I look in the mirror and remember my grandma at 70. Nope. My mom? Maybe . . . not. And I certainly don’t feel 70. The only giveaway to me is how quickly I tire, but I truly believe that has more to do with being out of shape than being 70. I’m working on that, so we’ll see. I don’t really expect to get all my old strength back, but I’m pretty sure, as I get back to more walking, I can get my endurance back.

Sunday, my sister had dinner for me. My brother and sister-in-law joined us. Yesterday (Monday) said sister woke me up to sing Happy Birthday. Iqbal had roses and a very beautiful card with a gift IOU (which is what I wanted) waiting for me on the table. And hour later my son called to wish me happy birthday and we yakked about two hours . . . during which time my phone beeped, but I didn’t have my glasses on and couldn’t see what to push to answer, so Alex and I just kept talking. After we hung up I checked to see who called and got sung Happy Birthday to by my East Coast brother and sister-in-law. I even got a birthday text from one of my nephews, and though I haven’t stopped to read anything yet, I see I also got several HBs on Facebook. I definitely feel loved.

Monday at approximately 10 p.m. EDT I began my 71st trek around the sun. Hmm, that turn of phrase makes it sound like an exciting adventure. I like that! My weird ADD brain is now picturing a starship getting ready to sling itself around the sun for time travel, à la Star Trek.

Grrr… I have so many images, like the bar above, that are already on my website, in an organized manner, and WP won’t let me use them unless I upload them to the wp folder, where they lose all organization, because they are listed all together in upload date order instead of by topic or anything else I would find helpful. I currently have 1030 media items in the wp folder. Just going through that many trying to find an image too small to see clearly in the thumbnails is a pain.

The fact is that Word Press isn’t letting me integrate the blog and website at all. If I want any connections to the older part of my website available through the blog, I need to redo those pages on WP, which would mean I couldn’t do them my way. It would be understandable if I were on the Word Press website, but I’m on my own site! It would be nice to be able to turn off the “safeguards” that are only necessary if the website owner wants to limit other users. I don’t have other users! I’m also not a business which is what they seem to be catering to..

When I feel like putting the time and effort into it, I’ll research what’s available. Too many other things I need and want to do now. I may have to break down and learn css and php and whatever else b2Evolution needs. I liked them when I knew what I was doing.

At out last craft’n’chat, my sister taught us how to crochet. I already knew the basic chain. She’d also showed me double and triple stitches before, but it didn’t sink in. This time I got it. Mostly I’ve been simply practicing and then undoing. If I don’t get to it before, I’m going to start making flowers and/or granny squares this Friday at out next meeting.

There is an article in Art Quilting Studio where I saw a picture in which the artist used knitting to create a stone wall of a house. It was a fantastic quilt (or maybe it was pictures of several quilts. I have yet to read the magazine).

That’s what I really want to do–mix everything up. All kinds of needlecraft and all sorts of materials. I can picture machine embroidered designs, hand embroidery, with all kinds of fabrics and embellishments (soft and hard), as definitely dimensional art quilts.

One of my goals for the summer is to take a few walking tours around this overgrown small town of a city and take lots of pictures–obvious landscapes, touristy photos and all kinds of close ups. I spent an afternoon doing that in my son’s neighborhood when he lived in Portland and got some interesting pictures, a couple of which I used for embroidery projects. (Hmmm, I should look for those photos and see what else I can use.)