Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Seven Days

I have so much going on lately that I'm not even sure where to begin! Has it really been SEVEN DAYS since I last blogged?! Did you miss me???

Here's SEVEN things I've been doing in the past week:
1. Thanksgiving:
Seems my whole family was starved to death, so once dinner went on the table, everyone was ready to eat. No time for great photos.  But since I usually get NO food photos at all, I was happy to have just one turn out well enough to publish! And this is it. One single photo of Thanksgiving.

2. Black Friday:

Started off with 4 a.m. shopping at Target.  I went in, grabbed the single item I was there for, paid and left.  And while I got what I went for, I'm  hoping to not repeat that experience next year. It was insane!  I was home by 4:45 and did the bulk of my Christmas shopping online with Black Friday specials, finished by 5:30 a.m. and managed to spend some seriously big dollars in less than an hour.  Definitely doing my part for the economy!

Tales from the scale - I weighed in a half pound up from the prior week. Given the large slice of apple pie and ice cream, I'm not surprised! But I lost it by Monday and am back on track.

Body Wars - Improvement! At Physical Therapy, measurements showed that my flexibility and range of motion are definitely better.  Several inches closer to being able to touch finger tips to the floor! I've been officially discharged for knee issues and am now treating for just my back, with increased exercises. Public service announcement:  Have YOU stretched today???

3. Happy Birthday to My Guy:
Saturday we celebrated Jay's birthday (even though his birthday is actually today).  We did this early because Sarah (on the left) was headed back to College on Sunday.  Having a birthday in December wreaks havoc with shopping budgets.  Me? I combined birthday and Christmas, along with next Valentine's Day, Father's Day, Anniversary and any other gift-giving occasion that might arise and ordered my guy an Apple Macbook Pro. To his precise specifications.  He is The Computer Geek after all.  I'll be paying for it for a year. Literally. I got the twelve month financing option!

4. Blogging for Bliss Round Robin - The book is packaged up, postage paid, and will be dropped in the mail tomorrow morning on my way to work.  Participants will go in the following order:  First Bliss will go cross country to California to visit Sandy.  Then it'll do a quick tour of the U.S. via Melissa and Rachel.  A short border hop will take Bliss over to Lee in Canada.  From there it'll fly across an ocean to visit Jacky, Cheryl, and Mel in the U.K. Another ocean crossing will take Bliss over to Amy in Australia, before making its way back home.

   5. And speaking of blogs... last week (while I was MIA) Melissa was kind enough to award me the "Stylish Blogger" Award.  Thanks so much Melissa!  Since this post is already ridiculously long and you'll learn eight things about me reading it, let's just say I pass the award on to the eight lovely ladies linked to in the Blogging for Bliss paragraph above? You all deserve it! And if you want to play along properly, you can read the rules on Melissa's blog here.

6. Journal Your Christmas/December Daily/Picture the Holidays.
Seriously - is it December ALREADY?  I'm still in a dither about the way this year's album will be constructed. I have a 5.5 x 8.5 three ring binder with page protectors. I know I am combining thoughts/ideas/prompts from all three venues. But digital, paper or hybrid? What color scheme? Any unifying elements? I have no clue!  I do know that I ADORED Shimelle's Christmas Manifesto.  Here's what I did with it:

First I recolored the green background to more closely match the color of my album.  I added papers and elements from The Studio Girls "Impressions of Festivities" kit from Scrapbookgraphics.  If you are into digital, this is a huge kit for only $7.99. I've linked to it if you want to check it out.  I agree with every statement in the Manifesto, so I didn't feel the need to reinvent at all! I have printed the Manifesto in 8.5 x 11 for my bulletin board (where I will see it every day) and in 5.5 x 8.5 for my album.  Love it!

7. Reverb10:


Today as I was browsing through my Google Reader, this kept popping up.  First I saw it on Ali Edward's blog. She learned about it from a twitter by Tracey Clark, teacher extraordinaire of Picture the Holidays  over at Big Picture Classes. Then Sally G. posted about it.  These are all women that I greatly admire and I trust them when they say this is going to be good! So I hopped over to the web site and signed myself up. But it didn't end there. Shortly after I signed up, I saw posts from Susannah Conway and Lee Currie who are also playing along! I feel I am in great company and this should be a wonderful journey and fit in nicely with JYC and Picture the Holidays as well!

Today's prompt is:
December 1 One Word.

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?  (Author: Gwen Bell)
My "One Little Word" for 2010 was "Wholehearted".  I embraced living wholeheartedly in many ways, jumping into photography, a self-exploration journey, and fitness with my whole heart. I read books by Brene Brown and Gretchen Rubin and more, participated in the Unravelling courses with Susannah Conway and more online classes and challenges than I can count, and joined My Fitness Pal and began to seriously address my health issues. I deepened relationships with online friends, and concentrated on being more "present" in the moment at home.

I feel like it has been a banner year in terms of personal growth.  But if I have to sum up all of 2010 in a single word... it has to be GRATITUDE. Because everything I did throughout 2010 just made me realize how Grateful I am for my family, my friends, my world.  Funny I should come to that word when it also happens to be today's prompt for Picture the Holidays!  So here's me, totally grateful for 2010.

Looking forward to 2011, I haven't fully crystallized the picture of what I want to manifest next year. It definitely involves more FOCUS (but Fit and Fab and Fantastic are also good "F" words, all of which I'd like to be manifesting in 2011).  Focus means limiting the classes I take so I can fully engage in each one (which will be ridiculously difficult for me).  Focus means continuing to work on and improve my photography and Photoshop skills. Focus means single-tasking and finishing projects that I start.  And that's a good beginning to manifesting what I want for 2011. But it needs polishing, more thought, more... well... focus.

8 comments:

Melissa said...

So glad to have you back Cheri! Congrats on the good news from the PT and maintaining the weight loss over the Thanksgiving holiday. I really like what you did with the Christmas Manifesto - I've seen it on several other blogs today but yours is the first I've seen with a different color and it looks great. I decided against doing the REVERB10 but my one word for this past year would definitely be TRANSITION, and gosh I hope we get over this transition stage and reach STABILITY in 2011! :>)

scrappyjacky said...

Definately have missed you....but love all the catching up in this post....and I can't even imagine getting to a shop at 4am!!!!!
Looking forward to reading that book....and many thanks for passing on the award.
Love what you've done with the manifesto....I totally agree with everything in it as well....even though I chose not to use it.

Sian said...

What a great catch up post Cheri! I loved reading all your news today - that's a fine looking family you have there in that photo! I think "focus" is a fabulous word for next year and I completely agree with your plan of concentrating on one class and one skill in 2011

Anonymous said...

Whew - lots going on! Page is cute & think that's a great word for next year!

Amy said...

Yes, I did miss you!
Busy, busy lady :-) We have our big sales on Boxing Day - 26th December ... I personally think it is all crazy and I do not go to the shops - I mean really, didn't we all shop enough before Christmas? At least your sale day is before the big event and there is a reason to shop!
I love the shot of the family :-) Next time set the self time so you can be in it ... something was missing and it was you!:-)

Sally G. said...

Good Heavens, you're busy!! I have no idea how you manage to accomplish so much, and I'm filled with admiration that you do.

Gratitude is such a powerful emotion - and word. While in Gratitude, everything is possible, everything is enough.

Focus ~ I could use more of that too. And, self-discipline.

So glad to be participating in #reverb10 with you!!

Anonymous said...

Lots of good reasons to MIA! I found my word for 2011 in a response to a blog post last week: FINISH. I'm going to FINISH the basket full of projects and classes I've already started. I'm not, however, promising not to take any new ones--cause I know myself better than that. In a week or so I'm going to assess how I did in 2010. I haven't pulled any of my lists out in several months, so it could be ugly. Maybe they'll just go on to 2011 as part of FINISH. :)

Cheryl said...

1. Your Thanksgiving meal looks wonderful! 2. I am happy you survived Black Friday. I used to do it every year but haven't in a long while (and honestly don't miss it that much). 3. You are an awesome gift giver. I need to make sure my husband never reads this post. ;) 4. I love what you did with the Christmas manifesto! 5. I'm excited to see you're doing reverb. I found it a few days ago and am looking forward to getting started on it one of these days. Focus is such a great word!