Never Stop Learning

I haven’t had anything exciting happen in the recent past, but I have been learning a thing or two about a variety of topics.

I learned from a talk radio show that white wine goes with white meat and red wine goes with red meat.  I’m not a big wine drinker so I’m not surprised I didn’t know this.  However, there are wine drinkers in my family, so I’m glad I learned this so I don’t make a culinary faux pas at a future family dinner.

I learned that there is a YouTube video for anything that you want to research.  Some are worthwhile and some should be deleted, but they are out there should you desire to see them.  

I found out that the method of vertically or horizontally centering things on a sheet of typing paper that I learned back in my high school typing class can also apply to centering a picture in a certain space on a wall.  Does anyone else remember those days of figuring out the total width, subtracting the size of what needs to be centered, then dividing that number by two to find out what size the right and left margins should be?  I know at least four people who should remember that because they were in my typing class!

I learned that you can filter a Google image search to include only those things that are acceptable for reuse (i.e. not copyrighted).  

I learned that using actual curlers a la Kitty Foreman to style my bangs and letting them air dry makes a longer-lasting curl than the curling iron does.  Added benefit--it doesn’t damage my hair.  

I learned that you can paint over stain and you can stain over paint.  You can paint over Mod Podge but you cannot stain over Mod Podge.  This was a big fat DUH moment for me when I tested it out on some scrap would because it says right on the Mod Podge bottle:  wood sealer.  Still, good to know for future reference!

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve (re)learned is that patience is not my strong suit.  I’m used to just diving into a project and not stopping until I am done.  This doesn’t work with the wood or canvas stenciling gamut because there is the whole alignment things which takes some planning and--egad--involves some math.  

With wood, the process is to stain it and let it dry overnight.  Then it’s Mod Podge and dry overnight.  Once the stencil is painted on...you guessed it...dry overnight.  Apply a final coat of Mod Podge and dry overnight.  Lastly, apply two coats of varnish with an overnight dry time in between.  Let’s count those up--that’s a six-day process.  

I also learned that it’s best to do each step to multiple pieces of wood or canvas.  Otherwise the brush gets used for a whopping 10 seconds and has to be washed right away.

I had mentioned I was looking at investing in a Cricut.  Since I can’t afford that right now, I have been coming up with workarounds, and I have learned that good old fashion paper, pencil, and carbon paper does just as good a job as a Cricut could do (in my opinion).  

Even better is printing the saying I want then putting that in a sheet protector before tracing the letters.  My paper templates last much longer that way.

I learned that using mail merge to print forms is the greatest thing since sliced bread and beats the old copy-and-paste method hands down.  

While none of these things is earth-shattering or of even remote interest to anyone else, they are important to me.  It brings home the theory that you should never be done learning.