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This is a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye’s Holiday Showcase back in December.
Since I spend all of December doing my December Daily album, I often don’t feel like scrapping most of my holiday adventures. Each year, I make one layout that captures the holiday. This year, I put together all of my favorite photos from throughout December and made a collage on my page. This way I can pull out this one page and remember this year’s wonderful holiday season.
I’ve been tired but feeling so good. Having the pain leave still has me on a high. I wake up each morning and read to David, prepare their food and get to work on my CHA layouts. I have five done and one more to do tomorrow. Then I have a pink paislee assignment for next week and then back to cha work. so far so good. Lately, things are busy so I am focusing on the must get done items. reading to david, exercise, cha layouts, portraits, etc. everything else is pretty much falling on the floor. this weekend I will pick up a whole bunch hopefully and start getting caught up. Let’s hope. So I’ve been doing a bad job on the photos. The fact that it’s dark doesn’t help either. I switched back to my 85mm today. Since it’s 1.8 and not 2.8 that gives me a lot more light. Let’s see if the photos improve. I love how Aurelia likes sitting with his brother.
Here’s me trying to get a shot of David again and him giving me a “smile” so he can get back on the computer.
I love these shots. Even with the blur and the bad color. There’s something about them that speaks to me.
And the last one. I didn’t get any good ones today. Oh well there’s always tomorrow.
And here we are. It’s almost bedtime for the kids and I am going out to my friend Holly’s house tonight to play Mahjongg with a bunch of my work friends. People I love and haven’t seen in a long time. Excited. And then we do it all again tomorrow. Life goes quickly. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: Ok, please bear in mind that the whole reason I am doing this project is because I don’t have inherent talent in this area. The while point of this is to practice practice and practice until I get good. Or as close to good I can ever get. So with that here are my first six portraits. First three drawings:
I take the drawing photos late at night right before I paint, so they are not the best. But I still like to have them as a before and after. Here they are, painted:
and then here is four through six drawings:
and painted.
yep, I have a long way to go. But I am ok with that. I have 306 more of these to make. Constructive criticism always welcome but only if you can actually be constructive. No need to stroke my ego, I know these need a lot of work. I am ok with that 🙂 Six Portraits a Week is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
I cannot tell you the amazing feeling of waking up without pain! I woke up this morning and I was so energetic and happy. I immediately got to work. I made food for the kids, packed lunch, and read with David all before 6:45am. Then he left for school and I did another layout for CHA. Then it was time for work. Aurelia napped, I worked, I exercised, I worked some more. And I am still working. But it’s ok because I had no pain!! Aurelia was in a good mood. He learned a new word today “wawa” which he says for water. Success!
Here he is sitting with Jake, watching choo choo.
And then he notices me and give me a smile.
Then to Daddy. I love that you can see Jake’s smiling here even though you cannot see his face.
Lest you think I ignore David, he was not in the mood for photos today. Though, he did do his math workbook and ate his veggies and was all around wonderful.
But not Aurelia. He was feeling happy!
And here we are at the end of another day. The days seem to pass so so quickly. I haven’t even glanced at my todo list for days now and I have so many unanswered emails. Please forgive me if you’re waiting for an email. I will reply, I swear. Tonight we get to go out on a date night thanks to my friend Holly who offered to baby sit. This means I have to finish my portrait in the next hour. So off to work on that. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: I rarely ever submit to anything. I am too saddened by rejection and it’s often so much work. Especially to submit to magazines. I also always journal on my layouts and my handwriting is not beautiful or often legible. Which does not make me a good candidate. So it’s very rare to see any of my pages in a magazine. However, I had the amazing honor of being published in the November/December 2010 issue of Swedish Scrapbooking m. m. magazine. They picked up a few of my layouts and a minibook. This is a CHA Summer layout I made for The Girls’ Paperie mine are the two on the right, more The Girls’ Paperie. the mini i made with Maya Road goodies. And then they did a feature article about my layout a day in may adventure.
Even though I cannot understand a word of it, I was so incredibly delighted to see my work in print. I am deeply thankful to scrapbooking m.m. for making me so so happy. Thank you for letting me share my joy.
Cutting for Stone was the January book for my book club. This book was already on my list so I was excited to read it. but the beginning dragged and dragged and dragged. It took me four weeks to get through the first 200 pages. I was really frustrated and stopped reading altogether for a while. Which made me sad. And mad at this book. But then it got better. And, as is often the case, I got hooked and by the end, I loved the book and I am really glad I read it. I do think half he book could be cut without much quality loss but I loved it nonetheless.
Well the TMJ did not get better this morning. In fact, it was so bad that I didn’t think I could make it through the day. I called my doctor as soon as they opened and he squeezed me into his lunch hour. By then, I’d already had 4 advil and I wasn’t feeling any better. After the visit, I already felt a little better right away and then gradually my pain got better and better. I still have it a bit but it’s considerably duller. Unfortunately, he said it might be the pushups so I’m not allowed to do them for a while. Here are some smiley shots from the little one.
I love that the Christmas lights are still in the background.
And I tried to get David to smile, too but he’s still got that awkward one.
Though I did get this.
Today wasn’t so productive so I am going to try to catch up a little tonight. Do one more layout for CHA and then do my portrait. I’ve been making those nightly. Got eight so far. They are getting better but I still have a long way to go. This month’s focus is all CHA though. I have about 12-15 projects to do at least. So I better get to it. And David and I finished our book today so tomorrow we start a new one. Yey. Ok I will go get to work. I hope this Tuesday has treated you well. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: I am taking Ali’s One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes. The first lesson was posted yesterday. In the class, they’re making an album but I want to use the prompts for my art journal. So I altered this week’s lesson to have it fit into my journal. Here it is:
I’ve already talked about my word a lot so I won’t bore you with it anymore. One of the things I discovered last year was how much I love color. I want to bring more color into my life. My tendency is always to go to white and browns and black so I am purposefully pulling more color into my life since I know it makes me happy. I used paint and mists on this. I never use mists. But I am trying to use my art journal to stretch. That’s the point isn’t it? And there we are. Did you make a page this week?
I went to bed early last night with the hopes that I would wake up at a reasonable hour and feel rested but alas, I woke up feeling even more tired. It’s been a month without the TMJ doctor now and I can definitely feel the difference. I’m hoping this week I will start treatments again and can stop the pain. I had to take 5 advils just to get through today. But I still managed to do my exercise, read to david, make a CHA layout (though it’s not one of my favorites) and David and I even did some workbooks. I still have to do more stuff. I need to make my portrait. I might have to work some more on the layout since I really do not like it a lot. Here’s the little boy. He was so cute, a few seconds after this, he patted next to him so I could sit down with him. I love him.
I asked David if I could please take a photo of him today since I didn’t have a good one in two days.
And then Aurelia graced us with this when we were doing our workbook. He always likes to come by when we’re together so that he’s included too.
Now the kids are in bed and I am going back to work tomorrow and I am too tired to even think about it. but tomorrow’s a new day and I will have a positive attitude. I will choose joy, I will tackle it all with grace and patience and kindness. (or so i hope…) Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: This layout is made with the December A Million Memories kit.
Journaling reads:
My plans for today fell through early in the day but I’d already exercised super-early (for me) and so it would mean that I had the rest of the day to be productive. Instead I was just tired most of the day. The kids did their playing and running around. Aurelia talked about choo choo of course and held the book close while he watched some Thomas.
Then he tried to master the Google TV remote so he could just put more choo choo on at will.
Then he went to go sit with his brother. When he saw me grab the camera, he made sure to pose.
Briefly, Thomas got his attention.
And then he decided David’s game was much more interesting.
As he often does, he got bored and decided to play with his toys instead.
I spent most of the day on the couch, thinking about my todo list but not accomplishing much. I did make one CHA layout which I am happy about. I still have to do my portrait tonight. David and I are almost done with the Wizard of Oz and he starts school tomorrow. Life will likely go back to schedule in a day or two. I am off tomorrow so my guess is it will take until Thursday or so for it to feel normal again. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: After I thought about my word and my plans for 2011, I began to think more and more about what the word and the priorities meant. The end of the year is always a contemplative time for me. Likely it’s because I have a larger chunk of free time than usual and each year feels a bit like beginning a new notebook so I try to use the occasion to think and look forward and plan. I’ve learned that planning is tremendously effective. This is very long and mostly for my benefit (I like having a record of my plans and my thoughts) so feel free to skip. I won’t be offended. About a week ago or so, I was reading Chris’s annual review article. I’ve read this before and have always liked the idea. I’m a technical person at heart and all these specific goals, measurable steps, etc. are right up my alley. Since I have my list of 9 priorities this year, I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could come up with 3-5 goals for each. So here we go: Goals for Each Priority Family Health (Project Healthy For Life) Work Art + Photography Scrapbooking Reading Writing Learning Community (This is a particularly hard one for me.) There we go. As more creep up over the year, I will likely come here and add/alter as needed. Schedule for Blog I’ve also come up with a schedule for my blog for 2011: Thoughts to Cultivate There are some major focus areas I want to have throughout the year. Things that I want to come back to again and again. These will likely show up in my art journals but I also want to have them here for reference. 1. Let go of worry This is definitely the biggest issue for me. I worry constantly and I worry about the smallest things as well as the big ones. Even though I know worry is a wasted emotion I still can’t help myself. I want to work on this very actively during 2011. I’ve already talked to my husband and asked him to do some very specific things to help me. I’ve also decided to keep a god box. I want to be very mindful about what and who makes me worry more and create tangible solutions to each. 2. Slow down and be mindful I tend to be an over-achiever which is great but because I am so task-oriented and accomplishment-focused, I often rush through things. I am focused on the end and I don’t enjoy the journey. I don’t slow down. I don’t take my time, explore, learn, grow as much as I could. So my plan this year is to slow down considerably. Take my time drawing. Take my time reading and thinking. If some things don’t get done, that’s ok. I think that much more growth happens when we slow down and approach things mindfully. 3. Do not yell This one is self-explanatory. I absolutely hate hearing other people yell. And yet I do it more often than I’d like. This year, it’s a non-negotiable. It will not happen. It’s not a 5-10% thing. It’s all or nothing and the goal is nothing. People I love deserve my respect. 4. Be patient This one sort of goes along with 2 and 3. I need to practice more patience. I don’t need to rush through everything. I have young children. They are good good children. They are kind and generous and sweet. They deserve my patience. So does my husband. And me, too, I deserve being patient with myself. 5. Assume the best This sort of goes with number one. I tend to go to the worst possible outcome. Out of 1000 good comments I will remember the one negative one. I seek the criticism. I assume the person hates me, is mad at me, doesn’t want to talk to me, etc. etc. I assume people do not want me around. I assume I am doing a bad job and secretly people just don’t tell me. I have these amazingly negative theories about what others think/feel/do about me. It’s quite phenomenal and deeply damaging. And this year I want to turn this around. I want to be enough. I want to assume the best. I want to accentuate the positive. I’ve learned that if you repeat something enough to yourself and others, people start believing you. If you ask what’s wrong enough times, people start noticing things. You call negative energy and attention to yourself. I want to do the opposite. There’s so much good in my life and I want to bask in the glory of it. I want to always assume the best and remember and be grateful for the good. 6. Embrace joy I wrote about choosing joy before. This seems similar to 5 but it’s even bigger. Assuming is after something happens. Embracing is before. I want to seek joy. I want to quit worrying and embrace life and joy and bring forth good things in my life. Joy again and again. This would be so magical if I could do this. Just the idea makes me feel good. 7. Be comfortable in your skin Another big one for me. I have so many issues about who I am and how I look. But I think it’s time to start letting go of that and being free of my misconceptions. I want to get in the picture more so I can make peace with how I look. So I can see myself the way people who love me do. I want to get a new wardrobe, a new haircut, take care of myself a bit more. Not because I am not beautiful just the way I am but because my body deserves to be treated well. With kindness and compassion and it deserves more attention. Only the things you give attention to flourish. I’ve always had the notion that I am boring. I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs. I don’t dance. I don’t enjoy things that are often considered “fun.” But I love deeply. I am loyal and kind and helpful. I am resourceful. I am authentic. I am honest. This is me and instead of yearning to be something else, it’s time to love, accept, be grateful for who I am. I am deserving of friendship and love. And if I don’t believe that how can I expect others to? 8. Don’t criticize, work hard, do your best, let go Simple, obvious but often hard-to-do. This year, I want to focus on giving it all I have and then letting go. Just waking up, doing my best every day and then letting it all go when I lie down to sleep. Each day is a new chance. A do over. Another opportunity to get it right. So it’s best to let go each night and give myself the very best chance to get it right the next day. And there we are. I am sure more will come up. But these are some of what’s on my mind. Here’s to hoping 2011 is fantastic for all of us! |
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