Yay! I've hit a YouTube Milestone!

YouTube Update!

8-21-2023 - 156 subbies and 100 videos. YouTube said my first 100 videos are experiments in filming. 

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Things are happening at YouTube. Software is being updated with a new look, buttons are being moved around and everyone will have an unique handle. At this point, I have 114 subscribers now and a Community tab. I was hoping to get the Discussion tab back because I was hoping to have my own forum there. As many of you know, I've been a moderator at a homeschool forum at a defunct website called Old Fashioned Living, and have participated in two other forums at Club Posh and Splitcoast Stampers. I posted a photo on my Community Tab - check it out! 

My original YouTube URL will still work - https://youtube.com/c/DoloresJRush

but my new one will reflect the changes happening at YouTube = https://youtube.com/@DoloresJRush

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Originally posted on: Friday, July 8, 2022

Rejoice with me! I made an YouTube milestone! I have 100 subscribers! Never thought other people than my friends would enjoy watching my content. Boy was I surprised when I received an email from YouTube last week stating I had reached the 100 subscriber mark. 

I really enjoy the video view counts and the comments because I would love to build a little community there, you know like an old-fashioned internet forum! I know how the subscribe button works. It has a little notification bell that works three ways -- 

When you click on the Subscribe bell, the little black bell level will notify you of all the videos I upload. The white bell means that you get notified once in a while when I upload a video and the slash bell can be used just to bookmark my site, but you won't get notified when I upload a new video. I used to be a moderator of the Parlor forum at the defunct website Old Fashioned Living and have been a member of two other forums at Splitcoast Stampers and Club Posh and now I have my own blogs. I miss that forum discussion part at YouTube. My video is like the beginning of a forum thread and the comments below are the discussion part of a thread. While I like praise, I also like chatting with friends. The internet has been great for making new friends, people I probably would never have met in my physical world. 

Let's party! YouTube Celebration video! Join the subbies rejoicing with me below in the comments! Woo Hoo! Thank you for subscribing to my channel! 

My youngest sister-in-law picked up this plaque at the Crackerbarrel restaurant gift shop last week to show me and we both laughed. 

Then I took a photo and sent it to a friend from my homeschooling days. I told this friend a few days before SIL found the plaque above that I sometimes feel like a square peg in a round hole and she told me that we can be Square Sisters together. smile! So, if you don't mind a kooky friend, come on over and subscribe on the black bell if you have a mind to and jump right in and make a comment. That would make my day special!

Am I a Gudrun Girl? Yes and No!

Yes, I'm a Gudrun Girl as far as her fashion line goes! 

When I was diagnosed with drop foot several years ago and a leg brace was added to my wearing apparel, I discovered Gudrun Sjoden's clothing line on Pinterest. Just what I was looking for. Leggings plus fashionable, comfortable wearing apparel. I loved her bright clothing in the patterns I like most - calico type florals,  checks, dots, and stripes. 

No, because her clothing does not come in my size. 

So, I emulate her fashion as far as I am able. I do like black and white the most and so far, that's about all I've been able to find, clothing wise in my size that I can afford. I shop for my clothing at  1/2 of 1/2, thrift stores (have a couple of favorite spots), Walmart, and if on clearance or sale, online at Full Beauty Brands. Occasionally, friends will give me a bag of clothing if they know my size or accessories they think looks like me. 😁

Two other pluses that I had never thought of before until I discovered her clothing line was that you can wear a short sleeve dress all year long and then layer it during the winter. First time I was actually warm enough during the winter in my drafty old farmhouse cottage. Second is that you can wear different patterns together at one wearing, if you keep the clothing and accessories in all the same basic colors. 

The layering during the winter can be not only sweaters, but also long sleeve t-shirts over or under a dress. Long sleeve t-shirts can make a dress appear to be a skirt under the shirt or if you wear it under the dress, the dress looks like a jumper. Also what we used to call culottes,  can be worn over a pair of leggings and under a short tunic dress for another layer. You can wear decorative infinity scarves in the winter to keep your neck warm and necklaces in the summer to keep your neck cool.

What we call a sleeve-less tank-top summer dress can also be worn summer or winter. I don't like my batwings (extra skin under my upper arms) to show, so wearing sleeve-less dresses are out during the summer, however, I learned that I can wear a short sleeve top over it during the summer to make it appear as if I'm wearing a skirt and a long sleeve t-shirt under it during the winter as a jumper. 

I wear compression stockings and an orthopedic built-up shoe now instead the brace, although the built-up shoe is as stiff as the brace was. The compression socks I can buy come in two colors - black and beige. I do not like brown, so black it is! And the orthopedic shoes comes in -- guess what colors? You've got it, black and beige! 

So when I began to build my wardrobe, I chose seven (7) colors that go well with black - black and white, black and grey, black and red, pink, turquoise and lime green. I also chose 4 of my favorite patterns that I mentioned above. However, after shopping for several years pink, turquoise and lime green were hard to come by, so I've changed my colors again. I've kept the black and white, but also added red, white, and blue. Teal was the easiest blue-green color available, but it's not my favorite blue-green. Teal is on the green side of blue-green and turquoise is on the blue side.  So far, it's been easier to find the red, white, and blue, but I usually discard the garment if the fabric also has another color beyond the ones I have chosen, because I don't want to throw in another color into my mix. 

I pulled out everything in my closet and anything that didn't go with my colors or pattern choices went to the thrift store for somebody else to enjoy. It has taken some time to build up my wardrobe. 

I do have one piece of Gudrun Sjoden jewelry. No, it's not a necklace. See if you can spot it in the photos below.  Click on the photos to enlarge them. 

These are just a few of my favorite dresses. See how I can mix and match shirts with the tank/jumper dresses. I'm constantly scouting out apparel and accessories when I go shopping. 

And, my wardrobe may be doing some more changing in the near future. According to google, you must lose 10 to 15 pounds (about 1 stone, UK measurement) to change clothing sizes and I've lost nearly 25 pounds since the end of January. I'm currently on four medical diets - Possum Patty calls it the Freedom Diet - sugar-free (hypoglycemia), fructan-free (low-fodmap), caffeine, carbonation, citrus, dairy, mint, garlic/onion, tomato-free (GERD/gastritis), and the Mediterranean diet for fatty liver disease. It's been a balancing act, let me tell you. Just because it's gluten-free, doesn't mean it's sugar-free, but I let myself have a treat ever once in a while.  

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New Journal Ideas

I've been wanting to compile Shannon Green's En Masse journal for some time. She based it on another gal's paper scavenger hunt journal and suddenly it was a thing on YouTube. Linda's Mixed-Up Mess and I are each doing one. So, I've been working on compiling a list of my Favorite Things. Finally completed it tonight. (Click here)

Some gals on YouTube said they just couldn't get into it, and I told them that perhaps they didn't have the right list. Perhaps if they wrote down a list of their favorite things, perhaps they could "go for it" better. 💡😁

So, I'm preparing another composition notebook, adding washi tape to the edges in a rainbow fashion. My list begins with a rainbow of colors - first the three primary colors, then the 3 secondary colors, and black and brown. The composition notebook has 100 pages, so I divided up the pages for the eight colors and then found a Bible verse that mentioned each of the eight colors. For that page, I'm creating a coloring sheet to illustrate the verse. Perhaps I'll even color the page in. 

Learn from a mistake I made today (3/9/2022) -- print off a sheet of your categories and glue it inside the front cover of the notebook before you begin, then be sure to write down what you are collecting for each page lightly in pencil. I goofed today and forgot a category. I had to add it at the end, because I have already begun gluing stuff into the book and I couldn't pull it up, because most of the glue had already set. Having worked as a volunteer page in a library, I like working in alphabetical order and have all my categories typed in alpha order. Or maybe I'm just OCD! 🤓

I've gotten all the washi tape added to the edges of the paper. The reason I add washi tape is to strengthen the edges as they get thumbed through a lot. I allowed 1 sheet of paper for each of the categories and guess what, I've got left over paper, so put on my thinking cap and decided to add "two" more gluebook ideas I've been batting around. 

When our son was of preschool and kindergarten age, I was a volunteer page at our local small town library and community center. We got involved in almost all the activities that went on there which included a children's literary reading club. Our son asked me to teach him to read before he went to kindergarten, so to begin, I purchased a "school kit" consisting of a writing tablet, a No.2 pencil, glue, markers, a magnetic alphabet, clear contact paper, and several pieces of colored poster board which I cut down into 13 "place-mats." I knew in order for him to read, he needed to know his alphabet. He wasn't much into coloring books, but he loved stickers and rather than having stickers he was rewarded with at Sunday School all over our walls and frig, he had a safe place on the place-mats to put them. I wrote one letter from the alphabet on each side of the place-mats and when he received a sticker, he had to tell me what that item was and then find the appropriate place-mat to stick them down on. When the place-mat was filled with stickers, I covered that side with clear contact paper, so that he could use it under his plate or bowl. He was so proud of those place-mats. And he was ahead of his kindergarten classmates for I learned that the school system where we lived then, didn't teach the children to read until their first grade year. 

So, to take that idea, I decided to create an alphabetical sticker-book in the 2nd part of my composition notebook, one letter per page. I have a bunch of stickers left over from other projects and then bought more at ScrapsKC.com, so if I get tired of the one En masse glue book or run out of stuff to glue in, I can have a sticker-book to work on too. 

I counted pages and I have a few left, so my third idea was create an Americana glue-book. YouTuber Heather C. has an Americana junk journal that she is creating for a friend's July wedding, so...have to flesh out that idea a bit more, but on that patriotic theme. 

My husband likes the idea I fleshed out for the Americana part of the book. We have a postcard show coming here to this area in June and he found 2 postcards, one from two states, at our local Crackerbarrel Restaurants, so I shall be collecting postcards and stickers from each of the USA states and US territories until I run out of notebook pages. I've already begun adding red, white, and blue washi-tape to the edges and scrapbook paper to the pages as background. I also compiled a little checklist to add to the pocket in the back of my en masse book. I compiled it, not in alphabetical order, but as they came into the union. It's called Country Pride! 

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I need to finish my "Doodling Through the Bible in Black and White" Journal. (playlist here.) I ended with Amos and the next "chapter" of coloring sheets runs through 10 more books of the Bible. I have the first two coloring sheets done. Just need to get on the stick and finish. 

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I've been really enjoying creating my Dolly art journal pages, so think I'm going to continue making those. I bought an old planner that was on clearance somewhere and I'm going to use it for my zetti-doll art journaled pages. (Flickr album) I've been collecting a whole stack of Dolly dresses from throw away can labels and small boxes, arms and legs from woman's clothing catalogs and I keep playing with a Photo Booth App to create funny faces for Dolly. I also have been collecting sayings and quotes from books and the internet that would be appropriate to go with Dolly's dresses. Finished uploading my last one in my positivity journal Saturday evening. I get tickled every time I see the one above and my husband enjoyed it as well -- telling everyone at our last family get-together that I was going to use it on an art-journal page. They all rolled their eyes. Of course, with the Rush men, you've got to be a little bossy, or you'll never get anything done around the house, cause they have their own agenda which doesn't include the four letter word home W-O-R-K.  You know, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! 😁

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I also thought about doodling an alphabet book based on Bible verses, similar to the "R" coloring sheet that's in part 3 of the "Doodling Through the Bible in Black & White" playlist. (see above for link to playlist). I don't know if and when I will get that done, perhaps after the other Bible Doodle Journal is completed. 

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Well, this is a good start for 2022. When you want to know when I upload my next video, be sure to subscribe and click on the notification bell "all" on my YouTube channel and YouTube's notification bell system will let you know when I've uploaded a new video for your watching pleasure. Be seeing ya!