Week in the Life Project

Here's my first two-page Week in the Life layout. All patterned papers are from Summer Driggs "Year to Shine" kit; all elements are from Ali Edwards.

Ever had a week where all your priorities got turned topsy-turvy?  That was my week!  Despite best intentions, work took on a frenzied mode and occupied most of my time.  Then I literally spent 1/2 day Friday, almost all day Saturday, and 1/2 day Sunday shopping for outdoor furniture! DH & I hit every store in about a thirty mile radius!  I'll show you what we found later...

Last Week's Goals:

1. Gym three times. Including new Zumba class. check!  Turns out the new Zumba class is indeed a much better fit for me, so will be making it a regular on my workout list. Time is better too - yeah!
2. 1 each Gratitude and Art Journal layouts. FAIL. None done.
3. Spend 20 minutes/weekday tagging photos or digi elements or processing photos. ?? I know I got stuff done in this category, but again failed to really keep track of my time.
4. Sew and hang curtain in office. (Same as scraproom - just been avoiding this one because I know I'm a tad short on fabric and will have to adjust length - ugh). FAIL. did not happen.
5. Choose one online class I haven't completed and spend 20 minutes/weekday working on completing. Umm... sort of? I did download and print all the prompts for The Street Where You Live, completed the first layout, and have ideas for other layouts to come. I didn't spend the 20 minutes a day - I did it all in a big lump and probably spent 3 or 4 hours total on what I did accomplish.  Beginning to see a pattern here ... maybe the x minutes a day thing isn't working for me?
6. Find my creative muse ~ then make some decisions and do SOMETHING with my Week in the Life project! I am proud to say CHECK!!! I made the decisions. I have completed the focal photo layouts. Now for the hard part - I have to do the accompanying mixed photo layouts. Which is harder because I didn't take nearly enough pictures during the week to make for really interesting layouts. But I got the first page done and will continue plugging through the rest!

This Week's Goals:

1. Gym three times. Including Zumba on Wednesday and Yoga on Thursday.
2. Create 1 each Gratitude and Art Journal layouts.
3. More work on tagging photos or digi elements or processing photos.
4. Sew and hang curtain in office.
5. Create layout #2 for The Street Where You Live.
6. Create at least two more mixed photo layouts from Week in the Life.
7. Get clothing donations logged, packed, & to GoodWill (want it OUT of my house!)
8. Get the deck swept.  More on the deck in a later post!

Lyme Awareness Month

We interrupt your regular programming for a quick public service announcement. 

If you haven't heard yet, May is Lyme Awareness Month.  I have a friend who is suffering from chronic lyme disease.  Michelle has had to take a leave of absence from work as the disease has affected so much of her daily activities.  Michelle was my best friend back in high school. We lost touch, but found each other again a couple years ago on facebook (yes, FB does have some good points... occasionally).  Michelle is an artist and a writer of young adult fiction.  She has always been a free spirit and it breaks my heart that she is being held back from sharing her gifts with the world by this disease.  I chose to honor Michelle's fight against Lyme with a donation to ILADS - hoping that research can bring about better treatment and ultimately a cure for this disease.  If you aren't aware of Lyme disease take a minute to click on the link above and get educated!  And if the spirit moves you, make a donation to ILADS to aid in the research and education efforts.

Thanks for listening! We now return you to your regular programming.

Fitness Journey

Still keeping up with this journal, even though it is a random once-a-month thing. I am still trying to eat healthier and exercise more and keep hoping that weight and body shape improvements will be a natural result.  I KNOW that I am fitter than I was in January, but I'm not seeing much in the way of results in the body to prove it (although weight is down 2 lbs from last month).  The lack of significant change is disappointing. But I have also been unable to tame the sugar monster that resides within me. Still looking for the solution to that one.  If any of you figures it out, you could probably become rich and famous quickly!

The Street Where You Live

The Street Where You Live is a FREE online class over at Get It Scrapped.  Once a month a new prompt is posted, complete with PDF download with great illustrations and digital templates for those that are digitally inclined. I signed up at the end of March, after the first three prompts had already been posted.  Because obviously I didn't already have enough to do, right?  Which explains why the prompts sat in a folder on my hard drive for over a month before I even looked at them.  But with Picture Spring over, I needed some structure to help me find my creative muse again (she's still missing, but I'm fairly good at fill in the blank without her).  So, my first installment of TSWYL:

you can click on the image to open in a new window and then use the zoom tool to read the journaling.

Set it Sunday

Let me begin by saying, I spent the weekend unplugged. I didn't check email. I didn't visit blogs. I stayed away from the computer. I'd love to say that I made great use of the time and did all sorts of creative things for National Scrapbook Day, but that would be the furthest thing from the truth. I didn't do a single creative thing either!  I washed laundry, went grocery shopping, did some cleaning, and hung out with the family. That's it.  So, apologies to all my bloggy friends that your posts came and went without comment. Seems a lot of you were involved in Rinda's Altered Home blog hop and looks like it was great fun!  I just needed some down time.  That said, here's what last week looked like:

Last Week's Goals:
1. Gym three times. check! In fact FOUR times! 2 regular workouts, 1 yoga class, 1 zumba class. Not sure my body is really ready to be back in Zumba though. I'm going to check out a different class this week where the instructor is not quite so... ummm... energetic...
2. 1 each Gratitude and Art Journal layouts (or 2 Gratitude layouts). check! 2 gratitude and 1 art journal layout completed.
3. Keep up with Picture Spring prompts and post photos on blog. As of this morning, check!
4. Spend 20 minutes/weekday tagging photos or digi elements or processing photos. This one is hard to gauge because I don't remember to do this each day. But I did manage to get all of 2007 photos tagged and all my latest digi purchases unzipped and designer/kit name tagged, so definite progress!
5. Hang new shower curtain. (this sounds like a five minute deal, but it's not. Involves flattening curtain, trimming, and sewing weights at bottom - which is why it isn't done yet, even though I bought the new curtain three weeks ago!) Check!  I hate to disappoint Cheryl but the finished project is NO BIG DEAL. The backstory: we have a stall shower in the master bath. The house is 22 years old and the bath is in serious need of updating, but we can't afford it right now (having a kid in college will do that to you!).  The shower HAD a door, but last winter the hinges broke and the door fell off. Replacing the door when the entire shower needs to be replaced made no sense to us. So we hung a shower curtain instead.  Only thing is, shower curtains are made for bath size showers and this is just a stall.  Which means trimming down to size.  But Cheryl asked, so here's the photo of my newly hung shower curtain (and it is clear to make the space seem bigger and more open - much too tight in there for anything else). And why did I need a new shower curtain already? Well, we have really REALLY hard water. And I don't care how well you keep up with bathroom cleaning (which I don't claim to be great at) with hard water, you can't keep a clear shower curtain looking great for long.  I estimate I'll need to replace it every 4-6 months.

6. Make some decisions and do SOMETHING with my Week in the Life project! This did NOT happen. I could give you the laundry list of reasons why not, but they would just be lame excuses. Truth is, my creative muse left town around Wednesday and hasn't been seen since. I don't know where she went or when she's coming home. I hope soon. I miss her.


This Week's Goals:
1. Gym three times. Including new Zumba class.
2. 1 each Gratitude and Art Journal layouts.
3. Spend 20 minutes/weekday tagging photos or digi elements or processing photos.
4. Sew and hang curtain in office. (Same as scraproom - just been avoiding this one because I know I'm a tad short on fabric and will have to adjust length - ugh).
5. Choose one online class I haven't completed and spend 20 minutes/weekday working on completing.
6. Find my creative muse ~ then make some decisions and do SOMETHING with my Week in the Life project!

Picture Spring - final post

Our last photo prompt was for 4/29 - to take a picture of "gatherings" - the gallery was filled with gorgeous photos of flower bouquets in beautiful containers and toddlers with chubby little fistfuls of hand-picked beauty. 
My photos were, unfortunately, uninspired by comparison. But the month is done, I'm already missing the course, and I can't wait for "Picture Summer"!  I hope many of you will join me.  Registration opens May 6th and class begins July 1st.  The course will show up on Big Picture Scrapbooking this week!