Even More Picture the Holidays

Going all the way back to Day 2 - "framed".  This word tree was a free download courtesy of Rebecca Cooper (which you can find here) - I just printed and dropped it into a picture frame we already had.  Then had fun catching the reflection of the Christmas Tree lights in the glass!

Day 17 prompt wanted us to capture the warm glow of candle light.  Here's my Twisted Peppermint 3 wick candle from Bath & Body Works. A gift from last Christmas that I'm still enjoying! Mmmmmmmm.

And finally (for now) - Day 18's prompt was "recharge."   This is "cookie break" - my version of a quick pick me up. And these luscious little peanut butter blossoms are courtesy of Rachel who did a little baking on Saturday (I made two loaves of banana bread, one with nuts, one without).  Her cookies are absolutely addictive! And GONE! (yes, I might have had something to do with that).

More Picture The Holidays

I am now to the point where I am confusing Picture the Holidays prompts and JYC prompts. But that's okay! Most of this will eventually end up in my JYC album - assuming I ever get around to creating actual pages!

Day 4 of Picture the Holidays asked for the "Keys to Happiness" - what is it that keeps you grounded or is key to your happiness during the Christmas Season? Day 16 of JYC asks what am I grateful for today? 

One of my Keys to Happiness is having my whole family gathered around me. It's a big part of the season.  So today I am grateful that Sarah is home from college. Even if it means that all her STUFF (of which this represents less than 1/3) is home too.  I'll be even more grateful when her stuff finds a home other than my scrap room! But this is where it got dumped last night.
  

The Day 14 Picture the Holidays prompt was Holiday Mail (Day 3 JYC).  Here's the last little bit of my Christmas Cards that went postal on the 15th. They are all out now!

And here is a beautiful card that I received in the mail on Tuesday.  My photography doesn't do the colors justice - the girl's coat and jacket are truly Christmas Red (not so orange). Isn't it gorgeous?  One guess who it's from!

This card is now sitting right by my computer where I can admire it everyday.

Day 15 of Picture the Holidays was about gifts - Day 10 of JYC about wrap. Here's my take on the two.  First the "before" shot - the cabinet where I've been hiding things. When fully open, Ashley takes interest. No doubt looking for space to crawl in and curl up.

The "during" shot - everything piled up on the countertop to begin the wrapping process.

The "after" shot with most (not quite all yet) wrapped and returned to the cabinet.  I think it is funny how deceiving this shot is - it just doesn't look like much.

So here is a close-up of the bottom right portion of the cabinet, so you can see the layer of gifts stacked up in the back, behind the ones you can see above. 

I didn't go for any theme or assigned wrap this year - I was really just trying to use up a lot of the leftovers from previous years. I finished off the ends of four rolls!  We still have enough in the Christmas wrap box to wrap for another two or three years I think. But at least with having emptied out some rolls, I won't feel guilty buying more if I catch something really pretty on the after-holiday sales.  These are all traditional red/green bright/cheery. I'd love to give a try at "elegant" next year!

Picture The Holidays

I have done a lousy job of keeping up with this class - and you know what? I don't care! It is perfectly okay with me! But I thought I'd share some of the photos I've been taking, even though they don't follow the prompts in order and are quite random...

Prompt 8 - Reflecting. Played with getting reflections from the tiny ornaments on this little 2 foot table tree!

Prompt 9 - It's a Sign! This ornament is too heavy for the tree - we put it on the mantle.

Prompts 10 & 11 - Twinkle Twinkle and Shaping Up -  The twinkle prompt encouraged us to play with the tree lights and shutter drag. I did a LOT of playing! But I liked this one with the lights in the shape of question marks - which really gives me the "feel" of the anticipation surrounding Christmas season!

 While I was playing with the twinkle lights, I got this shot of the tree - which I love because of the glow bouncing off the walls behind it. Still need to get the angel up and I may try this again.

Prompt 12 - A Whole Lot of Happy - was looking for photos of smiles. I captured this one (with flash) of one of the Smores ornaments that I bought the girls two years ago.

And just for fun, here's another of the same ornament (no flash) after the photographer had a little too much egg nog!  Okay, not really - just your everyday case of camera shake! 

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.