This is made with the October kit from A Million Memories. I could not for the life of me get a non-crooked or even normal quality photo with this one. I am so sorry. I swear it looks much cuter in person.
Journaling Reads:
Little boy, you’re always so funny. You have such a strong personality. You dig through my things and find whatever you like and try it on and walk around with things and make funny faces. The headphones are among your favorites. You put them on and walk around dragging the cord with you and then you take them off. I love watching how you are so much of who you are already.
Details:
This morning I woke up, I posted the catalyst, I snuggled up with my kid, I had my coffee. I was blissful and happy. I just decided this was it, I was going to relax. And i ended up getting much more than usual done and I am still relaxed.
Nathaniel is getting harder and more demanding but he also plays with his toys occasionally.
And he’s so wonderful so I cannot imagine doing anything else with my time. I cannot imagine leaving this one at home and going to work. I love him so.
And then I had to go to work so Jake came home and went to pick up David while I went to work. I was there for a little over two hours and it was incredibly useful and also great to get out a bit. I don’t get out much. While I was gone, Jake snapped this for me.
And now I am back, kids are tucked in and I am planning on doing more relaxing. Taking care of me day! I hope you make one too!!
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that I went to work. I learned a lot.
2. I am grateful that I did actually take the time to relax today. I rarely let myself off the hook, so I am glad I did.
3. I am grateful that I feel calm now. That I am still walking and eating better and working on things. One day at a time….
4. Oh and i got this amazing email today. A reply I had long stopped expecting.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. making my Y puppet
2. watching movies with daddy
3. playing roll and recorder at school ( no idea what this is!! )
Here’s today’s page.
If I had 20 minutes yesterday, I only had 10 today. I went to work for a meeting and didn’t get home until 5:15 and light was almost completely gone. I was going to give up but then i saw this butterfly. And I grabbed my water-soluble crayons and i just decided to have fun quickly. I did red to light orange on the back ground. Added a fabric house, the butterfly and some text. That’s it. Super quick. Look how crooked my letters are. I really had no time. It was do this or do nothing.
As for the words, today was the first day in a good two weeks i relaxed. I slowly did some to-do items and I got a bunch of work done but I didn’t feel unbelievably stressed and worried and I remembered that life is good. It *is* good. I need to remember it more and let go of anxiety more.
detail:
Catalyst One Hundred and Fifteen is: Create a postcard. Who’s it going to?
Thoughts:
I took this photo a while ago and I loved it. I love so many things about it that I cannot even begin to explain. But I wanted to take this photo, make a card of it and send it myself to remind myself that each day is ephemeral and that I need to live it with full emotion and passion and suck everything out of each of my days. To make the very best of them.
I hate Halloween.
There I’ve said it. I really, truly hate it. I don’t like pumpkins or pumpkin pie. I do not enjoy costumes. Most importantly, I hate anything scary. And Halloween’s built on scary. Maybe if I were a kid, I might enjoy the candy but, at my age, I know it’s best to stay away from it. So, in my opinion there’s nothing redeemable about this day.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t grown up with the tradition of celebrating it. Where I come from, we don’t have Halloween or anything like it. For the first few years I moved here, I ignored it. Then for a brief period I made my peace with and even embraced giving candy to the kids who came to our door.
Then we had kids and it was time to go trick or treating, and I hated it all over again. The haunted houses, the horror movies on TV, the candy I had to tell my son he couldn’t have. (One or two or three but certainly not the whole bucket.) I just didn’t understand what was so great about this holiday.
A few years ago, my husband bought a pumpkin carving kit. A $5 one at wal-mart. It came with pictures you taped on the pumpkin and then cut out. This little thing was the first step to changing my feelings about this holiday. I now really enjoy the process of picking the pattern and carving the pumpkin with my kids. (Even though I do all the work.) I also enjoy our yearly trips to the pumpkin patch. I love that it’s something we do as a family.
So while I am still not at peace with Halloween, I did manage to create some small sub-traditions around this holiday that I look forward to. This way, I can make sure that I share my kids’ enthusiasm about one of their favorite days of the year.
Maybe that’s the trick for dealing with something you cannot stand: creating a small portion inside it that you love.
The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.
I’m so close to the very end, I can almost see it. Working working working like mad. While i work the little boy explores in the house.
Sometimes quietly and sometimes with a lot of noise. Especially if he’s hungry. I waited too late to take photos today, too so they came out much more blurry than usual.
And here’s Nathaniel looking up to his brother. Look at that love in his eyes.
I know this photo is super blurry but I love the look he has here. It reminds me so much of me. Eerie.
And here we are at the end of another day. October 18. I can’t believe we’re past the halfway point of this month. I plan to plow through very hard in the next two days and then be totally done with my lists. Or at least ready to take a break. I am ready to relax more and scrap some. Mmmm. scrapping. yes!
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that I wrote three more lessons today. Off to record some audio.
2. I am grateful that things at work seem to be moving along well. Slowly, but well.
3. I am grateful that I spent another day drinking only one cup of coffee. So far, so good.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. helping Daddy take the training wheels of his bike
2. watching mommy do her art journal page
3. reading mommy my stories
4. doing my X puppet (xavier the fox!)
Here’s today’s page. I am still enjoying the watercolors.
Completely different thing today. I’ve been thinking about Christmas a lot lately. I cannot wait to have the holiday season begin. I love it so much.
I wanted to use copics but i waited until it was really really late in the day so i rushed through the whole thing and made several mistakes. And you can see how much i rushed. But i was losing daylight and wasn’t going to be able to take photos. So there we are, something odd and weird and very imperfect today. Here’s to doing better tomorrow.
Thought I forgot?
11 was the lucky number so the winner is:
Stephanie
October 11th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Awesome giveaway – Karen. Thanks for the chance to win.
Stephanie, email me your address at karen AT karenika DOT com and i will send this awesome product your way!
More giveaways coming soon!
A few weeks ago Margie emailed me and asked me if I could do a few samples with one of her kits that were scheduled to sell on the Home Shopping Network (HSN). The kit had the Girls’ Paperie Paper Girl papers, ribbons, stamps, and die cuts. No alphabets! Can you imagine me doing a layout without alphabets? Well, I went off and bought the letter punch from MS and decided to step up to the challenge. I will post the 4 layouts I made in two days, over the next few weeks.
Journaling Reads:
If someone has told me that I would be lucky enough to get another happy, beautiful and sweet baby after David, I would have told them that the changes are low I get so lucky twice in a row. But here you are smiling and magical. I love you so much.
Details:
I’m back to that bad place of being paralyzed by too much work. I’m getting a lot of work done and when i make my todo list I can see that it’s actually manageable and i will definitely get it done yet I still feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start and then get all wound up and do nothing. Here’s my promise to myself and you can hold me accountable: no new commitments for November and December. I’ve already made some but other than those, i won’t take anything on for the rest of this year. Time to rest and rejuvenate.
Many people ask me how I get work done at home with Nathaniel. Well here’s what he does while I’m working.
And then here’s the face poor David makes when i tell him he has to clean it up.
He knows it’s not fair and tells me so often.
But then I remind him that he did this when he was little and i cleaned it up every time and that we look out for each other and that’s what it means to be a family. And he feels resigned. Nathaniel ends up sacrificing for him too, just in different ways.
And speaking of Nathaniel I’ve been trying to expand Nathaniel’s meal variety. So we’ve tried carrots, sweet peppers, broccoli, blakc-eyed peas, and heirloom tomatoes in the last two days. All with no interest. He’s gotten really good at shaking his head no.
I apologize for cutting it short and being so whiny. I am off to write some more lessons and once this set is finished, I will breathe a big sigh of relief and be so much more jovial. I promise.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that despite feeling low and overwhelmed i am still making time for giggling with my kids, walking, and the art journal.
2. I am grateful that my ability to be effective at work is increasing.
3. I am grateful that I’ve been working on some positive changes for my daily intake of food. Not just fewer calories but more nutritional food. One step at a time.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. bringing the books i made at school home
2. going to school!
3. doing the brainquest workbook with mommy
Here’s today’s page. I am still enjoying the watercolors.
I did more walking today. I even mixed in a bit of running. Very little but it made a lot of difference. I am trying to psych myself up and that’s what today’s page is all about.
I used watercolors, made a flower from ribbon, water colored it, adhered it to another flower and added a few beads.I’ve been wanting to use my handwriting for a while and even though i hate hate hate it, i used it anyway. I know, it looks terrible…Sorry.
detail:
Here’s how it looks in the book.
And our Sunday has come and gone. I snapped this photo relatively early in the day and it really speaks to me. He looks so much like me here. A face I make. It’s eerie.
A lot happened this morning. I got some work done. David and I did some vocabulary and phonics. We watched a little TV and I watched a movie. And then Daddy came home!! We all rejoiced. Then we went shopping. I’ve been thinking a lot about food and what to eat more and I will talk more about it this week. After a long shopping trip, we came home and I tried to snap some photos of David. Here’s what he gave me.
And then the smile.
Then I went on my walk and when I came back, nathaniel spent some time putting my socks on and taking them off.
While I was gone, David and Daddy had put together his legos. Some of the pieces had broken so Jake had ordered replacements. Now that they arrived, they could finally finish it.
I cooked dinner for the kids but neither ate it. So most of it went to trash or my belly. Thankfully Jake prepared them for bed so I could be at my desk by 6pm for Brene Brown‘s webinar which i was really looking forward to. I am listening to it right now so i will bid you good night. More tomorrow.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that Jake is back. I miss him deeply. He’s the joy of our life.
2. I am grateful that did finish a lot of work this weekend.
3. I am grateful for my life. for getting to live it fully. for being more in the now than i’ve ever been. i need to cut myself more slack and think more about what i do and whether it’s where i want to spend my life. but i am really grateful for it.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. watching a little sprout.
2. coloring.
3. having daddy back
4. the gold coin daddy gave me
5. finishing the lego with daddy
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projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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