AMANDA'S BASKETS: HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW & JOURNAL PAGE UPDATE

Monday, January 18, 2016

HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW & JOURNAL PAGE UPDATE

It's Monday evening, the end of a three day holiday. I hope that you had a great weekend. I counting down...three (well, four if you count the Pro Bowl.) games left. Sighhhhhhh.

We have snow!!!! Not a lot, and lots of it has melted already...but we got snow!!!

I did make it to the Holiday Train Show at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. It really was larger with more trains (G scale). One of the reasons I enjoy the show are all the historical New York City buildings made out of natural items. I think I took around 200 photos but don't worry, I won't share all of them with you.

The show runs a little past the middle of January. Before Christmas it is crowded, especially when the schools are closed. If you want to have time to enjoy it, either go very early on the weekend days or on a weekday when the students are back in school. Also, purchase your tickets with scheduled time before you go. I went early Saturday morning and there were very few folks there. But by the time I went through the train show and the rest of the conservatory, the place was packed.

So here's some of the Holiday Train Show...

I bet you recognized some of those buildings.

Last Friday I left you with this photo of my journal page for the week...

Well, I felt it wasn't really done...if journal pages are ever done!!,,,so I played around with it. This is what it looks like now...

A lot different but you can still see some of the first photo.

So there's a new weekly journal prompt posted...what adventures are you on now? I think this one will be fun to work with...

Tomorrow, we'll tackle the wall...the wall?...yep. Come back tomorrow and check out which wall I'm talking about.

That's for visiting...
Talk to you tomorrow...

CRAFTING IDEAS

I am always looking for a small piece of paper to write down something which will later be disposed of. I decided to use some of the scrap paper of which I have a ton. I mostly use the paper for glueing projects. I decided to cut the paper into a small size. (Six pieces from a piece of copy paper.). But just having them sitting on my desk would get messy without a container. So, using a cardboard box, I cut it down to size and using a hot glue gun I glued the ends together. Using a picture from a magazine cut into pieces and stick craft glue, I glued the pieces to the box inside and out. I also used some decorative tape for the outside edges. And to finish the top corners which were not covered, I used straight pins with colorful tops. Looks nice and works well.

MAGAZINE IDEAS

(New) One article in the Farmer's Almanac 2024 is a list of trends. One I knew about is the trend to downsize in just about every area. Another trend that I was surprised about was called ''The Human Library' which offers people on loan to talk about specific subjects. Finally, more folks are adding pets to their family and as a result, stores are adding more pet food, toys and medication to their offerings. There's also a nice garden article which suggests mixing vegetables and flowers together for success.

RECIPE IDEAS

Have you every made Cherry Dump Cake. It calls for 2 cans of Cherry Pie Filling (21 ounces), a white cake mix, 1/4 -1/2 cup butter, melted & 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans. In a 9 by 13 pan, spread both cans of cherry pie filling. Add the melted butter to the cake mix and break apart the resulting mixture and crumble it evenly over the pie filling. Sprinkle the pecans evenly over the mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 - 45 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Fast, easy and very delicious.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

What if you want to establish better habits, then decide what habit you want to work on. Again, try an easier one first for that good feeling of success. Let's consider more exercise. Start small. Don't try to run a marathon right away. Set the amount of time, the type of exercise and when to do it to begin making sure that it is within your reach. If it works for you each week add a bit more. Walking is one of the best ways to get good overall movement but there are many exercise videos on YouTube of varying lengths and difficulty to check out. Change your exercise routines to eliminate getting bored. For hardcore exercise with weights, give yourself a day in-between to recover. Even on days you would rather not exercise, do it and see if you feel better. It takes an average of 66 days to establish a habit. Just think 66 days to establish a good habit for a lifetime. Sounds like a good thing to me...how about you?