Nature is magnificent. Fierce and calming and colorful and astounding. Isn’t it?
This morning, Jake had put a box of cereal on his bag to remember to take it to work. The little squirrel found it, shook it and then was thrilled to discover food coming out of it, which he proceeded to eat. And then his water was nearby, too so he basically spent the next ten minutes, shaking, eating, and drinking. He was mighty happy. Until I took the box away which he protested loudly.
We had our playgroup today after a few week absence. It was fun to be with other mommies and it was great to get a bit of sunshine.
I love these shots of the eyelashes. I loved them on David, too.
I’ve taken a small break from the journal to work on my A Million Memories layouts. April kit is absolutely beautiful and already sold out. I am working feverishly to finish Nathaniel’s baby book. I am trying to keep in mind a few good lessons I’ve learned this week (more below). I am enjoying the process but also focusing on progress. I am also hand-journaling on most of these, to make the process faster and more authentic.
And here’s the wonderfully welcome weekend. I just finished my book which was great but it always leaves me with a sad moment since starting a book is much harder for me than going through one. But I do have one this week that I am excitedly waiting to dig into. And not an electronic one even. So I am not as sad as usual.
Note to Self:
I was listening to Paperclipping Roundtable podcast yesterday and I heard a few pithy comments that I was still thinking of today, especially as I scrapbooked. The two guests were a listener, Heather Lord and Stephanie Howell, and they both said something that stuck with me. Stephanie said how years from now when her girls look at her layouts, they will not complain about how it doesn’t have the visual triangle and while I laughed, it’s so true. When I was looking through the layouts with David yesterday, he couldn’t care whether the photos were perfect or laid on the paper perfectly. He just loved that they were there. He wanted to hear the stories. The rest didn’t matter. He won’t care that the paper I used was six months old. He won’t even care if the greens or blues match honestly. He will only focus on the photos and the stories, I am sure of it. This is important to remember for me as I struggle to put my layouts together, especially when I focus so hard on the embellishments and where each should go.
Heather also said something pithy. She said her phrase of the year is “It’s better finished than perfect.” (I apologize, I am paraphrasing, since I am writing from memory.) But it’s so true! Years from now, the only layouts I will have are the ones I finished. The stories I did tell. Even without photos. Even with crappy photos. Or even with just photos. (As much as I like telling the story I think it’s still better to have a layout with photos that tell a story than no layout at all.) Maybe it was at some point, but scrapbooking is not art for me anymore. For art, I do the art journaling, the tags, etc. Scrapbooking is for telling my stories. It’s for keeping our memories. So a layout done, however imperfect, is MUCH better than a layout that is never done. So this is a good mantra for me. Something I need to remember as I get frustrated with how far from perfect my page looks. Better done than perfect!
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. Grateful for another weekend. This weekend is a bit packed and I feel a bit stressed but I love the weekend. Being with my family and not having to stress about tending to both the kids and work is wonderful.
2. Grateful for magnificent books. Books that touch you deeply. There’s nothing like it.
3. Grateful to be scrapping this weekend. Any chance to tell our stories, to play with our photos. I am blessed.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Getting to go to the park with Mommy and Nathaniel’s baby group
2. Watching Hannah Montana before bed
Lest you think I forgot about my Art Journal, I am still working on it.
Here’s what I did, I went through all the books and magazines I have and marked the pages that inspired me and ideas I wanted to try and I am just doing one every day. So far, so good. I will try to keep going and maybe post updates on Fridays or something. I could do it daily but I didn’t want to annoy you with so many posts a day.
But then I worried it would be too many photos. So what do you prefer? One post a week or updates daily?
Here’s what I’ve done recently.
A page inspired by one of the projects in Artistic Mom. This page is not done yet, I’ve been staring at it for days but I still haven’t decided how to complete it.
This next page was inspired by Ruth Rae in her book. I first did the dress, then covered the page with fabric and stitched.
Closeup of the dress.
Can’t see but the fabric is really shiny.
And this page just uses some stamping and copic coloring. Just for fun.
One of the few things I didn’t do from my list of 52 tags last year was doodling. So I did some masking, inking, and doodling on this page. Now you know why I don’t doodle 🙂
And finally, this one is inspired by a piece of art in Somerset Apprentice Volume 1.
Lest you think I am not actually using this as a journal, I have also started writing daily. Not a lot but just small thoughts.
And here we are.
Our theme for April is nature.
The journaling reads:
While I like almost every single animal, I have a soft spot for penguins. I cannot even tell you why. There’s something about these animals that makes me happy.
Maybe it’s that they mate for life or that they make great parents. Maybe it’s that they are incredibly cute. Maybe it’s the way they glide in the water and waddle on land. I honestly don’t know why they make me feel so giddy.
I just know that they do.
Whenever we visit a zoo, I first checkout the penguins. My favorite is the Central Park Zoo in New York City. Even though it’s indoors and you can’t take any photos that don’t come out blurry, I love watching the penguins there. They just look happy to me.
One of my biggest dreams is to get to visit Antarctica one day and get to see these creatures close-up. I love the idea of meeting them on their turf.
I went shooting today. I am not sure why but I’ve been into playing with layers and altering images lately. Just having fun with photoshop.
Here’s Nathaniel giving me a face when I tell him to not touch David’s stuff. This one’s going to be a handful I can tell.
And here’s me attempting to take a shot of the kids as we go on our walk.
Days are passing a little too fast for my taste. I am finding myself disorganized. Not getting enough done but not sitting down to organize myself so I can see what I want to get done. It’s a bit of a cycle I’m afraid. Maybe this weekend I can snap out of it a bit.
I am feeling a strong sense of calm and happiness though. Not really worrying about anything too much and that’s rare for me so for now I’m going to indulge myself and let myself get lost in it.
Note to Self:
I was thinking, again, today about how when you like someone the actions they take, the words they say are so colored by your feelings toward them. So if I like this person I am always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I read their words and assume they mean well, they are humble, they are kind. I juxtapose my feelings on top of their actions and words all the time. When I like someone they look prettier to me. So does their art. Their words. Their intentions. And, of course, the opposite holds true, too. When I dislike someone, I assume the worst. I listen for the meanness. It just shows that we’re always listening with our own agenda. Even when we think we’re not. And I think this is a good thing to keep in mind. To check when someone is talking/writing and make sure that I am not imbuing the words with meaning that’s not really there. Or at least to make sure I give everyone equal benefit of the doubt. Isn’t that the least they deserve? I truly believe that all humans have a deep need to connect. Need to be accepted and to belong. We all express this need in different ways but in the end, we’re all just striving for the same goal. We all have our scars and our ways of dealing with them. I think everything works better when we treat each other with the best intentions. I want to be more aware of situations where I read into words that aren’t spoken. Words that aren’t there.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. It’s been such great weather here and taking a short little walk with both my kids was definitely the highlight of my day today.
2. I am grateful for sunshine. Living in California is something I take for granted a lot. But now that it’s sunny again, I park as far away as possible when I drop David off at school so we can take our time in the sun.
3. I made a layout about Nathaniel’s first Christmas today. David liked it so much that he got upset when he found out it was going in Nathaniel’s album. (which I am working feverishly to complete). I explained to him that this was Nathaniel’s first. He said he didn’t have a page for his first Christmas (of course he does; he’s the whole reason I started this madness.) so out came his baby album where we looked at his first Christmas which then led into looking at four years of layouts. David’s whole childhood right there in front of our eyes. He begged to stay up extra minutes just to look at the pages. (He had asked to stay up late and play legos but he said he much preferred looking at the layouts.) I am so grateful that I have this hobby. I didn’t care one bit about which page wasn’t perfect, I drank in all of our memories. He asked me to read all of the journaling and I enjoyed our hour together so much. I am so so grateful for these moments with my son. Maybe one day he will grow up and not care about these pages but for now he loves them and I love them deeply and I am so grateful for them. Each time I am caught up in the craziness of it all, I just have to remember tonight and remember that, for me, it’s not the product, it’s not the team I am on or the comments I got. It’s that these are my stories. Our stories. And we will get to live them again and again. Forever.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Putting together the rest of the lego set with mommy
2. Playing with legos
This week’s download is some boy themed journaling cards. The lines are separate so you can add them or not. Here is what they look like:
You can download it here: Boy Themed Journaling Cards download.
You are welcome to play with these as much as you want and use them anywhere you’d like. You are NOT allowed to sell them ever. You don’t have to but I’d appreciate a link back if you do use them.
This is part of a weekly digital download series. They are posted every Thursday. You can find all of the ones that were posted here. If you like my downloads, please click here and give me ideas/requests for 2010. I would like to continue this feature but I am not sure I can come up with enough ideas on my own.
I listened to Why We Make Mistakes on audio and found it quite interesting. We humans are a lot more flawed than we think and we make decisions on so many levels and have a lot less control over our decisions than we think, too. I feel like I need to listen to this book often just to remember all the things it mentions. The one thing that has stuck with me even now is the need to sleep and how much lack of sleep increases mistakes. Seems obvious and yet sleep is still the first thing I sacrifice.
Our CSA started up again this week and I was so happy to see the box. I was just thinking this week that I need to stop the cycle of eating graham crackers, coffee and chocolate for all my meals. And now I have fresh veggies and I ate a salad with carrots, tangerines, pears, and some of yesterday’s Batman pasta. Some vinegar and oil and I was set. Delicious even. I was thinking they should make a website where you put in ingredients you have and it spits out recipes. There must already be a site that does that, no?
I wanted to post some photos of what’s typically happens around here. Just to make sure I have a memory of it. Here’s David watching Pink Panther as he eats his green beans. Usually I am not fond of him watching anything while he eats but I’ve found this makes him finish the veggies faster and with less whining so I left him do it during the veggies.
Nathaniel had some mangoes today and I tried to have another go at the fork, but not much success.
Here he is crawling around with the phone and the Tivo remote. Something he likes to do quite often. He’s figured out that the Tivo turns on the TV so he can do that several times a day, too.
And he absolutely loves taking off the power cable of my computer.
And while he stares at it, and as he brings it into his mouth, I go for an emphatic “No!”
Which is then met with this face.
And this face.
And then this face.
And finally this one.
We do this several times a day. It doesn’t seem to get old for him, ever.
Another semi-productive day. I haven’t managed to do any art, yet but I am about to, I hope. I made progress at work and David’s first day back wasn’t so hard on our schedule though Nathaniel did not take his afternoon nap at all. I can’t believe we’re mid-week already. This year seems to be flying by too fast.
Note to Self:
I’ve been thinking for some time now that I need some local friends. People around here that I can hang out with regularly. Even if once a month. I would love a local reading group. Or an art group. Something that I can count on recurringly where I am connecting with others with some kind of similar interest. The thing is, I am not sure how to go about making this happen. How do people meet people? I am not entirely sure where to start which is how I’ve been stuck for months, now.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. We went to the accountant to sign all the paperwork and checks for the taxes today. It’s all done. It’s our first time using an accountant and while I didn’t like to have to pay for it, I am so grateful it’s done.
2. I am grateful for the quietness of the last few days. I feel like I am getting things done but slowly. I am not adding to my todo list and I am crossing things off. I am not stressing myself out. I am feeling happy and calm for the most part.
3. I am grateful for nice comments and kind emails. I write this blog mostly for myself. for keeping a record of my life. But i do love the comments, the emails, the connection with others. so, thank you, i am grateful to you.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Playing the Indiana Jones game in his Didj
2. Getting to make the lego cars with Mommy
3. Nathaniel (he had 3 today. he was grateful for Nathaniel)
Catalyst One Hundred and Eight is: Are you proud of who you are?
Thoughts:
There are many accomplishments in my life that make me feel proud but none more so than my two little boys. They are my pride and joy and I will never feel more proud of anything than I feel about the life Jake and I have made together.
Last of my nature photos; I’m going to have to go take some photos tomorrow.
I thought today would be a good day to get Nathaniel to try pasta for the first time. David still doesn’t eat any pasta or rice and I wanted to make sure Nathaniel has a chance to try it all before he’s too old to be open-minded. I had some Spiderman pasta I’d bought for David so I cooked it for him. I tried giving it to him one at a time but he wouldn’t take it so I just plopped the whole bowl on his tray.
He stared for a while and then reached for one.
Stuck it in his mouth.
Chewed for a while.
And then wasn’t so happy.
But thankfully he continued. And I kept watching him and letting him try things. Until he picked up the bowl.
Which meant bowl-time was over and I tried a fork. But that wasn’t so successful either. He ate a few more and then we decided it was time to put it away and try more again tomorrow.
And here’s a cutie shot just for me.
He’s still dripping. After all I wrote yesterday, I sat and did an art journal page last night and it was so much fun. I loved it. It made me happy. I even played around with one today and started journaling, too. Still feeling a bit iffy but I am happy to be dipping my toes in.
A completely uneventful day here. Tomorrow David’s school starts back up and with Nathaniel’s new nap schedule it promises to be a bit disaster-ish. But I will keep an open mind and see how it goes.
Note to Self:
I noticed today that my desire to belong extends to my hobbies as well. I had been struggling so hard with scrapbooking and my place in it for the longest time. Which is a bit ridiculous since it’s a hobby. But when I get really involved in the community surrounding my hobby, I suddenly feel the need to fit in. To become a bigger part of the community. When I joined AMM, I quickly needed to be on the Design Team which would make me feel a greater sense of belonging. Years ago, when I wrote novels, I used to be a part of this community called Writers’ Village University (I am still a part of it now. Lifetime member.) and even there, I quickly needed to belong. I wasn’t just a member. I worked on their magazine. I wrote and taught classes. I did the same at AMM and then BPS and I even taught elsewhere. I applied for Manufacturer Design Teams. I wanted to write books. I wanted to belong. The need to belong is so acute in me. The need to be accepted, chosen, picked. And it’s pretty insatiable. I wanted to teach at BPS so badly. It was a dream come true for me. Still is. And yet I still get sad that I don’t get published in magazines or get picked for design teams. (To be fully honest, I haven’t applied in a year but back when I was, I didn’t get picked at all.) And yet, I know that most people I know who are on teams are overworked and frustrated and do not really really enjoy it. And I know that it would stress me out. It might even make me feel inauthentic. I don’t want to scrap for the product, I want to scrap for my stories. My life. My kids. And yet, the need to belong is overwhelming. Insatiable. It spreads all over my life.
Today, I thought about all this again. About my motivations behind things. About whether I can ever scrap just for myself again. Can I stop needing to belong? I belong with such good friends already. An incredible husband. Amazing kids. Loving and generous parents and sister. A fantastic job. Do I really need to create all this drama around my hobbies? Things I’m supposed to be doing for fun. I don’t know how to do this. But I know that I need to. This is about being mindful after all. I am open to suggestions.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am thankful for the small piece of art I did last night. Seeing it made me smile this morning.
2. I am thankful for getting to read to David tonight. I tend to want to rush bedtime routine and don’t always enjoy my time but tonight we snuggled into bed and I read the Polar Express to him. I know it doesn’t seem that way but I also know that my days of getting to read stories to him, snuggled up in bed are numbered and I am deeply thankful for them.
3. I am thankful for spending the whole day in my pajamas. I had absolutely no errands or chores today and I sat and worked and played with my kids.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Getting to level 3 in his Batman Didj game.
2. He couldn’t think of a number two as we didn’t do a whole lot today but then I told him he can pick general things too so he said he’s thankful for his Daddy. (not for you, Mommy, he added, oh so nicely.)
When I was a little girl, I kept diaries religiously. I used to write in them, carry them around, and make sure to never ever miss a day. If you ask any of my friends or acquaintances from that time in my life, I am confident that they will still remember my diaries. When I came to the US for college, I tried to keep them up but, for some reason, I could no longer do it. Little by little, I lost the habit. I regret that for many reasons and I have started keeping a daily dairy of sorts on my blog this year. But it’s not the same as what I used to do.
Over the years, I tried to start several diaries and kept picking up different kinds of notebooks that spoke to me. I bought magnificent ones, expensive ones, simple ones, lined ones and ones with squares. I started writing many times, but never went through with it for more than a week or two. During this time, one of the things I bought was a 5-year journal.
This cute book is arranged so that each page is a specific date, April 1, April 2, April 3 etc. And each page has five sections. Each section has a few lines. The way you use it is by journaling for a few lines each day and then starting the book over the next year and writing in the second section of each page. On and on for five years. This way, at the end of five years, when you look on a particular date (say April 6) you can see what you did on April 6 for the last five years. I thought this was the cutest idea.
But I never did it.
It just felt boring once I started it. I did the same stuff everyday. Even before I had kids. I worked. I came home. I read. I slept. That was about it. So I wasn’t able to keep this journal either. But I loved the idea of having a simple record of my year. Even if it wasn’t for 5 years, I’d love to be able to write 2-3 sentences everyday for a whole year and then to be able to read them. Wouldn’t that be fun? A different kind of journaling. A small snapshot of my year.
For those of you who use Facebook or Twitter, that’s something you could do, too. Use your statuses for a snapshot of your year. I don’t use either that much so, for me, I realized that the “Three Things I’m Grateful For” exercise I do daily is my record of the year. Yes, I often am thankful for generic things like my kids but since I have to come up with three, I also have something specific to my day. Like yesterday it was about a trip to the doctor and discovering that my little boy didn’t have a third ear infection (thankfully!). So if I were to collect all of the sentences I wrote so far, I’d have a pretty accurate snapshot of my year up until now. And from the wonderful perspective of giving thanks.
Isn’t that neat?
It isn’t something I thought of when I decided to do my three-things-daily but it’s a wonderful side effect and I am grateful for it.
So my message to you today is to try writing down one sentence everyday. If you’re only going to do one, pick something specific to your day. You use Facebook? Do it there. Or Twitter. Or your blog. Or a piece of paper. Find a jar and stick your pieces in there. Write the date. When you’re feeling down, pick one from the jar. Let it inspire you. At the end of the year, dump your jar and see a wonderfully happy record of your year.
You will be grateful you did it, I promise.
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.
David’s been helping Nathaniel practice how to walk. Nathaniel likes to stand up but he’s not taking any steps alone just yet. David loves practicing with him. And so does Nathaniel. Let’s see when he’ll actually walk.
And then they both stop and start playing. And laughing.
He’s still sick and has a fully congested nose. It’s painful to watch. But he’s been in good humors because he’s the best baby on earth.
Since he woke up with a fever yesterday, I took Nathaniel to the doctor tonight and thankfully he has no ear infection or any other kind. He’s just sick the poor little boy.
I was quite productive today. I have a lot more work but it’s actually getting done. It helps to have two separate computer as it turns out because when I am on the work machine, I have nothing personal there and no way to waste time. It’s pretty amazing. I am still feeling a bit unmotivated and I am still making plans in my head but no actual art just yet. I am hoping the drive will come soon.
I haven’t yet done any of my silliness assignments either. I think it’s important to start a class when it actually starts or it throws me off. So I need to sit and catch up on this one.
Note to Self:
As I’ve noticed lately, it takes a while to get back into routine. The routine of life. The routine of art. Until about ten days ago, I was making some form of art daily and I was really enjoying it. I’ve made plans to continue that but I have yet to sit down and actually do it. Same goes for reading. When I read regularly, I seem to crave it more. I want to do it. I look forward to it. Yet when I don’t, I can go for days and never even think of it. I guess this is how people who exercise must feel. The more you do it, the more you crave it. So I need to find a way to get back on the treadmill of art. (Ugh that actually sounds boring but you know what I mean.) Getting up at 5am doesn’t help much but still it’s no excuse. I am confident that once I start again, I won’t want to stop.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am so thankful that Nathaniel doesn’t have another ear infection. So thankful.
2. I am thankful for the simple things today. For routine. For coffee. For time with my kids laughing. For sunshine.
3. I am thankful that my family is having a good time in Disney World. I am sad I am not there with them but so thankful that they are enjoying each other’s company.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Getting to build a big fort with the building blocks he got as a baby
2. Getting to play on Mommy’s phone at the doctor’s
Since yesterday was Easter, we decided it would be fun to paint some eggs. I didn’t have white eggs or dye. I hadn’t really prepared well for this. So I improvised.
I took some of the eggs that were about the go bad, emptied them out and David picked some paint colors he liked.
We took turns painting a base coat.
Several of the colors he picked were shiny and translucent so they didn’t paint all that well but he didn’t care. We then made circles with the top of his markers and dots with the back of the paint brush.
So we ended up with these two.
And these two.
All in all, it was quick and fun and we both enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. Next year, I will be more prepared.
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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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