Since the latter is the only one that happened in meatspace (another actual word; it's even in the dictionary), it's the only I have pictures of. I'd like to introduce my new friends to you!

Bargain Briana planned the get-together at a McAlisters on the northside on Indy, not too far from where I work. I got there promptly at 7, and knew everyone else was coming from further away, so wasn't too surprised when I didn't see any other ladies alone with their laptops in the restaurant. By 7:30, though, I was getting worried. Finally, I found Briana and Sarah of Redefining Perfect sitting outside on the patio. Having been inside for half an hour, I felt pretty silly. Once we sat down and started chatting, (then moved inside to avoid missing anyone else), it was delightful! Not much later, The Queen of Free joined the party- and boy, did we party! By the time we finally all headed home, McAlisters had been closed for half an hour, and I think the kids working were glad we finally left!

Meet Bargain Briana


Meet Sarah


Meet The Queen of Free


While I was out with the girls, what was Josh doing at home? More than I could imagine. I returned home to this:

A half-replaced floor in the bathroom. He only stopped because he ran out of tile. Sunday, the project was finished:

Yes, we have a stepstool for the sink, even though we don't have kids. It was obtained off Freecycle, and gets used at least weekly, so I can justify having it. It also happen to match the new paint, but that wasn't planned, just bonus.

But, can Josh just stop at one house project for the weekend? No! In addition to installing the tile floor, he painted the back door, which is fairly new and up to this point has only been painted with primer.


Lest you think we spent all weekend inside- the weather was gorgeous, and Friday afternoon & evening was spent outside. I was excited to get my broccoli seedlings in the ground- hopefully they continue to do well!

This is one of my most rambly posts ever. I better stop. I think those door-paint fumes are getting to me. Go check out The Natural Mommy for more Meet & Greet Monday excitement.

Five years

Five years ago today, I started this blog.

You'll note the URL is JoannaL.blogspot.com... at the time, I only had been dating my now-husband for a few months, and I guess the URL choice wasn't very forward-thinking. My last name no longer starts with L. I've left the web address mostly to not break links here, and because I think joannal kind of looks like journal, which is what this is... so it has stayed.

Besides my name, what else has changed in five years? Well, five years ago, I was a sophomore in college, living in a dorm, and spending most of my time in computer classes or programming for a project. I couldn't cook, I had only been doing my own laundry for a year and a half, hadn't even dreamed of knitting. I worked hard to be proved competent among the guys in the computer science department, and most interests much outside of "computers" made me lose credibility. I was coming off probably the biggest spiritual struggle I've had to date. Most my posts are about computers, faith, or just what-I'm-doing.

Now, my five-years-older self spends her free time cooking and gardening and taking care of her house, trying to prove myself as a competent homemaker who works. If there's free time beyond that, I'll read or knit or play board games. My posts reflect my interests- I work on computers for my day job but have a policy of not talking about work here, so technology isn't mentioned as much. Faith, current events, and my day-to-day all still matter to me.

But who woulda thought? That I'd keep writing? Heck, engineers aren't supposed to be able to put coherent sentences together, nevertheless enjoy it! But I do. I love writing. These last five years on the blog have allowed me a somewhat-creative outlet to get my ponderings out of my head. Where you have interacted with those thoughts, I really appreciate it. As I said in my very first post, five years ago today:

I imagine, if I keep posting, it will be my musings about life, the universe and everything. I like musing. I also like feedback. I may be way off in left field with my ideas. Let me know. Play devil's advocate with me. I love lively discussions. I dare you.

(* I'm obviously not Kevin. Kevin's my 6 year old nephew- this is his birthday cake from a year & a half ago.)

Blogalyser

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 12.

This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).Your blog has 26 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by verbosity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 52% male and 48% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the past and lastly the future.

Find out what your blogging style is like!

So what do you guys think? Am I too verbose? Do I talk about myself too much? Am I 52% male?

Silly online quizzes. What do they know. They probably think I should be talking about mesothelioma treatment while I want to talk about gardening.

Pictures to go with the gardening news

First, meet the blooming flowers:


Casey's loving the warm weather, too:


Here are the potatoes, planted:


And the peas, peeking over the ground:


Chives, popping up where I don't want them. Here, they're in the middle of a walkway between two rows:


Proof that, though today was cold & rainy, there was warmth this weekend: the clothesline.


And, last but not least, meet Ugly Tiller:


Here's the tiller's story. Over the winter, there was a posting on Freecycle for an old tiller that was "hard to start" but it runs. We had wanted a tiller, and had a truck to pick it up... worst case, we had a broken tiller on our hands, right? Afer seeing the thing, I was skeptical it would start, and we didn't try. We figured we'd just leave it until it was warm, and if it works, great, if not, hey, it was free. No harm.

Well, I'm planting peas and Josh says he'll "go look at it." I didn't not have high hopes. A few minutes later, I hear it running! I see him trying to figure out how to get the tines to stop turning, and then walk over to check out the excitement. We have a tiller than works! And then... he asks me, "How do you think you turn it off?"

I look all over. There was no Off switch.

"Do we have to wait for it to run out of gas? I didn't put much in."

Hmm.

Finally, he pulled at a piece with pliers (the choke?), and it turned off. Apparently, this is the only way we have to turn it off. Awesome. We have a tiller.

Garden update

This was a big gardening weekend- and I have a feeling I have amny more to come.

What's growing outside:

• Daffodils & lots of other flowers
• Chives
• Sage
• Early-planted peas (just barely)
• Early-planted lettuce (just barely)
• Cabbage (I was given plants)
• Strawberries (just started a patch this weekend!)
• Raspberries (The vines have leaves)

What else is planted:

• Potatoes
• More Peas
• More Lettuce
• Carrots

What's growing inside:

• Broccoli (should go outside this week)
• Celery
• Tomatoes

What else is blooming:

• Dandelions

Planting potatoes is hard work. So is spreading mulch. Josh did the mulching, I did the potato-trench digging. We discovered the Free Mulch pile at the county recycling center, and took advantage of it. After all the work Saturday, we were sore all day Sunday and did very little. Besides, it was raining- a really good reason to stay inside. We really need to mow the lawn, but the rain is forecast through tomorrow. But! The forecast says it will be 77 Friday! Can it be true?

Read Local

There are lots and lots of money-saving blogs out there. Many of them are very good, complete, understandable, and have great tips. I had quite a collection I was subscribed to (and I still do!) but I was finding myself needing to sift through the deals listed to find the deals that applied to me. I don't have any Publix, Safeways, Food Lions, Rite Aids, or many of the other drug store & grocery stores highlighted on the blogs.

Also, did you know in markets other than Indianapolis and Chicago, Meijer runs their sales Sunday-Saturday rather than Thursday-Wednesday? At least a few times, I showed up at Meijer with coupons in hand after reading about "this week's deals" on Monday, only to discover the sales don't start here until Thursday! Annoying!

Then someone passed along a tip on Twitter: The best money saving blogs for you are the ones that are local to you. I was skeptical, but did a quick search, and have found high-quality frugality blogs in my area! That list sales and coupon match-ups that actually apply to me! WHEN they apply to me!

For those of you in Central Indiana, here's a list of some I've been checking lately:
Bargain Briana
IN Good Cents
FeedIndy
The Cheapsk8Mom
Queen of Free
Frugal Indy
Lizzy's Language

Any other Indiana couponing/frugal blogs you there I should add to my list? If you're not in the Indy area, how do you find local deals? Do you "read local"?

Friend of God

For the last couple years, in lieu of a Good Friday service, my church has presented a "Good Friday experience" with a variety of displays, activities, and media to communicate the importance of the day and a chance to reflect and respond. For me, I love the self-paced reflection and being able to respond through creative avenues. One of the "galleries" this year will be personal stories of faith journeys, showing Jesus as a "Friend of Sinners". My pastor asked me last week to put together a paragraph for this gallery (along with some photos of me). Because this was going to be shared publicly anyway, to the thousands of people that will see it today, I though I'd share it here, too, for the hundred or so that will ever see this post.

JESUS: Friend of Joanna

Growing up in a wonderful Christian home, I understood enough about God to choose to follow him when I was just 5. Through my school years, I got involved with practically every youth group and Christian organization available to me. I could argue apologetics and recite the Four Spiritual Laws from memory. I was even voted Most Likely To Be a Missionary by my senior class! I had it all together, I had all the answers, and I took pride in this fact. "God" made sense and fit into my black-and-white box. I was "doing all the right things"- and I was busy!

A short time later, however, at my Christian college, I started thinking more deeply about my faith, questioning the seemingly black-and-white logic, and coming up with only gray. During this time, I couldn't pray, and my worship was interrupted with nagging questions. This shook my faith for months on end, until Jesus came alongside me and was my Friend, even in my doubts, uncertainties and questions.

My faith now is still strong, but different. My vision for God and his world is infinitely bigger than the God who I totally understood. I can now Rest In Him instead of always Doing For Him. My faith foundation is solid, but the expression of my faith is freer and unhindered, knowing have a Friend who I can confide in, even while living with some unknowns, without all the answers.

What are your reflecting on today?
What's your "Friend of God" story? Feel free to share a paragraph about your journey in the comments, as we reflect on what Jesus did for us today, giving us the ability to become friends of God.

True Stories

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of Anne Lamott, (books by this author) born in San Francisco (1954). She wrote a few novels, but none of them were very successful. Then when she was in her mid-30s, she got pregnant and her boyfriend left her, and she decided to write a book about a year of raising a child. It was called Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year (1993), her first best seller. She went on to write Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994), Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999), and many more books. She said: "If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."

I've read two books by Anne Lamott, a fiction book Hard Laughter and the book mentioned in the paragraph- Traveling Mercies. Both are edgy and honest. I appreciated the stories and and questions brought up in Traveling Mercies, as well as LaMott's full-of-grace outlook on life. She gave example after example of how she was shown grace, by God and by people in her life, through her struggles and adventures.

I still have this book, and am torn as to whether to include it in the church library. It was vetoed by the other library helper (that's how I ended up with it, I grabbed it out of the "Free" pile). After reading it, I can see how some might be taken aback by coarse language and hard life situations, but I feel like the book is honest- a real tale of one person's faith journey.

If you've read Traveling Mercies, what do you think? Is it appropriate to include in the library of a diverse church?
And, if you're local- anyone want to borrow it & decide for themself?

Picture-printing FAIL

* Note: This is way longer than it needs to be. Only faithful readers will read it, and even then I doubt they'll care.


I got a call Tuesday night about helping with something at church for Good Friday. As part of what the pastor wanted me to do, I needed to get the team a few pictures of me of various sizes for a collage they'd put together. Herein lies the first problem:

I'm a prolific digital photographer, which means:

• I'm the photographer - the one always BEHIND the camera- there aren't many pictures of me.
• I'm prolific - I have a LOT of pictures to sift through to find any of me.
• I take digital pictures - I print them very, very rarely. Seriously, I haven't printed any in over a year, especially not of me.

Did I mention there was a deadline on this request- I needed to drop them off at church by last night? So I needed to get a bunch (well, a few) of pictures of various sizes printed quickly. I didn't want to pay much, so I decided to use my ECBs and upload them to CVS Photo Center.

I got up early yesterday morning and got to work later than usual, to give me time at home to sift through the laptop's files. Just a few weeks ago, Josh got 25 gigs worth of pictures off of a mostly-dead hard drive from last summer, so I had my entire collection to look through. I picked out almost any picture of me I could find, which wasn't very many, and used Picasa to upload those to CVS. Once they were online, I picked out sizes and tried to complete my order...

An aside: there are CVSes on practically every corner near where I live, and 2 right across the street from each other near work. It's not like I was going to need to go out of my way to pick these up. So I thought.

Apparently it takes a special photo-printing machine to print pictures at any size besides 4x6. One of the CVSes near my work had one, so I set my order to be sent there, and it went through happily. The confirmation email said the pictures would be ready at 11am, and I'd get an email when they were done. Super! I'd pick them up after work! Then drop them off at church! Easy peasy!

Well, the confirmation email never came- I figured that the kid running the photo center forgot to hit a button or something, and I went to pick them up after work. Photo printing FAIL #1 for the day: This particular store's machine was down. Could they send the order to another store? No. Could the cancel the order? No. The nice old lady assured me I wouldn't have to pay for it even if it did print out the next day, but I'd have to go online and submit my order to another store. Did she know any other stores in the area with this special 5x7 printing machine? No.

I hurried home and found another CVS (one of the three stores within 2 miles of my house) that had a machine that could print the order. Order sent. Minutes later, I get a confirmation email that the photos are printed & ready to be picked up.  I thought about having Josh pick it up (he was already on his way home) but, seriously, I could get there in less than 5 minutes. The round trip would be 15 minutes, tops, if there's a line at the store. I'd be home before he would. I even managed to have dinner ready for us, waiting for when we both got there.

Complication #2: A friend was dropping off her son for me to babysit at 6:30. At this point it was about 5:30.

I drive there, and pick up my pictures (still sitting on the machine). The girl looks at the order and says "Hmm. The 5x7s didn't print for some reason." rings me up, and then goes over to finish the printing of the last 4 pictures. Photo FAIL #2. 

The machine was jammed. She had to change out this big paper cartridge. A manager had to come help. Tried again. Jammed again. Can't get this paper cartridge out of the machine. I offered to just get the last 4 as as 4x6s. Is about to start the 4x6 printing when she figures out how to unlock the cartridge. Swaps them out. Tries again. Still jammed. Finally prints 4x6s. Because they were cropped to 5x7 proportions, there are white bars on the sides of the pictures. By this time, it's 6:25. I call Josh as I'm leaving the CVS, and he tells me our friends just pulled into the driveway. Glad that I'm close. I speed home.

All is well, except for the fact all my pictures are the same size, and the evening was way more hectic than it should have been. The print quality was actually pretty good. And the pictures were free. CVS is lucky I didn't have a coupon shopping trip planned, or I would have cleaned them out of more free stuff during my almost-hour visit! (I only got free shave cream, nothing else. That one was obvious.)

After we all eat dinner and Casey is calmed down, Josh is super-helpful and delivers the pictures to church by the deadline I was given. More on what they'll be used for tomorrow.

Springtime!

Springtime is my favorite season! The new life emerging from seemingly dead ground just exudes Hope and Life, and that makes me happy. Along with flowers emerging, people emerge from their warm houses into the newfound sunshine. Lately, it seems they've all been emerging to OUR house, as we had a total of 23 different people over to our house in the last week.

Signs of Spring

A garden, ready for planting


Flowers!




The little daffodil is so tiny- looks like it's on Apidexin or something!

Friends!



* I'm partially writing this post to remind myself that Spring IS here, even though I drove to work in the snow today.

Spice Rack Winner!

Thanks for all the entries, everyone!

The winner is...

cheapsk8mom!

This giveaway was fun- I hope to come up with another one soon!

New hobby?

Yeah, that's what I need: a new hobby.

I doubt this activity will become a "hobby" though. It will probably stay squarely in the "Just a Thing I Do" category and won't escalate to "Hobby".

What is this activity, you wonder?

Brace yourself. I joined a gym.

I know. My sister, the Workout Queen, was shocked.

I always swore to myself I wouldn't join a gym, ever. There are so many fun, free ways to exercise without paying a monthly fee- if I need to exercise, I should do one of those, right? Well, to be honest, I don't. I clean the house and chase the dog and even do yardwork, but none of those things really gets my heart rate up for 30 minutes 3 times a week or whatever the recommendation is.

I don't feel unhealthy, but I know I could be healthier. I don't think I'm at an unhealthy weight, but I know I could stand to lose a few pounds to be "ideal". I could be stronger. Basically, I haven't totally neglected my body, but I definitely haven't been proactive about my health.

Josh was really the driving force behind wanting to join- when the opportunity (in the form of my company offering to pay most of the cost to a gym very close to work) presented itself, he wanted to jump on it. I'm glad we did. I know it will be good for us. Exercising regularly will make us healthier. During the summer, our Backyard Garden Diet supplements our normal fare and means more fresh veggies on our plates. Good eating and good exercising will result in healthier people, and that is something I can get excited about.

We'll see how this goes.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Last night, while babysitting a friend's two kids at our house, the 3-year-old spotted a Nalgene bottle on our counter.

"We have a water bottle like that at our house!" she said.

"Do you?" I replied, "We have two. A red one and a purple one." I grabbed both to show her.

"Oh! Is the purple one for you, and the red one for... [realizes she doesn't know Josh's name]... your daddy?"

"Um... [Not sure what the right answer is here, had to decide whether to explain the difference between 'husband' and 'daddy']... Yes!"

To a three year old in a loving, two-parent home, "Daddy" = "Male head-of-household," regardless of the presence of children. It made me smile.