November 365 2013

I've said it before and I'll say it again, November is not my favorite month of the year. This year Joe's surgery, and various other things made it very stressful. I know December isn't any less busy but it's a happier time of year and that makes it better. 

Let's being on the merry! 

Thanksgiving 2013

Around here, Thanksgiving is pretty casual.  We eat, we talk, we complain about how much we ate.  Pretty standard, I think.

We all get together at my house and the amount of people ranges from year to year, but it's mostly my sisters and their families and my Father-In-Law and his lady friend (who's as good as my mother-in-law, since Joe's mom passed away years ago and I never got to meet her).  I do most of the cooking but I refuse to get up at the crack of dawn to start the turkey.  I use those oven bags that cuts the cooking time in half, PLUS we eat around 3. It used to be earlier, but this seems to work better.

It may not look it in this picture but the turkey was so good! We don't make a fancy presentation of it and just carve it in the kitchen.

My stove was full of pots! I think I used every burner and then some! 

The table groaned from all the food. We snapped this and then remembered the mashed and sweet potoatos in the warming drawer! Can't forget those! 

A little bit of everything. And it was gooooood!! 

Made sure to leave room for dessert. I kept it small but I enjoyed every bite of my apple pie. I didn't even have any ice cream with it! 

My sister Chet, who was with her boyfriends family this year, made sure not to disappoint the kids and sent her annual cornucopia. This year it was full of chocolate covered pretzels and Oreos. I may or may not have inhaled the chocolate smell to compensate not having any. 

The kids were so hopped up on sugar and they found some old dress up clothes and had fun.  Good thing it made it through the last purge! 

So once again, I didn't get any good pictures of our Thanksgiving, but I guess that's part of the tradition!

Thankful 2013

With Thanksgiving so close, I've been thinking about what I'm thankful for. Some serious. Some simple. Thankful for it all.

My family. Joe and the girls are my everything. Everything I do, I do for them. Sound like a Bryan Adams song? It was our wedding song. Still true to this day. Love them. 

My puppies. They make me so happy. I can be having a rotten day and they make it better with their love and kisses....and playing. They make me laugh so much at their craziness! Sure house training isn't fun but neither was potty training the girls. They melt me. 

Grateful for coffee and the reminder not to take things too seriously. 

I'm thankful for our health. It's been a crazy year (for Joe) health-wise. You take the simple things for granted. Seeing him have surgery twice this year has been stressful. Luckily, he's doing so much better for it all. 

I'm thankful for magical places. Where else can you act like a kid with no worries?

I am thankful for simple things like weight loss apps that have helped me stay on track with my goals. It's been slow moving but it's moving in the right direction. 

So that's the short list.  I'm sure there's a lot more that I'm Thankful for besides this, but I was going for the not obvious things.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, and peaceful Thanksgiving!

Project Life 2013 Week Thirty-Three

Week 33 was a busy week, not in an exciting way by far. Just cleaning and purging and getting ready sort of busy things.

This week I tackled a room in the basement that we couldn't walk through anymore. Lots of "just put it downstairs" sort of stuff. Know what eventually happens to that stuff? The light bulb comes on and it gets donated to Goodwill. I admit to not parting with some things out of sentimentality but others should have gotten dumped long ago! 

I also finished working on my 2011 project life album that I decided to do on a whim. It made me backed up on this years album before vacation but I'm glad it got done. Lots of finishing up projects happened this week....and cleaning. Can't escape that! 

It's been crazy busy around here lately. I've been working more hours by Joe's office since he broke his right hand and needs help (it's his dominant hand). He also left yesterday for a convention in ORLANDO! I told him he needs to visit Disney and bring back souvenirs! LOL! I wasn't happy about his going with a broken hand but it was important for him to go. Can't wait for the year when we get to go too! School gets in the way of all the fun! 

Hoping to clear out more of the basement so we can pull out the Christmas decorations already. I had Marissa look in the crawl space for the Thanksgiving stuff and she couldn't find it. I accepted it and I'm ready to move forward with Christmas. It takes me so long to decorate and this year I believe it won't be any easier with the puppies so I want a head start. I just won't get much help from Joe with his hand broken. Oh well. Bring it on!

Always Remembered

November is not my favorite month.  It's a crazy time of year around here but the sinker for me is the day we lost my Dad to lung cancer.

It was 19 years ago today when he lost his fight.  He had so much to live for, but his body couldn't handle the pain anymore.  He was 55 when he died.  Way too young to leave my mom with 4 kids.  He never got to meet his 7 amazing grandchildren.  

My Dad was a fun loving, yet stern type of man.  He loved his girls more than anything, and we adored him.  

This picture is so typical of him. He's got my younger sisters (they're twins) in his lap and I'm holding on behind him on a lawn mower.  Looking back now that is so unsafe but it was his way of having fun with us.  He would have loved all his grandchildren just as much and made sure to have fun with them.

Missing you Daddy.  Loving you always.

Project Life 2013 Week: Thirty-Two

As I plug along trying to finish up my Disney pages from August, I'm slowly sharing the weeks of Project Life I do have ready. This time of year is always so fast paced with the holidays so there's not much time to play in my scraproom. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

Apparently this week was very *pink* for me. 

I used ribbon on my week card and it felt good. I think washi has replaced my love of ribbon, and I have a lot of ribbon. I need to put a stop on my scrappy buying and just use what I have. I know I keep saying that, if only the manufactures would work with me and slow down on releasing all new fabulous products!! LOL! 

The girls have a sudden love for polishing their nails. And not just plain ol polish, they got fancy and did "water marbling". It was messy and frustrating but they got it out of their system. 

This filler card is my favorite. The "always" is an old metal sign from "Making Memories". Old stuff is new again! 

Wish me luck on catching up this week! I need it!

11-12-13

Today is ELEVEN, TWELVE, THIRTEEN.

We no longer have dates like
11-11-11 or
12-12-12
but today we DO have

11-12-13

How are you spending the day?

Since I don't like posting without a picture, I leave you with these faces.

Project Life 2013 Week: Thirty-One

Finally made some time today to take pics of my Project Life layouts. 

Can't believe the summer's now over as I look back in this week. Whatever tan I had is long gone now. And my flip flops have been replaced by boots. Not happy about this one bit. I have come to the realization that I belong somewhere warm, Florida preferably. ?;)

I like adding the weather forecast to the week and wish I had thought to do this early in the year, but you live and learn. I guess that means I'll be doing PL again next year. 😉 I think I have to thanks to the enormous amount of supplies I have in hand! LOL! 

The second half of the week always seems to have more fill in cards. Part of me likes that, yet I'd rather they be pics of us. Oh well. 

This week has an insert thanks to a visit to the county fair. Lots of photo opportunities to be had for sure! 

Front:

Back:

Now to get my mojo in gear and finish up our trip to Disney! Trying to keep it more on the simple side but there are SO many pics to include! Lots of great memories!

Our New Puppy - Round TWO!

Yes, I may or may not have lost my mind.  You read that right, we got another puppy!!  We decided Riley needed a friend, and not only that, but it's her half sister!

Riley has been a love from the start.  She took to potty training pretty well.  I thought we were set, we had a routine and the only hard part was getting her to eat out of the bowl.  On a visit to the breeder for her next round of shots, I fell in love with a small puppy.  Joking around, I told Joe I found Riley a friend and texted him a picture.  He was all for it!  He wanted two puppies from the start, so they would keep each other company.

We set up a visit so Joe could meet the puppy I loved.  She was a doll, very sweet and cuddly.  However the more we watched Riley, we noticed she was playing with another puppy and ignored this one completely. So we checked out the puppy Riley was playing with and she was a cutie.  She was sweet and energetic like Riley.  We were sold.  Last night we brought Piper home.

Hard to explain but the puppies have brought us even closer as a family.  We all hang out in the family room longer instead of going off to do our own thing.  After the girls go to bed, I take the puppies and we hang out in my scraproom, until it's time for them to go to bed.

So here we are, a family of 4 that quickly turned into a family of 6!

Project Life Card Organization

My love of organizing has no end.  I'm always moving things around until I just can't improve it anymore and it works.  

Scrapbooking shares my love of organizing.  When I'm "stuck" and have no mojo, I organize things.  Playing with paper or any supplies really, gets my creative juices moving.  

A short while back, I saw THIS video on Pinterest and was intrigued to watch it right away.  This lady organized her Project Life cards in ROYGBIV order instead of  by "kits".  As someone who had them organized by kits, this blew my mind!  It made perfect sense to me!  I did hesitate to break up my kits, but the more I kept thinking about it, I usually choose the cards I'm working with based by COLOR instead of manufacture.  It would make working on Project Life SO much easier.

This is a picture of what my set up looked like.  My 4x6 cards are in one area, my 3x4 cards are in another, and then I have labels and stamps in another compartment.

This is a close up of what I was using for m 4x6 cards. It's a refrigerator/pantry organizer that holds all my cards and I made a simple place holder out of white paper that's 3x4 1/2 and just wrote the name of the company from where the cards are from.

This organizer is from Target, in the closet organizer area.  It held my 3x4 cards pretty well.  With a little space left over for some labels and cutouts.

This is the organizer empty.

Then on Instagram, I saw Jenny (sorry can't find a link to her blog) find the ideal storage at Staples.  I just cut down some chipboard that comes in my scrapbook orders (that I hoard), and used it as dividers.  

My 4x6 cards before I changed up the container again.  This container worked for the most part, but the open end kinda bothered me.

Then I found this container at either Marshall's, TJ Maxx, or Home Goods and switched them out.  It even has more room, which is great since I plan on cutting up some 6x6 paper pads and adding to it.  There's even room for some odds and ends in the back.

This is making me all kinds of happy and got my creative juices flowing to work on Project Life again.  Still in August with our Disney trip, but I'm getting there!