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This is with A Million Memories February Kit.
Many people ask me how I can work from home.
Most of today was spent whining and pouting and being sleepy. Here’s to doing better tomorrow. I even did a lousy job of taking photos. As in not taking them all day and remembering once the light was pretty much gone. The big boy tried to be great about it anyway.
And the little one was already eating dinner.
Oh well, some days are just like that. I hope your Saturday was better than mine. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
After Jake and I came home from the movies last night, we found my parents like this on the couch. It was only 9:15am. They are still very jet lagged.
My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the fact that I get the next day off. When I worked on Wall Street, we used to have to go to work on Friday and it was so depressing. Now I get it off and I love love this extra day. All the thanksgiving events are over and since I hate shopping, black Friday is not an event for me. I just spend the day snuggling up with my kids and doing absolutely nothing. In fact, I told myself that this whole weekend will just be watching movies, reading books, and family time. Nothing on my todo list. I get the weekend off. Unfortunately, Jake had to go to work today but he decided it would be fun to take David along, so they both woke up at 4am and went to the city. Jake was worried David might misbehave but I knew better of course. He was perfect. As he often is. So the morning was just Nathaniel and me. I don’t think I ever saw him pickup this doll before. We’d gotten it years ago for David. At the time he was having some major speech issues and they’d told us to get him a doll. So we did. Anyhow, Nathaniel picked it up, so I snapped a photo.
And then he kissed the doll’s head. I couldn’t believe it. Never did that before. No idea where he got it.
He then continued to make a mess around the house.
In the meantime I changed my lens as I mentioned last night that I might. With my old camera (canon 20d) I used to use the 50mm 1.8 but then when I bought the full-frame 5d mark ii, I also bought a 85mm 1.8 and that’s what I usually use. It’s medium telephoto which means it is hard to get wide photos in a small space. And since I wanted my tree in our photos, I decided for the holidays I’d switch back to the 50mm. And here’s the tree.
I don’t like this lens’s portraits nearly as much but I think it’s an ok compromise for the holidays. I might go back, I haven’t decided yet. To be fair, this one’s also badly focused.
Nathaniel’s learned all about TV and likes it on. He doesn’t sit and watch often but i think he likes the noise like I do.
He also likes graham crackers almost as much as I do.
My mom came over early morning and we tackled David’s room. It was a huge mess so we picked everything up and moved everything around and did a fantastic job. Now I have room to fit a table there which is what I wanted to do. We did it while Nathaniel was napping and by the time David made it home, we were done. And he loved it!
My mom left shortly after and I worked out and Jake went out to work so I just snuggled with the boys and read my book. Little boy was really happy.
And the big boy sat with me and played on the computer.
And now they’re eating dinner and will be heading to bed, soon. David’s been up since 4am. My mom is about come over again so she can sit (or sleep?) while we go see another movie. Yey for getting to go on so many date nights. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
Journaling Reads: But the thing that’s great about art journals is that they are not meant to be perfect. They are expressions of emotion. They are for trying out ideas. For experimenting. When you experiment, you will often fail, that’s the point. And the idea of doing something purely for fun, purely for trying out ideas inspires me. That’s the only reason I keep coming back to the journals. The reason I keep trying time after time. And the reason I will never give up on it. What inspires me almost as much is took look at other people’s journal pages. Their boldness, uniqueness, the expression of emotion always blows my mind. Makes me want to be bold. Makes me want to stop anything else I might be doing, grab some paint and play. Isn’t that the definition of inspiration?
Happy Thanksgiving. I didn’t grow up in the United States so Thanksgiving has never been a big holiday for me but over the years it’s become a wonderful way to spend some family time and remember everything we’re grateful for and today was no exception. It started like most mornings with the little one walking around in his PJs.
But then we took out the Christmas tree which I planned to setup after the meal. This is the first year we’re using the fake tree and it comes prelit. Nathaniel loved it. We all just sat around and relaxed as Nathaniel napped (or didn’t nap.)
And some of the grownups napped too.
While others played and read. (David’s nose was bleeding.)
I’m determined to be in the photos more so I asked my dad to snap a photo.
And then I asked Jake to take one of me and my parents.
Then we sat to dinner. And amazingly I can never get a good Thanksgiving dinner photo. It’s cause my lens is not wide-angle enough. I have to switch for the holidays.
David didn’t eat anything but green beans, rolls, and pumpkin pie.
And then there was Skype’ing with Jake’s parents.
When that was over, David helped me decorate the tree. And even Nathaniel did.
Before bedtime, our beautiful tree was up and running. Three cheers for Christmastime.
We didn’t get to the movies last night so we’re off right now! I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful. If you’re not in America, I hope you still took the time to remember what you’re grateful for today. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
I read A Reliable Wife for my book club. It had been on my list at some point and I just couldn’t decide if it would be too boring a read. So when my book club picked it, I decided it was synchronicity and I sat to read it. I read the whole thing in 24 hours. It was a super-fast read and an interesting one but I cannot say it was an amazing book. There’s one twist in the middle and I could totally guess it. Overall it was an ok read. A bit too much empty romance for my taste but I am not sad I read it.
Journaling Reads: Details:
I am crossing my fingers, but I think we might be on the other side of this sleep thing. The little boy actually slept through the whole night. Me, I woke up at 4:30 am and could not go back to sleep but that’s something else altogether. Go Nathaniel! My parents arrived safe and sound last night and I got to hang out with them for a bit. This morning, I did some scrapping, some working and some working out before they got here. Once they got here, there was the opening of the luggage full of toys.
Nathaniel grabbed one box immediately and when David took it back, there was much anger and screaming.
Which morphed into a full-on melt-down.
Until David got another box and gave the original back to Nathaniel.
And then we moved on and started playing with the toys.
I tried to sneak a photo of David in. Got the “here ya go” smile.
Nathaniel tried to master the pen.
And looked cute doing it.
Didn’t get enough photos of my parents, will do soon I promise. Now it’s dinner/bedtime and then Jake and I are off to date night. Yey! Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: This was made for a Crate Paper sketch contest two months or so ago.
Journaling Reads: details:
I didn’t take nearly enough photos when I was in NYC. This is one of the few I took. I’d like to say today was super-awesome with my new attitude but Nathaniel woke up 3 times last night and I was dead tired all day. I did a few of my todo list items, especially one big one but I still have a few dangling items I wish I could get to. I also have been thinking a lot about next year and my projects and my life in general etc. So that’s keeping me up at night too. Not in a bad way, just preoccupying my mind. My little boys are being angels of course. Because that’s what they are.
David decided he was going to turn this box into a house and drew all the rooms in our house and the people in them etc. etc. Then explained it all to me for a good twenty minutes. Love this boy!
He then played with his Didj while Nathaniel napped and I worked.
After Nathaniel woke up, I worked out. My knee is still hurting and more than anything I am annoyed about it. I wish it would just go away and leave me alone now that I am finally working out. In the afternoon, they lounged around a bit while I worked. I love the way Nathaniel’s playing here:
And David played at sprout on the computer.
Then Nathaniel decided it was time to play with balls and convinced David to put this on.
I told David to throw the balls slowly and that Nathaniel couldn’t hold three at the same time. Alas, I was wrong.
And now they are eating and I am waiting for Jake cause I have to rush out to the hairdresser and then my parents will be here. I can’t wait to hug them! I don’t know how many of you read my asides on the side of the blog but in case you didn’t see it, Tim Holtz decided to no longer have a design team and I just wanted to say that it was an amazing honor to design for him for as long as it lasted. I still remember the day I got the email from him and I was sure it was a prank. I hope you’ve enjoyed my layouts and thank you for all your kind words. I have more Tim stuff coming up and I will of course continue to use his amazing products on my work. Cause how could I not? He’s amazing. Thank you, Tim, for the opportunity. And I also wanted to thank you for all your kind words about my pity party post. I really appreciate your kind words and will reply individually but I wanted to take the time here to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: I’ve spent the last week or two wallowing in self-pity, overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy. I’ve been looking at other people’s blogs and yearning for their life. Their talent. Their poise. Their spunk. Their sense of calm. Their professionalism. Popularity. Their perfect pages. Amazing drawings. Fun personalities. I can go on and on. I’ve learned over the years that my mood and sense of self can move in waves. When I am feeling good, I am optimistic, driven, energetic, and kind. But when I am on a negative cycle, I can be depressed, whiny and insecure. I can look at what’s around me and take the very best of others and line it up against the very worst of myself. Where there’s no chance I could ever measure up. This is where I’d been lately. Even though I know jealousy and worry are completely wasted emotions, I was still unable to pull myself out of it. I looked at everything from a negative point of view. Someone would tweet or write a message about someone else and I would take it all personally. Make it about me and my shortcomings. I’d look for hidden messages in everything. I’d get bitter that so and so hasn’t written back to me yet and it must mean that they secretly hate me. On and on and on. Two days ago, I was on the phone with my friend Tonya and whining to her about one of these concerns in my head. About feeling like life was just not fair to me. In a single sentence, she was able to change my perspective and allow me to look at my situation in a completely different way so that what I was sad about actually looked like a blessing. It was so simple and so obvious in retrospect but because I’ve been wallowing, I hadn’t seen it at all. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since because it’s the perfect example of the biased lenses I’ve been wearing for the last few weeks. While her comment was helpful for that situation, it wasn’t enough to get me out of my pity-party. I was still feeling sorry that I wasn’t thinner, more talented, able to draw or write or do some of the millions of things I really wish I could. In the end, it’s really about being popular. Just like high school. Blogs, twitter, facebook are very much like high school to me. People link to each other and talk about each other and I sit there and watch them from the outside. On a sound day, I can tell it makes perfect sense that they talk to each other since that’s how I found them. One linked to the other cause they were friends. Then I follow both and then they talk about each other cause they’ve been friends all along. Before the internet this happened over the phone in the privacy of their homes. Now it happens in front of my eyes and I get to be a voyeur. I get to feel like an outsider all over again. Let me tell you the feelings that brings up…..not good ones. Anyhow, back to my pity-party. Fundamentally, I was feeling sad about not being popular. Because as we all know, that’s the answer to everything. We all yearn to be loved and be worthy. How better to measure that than by all the numbers the internet gives you? My readers, my facebook friends, my twitter followers, there are numbers everywhere. And all they scream to me is: you are not enough. Not good enough. Not popular enough. Not loved enough. Oh yes, it’s been that kind of a week. or two. And then this morning, I woke up and read this post by Amy about how she lost her father-in-law. But, as many of Amy’s posts are, it was eloquent and about so much more. Amy ends her post with these words: People die. One day it will be my turn, and a last blessing of Kent’s passing is this feeling in me: get up. Do better. Experience more. Stop wasting time. Live. And it was the kick in the rear I needed. It’s time to stop wallowing. Life’s short. It’s time to get up and do better. It’s time to dive into the things I want to do. Stop worrying about the popularity contests and invest into things more deeply. To the people I love and people who love me. To things I want to learn. Things I want to master. Ironically, I also realized I need to slow down. Just like it’s not about the number of people who like you, it’s not about the number of things I accomplish. It’s not about numbers at all. It’s not about quantity. It’s about quality. Deep, caring connection. True enjoyment and satisfaction. It’s not just about living fully and doing more. It’s also about living more deeply. So, once again, I am choosing joy. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years of these cycles, it’s that it ends when I choose to end it. And it’s time. This uses the November A Million Memories Kit and Jennifer’s sketch. It took forever to make it!!
Journaling Reads: and I made a movie while I was making this one, too so you can see just how painful it was to do all those hearts: |
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