Tips for a long flight

 1. Wear comfy clothes and dress in layers. Nothing should be tight or easily wrinkled. Ideally, wear dark colors and/or prints to avoid showing soil or spills.

 2. Take pics of everything, even the Tarmac. It occupies you while you wait, and you'll be glad of the memories captured.

3. Don't miss meals. I grabbed lunch at Nashville's airport; it's a good thing I did since I had to race to make my connection in Philadelphia.

4. Along the same lines, pack some snacks. By the time dinner was served on my transatlantic flight, I started getting a migraine. Some trail mix or crackers would've helped me prevent that.

 5.  Look oust the window and enjoy the view.Take picture s of your veiw whenever possible.

 6. Take advantage of technology on the plane to keep you busy. I watched The Kingsmen and listened to music on the plane's device; I read part of a book and listened to my own music on my iPad.

 7. Avoid using the airplane's pillow or blanket; everything I've read suggests they aren't very clean. Instead, pack your own neck pillow and wrap. This time around, I brought my pareo to use as a cover, but any large scarf will do. As a plus, I'll use it to sit on in the grass here in Paris.

 8. Go withe the vegetarian option for your airplane meal, even if you aren't a vegetarian. I've seen some strange looking chicken and fish served on flights, but I always stick with the pasta. It's not bad, I promise. I also recommend eating all of your dinner if you can. If not, save the extras in your bag

 9. The next morning, take a few minutes to brush your teeth, freshen up with baby wipes, and reapply your makeup. You'll feel much better when you land at your destination if you don't feel like a dirty mess.

10. If you're suffering from jet lag, allow yourself a bit of a rest when you get to your hotel. I only slept about 3 hours on the plane, and that's not nearly enough for me to function. Once I arrived at my apartment, I set my alarm for another 3 hours and lay down to rest. I fell asleep almost immediately and awoke feeling refreshed. I then got up and headed out for sightseeing. After dinner, I was tired enough to go on to bed at the the regular local time. My nap allowed me to enjoy my first day rather than fight extreme fatigue.

Top 10 People Photos from Isla Mujeres

Today, I thought I'd share my top 10 people photos from our recent trip to Isla Mujeres - and yes, they are mainly of Vonda and me. :)

10 things I learned from my recent trip to Mexico

I came back from Mexico on Saturday night and subsequently fell quite ill. After a trip to the dr on Monday afternoon, I came away with a diagnosis of a gastrointestinal infection + a sinus nfection - double whammy. Of course, that can happen to anyone while traveling, not just going to Mexico. I think I might have either been exposed on the airplane or by a dirty shot glass of tequila I drank from in a tshirt shop. (Don't ask - it's pretty normal down there.) Either way, I've been pretty sick and miserable for the last 72 hours. At this point, I'm hopeful that I'm on the mend and will continue to heal with the antibiotics that my doctor gave me.

I think I'm finally ready to share with you my top ten list for things I learned/noticed on this trip to Mexico.

1.  Everyone expects to be tipped. For everything. And you feel guilty if you don't tip them. It's just their culture. Even workers in a shop expect a tip for their services in helping you find a tshirt.
2. I'm not very good at converting money in my head. Since the dollar was relatively strong, we exchanged at 14.15 pesos to 1 dollar. Just try figuring that out in your head on the fly as you're looking at jewelry or pareos on the beach. I needed my calculator on my phone, and even then, I think I paid too much for some items I bought. Oh well...
3. The waters off of Isla Mujeres are the most beautiful shade of electric blue turquoise I've ever seen. The stripes of those waters against the darker blue waters closer to Cancun are likewise gorgeous.
4. While the weather was relatively mild with highs of 84 and lows of 72, I was awfully hot a lot of the time. I don't think I'm cut out to spend any significant amount of time in a tropical location. This hothouse flower is just too delicate.
5. Mexico still feels like a third world country to me. The people of the island have a very different standard of living to what I am accustomed. Their homes are often crumbling around them, many homes don't have proper doors or windows, trash collects in the alleyways and along the corners of streets, etc. I don't think I'd be happy living in a place like that even though the natural beauty is amazing.
6. Most people we encountered in Isla were not native islanders but had come from other parts of Mexico to find work in this tourist rich area. This creates a unique blend of people who all live together on the island or in nearby Cancun.
7. The second thing every man between the ages of 15-65 said to me was always, "Are you single?" If I said no, he would ask, "Are you married?" When I said no, he'd smilingly reply, "Then you're single." Seriously, shopkeepers, waiters, taxi drivers, etc. - they all said a greeting and then followed up with that line of questioning. I have to admire their unabashed directness even if I didn't take anyone up on his offer of companionship. :)
8. My tall, blonde bestie that I traveled with garnered much more male attention than I did. (see #7) If you're looking for some companionship in Mexico, there's less interest in short, curvy, dark-haired women like me since I look much more like the native women there. Light-skinned, light-haired, light-eyed, tall women are considred pretty exotic there. (Just offering y'all some tips and insight...)
9. There are lots of dogs in Isla that roam free throughout the day. If you aren't a dog person, this might really bother you. Most of them have collars/tags and homes to return to in the evening, but some are sort of cared for by the restaurants and workers as they roam. I didn't encounter any who were unfriendly, and, yes, there were lots of chihuahuas.
10. The food I had was excellent. I encourage you to try some of the street food wherever you visit. It's inexpensive and generally very tasty. I had empanadas and marquesitas and tacos and pork sandwiches on the street; it was all fabulous. If you'd rather go to a sit down place, again try to find where the locals eat. We ate several times at luncherias that served excellent breakfasts and lunches but were closed by dinnertime. Even the big restaurants we visited served excellent food, but we didn't eat at any chain restaurants and ate lots of seafood.

That's it for now - stay tuned throughout the week for pics and stories from my time in Isla Mujeres. Next week, I'll be back to sharing some scrapbooking stuff and working on planning my upcoming trip to Paris.

Adios, chicas!

My 10 Fave Instagram Pics from 2015

On the last day of March, I thought it might be fun to look back at my top 10 fave pics that I posted on Instagram in the first three months of 2015.  Most of these are the IG version, so please excuse any graininess. A couple are the unaltered files that are rectangular instead of square. If you already follow me on IG, these will look familiar. If not, feel free to follow me @lowdertiff. (Yes, I follow back.)  It's a pretty good mix of people and places and things, I think. I'm trying to do better about not only posting selfies. Hahaha!

Merry end of March, people. I think spring is finally upon us.

10 Fun DayTrip/Activity Ideas

This time of year can be super depressing - the skies are gray and overcast, the temps are frigid or at least uncomfortably chilly, and the precipitation can run the gamut in a single day from fog to a cold rain to fat snowflakes falling from the sky. In light of that fact, I thought it might be fun to share with you 10 fun day trip ideas that I'm considering taking at some point this year. True, these specific examples will be applicable to my little corner of the world, but I'm hopeful it might spark some ideas for you to check out in your own hometown.

1.  Attend a sporting event or play - I often attend school sporting events since I work there, but going to a minor league team game or a university game could be lots of fun too. If you're not the sporting type, I'd go to a play that a community group was performing in your area.

2.  Visit a winery - Sumner Crest Winery near me would be a great option.

3.  Explore natural wonders - locally, I think I might like to visit Lost River Cave this spring; it's been years since I was there last.

4. Listen to live music - concerts in the park in the spring and summer are my absolute fave.

5. Take a train trip - I'd recommend the Tennessee Railway experience that we tried on Valentine's Day.

6. Visit a historical or culturally significant site  - I'd like to go see part or all of the Bourbon Trail in my state.

7. Attend a lecture or other cultural event - our local university offers free events like the lecture by Melissa Harris-Perry and the performance by Mummenschanz this past month.

8. Learn a new skill or take a class - wine and paint events are lots of fun, and I'd also love to do a community education class like swing dancing.

9. Join a hobby group - I think it'd be awesome to join a book group or form a writing group or even meet up with other photography enthusiasts for shooting field trips. (Idk that I'd recommend Barnes and Noble, per se, but that was the only image I could think of for this idea. I'd love to find a private local book group but haven't had any luck so far.)

10. Visit a local museum - for example, I could check out the National Corvette Museum (I've never been) or the Kentucky Museum (I haven't been in years).

Tiff's Tuesday Trivia

A variation of the currently list that's so popular in blogging these days, I bring you "Tiff's Tuesday Trivia" today. How's that for some alliterative flair?

1. My laundry room is still clean. It's been clean for a week now which brings me great joy. Oh, and I don't have a large pileup of laundry to address. Except for what I'm wearing, I'm all caught up on the washing and drying.

2. My contacts are still giving me fits. I'm ready to give up and just wear my glasses, but my vanity gets in the way. (I feel old and teachery in my glasses, not that my contacts actually solve either of those issues...)I'm trying yet another cleaning solution to address the fogginess I'm battling, but I'm beginning to get very frustrated with the situation.

3. I finished a book last week - Prince Lestat-  and have started a new one today - Paris to the Moon. It goes along with my plan to read a series of books about Paris before my big trip next summer.

4. Just the other night, I remarked that I'm not a very good cook anymore. This might have occurred after I threw out an entire pot of hamburger soup that wasn't fit for my dogs to eat. What happened? Did I let my cooking muscle atrophy or something? I do get some good results occasionally, but it's very inconsistent. I'm not sure I'd want to host a dinner party anytime soon or anything.

5. This is the time of year when I dream of taking mental health days off work and spending the day lounging in my pajamas. I'm not sure how this is much different from my preferred way of hanging around the house on the weekend, but I digress. Alas, I'm trying to save my sick days for retirement, so that's really just dreaming. What's a girl need to do to get a snow day sometime in February, huh? (This is ironic since I was just off work yesterday for a holiday, but work with me on this.)

6. Windows 8 on my laptop is my nemesis. It takes great willpower for me not to hurl my laptop against a brick wall. Whatever happened to the good old days of windows 7 or XP or even Vista? Aaarrrggghhh!

7. QuizUp, TriviaCrack, and Words with Friends = multiple opportunities on a daily basis to prevent my self-confidence from rising to dramatically positive levels. Nothing keeps you humble like getting your ass pounded regularly in nerdy, online games.

8. Dark chocolate almonds (Delish brand) from Walgreen's are my fave snack right now. Do not ask me to share. Nothing gets between a 40 something woman and her chocolate.

9.  Ever get sick of your clothes? I look in my closets and see plenty of options, but I end up wearing the same thing all the time because I'm lazy, or something is tight, or something is ripped/faded, or something requires pantyhose, or something needs shapewear, or something makes me feel too old/young, or blah, blah, blah. If I'm going to keep this mountain of clothes I own, I really need to try to wear more of a variety. Maybe my prob is that I think my style for fall/winter is less developed than it is for spring/summer. In the spring/summer, I live in print dresses and sandals. In the winter, things are a little more complicated. Must think about this and address the issue...

10. Recommended viewing/listening based on my choices from the past week or so - Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Star Trek (the first new one), and the Ed Sheeran channel on Pandora.

That's what's going on with me right now - any personal trivia you care to share?

The 'ing List

The currently list for December 2014...

Listening to Uptown Funk, Don't, I'm Not the Only One, and Lips Are Movin'. Yes, I'm unashamedly a fan of pop music, so judge me if you will.

Reserving hotel and flights for my trip to Paris next summer. I just finalized the apartment I'm renting through Airbnb. If you're interested in using their service to either rent lodging for yourself or to list your lodging, please consider using me as a referral www.airbnb.com/c/tlowder1?s=8. (They have an incentive program for people who use their service.) I'm still working on flight arrangements and trying to decide if I'll stay for a month or six weeks.

Here's a pic of the sweet little studio I have reserved. It's a ground floor studio space with private bathroom and kitchen in a bustling neighborhood in Paris; I don't think it will be very touristy, so it should give me a rather authentic experience. I'm super excited about it, especially since there's room enough for some of my friends to come visit and stay with me if they'd like.

Shopping for just a handful of gifts to finish up my Christmas list. I need two "nice" Santa gifts (as opposed to dirty Santa), some goodies for the pups, and one more thing for the fella. I'm feeling pretty good about having it 90% finished. I should finish those things this weekend and be able to avoid the mall the week of Christmas.

Planning to wrap presents when I get home from work today. I dread it, but it must be done.

Figuring out an insurance nightmare involving the payroll department at my job and my fsa from 2013. I despise working with insurance companies; have I mentioned that?

Watching The Borgias right now. I'm on season 3 and am already dreading the end of the series. It's very well-done. so I'd recommend it as long as a bit of violence, sex, and language don't bother you terribly.  Even as a Catholic, I find the fictionalized tale of this infamous pope to be fantastic.

Thanking my lucky stars that I have two and a half weeks of no work coming up - time to recharge and renew and relax. Maybe I'll even get crafty. :)

Wearing lots of dresses and boots. Y'all prob already know that I prefer to wear dresses, and that's true even in the wintertime. Wearing boots with them means I don't usually have to bother with tights. (shudder!) Here are some dresses I love for your perusal...

I have several wrap dresses and absolutely love them. They're a great option for girls who tend to be curvy like me. The print on this one is fabulous.

Sheath dresses are a perennial favorite of mine too. I like this one with the unexpected color scarf. I have several print sheath dresses (wearing one now in fact), so I need to experiment with some different scarves to layer with them.

 How cute is this combination! I love the simple sheath dress with the oxford layered underneath and the statement necklace on top. I have these things, so I need to experiment with this too. Wouldn't something like this be perfect for early spring?

Cleaning out my little guest room that is currently filled with Christmas gifts and my large guest room that is currently filled with tons of clothes and shoes and stuff I generally don't know where else to put. With any luck, the little guest room will be finis tonight, so I'll only have the large guest room to work on over Christmas break. (And no, I won't be sharing pics of my mess with you...)

Trying to motivate myself to eat better and get some exercise. I've been a slug for much too long. I'm not going to deny myself here at the holidays, but I could get off my a** and move the old bod a little bit.

What are the -ing statuses of your life? Bye chickies!

Top 10 Tuesday - What I'm reading right now

You might be surprised to learn that I do have several things on my reading list right now. With the craziness of my life lately, I haven't been able to read as much as I'd like, but I keep plugging away as best I can.

Books

1. Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon (I've read all of the Outlander series and am excited about this latest entry. The prob is it's been so long since I read the last one and at least a decade since I read the first one. I'm thinking I might enjoy it more if I went back and reread the series, but, dang, that would def take a while.)

2. The Urban Sketcher by Marc Taro Holmes (I ordered this on a whim from Amazon and am beyond hopeful that it will teach me how to actually do this thing I want to do next summer in Paris.)

3. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (One of my colleagues recommended this book to me, so I immediately rushed to download it via my Nook app. I've barely read any, still on chapter 1 I think, but I have high hopes for it. My colleague told me that it changed the way he saw reading forever.)

4. Complete Drawing and Sketching Course by Stan Smith (Ditto for the urban sketching book, I checked out this book from the library to hopefully help me be an artiste...or something.)

Magazines

5.  National Geographic issues from this year. I bought the fella a subscription for Valentine's Day (I know I'm so romantically nerdy), and he's been passing them on to me when he's finished. Double win, right? I think this magazine is fascinating, but I've only managed to finish a couple of issues so far; they're stacking up on my living room table as we speak.

6. Artful Blogging. I'm obsessed with this magazine and devour it when I splurge and buy it. Plus, it inspires me to do a better job on my blog. I'm trying to find my voice and my niche, people, I'm trying.

7. Southern Living. It's a perennial favorite of mine, and I continue to renew a print subscription because the magazine is so lovely.

Blogs

8. Young Adventuress -- this girl has an amazing travel blog; I highly recommend it even if you're a homebody. You could live vicariously through all of her travels. I've just recently discovered her and am enjoying the blog immensely.

9. David Lebovitz - a place for all things yummy and French. I'm a new fan, but he's fabulous!

Other

10.  I'm kind of obsessed with the app, DuoLingo, right now, I'm using it to brush up on my French in preparation for my big trip next year. Even after two years of it in high school and two semesters in college, I'm finding this app challenging. Idk how useful it will be overall, but it's fun so far because it combines reading and listening and translating from French to English and from English to French as well as spoken translations. I'm really great at saying 'The elephants are eating black and red apples" for example. Lol!

Those are the things I'm reading these days; what's on your reading list? I'm hopeful that the upcoming time off work will allow me to do even more reading and writing and crafting...well, you get the picture. Peace out!

Top 10 Tuesday - Project in process - Hand painted Christmas ornaments

 At Christmas Village a few weeks ago, I fell in love with these hand-painted ornaments. Everywhere I looked, I kept seeing cuter and cuter versions of them. I could have bought some, certainly, but I kept thinking that I could make some of them myself.

Here are 10 Christmas ornaments that I think would be adorable to make in this way: Santa, snowman, gingerbread man, elf face, stocking, angel, present, Christmas tree, ornament, and reindeer.

I also think you could personalize your ornaments to your family. The 10 personalized ornaments that would work for our family include: ballerina tutu, football, doxies (wiener dogs), schnoodle dogs (schnauzer/poodle mix), boxers, bully dogs (American bulldogs and boxer mixes), owls (because I love them), cameras, map places I've traveled, and Big Red (WKU mascot).

There are several other things that I can think of for friend ornaments; here are a quick 10 off the top of my head: chihuahuas, German shepherds, Maltese, Wildcat (UK mascot), sunflowers, skateboards, bicycles, gamer shapes, cats, house shapes.

You can see some of these patterns in the pictures below, but many of those are just my own ideas.

 The shapes seemed quite simple, and the decorations on each were simplistic too. I thought they were made out of burlap initially, but I now think it was more of a duck cloth or twill.

This Santa is really my favorite of all the ornaments I photographed. Notice the hand painting and the decorative stitching. I just kept thinking, "I can do this."

How cute would that ballerina tutu be for me to make my daughter, for example? (She teaches dance at a local studio.)

Look how sweet the school buses and baby faces were!

I really like the elves and football too. 

The question became: how do I make patterns for myself to use if I'm going to try to make these ornaments? The answer was simple really. I googled images of holiday items and various breeds of dogs that my friends/family have and printed them. Once I'd done that, I laminated each and cut them out as accurately as I could. (I had some former students hanging around my classroom just before Thanksgiving who had nothing to do, and put them to work on my project too. Free labor is the best - lol!) Of course, I could have cut these out of vinyl on my Silhouette Cameo (if I knew how). That would have been quicker and easier, but I also think it would have been more expensive in the long run.  

Side note: wouldn't a hand painted monogram be fabulous? I guess I would need to use my Silhouette for that one for sure.

 My apologies for the schmutz on my table; I thought I'd cleaned it well before taking these pics. Oops!

Some of the patterns are really too large to use as ornaments, but I thought I might use them to make pillow or clothing appliques. Laminating the patterns meant that they were easier to work with and I don't have to worry about getting paint or marker on them.

 Here are several holiday shapes that I've already cut out using my patterns. Some of them are single ply and some are double ply. For the single ply ones, I can always cut out a back for them after I'm finished painting them. For the double ply items, it'll be easy to glue or stitch them together and then stuff them with cotton batting. (The schmutz in these pictures is from the duck cloth - I promise my table is cleaner than that. Hahaha!)

 I decided to set up in my dining room because the light was better there on Sunday afternoon and because my desk in my 'studio' is beyond cluttered. Why clean it when I can just set up elsewhere? Lol. My super organized friends are cringing at this as they read.

 I put the first coat of paint on my Christmas tree and reindeer. Note that I painted both sides of the ornament, but idk if that was really necessary or not. I'm not happy with the way they curled up on the edges.

 I also put a coat of paint on a ballet tutu while I was at it.

The curling edges were driving me nuts, so I used several bottles of paint as weights to hold down the edges. We'll see how that works. I plan to work on these again later this week, so I'll update you when I can.

Finally, I also bought a package of adorable vintage Santas in hot iron transfer form in the embroidery department. I think I'll use these as painting guides on some natural muslin I bought and them turn them into pillows or wall hangings. Won't that be a cute idea? Again, I think these are too big to use as ornaments and too intricate for me to try to stitch before Christmas, but the transfer patterns will make great painting lines for me.

There you have one of my Christmas crafting ideas in progress, or at least at the beginning stages of progress. I'll check back in later with what I'm able to actually accomplish. Fingers crossed that I don't jack it up terribly!