WiTL: An Update

I kind of dropped my Week in the Life project like a hot potato here at my blog, but I assure you it is still alive and well! In fact, it is a little all consuming at the moment... but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As most of you know, it ended up being a very busy week - I got married! Nothing big or crazy... in fact, no one else even came. It still made for lots of stuff to do. Like sitting in a Social Security office for an hour. I seriously started to rethink the name change situation after about minute 20. What a wretched place.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the album's progress. I am so thrilled with it. And yes, it is a complete lift of Ali Edwards. You can see her 2008 project here. In my mind, it beats having tons of professional posey pictures to document the day. And days surrounding. Even if my desk has been a total wreck ever since. [Please note fresh flowers from my husband :)]

I'm not sure why these pictures look so terrible. I'll post better ones when I'm done! Supplies include patterned paper by Collage Press, Love Elsie, Creative Imaginations, and some white Bazzil Dotted Swiss. Metal tabs (and probably some wax seals - I haven't decided on those yet) from 7 Gypsies. Tags from Creative Imaginations. Stamps from Heidi Swapp, Scenic Route, and Maya Road. And also some metal rimmed tags, ginormous brads, buttons, and a set of vintage playing cards that I picked up at a thrift store about a month ago. So far, all the pictures for this were printed with my new printer! My super kind coworkers gave us some $ as a wedding gift, and I opted for a new all-in-one printer. Way better than a toaster. I still need to do some color adjusting, but I love it. So awesome to not deal with paper jams every time I print!!

One of my favorite parts is the electronic guest book type of thing - one page of which you can see on the bottom right. We got so many lovely well wishes in the form of text messages, emails, Facebook comments, etc. (my, how times have changed!) that I compiled them into some word art for the album. I'm hoping to finish it in the next two days so that we can share it with family over Thanksgiving! More detail (and better photos!) to follow. As of this weekend, I also have a totally new scrapbook area to share. I'm still getting it all put away. Have a rad Thanksgiving and enjoy your turkey comas!

WiTL: Day One

I broke the song lyric as blog title mold. Boo. I started a Week in the Life project yesterday - kind of odd to start on a Tuesday I guess, but it was one less thing I had to start on a Monday. :) I'm going to highlight some photos here. Journaling is total stream of conscious right now and on my 'private' blog. Loving using that to record some stories. Don't have to worry about writing 'well' and can keep adding to it. I adore the physical act of putting pen to paper, but sometimes it's a little time consuming.

Anywho... here's the start.

I took Chris to work this morning, so we had to leave early. It was dark and rainy. Combine that with him being in the car and I was NOT thrilled about driving.

Minor meltdown over our filing system at work. I redid a lot... but lots more to do!

'The drive at 5.'

Heading out for Bike Night at Baja Jacks, our Tuesday ritual.

This is Christopher being embarrassed that I brought the 'big' camera in to eat with us. And that I put it on the table. 'People are looking at us like we're weird.' And this is me doing my evil laugh.

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown after dinner. I only saw the last half, so I missed the pumpkin. A little disappointing. After that, it was Dancing With the Stars and Sons of Anarchy. No gym. Oopsie.

Chris ended the evening by whacking Stinky with the recliner, so he made up for it with a little cuddling. I wasn't feeling too hot, so he was scared to cuddle with me.

'Simple Kind of Life'

Inspired by The Simple Woman's Day Book / Ali Edwards:

Outside my window... kinda cold and windy today. Lots of the leaves are blowing off the trees.

I am thinking... about starting a 'Week in the Life' project tomorrow. I feel a good week coming on. :)

I am thankful for... that the doctor, who looked suspiciously like Jon Gosselin, was actually pretty cool today. For Chris keeping me motivated on the gym thing. For dry weather. That my CKC prize finally arrived!

From the kitchen... hot dogs and my new favorite, avocado, peas, tomato, and feta with Hendricksons dressing.

I am wearing... a pink cami, cropped grey workout pants, and socks.

I am creating... some greeting cards. I don't like making cards, but a kit came with my CKC prize. They're easy while I watch Dancing With the Stars and Castle. And I'm working on a Mole Day layout.

I am going... to bed shortly. Some sleep to catch up on.

I am reading... I finished Johnny Cash's autobiography a week or two ago. Haven't started anything else yet.

I am hoping... I don't get stressed out this week.

I am hearing... Castle. And Chris yawning. And the fan.

Around the house... it's pretty messy. Football season is catching up with us. But it looks lived in and fall-y and that makes me happy.

One of my favorite things... we've been to the gym eight of the last ten days, which is kind of amazing.

A few plans for the rest of the week... visiting my friend Beth, working, figuring out something to take for our Potluck Friday, dressing up, gym, making [sorta] big happy changes, and riding a train.

Other than that, it's officially fall here. We fired off the ol' floor heater the Friday before last. It's a rather scary beast, but it does the job quite well! Saved us during the ice storm. It hasn't been too cold since, but I'm sure it will get that way in the not so distant future.

In other news, we started the low carb thing last week. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I'm mostly sticking to it. Sneaking in a PB&J once in awhile. :) In one hour, we got the fridge stocked with washed, cooked, sliced, and/or diced chicken, hamburger, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, peppers, onions, and beans ready for a week full of salads, etc. It was a little insane, but so nice to not really cook the rest of the week.

Yesterday, I tried out a practice tattoo on Chris. He's wanting a few, including this Spartan logo. Lucky we got a picture - it was totally smeared shortly afterwards. I'm still iffy on the tat issue, but I'm looking into white ink. Some of those are sweet! And very subtle.

This is my Week 3 (I think??) project for the Yesterday | Today class. Six (or more) layouts in one - I can't help but love that. Might end up doing a whole album with this design. Super efficient = super awesome.

And that's about it! The train ride didn't happen a few weeks ago - we found out the caboose wasn't heated so we swapped out for first class. I think there's a scrapbook store at our destination town. Woohoo! More to come. Have a great week and Happy Halloween!

'Digital Get Down'

[Inappropriate NSync song? Anyone? Crickets? Maybe I should give up using quotes and songs for my titles...]

It's official. I hate my printer. I was all excited to cozy up with some Forensic Files and get rolling on my week 2 project for Yesterday | Today Friday night. Friday morning, I even got up early to do all my photo editing and prep work. That evening, I was all ready to print my photos and knock out some layouts. Except... it didn't quite work out that way. I have relatively new ink in there. I have HP photo paper for my HP printer. All of that good stuff. And yet... paper jams, horrid color, lines, misfeeds, four pieces of photo paper and lots of ink down the tubes. Not to mention the heightened blood pressure.

So. I ended up downloading Ali's layered template and making my first 'real' digital page. I experimented with Scrapblog quite awhile ago, but decided digital just wasn't a fun thing for me. My only digi 'stash' consists of some texture downloads from my Jessica Sprague PhotoShop class (I believe all from Fudge Graphics), but I'm semi-happy with the way it turned out. Still planning on doing a paper version at some point. Keep it old school. :) I'd also like to go back in and add small dates to the photos. Very strange for me to do a layout without journaling or dates! It's kind of bothering me, even if it's a 'cover' page.

So now the question is... keep my HP for the scanner which still works perfectly fine or upgrade everything? I'm leaning towards keeping the all-in-one for the scanner and getting a separate 12x12 printer. Maybe upgrade the scanner when the current one dies. Still pondering that one.

There's a new challenge at Theatre Love! This time, anything from Les Miserables is fair game. Lots of good stuff there, although all of the design team ended up using 'On My Own.' Great minds think alike I guess! Every time I think of that song now, I remember Joey (Katie Holmes) singing it on Dawsons Creek. Waaaay back in the first season. Fun memories. :) Anyway, this is my sis and her first apartment. They're both ridiculously cute. Head on over and share some Les Mis love with us!

Have a happy week friends! Fingers crossed the rain goes away for the weekend. I'm doing a train ride with the boy and the inlaws. I'm super excited! Hopefully some good fall-y pictures to follow.

'Feelin' Good My Friend'

It was a fabulous, fabulous weekend... right up until the fever and ick Sunday night. This is my second day home from work. I'm feeling much better today, but I decided one more day of recovery sounded like a better idea than facing the flu nazis. Can't say I mind spending the day napping and watching live court coverage and Sex and the City. And scrapbooking. I finally finished this layout that's been on my desk for over a week. I think I'll use this basic idea for some of my Yesterday | Today class work. So many of my memories are attached to specific places. Houses. Places I've worked. Classrooms. I think this is a new favorite. Good memories. :)

I also finished two super quick minis. I had planned to do a daily album for one month this summer, but that didn't happen. Instead I ended up with a 'Summer' album. I created 23 4x6 documents in Photoshop and added two 2-1/2x4 pictures to each one. Had them printed. Cut them all in half, leaving a small journaling area on each photo. Took four sheets of Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel collection and cut them all into 4x6 pieces. Used some scrap cardboard for a cover. Punched some holes. And voila:

While I was at it, I made a similar mini for my sister's new apartment. This time I just trimmed up some 4x6 prints. And added a window using some scrap acrylic. I'll leave further embellishing / journaling to her. She's crafty. :)

Before all of this was the fabulous weekend. Chris got the laptop rigged up in the backseat, so I had a rolling photo editing studio on the way to Fayetteville Friday. That was amazing. Being unproductive on these road trips just kills me. While in Arkansas, we attended our 10th Charlie Robison show (Dear 'My Hometown guy', don't you know that's always the last song? Stop requesting it two minutes in Jacka$$!), visited War Eagle Mill, perused Pig Trail Harley Davidson, listened to the new Miranda Lambert album, and stopped by a scrapbook store.

And then it was onto Missouri for a little football action a few white squirrel sightings in Marionville! A new addition to my squirrel album. Yay! Anywho... like I said. Amazing weekend until the sickies kicked in.

'Reunited and it Feels So...'

Good? Surreal? Depressing? A little bit of all 3 I think. Saturday we made the journey to my 10 year high school reunion at Rockbridge Trout & Game Ranch in southern Missouri. Beautiful, beautiful place and cool setting, but I can't say much for the food. It was truly lovely though. And great to see classmates, even if it made me feel old. Hopefully more people show up next time!
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We couldn't have asked for a better ride. No rain, no cold, no heat, actual HILLS and CURVES (neither of these things really exist in Tulsa)... it was perfect. AND I was able to fit in two cameras and ample clothing, lotion, etc. Rolled 570 miles this trip and only spent about 30 bucks in gas! Only one minor heart attack... a deer jumped out in front of us on our ride home Sunday morning. Luckily, years of driving in Missouri had sharpened Chris's reflexes and we all escaped without injury.

So many favorite pictures from the weekend! Breakfast in downtown Branson with the parentals, family time in Nixa, Mom's crazy Monster Cookies, Bo and Dugan, lots of cool roadside buildings and barns, obligatory fall poses with the sisters. Perhaps some future material for the Yesterday | Today class I'm taking with Ali Edwards. Today was Day One of a 13-week 'journey' - so far so good! Really trying to nail down the stories that NEED to be documented and lay out some framework for their creation. I'm not big on planning, so this is good discipline!

'Headin' for the Highway'

What I thought to be simple bloggy changes ended up being kind of an ordeal, but I'm happy with the outcome and I guess that's all that matters. Between that fun adventure and my HTML class next week, I should be in good shape for next time I decide to change it up. IF there is a next time.

Anyway... things have been rockin' and rollin' the past few months. In scrapbook news, I was asked to join the new Design Team at Scraphappys, my local store. So far I've gotten to work with the Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts line and the Basic Grey Junebug stuff. Lovin' it! They included some tulle in my Junebug kit, so I crafted some flowers and managed not to burn the house down. I saw several tutorials on this, so it's nothing original... really fun though (especially for you pyros out there)! Just cut out some rough circle shapes and melt the edges over a candle (the heat, not the flame). I did four tulle layers for each flower. The finished result is on the right... somewhere under 'I Scrapbook.'

On the home front, there's been lots and lots of rain. A few road trips. Lots of dining alfresco (between the rain). Some fall decorations. Back to school (3rd and 6th grade for the kids, several computer classes for me). A nearly broken pinky finger. Cheerleading. A little fishing. Footballing. More rain.

Heading out for my high school reunion in a few hours - our first 'big' road trip on this bike. The good news is that the forecast is looking less like rain by the hour. Huge plus! The bad news is that I might have to sacrifice a change of clothes for my camera, as space is very limited. We'll see what happens. Have a happy weekend! PS. If you would like to track our progress, check out The Christopher Blog. Chris is going to try to do mobile posts along the way.