Here’s this week’s item:
15. Decorate my living room wall.
I’ve been dreaming about this project for a long time. I have this huge wall in my living room that was itching to get filled. I knew I wanted to put a lot of small prints there and I knew they were going to be from etsy but I spent a long time putting it off. When I finally bought all my prints, they then waited another few months for my mom to arrive and help me hang them.
I intended to hang them all next to each other but that wasn’t so easy and as they ended up being all over the place, I decided I liked that better so here we are. I couldn’t get a photo without glare as I have so many windows in this room so I got a few closeups and I will list each of the prints.
Here’s a faraway shot to give you a sense of the space. There will be a much larger TV coming very soon which is why the left side is open space.
here’s a closer shot of the wall:
When I was trying to decide what to put on here, I wanted all of the images to be happy and full of love. I wanted them to be fun and uplifting. A few months before I bought the rest, I had bought six prints from Kal Barteski whom I adore. Two of them were for this wall. This is one of them:
And the elephant in this photo is the other:
Here are the links to the two prints: Tiny Art 104 and Tiny Art 91
Other pieces you see in the above image are these lovely giraffes, trees one and two(not in this photo) from Stephanie Fizer, Mistletoe kisses, and the awesome boy chairs.
After I bought Kal’s prints, I saw Marisa, who is one of my favorite artists, put up this set of postcards and I bought them as soon as they were up. So now I had all the colorful art I wanted. I went looking for some blue and green and quieter images that made me fee happy.
I fell in love with all of the trees in Once Upon a Paper but finally settled on this clean, green one.
I bought several postcards, too. One of which was this love one.
I adore angels which is why I bought this top right print called Angels the minute I saw it:
And another one was this little girl (I love this artist.) Another print I don’t have as closeups is My umbrella which has incredible texture. And finally, I have a postcard that says you are so loved in green. Since loved is my word for 2010, I thought it was only fitting.
On the opposite wall, I hung this wonderful painting by Picasso that I adore:
And that’s it for the living room. More next week.
It all starts with the morning it seems. I woke up more rested today and that caused most of my day to go better. Amazingly simple and yet it’s something I cannot actually control. Oh well. Life.
I took a series of shots of Nathaniel getting up to walk today, I actually took like 12 of them but here’s a small montage.
A typical Nathaniel face. Checking things out.
And here’s a typical David look. Love this boy to bits.
David’s been learning how to ride his scooter. Two days in and he’s already better than I am.
We had some friends late today and one of the women gave Nathaniel some cheerios which he never eats when I give him.
But he didn’t hesitate when she gave him some. And jammed them all in his mouth.
As if he’s never seen them before.
Well, love these boys. I can’t believe a whole week of LOAD is finished and I am still going on. I didn’t think I’d make it this far honestly. My heart just wasn’t really in it even though I thought it would be a neat idea. And now, I have seven layouts every single one of which I absolutely adore. Let’s see if I can keep this going. Still taking it one day at a time. I am also hoping to read some this weekend, paint some, help a few friends with technical stuff, and maybe reach for my art journal which has been neglected a bit. I have a sewing project in mind too. Or and some long-overdue todo items. And the email. oh the email.
Note to Self:
Today’s note to self is that life is short and I need to remember that more often. Fill up the moments with joy. With what makes me the happiest. I think I love the recent layouts cause they are happy. They make me happy. Making them and looking at them. I need to shed as many “obligations” as possible and use my time happily. Not wisely but happily. Doing joyful things. And I need to give up more. When something stops being fun, I need to quit it. It doesn’t make me a quitter. It makes me appreciate that life is short and I need to make the most each moment’s value. Suck the marrow of life as my favorite movie quotes.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for a few hours of talking and relaxing with my husband. It’s wonderful to me that after sixteen years we still have so many interesting things to discuss. I love that he’s my best friend.
2. One of the mom’s in David’s school told me I looked great today. She had no reason to and it made me so happy. Grateful for random acts of kindness today.
3. I am grateful for a quiet weekend with almost no events planned. I want to rest a lot and maybe get a bunch done. Let’s see if I do.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. legos legos legos. yep. and again.
2. and the scooter again. he loves that thing.
My first layout with the beautiful A Million Memories May Kit. It’s to die for.
More details:
You know I had to have butterflies. It had been too many days without them 🙂
And I finally put up the layout I’d sneaked earlier this week. You can see it here.
Journaling Reads:
I am not one of those glowing pregnant women. I have nine months of morning sickness and I feel overwhelmed and tired most of the time. Despite that, I know that I am incredibly lucky to be able to have children without problems. I am thankful that my body is able to create and support life. It’s something I never take for granted and when I feel bad about my stretch marks, all I have to do is take a look at my kids and remember how they got there and how they’re worth it.
I’ve discovered today that I don’t do well during the 4:30-6pm timeslot. No matter what, I get stressed, cranky, tired and overwhelmed. I’ve been suffering from back and jaw ache and I now have allergies again which is causing me to have headaches and means medication and lots of tiredness and crankiness. All in all, not good.
But I am still loving doing my layout a day and I’ve just received the May kit from A Million Memories which is full of beautiful October Afternoon which I love so I am really excited to be ripping into it tomorrow.
I can tell you without a doubt that my favorite thing in the world is watching my two kids play with each other.
And they both love it too.
I adore them.
With all of my heart.
I love how Nathaniel looks at David and how patient David is with him.
And how he walks him around. (I know this is blurry. I don’t care.)
I adore them. They and my incredible husband are the highlights of any bad day. Of any day. I swear. Even when they frustrate me, my heart swells with love at seeing them. I know I say this every night but I think I am going to head to be early tonight. I can tell I need rest. I just can’t seem to get enough of it. I am really behind in email and I apologize if you’ve sent me mail. I am not ignoring you, I swear.
Note to Self:
I was listening to the Feynman book today on my way home and one of the letters starts by this gentleman explaining how he puts off writing back to his favorite letters so he can dedicate them the time and effort they deserve. Which often means they end up sitting in a pile for a long long time. This made me laugh because I do the exact same thing. With email of course. But when I receive a wonderful email, I always put off replying to it. I feel like I want to do it justice and I constantly put it off cause I never have “enough” time to give it the time it deserves. In the end, it means I always choose the urgent instead of the important. I need to fix this. I think it means the people and the words I value always get the short end of the deal.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am extra grateful for my husband today. He was an angel to me both in the morning and in the evening. He always comes through for me. over and over.
2. I am grateful for Advil. I’ve been having a lot of headaches and it really is the medicine that works almost immediately.
3. I got to go out last night and have dinner with several of my workmates. It was quite lovely and I am grateful that I was able to take this time to sneak away, have some good food and some quality conversation.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. legos legos legos. yep. again.
2. david mastered his scooter today. here i was all worried he would never learn and boom he just did it. he loves loves loves it now.
And here’s day six. Still enjoying this so much. I can feel it getting stressful but I am trying to remind myself that there’s no medal for doing 31. I will be happy however far this takes me. It’s that many layouts to have done and that many memories preserved.
No butterflies again!
The journaling is about how I want Nathaniel to be a less picky eater than his brother and how I started with pasta and how he didn’t much care for it.
Happy Thursday!
This week’s download is some you themed sayings. Here is what they look like:
You can download it here: You Sayings 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.
A while ago I read Katherine Center‘s two published novels: The Bright Side of Disaster and Everyone’s Beautiful and I loved them both, so I was really looking forward to Get Lucky. So much so, I didn’t even wait for the library to get it. I just went and bought it. Which is really rare for me.
But it was worth it. This book is about sisters and about life’s choices and their unexpected (and expected) repercussions. It’s about love and relationships and having babies. It’s a wonderful book that I read in one sitting. As with the others, I loved her characters, I loved the light and beautiful way in which she can write the not-so-light topics. I really enjoyed this sweet book and am glad I didn’t wait longer for it.
Long, frustrating day here. I don’t even want to rehash it. I am ready to be over with today. Ugh.
Nathaniel’s started to push things around. He loves David’s chairs especially.
And when they fall over, he tries to pick them up.
But he can’t.
So he gives up.
And starts getting into other things, of course.
He’s a big fan of the empty water bottles I recycle.
And David spends most of his days with legos still.
And that’s pretty much life here.
Note to Self:
I noticed today that a small little problem can set my whole day off. This is ridiculous but maybe it’s cause I am operating at such full capacity that a tiny new drop causes me to spill over. Or I am easily frazzled. Or I am so tired. But either way, it’s a bad sign that small things can set me off. That they ruin my day and cause me to be angry and to yell and to look at everything else through negative eyes. There aren’t that many days and each is really precious. I do not want any of them to be ruined by my bad attitude. I need to work on this. I need to know how to stop things from triggering me. Things happen. This is life.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that my husband lets me vent when I am feeling frustrated for no reason and don’t want my problems resolved but just wanna vent. I know it’s hard not to try to solve and I appreciate it a lot.
2. I am grateful that Nathaniel decided to take both of his naps today, I really needed it today.
3. I am grateful that despite my unreasonableness at times, David is still wonderful and loves me.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. legos legos legos.
2. more batman movies!
And here’s day five, inspired by Kimmi’s wonderful layout.
No butterflies. Can you believe it?
And here are some details:
Catalyst One Hundred and Eleven is: Did you ever get into trouble?
Thoughts:
I have always been the girl who follows the rules. Predictable and boring and never really did anything to get myself in trouble. Sometimes I wonder how it would have been if I weren’t but in the end I love the predictable, the safe, the reliable. Those are me.
Good day here today but wish I could be a bit more productive, mostly at work. I still feel like I have so much to learn and I wish I could do so faster and more efficiently. But such is life. I do love and adore my work.
Nathaniel’s been playing more and more by himself. When he feels hungry or thirsty (or alone) he’ll come over to my side of the couch and give me a face.
And then will start screaming if I don’t pay attention.
He does walk and stand up more and more lately.
And plays with his toys for a long time.
And when David’s playing at the table, he reaches up and tries to get him to include Nathaniel, too. (But David isn’t really interested.)
Days seem to be passing too fast lately. I feel like I am perpetually behind. But I am trying to not stress about it. Just doing the best I can each day. Getting my layouts done, reading, drawing faces, playing with the kids, relaxing, and working. Things will get super productive soon again, I am sure of it. For now, I am trying to enjoy the slower pace.
Note to Self:
I am trying to slow down lately. I noticed that when several things are happening at the same time and I don’t feel like I have one under control, I tend to freak and react badly. I immediately get frustrated. So I am trying to slow down. I am also trying not to overthink. I am a lot less planned than usual lately and I think that’s actually a bad thing but since I don’t seem to be in the mood to plan, I am trying to go with it and instead slow down. Only think of one day at a time. Only worry about the next thing. I make lists still but tiny little ones. For tasks for the next hour and I leave it at that. For now, that’s as good as it gets. I am trying to accept it instead of fight it. It turns out things work much more smoothly this way.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. Taking a little time to walk down the street with the kids and get some ice cream. I need to get out more each day especially now that the sun is out. So I am thankful I did today.
2. I’m grateful for the 4 layouts I’ve done so far. I love them all and even if I get no more done, I am already thankful for this project. But I intend to keep going, I promise.
3. I am grateful for everyone who comes here and takes the time to comment. I am a practical stranger to almost all of you and yet you come, you read, you take the time to say kind things. I cannot tell you how much it means to me, thank you so much.
Two Things David’s Grateful For:
1. Going to eat some ice cream with mommy.
2. Listening to songs (sung by his friends) at school.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
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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