Christy gets creative

Accidentally crunchy…

2012-01-10T10:29:00.001-08:00

I’m accidentally cloth diapering. Yes, my youngest is three and a half and only potty-trained if she’s completely naked. Not the most practical definition of potty-trained. Yes, I’m a stay-at-home mom who can’t seem to get her kid potty-trained. Girls are easier? My ass. My youngest two girls have been the hardest. This one? If I hadn’t already called the baby making quits, I would now (and not just because of the potty-training – Viv’s a challenge all around).

I was buying Pull-Ups last week – for the last time, I promised myself (too bad Viv didn’t similarly promise me)– when I decided to look at some cloth options. I found a couple of affordable pull-up-like cloth diapers and bought them to test out. I actually wanted to cloth diaper this child the whole time but living in a 250 year old house with dicey plumbing scared me off. We started this morning. So far, she thinks they’re diapers and she’s cool with that.

Between this and my mostly organic garden, I’m getting downright crunchy. Watch out – my candy coating might even disappear.

Pinterest Hits and Misses

2012-01-08T13:33:00.001-08:00

First, clearly I fell off the December Daily wagon. I got sick on the 10th and just never picked it back up again. Makes me think Project Life is not for me. I’m actually rethinking my photo-keeping strategy in general.

What I’ve Pinned this week:

Thin Mint Brownies – Heck, yeah. I’m a Girl Scout leader and it’s cookie time. For our cookie rally (the annual party to get girls excited/educated about selling cookies), we had a Girl Scout cookie sundae bar. They got a bowl of ice cream and could scoop hot fudge and Thin Mint or Trefoil crumbles (strawberry syrup was also offered, but not even cracked open).

Long story short (too late), I had leftover Thin Mint crumbles that needed a home. And they found one. In my favorite brownie recipe. Hel-lo.

Lucky 13 Wardrobe Builder – pinned when I had a job interview. Haven’t heard from them, so I’m thinking I can file this one away for another time.

The Seven Day Toy Cure – on the books for this week. I’ll let you know if it helps. At all. It sure couldn’t hurt. We were in toy chaos before Christmas. Now it’s just madness.

Clear the Clutter – sensing a theme? Yeah, it’s chaotic all over the place here. It’s been so cold all I want to do is curl up with hot cocoa and brownies and my laptop warming my lap (although that’s probably bad for me, isn’t it?)

December Daily {Days Eight & Nine}

2011-12-10T05:07:00.001-08:00

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. I slacked off. Thursday was rainy and miserable and I was totally uninspired. That’s my excuse. I picked up yesterday and made two pages, though, so that’s something.

December Daily {Day Seven}

2011-12-07T10:41:00.001-08:00

Not feeling it today, but I haven’t missed one yet, so I’m faking my enthusiasm.

December Daily {Day Six}

2011-12-06T05:04:00.001-08:00

Still going strong, although I had to go through my pictures today to find what this page was going to be about. A quick simple one about trimming the Christmas tree.

December Daily {Day Five}

2011-12-05T12:09:00.001-08:00

I hadn’t planned this as one of my days, but sometimes the best stories aren’t planned. Christmas cards are one of my things. I send them out the first week of December – I’m usually ready to mail on December 1. I take care of it all on my own. This year I decided to let the kids help and we had such a blast talking about who all the people we were sending cards too. I think we ended up starting a new tradition.

December Daily {Day Four}

2011-12-04T14:41:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was our annual trek to the local tree farm to chop down an evergreen which allows the tree farm to plant more for the next year. The benefit of fresh Christmas trees is one of my soapboxes, so I’ll try not go on too much and just get to the page.

I’m finding sticking to one kit for an entire album a bit of a challenge. I love colors in my layouts, so this is a challenge in many ways to me. Actually, the only thing that came from the Persnickety Prints kit is the tree. Everything else is just color backgrounds and a number brush. I’m starting to question why I buy kits when I tend to only use the papers. I might be switching to just buying paper packs.

I’m not planning to do two page spreads for most layouts, but this one had so many pictures to go with it and I had a lot to say, so it couldn’t be limited to just one page.

December Daily {Day Three}

2011-12-03T05:23:00.001-08:00

So far, so good. I’m also sort of making it a Project 365 (or 31 or 25 or whatever) by taking a photo every day.

This features a ChrissyW template from March, the Persnickety Prints Vintage Christmas free kit, and now (I had a change of heart on the tags – they just didn’t fit my style) these 31 days date stamps.

December Daily {Day Two}

2011-12-02T05:53:00.001-08:00

Look at me, all keeping up with a project. This won’t last long, I promise.

Same products as yesterday, plus a free template from Gennifer Bursett.

December Daily {Day One}

2011-12-01T07:58:00.001-08:00

Products used: Katie Pertiet’s Counting Christmas Tags, Persnickety Prints Free Kit: Vintage Holidays, and A Very Boyish Christmas by Bella Gypsy (Can’t find the actual kit online)

December Daily…

2011-11-30T07:42:00.001-08:00

Another idea inspired by Pinterest (seriously – can I get kickbacks for blogging about nothing else this month?) is the December Daily. I mean, I know it didn’t originate on Pinterest. But that’s how it came into my awareness. I’m in serious need of some mojo rejuvenation. I’ve been going weeks without picking up my camera or digiscrapping. I’ve been in a bit of a funk. So I think doing something like a December Daily (and I’m contemplating a Project 365 – a picture a day for a year) is just what I need to kickstart my creative juices.

My plan is to do this in 8.5x11 format, not my usual scrapping format (I much prefer squares in general, but the wide open spaces of 12x12 in particular), but it will be easy to print my digital pages (I thought about going old-skool and breaking out the papers, but…nah) at home and actually have a finished book in my hands on January 1 (or let’s be realistic – sometime in Janurary/Febrary-ish).

Pinterest Success (or not) – Week of 11/28

2011-11-29T05:54:00.001-08:00

I’m trying to actually make/do some of the cool things I see on Pinterest rather than just admire and pin them. In the past week, these have been my attempts.

Origami Turkey

Not. Of course, at least half of this is on me since I thought brown construction paper would be fine for this. It was not. It was too heavy to be realistic, or even semi-realistic.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

Success. At least, according to the hubby. I don’t like the crap. But he wanted something different to be added to the (considerable) dessert table at my grandmother’s house.

Paper Plate Lion

Success. This was our Girl Scout craft this week. We read a story in our books about how all the flowers and birds got their colors. I knew my girls like wild and crazy colors, so I let them color their lions whatever color(s) they liked, but they had to make up a story to explain why they were that color. It worked really well – easy enough for five and six year olds and didn’t take up too much time like most of my craft projects – and the girls came up with lots of fun colors/stories.

Other things I’ve pinned, but haven’t tried yet:

Clone of a Cinnabon

Fabric Trivet

Air-Dried Porcelain

Chili's Copycat Salsa

Refrigerator Cookies

Pinterest Success (or not)…

2011-11-21T05:12:00.001-08:00

I’m one of those Pinterest fans. It’s my new go-to site for baking inspiration, mainly, although I like to browse craft projects and organizing too. Sometimes I even get so inspired that I {gasp} actually do something inspired by a pin.

So what pins have made me get up off my behind and do something?

I tried the water and vinegar in the microwave. Supposedly it will steam up and all you have to do is wipe your microwave clean. Notice I said supposedly. It didn’t work for me. I think I may have used a dish with sides that were too high – the steam couldn’t escape and loosen the spills all over. It did work just above my dish, so I can see where this MIGHT be successful.

Felt Flowers

I love it when I have all the supplies for a craft project on hand. I made these flowers a few hours before a photo shoot for my cousin. They took about ten minutes each (and probably would have taken less time if I hadn’t had to conserve my last hot glue stick). The headband is just a crocheted chain stitch.

Marshmallow Catapults

Not made by me, actually. I took this one to Cub Scouts for the Webelos Engineer activity badge. The boys loved it. Their moms might not have been as thrilled to be taking home a marshmallow catapult.

Those are three of my non-food Pinterest projects. I’ll be back with a rundown of my food projects, cause there’s a lot more of them.

What’s been cooking?

2011-06-26T09:30:00.001-07:00

Let’s pretend it hasn’t been months, shall we? Good. How about instead I share what I’ve been baking lately? Even better? Why, you’re awfully accommodating today.

Tops on the list was this:

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. Yes, they are as good as they sound. And easy. Seriously. If you like brownies, cheesecake, red velvet cake, or all of the above (check), you MUST try these.

Another favorite was this:

Okay, it’s just a picture of zucchini and squash, the first from my garden this year. But they were turned into Zucchini Gratin. The end product was eaten so quickly and completely that I never had time for its close-up.

For dinner tonight, we had these:

What are they? I called them Grilled Fries. No recipe. I just took some red potatoes that were hanging around and cut them into quarters. I tossed them in olive oil and freshly cracked salt and pepper (yes, we have a salt mill as well as a pepper mill. DH has a thing about stuff matching. Which is extra odd since I have a thing about stuff not matching on purpose). Then I just laid them straight on the grill grates. In retrospect, they probably needed a little parbake in the microwave (as it stood, I zapped them for about a minute to finish off the cooking once they were done).

And last but not least, I made Soft Pretzel Bites. Yes, I realize those aren’t exactly bites. Unless you have, like, a really huge mouth. I lost patience for cutting the dough into bites. I made two trays of bites and then finished the dough up with regular soft pretzels. Just as fab as the bites. I left them unsalted so that we can dip them in melted butter and sprinkle with either salt or cinnamon sugar, as the moment calls for.

Lesson learned…twenty years later…

2011-04-22T12:58:00.001-07:00

I spent last weekend with my extended family, including my grandmother. Since my grandfather died in November, she is my last grandparent.

I just wanted to share this story about my grandmother today.

When I was in 8th grade, we all had to take home ec for a quarter. Half our quarter was cooking and the other half was sewing. Growing up, my grandmother was the main person I knew who could sew (my mother’s talents lie elsewhere). She had taught me some basics, so this class was kind of a connection to her.

Each student in the class ordered a kit that came with all the pieces we needed to sew. I chose this god-awful sweatshirt. I can only blame the 80s/early 90s for it. It was black with a pink stripe across the middle that had “Class of 94” printed on it.

I was very careful with this sweatshirt. And if you know me at all, this is highly unlike me, especially in my younger years. I tend to rush through and just get things done rather than go slow and get it exactly right. But this sweatshirt? I went slow. I was almost done without a single mistake, until I got to the final cuff. If you don’t sew, cuffs are quite hard. Even if you do, they’re really not an easy part – it’s tiny and curvy, two really hard things to sew. I sewed a piece of the cuff back onto itself. Just a tiny piece. But it bugged me.

A few weeks later my grandmother was at my house visiting. I brought out my sweatshirt to show her, which she naturally fawned over. Then I pointed out my mistake. Do you know what she told me? She said “No one sees that but you. If you never told anyone, they would never know it was there.”

It has taken me twenty years to learn the truth of that lesson. I see so many flaws in myself. And they’ve held me back in every single thing I’ve ever done. Except the whole time the only thing holding me back is me. I point out what’s wrong when no one else sees it.

So I’m trying to take a new approach. I can’t turn off my inner critic, the one who knows all the crap I’m doing wrong. I always hear that. But I can shut her the hell up. And I can ignore her.

Scout Tuesday: Use Resources Wisely

2011-03-29T04:59:00.001-07:00

My Daisies met last night to earn their “Use Resources Wisely” petal. Last time we met, we had a tour of our local police facility (for the “Respect Authority” petal), which is right down the street from a recycling drop-off. So after the police visit, we strolled down to the recycling center and talked about why we recycle.

Then last night we made the cutest little Egg Carton Ladybugs. This one was my sample:

We used markers instead of paint. The girls made all different color ladybugs. Then we tried out some other creatures. The same concept worked for a turtle (color egg carton green and use a green pompom). The girls also suggested that it could be a mouse (shape the pipe cleaner antennae into semi-circles), caterpillar (add a few more egg cartons, or leave one row attached) or butterfly (pipecleaner wings, maybe?)

Fun, cute, cheap craft. I think the total cost was $10, but if I’d had a well-stocked craft box, I should have had all of these things in it. Because any well-stocked craft box has pipecleaners (I mean, chenille stems), pompoms and googly eyes. At least. I’ll think on that and be back with the full list.

Testing

2011-03-24T16:29:00.001-07:00

Just because…

2011-03-23T12:11:00.001-07:00

This photo makes me laugh. It’s so…them, right now. Mr. T is all “whatever.” Miss G is a smiling ray of sunshine. Miss S is distracted by something. The Viv is exerting her independence (it was about 75 degrees out and she found mittens and insisted on wearing and either I’m getting soft in my old age or this is a battle I never would have fought, so I let her.). It’s also taken in the shed on our farm, which is very us right now.

Years from now, this picture will say more than it knows. Twenty years from now, my kids might say “in 2011, Mom was an obsessive photographer finding fabulous light. Her cell phone in its cute purple case is sitting behind the kids. Americans still used fossil fuels to power our vehicles. Can you believe it?”

Who knows? I think about the photos from twenty years ago and all that’s changed. And all that hasn’t. I took pictures of everything – big scenes, little details. I was the memory keeper. Funny how some things don’t change.

Facing fear…

2011-03-22T06:06:00.001-07:00

I recently applied for a couple of jobs that really seemed to suit my skills and interests. I wasn’t necessarily planning on going back to work right now, but the fact is we’ve been living on one pretty small income for ten years – hell, longer than that. We’ve never both worked full-time at any point during our marriage.

I had a phone interview yesterday. I thought it went really well. But now I’m faced with paralyzing fear. Like I can’t do anything right now. I know, in my logical portion of my brain, that I’m afraid of the changes this could bring. Plus, I like having time to design logos for the band boosters and websites for the church. I’m afraid that going to work full-time is going to mean letting go of those things.

But then I think of all the extras we’re going without and how much easier I could breathe when I needed to go to the grocery store.

Tom suggested I substitute at the school he works at. They have a shortage of reliable subs. I think, if this job I did the phone interview for doesn’t pan out, that I will strongly consider this. If I could bring in the extra money we need and only have to work one or two days a week, I think that would be the best of both worlds. But again. Scary.

Here’s a fear to face: I recently took some self-portraits. This one is the most “me.”

Goals…

2011-02-17T05:58:00.001-08:00

I have a new-found goal. I’m going to this formal event the first week of March. I went out with some friends dress-shopping on Saturday and fell in love with a dress. Unfortunately it calls just a little too much attention to my flaws (my flabby belly).

close up of detail on my dress – I took a pic of the whole thing, but you can’t tell what it looks like. I need a new battery for my camera remote so I can’t get my whole body in the dress right now

So I’ve decided to step up my workouts. My goal is to workout every day, rather than every other day. Since I’ve been the same weight (plus or minus 5 pounds) for six months, this might be the push I need to hit my goal weight.

I want to weigh what I did on my wedding day by my 35th birthday. I only have 12-15 pounds to go (depending on the day). But I just can’t get past this point. Until now. So I say. It’s been two weeks of healthy eating and working out daily and no change.

I have several other 35th birthday goals. Something about that age is freaking me out. I have no logical explanation for it. But I’ve decided to make it a positive milestone rather than a negative.

I want to finally finish writing a book. I don’t care which one, just any of the myriad of books I’ve started over the years. I love to write and I’m pretty good and constructing scenes. I just suck at working those scenes into a larger cohesive plot structure.

I want to make it to the blue level on Nike Plus (this is actually a 2011 goal, not just by July 30). I think this means I need to run 500 miles this year. I have no idea if this can happen. Last year I did about 150 from Mother’s Day to the end of the year, but I had a lot of building up, sickness, etc. in there.

Beliefs…

2011-02-07T04:33:00.001-08:00

Day 12-What you believe

I’m not a super religious person. I believe in God, though not necessarily every little detail in the Bible. I met someone who had attended Catholic school her entire life. She told me that in her more advanced Theology classes, the nuns taught them the Bible stories aren’t necessarily literal interpretations, but more symbolic. That made so much more sense to me.

I was raised Catholic, but a couple of weird experiences (all related to music, actually – they were trying some weird stuff to get people interested when all it did was turn me completely off) led me to stop attending church altogether. We moved to the town DH grew up in and his mother began taking our children to their church for Sunday school and services. I had no problem with and went in on special occasions, but wrangling a very active 2 year old in a tiny church that isn’t meant for children is not my idea of a peaceful communion with God.

My grandfather died in November. He was a devout Catholic and his funeral was a full mass. I couldn’t believe how utterly at peace I felt during that service. It was a complete epiphany. The reason I’ve never felt comfortable at my husband’s Methodist church is that I’m not Methodist. I am well and truly Catholic.

Now I’m on a mission to find a Catholic church that I like and isn’t too far away. There are none within 15 miles of my house, so it’s a matter of how far do I want to go? I would go farther for a church I liked, since once you’ve gone 20 minutes, another five isn’t that big a deal. That actually sums up life in this little town.

TV Time…

2011-02-06T10:53:00.001-08:00

Day 11-Favorite TV shows

I was going to say that I’m a TV addict, but that’s not really true anymore. I watch a certain collection of shows faithfully, but I don’t just watch crap to watch TV.

Big Bang Theory
How I Met Your Mother
Glee

Those are the only three shows I regularly watch on network television. The rest of the time our television is tuned to kid's’ shows, Food Network and its new sister channel Cooking, History, Discovery or similar channels. We like How It’s Made and shows like that.

I used to be an American Idol fanatic, but I haven’t even been tempted to watch this season – it was bad enough last year without Paula, but without Simon? I can’t imagine it. I might give it a try if I get bored one Wednesday night.

Fear factor…

2011-02-04T10:02:00.001-08:00

Day 10-Something you're afraid of

I have one major phobia (well, two if you count heights, but that’s more just an avoidance or dislike – not necessarily a fear). It’s so specific that I’m not even sure there could possible be a word for it.

Insects/creepy crawlies en masse. Any group of insects freaks me the hell out. See one, two, half a dozen ants around? No big. A pile of uncountable ants? FREAK! It’s not just limited to ants – I use them as an example because they’re fairly benign. I mean, who’s afraid of a single ant? Probably no one. Put ‘em in a big old pile and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! That was me running away for a can of bug spray.

It’s not just ants, though. Spiders, natch. Ladybugs, even. Pretty, innocent little ladybugs. A whole corner of our back porch was covered in them and I flipped.

So note to insects and arachnids worldwide – there is NOT safety in numbers at my house. Fastest way to get yourself on the business end of a can of Raid is to stick with a whole bunch of your buddies.

My friends…

2011-02-03T11:43:00.001-08:00

Day 9 – A picture of your friends

Is it horribly sad that my closest friends are related to me? I think it says something about what a wonderful family I have. You could also make the argument that I don’t make friends easily. You’d be right. I have more friends where we live now than I ever did in our old town. But none that I would call a close friend who I could call for a favor and know she’d do it.

There’s this guy:

Fabulous father, wonderful husband, best friend.

And then this chicky:

Amazing aunt, great sister, best friend (yes, it’s a tie).

Oh, the places I go…

2011-02-01T18:43:00.001-08:00

Day 8-A place you've traveled to

I’m not much of a traveler. I’m afraid to fly. And this isn’t a post 9/11 fear. This fear has always been there. Tom and I flew to our honeymoon in St. Thomas. We flew to my brother’s wedding in Maine and then again for his second marriage to the Dominican Republic. Add in a flight to Orlando as a child and that’s the sum total of my plane-riding career. We even drove four kids (the oldest was 7 and the youngest was 7 months) to Disney World.

My favorite movies…

2011-02-01T18:37:00.001-08:00

Day 7-Favorite movies

In the campy comedy category, we have

Clue

Clueless

Groundhog Day (planning to watch tomorrow, cause we’re dorks like that)

In the romantic comedy category, the nominees are:

The Holiday

Love, Actually

(leaving room because I know I’ve forgotten lots here)

For the nostalgia factor:

Grease

Grease 2 (yes, I know it’s awful)

The Parent Trap (Hayley Mills version only, please) – this is also my sick movie.

Pollyanna

The Trouble with Angels (we were big Hayley Mills fans)

Favorite Classics:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (which I think should be required watching in every civics/government lesson)

It’s a Wonderful Life (which, btw, is what I name when forced to pick just one favorite – I have a thing for Jimmy Stewart – let’s not talk about how he’s dead and even if he weren’t, he’d be a mummy)

The Wizard of Oz

Gone with the Wind

Happy…

2011-01-31T14:19:00.001-08:00

Day 6-A picture of something that makes you happy

These guys…

My favorite recipes…

2011-01-31T14:18:00.001-08:00

Day 5-Your favorite recipes

This could get long. I print out a lot of recipes from the Internet. I slip them all into a magnetic file on the side of my refrigerator. Every now and then I go through and toss out recipes I only used once and didn’t really love.

Smitten Kitchen’s Best Cocoa Brownies

Smitten Kitchen’s Best Birthday Cake

Chicken and Dumplings

Mrs. Field’s Sugar Cookies

Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake & Frosting

My parents…

2011-01-28T10:59:00.001-08:00

Day 4-Your parents

My parents are currently planning their latest globe-trotting escapade. They’re planning to head to Hawaii next week. I love that they travel so much. My mom is a bit of a perfectionist at work and it stresses her out. She also suffers from some of the “no one else will do it, so I guess I will” syndrome that I have. My dad has worked for the same company for more years than I’ve been alive.

They got married young. Had me young. I was quickly followd by two siblings, so they had them young too. Much of the beginning of their marriage was keeping a young family above water – financially, morally, educationally (is that a word)?). When my brother graduated from high school and joined the military, my mom was only 43. That’s only 8 years older than I am. Wow. Anyhow, they had begun traveling before then, but traveled more frequently once no kids were home.

Now they have six grandkids and are the most fun grandparents ever. They spoil the kids rotten, just as grandparents should.

Red Velvet Cupcakes…

2011-01-28T10:50:00.001-08:00

Among my baking weaknesses is Red Velvet Cake. Tom’s aunt brings a Red Velvet Smith Island Cake to family functions every year and I’ve become addicted to that cake. Add to that the Red Velvet Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory and now RVC is like cake Kryptonite to me.

Which is why when I volunteered to bake cupcakes to take to an event, I thought RVC would be perfect – I get to eat a few and take the rest away from my house. Unfortunately (not) the recipe made more than I anticipated and we were left with at least a dozen at our house. So sad.

Seriously, how was I supposed to resist this beauty?

Recipe: McCormick Red Velvet Cupcakes and Em’s Magnificent Cream Cheese Frosting.

My first love…

2011-01-27T11:22:00.001-08:00

Day 3-Your first love

My first love? This should probably be a person, huh? And yet I know the real answer. Books. I’m a reader and have been since I was four. My grandma taught me how to read Go Dogs, Go! when I was four. Really I probably memorized it, but I still loved the power of telling myself the story.

I began to read everything in sight after that. I’m one of those people whose eyes just can’t stop themselves from reading. It makes me sort of nosy, but if my eyes see words, I have a compulsion to read them. And I have 20/10 vision (and possibly better – that’s where they stop measuring) so I can see pretty far away.

I tend to go in trends. Right now I’m on a historical romance novel kick. I suppose they’re nothing but fluff, but well, at the end of the day (which is when I read), my brain wants fluff and a happy ending. What can I say? I am a natural worrier so most of the “book club” books seem like they would just fuel my tendency to fret.

I also like to read cozy mysteries, meatier historical fiction, and biographies. I used to read true crime, psychological thrillers and straight-up mysteries (I don’t know the technical definition, but in my mind cozy mysteries are lighter, less gruesome reads). But then I had the 10PM Epiphany and I haven’t read those genres since.

The 10PM Epiphany? Why, that’s the realization that I worry less and sleep better if I go to bed without watching the 10PM dramas (I’m on the East Coast – remind me sometime to explain my theory about why Midwesterners tend to be nicer). A – my blood pressure doesn’t spike from the tension and get me in a pattern of getting all stressed and B – I don’t watch the news that comes on after it and trust me – that’s helped immensely. I’ve found that I can even tolerate waking up early in the mornings (and by that I mean before 9) since I had the Epiphany. Sort of. Still not a morning person, but I’m better.

I think once my kids are older and I sleep like a normal person (rather than being woken up by a two-year-old who can get out of her crib and wants to watch “Ooh-Ooh” - AKA Curious George – at 4AM tapping me with the remote), I might venture back into more literature type reads. In large print. Or maybe I’ll check out a Kindle for the text-enlarging feature. Yes, I have fab visual acuity, but a terrible attention span. Large print has less info on a page so I can absorb it better. Not a problem for fluff novels, but I need smaller chunks for the heavy stuff.

My Blog Title

2011-01-26T05:29:00.001-08:00

Following a 30-Day Blog Challenge from HERE.

Day 2-Meaning behind your blog name

Creating Christy started in my mind as an adjective gerund describing what I do. I create. Therefore Creating Christy. Then I read it again a few months after I started it and realized it has another meaning. It could also mean the creation of me. And then I really liked it. Because that’s what this is about. A form of self-discovery and becoming of me.

My subtitle is /Crazy, crafty, creative/ and I will readily admit that there are times when I’m not at all crafty or creative. I’ll plead the Fifth on the crazy part. But even if I’m not actually creating, there is within me a need to be creative and probably crafty as the result of that creativity.

Scout Tuesday…

2011-01-25T08:41:00.001-08:00

Last night our Brownies worked on the Art to Wear Try-It. We didn’t do the same t-shirt project as the Daisies did a few weeks ago and it didn’t turn out as well. I printed a design and inserted in each shirt. Then the girls traced that design with puffy paints. It was hard for them to figure out how hard to squeeze. So we had some mishaps and the paint didn’t dry well. Oh, well.

The other project we did last night was a mask. I found a really cute mask made from handprints. We made tracing their hands our opening activity. They cut them out and then we moved to the t-shirts.

Once those were done, we moved back to the hands. I cut out eyeholes and stapled them together to make a mask. The girls folded some paper to make handles. They were adorable. Plus, they made use of my paper scrapbooking supplies, which I’m thrilled to not have just sitting around now that I prefer digiscrapping.

All About Me…

2011-01-25T05:19:00.001-08:00

(Inspired by this post) I’m going to try to follow all 30 days.

Day 1-Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts

I’m the girl behind the camera at our house. Unless my husband physically pries the camera out of my hands (or I ask for help – something I’m loathe to do), I’m only in photos in as much as my vision created the photo.

Tom took the camera from me on New Year’s Eve, so I do have a few pictures of me from only a few weeks ago. This is unusual.

I actually like this photo a lot. I’m wearing my favorite Notre Dame shirt. Go Irish! They won an awesome bowl game against Miami on NYE, so I was especially happy to wear it. Our kids are a little too young to stay up until midnight so we have a countdown at 9 PM with a party. We had chocolate fondue, a veggie tray with dip and sparkling cider. Yeah, we’re party animals, what can we say?

1. Compulsive crafter

2. Mom to four

3. Wife to a musician

4. Runner (something I never would have identified myself as even a year ago, despite the fact that I’ve been running longer than that. I just spent so much of my life as a non-athletic klutz that my being a runner took some time to sink in. But I am. I run. It keeps me sane (saner).

5. Friends trivia buff

6. Cookie mom for my DD’s Girl Scout Troop.

7. Baker extraordinaire (that might be an exaggeration. I do love to bake from scratch, though).

8. Lover of coffee. And flavored creamers. I’m using a new one this morning – one of the Coffeemate Breve ones. It’s Vanilla Caramel. Will definitely make my rotation (I hate using the same flavor twice in a row, but I only like certain flavors, mainly vanilla based ones)

9. Notre Dame (and really any college) football fan. I love college football. I’ll watch the NFL, especially this time of year when college is done for the year. But my first choice is always college. I think they just play harder. I mean, it makes sense. Every game is an audition for the big time, so they have to play their hearts out.

10. Leo (and no, I don’t recognize the “new” Zodiac. A – my physics teacher in high school told us about that and it’s been…a few years since I was in physics, so this is nothing new. And B – I don’t want to be Cancer. So there.)

11. Daughter, Sister, Cousin (to many. I mean MANY – like 35. No, 36, I think. My mom and dad both come from big families).

12. Stay-at-home Mom. I’ve been home with my children for ten years. Well, not yet. August will be the 10th anniversary of my SAHM-ness. I only have a 2.5 year old home all day now and I’m sort of bored. Maybe it’s just that I need a temporary challenge to get my brain engaged. Or maybe I’m ready to re-enter the workforce (assuming I can – not the best job market to be trying to break back into).

13. Disorganized mess. I have this huge desk in our open living room. It’s an L that serves to divide the space a little (which it does well). It’s also supposed to help me stay organized. Which, really, is expecting way too much from a piece of furniture. Plus, I need the right mix of order and chaos for my brain to properly function. Too neat and I can’t create anything. Too messy and I just can’t function. So orderly chaos. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

14. Soul Searcher. If I could make soul-searching into a career, I would. My mother said as much to me when I was about 15. She read an article about multiple intelligences and told me mine was intrapersonal skills. Can’t argue that. I’m always trying to figure myself out.

15. Lucky, lucky woman. Earlier I referred to myself as a girl, but with my coming birthday I don’t think that flies anymore. It’s one of those milestone-ish birthdays (let’s just call it the midpoint of my 30s). I have a husband whom I love and who loves me. I have four sweet kids, a warm house, plenty of food in the pantry. We may not have a lot of extra money (see #12) but we’re happy.

Our photo date…

2011-01-22T14:46:00.001-08:00

So I missed my creative post yesterday, but well, I’m still fighting to get the mojo back. The kids had a sleepover at their grandparents’ house last night, so I asked Tom to drive me around to some nice icy rivers and creeks nearby for a photo date. I suggested a few places I had noticed and he came up with several more.

Recipe: Baked Potato Soup

2011-01-14T04:37:00.001-08:00

I love potato soup. I make a big batch of it at least every other week and have it for lunch for several days (and the fact that I’m eating leftovers is really the best rave anyone could possibly give about this soup).

I start by baking potatoes. I’m sure you could put them in the microwave have “baked” potatoes in five minutes. But I think the texture that comes from actually baking the potatoes in the oven for an hour or so is incomparable, so I really bake them. I wash five medium to large russet potatoes (and russets are really best for this recipe and for making baked potatoes in general – they have a nice fluffy quality when baked rather than waxy like all purpose or white potatoes, which is fine for boiling or grilling, in fact my preference for those). I prick them a few times with a paring knife or fork (whichever I reach first). Then sprinkle with salt if I’m considering leaving the skins in the soup (either way is fine).

Bake the potatoes in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. I sit the pricked, salted potatoes right on the rack. After baking, I remove them with a pair of tongs and just sit them on a plate to cool.

In a large stockpot, start melting 4 tbsp of butter on medium heat. Dice half an onion, more or less depending on your preference. You could actually leave the onions out if you don’t like them, but I think they give a nice, subtle flavor. Sauté the onion in the melting butter until they’re soft and clear – not brown. If your butter is browning, turn down the heat.

Add 1/4 cup of flour (more if you want a thicker soup – I like to add at least an extra tablespoon of flour – this time I even added more and my soup was still thinner than I like it – so maybe go ahead and add the whole 2 TBSP of extra flour) to the butter and onion and whisk together. Whisk in 2 cups of milk/cream/half & half.

Whatever milky type thing you like to use. Cream will make for a very, very rich soup. I use 1% milk because that’s what we drink. And when I made this batch, I only had one cup of milk left, so I improvised with 1 cup of milk and 3 cups of broth. As long as it adds up to four cups of liquid, it’s good. Whisk in 2 cups of chicken stock, or whatever stock you like. I used some turkey stock I had in the freezer that I had made.

While the soup base comes to a slow boil, begin dicing the potatoes. They may be a little hot. I either use a silicon potholder to hold it steady or just my bare hands. I have pretty heat tolerant baking hands, though.

I cut the potato’s ends off and squeeze them out into the soup. Then I dice the middle section. This gives a good mix of whole chunks of potatoes and finer bits that will thicken and flavor the soup. You could smash a lot more for a less chunky soup that will get fairly thick. Or you could leave everything in dices for a thinner soup with lots of potato bites.

Add in all your diced/smooshed potatoes and stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. I like a lot of freshly ground black pepper. Let everything come up to a slow boil and it’s ready to go.

This soup will thicken a lot as it cools. It will turn into a solid almost in the refrigerator, but it will thin again once it’s warm.

BAKED POTATO SOUP

4-5 Russet Potatoes

4 TBSP Butter

1/2 onion

1/4 cup + 2 TBSP Flour

4 C liquid (any combo of milk, cream, and/or broth)

Salt & pepper to taste

Wash whole potatoes and pierce. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until tender. Remove from oven.

Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add diced onion and cook until onion is clear and/or soft but not brown. Add 1/4 cup flour (include the 2 TBSP for a thicker soup) and whisk together. Whisk in liquid and allow to boil.

Dice or smash (or both) potatoes and add to soup. Allow to come to boil again and soup is ready to serve.

Scout Tuesday…on Thursday…

2011-01-13T11:27:00.001-08:00

We didn’t have much going on this week, hence the lack of scout post. My Brownie troop worked on the Senses Try-It, which was fun for everyone. We didn’t go off book or do anything especially creative except for our cookie taste test.

We blindfolded the girls and handed them one of the cookies we’re selling to see if they could guess it by name or flavor/description. First we verified that no one had any allergies – one girl thought she might and her mom wasn’t there to verify, so we erred on the side of caution and gave her the allergen-free cookies – the only one I knew for sure was Trefoils, so that’s what she got.

I gave the new girls what I hoped were easy ones – Thin Mints and Tagalongs. If they didn’t know the names, the flavors were at least strong enough that they could say what kind of cookie it was.

We had fun and hopefully the girls will remember the cookies as we get our sale in full swing. Can’t wait! I love being cookie mom – it’s a load of work, but the fun kind. If that makes any sense at all.

Creative Friday…

2011-01-07T04:18:00.001-08:00

Since it hasn’t even been a week, I’m happy to report that I’m keeping up with my New Year’s resolution to post something creative on Fridays in January (and maybe some other months). I didn’t have a specific project planned for today. I have some on my mind, but they require some commitment to a color that I’m not ready to make right now.

I’ve had a crush on fabric buntings for a while now. I can see that they’re pretty simple to make and yet I’ve never taken the time to make one. Until today (yesterday) that is. And it took me under an hour from start to finish – including ironing my triangles and hearts.

(Excuse the leftover Christmas candy and egg cartons waiting for next week’s Girl Scout project)

I wanted something for Valentine’s Day and something that wasn’t expensive. Well, this was made entirely from my quilting (ha!) stash, so it was free. Yay for free!

I didn’t have any ribbon, so I just took a long piece of fabric and folded it flat. It works. I picked five triangles because that’s how wide my fireplace is. I sewed the triangles to the folded (and ironed – because I’ve freehanded enough to know that I must iron) black strip. Then I hung it up and realized it really needed a little something else. So I cut out some hearts and sloppily (with intention of being sloppy, though, so it’s okay) sewed them on.

It’s Valentine-y, it was free and I loved making it. My mind is already dreaming up all the uses for buntings.

There about a zillion tutorials for these online already, so I don’t plan to do a tutorial, but as I do plan to do more buntings, I can. Say the word, peeps, and I’ll document my process next time.

Re-organizing: Day One

2011-01-06T08:57:00.001-08:00

I really need to take the Christmas tree down, but I told DH I was going to do it tomorrow and his post-Christmas depression will spin out of control if I do it another day. So for now, I’m doing some redistributing of kids’ toys. I was in their room last night looking for something and it was crazy. Stuff piled everywhere – they couldn’t even get to their nice, neat bins.

And then I looked at those bins and realized they probably didn’t care, since most of it was toys they had outgrown. So I decided to take a rack of bins downstairs for the Viv to play with. She’s loving having tons of new toys. I emptied some bins so her new Christmas toys will be able to go in some too.

Now I just need to clean off my desk and take Christmas crap up to the attic. Sigh.

Christmas Cupcakes…

2011-01-05T09:35:00.001-08:00

I asked for a set of piping tips for Christmas. I didn’t get them. So I marched myself into the craft store and bought what I wanted. Actually, the set I asked for had ones I didn’t need, so this worked out. I wanted a huge tip (that’s what she said?) for piping frosting onto cupcakes, mainly. DH tells me I have the baking and frosting part of cakes down, so I should work on my presentation.

So I practiced on family, because what is family for, right? I took cupcakes using my favorite yellow cake recipe. I made a simple buttercream (you know, butter, powdered sugar and milk – I don’t usually use vanilla because…well, I tend forget it so I pretend it’s on purpose). Then I testing my new piping tip. LOVE!!! My cupcakes now taste and LOOK awesome. I picked up some sprinkles at Target for 75% off. Here’s what they looked like:

And they tasted good too.

Scout Tuesday

2011-01-04T07:36:00.001-08:00

I’m all over Scouting this year. I’m my 5 year old DD’s Daisy leader, my 7 year old DD’s co-leader/cookie mom and my 9 year old son’s assistant (to DH) den leader and pack treasurer. Since I spend every Monday and Tuesday coming up with projects for some type of scout or another, I thought I’d share one of my projects each week. Coincidentally, our meetings are also every Monday and Tuesday (the girls alternate Mondays, the boy is every week). I don’t think I could do it if I couldn’t procrastinate.

This week is our service unit’s cookie kickoff – which means it’s Cookie Time! Girls from all over our county will be at a party to start the cookie selling season. I thought it would be nice for my Daisies to have a troop shirt to wear to the party. The Brownies might actually do a version of this shirt later.

This project can easily be transformed for any use. My 7 year old's preschool did a similar project for Earth Day - they took white shirts and drew circles to represent the Earth in the middle and gave the kids blue and green paint.

Preparation:

I bought a pack of t-shirts in a size I thought would fit all my girls (all three of them). It actually is probably a little small for one of them, but as her mom pointed out, the next size up would be enormous. I picked out plain, old acrylic paints from my craft stash in each of the colors of the Daisy petals. I had to buy a few to fill in, but I had most of them from a project my older DD’s troop did as Daisies.

I also grabbed some old t-shirts for smocks to keep their clothes clean. I used a combo of paper plates and old plastic lids for paint palettes.

Step one: The Design

I printed out the Daisy petals from ScoutingWeb (scroll down a bit). Then I cut out the petals (I figured out that if you only cut out half, you could flip it to do the rest – saved my hands from cutting so many tiny petals – yay for the lazy way!). If my printer wouldn’t freaking jam every time I try to print on cardstock, I would have done this on nice heavy paper.

Then I went into Word and played around with WordArt to get a curve and found a font that was nice and thick, but still fun. I cut out the letters the first time and destroyed the outside. You can certainly trace around each letter, but then you have line them up and I’m lazy. So I reprinted and cut out the insides and made sure the surrounding paper stayed intact. It was much easier to trace the inside of the paper.

Step Two: Preparing the Shirts

I took a sheet of cardstock and put it inside each shirt, so my Sharpie wouldn’t bleed through. I left it there when I was done tracing so it would be ready for the girls to paint later.

Step Three: The Meeting

At our meeting I set up drop cloth on the tables we use. We have a very nice church that allows us to meet, so I don’t want to mess up their space. I put out one color for the first girl, she filled in the right petal (actually some were wrong, but that’s because I got my book out to check if I had all the colors I needed and left it on my table – I’m good like that) and passed her paint on to the next girl. We continued until they were all painted in. Then I let them fill in our troop number with whatever colors they wanted.

This is my DD’s. I think it’s adorable. The messy petals and letters give it a charm that can only be achieved by little fingers.

Final Cost:

I only have three girls, but this is still an inexpensive project – or at any rate, much less than having troop shirts printed somewhere.

I bought:

A pack of 5 undershirts - $6.67.
Four packs of 4 sponge brushes - $4.00
Dropcloth - $3.50
Paints - $3.00 (I had the rest on hand or mixed them at the meeting – this could cost more if you don’t own any paints)

So for under $20, we had troop t-shirts. And the cost wouldn’t have gone up if we’d had two more girls. So $4/girl. A little more than I like to spend on a regular meeting, but for troop t-shirts, a fair price.

Digi Saturday…

2011-01-01T15:01:00.001-08:00

Two years ago, I made my mother-in-law a photo calendar for Christmas. She loved it and it replaced all other calendars in their home. So I made her another one last year. It was very well received again.

When it came time to get Christmas gifts together this year, I didn’t really have it in me to make one up. Then I got a last minute deal at VistaPrint and realized that my in-laws are creatures of habit – meaning if I didn’t make her a photo calendar, I’d definitely hear about it. Of course, the problem with gifts that are habits is that on Christmas morning it was more “Oh, here’s my calendar” than any sort of excitement about it. Not that I think that means it’s unappreciated, but when Season One of Murder, She Wrote gets a bigger reception than photos of one’s grandchildren, I’d say the bloom is off the rose.

But I made the calendar – throwing together some rather sloppy digital pages (to me, at least. I’m sure she loves them). While I was doing it I realized I didn’t need to buy special calendar toppers. I could just scrap from some 8.5 templates I already had or just scrap an 8.5x11 page.

So in the interest of working on relocating my creative mojo, I laid out a few sketches for calendar pages. I’m thinking that maybe, MAYBE, if I work on them as each month occurs, I won’t be scrambling next Christmas and I can just drop my pages in and print.

Here’s my finished page for January 2012’s calendar. Yes, 2012. I doubt I’ll have many other months done on the first day of the month, but I was just working on the page for this, so I quickly got my pics together and finished it.

I used the Peppermint Creative free kit and my own template. If you want the template, you can download it HERE. Ignore the January 2011 in the file name. I got all confused working in advance like that.

Is it too early for a New Year’s Resolution?

2010-12-24T04:50:00.001-08:00

Normally, I’m not a fan of the Resolution. The very idea that I should only make positive changes in my life on January 1 sets me off. I can change any day of the year. Just because I start a new calendar doesn’t mean anything else is actually new. Except the year I write on checks. That always gets me until at least February.

I’ve made resolutions in the past, but mainly to say that I’ve made them. I don’t care if I keep them or not. But this year I just feel like I need a push. A gentle reminder to get up and live. It’s possible that I have some mild depression after my grandfather’s death. I acknowledge that. But I don’t really know what to do about it. I can feel that I’m not myself – I feel disconnected from my life. It could also be that I’ve been fighting a cold since about the same time as his funeral. Or both. You know, now that I mention it, both seems right.

Allow me to talk to myself while I figure out my goals for 2011.

1. This one is most important to me right now. Rediscover creative mojo. I need to make something. To that end, I will post a creative project either completed or in progress every Friday in January (and maybe some other months). I need to sew, digiscrap, take photos, etc.

2. Get photog business going. Keep motivation. I’m not quite sure yet how I’ll accomplish this one. To begin with, though, I will post one photo a week (day to be determined).

3. Establish/maintain order in my home and upgrade decor. I’m getting there, but I still need a push. So I’m thinking of posting one before and after per week – of something small. I’m not a huge household project undertaker right now.

4. Tie up loose ends.

5. Finish what I start.

6. Believe in myself.

Thanksgiving Baking…

2010-11-22T08:35:00.001-08:00

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s been an eventful past month for me. My grandfather, who had been ill for over a year, died after a five-day bedside vigil/living wake (if you knew my family, you would interpret that in a very positive way). I have much to say about him and the last days of his life and his entire life, but I’m not there yet.

Where I am is preparing my list for Thanksgiving baking. With my grandfather’s death and subsequent activities, I haven’t been home much until today. So this morning I started gathering my list of things I’m baking. My father-in-law has ordered two pumpkin pies. My mother-in-law offered Mrs. Smith’s. He said he wants Mrs. C’s – meaning mine. I always make a pumpkin roll for each of the houses on my visiting list. And then this year I desperately want to try this: Cranberry Shortbread Bars.

I love to try new baked goods and Thanksgiving is one of those times I can experiment. My family is huge and if everyone just takes one small helping, it’s gone. And if it goes fast, I know it was good. If it’s still sitting there, it’s off the list. I’m also not a fan of pumpkin items or pies, so finding something seasonally appropriate that I might like is a challenge. So I’m hoping the Cranberry Bars make the list.

Well, I leapt…

2010-10-22T05:21:00.001-07:00

I have been planning to start a photography business for years. Between baby #4, moving and adjusting to a new area and my total lack of confidence, I’ve put it off. But something a friend said clicked for me last week. Our budget is tight. Completely without wiggle room. It sucks. If I can do something I love to make it a little looser, I think I need to.

On Monday, my mother-in-law left me an urgent message on my answering machine. She needed to discuss something with me. I’m thinking…crap. What now? Turns out she has been looking for a job (I knew that part), but found one for me instead. So her plan became instead of her applying for a job, I could and she would stay home with the Viv. Tom and I have been in favor of this plan since we moved here, so we’re not really opposed to it. But it would impact our life in so many little ways. Like my not getting home from work until 6, having to run out to lead Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts at 6:30, go to arts council meetings at 7. I would have to organize like crazy.

So instead I put myself out there as a photographer. So far only a few family members have taken me up on it, but they’re still different faces for my portfolio, so it’s a start.

Requiem for a cat…

2010-09-30T06:45:00.001-07:00

We had to put our cat down on Tuesday. It was in some ways a difficult decision and in some ways the easiest decision of all. He was clearly suffering and yet it’s so hard to actually let go.

I was driving down the main road of our little town yesterday, watching the UPS truck stop at someone’s house, people walking to the only restaurant in town, cars being filled with gas. Our cat is no longer part of this world and yet it keeps going. How devastating and somehow hopeful that is.

How do you measure the life of a cat? He was a stray as a kitten, found wandering the streets of our college town. I went to the humane society to pick out a kitten. I picked a gray and white patched kitten for no other reason than he matched our other cat, a black and white patched cat. I took my then-boyfriend (now husband) to finalize the paperwork and this scrappy long-haired solid gray kitten wouldn’t leave him alone. Guess which cat we took home. We brought him home and he ate and ate and grew and grew.

We were two kids in love back then. Not married, not even engaged yet. One cat’s life later, we’re two adults approaching middle age, married for twelve years, parents of four. We’ve lived in four different homes in that time. What started as a dream with a cat to love has turned into a life.

We moved to the farm two years ago. Kitty didn’t like it. He’s been declining ever since. But in the past month, our once 20 pound cat dropped to 6 pounds. He could barely move or breathe. As heartwrenching as it was, we knew he was dying and there was nothing the vet could do about it.

The kids were initially very upset. I was a little surprised that my stoic son took it the hardest. He’s so much like me it’s kind of scary. I hate crying. My oldest daughter also took it very hard and is still getting upset at times. The five year old didn’t know what was going on, but knew that she should cry, so she cried louder and more hysterically than anyone.

Now they want a kitten. We told them we’ll discuss it in the spring. I’m not ready for a kitten. But it’s been a nice distraction for them to think about.

Unfortunately, all of this is making me think of how sick my grandfather is. How difficult it’s going to be to tell them when he dies. And how we can’t use talk of a new kitten to distract them from the fact that the world still exists without one of the most important men in my life in it.

A new hobby…

2010-09-13T10:08:00.001-07:00

Of sorts. I’m trying to stretch our budget by couponing and using the extra coupons at places like Walgreen’s and CVS. So far I’m struggling. I keep spending out of pocket and am getting some rewards money, but not enough to keep me from having to put up some money each time I go in. It probably doesn’t help that I refuse to buy crap I don’t need, don’t know anyone who needs and have no place to donate to.

I’ve been trying Walgreen’s as my starter place. I’ve made five trips. Each trip cost me under $10 and I did get more stuff than that. But not enough to really keep my costs down so far. I have a great stash of body wash – considering I only use one every four months or so, the three sitting in my bathroom closet will last me through the school year. I paid $.99 for each.

Now I’m adding in CVS (both it and Walgreen’s are conveniently located for me, Rite Aid is not) to see if I can do better by shopping at both or if one works better for me.

I did have some success at the grocery store last week – my bill came to $113 and with my store card and coupons, I paid $68. I know a lot of couponers do better, but I feel like that was a good start.

My ultimate goal is to spend $300 biweekly for all my shopping trips. I tried it for the last two weeks and it did not work. But I had nothing in the freezer and really very little in the cabinet. Part of this is due to the change in seasons. In the summer, we grill and eat very light salads most of the time. Now that it’s a little cooler, I’m feeling like roast chicken and steamed veggies. So my pantry needed a change. Now that it’s made, I think everything will go better.

Mr. Soccer...

2010-09-09T04:57:00.001-07:00

Here he is, Mr. Soccer Player (and Ralph the Dog).

He's never been interested in playing before this year, so I've got a nine year old playing soccer for the very first time. Do you know what he did about 10 minutes into the game? He picked up the ball. He's not the goalie. Rule #1 in soccer - don't pick up the ball! Oh, well. It wasn't a big deal in the end. His team was outplayed. If for no other reason than that they had only one sub, so basically all the kids played the entire game. The other team had a complete first and second string.

But he played and tried his best and I’m not asking for anything more than that. He’s always been so non-aggressive that he didn’t even want to sign up for soccer, so I consider this a huge step.

Christy’s Kit of the Week

2010-09-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

My oldest has started playing soccer, so that’s the theme of my kit of the week. I bought the Soccer set by Erica Zwart at MScraps. At first I was only going to buy the red one, because I like reds. But I realized most of my photos have grass in them, so I bought the bundle.

I also have my eye on a new release kit at ScrapMatters called Kick It

Technorati Tags: digiscrap,kit of the week,soccer

by Chelle’s Creations. I’ll probably pick this up this week too.

Garden Update: Week “will we ever get ripe tomatoes?”

2010-08-26T08:58:00.001-07:00

We have approached tomato jungle status. This picture is two weeks old – we’ve since pulled the zucchini plants up and the tomato plants are now officially taller than I am. And – best of all – they’re actually starting to ripen their fruit without birds eating it all. We planted super early so we’d have tomatoes in July and here it is the end of August and nothing. Well, close to nothing. I harvested a basketful this morning, though. I have grand plans for dinner tonight. BLT’s, baby.

And I started our fall crops – lettuces, kale, and a replant of some cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage starts. I planted the first round last week, but I think it was just too hot for them.

This year has been a learning experience for me. I now more about insects after this summer than I’d ever learned in my previous 30-some years (hello there, pretty white moth – corn earworm, what?). I know all kinds of vegetable diseases (early blight, powdery mildew) and what you can prevent and what you can’t.

We’ve also learned a bit more about what we want to plant next year and how to go about it. Tomatoes and squash need to be farther apart. We left three feet, but could have left five and still needed more room. We don’t like black beauty eggplant. I’m still going to try some fingerling eggplant varieties next year, though. No sense planting carrots – while fun to see them grow and pull them up from the dirt, no one here ate them, either.

We got to go back, back to school…again…

2010-08-25T08:08:00.001-07:00

I’m singing the opening number from Grease 2, in case anyone missed that.

Wednesday, August 25 marks the first day of 4th grade,2nd grade and kindergarten for three of my four kids. Kindergarten in our state is all day, every day for everyone, so Miss S is gone just like the big kids. The Viv and I will not know what to do. Just me and her for the next three years. I’m scared.

All good things…

2010-08-24T07:48:00.001-07:00

must come to an end. Tomorrow is the first day of school. There’s still a little bit of summer to be had, but the carefree lazy days (I woke up at 7:30 this morning, but stayed in bed until 8:30 – just because I could) are more or less gone for another year.

Christy’s Kit of the Week: Little Rabblerouser

2010-08-07T13:03:00.001-07:00

As previously noted, I’m a sucker for a kit that uses primary colors. Even more so for one that uses primary colors in a boyish way. Girl kits are easy to find, but kits that I don’t have to work too hard to make work for my son are much harder to find. So when I saw this grab bag at the Digichick for only $3.00, I had to buy it.

More mysteries:

2010-08-06T06:11:00.001-07:00

I’ve been reading right along for the cozy mystery challenge on Goodreads. I’m at 8 out of 51 (you know, plus DC, which is actually one of the ones I’ve read)

Here’s my list with a quick review:

Sprinkle with Murder by Jenn McKinlay (Arizona) – A cupcake store owner finds the body of her best friend’s fiancée and ends up a suspect in her murder. She investigates to save herself. This formula seems to be par for the course for most of the books I’ve read in the past week, but I supposed it makes sense since they’re all the first in a series so the author needs to give a strong motivation for her character to become an amateur sleuth.

I actually figured out whodunit before the book had to spell it all for me (normally, I miss every clue and have to wait for the book – and tv show’s reveal – I would make a crappy detective), but that didn’t detract from the book. I loved the characters (I’m a huge fan of Monk and Psych,which to me are less about the mysteries and more about the characters) and I love cupcakes and can’t wait for the next one in this series.

Dead In the Family by Charlaine Harris (Louisiana) – this is the latest in the series about Sookie Stackhouse and the basis for the True Blood series, which I’ve never seen. I’ve read all the other books, though and I’ve enjoyed them. This one fell kind of flat for me. I kind of hate Eric, so that might be why. Or maybe the whole thing has gotten a little stale or maybe it felt like this was written specifically to be on TV.

Wreath of Deception by Mary Ellen Hughes (Maryland) – A new craft store owner finds the body of a clown she hired and ends up a suspect in his murder. She investigates to save herself. This one was set in my home state, so it was fun to get a couple of real local references. I had an idea about the murderer in this one from very early on, which – as I mentioned above – doesn’t normally happen. But I wasn’t sure until it was actually spelled out, so it only partly counts. I would read the next one if I find it at the library, but I probably wouldn’t pay for it.

I Scream, You Scream by Wendy Lyn Watson (Texas) – An ice cream shop owner ends up accused of murdering her ex-husband’s new girlfriend and ends up investigating the crime to save herself. I loved the Southern accent in writing. I don’t always enjoy reading accents – this can be over the top at times. But it was well done in this book. I could hear the characters’ accents without being distracted. The story was good – and I had no idea who did it until the end. I’ll probably read the next one.

Cooking Up Murder by Miranda Bliss (Virginia) – Two girls who can’t cook take cooking lessons and witness a murder. Contrary to the formula established in other books, neither is accused of the murder. I guess they’re just nosy. The story wasn’t my favorite, although I like the concept. I probably wont’ seek out the next in the series.

State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy (DC) – A White House chef is the only person who can ID a hitman. She doesn’t seem to be able to stop herself from investigating a little, although she doesn’t do as much active detecting as some of the other “detectives” in the books I’ve been reading. I liked it. I’ll try to find the next one at the library.

It’s come to this…

2010-08-05T17:01:00.001-07:00

My house is in desperate need of some style, organization and decluttering. We live in my husband’s grandparents former home (they now reside at the Junior Order cemetery). We’ve been here for two years. And in that time, we’ve sort of existed. There is no mark of us on this house at all. I think we’ve been sort of terrified of making a change that won’t be accepted due to the emotional nature of us living in the childhood home of my father-in-law and his brothers, except that all the major changes have already been made.

I think we’ve moved beyond that and I want to make some (minor and non-permanent) changes. Like a new rug in the living room instead of two mismatched cheapo Wal-Mart area rugs. I lost my initiative to decorate when we moved here and the notion of painting walls was a no-go. Without paint, how could I go on? Yeah, I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.

So I’m trying to find a style that I like and can afford. I have a love of all things vintage, so I really want to work that in, but I’m not sure I can on my extremely limited budget. Hopefully the old blog here will feature lovely photographs of a beautiful new space. Or at least some crappy snapshots of something different.

August and Everything after…

2010-08-02T12:45:00.001-07:00

My birthday was Friday. It was a day well spent. I canned zucchini relish and made more zucchini bread (because we seem to only be able to grown monster zukes now and bread seems to be the best use for them).

Then I made marinara sauce from scratch from tomatoes I picked out of my very own garden. Never has a meal tasted better. I used this simple recipe The Best Marinara Sauce. I sauteed some of our smaller zucchini and tossed them together over pasta. Fabulous. The only better birthday meal is crabcakes, fresh corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes. That’s the menu at my mom’s.

I baked myself my favorite raspberry cake, a redux of last year’s cake, with a few modifications. I dropped the raspberry buttercream in favor of cream cheese frosting, to cut the sweetness a bit. I used a new cake recipe that I really enjoyed. Tom said it tasted like wedding cake, which is basically the only reason I attend weddings (plus the opportunity to dress up), so that was awesome.

The night before my birthday, I made Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake, which has also been deemed one of my best efforts in the cheesecake category.

Now Birthday Week has given way to Shark Week and I have a problem. Lots of leftover cream cheese frosting that I need to use sooner rather than later. I don’t know how long this stuff stays good. If it will make it two weeks, then I’ll somehow use it for the church’s peach festival. If not, I’ll come up with something. The scale may hate me, but I’m not letting cream cheese frosting go to waste.

Book Review: Sham Rock, A Mystery Set at the University of Notre Dame

2010-07-29T06:22:00.001-07:00

My first book read specifically for the Fifty States mystery challenge. I read Sham Rock by Ralph McInerny. Only once I’d finished the book did I realize that he was the creator of Father Dowling and that he’d died, evidently before this book was published, which made me sad, although he was 80 and lived my dream (you know, actually finishing the books I have great ideas for).

As for the book, I picked it up because – little known fact here (if you know me, however, this is sarcasm) – I am a crazy Notre Dame football fan. I spend my Saturdays in the fall glued to the television or the radio when life permits (because although I love college football, I have four kids with activities and a very close-knit family that I visit frequently). Also, I can’t wait to try out my XM radio this season. I’m in love with it in the off-season, so I might just drive around one Saturday to see how awesome it is to be able to listen to so many games on the radio.

The mystery itself was intriguing (seriously – I read this book in one night). The main story involves three former students, one who is a financial advisor who’s hit hard times and has angry clients, one who is a Trappist monk and one who disappeared when they were in college. The monk sends a journal to the ND archives that seems to imply that the financial guy killed the one who went missing. This sparks investigations and secrets are unveiled. Naturally.

I was surprised (not knowing before I began reading who the author was other than a random name) at the heavy Catholicism in the book. It wasn’t just a novel set at Notre Dame. It was steeped in the Catholic culture. The characters were mainly religious. This wasn’t a bad thing (I was raised Catholic and would probably attend a Catholic church if our practically Bible Belt rural area had one closer than an hour away), it wasn’t over the top or anything. It was just not what I was expecting.

I would recommend it to Catholics, though not necessarily Notre Dame fans. My brother might not enjoy it, but I bet my grandmother would.

Reading Challenge…

2010-07-26T16:18:00.001-07:00

I’ve been looking for some new books to read. I generally read historic fiction (think The Other Boleyn Girl) but it’s summer, my brain is tired. Besides which, I tend to not have long evenings to read. During the school year the kids go to bed at 8 (which means they’re actually in bed around 8:15) and I stay up until 10-10:30. That’s two hours of solid reading time. I can knock out a lightweight book in one night, but more to the point, I can read a heavier, chock-full-of-facts historic novel in just a few nights.

I normally default to historic romance novels for fluff reading, but I’m bored and my standards are too high – meaning I’ve read most of the really quality ones and won’t finish the ones that aren’t high quality. Plus, my library doesn’t order any new romance novels so that leaves me buying them. At $6+ a pop times one-half per night, I’d be way over my budget for the summer.

I picked up a mystery last time I was at the library and decided that was the perfect summer reading genre (for this summer, this week, at least). Then I found a challenge on GoodReads that involves reading a cozy mystery from each state and DC. I have a few books on the way already thanks to Paperbackswap, which is a very valuable resource to a fast reader like me whose local library doesn’t stock my favorite books.

I’m debating if I should allow myself to count everything I’ve read this summer or not. Which would really only gain me one state. I think I’ll go ahead and count it. So right now, I’m at 1/51. Go me!

Baking bites…

2010-07-25T15:15:00.001-07:00

I love baking. I love to eat baked goods. Seems like a perfect combination, right? Well, my waist (because every extra ounce gained goes to my waist first and every ounce lost comes off my waist last) doesn’t really appreciate this. Between my weight loss goals and my husband’s pre-diabetic condition, the baked goods have been taking a back burner. But I still read baking blogs and boy, am I tempted.

Here’s what’s on my to-be-baked list:

Snickerdoodle Blondies

Red Velvet Cake (my favorite)

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake (possibly my birthday cake this year)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

So my game plan now is to find events to bake these things and take them to so that we won’t eat them all. I don’t really have my usual round of cook-outs, but there’s at least one potluck coming up that’s getting something from this list.

Tomorrow I’m making a Black Forest Trifle. That’s what Tom has requested for his birthday and even though no one else will eat it, that’s what I’m making him. Actually, he wants a Black Forest Cake, but I told him this would be lighter and he agreed that was a better plan.

Christy’s Kit of the Week

2010-07-24T05:59:00.001-07:00

I haven’t actually been scrapping that much this summer, but I’ve been shopping for digiscrap supplies (breaking my typical self-imposed crafting rule of only buying new supplies if I’m actively involved in the craft).

I am always on the lookout for kits using primary colors with simple graphic elements. Simple ribbons, flowers, geometric shapes are what I tend to use if I use elements at all (I’m a true simple scrapper). These kits are hard to come by. But I’ve found several this month that I had no current use for, but had to have for my stash. I love the July color play at Elemental Scraps and the free Blog Train Blog kit, Picnic at the Park.

This week’s favorite is At the Dropoff by Bella Gypsy available at Scrap Matters.

Recipe Review: Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake

2010-07-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

I asked my now 5 year old what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. Her answer? An Olivia cake made of ice cream cake, shaped like a pig and wearing a yellow dress. Um, okay. How about what color cake do you want? And then what color frosting? And should it be cake or cupcakes? With that very specific guidance, I ended up baking chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting.

I've been testing out cake recipes to find ones that will become my real stand-bys. I'm not there yet. This chocolate cake would have been fine for regular cake, but it was too runny to make cupcakes without my kitchen looking like a chocolate murder scene. It was a lovely texture and taste, however, so it will definitely be attempted again. Plus, no creaming of butter and alternating flour and milk step, which meant super easy.

Miss S's family birthday party is tomorrow, Tom's birthday is Monday and mine is Friday, so the recipe testing will continue this week. My cake might be less a traditional cake and more cheesecake-y, but I haven't decided yet. It will not be shaped like a pig, I promise you that.

Garden 2010: Week…crap, I’ve lost count…

2010-07-11T08:31:00.001-07:00

I don’t know. Eight, maybe? Whatever it is, we’re harvesting stuff almost every day. Mainly just squash and cucumbers, but still, it’s fun to pick food from my backyard (sort of – it’s not really in my backyard, more like my sideyard, but even then I have to walk past a field of corn to get to it).

Here’s the view of the whole thing this week:

It’s gotten a little wild and unruly, but hey, that’s me. I like organized chaos.

A Jack-Be-Little pumpkin. Tom thought it was supposed to be a full sized pumpkin and wondered what the hell was wrong with it. If I held my hand up, that would still be smaller than my palm. When I explained that it was an ornamental tiny pumpkin, he was much relieved.

This is a tromboncino squash, which we’re growing for two reasons. One – it is supposedly resistant to the bugs that killed my pumpkins last year (and could easily kill my squash this year). And two – Tom is a musician and his main instrument is the trombone. How could we not grow it?

Baby, I was born to run…

2010-06-29T17:59:00.001-07:00

Actually, I wasn’t. I spent the majority of my life up to this point professing my deep and abiding hatred of running and sweating. The numbers on the scale were proof (well, proof of that AND my love of baked goods and sugary treats).

When I began the Couch to 5K program in September, I thought it might lead me to lose weight, yes. I never expected it to lead me to a healthy habit. I didn’t realize what a habit it had become until last Thursday. I’ve been suffering from shin splints for the past couple of weeks. This isn’t entirely new for me, but it had been quite a while since I’ve had them. Finally, last Tuesday during my run, when I noticed that just putting on my running shoes hurt, I decided to take a break until I could get new shoes. I was heading to civilization for the weekend, so I would shop then. I just walked on Thursday. I wanted to run. Wow. I actually missed running.

Civilization (more like circumstances) didn’t yield new shoes – but it did lead to some knowledge about what I wanted. I found several pairs I liked, but they didn’t have in my size. So I’ve been scouring the web for new shoes. I finally chose a pair. These:

I am as excited for the UPS man to bring my new shoes as I was for him to bring my new camera. Almost.

Christy’s Kit of the Week

2010-06-28T08:52:00.001-07:00

The latest collab from one of my favorite design teams. It’s called Lazy Summer Days and I can’t wait to use it on my summer pics of my girls (maybe my boy too if I pick the right papers).

It’s available at M Scraps, Two Little Pixels and Zig Zag Scrap.

Garden 2010: Week Six, The Photo Edition

2010-06-22T17:02:00.001-07:00

Hey, we picked something! Two cucumbers and a zucchini. It’s not much, but I’m thrilled. After losing a row of squash to an as yet unidentified problem, picking a few things that we can actually eat from our very own garden is a major thing for us.

Did you notice me saying us? It’s gone from my garden to our garden. Tom and I work in it together. He’s just as obsessed as I am. It’s really become a bonding thing for us. We talk about how various plants are doing, what we might do to help them, what we might plant next year, even some long term plans to grow enough to sell the extras. We weed together, we just walk around and check out the progress. We share our research – he shares his prior knowledge (farm boy to city girl). No one gets my excitement over a female pumpkin flower like he does.

Pumpkin, just waiting to be pollinated:

Row of Giant Pumpkins:

Tromboncino Squash:

Sweet Corn:

Black Beauty Eggplant:

Red Bell Pepper, with baby pepper growing:

Roma Tomatoes:

Zucchini:

The Big Picture:

Two years of Trouble…

2010-06-16T12:50:00.001-07:00

Well, she hasn’t been Trouble that whole time. Just most of it.

I present Exhibit A:

I didn’t take a picture, but ten minutes after this happened (about two minutes after her time-out was over), she also dumped the box of graham cracker crumbs you can see near her head all over the floor too. This was cornstarch.

Happy birthday, Trouble. It’s been a fun two years. I have a feeling we’re the ones in trouble in the future. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Farm living is the life for me…

2010-06-15T05:40:00.001-07:00

They cut my front lawn yesterday:

Growing up I always was charmed by the idea of living in a small town, the kind where everyone really does know everyone. I married a man from such a town. We spent years in other towns, mostly suburbia, before circumstances brought us to his small town two years ago. It’s a small rural town. Farms are everywhere. We live on one (it belongs to my father-in-law).

After two years of living here, it’s official. I love living in a rural, farming small town. I don’t actually mind that I have to drive 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store and 45 minutes to anything better than Target (although, really, what is better than Target?). I love having a huge garden. I love not having a neighbor closer than 1/2 a mile away.

The only thing I would change right now is how long it takes to get to my family. My parents live 100 miles away. Which I know is relatively close for a lot of people. But for 7 years, we lived two miles away from them. My grandfather is not doing well at all and I wish I lived closer so I could, theoretically, at least, do something more for him and my grandmother. With four kids under 10, though, I know that that’s not realistic. And I also know that there’s not much I CAN do, even if circumstances were such that I could do something.

Garden 2010: Week Two (and a half)

2010-06-11T04:08:00.001-07:00

So far, so good in the massive undertaking. Our only major loss is the lima beans (which I don’t eat and Tom does, so he’s taking this one harder than me). Not sure why, although I suspect bugs – actually I saw bugs eating the seeds, but I don’t think Tom believes me. We’ve hit it with a round of insecticide, and some are coming along now. Not sure we’ll ever see any beans, but that’s okay by me.

We actually have a baby tomato. I checked my records last year and our first tomato was picked on August 14. That’s a little late. This one might be early, but that will be nice, actually.

Last week I added a few new varieties to the garden: an heirloom squash called tromboncino that’s supposed to be resistant to whatever bitch ate my pumpkins last year and an early-bearing canteloupe, so that we might see canteloupe before September.

In a photography-related note to this gardening post. I shot all of these outdoors (on a very bright, sunny day, no less) at ISO 32-Freaking-00. And didn’t notice that my shutter speed couldn’t get below 8000 (actually, I did notice, but thought it was just so sunny out that my low aperture – I tend to shoot wide open – was the problem). I usually do snapshots on Aperture priority. Miss S graduated from nursery school on Friday night in a fairly dark church and I forgot my flash, so the ISO went way up. Since I never put it up that high, I totally forgot about having changed it. And I was too lazy to walk back to the garden and reshoot at the correct ISO, so these are probably noisy as hell. Oh, well.

Lightning crashes…

2010-06-08T13:45:00.001-07:00

On my front porch.

I had a meeting in town last night and my kids were at my in-laws house (which is across a field of wheat from us). While we were all out, lightning seems to have struck our front porch. Our televisions and phone line took the worst of the blow. Thankfully our computers all appear fine. Hopefully repairing the damage to the phone line won’t be too difficult and/or costly.

Now we get to debate if we want to try to have our 6 year old tv repaired or put out money we don’t really want to put out to buy a new one. Or borrow my mom and dad’s old tv that’s sitting upstairs in their house unplugged.

The worst part of the whole experience is that we have no internet access. We have DSL, which comes in through the phone line. No phone line, so… Besides, the modem got fried just as bad. It actually blew apart. So once our phone gets up and running, we still won’t have Internet access. Luckily my in-laws live next door and have wireless Internet.

For the love of shoes…

2010-06-03T13:49:00.001-07:00

This shoe is one half of the perfect pair of shoes. It’s a bold statement, I know. But they are. For starters, they are – and this is foremost in my decidely non-fashionista opinion – they are comfortable enough to wear all night. I know, right? That’s the most important thing. But it doesn’t stop there. No, these shoes continue in their perfection. They match EVERYTHING. Seriously. I’ve worn them with a royal blue dress, a hot pink dress, a red dress, a black dress, jeans and a tank top. They just work. Plus? They’re totally cute. That little bow gets me every time.

The problem, though, is that, despite being involved in a long-term relationship with the perfect shoes (I mean, it’s been THREE years, here), I admit that my eyes have wandered recently. And I have a crush on what is the shoe equivalent of The Bad Boy. They’re impractical. They match nothing I own. The heel is too high and like most bad boys, will end up hurting me. But I. Want. Them. I’ve managed to convince myself that I can pull them off (I can’t) and that I’ll wear them all the time (I won’t). I’m so close to buying them and wearing them with a dress that Stacey and Clinton might say they go with, but my mom would not.

(Oh, dear God, they come in red, too. I need two pairs of shoes I’ll never wear, right?)

In the end, I’m practical. Or a coward, depending on where you’re sitting. Could I pair these lovely turquoise shoes with the heel that I could probably handle with the gorgeous red dress I bought to wear to summer weddings? In my head, yes. In reality, my (boring) adorable little tan ones will make me more comfortable.

Garden 2010: Week One

2010-06-02T05:49:00.001-07:00

Week one was actually two and a half weeks ago. We planted my seedlings and some store-bought larger plants in the ground on May 16. Since then we’ve planted a few seeds and some more flowers. Here’s what it looked like on planting day:

It’s really not very impressive at this point. I’m going out in few minutes to take an updated photo. There’s been a lot of growth in the past two weeks – sadly a lot of that growth has also been in weeds, but we’re trying to stay on top of that. Tom is better about it than I am. I like to hand-pick between plants, which means my back can only take so much. He whacks at what’s not near many plants with a hoe. Probably his way makes more sense, but I don’t want to lose any of my plants. I’ll stick with the hard way. I usually do.

Changes…

2010-05-27T09:26:00.001-07:00

My boy. My oldest. My non-aggressive, perfectionist child. I just signed him up for soccer for the first time in his life (he’s 9). I think I’m more terrified than he is. He has been playing goalie at recess and is so good and really loves it. I think this could be really good for him, especially in that position, where it’s a little less kid-to-kid competition and more against oneself competition. He can be aggressive against the ball and not other kids. I will be rather anxious once the fall comes, but I hope this can become something really good for him.

My oldest girl. She starts karate next week. It was a toss-up between ballet and karate (since they’re both already in scouts, any more than one more activity would put me in the overscheduled category – for me, at least – and I’m anti-overscheduling kids. And their moms). My oh-so-girly girl chose karate. Naturally. I would love to see her develop some assertiveness. She’s been having some trouble with kids on the bus that is minor enough that she should be able to solve it without adult intervention, if she can stand up for herself. I hate to think that she might grow into someone who can’t (um, not like me, no, of course not. I thrive on confrontation. Crap. Yeah, that’s a lie).

Number three. She’s graduating from nursery school tomorrow night. I send her away to all-day kindergarten (no other options here) in the fall. I don’t think I can handle. It’s harder than sending the older two, who were quickly followed up by another child who was entering school. There’s only two years between each of the older three. There’s three years between #3 and #4 (we knew we wanted four kids, but it took a little longer to dive in). Somehow that has made a huge difference. Miss S has been my main companion for the past two years, since Miss V is really still a baby (okay, okay, an almost-two-year-old isn’t really a baby, but the interaction is different). I have a glimpse of how hard it’s going to be to send Miss V off in three years.

The Baby. This kid is hell on wheels. You know how people say “If this one had been born first, we wouldn’t have had any other kids”? Yeah, that. Actually, as I told Tom, we would have had one more, but not as close together and probably only one more. I’ve often said that our oldest (the most easygoing, happy baby there was) was a trick to get us to have more kids. I didn’t know how true that was. She seems like she can be in five places at once, destroying things. And then grin so big I can hardly keep a straight face while sending her to time-out. She’s actually very good for me as a mother. I’ve been sort of smug about my parenting skills, with my three easy kids. Ha, says Fate. Try this.

Hopefully swinging up…

2010-05-17T07:49:00.001-07:00

I’ve really let myself get into a funk. A massive funk. The kind where every little thing just sent me deeper into my funk. Lately everything has felt like a struggle – everything. Not even rushing my baby to the hospital brought me out of it like I thought it might. I felt like the whole "what if” worst case imaginings that turned out to be a normal childhood ailment should have made me grateful and aware of what a baby I was being. But no, the funk lived (lives?) on.

Tom and I went out Saturday night and had a nice evening with just the two of us. We talked about all of this and I’m starting to get over it. The main thing is I worked up the courage to tell him that I’m not anywhere near ready to go into business as a photographer. He and I agreed that I would get this semi-pro camera with the idea that within a year I would be earning money from it. And that’s put pressure on me. Which I need, honestly, but it was too much. I’ve been taking picture after picture and editing like crazy trying to get to a point where I produce consistent in camera and post processed images. I am going to go forward working on one aspect of my photography at a time rather than all at once. But I think to do this I actually need to take on some sessions with people other than my kids. So I need some courage to offer sessions to people I know. Big step for me.

Tom and I began planting my seedlings into our newly enormous vegetable garden (living on a farm does have some advantages – especially since farm owner – my FIL – enjoyed the fruits of my tiny garden last year and gave me a huge section of land this year). Miss V just played in the dirt while we planted rows of lima beans, squash, zucchini, watermelons, canteloupes and tomatoes. Oh, and my mystery plant. I ordered a bunch of seeds and planted them in a little greenhouse thing. I planted them in a certain order so I would know what was where. Most of them died (just one facet of my funk) but one plant thrived. All of them lived and look fabulous. But I can’t remember what they are. By process of elimination, they’re either eggplant or bell peppers. I *think* they’re peppers. But I can’t be sure until I see some fruit.

My garden is so me. Tom insisted that we have rows (last year it was sort of a jumble, but it was tiny and I didn’t have room to leave spaces for silly things like rows). So it’s slightly neat. But I have tomatoes here and more tomatoes a few rows over. I have a row that is eggplants, red bell peppers and roma tomatoes. Another row is carrots and cayenne peppers. I did draw a map. Now let’s hope I don’t lose it, like I did the notes on what I planted in my mini-greenhouse.

Yesterday was my Mother’s Day. And realizing it made me kind of unhappy. I had the day I truly wanted yesterday. We worked in the garden, we drove around playing sweet car games that I played as a kid, we wandered around Lowe’s for hours picking plants and garden tools. When we got home, the kids and I worked in the garden more while Tom helped his dad with the farming. I made an easy dinner for the kids while I dined on freshly made salsa. I finished off the bottle of wine Tom bought for me last week and then read a bit of a book.

The thing that makes me unhappy is that I didn’t enjoy the actual day of Mother’s Day. Everyone in my family visits my grandmother and basically we have a big cookout at her house every year. But we now live two hours away. So I spent four hours in the car. I hate to think that I don’t want to go there, though. My family is hugely important to me and I’ll continue to go, because I kind of liked having my unofficial Mother’s Day yesterday.

Too much…

2010-04-14T09:37:00.001-07:00

I’m trying to change a lot of things in my life right now. I’m working on losing weight, getting fit and healthy and eating better. Some days this is easier than others. Some days I feel like nothing I’m doing is making a difference, so why shouldn’t I eat the entire bag of Hershey’s kisses we got for Easter?

I’m trying to step up my photography with an eye towards taking things professional. I want to get to a place where I have consistent focus, consistently well-processed images and confidence to direct my subjects at a shoot. I’m up to the last one now. And I think the only way to do it is to get in, at least up to my toes. But I’m just not confident enough to put myself out there, which begs the question – will I ever be? Will there ever come a time when I’m comfortable saying “I’m a photographer.” And better still “I’m a photographer. Here are my prices. Yes, I’m worth it.”

I’m trying to stay on top of keeping my house clean – by which I really mean clutter-free. Some days I do this better than others. Some days I feel no guilt about sitting back and taking pictures of the kids (see previous paragraph). But some days I feel like a lazy cow. No one’s complaining except me, but that’s bad enough.

I’m getting frustrated with it all and it’s not a good thing. Usually my response to frustration is to shut down totally. I’m trying not to do that.

Dear Spring…

2010-04-12T11:47:00.001-07:00

I love you. I think you are the most beautiful season I’ve ever met. I mean that.

But your beauty has come at a cost this season. I know that we had a super wet/snowy winter followed by a sudden burst of warm spring air. I know you aren’t entirely to blame for the pollen levels. That bitch Winter has some answering to do for it too.

And yet, I find myself more disenchanted with you every day. Possibly because I’ve had a sinus headache since last Tuesday. I could cry. Actually, I have cried. I’m really stuck here, Spring. If I take allergy meds, I’m in a zombie fog with a minor headache. If I skip them, I’m in a zombie fog with a massive headache. I mean, I guess the obvious answer is B, but not being able to concentrate on anything. At all. Seriously frustrating.

Plus, my gorgeous new car that is the prettiest shade of red is now practically yellow. I hate the color yellow.

That is all.

Christy’s Kit of the Week

2010-03-27T16:46:00.001-07:00

I love all of these designers individually, so when they have collaborated (this is the second time) I didn’t hesitate to buy the kits. This one is so spring-y – the colors are fresh and fun. Loads of papers and elements. I don’t have a preview for this kit, but here is a page I made last night of my oldest daughter, my second born, who turns 7 tomorrow.

Spring Magic by SAS Designz, available at Digital Scrap Cafe, Two Little Pixels and M Scraps.

Digiscrap Printing: Take Two

2010-03-22T12:17:00.001-07:00

Despite my disappointment with my first printing experience, I’ve been chomping at the bit lately to have my pages in albums, like regular scrapbook pages. My kids have been looking at the pages on the computer with me, but there’s just no substitute for leafing through an album. Plus, every day I delay means that much more chance for a computer failure like I had over the summer that cost me two months worth of pages. (I now back up to excess, but there’s always the chance that something will get overlooked).

My first experience was with scrapbooksplease.com. It was so-so. My pages all had a border (which is my own fault for not reading closely enough) and were on little better than regular paper. Basically, they seem like someone printed them on a color laser. Also my fault for picking the cheapest option ($.99). If I were to go back to scrapbooksplease.com, I would shell out for the nicer option ($1.99).

This time, I took advantage of a sale at scrappingsimply.com. 12 x 12 pages are regularly $1.99, but on sale for $1.49 each. Sounded good to me. I picked a certain number of pages I wanted to have printed (based on my budget for this printing) and decided to print everything for my three older kids (I only did the baby’s in my previous printing since her book was actually empty) through this past Halloween. Since I haven’t been digital that long, it was 50 pages.

They warned that processing/shipping might be longer due to the sale. I was okay with that, since I’ve waited this long, I could wait another week. I placed my order on March 13. They arrived today, the 22nd. I wasn’t actually expecting them. If I got a shipping notice, it must have gone straight to my junk email box.

First off, everything about the packaging is lovely. Plain cardboard box, but a very pretty label. Open it up to find my pages in cellophane and taped to the box so they can’t curl up or bump around. I had two cellophane packs – each closed with a cute sticker.

The pages themselves are perfect. Exactly what I was hoping for. Which is good, since I ordered so many. The colors are vibrant, the paper is real photo paper. I’m in love. I can’t wait to put these in my albums.

Halfway there…

2010-03-11T11:22:00.001-08:00

In September I began a weight loss journey. It was then 15 months since my youngest (and probably last) child had been born. I weighed the same as I did the day I went in to DELIVER her. Yes. Fifteen months later, I weighed the same as I did nine months pregnant. This didn’t shock me. Some women lose weight while breastfeeding. I was never one of them. I tended to gain weight actually. As soon as I stopped nursing, ten pounds just fell right off me.

Except not this time. Maybe it was because my body was sick of the up and down weight. Possibly it was because my previous three children were all born when I was under 30.

When my older kids went back to school, I began exercising in earnest. My goal was to be at my pre-pregnancy weight (about 30 pounds less) by my baby’s 2nd birthday. Through the wonders of the Internet, I came across the Couch to 5K program. Yeah, I’m kind of a couch potato, I thought. Maybe this will be good for me.

I tried it. I didn’t hate it. In fact, I found I sort of like running. I lost 15 pounds in about 6 weeks.

But I tried to do too much too fast and kept injuring myself. I took a few weeks off. Then it was Christmas and I love to bake and….yeah, this story ends with me gaining over 5 of those pounds back. So I was back at needing to lose 20 pounds to reach my goal. By June 16. I half-assed for two months. Lost nothing. Started getting VERY frustrated.

Then I remembered that I need to exercise consistently AND eat right – meals, not just picking at junk food. So I began doing just that two weeks ago. Lo and behold that scale is moving again. I’m back where I left off when I first stopped.

So right now the things I’m doing right are eating lunch (peanut butter on double fiber bread – keeps me full until dinner usually), drinking lots of water, running regularly, not just when I feel like it, eliminating sugar again (I didn’t mean to, but in the fall, I completely gave up sugar. I was just trying to get my cravings under control. At first, I craved it constantly. All the time. And really sugary sugar – like SweetTarts. I got over it by having a LifeSavers Wint-o-green every time I felt the urge for sugar – it has enough sugar to satisfy my urge but not create the insulin imbalance that will make me crave more sugar. After a while, I didn’t want anything sweet – at all. Which is completely bizarre for me).

I feel healthier, my legs are so lean (which is awesome, except that I carry extra weight in my belly, so you know, it’s great having slim muscular legs, but it just makes finding pants that much harder), and my skin! Oh, my goodness. I can’t get over how smooth and clear my skin is. Tom guesses it’s from sweating so much.

So I still have 15 pounds to lose before June 16. But I THINK I’m finally past the plateau I’d hit and I’m working back to good habits. I’m trying not to think of how many pounds per week that is because I’ll probably just get discouraged.

A little project…

2010-03-01T07:02:00.001-08:00

About a month ago, I noticed the curtains I stare at every day in the bathroom were falling apart (which didn’t happen a month ago – probably they’d been that way for a while. It’s just that I noticed them rather than seeing them but not really paying attention). So what does a crafty mama do? Well, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t going to make a curtain. I just couldn’t find one that was the right size and matched and that I liked. So I headed for the fabric store with a kid or two in tow. I carefully perused every upholstery fabric in the store (which is tiny, so this didn’t really take long). I settled on a green floral toile like fabric. The wallpaper in the bathroom (it’s a long story, but taking it down isn’t even a discussion, unfortunately) is patterned and not my style at all. But I had to work with it and I think it’s okay.

But….But! My sewing machine was broken. I was sure I’d be able to work with it long enough to make four straight hems (when I make curtains, I make simple panels usually. I leave the fancy stuff to my sister). Nope. I couldn’t even get it to sew at all. Now I know it could probably have been repaired. But the thing didn’t cost $100 fifteen years ago when I got it. The cost to have a repairman look at it was $60. I was pretty sure an insurance company would have totaled it like they did my lovely old Dodge Aries. The cost of a new axel was more than the car was worth. That was a good car.

So I got a new sewing machine. A Janome. But not a super expensive one, despite the name. I couldn’t really justify more than $150 for a machine that I use for the odd curtain and Halloween costumes. I’m in love. Funny how using something nice and new that works makes you realize how crappy the old thing was. This was true of all of our new appliances (crap, does this count as a broken appliance? That takes over our limit of three. I’m going to say no since I know it’s been going for at least a year now)

BEFORE:

(I know you can't see it in this picture, but the bottom has a trim that was half on and half off, not to mention water stained)

AFTER:

(I know the right side is higher than the left. I'm trying not to let it bug me so much that I rip it out and resew it. I still might, though)

(SIDE NOTE: I started using Windows Live Writer for blog posts and I must compliment it. These pictures were not saved in portrait orientation and it just rotated them on its own for me.)

I love RAW, I love RAW not…

2010-02-26T12:12:00.001-08:00

I can’t decide. While taking a few test shots in RAW, I thought absolutely not. This isn’t for me. I think it was my gut reaction to seeing my 8GB card that could hold over 1000 large jpg images get knocked down to 250 or so RAW images (well, RAW + JPG, since I wasn’t willing to leave the safety net of jpg completely behind). I uploaded the files to my computer. Still not sold. A few hours later, I got around to editing one. I chose the worst off of the bunch (exposure wise) to start with. This is the straight out of camera JPG:

Underexposed, a little blue-ish (probably forgot to set my white balance at all – that’s one thing I don’t like so far about my Canon. It’s sort of a pain to custom white balance).

I opened it in Photoshop Elements Camera Raw. This is the adjusted RAW file:

It’s not perfect, but it is so much better than the SOOC. I just don’t think I would have been able to get from there to here with Elements alone, as I would have to have done if I’d only shot jpg.

And a little black and white play with the B&W Splendor Action from Coffeeshop Actions (my favorite b&w conversion):

Despited the totally pouty and/or stuffed with fruit snack bribe mouth, I think I might print this one.

Laundry, meet Camera…

2010-02-16T07:31:00.001-08:00

My wayward camera finally arrived yesterday after a snowy detour at our local UPS hub for FIVE days. I was in agony, knowing my camera was sitting 15 miles away, but I couldn’t get to it. The lens, memory card and memory card reader arrived on Friday, but the camera itself was sitting in a box on the back of a UPS trailer. This was serious torture.

And in seemingly unrelated news, we got a new washing machine today. For anyone keeping count, this is our third appliance to go up in as many months. We are keeping a cautious watch on our stove, refrigerator and chest freezer – just in case these things don’t come in threes. We made the switch to a front loader. I wasn’t sure this was what I wanted, but I couldn’t find a top-loader that had the capacity and features I wanted. Plus, it matches the new dryer. Tom is very big into our appliances matching. Me? I’m more about the features (you know, important stuff – like will my pizza pan fit in the new dishwasher and can I stuff the washer completely full of towels and not destroy it?).

Here it is – the horrible first picture I took with my Canon 50D:

Mount Laundry. AKA – please, Mr. Lowe’s Delivery Man, arrive at the earlier part of your 9-1 window tomorrow so I can begin to conquer this mountain (actually, this is more like the highest peak in a chain of mountains – there are more in the laundry room). And I would like to thank the lovely Lowe’s delivery men who did, in fact, arrive at the earliest part of their 9-1 window.

I have a load of laundry in right now. We’re all fascinated by the window in the front of our washing machine. In fact, the next series of pictures I took with my new camera are of the washing machine doing its thing.

Christy’s Kit of the Week…

2010-02-13T12:36:00.001-08:00

I only bought one kit this week. Delovely by Paislee Press.

I really find her style appealing – simple, elegant. Everything I want to be. I even love the presentation of this preview.

Snow fun…

2010-02-12T13:01:00.001-08:00

The East Coast was hit with more snow than any of us has ever seen in our lifetimes and possibly more than we’ll ever see again. We were in the blizzard zone for both storms. It blew so much I don’t actually know how much snow we got. We estimate about 26 inches for the first storm and 20 inches for the second.

Couch to 5K dropout...

2010-02-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not a total dropout. I'm still running. Just not using the podcasts like I had been at first. Although I used one last week and it helped a lot. But they bore the crap out of me. Now I need to convince DH that I need an iPod Touch so I can download the app that lets you use your own music.

The thing is that I need to find exercise that works for me and not worry about what my brother is doing (he's running 5 miles a day) or what people on the internet are doing. I need to worry about me, my health, my weight (which isn't budging and I'm pissed and frustrated). So I'm okay with not running 5Ks or running at all if that's what works for me. Some days I like to run. Today I power-walked. I'm moving and burning calories. Sometimes eating sensibly - most of the time, honestly, but being snowed in hasn't been good for me. I've been hit with the urge to bake. And if I'm going to bake, may as well bake stuff I like, right? So I made a pound cake Friday night. It was gone on Sunday. And sadly, I ate most of it. I know better than to make pound cakes. I can't resist them.

Today I'm going to make a red velvet cake. I've been dying for a red velvet cake ever since Tom's aunt had one at her Christmas party. Damn, it was good.

Some photography ramblings...

2010-02-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

After much agonizing, I made a semi-snap decision (because, really, can it be a snap decision if I've agonized over it for months?) and ordered a new camera. For almost a year, I've been planning to buy the latest Pentax model. I currently have a 4 year old Pentax DSLR that in addition to having completely outgrown, is sorta broken (between leaving it out in the rain and totally dropping it from time to time, I actually don't blame it and it works much better than it ought).

But as I thought about where I want to go in the future, which is most likely toward professional photography, I realized that I don't want to put more money into lenses for Pentax if it won't grow with me. So I began looking at other systems, almost sure that I would switch to Nikon, because several of my photography hobbyist family members use Nikon. I barely considered Canon in most of my agonizing. Until I did. And stopped agonizing.

Despite it's Mac-like following (part of the reason I won't use a Mac is the cult-like attitude most Macs have), Canon just seemed to make more sense for me, although I don't have a great reason. I like where I can go with it. I like the selection of lenses (which is probably the most rational argument I have).

Christy's Kit of the Week: Feb. 6

2010-02-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of one of the biggest snowstorms this area has ever seen. Like EVER. I'm actually in the blizzard zone - a true blizzard, not just a lot of snow like most of us who don't see a whole lot of the white stuff would call a blizzard.

In honor of this, my kit of the week (which I'll be using later, but so far none of us has braved the weather for new snow pics):
Still Winter by Ange from digital-crea.fr

It's from another French site. I've found I quite like the style of a lot of French/European designers - very simple, like my style.

Recipe Review: Smitten Kitchen's Best Cocoa Brownies

2010-02-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

My husband asked me last night why I even wanted to bake brownies from scratch. Um...you have to ask? Okay, first boxed mix brownies are unreliable - some brands are cakey, some are fudgy, some are in between. I've finally found my go-to boxed mix brownies - Ghirardelli's Double Chocolate. The only place in my rural area that carries them is Target, so I have to both remember that I want brownies and feel like driving all the way across a complicated one-way street town to get to it.

The last time I wanted brownies, I had no Ghirardelli mixes. The horror! So I tried the recipe on the back of the Baker's chocolate box, which several people had recommended I try. They were...okay. But I way undercooked them and by the time I realized it, they were cool and really couldn't go back in the oven. And the taste was so-so.

My mother-in-law made brownies on one of our Scout nights and although I wasn't feeling well, I loved the way they looked. I braved the rough seas of my stomach and tried one. It was lovely in texture - all fudgy, but completely lacking in chocolate flavor.

Then these came across my Google reader. I had to try them. Despite my weight-watching ways of late, these brownies were calling my name. I tried them last night.

Oh.

My.

GAWD.

These are...in a word, divine.

Snow...Or how I'm one of THOSE people...

2010-02-01T08:59:00.001-08:00

I'm seriously annoyed that my kids had school today. I know Northerners and those from other snowy locations wouldn't have flinched at the snow on our roads, but I'm in the Mid-Atlantic, in a coastal area at that. We don't get snow. People don't know how to drive in snow. We are not equipped to remove snow from our roads. The road in front of my house was covered with ice and snow. I suppose I have the option of keeping my kids home if I so choose, but it's pretty ridiculous to build snow days into the school calendar and then send kids to school in snowy conditions.

I would like to complain to the school board, but I know they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. So I'm refraining for the moment. But I do have pictures of the condition of my road this morning. And I'll use them if I have to.

Also, there is more snow in our forecast. For guess when? The day I have to pick up over 100 cases of Girl Scout cookies. I'm the cookie mom for Miss G's Daisy troop and Sunday is pick up day. A Southern storm is supposed to come in on Saturday. I'm figuring we'll get record-breaking snowfall again. Every time I've had a plan or party, it's snowed. I think I'm going to stop making plans until June.

Two digi layouts

2010-01-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

Made with the kit I shared yesterday.
Template by Sabrina's Creations (Clean and Simple No. 1). Playful word art by Jennifer Barrette Designs.

Template by Scooty's Designs. I love reading her blog because it's in French and I have a degree in French. Of course, I graduated from college...oh, my...let's not talk about how many years ago (more than ten, fewer than twenty) and haven't really used the language in that time at all. So it's fun to challenge my brain. And I can read it. I was always much better with the language on paper than spoken.

Anyhow, reading her blog makes me feel smart and like I didn't waste four years and thousands of dollars getting a degree I don't use (at least not specifically - I'm much better for my four years at college, even if I don't technically use the knowledge I gained there for a job).

Christy's Kit of the Week

2010-01-30T14:24:00.000-08:00

I've fallen in love...with this digital kit (and everything else from these designers):

I've been on a bit of a buying spree. I feel like I've discovered a whole new world of digital scrapbooking. I have loads of kits that I've never been happy with. These? These make my creative soul sing. This is one of the kits I've purchased this week. Simple, elegant, classic. I'm in love.

Today's Pet peeves...

2010-01-29T03:05:00.000-08:00

Digital designers who label elements, papers and templates with generic names like e1 and template. Forces me to go in and rename everything if I actually want to know what it is. It's worst with templates, because I keep my kits together, so it's not a huge hassle. But I put all templates in folders by how many photos they have spaces for and if I buy twice from the same designer, I have to rename every single time.
Members of my household who know that the dishwasher is broken, know that I've bought a huge assortment of paper products to use when possible and still insist on using real dishes. This is all amplified by said members (funny, they're all male) not actually washing their dirty real dishes themselves. A lot could be forgiven with a little Dawn.
Milk that was purchased on Sunday already tasting nasty. And it didn't start today. No, it tasted nasty on Tuesday. That's not right.
Children who, when asked to pick up their toys, will a) literally only touch their own toys and only then if they were playing with them last and b) not get the toys that fell under the sofa (which is apparently a magnet for Barbie shoes).

Lessons learned...

2010-01-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

A list of lessons learned upon receipt of my first printed digital scrapbook pages:

Read the printing services FAQs. I used scrapbooksplease.com's value prints. Bargain, right? As I've learned before, you get what you pay for. The pages arrived this afternoon and all have a white border around the edge (which I was expecting, but it's still a bit wider than I thought it would be) and are basically color laser prints. For $.99 a page, I guess I shouldn't have been expecting more.
Just because text looks small on the computer screen, doesn't mean it's going to be tiny when printed 12x12 (although this might have been good if I'd gone with 8x8).
Printed pages really do make it all real. Just scrapping on the computer is a lot of fun (for me, at least. I know several people for whom it would be torture), but it's not a scrapbook until you can leaf through the pages.

So, in summary, I am not 100% satisfied with these pages, but I won't be going back and making the fonts smaller or even having them reprinted on nicer paper without borders (really, once I put them in page protectors, the border was hardly noticeable). But I will take these lessons with me for next time.

Digiscrap...simplified...

2010-01-27T12:47:00.001-08:00

But maybe too simple? I can't decide. Maybe if I swapped out that red rectangle with a patterned paper, it would jazz it up enough to not be boring and still have the simplicity I'm embracing.

This pages results from a challenge from me to me. I always hem and haw over which pictures I want to scrap. I have lots I NEED to scrap, but I'm not married to scrapping chronologically or even all that evenly among my kids. I scrap what strikes me at any given Photoshop session. Sometimes, though, I want to scrap something, but I don't know what. So today I challenged myself to go to the oldest picture folder on my hard drive (which - since I got this computer in November - isn't that old) and scrap something from that folder.

Since my youngest doesn't even have a proper scrapbook yet with actual finished pages in it (my first ever digiscrap layout printing should arrive tomorrow), this ended up working perfectly.

My latest page...

2010-01-26T12:29:00.000-08:00

I paid attention to which kit I was using! It's Family Ties by Jeni Hopewell from Scrapmatters.

Another week in review...

2010-01-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well, no burst pipes. That's something, right? Oh, but no, our brand F-ING new dishwasher has just decided to completely not function. As in not a single light comes on. Nothing. Called Maytag and had a repairman out the next day. The thermostat is blown and it fried the control board. The parts will be in later this week.

I have had this dishwasher for SIX WEEKS. The fact that a single thing has broken on it has me really annoyed. If these parts don't fix it, I'm going to be more than annoyed.

I had to chase down three Girl Scout parents to get them to turn in their cookie order. Two of them never did - they both said they'd wait until the second wave of cookies comes out. I can't WAIT for the deadline for money.

I'm designing templates in my own style for digital scrapbooking, just for my own personal use. I like clipping papers to the shape below them. I love to use templates, but most of them are too fussy for my tastes. I don't like embellishments in general, so that's how I'm making my templates. I'd post more of my layouts online, but I'm horrible about keeping track of what I've used and where it came from. I was worse when I paper-scrapped, because at least with digital, I can go to the files and figure it out if I really want to.

2010 so far...

2010-01-14T13:49:00.000-08:00

So far my 2010 has been a little crazy. Some bad, some good.

Burst pipe in upstairs bathroom
Selling Girl Scout cookies - I'm the cookie mom for #2's Daisy troop.
Using motivated moms to get my house in order (well, better, at any rate)
Tried to get back to Couch to 5K, but hurt again. Will seek professional advice.
Trying out a pedometer as alternative to keep me active
Keeping up with my goals so far (minus the shin splints)
Staging a coup of the Cub Scout pack (well, nothing that dramatic hopefully, but getting a little control in the form of knowledge about what's going on)

I can't believe we're only two weeks into this year.

Dear 2010...

2010-01-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

I will forgive you for your inauspicious start, especially if at any time you want to change course and brighten up. I realize this is a long shot, but I'm open to it if you are. Thanks.

Yeah. Great start to my new year. I had my motivated moms list all printed out, put on my cleaning clothes yesterday (yoga pants indicate that I'm staying home and cleaning, jeans mean I might leave the house) and was ready to go. I had a tough time getting back into the school routine yesterday after two weeks off, but I was planning to get to it.

I picked up #3 from preschool and came home to a dripping ceiling. Nothing like a burst pipe in the middle of winter. So yesterday was spent in chaos with no water, no power (because we didn't know how wet the wires might have been) and absolutely nothing got done.

So now I'm on my second attempt at the Motivated Moms list. I'm making a much better showing today. I've checked several things off and I can see where this might keep me motivated throughout the year, not just this first week. My kitchen looks...well, better, since I only cleaned one counter, not the side counter yet. My bathroom is neat and tidy. Looking forward to tomorrow.

And a quick product review from Christmas. Santa brought my kids one of their most requested items - a Touch and Brush, so that our bathroom wouldn't get toothpaste all over it, just like in the commercial. Yeah, not so much. It might even be messier than before since the Touch and Brush has to go on the mirror and increases the area toothpaste can be spread across.

Resolved...

2010-01-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

I've fallen off a lot of my 2009 habits that I was so proud of. I hurt my leg running so I chose to give that up so that it might heal without my constantly reinjuring it. I was eating so well, until I began my holiday baking and the kids got out of school (they had 16 days off - many habits fell to this). My laundry/cleaning routine is a nightmare.

So for 2010 I am resolved to get back on track. I never make resolutions - at least no more for the new year than I would at any point in my life. I don't see why the new year should mean anything different than the previous day. Every day is a fresh start, not just January 1.

At any rate, I will post my resolutions here and check to see how I'm doing (did I do this last year too and then never check it? Possibly. Okay, fine, probably).

1. Run a 5K. I was all set to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, until I pushed myself and ended up barely able to walk for a couple of days. Right now my tentative 5K is the St. Patricks' Day 5K on March 13.
2. Clean and maintain order in my home. Big thing here. I am not a naturally organized person, so this is very difficult for me. I bought the motivated moms planner and I'm hoping that the nature of the check lists and having a plan laid out for me will work and most of all, last beyond my initial interest.
3. Spend more quality time with my kids. It struck me during this break yet again how very quickly their childhoods are passing by. Maybe it was all the newborns in my family, but something made me feel very nostagic. Included in this resolution are to read more often to all the kids and keep better control of my temper (mainly while PMSing).

Setting a record...

2009-12-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

So far this week, I've knitted one baby hat for my cousin's newborn daughter:
And finished SEVEN (yes, 7) digital layouts. That's some sort of record for me. That's my normal total for an entire month, not a week. I'm very happy with Photoshop Elements. It's so much easier to use for this than Paint Shop Pro. Although as far as photo editing, I think PSP might have an edge (over Elements, not Photoshop itself). That could just be that I've become so familiar with it over the past four years.

Other things on my happy list:
Pandora Internet Radio
Being so much closer to finished my Christmas shopping than I ever have been on December 6.
My halls are decked (even though we haven't gotten a tree yet):My kids have the day off school tomorrow (I don't actually get to sleep in, but I can have a pajama morning)

Back in the saddle....

2009-12-02T05:07:00.000-08:00

My husband and I decided that for the first time in our marriage (or either of our lives) we would join the crazies (no offense - it's just that choosing to wake up before the sun on a day I don't have to goes down as crazy in my book) on Black Friday. The kids spent the night at my mother-in-laws and we set our alarm for THREE FRICKING THIRTY. I was not amused when it went off. But we were after one of Wal-Mart's big limited deals, so we got up and drove ourselves over there. I do NOT go places before the sun is up, so this is major (and probably the only time it will ever happen).

Once we'd made the decision about two weeks earlier, I'd been scouring the internet leaks of all the ads to make my list. I knew I wanted the laptop from Wal-Mart (pretty much all three of our computers are/were on their last legs and I'm of the belief that once your computer starts giving you the "I'm in trouble" signals, you need to get a new one and get anything important off the old one). I added to my wish list the TomTom GPS and Kodak digital camera at Wal-Mart, a certain tall, busty fashion doll for my girlies (that ended up not being on sale, but still had to be purchased) and Adobe Photoshop Elements, which was on sale for $49.99 at Staples.

We got everything on the wish list and then some. I've been campaigning for a GPS for months. I get lost very easily, even in towns I've driven in for years. I'll think I know the way somewhere, but somehow have it totally wrong in my head. Happens every time I overthink. If I just drive and don't worry about it, I do fine.

The best end result of our Black Friday craziness is my new laptop. We bought the computer for Tom, but he's being a baby about it not being a Dell (and it's not like it's Brand X - it's an HP). So I said, what if I keep this one and we buy you a Dell later. He was actually cool with that. So I immediately began taking this laptop over. First of all, the fact that it's a laptop (I've always been a desktop kind of girl) was weird. I'm still getting used to it, but I've set up a sort of docking station at my magic desk (which is apparently not magic, since it's a total mess) and that works for me. I have the desktop like atmosphere I wanted and I can pick it up and eat lunch in the kitchen with the girls and surf the internet while we eat.

Do you know which Black Friday purchase I currently like the best , though? It's Adobe Photoshop Elements. We got it on sale at Staples (I was only mildly annoyed to learn that it was only that cheap due to a rebate). Once the computer was for sure mine, I installed it. I played a little the first day, but it had a minor learning curve and I wasn't into it. But now? Now I'm in love. I've been using Corel's Paint Shop Pro, which is somewhere in between regular Photoshop and Elements - it allows you to have a lot of control, but there are some key things I had to create workarounds for. So far, my favorite thing about Elements/PS is ACTIONS! I'm so excited about them. I've sort of been off my camera lately. I didn't even take new Christmas card pictures. I just used nice ones from the fall. But I think actions might inspire me. I need new photos to run these actions on. I should have broken down and ordered PSE years ago.