All Set

I feel like we're on the final countdown here.  Last (partial) week of 2014, one more week of Christmas vacation then Real Life hits again in full force.  And I'm so NOT ready to get back to the normal routine.  Or maybe I just don't want to go down to the freezing cold shop and work on drying racks while the snow falls and the kids are home entertaining themselves -  and the attitude is just carrying over to everything?...
I have been enjoying the slower pace the past few days and not forcing myself to get up and go to the gym or work on a giant list of To Dos.  Though I do also enjoy being productive and being on top of things.  Both have their place and the art of balancing them has been on my mind a lot the last couple of days.  There are just so many parts and pieces that make up a life, aren't there?  And only limited quantities of energy, motivation, time, and money.
It may be cliche, but this time of year is when I get in that mode to really think about and reevaluate my life, my priorities, and the direction I want to take in the new year and I've been taking a few solid steps toward preparing to jump into the new year with both feet.  I am finishing up my final prompt for the OLW workshop I participated in this year (and starting to get excited for the process next year) and am pretty sure I have decided on my new Word for next year (that will get it's own blog post in a few days).  I sat down with Kaitlyn this morning and we revised and reprinted the Before Screens list for the kids (we haven't used the lists at all since the move and I've been having such a hard time keeping Tyler on track and self directed lately.  Hoping this alleviates some of the frustration and constant nagging) and have them hanging up ready to be used.  I have a few other things/ideas for interactions with the kiddos that are percolating in my head.  I even found homes for most of the new things we all got for Christmas and the clutter piles are nearly all gone.

I also picked up a weekly planner - something I haven't used in years.  I have a number of reasons for doing so.  First of all, I haven't been on the ball about putting things on my Google calendar and I'm hoping that having it all just in a hard copy will be easier for keeping track of appointments and schedules.  I know, right?  Old School.  But the bigger reason for purchasing a planner was for memory keeping/scrapbooking purposes.  My intention for the last few years has been to put together some kind of December Daily album (I know - lots of inspiration from Ali Edwards lately.  We must have similar personalities/tastes or something ;)  ) but I am never fully set up enough to do it as I go along, so this year I printed off a weekly calendar for December - you know the ones with a bunch of lines under each day of the week so you can take notes - and have been using it to keep track of some of the things I want to remember from each day.  I've seen that kind of idea before - using a calendar to write down one memory every day during your baby's first year and so on - and a light finally went off.  Those little squares on a calendar are not nearly enough room to write down a story from the day or any sort of detail but the idea of keeping it all in one place, in something that is easy to pick up and use, is a solid one.  So.  My plan for this year is to write down everything I want to remember in the weekly planner - funny quotes from the kids, details about daily life, stories of big events, etc.  Much easier than scrolling through Facebook posts, emails, and blog posts trying to figure out what happened during week ____ when trying to put together my layouts/albums.  Right now I'm thinking I'm pretty brilliant, but the true test will be a couple months into it to see if I have been following through on writing everything down on a regular basis.

I really am serious about doing more scrapbooking on a regular basis.  I even had the husband buy me a photo printer for Christmas - so exciting!  I still need to get another USB cord so I can hook it directly to my computer instead of printing solely from the camera's memory card but I have figured out the basics of how to use it and am very pleased with the photo prints so far.  So with the photo printer on hand and a weekly crafting date all set up with a friend I am looking forward to making a lot of progress with the scrapbooking this year.

Now I just need to finalize a few fun plans for New Years Eve (ack - someone tell me I'm not the only one that staying up until midnight doesn't appeal to! lol) and I think I'm all set to head into 2015.  Are you?

OLW - November Gratitude Prompt

 It's the month of December and not only is there NO snow on the ground here in Utah, but I also found the time yesterday to spend the morning working on my One Little Word album.  Free time on a weekday in December?!  Craziness. ;)
The prompt for November was a combination of photos and words, revolving around what it means to "live your word" and recognizing what we are grateful for.  I spent the first part of November trying to note something I was Thankful For every day (posted daily on my Facebook page) and although it kind of fizzled around the 20th, I still had plenty of ideas to choose from.  I thought finding the right photos might be harder, but after combing through all my photo files from the past few months I ended up with plenty to choose from.  I guess being a photo-obsessed, wish-I-had-more-time-to-scrapbook Mom comes in handy sometimes.

The finished layout:

I just realized I had intended to add a line of journaling to this photo.  On well.  I may do it later and reprint it, or maybe it's fine just like that.

 *photo taken as we pulled out of our neighborhood in North Carolina and started our trek across country to move back home to Utah.  I followed that Uhaul trailer for four days straight.

I have loved participating in this online workshop this year.  Whether or not I managed to do the prompts "on time" I got a whole lot more out of the experience than I did in previous years with my words.  I have already signed up for next year's workshop, though I have no idea at this point what my word for next year will be...

One Little Word - September Prompt

 Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we are almost at the end of 2014.  But we are and it truly has been an eventful, sometimes overwhelming and crazy, but good year.  September's One Little Word workshop prompt was about telling our "real" story - not the one that goes on in our head, but how our life truly is.  It was nice to take a step back to look at how I view my life and see how my perspective looks from a different angle.

The photo is one I took over the summer as we were hiking Timpanogos.  I had it printed at  8x10 size and just cut it into pieces to fit the slots in the page protector.  The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

OLW - July

Friday I found myself not only with a little free time, but also felt the urge to create something.  I had just unpacked the boxes with my scrapbook paper and my One Little Word album so of course I decided to do a little catching up.  This is the layout for July's prompt for the year-long online workshop I have been participating in (love it - pretty sure I will be doing it again next year!).  I had all the journaling/writing done and had even printed out the photos, just hadn't had a chance to pull it all together.  And before I get distracted by something else, I thought I'd better share it.

Front:

 

Back:

One Litte Word - August Prompt

It's September!

What?  You knew that already?  ;)

Life has been crazy here - always lots going on with school starting and the pre-moving prep kicking into full gear.  What I'm realizing as I try to juggle it all, is that my Word for the Year has become even more present and important for keeping calm, balanced, and sane.  Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, I have to set priorities and decide what I can/should be doing with my limited time and energy and the other day (August 31, in fact!) I gave myself some time to finish up the prompt for August from the One Little Word year-long workshop I am participating in.

It has been a few months since I've shared anything from the OLW workshop - not because I haven't been doing it, but because I didn't have anything tangible to photograph.  I'm great about watching the video for the month, thinking through the prompts and journaling my thoughts in the notebook I set aside specifically for that.  My sticking point is making the opportunity to put together the final presentation form of each one for my book.  I find that I need a chunk of quiet time, uninterrupted by the kids, the husband, the dog, the To Do List...and during the summer that was harder than usual to find.  Hopefully I will find time soon to finish typing up the ones I "missed" from June and July.  But I digress.  Since I did get August's done (and before the month was up!) I thought I'd give myself a digital pat on the back by posting a couple of photos here on the blog.

 The prompt for August dealt with music/lyrics that apply to our words.  Turned out to be harder than I thought.  First thing I realized is that there is no way to search for songs based on subject matter - at least not a way that worked for this purpose.  Eventually I stumbled onto a search term (lyrics to live by) that worked for me in Pinterest to turn up short quotes from song lyrics.  Then I turned to the music I listen to often.  Guess what I found out LOL.  I don't usually like a song for the lyrics/message behind it.  I must be more of a rhythm/melody person.  Eventually though, I did pull together a collection of quotes from songs that I feel really do apply to what is happening in my life right now, the lessons I'm learning, and the mindset I am hoping to acheive.

 Do you have a song that speaks to you right now?  I'd love to hear about it.

One Little Word - May Prompt (I am)

Thought it was time to share my One Little Word prompts for this month.  After such a crazy April I surprised myself by getting to these within the first couple days of May.  I guess what I really needed was to take the time to breath, get grounded and back in balance inside my head.

My reflections for April:

It says:  "Breathing a sigh of relief.  April was too much - work, responsibilities, Spring To Do lists, etc - all hit fast and hard.  I struggled most days with trying not to stress.  To find balance.  Patience.  It really was all mental - I knew that but couldn't quite find my center.  Finally though I think I'm back on top and putting more energy into living intentionally."

Then I quickly moved on to the prompt for the month.  The goal was to get kind of artsy and creative with a set of cards.  To just pull out some supplies, play around and let it flow.  Then use the cards as background for a list of "I am" statements.

The "I am" statements came surprisingly quickly and easily.  Decorating the cards did too, though the process and the end result really aren't "my thing."  I find myself wanting to go back and redo them, but I'm not going to.  Not right now at least.  I think it's part of the process, to just put it out there and let it be good enough and not worry about perfection.

So I started off with 9 pieces of cardstock and a small stack of my scrapbooking supplies that hadn't been used in quite some time.  The challenge was to do things in layers - add to it as you go.  So I pulled out the Cuttlebug and embossed a few of them.  I didn't feel like using paints and I was sad that I couldn't find any of my glimmer mist - I'll have to search that out sometime, so I stuck with ink pads.  As I said, my supplies were a bit old so the ink was a bit pale and dry, but that kind of worked for this project.  On some of the cards I used the ink pad itself and just covered the whole thing, on others I just kind of smudged it up or inked around the edges.

Then I took out the stamps and embellished most of the cards before adding on a stamped "I am" on each.

Then I took my list of I am statements and just started adding them randomly to the cards using stickers, chipboard letters, stamps, or my own handwriting (ick - I want to redo those the most if only because I couldn't find my black pen and the brown one I used was the wrong color).

-I am FUN
-Creativity is messy and I am very creative (yes I may have been looking at my Pinterest quote boards shortly before working on this LOL)
-I am learning
-I am genuine
-I am loving
-I am happy
-I am making the most of my life.  Right here.  Right now.
-I am hard at work
-I am a mom

And I am not going to over-think this process or redo anything ;)  Instead I'm going to finalize this post and get to work on some more Project Life pages.

One Little Word - April Prompts

 Some months are harder than others.  For me April was a rough one - though I should be quick to add it was not because anything bad happened.  There was so just much going on and so much to do (the Etsy shop had our highest sales month ever - woohoo!, Spring Projects, Spring Break, and the craziness of life in general) that it felt like a marathon, where you are determined to finish it all and don't want to stop or slow down even though at times it feels overwhelming.  (At least I imagine that's the mentality in a marathon)  Midway through the month I recognized that I was constantly tired and cranky and having a hard time keeping the right balance mentally so I took the time to order a ring engraved with my Word for the Year (Intention) to help me have a more physical reminder of the mindset I wanted to have.

Needless to say, I didn't have the right opportunity to clear out my brain enough to put together everything for the month's OLW prompt (One Little Word Workshop with Ali Edwards) though I did take a few minutes for journaling here and there.  Then magically on Thursday (May 1) I found myself with a large chunk of the day's plans cancelled (rainy days do come in handy sometimes) and I was able to finish - yay!

First off, my reflections for March:

 Part one of the assignment for April was to put our word into photos.  My first thought was to take entirely new photos throughout the month as the opportunity arose.  Of course that didn't happen.  So I was surprised at how easily it came together once I sat down, made a list of some of the ideas I wanted to illustrate and found I could almost immediately think of photos I had taken within the last 6 months that fit the concepts I had in mind.

 

The second part of the assignment was to find something to Let Go of for the month and then to journal about it directly on top of a photo of ourselves.  Wow - out of my comfort zone on that one, for sure.  I hate my handwriting and it's so rare now that I am in photos and even more rare that I like how I look in them.  All I see is frizzy hair and wrinkles.  I know - it's a self image thing.  I'm working on it and working on figuring out how to tame the frizz ;)  (seriously, it's been years of experimenting with the best way to deal with my curly hair since moving to this high humidity).  The photo is one I took with my phone to show off a new haircut to some far-away friends a few months back.

 

 The journaling reads:
Let It Go - How funny that I became obsessed with that song (from Disney's Frozen movie) months ago and how fitting that it applies in so many ways to my life.  I belt it out at the top of my lungs and whatever part needs to speak to me at the moment is there.
-be myself.  Don't worry how that appears to others/what they think
-put it behind me.  Stop obsessing and move on
-it isn't important.  Don't worry about it.
-you're happy.  Be Happy!
-sing and dance.  It's who you are and it feels good
-expectations determine our perspective.  Modify as needed
So April's assignment, in part, was to find something ot let go.  I got stuck on that because there are about a million appropriate and meaningful responses to that.  And at the same time I felt like I've put a lot of effort into Letting Go on a lot of different fronts and don't need to add  any more (and overwhelm myself).  Then April hit, hard and heavy, and I was stressed, frazzled, tired and cranky.  Life was going too fast and I couldn't get a break.  So here I sit in the Overwhelmed stage, not exactly sure what to do about it all or even if I should.  But that sums up my Let it Go lesson for the month - whatever is interrupting/interfering with my calm/peace of mind at any given moment, that is what I need to Let Go.  Expectations of myself.  Unreasonable demands on my time.  Frustration. with a person or situation.  Never-ending To Do lists. 
Just Let It Go!

 So there you have it - April's prompt not only finished but blogged!

PS - Happy Saturday and Happy National Scrapbook day to all!  I'm thinking I might just find MAKE the time this afternoon to pull out the supplies and create something.

One Little Word for March

Well we're a full week into March and I'm pretty proud of myself for jumping right into my One Little Word prompts for the month.  I've found that I look forward to the first of the month and the opportunity to explore my word and my goals in a different way. 

I'm wondering if I need bigger cards for the reflections lol.  These are only baseball card sized and I'm finding myself struggling to put everything down in the small space.  But maybe that's a good thing - makes me focus and pare it down to just the important parts.

 

My reflections for February read: 

The overall feeling for the month was calm happy progression.  I'm getting things done and I've taken some steps toward a healthier lifestyle (including signing us up for the Color Run in May!).  Places I feel I could use more:
-giving the kids my full attention.  Following thru on what I want to do/teach them
-judgment/gossip/negativity.  redirect convo/thoughts
-and in everything - show love.

 

The "assignment" for March was to make a vision board.  It didn't necessarily have to be about or include my Word, just things that call to me.  And I have to admit, it's not really my "thing" to create like this.  I love words and I love making things, but the collage-type look isn't my style.  Once I found some magazines (thanks Jeannette!) and started clipping it actually came together pretty quickly.

 I know a lot of people in the group plan on displaying their boards somewhere in their home but I don't have an appropriate space for that right now (my focus is on getting photos out and displayed - more on that tomorrow!) so I designed mine as a two page layout for my OLW album.  I really tried to keep it simple.  Just paper and a glue stick.  Sure, the big pieces ended up bubbling a little bit, but I'm ok with that.

 I think the big Intention (it's vinyl) was what it needed to pull it together.

 

 find your healthy happy mom place

 I used mostly titles cut from magazines but I did pull in a couple of quotes I had printed from Pinterest like this one from Nike and the quote pictured at the beginning of this post.

 And there it is all happily a part of my OLW album.  Right now the back side of the first page is blank so I'll probably end up printing up another quote on full size paper and adding it in there later.
We'll see.  The whole point of this project for me is to let it evolve as I go along.  My plan for the rest of the month is to spend some more time journaling and putting into practice more of my intentions...

One Little Word - February Prompts

In contrast to last month, it only took me a week to put together my One Little Word prompts for February.  Somehow though, it felt harder.  Maybe because we're getting past the exploring stage and into something more tangible and active?  I haven't felt as if I've kept my word as present in my mind this month either, though that's probably due in large part to how the month has gone, with our 2nd big snowstorm (remember, NC doesn't get snow so it shuts down life for days and days) and catching a nasty cold at the same time - not fun.  Which is why this post has sat unfinished in my drafts folder for the last 10 days. So before I get interrupted or distracted again...


The first part of our OLW prompts was a quick summary of what we thought of the last month.  I kept mine pretty simple by just printing out the journaling cards provided and putting them in the page protector.  The colors work pretty well with what I used for accents in the previous pages, so why not?

 By the end of the year I'll be a pro about not catching the glare off the page protectors in the photos.  Maybe?

One of the few places you will see my handwriting - at least on something I want to look good.  I've never been a fan of it and even in college when I had to practice it over and over for my drafting class it really didn't get any prettier.  I'm sure there's a lesson about my personality or something in there.  (or my family - my brother and sister both have very similar handwriting)  Doesn't really bother me - typing is much faster and easier most of the time.  But in this case it seemed like the best approach for having all the cards prepped and ready to fill out at the end of each month.

 

The second part of the workshop for February was to create Action Cards based on our intentions for living with our word this year.  It took me a few days to figure out how I wanted to interpret that.  I ended up with 8 for now, though I left some space to add a few more later if inspiration strikes.

One of the trends I've been noticing in my thought processes when I think about living my life with intention is how often I think about/crave the positive.  Quotes.  Blog articles.  Happy ideas.  Music.  Laughter.  It's all reaching out for me right now.  And I think that's reflected in my Action Cards.  They read:

1.  SEARCH OUT THE POSITIVE.  good input/inspiration, recognize happy moments, keep your (good) perspective

2.  Do something SILLY.  Every. Day.

3.  JUST DO IT (this is my reminder to not procrastinate or overthink things.  Just dive in and get it done)

4.  Give them your attention  The kids, Sam, the task at hand - whatever it is, FOCUS.

5.  Sign up for another Color Run 5k and run the whole way

6.  HEAHTY HABITS:  daily exercise/activity, healthy snacks/meals, drink water, cut back on sugar, limit screen time

7.  DANCE (see?  I told you it's calling to me.  I've really been feeling the need to make my life lighter, not so much about going and doing.  So literally and figuratively I want to remember to dance.)

8.  Show Love  (more all-encompassing than "be nice" or "be patient" - plus it works well for Feb, eh?)

 

Can't wait for next month!