Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A Simple Moment | November

I can't believe it has been eleven days since my last post! I am so far behind in EVERYTHING!

I find that when the girls are all home my time is not my own. We had a lot of great family time over Thanksgiving week.  Time where I let go of all of my routines - logging food, meditation, commenting on blogs, writing blog posts, attention to scrapbooking (like gratitude pages) and online classes - all went by the wayside in favor of spending time with my girls. I don't regret it for a second, but I do miss the routine. So now I'm back and desperately trying to catch up with myself.

First up - I finally managed to record a Simple Moment for November:


Wednesday, November 14, 2012

30 Days of Gratitude | Share 2

My spread for the 7th - 10th:

Here's the 7th:
There are some thing that it isn't easy to get a photo for. Thank goodness for Google Images! I was able to source photos for the 7th & 8th from there and will continue to do so on days where I just don't have anything to fill that space.


Here's the 9th:
Really appreciating our library lately!

And finally, the 10th:

Thursday, November 8, 2012

30 Days of Gratitude

Although I'm late getting a post up, I am participating in the 30 Days of Gratitude project (which I have done in past years as well.) This year I decided to do a 4x6 hybrid project which is being added to my Focus Album, so Cathy Zielski's templates wouldn't work for me. Not to be put off by the minor inconvenience of the lack of ready pre-made templates, I used Cathy's design as a starting point and created my own 4x6 templates.

I used Krystal Hartley's "Autumn's Chorus" digi papers and printed each page on 4x6 matte finish photo paper and inked the edges.  I even did the math so that the space for the photo is a clean percentage of a 4x6 photo - so I'm cutting photo's to 2.667 x 4 inches (2/3 size).  I'm able to print two photos to a 4x6 photo paper this way!  I created and printed all the date stamps on a single 8.5x11 page and cut them out and adhered with foam squares. 

And then put the blank pages into the album. And immediately realized the foam squares were a huge mistake, making it impossible to close the album! So I had to painstakingly remove all those foam squares (4 per card) and re-adhere the date blocks with regular adhesive.

 Yielding a much better overall result!

 Here's the first spread.  And yes, I did use last Friday's quote as the opening to this section of my Focus album!

Here's a close up of the title section - all digi, using Krytal Hartley's Autumn's Chorus kit.

 November 1st. You knew I'd have to use this photo again, right??

November 2nd.

 The second spread in the album.

November 3rd. Pumpkin art courtesy of Rachel (the M&M guy) and Becca (the smiley one).


 November 4th.  Daylight Savings Time ended and the clocks went back an hour. Sunday seemed forever long!

November 5th. Caught wind of this meditation challenge on facebook. So far I'm loving it! You can still sign up, we are only 4 days in!

November 6th. And you all know the results. I'm ambivalent about the outcome. Snapped this photo while I was actually IN the voting booth!

I love Cathy's idea of Share A Page Friday's, but I know going in that won't work for me. So I'm going to share every time I complete a four day spread... assuming I can keep up with it!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Storytelling Sunday - One Dark Stormy Night

Journaling reads:


Hurricane Sandy arrived here Monday, October 29, 2012, bringing with her intermittent waves of rain (not nearly as much as Hurricane Irene brought) and high sustained winds. Right about the time that Sandy made landfall at the Jersey Shore, our power went out (approx. 5:50 p.m.). Power came back up at around 8:00 p.m. for about 40 minutes, long enough to get a news update, then went out again.

So what do you do on a dark and stormy night when the lights go out?  We were surprised to find that there is precious little you actually CAN do. We lit lots of candles so we could see, and gathered flashlights for trips to the bathroom and generally seeing to get around the house.

Luckily we had eaten dinner early, because one thing you can’t do when the power is out is cook. None of the appliances work.

Becca was able to type her chemistry lab paper using candles and the battery power on her laptop.  Without power, there is no internet access, so you can’t email, blog, do online shopping or surf the web!

Normally we watch television in the evening. Obviously no power = no television. I thought about doing some cleaning, but guess what? Without power you can’t run the vacuum cleaner or do the laundry. And it was too dark for dusting, sweeping or mopping.

Candles do not provide nearly enough illumination for reading - I used a flashlight to read a bit. Ultimately, we all went to bed early. Other than creaks and groans of the house from the force of the wind, it was eerily quiet - no hum from electrical appliances, no heat cycling on and off.

The power was still out in the morning. Which meant no hot showers. Roads and schools were closed, traffic lights were out, trees were downed everywhere we went. The few places that were open had long lines of people waiting to purchase their morning coffee! At least in the car we could listen to the radio for weather updates.

Our power finally came back on around 1:30 in the afternoon. We were among the fortunate ones. Many people in our area are still without power after six days. We learned just how dependent we are on electricity. And I now understand why so many babies are conceived during winter storms!


***This post is submitted in conjunction with Sian's Storytelling Sunday.  To read more stories, check out the links at Sian's blog.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Hello November


Currently...

Wearing sweatpants and sweaters. I've made the switch in my closet. All the winter weight clothes and pjs are out now!

Wishing for more time in the day. It seems I never get as much accomplished as I think I will and I've always got projects backed up that weigh on my mind.

Enjoying a quiet day at home by myself. Lots of cleaning has been accomplished and it is finally play time!

Wondering what the outcome of next week's election will be. Worried either way about the direction of my country.

Eagerly Anticipating the end of nasty political ads and the telephone ringing all day long with political messages.

Watching two new-to-me post-apocalyptic series on television. "Revolution" and "Walking Dead".  Very different premises on how we got to end-of-world scenarios, but interesting to see life in survival mode played out.

Laughing at Kira trying to catch a fly that has gotten into the house. She'll be chasing it for awhile.

Considering trying a 30 day wheat-free lifestyle to see if it makes a difference. Having recently read "It Starts With Food" and "Wheat Belly" the notion that wheat-based foods (breads, pasta, cakes, cookies, pastries, and most processed foods) could be the key to my weight issues is intriguing.  What is your favorite wheat free meal?


Friday, November 2, 2012

Just A Quote For Friday

Just a quick update since so many have asked... we are fine! We survived Hurricane Sandy and are well and safe. We had one bad night of sustained high winds and our power was out for about 20 hours - had to toss almost everything in our refrigerator - but we had no property damage and no lost trees. We were very fortunate. Others in the area lost huge trees, for many the power is still out (I can't image being days on end with no power) and schools are still closed. A week off school for a weather issue is unprecedented around here.  It is with all of this in mind that I give you this week's Friday quote...


Thursday, November 1, 2012

One Little Word Blog Hop - Nov 1st Edition

Hello! Whether you arrived here from Monica's Blog as part of the One Little Word Blog Hop, or you are here because you love me and drop by regularly... Welcome! I love visitors! The One Little Word Blog Hop is a monthly hop run by Margie for members of Ali Edwards' One Little Word class over at Big Picture Classes. 

October's assignment from Ali was to again create a photo collage representative our word.  Here's mine:
These are some of the areas I have been FOCUSed on all year.  I created this digitally because I'm out of the divided page protectors and because, frankly, it was quicker and easier than printing and cutting all those little photos! I'll be printing this 8.5x11 to add to my OLW album.

And here is my Focus Tracker for October:
With thanks to Melissa for helping me find the right letters and for allowing me to raid her brad stash!

If you are following along for the One Little Word Blog Hop, your next stop is Ruth's Blog. If you get lost or a link is broken, you can come back here or go to Margie's blog to find your way.
Kelly    http://mindingmynest.com