Week in the Life – Monday 8/17

I wasn’t going to do a Week in the Life project this year….last year my heart wasn’t really in it for some reason and I abandoned the project after a day or two.  It’s OK to drop projects and change gears, wasn’t working, move on.  This year, I have too many unfinished projects, too many things in the air and no sense of completion….perfect!  Let’s take on another project.  My goal this year…. write every day, take a few photos, post to my blog.  It’s Wednesday and I’m posting Monday so here goes 😉

MONDAY

****And I realized when I looked at the photos I’d taken, all 8 of them, that there were no people in them.  Was it because I’d decided late in the game to do witl and hadn’t “prepped”?  Or, was it because this is what a large part of my day looks like being the Domestic Goddess with two kids in school and a more than full time working hubby….that there just isn’t that many people around?   Think I need to think about this a little more.  A lot of isolation, not necessarily a great thing.

This week is the last week of summer vacation for us.  It is completely depressing, I am happy with the school they go to, but at this time of year I’m ready for them to have an extra week or two of summer as the other schools around us do.  It is especially bittersweet as they are going into HIGH SCHOOL next week (not sure why I have to capitalize that when I write it), I have been waffling between disbelief and excitement for them all month.

In the spirit of “last week before summer vacation” I made the girls get up at 9am even though we didn’t have to leave the house until almost 11.  Groan, moan and they’re up.  After being a slug for the greater part of the summer, I got up with Charlie a little after 6am and made him his tea to take with him to work.  I have to admit, I get waaaaay more done in a day when I am up at 6am vs. 9am.

The girls had soccer practice this morning so I picked up Kenzie & Peyson and dropped everyone at the field, then hightailed it to the Apple Store to pick up a new wireless router (ours was ooold as I realized) and then to Best Buy for network cable and other tech stuff all to be used as part of the upgrading the wi-fi signal project.  Just made it back to soccer in time to get everyone, drop everyone off, bring the girls home to get their bathing suits and some Elio’s pizza to take to Kenzie’s pool…pick up Lauren on the way over and drop everyone off to swim.  Lucky that Janice will bring everyone home.  I’m so so thankful to have a group of girlfriends who live nearby and who like to share in the kid-schlepping chores!

photo 5 edited

After the pool, the girls have to do their “concussion training” for their school soccer team, I get them the links to the site and they each curl up on their beds in the a/c  go through the course.

photo 4

Also in homage to getting back to a schedule, I wanted to get back into the habit of “money monday”, doing the bills/paperwork/greasing the cogs that run this show.  I know if I do this every monday, it won’t take very long and I will have a far better grasp on money, projects, and to-do’s and won’t be wondering if I called the chimney guy or where the paper was with the deposit on it.

photo 1

In the spirit of trying something new, I tried the “deposit by phone” app with our bank and snapped a photo of the check, entered some info and away it went!  Too bad I can’t get cash out of my phone, save me a trip to the cash machine.  I spent hours on this project but managed to get a lot of things cleared out, ticked off, paid and filed.

photo 6 edited

In an effort to clean out the fridge, I made grilled lamb tips from pache’s, a spinach pinwheel dish to use up the puff pastry and good old zucchini cakes from our frozen garden zucchini.  Round it out with sliced tomatoes from the garden and call it good!!

photo 2

After dinner, Charlie worked on our taxes and the girls read their summer reading book “1984”.  They are under strict orders that they can’t go camping this weekend with their friend unless the reading and all the “entries” they have to do are completely done, printed out and in their backpacks ready to hand in on Monday!  Charlie gave me my own “homework” of things to work on to get our taxes in order, which I’ll work on this week.  I had some more paperwork/computer stuff to take care of before joining him for sliced plums.

photo 3

We have been ending up the evenings in front of the TV usually watching sports or “Big Bang Theory” re-runs.    It is nice to come together at the end of the day and hang our for awhile.  Gwen went to bed early but Lily got some ice cream and hung out with us for awhile watching TV.  It’s still weird that they don’t go to bed at 8pm anymore, its fun to hang out but I sometimes miss grown-up evening time.  As we get closer to Monday, bedtimes will be dialed back toward 9.  This summer I’ve also been having Lily do the evening dog routine of pill/food/outside then put her to bed in her crate.  Shadow likes the routine and I like not forgetting to put her out until I’m over-ready to go to bed!  Books and crosswords for us then lights out, Charlie at around 11 and me around 11:40…need to dial back bedtime for ourselves as well!

 

memorykeeping:: December Daily-my why…

I do not think I have included a formal introduction page on any album I’ve done.  Honestly, it really never occurred to me since most of my albums are either from a vacation or a special event.  My general albums are arranged chronologically, at least until 2007 when I fell off the bandwagon and now I just stack layouts into albums haphazardly…but that is another blog post.  anyway  I thought it might be a nice introduction to talk about why I make these albums, so Inspired by Ali, I made up a “why” page.  I made this page digitally using Christmas themed digital paper for the background, then lowering the opacity by about 50% so its faint in the background.  I used Remington Noiseless as my font and made it bold to stand out.   It was looking a little plain so I added a bit of Christmas washi tape and a “joy” button. The finished page is on the right in this photo, it will be the back of the title page for the album.

DD2014-first two pages

The text reads:

We record the holidays:

To stop time even for just the instant it takes to record an image. That moment will never come again, but we can relive it over and over as an image.

To honor the past as we trim the tree, we talk about the ornaments we have, where we got them, who gave them to us, the family stories come alive. At gatherings, we share stories and old traditions and start new traditions.

To dream of the future this time of year gives us pause to reflect and dream about what we can make manifest in our lives for the coming year. Because time goes far far too quickly and we want to remember every little detail.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas 2014

I like it.

You can learn more about Ali (an awesome person and inspiring memory keeper) and her December Daily project HERE on her blog.

 

memorykeeping:: December Daily-beginnings and endings

This will be the 6th year I have kept a scrapbook album specifically about the holidays.  I have been inspired the last several years by Ali Edwards December Daily project.  You can learn more about Ali (an awesome person and inspiring memory keeper) and her December Daily project HERE on her blog.  I have included photos from my 2012 December Daily on my blog, that year was one of my favorites for ease and simplicity.  Hopefully if I get some time, I can get other years up to share.

This year I am once again participating in December memory keeping, I have decided to run my album from Thanksgiving to Christmas…and maybe to New Year’s, we’ll see.    I have been doing a lot of thinking about process lately and one place where I get hung up is on the beginning and ending of album projects.  I decided to solve the problem by doing the first and last page in one whack tonight and wanted to share them here with you…

DD2014-first two pages

The title page is on the left, the page behind it on the right.  Yes, the photo is crummy as it’s dark at 3:30 around here now and consequently, most projects are getting worked on in the dark!  I used some new paper that I picked up that I love…very vintage-ey…I colored it oh so slightly with colored pencil, tried some embossing on the tree in white and silver and used some new brads for the top, and number stickers for the bottom.  Simple. Easy. Done.

Back Page

The back page?  I saw a beautiful wood cutout at Absolutely Everything last weekend and knew it was going to be the focal point of the last page… I embossed it with silver embossing powder, picked out a piece of beautiful paper, attached one to the other and voila!  Last page.  Simple. Easy. Done.   (note…working with these die cuts is tough they are very fragile so handle them with great care so they don’t snap…like mine did!)

There now, that’s better!  Solved the beginning and ending bits quite nicely I think!  Looking forward to working on this project more in the coming week!  Hello the Holidays!

Do you have a Holiday project you’re working on?!  I’d love to hear about it!