1.2.2009

My vacation is winding to an end. I love being home with the fam, but I need the paycheck, so on Monday, off to work I will go. I will likely be cranky on Sunday, gearing up for the stress of the work week, kid shuffling, meeting attending, daily life craziness. I need to work on that.

Today the kids enjoyed "sledding" down the back hill. I say "sledding" because there was no sled involved. Instead, the freezing rain we had last week + the refreezing we've had off and on has resulted in a snowy hill, covered with a glaze of ice. I looked at one point and there were 10 kids sliding down on their bellies or backs. Only 2 of them were mine. They were at it all day. I am on the laptop, but hopefully I will add a picture when I upload for the day.

We are meeting Michelle at Orlondo's for supper tonight. Special salad, here I come!

1.1.2009

Happy New Year!

I missed out on the 365 project kit this morning, so I am a little sad about that. But I went ahead and took my pictures today and hopefully I will figure something out. I am considering trying to come up with my own version somehow, but I don't know if I have it in me. But I will take pics for awhile anyway to make sure I have them if I decide to do it.

We had a little get together today for the Iowa Bowl game - just a small crowd with snacks. I think it was perfect. And a win was just what we were hoping for.

I had to get up way too early this morning though to prepare, so I think I will be off to bed soon.

December 1

I am so excited! It is the little things in life that I need to embrace - things like I am doing a December daily album (a la Ali Edwards) and I got it nearly completed in time to start today AND I got my first page done today. I also signed up for Shimelle's Journal your Christmas and got that first page almost done today - just need to do a bit of embellishing. I realize the 2 may be redundant, but I'm hoping together I'll do a good job of documenting life right now and my Christmas memories. Truth be told, I don't remember much about Christmas as a kid, so hopefully this will refresh my memory. I just need to finish the cover of my DD album - need some stronger adhesive for a 3D accent I found and liked - and I am short ONE page of having enough for all 1-25 days. I did stop at Christmas, but I can add more if needed. I am doing hand journaling and it is a 6 x 8 album I made myself with some binder rings and chipboard, with just PP for the pages. I don't branch out like that so I am proud! For the Shimelle class, I am doing 8 1/2 x 11 pages, mostly computer journalling as I expect it to be more writing intensive. Sort of hybrid pages, if you will. Here is the photo I used for the first page - taken tonight in the dark, bulb setting on my camera, camera on computer desk and I pushed the shutter and held really, really still, holding my breath until it was closed. I really need to replace my tripod. LOL

October 3

Today is Photographer Appreciation Day!

I love learning more about photography. I always have. I don't know that I'll ever be a great photographer, but in honor of the day ~ here are some links to some of my favorite photographers (there's more, but this is what I can come up with right now.

Elisha Snow http://elishasnow.typepad.com/all_good/
Tara Whitney http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/
Moon Ko http://www.moonkophotography.com/
Becky Novacek http://beckynovacek.typepad.com/live_and_learn/
and some non-scrappy ones (or at least not that I know of!)
Nicole Thomas http://photosbynicolethomas.com/

and my brother~ www.joshuawarrender.com

October 2

Today, October 2, is the beginning of No Salt Week. That's a holiday I won't be observing! I could maybe do No Pepper Week, but I need my salt.

Also, today is National Custodial Worker Day. A thankless job, most of the time. I'm posting this ahead of time, but I hope to do something nice for the custodial workers at school. I don't have the stomach for the work they have to do. My (deceased) father-in-law was a school custodial worker. He worked his way up from a sweeper to the building manager at the high school Scott works at and the kids attend. He retired due to disability in 1991. He didn't want to leave but his vision was failing and he wasn't able to work. He had to work many long days and got called in for things like a fuel oil spill on Christmas day one year. But, he loved working with the kids and Scott still remembers being able to see him every day when he was in high school. He was a great guy and I'm sure he did a good job at work.

So, thank a custodial worker today ~ they deserve it!

Another thing

Today is the start of the fiscal year for the federal government. Heaven help us all..... :-(

A New Venture

I'm trying something new - I got the idea from the Big Picture Scrapbooking Class I'm taking with Elizabeth Dillow called "Red Letter Days". I found a site (several actually) with different holidays, birthdays and such for each day fo the year. I'm going to try to post on some of these and just get thoughts out. Some of them will be serious, some funny and some just because. I think some of them will be nice to use for journaling someday. Some of them I will write ahead of time and some that day.

So today ~ October 1 ~ is World Vegetarian Day and the start of Vegetarian Month. I had originally considered trying to eat as a vegetarian on today when I first came up with this idea. But I had already eaten lunch when I remembered and I had a cheeseburger. Ooops. If I did eat as a vegetarian, it would be due to a preference and not a belief in animal rights or such. I actually was very near a vegetarian at one point. I ate very little chicken and fish and no red meat. I just don't like the taste of it as much. I could easily elimate all but fish and chicken, but sometimes, like recently ~ a burger or steak just sounds good. My mom always says it's my body trying to tell me something, like I'm low on iron or something, and maybe she's right? I could do some research on it.

In other news, I'm trying to scrap more again. Summer was rough on me and I was in a couple contests online that made me stressed about scrapping. One of them didn't go well at all ~ but the other was okay. I was not nearly the scrapper most of the other participants were, but at least people were friendly there. I am trying to embrace white space more.

My BPS class with Cathy Zielske starts tomorrow and I can't wait.