Reverb 10 Day 6 & 7

Prompt: Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

The last thing I made was actually just this past Friday. I was going to a fancy Christmas party and had nothing fancy to wear that fits me post baby yet. I turned a maternity skirt that I’d bought and never actually worn into a halter dress. I also made a fabric flower to put in my hair since I was doing it somewhat fancy but needed a hair clip of some sort and didn’t want to use one of my kids. I just used stuff I had in the house because I had no time or money to go out and buy something fancy (on top of the fact that it’s hard to find dressy clothes where I live. In the land of sweatpants and hoodies.)

There are lots of things I want to make, but I never have the time. Or I never seem to have the time. I spend a lot of the time I could be using to make things being a big old procrastinator, so it’s my own fault I don’t get more done I guess. It would also be nice if some of the time I could have kid free time to make things, it’s hard to be all gung-ho to make something when you know you’re going to have to stop at least every 10 minutes to deal with the kids. I think that is another reason why I don’t bother starting a lot of the time. I hate being interrupted and I know I will be.

Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I think I have discovered more of a sense of community online this year. Through all the digital scrapbooking sites, crafting blogs, blogging here, and all the art or other things I take part in through the internet I have “met” some great people who I obviously have common interests with. It would be awesome if in 2011 I could connect more with people who actually live in the same area as me, but there just don’t seem to be a lot of people here who share my interests, or have the time to get together. We all seem to have way too busy of lives on our own to ever manage to work anything out. I have been able to spend time with the man’s friends and their wives/girlfriends this year, and some of them are ok. But some of them aren’t. Some of them are people who I wouldn’t choose to be around if I had other options, but I suck it up and deal with it because at this point any contact with other adults is better than none. I’m hoping in 2011 to just continue to grow and maintain the connections I have already through my interests and hobbies, etc.

Reverb 10 Days 4 & 5

Prompt 4: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

I don’t know that I’ve directly done this in my life but I get to feel the sense of wonder that my kids feel through them, so I make sure that they always have an opportunity to wonder about things. I guess in my own life this year I’ve taken more of a step towards not stifling the creative urges I get. For awhile now I have because there always seem to be more “important” things to do. I realized however that not giving in to my desire to create has not really made me very happy and has just made me kind of resentful towards whatever it is that may be more important. I would really like to continue on with that next year and of course continue to experience or re-experience the wonder of things through my kids eyes as well.

Prompt 5: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

I haven’t been able to fully let go of anything this year, but I have made some pretty big strides towards letting go of certain things. There are some that are harder than others. I’m still constantly working at letting go of the idea I had of what my life would be like because when I made my “life plan” it didn’t include kids, and lets just say what I’d planned is not something that is completely possible now! I’m also working on letting go of that desire for everything to be perfect. Don’t get me wrong, I know that things can’t be perfect in one part of my brain, but there is still this whole other part that gets so upset about the fact that things aren’t perfect. I’m not a size 2-4 anymore, my house gets messed up probably within 2 hours of cleaning it (because I have kids and my house is lived in), I don’t have the nicest newest clothes or insane well maintained hair and nail. My kids are bad sometimes, they act out in public. These are all things I understand, I get that these things are part of life, but I still get upset. I freak out when the kids dump the clothes I just washed and folded all right back out of their dresser. I get mad when one of them does something that is remotely rude or mean in a public place, like screaming or pushing or taking a toy or whatever. I get upset with myself when I try on something that fit before I had our last kid, and it doesn’t fit. This one I think will take a while to work on because like I said, I know it’s ridiculous to attempt perfection, but there is a much larger part of me that still thinks I can and gets mad at any aspect of my life that isn’t. Letting go is definitely something that isn’t easy for me, so I am happy that I have even started to try to let go of anything.

Reverb10 Day 3

Prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

This prompt is a hard one for me because at first I really couldn’t even think of anything. Then I remembered the feeling I had after my car accident. I think the accident may have scared the life back into me in a way. It made me realize just how easy it would be to have your life end in a blink, or to have the life of someone you love end. In May this year we were driving back from my mom’s wedding. We’d been camping so I was pulling the camper with us. The camper caught wind and started to sway bad, and I’m not an inexperienced driver or anything but I had never had this happen while pulling a camper before. I looked in the side view mirror to see the camper had swung right around sideways. It snapped the hitch, rolling itself completely over once and landing on it’s side blocking off both sides of the highway. Our truck rolled twice,ending up in a ditch on it’s wheels. It happened so fast that everything was a blur of trees, highway and vehicle interior. I knew it was coming about a split second before it did. My first thoughts of course went to the kids. Were they ok, were they bleeding, were they scared, did they stay in their car seats? Thank god we had them in car seats!

The man jumped out of the truck pretty fast and ran up to the camper because the propane tanks had been jeopardized and you could hear the one hissing away leaking propane everywhere, which could be a very bad thing in an accident. There were instantly people everywhere helping me by watching the kids and making sure I was ok (I was almost 8 months pregnant). The camper was officially blocking off all traffic so after the propane tanks were closed off, he jumped into the truck, started it and miraculously drove it out of the ditch, he used it to push our trashed camper to the side enough that the traffic that had backed up could get through before the police sealed the road off. We were about a kilometer out of the nearest town, so it didn’t take long to hear the sirens from the police cars, the fire trucks and the ambulance coming. I remember hopping into the ambulance and having them check out the cuts down my arms, and check my blood pressure and all my vitals and thinking to myself how it was so weird to be in that position when we’d ben just so happy and carefree 2 hours earlier when we were in the city shopping, or the day before when we left a nice weekend of camping with the family. One instant, one mistake was all it took to wipe all those nice happy memories out of our minds for days.

It reminded me how fragile life is, and how all those things you want to do in the future but keep pushing off might never get the chance to actually happen. It made me live more in the now, made me want to actually LIVE more. Not just sit around and wait for something good to happen to me by magic, but to try to make things happen, to have more fun, to do more. It made me feel very grateful to be alive, and helped to remind me that you shouldn’t waste the life you’re given.

JYC/December Daily Day 2 Layout!

Using the prompt today from Shimelle I came up with this layout about the weather. I even hopped outside at 8 this morning when it was –26 still to take pictures of outside my house. That right there is dedication if I do say so myself! I liked this prompt because I find I will whine about the weather while it’s happening one way or another. It’s either too cold, or blizzarding in the winter and then in the summer it’s too hot or too stormy or whatever it happens to be. I am never satisfied by the weather in the moment! When I step back and actually look at it though my attitude changes. Even just now when I said it was dedication to go take a picture in –26, really that is an above average temperature for us. We spend a lot of winter with temps in the –30 and beyond category! We also have a lot less snow than normal, so really I have nothing to complain about, but I’m sure I will anyways!

I am posting all my layouts for my December album in an album in my new Log Your Memory gallery *here* so if you want to see the credits for what I’ve used you can check there, I will also be loading them to my gallery at DST, which you can always view from the link in my sidebar as well. I’m not using one set kit for these layouts, I’m taking bits and pieces from a bunch of different kits, so the credit list sometimes gets pretty long and I’m too lazy to retype it all out on my blog. I love seeing the other JYC layouts and seeing what the people doing Ali Edwards December Daily album are doing too, there have been some really great pages so far!

Reverb 10 Prompts 1 & 2

So I found this through the twitterverse and blogoshpere and thought I would try to keep up as well as my December album. I’m hoping it will work, but we will see! If you want to read about Reverb 10, just click the link and check them out.

Prompt 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)

I didn’t choose an official word for the year 2010, but I am already thinking about what I want my word to be for 2011. I guess if I had to choose a word to sum up 2010, it would be change. There were so many changes made this year, big and small. We had another child, and on top of that it was a boy. Three kids is a big change from 2. A boy is a big change from girls! We also became home owners instead of renters, which is probably the biggest change of all this year. A very welcome change at that, renting always felt like such a waste of money and energy. My body has changed, though this is an unwelcome change and something I hope to work on in the future. The girls are changing as they grow up. We’ve had vehicle changes, outgrown friends who weren’t able to grow up with us. We’ve changed into more responsible, adult versions of ourselves. There have been lots of changes.

I’m not 100% settled on my word for 2011 yet, but I am actually thinking about it and trying to figure out what I want it to be. I really like the idea of having a word to focus on for each year.

Prompt 2: Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

I do like to try to write in some way most days, whether it’s through blogging or through journaling on a scrapbook layout. I haven’t given much formal writing a shot because I just never seem to find the time. I attempted to do NaNoWriMo this year, but after the first week of diligently writing, I managed to procrastinate and make everything more important, from googling random things, to facebooking, to chatting on messenger. Anything imaginable I could use to block myself I did. Of course, this isn’t just a problem with writing, this is a problem with lots of things I want to do or should be doing. I am a procrastinator in the biggest way possible. I am working very hard to try to be more focused and to eliminate so many of the distractions that keep me from doing everything I really want. I think somewhere deep inside I’m afraid that if I do it and succeed at it that something good could happen. As weird as it may sound, I do believe I have a fear of succeeding at things and so I thwart my own opportunities to succeed. I doubt I will ever fully be able to eliminate my distractions, but I believe I can limit them.

I’m looking forward to what the rest of the prompts bring and to seeing what others have to say!

JYC 2010 and A Letter to Me

This post will actually be 2 different layouts inspired by classes from Shimelle.com (if you need a journaling or inspiration boost, I highly recommend stopping by to see what she offers!

This first layout is based off a prompt from True Stories, which I am still working through as I find the time. The prompt was to write a letter, so I wrote a letter to myself as a young teenager. I used Forever and Always by Geek Chic Scraps and I also used one of her newer alphas, Frosty Morning, because I felt it went perfect with the colors and feel of the layout! I really like the way the page came out, and have got a few nice comments on it in the galleries, which is almost unheard of in most galleries!

And since today is the first day of December I also managed to get my first page for my December layout done using the prompts from Journal Your Christmas (another class from Shimelle). I am really looking forward to creating this album, it’s exciting to have a real project that at the end of the month I can upload to have printed. I really need to have a finished project, there are far too many unfinished ones laying around.

I am really looking forward to the holiday season this year. I don’t know why but it feels like our first real holiday season as a complete family. I think it’s got something to do with the fact that we are now home owners, we are now done with kids, we now are more like responsible adults. I don’t know for sure, I just know it feels full of possibility and excitement and fun and I will be here to document it for years to come!

November Roundup!

Okay so I’ve seen this around on a few blogs, including of course the blog of Katie the Scrapbook Lady! And I’ve decided that maybe I should start to do it so that I forget less of those things I normally forget! So hopefully this becomes a monthly addition to my blog.

1. What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

This month I didn’t get a ton of reading done for myself, but I did manage to read a book called Baby Love which has a ton of recipes for home made baby and toddler food. I think I am really going to work on trying to make Kale’s baby food for him. One reason is because I’m really sick of going to our local stores and finding most of the baby stuff sold out. I also got to read this months issue of the Rachel Ray magazine. I don’t know what I would do without our library!!

2. What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?

I’m not a big TV show watcher, but I do try to keep up with How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory, so I managed to watch them. I also watched a couple episodes of Conan, but he is on so late that sometimes I fall asleep halfway through it, or make myself tired trying to stay up for it.

Movies on the other hand are a huge deal so I watched a couple. Grown Ups was absolutely hilarious and definitely worth watching. We also caught Jonah Hex which was a good movie, lots of action and it was like this insane weird mix of old western and super hero/villain ha, so it was up my alley and the man’s.  We also watched How to Train Your Dragon which our oldest daughter is now in love with and asks to watch all the time! We got some other movies too that were older, or we just hadn’t watched when they first came out, that we watched this month such as Up! which is always awesome. I think my oldest daughter and I both like it for the same reason (talking dogs…come on!!) We also watched MacGruber, The Lion King and some of the old Charlie Brown movies (ok we watched the Thanksgiving one, even though our Thanksgiving was in October.) We also watched Shrek the Halls which doesn’t really count as a movie, and the Flintstones Christmas Carol. They put Toy Story 2 on tv one day so we watched that but I got really annoyed with explaining to Morgan how there is more than one Toy Story. She kept saying this isn’t Toy Story mom because all she’s seen is the new one of course.

3. What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?

We had a few dinners this month. We invited people over for supper the first Friday of November and did some BBQ steaks and all sorts of other things. It was pretty good!! Two weeks later we went to a friends for supper on the Sunday night and they had just got the Xbox Kinect, so the adults had some drinks and played some silly games, then we taught Morgan how to play and she bowled the night away! Thursday (Nov 25th) we had my pre maternity leave boss and his new wife over for supper. It was fun but a little strange because she is Thai and though her English is better than I had thought it would be, it was still hard to remember to slow my speaking down for her. The girls wrangled her down to the toy room to play with them before I was even introduced to her, and she was in love with the baby so she held him a good part of the night. Then on Sunday the 28th we had a bunch of people over for the Grey Cup party. I don’t watch a ton of football, but any excuse for people to come over, finger foods and a few drinks is fine by me. So we had a rather busy month with friends. I’m hoping that keeps up though now that most of us have houses that we just bought or have fixed up and can have people in.

4. What gifts did I give and/or receive?

I didn’t really give or receive any gifts in November. I guess we got the girls one of those mini skidoos, but it was very used and we only got it because the place it was at thought it was going to be insane to fix up enough to run. I think Kurt had it going in a week. It’s not the nicest looking thing in the world, but it runs and the older kids that belong to our group of friends have fun on it.

5. What special or unusual purchases did I make?

Christmas presents of course!! Can’t talk much about them yet! I guess the skidoo counts here too! We also ordered a new projector and an actual screen for it, so I’m pretty excited for it to arrive.

6. What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

I personal had none, except the ever impending bleh too large size of my body right now, hahaha. All 3 of the kids were sick with some pretty bad colds that are still trying to linger around now. The man also got sick and had to take a day off from work, sick men drive me crazy. They are so whiny!

7. What were my accomplishments this month?

Accomplishments this month were small, but good enough for me! I managed to keep the housework under control and also get the insane laundry pile caught up. I managed to get all my Christmas shopping done as well!

8. What were my disappointments this month?

Trying on a pair of my nice dressy jeans for a Christmas party only to realize there was no way I could even suck in to get them on. Then having our sitter not show and not being able to go to that Christmas party anyways.

9. How did I do on my goals for the month? (Or any current short or long term goals)

I didn’t really have any goals last month. I do have goals for December tho. I want to exercise at least 3 times a week, keep up with my December album and try to stay as stress free as possible for the holiday season.

10. Anything else noteworthy to include?

The littlest kids got another round of vaccinations this month, don’t have to return until January. The baby very quickly picked up rolling this month and can also scoot himself around on the floor now by digging his toes into the floor and pushing with his feet while pulling with his arms. He was a nice 15lbs 4 oz at his appointment on the 29th. April is still smaller, she’s 23 or so lbs but they said I have nothing to be concerned about because she’s still in the normal range with all her measurements and everything. She is getting much better with words, which is awesome. Every day is a little less babble-y, and she also finally is getting better with calling me mom instead of daddy. She tries to sing along with some of her favorite cartoon songs too…do do do do do Doeda. (Dora). Morgan has been making crafts (and giant messes) on a much more regular basis. She has a couple pictures she has made of giraffes that are actually pretty decent. She has not stopped wearing the crown that came with her Halloween costume since Halloween, every day claiming she’s a princess and has to wear it. I am teaching her how to fold, and while I have to re fold most of it, she thinks she is helping. The threat of Santa not coming has got her to help clean up her own mess a little more as well. She still has her bad days though, where nothing I do makes her listen or be good, but they are lessening.

And, I think that is it for this months round up. I must now go back up all my pictures and get a few other things out of the way before lunch (Oh, I got the good news yesterday that they were able to fix my old laptop and save all my pictures!! It will be getting here on the 17th or so of December with our dog.)