Done & Documented: September & October

So, in my last report, I had finished 2009 totally & completely, an absolutely amazing feat for myself.  So proud yet, it brought to the forefront of my mind a couple of issues with that current style of memory keeping.  First, 8 4" thick 12x12 albums for each & every year of our lives? HUH?! who has room for that??? Definitely not us in a time when we are getting serious about downsizing our house and 'things'. Second, without children of our own to hand things down to automatically, where will these monstrosities go when I am gone? Truthfully, this one bothers me, so much less than the first as I am truly doing 99% of them for me in the moment. I use scrapping as therapy, as my creative outlet, as my me-time, girl-time, bonding time with my mom, Grandma & aunts. Occasionally, I use it to work through some issues, some feelings, and document that not everything is truly as it looks. On that other 1% I use them to send messages to people in my life unsure if they will ever see them or know how I feel, but I feel better getting it all down on paper & put in the stack to someday get put in a book. :)

So when I pulled fresh photos out to scrap, I had an all together different thought process. I knew I needed to cut the pages down in each chapter: 6 pages=3 layouts is going to be my cap for the majority of chapters from here on out. Many are falling in at 2 or 4 pages even.  This is freeing up A LOT of printed photos to hand off to friends & family for their books or trash, whatever they deem necessary.  The best part, I am doing it all guilt free. I am working hard to get the important stories told in those few pages & oddly, not even struggling most of the time.  Come to find out, I am much more of a photographer than a story teller, but I am learning to combine the two. Many less 'here we are at the lake again', '4th of July parade 2013', or 'kids at Christmas' pages more 'this summer at the lake we..... ' & 'a change in the parade this year was.....' and 'this year for Christmas the kids got/did/wanted.....'  all of them with a valid story to tell rather than just fun photos. I am also using Picasa to create collages then printing them in 8x10 or 5x7 to be able to include many more photos when they are needed but still wanting to keep the scrapped page tally down.

Since instituting these changes, I have been on a roll!! I have scrapped so many pages, I have lost track of a count & even quit photographing them all.  In fact, looking back, I haven't photographed any since the beginning of October, but here are some favorites from September & October:

 these are from 2 of the 3 birthday parties I scrapped from January & February 2013.  I have since moved over to 2010 and have scrapped a WiiFest gathering at our house, a family 4th of July dinner, Easter, a road trip to visit an aunt, 2 kids' birthdays & a brother's surprise birthday party. SERIOUSLY this rocks my scrapping world!  I have 2 Christmas celebrations, Christmas program, Father's Day gathering, graduation reception(which may already be scrapped), the January snow (there was a lot of it), adding Sammy to our family as a puppy, and some lake pictures to scrap. That will complete the year! That's amazing to me. My current goal is to finish the 4 pages of Father's Day I have on my desk-less about the holiday & more stories about the pictures. then I will probably take a break from 12x12s & 2010 to work up & do the December Daily I blogged about last week. I might just be sure to have the right photos in the 2010 basket instead of the basket that holds all of the photos that need scrapped, so that in January when I am ready to get back to big pages, I can transition easily.

That said, I never want to be caught up. I never want to be with out something to scrap. I simply want to be less years behind :) maybe some day being able to scrap the current year would be fun.

you can see my January, February, March, April, May, June, July, & August  reports here.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Done and documented is series of monthly posts that highlights Jess's progress completing unfinished travel 
albums from years past. I will be following along by doing my December Daily 2013-CHECK, then plan to finish 2009 (2 chapters)-CHECK & start a new year. Feel free to play along.

Done & Documented: March

I decided to document this month's pages with a series of collages, maybe it will be easier for you to view than individual photos with too much clutter around the edges & in the background. This page was so fun. its the first day of our Christmas Break. a collage photo of all the shots taken over the day by the various photographers in the house, a pretty satin ribbon behind, the star clip, the letter bottle caps, buttons, arrows, another hinge sticker & lots of cardstock stickers.

 here is a peek at our Christmas Day celebration.  We celebrated my side of the family on Christmas Day.  I was pretty pumped to finally use a cardboard CD case that had come in another kit but set unused on my desk.  I used it in the 2 right photos. (top shows it closed, bottom shows it opened) & then I have 2 pockets to put things in as I come across them later. the gift tags are creations of Mom's with her Cricut as she has done in the past few years.

 Here is the 3rd of 3 Christmas programs we attended this year.  Super simple, super sweet. then a great time playing w/the Arispe 3 (the way I often refer to my niece & nephews that live near Arispe)
love that music sheet paper with the love themed tags. The full pages are the square photos on the right. (I feel like I have shared this one...)

Here is the set pages for Christmas Eve, documenting our little gift exchange just between the 2 of us. 

He surprised me with a shot glass rack I have been drooling over at the Iowa State Fair for years.  I hadn't even unpacked my collecting when we moved in this house in 2007 for lack of space to appropriately display them. Not only did he get the shelf, had it personalized w/'Jackson Place' on the swinging doors at the top but he HUNG it that night! I had so much fun arranging my glasses around the shelves, so that the ones that came from certain people or trips were all together.  I got him some hunting gear from his list, all the journaling is inside the pocket on the right page.  Oh & I swapped out the white heart clip for a gold star clip after I had photographed it.

 Here is a pretty page using pink again.  I was determined at this point use up some supplies I have been hording.  the papers were actually 4" strips I pieced together then used the stickers to cover the seams, used up my blue buttons & then a lot of the pink stickers on 2 different sticker sheets. This was our pajama day that we made chocolate dipped cookie dough balls from pinterest & our annual applesauce + cinnamon ornaments.  Totally fun hands on day at childcare.  A few more pages & it was finished!!  check one project DONE!! :)

Then I got to work on Christmas #1 of 2 for 2009.  It just seemed logical to keep working on Christmas photos even though they are 4 years part. I am having a BLAST using up some bigger items I couldn't work into my December Daily.  This is the first time in a REALLY LONG time I have scrapped 12x12 Christmas pages. Below is a collage of cruddy phone pictures of the pages I have done so far. (all but the middle set on the left are matched as they will be in the book but the other 2 are not going across from each other)

I am so enjoying knowing that I 'have to report in' at the end of the month & I had better have something to report :)

you can see my January & February reports here.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Done and documented is series of monthly posts that highlights Jess's progress completing unfinished travel albums from years past. I will be following along by doing my December Daily 2013, then plan to finish 2009 (2 chapters) & start a new year. Feel free to play along! 

Done & Documented: February

 here is the day I shared a peek at while it was in process last month.
Normally, I am a pretty flat scrapper so doing these minis, I get to pull out my 3-D goodies like the ornaments I strung on some glittery fiber & the bulky buttons on the right

here is a simple 2 page spread that talks about Sam's vet check up. Not at all about the holidays, but the injury happened at the beginning of the month & its part of the month, so here it is.  I added a couple of metal items to this set of pages after I took the photos, since I didn't have to worry about the texture. 

  here is #2 of 3 Christmas programs I attended this year. Their program I attached w/sticker hinges (going to miss them when they are gone as they are OLD) & used some vellum music paper I picked up at Hobby Lobby this year.

 This childcare page is so boring, but documented the day we finally got the Christmas decorations up! I did use the fun foamy Thicker letters & numbers & folded a sheet of cardstock to make a flip up to make room for the journaling, those things sure helped dress it up. 

  what? no photos of the flower delivery? me? oops!! 

 I recovered by using the paper they came in, then tucked the journaling  box inside. 

Pink is not a normal color I use for a Christmas page but it really fit the photos this time, so I pulled out an assortment of pinks. It was fun to get out of the red-and-green box for a while.

I finished up the month of February working on Day 23 that didn't get finished until March.  I would love to show more photos of the days in between (which would probably bore you to death) but I cannot figure out how to load the edited photos from Picassa into the blog.

________________________________________________________________________________________
Done and documented is series of monthly posts that highlights Jess's progress completing unfinished travel albums from years past. I will be following along by doing my December Daily 2013, then plan to finish 2009 (2 chapters) & start a new year. Feel free to play along! 

Pin it & Do it.

for the first time ever I can report that I DID something I pinned!

several somethings actually, all food related :)

Swedish Pastry
the girls & I did this one in a 2 day spread.  crust, center & bake day one, frost on day 2.


Chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting

These I did on my own as the girls were all 'baked out' by Friday @4pm :)  they were way easier than the recipe looks, it just might be my go to chocolate cupcake recipe when I have the extra time & energy. 

 Chocolate dipped Chocolate chip cookie dough bites

 The kids & I did these in a 2 day spread as well: mixed & formed into balls one day, chilled overnight & dipped the next day.

YUMMMMMMMMMM on all counts!
did you try anything new from pinterest this holiday season?

currently: December

appreciating that almost all of our Christmas shopping is done.
eating white chocolate peppermint M&Ms like -well,  candy.
watching as many Christmas movies as I can :)

loving today's sunshine & 30+ temps
planning our food for our Christmas gatherings

walking at least 3 mornings each week in the high school halls.(still)
enjoying the scant amount of Christmas decorations I pulled out this year.
ordering pizza for supper once a week-guilt-free.

attending the 3rd of 3 elementary age, Christmas programs tomorrow evening.
wanting to keep the rest of the month as stress free as possible for the kiddos.
buying thoughtful gifts is tough, time consuming yet OH SO rewarding!
playing lots of Christmas music during the days when Tim isn't around to 'grinch it' ;)
drinking hot tea or water these days.

working on the last couple of Christmas cards.
clearing
looking forward to Christmas break.  I know many providers do not, but I sure do enjoy the break in our normal routine/schedule & the ability to do whatever we want throughout the day.

Thanksgiving weekend - part 2

 The furnishings are ideal for the space.  This is us just hanging out on Friday night.

 <~~~~This is a new structure that appears to have another project happening in it.  Can't wait to see what it ends up to be!

                              This, ~~~>     my friends, is how I spend 'down time' even away from home. I pack scrapbook supplies every time I think there may be time & space for it.  I took over the dining table in front of an east facing window next to the fireplace & scrapped Friday while Tim hunted.

closing this post w/a selfie with the big pond & small side of the cabin behind me.

Thanksgiving weekend part 1

This year for Thanksgiving, we decided it was time for a long quiet weekend away.  So after our 2 family dinners on Thanksgiving, we loaded the pups up & headed south.  A mere 35 minutes from home & we were at our home for the weekend.  Doing little more than settling in, unpacking & having some late night Thanksgiving dessert leftovers that first night was peaceful.  Waking up to this sunrise the next day was beyond words amazing. My pillow gave me an amazing view every time I opened my eyes: Falling asleep gazing at the stars & waking up to a beautiful country sunrise.

Friday the sun warmed the temps to a beautiful level for a peaceful walk along the mowed paths around the property. Tim went further & off the trail to scout for someplace to deer hunt later in the day while the pups & I continued along the trail. These shots are on the return trip to the cabin.

 Have you ever heard of a dogtrot house or cabin? no, well us either until this weekend.  By design: A dogtrot house historically consisted of two log cabins connected by a breezeway or "dogtrot", all under a common roof. Typically one cabin was used for cooking and dining while the other was used as a private living space, such as a bedroom. The primary characteristics of a dogtrot house is that it is typically one or 1½-stories, has at least two rooms averaging between 18 to 20 feet (5.5 to 6.1 m) wide that each flank an open-ended central hall (via Wikipedia) . 

At first, it was a bit inconvenient for us 'city people' to go outside & leave the 'big side', which housed the kitchen/dining/living area (& loft sleeping area we didn't use), to go to the small side to use the bathroom.  After the first couple of times, it became less of an inconvenience & just a part of the weekend.  The small side housed the bathroom, along with another loft sleeping area, we didn't use & the main room complete with floor to ceiling shelves full of books, a work table & a futon (which is where we chose to sleep).  

 The details of this property are many.  The ponds, the quiet of country life, the fully stocked fishing gear, kitchen & bookshelves. 

 

Another amazing sunrise photo-this one from my phone:

 

 a daybreak shot of the pups finding new smells to sniff out on our morning trip outside.

Since Blogger isn't letting me shrink anymore photos, I will stop here.  I will work up another post for later in the week with more photos & details of the weekend.

dream house

Many people I know, talk about & spend their lives living & working & dreaming toward building their dream house, but we are talking more & more all the time of turning any house into a dream house. at this point I think anything in the country would seem like a dream house for us. something with its own hunting land, neighbors just out of ear shot, & space to wander. Something with 2 or 3 bedrooms, a living room/family room big enough to house the normal furniture + my scrap furnishings so we can spend time in the same room again, eat in kitchen with lots of storage options, storm cellar if no basement, & the option to build a deck or front porch (or both) for relaxing in the evenings or waking up on the weekends. That still sounds like a big list, but doesn't everyone have a list of what they are looking for? We aren't specific about the flooring, heating source, or set up as all of that can be rearranged to fit out needs. We just want something rural.

Now if we do start talking specifics: I picture original (old) hard wood floors with giant rugs in appropriate places,  East, South & West facing BIG windows. an open front porch with a roof that both run the length of the house, a covered back deck with room for the table, chairs & grill.  Three bedrooms: one for guests, one for the work out equipment & one for the master. 2 bathrooms, one main one that might not need to be a full bath, right inside either the front or back door & then one off the master bedroom. Farm sink, island work space, pan rack(but not sure that's safe since we are switching over to all cast iron) & pantry in the kitchen. wood heat, either a fireplace in the family/living/scrap room or wood stove centrally located in the house. A big open family/living/scrap room in one. a mud room entry from the back to store small garden tools, muddy boots & gloves from the timber, pasture or garden. enough land for both, hunting & feeding some livestock & maybe even some rescue horses to live out the end of their days the way a horse is supposed to. OH, a barn & garden shed & shop for Tim's car/boat/truck would be nice too. 

hmmmmmmm funny, the first floor plan I opened on the first website that popped up on swagbucks search is something we could totally make work-we are NOT planning to build a brand new house- but this definitely gives me great ideas: http://www.connorbuilding.com/HomeDisplayc283.html?HomeID=130

changes to the main-floor plan: the dining room could easily be my scrap room, I would figure out a way to make a mudroom entrance from the garage to the kitchen, & the study, would be the 'weight room' for our treadmill & bow-flex OR it could be the guest room. the bathroom off of the study, I would put a door on the wall instead of the shower & put the furnace & water heater in the unfinished basement/cellar area.

 

So see, as much as I talk simplicity, I can still get extravagant too  :)

currently: November

appreciating a rejuvenated friendship in a running buddy.
eating salads every day for lunch, no matter how I feel.
watching a ton of shows on the DVR-watching life tv is almost painful now.
loving today's rainy day.
planning our Thanksgiving trip.

walking 3 mornings each week in the high school halls.
enjoying the growth of my group.
ordering Christmas gifts locally as possible-YAY!
wanting to join the littles for a nap today.
buying squash, hummus, indian corn, yogurt, carrots & leaf lettuce this week from the Iowa Food Coop.
playing darts on Tuesday evenings again.
drinking iced coffee in the mornings, water in the afternoons & hot tea in the evenings.

working on listening to my body to tell me when to rest to heal from this cold.
clearing my mind of regrets.
looking forward to our Thanksgiving weekend away.