Project Life Update

Hi, everyone!  I promised an update on my Project Life, and this is a pretty big one!   It's been a crazy kind of week, so I'm glad I'm actually getting it posted now!  On Tuesday, I had to get my gallbladder removed, as I had stones that were giving me a lot of problems.  I didn't expect some of the after effects, but it's getting better now.  I haven't taken a pain pill since Thursday morning, so I must not be too uncomfortable anymore!

My husband's hip surgery has been pushed back a month, so at least that's a little ways off yet.  He's still not sure he really wants to do it - he's not so sure about putting the business in the hands of me and our boys for a while.  I can kind of understand, but I think he really needs to do it, so I hope he still will!

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago, our little guy burned his had pretty badly.  Dave had put a new exhaust pipe on one of his lawn tractors, and it was nice and shiny.  He kept telling Jake not to touch it, but he got distracted by some of the other boys one time, and of course, Jake touched it.  Poor guy.  I was about 15 miles away when it happened, and when I got that phone call, I don't know how I got home so quickly, but I sure did!  Anyway, after going to wound care for 2 weeks, we've got it unwrapped, and it looks pretty good now.

Now, back to Project Life.  I'm not doing it a week at a time, so this encompasses many weeks.  And I can't believe how I felt so caught up when I got these done last week, only to last night see that I need to print a BUNCH more photos and do several more pages!!  But, here's where I am so far.

I'm still very much loving this - just wishing I could find a way to stay caught up with it!!

I will tell you I have fallen in love with just keeping a bunch of 6x6 and 8x8 pads for doing this!  All my supplies right now fit in a fairly small basket that I can carry anywhere, along with a trimmer and my book.  If I feel like I need something else (like Thickers or something), I just add those later when I want to go get them.

Been a while...

Hello, friends! I know, I really must post here more often. I can't believe how long it's been again. I'm afraid I've been in kind of a constant state of overwhelm lately, and that doesn't do wonders for my creativity. But, I did get another spread done in my Project Life. I'm hoping to get that caught up soon, but we'll see...


I used my first insert in this one.




So, you may be wondering why I'm so overwhelmed lately... Well, for starters, I began doing Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago. That is going really well, but it does take me more time trying to figure out what to eat. And, for about the past month, I've been exercising 40 - 70 minutes nearly every day, which obviously takes away from time to do other things. But, the biggest thing weighing on my mind right now, and sucking my energy a bit, is the fact that my hubby has to have a total hip replacement in early May. Fortunately, I think we have the financial aspects of this whole thing pretty well taken care of, as we can still have guys working, even though Dave won't be able to do so for about 6 weeks. But, the stuff I have to worry about - the house, mostly, has me in a bit of a tizzy. You see, as he will be on crutches or a walker for quite some time, the floor is going to have to be clear. Plus, as he doesn't have a spleen, he is going to be super susceptible to infection, and he will not be able to have anyone sick around him for a while. Now, we have 7 of us living here right now, and with 3 of the kids in elementary school, it's rare that there is a time that someone doesn't have the sniffles or an upset stomach. So, we have decided that the house needs to be totally cleaned and disinfected. Not an easy task for me. We've been living here for 12 1/2 years, and we have a lot of stuff. And for a woman who has a terrible time just keeping the house slightly presentable some of the time, this is quite a job! Plus, frankly, the idea of having my hubby home for 6 weeks straight has me wondering how crazy I'll be by the end of it! Anyway, it'll all be okay, and I'll get my creative groove back one of these days. But, for now, my computer is being really slow, and I need to get an early supper made for the kids before I go and weigh in for the week, so I'll end this here. Thanks for sticking with me, even though I've been so quiet!!

Project Life - end of January

Yay! I finished Project Life for January! And January isn't even quite over. (Hopefully nothing really eventful happens yet tonight that I want to include, or it will throw my whole plan off!) I decided that I really want to do this more by month, than by week. Maybe that weird, but that's just me. Weird. Anyway, here's the two page spread

And close-ups of the two sides

Okay - I'm off to get some supper started for the kids. I'm trying to work on making food from my pantry, instead of buying more all the time. My plan tonight was to make a Tuna Helper that has been in there a long time (we pretty much never eat packed meals like that), but when I pulled it out a little while ago, I saw it only had 4 servings. Probably not good since there will be 7 of us tonight. So, it was back to the drawing board. I found two packages of mac and cheese and 2 cans of Spam. It's crazy what's hiding in my pantry! Add some green beans, and I guess we've got a weird meal! :) Yep, that's me, weird!

Project Life Weeks 2 & 3

As promised, I'm back with some Project Life photos. I got a little behind last week, but yesterday made the time to get totally caught up. This week I'm going to try my friend Sasha's idea of just doing one pocket at a time - I can totally see taking a few minutes each day to work on this, as opposed to an hour or two each week. I'll give it a try at least! Anyway, here is week 2's pages:

And week 3's pages:

I'm not sure how y'all get both pages in one photo - I have a hard enough time getting high enough to get one full page. Oh, duh! I could photograph it with the book on the floor I suppose. Hmm... I'll have to see where in my home there is plenty of natural light on the floor...

Take care, my friends!

I was being hasty.

Yes, I was. In being honest with myself, I know that if I don't show off what I do somewhere, I'm probably not going to do it. It has to do with some amount of accountability, but much more to do with the fact that I'm proud of what I do, and no one in my real life (save my younger kids) really has any appreciation for it. And I am NOT going to let fear of what some monster might do to with my kids' pictures stop me from showing you all what I'm doing. It's just not going to happen. My husband can say all he wants about how I make the kids think that technology is all wonderful, and how I'm being so irresponsible putting our kids' photos all over the internet. I just don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. You know? I try to be very tasteful in what I post. My brother-in-law (who works in government security) told me that Facebook is one of the worst places to be posting photos of kids, so I stopped. But, I am not going to let fear keep me from doing what I love. So there! lol

That said, here is a photo of my finished December Daily album. I had taken photos of each page that I hadn't shown you yet, but then last week I deleted them all, and I just don't feel like going through all that again - sorry. Maybe someday I'll have some streak of wanting to photograph and process several pages at once, and do it, but for now, I hope you're happy with a photo of the whole book - I am! It got quite huge, but for now the binder rings are working, so that is likely how it will stay.

Moving on, I did my first week of Project Life last week. I am in love with this project! It took me a while to figure out what I was really doing, but once I started putting things in here, I don't think it could really get much easier (well, I guess I could just put photos in and use the PL journal cards and call it good, but what fun is that?) So, here are the pages of my Week 1 (I haven't made my cover page yet...)

I used a lot of Crate Paper's Farmhouse line, and a paper from their Random collection. I hope to start printing out photos and working on Week 2 later today, as long as things work out for that.

One of our daughters celebrated a birthday this past week, and after I finished making a card for her, I loved the design so much, I made 3 more! Why not? Here are 3 of them:

And a photo of all 4 (the close up of the 4th was all blurry.)

I used papers from Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe line, a stamp from Papertrey Ink, Versamark ink, Zing embossing powders, and flowers from Sassafras. Oh, and my Zap heat tool, my ATG, and my Fiskars 2" circle punch.

When I finished making those cards, I made a little banner for her birthday cake with some of the scraps. I hadn't planned on putting a candle on this cake, but she really thought she needed to blow something out, so we put on one candle (not 12, as the banner probably would have caught on fire!)

I hope you are all having a fantastic start to your week! You all rock, you know that? I love that there are some people here who enjoy seeing what I make - it makes me feel good! Thank you for that! Take care!