Journaling Reads:
Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it. The lights, the joy, the music, the presents, the excitement, and, most of all, the family time.
For the last two years, we’ve been starting our Christmas morning with a special breakfast. It always includes orange juice, fresh berries, bananas and something that requires syrup. We have these place settings, plates, and cups that only come out during the season and just seeing them fills my heart with joy.
A lot more happens on Christmas Day and I love all of it, but I feel like having this tasty breakfast and starting our morning with quality family time sets the very best tone for our day. The way, once the craziness of opening presents, calling relatives, squealing, playing, wrestling, and even napping begins, I can enjoy all of it.
Just looking at this picture right now makes me wish it was Christmas already. Maybe I should take a cue from this and set breakfast traditions for other occasions, too.
When Jake came back from picking David up from school, he walked in with a big box of flowers. He said “somebody loves you more than I do, they’re not from me.” I had no idea who they could possibly be from. And to my amazement and incredible delight, they were from the My Mind’s Eye team!!! That company and Amber are absolutely amazing! Not only have they sent me all these incredible products and given me the opportunity to guest but now flowers, too! I am deeply deeply grateful. Thank you Amber and thank you My Mind’s Eye. You have truly spoiled me silly.
The little boy awoke feeling much better thankfully. He was in good spirits for most of the day. Still coughing some and wheezing some but overall much much better.
I had a ton of catching up at work since I took a personal day yesterday so while Nathaniel napped I worked like crazy and got a huge amount of work done. Jake was home today so he took David from and to the bus which really helped me so much. David’s favorite activity lately is to color and he’s amazingly good at it.
He’s my stunning boy with the amazing eyes.
I love this shot of Nathaniel with the smile even though he won’t look up at me.
And a fast catch.
He loves sitting at David’s table now and David mostly sits at the dining table so I guess this table’s Nathaniel’s for the most part.
I also finished my 979 page book today and caught up on my class at BPS and tonight I hope to finally reply to comments and emails and then I can start on some of my longer term projects like writing the 2011 BPS class and figuring out the blog plan for 2011. Any ideas? Are these diary entries annoying you? Should I continue them? I was thinking I might bring back Digital Downloads. Continue with the books and layouts. Some posts on non-scrappy crafts like sewing, embroidery, painting, etc. Maybe some more longer written pieces like the gratitude entries? Are those boring? I’m told people don’t like to read long things but i like writing them…I can’t decide if I should do another 52 things. All these thoughts on my mind. Any ideas? Suggestions? Criticism? I’m open to hearing it all.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that Nathaniel seems to be on the road to recovery.
2. I am grateful for the amazing, stunning flowers from My Mind’s Eye
3. I am grateful that I got a ton of work done and feel more caught up than I did in weeks. Much more to go but i feel progress is now being made.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. coloring
2. playing secret i spy with maggie at school
3. doing my reading with mommy
This is using the A Million Memories September Kit.
Journaling Reads:
From the moment you were born you looked exactly like Daddy and you still do so very much. And recently I took this photo of the two of you and when I posted it online someone commented that even your smiles matched. I hadn’t noticed it until that very moment but they totally do! It’s quite amazing to see that resemblance. It makes me so very happy.
Details:
edited: somehow the text for this got mixed up with another book i mentioned. please forgive me. i fixed it.
I was reluctant to pickup The Girl Who Played with Fire after having mixed feelings about the first book. I found the first one to be interesting but long at places and the subject matter was deeply disturbing to me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read more.
But thanks to my friend Mike’s recommendations I picked up the second one and I am glad I did. This book is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the first one. While the subject and the content is still deeply disturbing, I found the pace to be much better and the character development deeper and more interesting. This one felt more personal. I read it much more quickly and with great interest and anticipation. And I will read the third one at some point.
I’m glad I didn’t give up after the first book.
So the little boy woke up at 4:20am this morning, crying and burning up and coughing and miserable. I was exhausted but also a little at my wit’s end. I almost took him to the urgent care. After I gave him some medicine, he was better but still very lethargic. He couldn’t hold his head up so I put him back down in bed where he slept for a tiny bit and then woke up coughing. We even drove over to the hospital but then thought better of it. At this point, he was much more himself so I knew it was better to be calmer and more organized. Jake took David to the bus, I came home for the cleaning lady and waited for the doctor’s office to open. They were awesome and gave me an appointment quickly. We rushed over there and yes he has something like croup. Throat is sore and inflamed. Poor little boy.
We came back home and he was so tired so I put him down.
We had a lot of these sad faces today.
But he was much better as the day wore on. I decided to take a personal day from work and rest, too. I did end up working more than planned but it was still good to stress less. We picked up David who’d had a good day at school and came home to rest and eat dinner.
I snapped this odd photo of Nathaniel that’s blurry but it’s the only non-crying photo I have from today so I want to put it here so I can remember that it wasn’t all crying.
By the evening, he was in better moods and even played outside a bit. I am overwhelmingly exhausted and behind in so many tasks but just hiding behind my book. It will all sort itself out soon.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that Nathaniel isn’t too sick or having huge coughing fits. He’s a strong little boy and hopefully will be much better soon.
2. I am grateful I was able to take the day off and rest a bit and grateful that despite my day off, made some progress at work and set the space up for a good day at work tomorrow.
3. I am grateful that while I am letting things slide, people have been so kind and understanding.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. making my P puppet (penguin!)
2. playing road game with my friend Hassen at school
3. creating rhymes with words that end with “en” at school
I spent a while thinking about expectations today. I’ve noticed lately that happiness and gratitude are very strongly related to expectations. If something you didn’t expect (but is good) happens, you’re thrilled beyond belief and feel a strong sense of gratitude. And yet if you’re anticipating it, the same event feels deserved and comes with a sense of entitlement. However small.
So when something exceeds expectations, that’s when we feel glee and gratitude. And when something fails to meet what we hoped or even if it just meets our hopes, we tend to feel let down. What does this mean about gratitude?
The first instinct might be to think it’s best to lower expectations. After all, the lower they are, the easier it is to exceed them, right? The more I think about this, the more I feel that’s not the right path. I think the trick is to find gratitude even in those situations. I’m all about focusing in the now and trying to have realistic expectations, etc. But at the end of the day, each of us will be disappointed at some point in our lives and the trick is knowing what to do then.
What happened to me today was relatively small. I was frustrated for a while because something that I expected turned out completely different than my vision. I whined and pouted for a while. Then I gave myself a good mental slap. It was my fault for having baseless expectations and what happened instead was still amazing and wonderful and I had much to be thankful for. So instead of changing them, I threw my expectations out the window and told myself to take a good look at what was right in front of me. What I did have.
And, honestly, I had much to be grateful for right there.
I just had to look at it with my bare eyes and not through the colorful lenses of my expectations.
So next time this happens to you, I hope you take a moment to step back and pay attention to how your expectations might be blurring your vision of the situation and how you might actually have a lot to be thankful for right in front of you.
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 still in this odd funk. It shall pass. They always do. But sadly, the little boy is sick. He’s got a low grade fever and definitely something off with this chest. Nurse said it might be croup. What a bummer for him. He’s losing his voice and you can hear his throat when he breathes. He’s lethargic too. But he still has some happy moments in the day. He loves doing this pillow game where he throws the pillow on the carpet and falls on it. He likes doing it again and again.
And he still likes to collect things and randomly distribute them in the house.
A few weeks ago, I ordered some gelaskins of my favorite image from this year. One for my laptop.
and one for the kindle.
you don’t even see the back since it’s in a cover, but i still love it.
And here’s a wide, happy smile from the big big boy.
Not feeling motivated at all. Maybe cause I am so tired. But I am enjoying my book and my kids and hugging Nathaniel a lot hoping he will get well. Those keep me busy enough…
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for a walk and quickie breakfast Nathaniel and I took with my friends Nicholas and Ty and their dog Peaches this morning. It was really fun.
2. I am grateful for happy mail from Tim and the Gelaskins.
3. I am grateful for some good conversations at work today and a great long chat with my awesome friend Audrey last night. There’s nothing like an old friend.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. making my O puppet (octopus!)
2. folding laundry with mommy
3. catching the mouse in the cat and mouse game at school!
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:
You make every one of my minutes more wonderful by being in my life. I am so very grateful for you. Thank you for choosing me and for sticking with me all these years and thank you for adding so much light into my life. I love you.
Details:
This morning, we drove David to the school bus and then after a brief stop at home, we drove over to his school to volunteer for an art project. I helped and took photos of the kids (I am also helping with yearbook photos for the class.) Nathaniel was well behaved almost the whole time and it was fun to see the variety of art projects in the class. While we were there, a woman came to assess each of the kids on their math skills one by one. She was amazed by David’s interest, excitement, and knowledge. She said he was the best she’s assessed in all of kindergarten. And she loved that he was having so much fun with it. Yey for David!
We then rushed home and I put the little boy down. He slept for a short time and woke up all cranky. It took a long time but he did finally relax. I got a bunch of work done and watched him play a bit.
Then we went to get David. Since I showed you some Nathaniel faces a while ago, I thought it would be fun to do some David faces, too. Like this one.
And this one.
Thinking hard.
Nathaniel wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing.
But David started making funny faces.
And funnier faces.
And won the little boy over, of course.
I am still indescribably exhausted. Besides work, David’s school and some reading I did not do one thing all day. And my plan for tonight is sleep and then some more sleep. Maybe a tiny bit of reading squeezed in there.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that Nathaniel is in a good mood again, he had me worried for a while today.
2. I am grateful that David’s so good at math and more importantly likes it.
3. I am grateful that my work was on the twopeas blog today and also on crate paper’s blog. I am so so honored.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. making nathaniel laugh
2. doing homework with mommy
3. checking out a new book from the library (biscuit goes to school)
I’m not exactly sure what went wrong but I woke up feeling really tired and almost sick. So was Nathaniel. So instead of accomplishing more and going out, I stayed at home all day and lay on the couch feeling sorry for myself. Little boy was sad and whiny in the morning, too.
But seemed to get his bearings back later in the day.
And the big boy was as awesome as ever.
He even gave me some deep smiles all the way in the eyes.
In the afternoon, we gave Nathaniel some crayons and paper and he went to town. It was his first time but he scribbled like an old pro.
Some short backyard time, some lounging on the couch and it was time for the little ones to go down. I am planning on sitting with my book a bit more (almost 300-pages in) and then hoping that tonight’s rest will make me more useful tomorrow. I volunteer at David’s class tomorrow so I will need to be solid.
Hope your weekend was great!
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that Jake covered for me so I could take a long nap in the middle of the day.
2. I am grateful that Nathaniel doesn’t actually seem to be sick. He was all well even at bedtime.
3. I am grateful that even though I was too tired to do anything today, I didn’t have anything crucial due and i have a great book to curl up with, what more do i really need?
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. getting ice cream during dinner
2. watching some tv
3. getting my old markers (we had a bag put away, he wanted them back)
I did this one a few months ago, using a Crate Paper sketch.
Journaling Reads:
A few months ago, I bought you a pair of shoes. I thought it would be fun to have your own. I put them somewhere safe. As it turned out, it was too safe. When we packed to go camping I couldn’t find them. I looked for hours and then gave up. I figured I’d lost them. And then you found them under a box of diapers. You immediately opened the box and asked me to put them on. i love you.
I don’t have a huge todo list for this weekend. I had a few things I wanted to make sure to get done and I finished the most time consuming one. Or at least the one I was most worried about. I can now relax and read the rest of the weekend. We started the morning with a bunch of reading exercises. We’re on lesson 76 and it’s amazing the amount and kind of progress he’s made. He really can pretty much read at this point. It’s stunning.
In the middle of the day, David decided he wanted to stop playing Wii and play soccer outside. Of course it only took Nathaniel seconds to join him. So I took the chance to grab my camera and snap photos.
Nathaniel took a while to get the hang of it but he enjoyed himself the whole time.
We kept cheering him to take the ball to David. Go, Nathaniel go. To David.
He totally got it.
But then David would throw it back out and he’d get so upset.
And then there were two balls and he got even more confused. He sat down and thought for a long time, and then picked them both up at the same time. Cutie pie that he is! I snapped my closeup of course.
Jake went to get us some light lunch and we all ate together. Then he played Wii with David while I worked on my minibook. Nathaniel walked around and made a huge mess and gave his dad regular hugs. Dinner, bath, hugs, milk and it was bedtime for the little ones. I finished my mini and after this I plan to spent some hubby time and then bed with my book. I’m only on page 103 of a 975 page book. Long long long time to go. My goal was to finish it this weekend but I am thinking it’s not likely.
All in all, wonderful day.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that the kids love the soccer post and have been playing so much.
2. I am grateful that I finished my mini and I love it. I love doing these artsy minis.
3. I am grateful for some cuddle time coming up with my amazing, awesome husband. I am so in love with him.
Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. doing reading lessons with mommy
2. playing wii
3. playing soccer outside
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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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