Sunflowers

For the past couple years, I have walked around my neighborhood up and down the alleys and saw the most beautiful sunflowers in other people's backyards. And I said to myself, "I'm going to have sunflowers this summer, too."

In May, I cleared out a strip of land between our fence and driveway. It's a 16-inch wide strip that was overgrown with grass. I dug out all the grass and created a flower bed that was a couple inches lower than the surface of the driveway. I planted a row of sunflowers there. I chose a variety of sunflower seeds. Some are the small brownish red ones that have multiple flowers on each stalk. And I planted some giant ones that grow to over 8 feet tall.

The first flowers have started to bloom now:

Boxes

This is kind of fun. I buy blank boxes from the hobby store and paint them.



I store drawing pens, mechanical pencils and erasers in this box:






I altered the inside of this box to make a little tool box. I glued some leather strips to the inside of the top to store a set of tiny pliers, cutters and rulers. I put in dividers on the inside to store exacto knives, little saws, hammer, exacto blades, etc.





In these boxes, I keep a construction set that I bought at a garage sale:





And in these boxes, I keep my silver and gold collection:

What Kind of Gear Do You Carry?

I came across this site: http://diyplanner.com and I was very intrigued by it. It's all about planning and organizing, but it's so much more. It's about making time for the things that are important to you. It's about making the things that you want to do as important as the things you have to do.

I procrastinate a lot less nowadays...I've learned the hard way that procrastination often leads to trouble. And so I don't have a lot of trouble getting done those things that have to get done. But I tend to waste a lot of my free time because I have too many things I want to do. And lots of nagging ideas that never really get fully developed.

This site is full of very creative people who share their ideas on how they go about planning and organizing their activities. There are lots of templates you can download and print out to keep track of things.

Here is the gear I have created, mainly to record the things I want to do or make, to keep a list of ideas that I would like to work on. With them all down on paper, I can choose a project and work on it, then decide what to work on next:





I also made a few little notebooks to carry around to doodle in and jot down ideas:




Don't get me wrong. I like having unstructured free time. But I would also like to spend a little more physical and mental energy on projects that I want to do.

Really Good Show

I just watched the best show on TV. I forget what channel it was on. It was called...um...darn it, I forget what it was called, but it had that lady, you know that lady who's that guy's wife. It was a really good show. If you get a chance, you should watch it.

Kindle

Sue still likes her Kindle and she uses it every day. I can't even keep track of all the books she has read since she got it.
A couple months ago she bought one for me.




I bought this cool New Yorker cover for it:



These are the books I've read since I got it:

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller

Reading now Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.


The classics are free and download in just a few seconds, so I plan to read all those books that I've always been wanting to read. Newer books cost about $9.99 and the selection is huge!

I'll never be without a book to read now!

Thank you, Sue!

City Park Denver, Colorado

I took Mac for a walk around the lake today.

Chess Anyone?

Dennis, I promised these pictures a month ago. Here they finally are: