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Catalyst One Hundred and Fifteen is: Create a postcard. Who’s it going to? Thoughts: 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: Three Things David’s Grateful For: 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, 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: 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: Three Things David’s Grateful For: 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:
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: Three Things David’s Grateful For: Here’s today’s page. I am still enjoying the watercolors.
I’ve been working really hard for the last few days trying to prepare the content for my winter 2011 classes at Big Picture Classes. So much so that my arms are hurting from typing and I am tired and worn out. So this morning, after I wrote another lesson I told myself that I wasn’t going to get the second one done. I had originally intended to write two lessons today. But I am completely spent. So I told myself it’s ok to rest. Things will be ok. They will get done. I used watercolors, some beads, ribbon, and flowers. Pretty simple. I wanted the beads on the top right to look like clouds and the starfish to feel like the sun. I don’t know if it worked and the leaves are way too shiny and too many. But despite all that I still like it.. detail:
During last August, Big Picture Scrapbooking held a summer promotion where we were sent a Cocoa Daisy kit and each made three pieces of art. This is #2.
Journaling Reads: details:
Here’s this week’s thing:
Before we moved to the West Coast, I used to volunteer a lot. During 2000, I took two of my work days and spent them volunteering full-time. (I worked 3 days a week and volunteered two). I worked at a non-profit book store, I worked with the deaf and helped them find jobs. I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, Junior Achievement, and several other organizations. I then quit my job and became a corps member in Teach For America. I got paid but it was still volunteer work to make the world a better place. I love volunteering. I really, truly do. However, when we moved west and I couldn’t drive I stopped. Then I had kids and it got worse. And now I don’t volunteer at all. I wanted to fix that this year. I wanted to work regularly with a cause I believed in. And yet, so far I haven’t been able to do that still. But there is an area where I’ve made some small progress. I became the room parent for my son’s class. I’ve also volunteered in his classroom and art class. I am the photographer for the class so I go to many of the events to make sure there are photos. I am also planning on volunteering with the local education foundation that helps raise money for all the schools in my area. I also volunteer at work. I create all the posters for all the authors events. This might sound small but it’s a significant contribution to a very valuable and all volunteer-run project. I still yearn to find ways to volunteer more one on one. Ways that feel more tangible to me. In the meantime, these are the small ways in which I’ve brought in more volunteering into my life. I will keep seeking more opportunities in this area. But I feel like even if it’s small I have made some progress so I am taking that for now. |
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