Artist-in-Residence

William loves Jessie.

2011-12-26T00:56:00.001-06:00

The first time we saw Santa this year, he asked William what he wanted for Christmas. I could see that William really wasn't sure how to answer this question, so I suggested, "How about a Toy Story Jessie doll?"

"Would you like a Jessie doll?" Santa asked.

William considered that for a moment, then smiled broadly. "Yes," he said, "That sounds good!"

Each of the other THREE times we saw Santa, William requested a Jessie doll.

So naturally Santa brought him one. And William was delighted, and played with her and Buzz and Woody and Mr. Potato Head and the space alien most of the day.

Tucking him into bed that night, Chris said, "Did you get everything you wanted?"

And William said softly and happily, "Yes. I got Jessie."

December Daily 2011 | Day 13.

2011-12-13T21:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Hannah,

It's not easy, playing the piano. It's not easy to learn to read music. It's not easy to translate those symbols on the page into motions in your hands. It's not easy to do that on the fly, in the rhythm and tempo of the music. It's not easy to develop the discipline of daily practice. And it's not easy to put yourself out there, at the mercy of a live audience.

So the fact that you did it - and did it well - makes me all the more proud of you, and what you have accomplished this fall. You did super fantastic on your Christmas recital tonight. Just like I knew you would.

Love,
Mama

December Daily 2011 | Day 7.

2011-12-07T23:00:00.000-06:00

Dec 7, 2011: An Ordinary December Day
10:40am: up, breakfast
11:05am: William's bus
12:25pm: lunch
2:40pm: waiting for Hannah
3:35pm: jazz class
4:12pm: tap class
4:45pm: ballet class
5:36pm: in the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A
5:52: visit Birdie
5:55pm: Buck's
6:06pm: Domino's
6:34pm: dinner &Mythbusters
7:16pm: Hannah practices piano
7:31pm: some playtime for the kids before bed
8:05pm: goodnight, William. Hannah is reading Monster High: The Ghoul Next Door
8:56pm: surfing Ali's blog, uploading photos, and upgrading to iOS 5.0
9:13pm: tuck Hannah into bed.
9:45pm: the upgrade to my iPhone is a no-go. Too many errors, too much frustration. Giving up and going to watch 24 with Chris (streaming Netflix thru the Wii).

December Daily 2011 | Day 4.

2011-12-05T01:03:00.000-06:00

Our wish lists for 2011:
Chris: shirts for work, PS3, Zelda Skyward sword
Heather: sunglasses, sheet music, stop mute, new Lord John book, horn CDs, kokeshi dolls, Adobe Lightroom
Hannah: Monster High video game, Tangled video game, American Girl stuff, Monster High dolls
William: dinosaurs, Little People, Power Rangers figures, Mario Bros. stuff, Toy Story stuff, Cars 2 stuff
Keepin' Santa busy this year!

December Daily 2011 | Day 3.

2011-12-03T23:52:00.000-06:00

Today we put up the Christmas trees. Of course the main tree is in the living room (the big 11-footer). We only have 1 new ornament this year: a space shuttle for Chris, to commemorate the end of the NASA space shuttle program. Then there is the 2-footer that was mine when I was a kid, which Hannah has been decorating for a few years now. And we have a new 2-foot tree this year, a purple one! (Hannah decided that her American Girl doll Candie had to have one.) Well of course we couldn't leave William out, so he now has his own tree, shiny gold and 18 inches high. He was so tickled to decorate his own tree. :)

December Daily 2011 | Day 2.

2011-12-02T19:02:00.000-06:00

Tonight we had the first of 2 concerts. This year, my horn choir, Esprit de Cor, is being featured on a 10-part horn arrangement of Amazing Grace. Not technically a Christmas song, but I think it fits in the spirit of the season. Plus, it's just a beautiful piece, and a stunning arrangement. This fall we have been playing it in various churches in honor of our friend Bruce Brown. We were hoping that he would be able to play this Christmas concert with us, but sadly he lost his battle with brain cancer just a few weeks ago. So we play this concert in his memory. We even had a stand for him on stage, which I thought was a really nice touch.
William got totally caught up in Hannah's excitement this evening. He loved listening to the Christmas music and was even bouncing around to Jingle Bells. The biggest surprise came at intermission when he actually gave a hug to "Mr. Stuckey"!
On another note, I am not feeling well today. My ears feel full of cotton. I spent most of the day sleeping. Chris is ill as well; he actually took a sick day. The children, of course, are healthy as can be, and as full of energy and Christmas joy as ever.
Packages are being delivered to the house nearly every day now. So many wonderful Christmas surprises. :)

December Daily 2011 | Day 1.

2011-12-02T00:28:00.002-06:00

Hello, friend elf. The kids are so excited you're here with us again, watching over them. They know that your arrival means that Christmas is almost here.

Hope you're enjoying hanging out on the gingerbread house that Grandma made. :)

How to combine multiple images on one canvas in Photoshop Elements.

2011-04-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

Today in my class over at Big Picture Classes, I had several people request a tutorial on how to combine multiple images onto one canvas, and then post it to the message board and gallery. I will be using images of layouts in this example, but the process is the same for any digital image or photo (for example, if you want to combine multiple small photos for printing on a 4x6 canvas). Note: click on any image in this tutorial to see it larger.

This tutorial will teach you how to create this type of image.

Combining images onto one canvas.

First we need to combine the images onto one canvas. I do this in Photoshop Elements 7. This is the only program I am familiar with, but I'm sure there are others out there that have similar capabilities. Also, I work on a PC, so the commands I give will be for Windows users. If anyone knows the comparable commands for Mac, please comment and I will add those in. :)

So first you want to create a blank canvas. You do this in the Editor, by going to File>New>Blank File. I am going to be putting 30 layouts on this canvas, so I'm going to make it fairly large: 9x13. 72dpi is fine if all you want is to view it online; 300dpi is the minimum you want for printing. I choose a white background so that my layouts are easy to see.

First create a blank canvas.

Now, in the Organizer, you want to select the files that you are going to use. Like I said, I will be adding images of 30 layouts to my canvas. However, I know from past experience that having that many files open all at once in the Editor will slow down my computer's performance. So to avoid that, I am going to open 10 at a time. To do that, I select the first 10 files I want (hold down Shift or Control key while clicking to select multiple files). Then I go to Editor>Full Edit. (Are your layouts opening in full screen in the Editor? Click the reduce button to stack them, so you can see all of them at once.)

Select your images and open in Full Edit mode in the Editor.

My files are open and stacked, and ready to be dragged onto the new canvas.

Once my selected files have opened in the Editor, I move my canvas to an empty corner of the workspace so that I have plenty of room to work with. Now I'm going to click on my first layout image to activate it. Making sure that the Move tool is active, I drag the image of the layout onto the image of the blank canvas. This will activate the blank canvas file. I have "Show Bounding Box" turned on, so I can see the boxes for resizing my layout. I drag one of the corners in until it's a size I like. (I plan to fit 5 layouts in each row.) Then I click the green check mark to save the new size. I position the layout image in the first spot on the blank canvas by dragging it. And that's it! Now I can close that image's file, and activate the second file by clicking on it. For each file that I have open, I follow the steps as described above: drag to the blank canvas, resize the layout and confirm, move to the desired position, close that file. When I am done with the first 10 files, I like to go ahead and save my progress using File>Save. Save as a .PSD file to keep the individual layers separate. Then I go back to the Organizer for the next 10 layouts I want to use, and repeat, and save, until I've done all 30 layouts.

Use the Move tool and resize handles to move and resize the image
on the new canvas.

Here I have finished adding (& closed) the first 10 layouts.

All 30 layouts are now on the new canvas.

Once all 30 layouts are on the blank canvas (which is now no longer blank), I'm ready to move on to the next step. There is quite a bit of blank space around the right and bottom edges, and I'd like to add a small margin to the top and left edges. So in the tools palette, select the Crop tool. At the top, specify "no restriction" for the aspect ratio. Now, click and drag over your canvas to define a cropping area. I'm leaving a small margin on the right and bottom. To get one at the top and left sides, just extend the cropping boundary out into the workspace a bit. Click on the green check mark to confirm the crop. Save.

You can crop the excess & add margins all in one step.

Next we are going to prepare the file for export. So in the layers palette, right-click on any layer and choose "Flatten Image" from the drop-down list. Now go to File>Save As. In the "File Type" drop-down list, choose .JPG. Make sure the box next to "Include in the Organizer" is checked. Once you have saved it as a jpg, you can close this file in the Editor.

Flatten your image and save it as a JPG.

Now we go back to the Organizer. If you have your files sorted by date (newest first), your new file should be right there at the top. Click on it to select it, then go to File>Export as New File(s). This will bring up the Export New Files dialog box. In the section marked File Type, select JPG. In Size and Quality, choose 1280x960 in the Photo Size dialog box. (Actually, you can use whichever size you like. I just choose this one because it's the largest preset size.) Adjust the Quality slider to #10 (Maximum). This will decrease your file size while still maintaining the best quality. (If you want to go lower on the slider you can.) Choose a location to save your file in, and rename give the new file a name, if you like. Click "Export" and you are done! Your file is now ready to upload.

Export your image as a new file. Adjust the settings to accomodate restrictions
on uploaded file sizes.

Uploading to the BPC gallery.

Uploading your multi-photo canvas to the BPC gallery is the same as uploading any other single-photo image. Sign in, click on "My Account", then "My Galleries", then "My Images", then "+Add Images". Browse to the location of your file and click "Upload." (I keep a folder on my computer called "Upload" and this is where I store all of the files I have prepared for upload.) Once your image is uploaded, you can add it to your class gallery and add a title and description as usual.

Upload your image to the gallery as usual.

Adding a photo inside a message board post.

There are two ways to reference an image from a BPC message board post. This can be an image in the BPC gallery, or anywhere online. In this tutorial, I'll use an image in the BPC gallery as an example.

The easiest way is to link it. First, you want to upload your image to the gallery. Then, either through "My Gallery" in your account, or through your class gallery, navigate to the image you want, but stay in the gallery - don't click on your image. What you want to do is right-click on the thumbnail of your image and select "Copy Shortcut." This will copy the web address for the page that has your image on it. In the message board, you can now start a new post (or edit an existing post). To add a link, just paste the web address from your computer's clipboard into the post (press Ctrl-V on a PC). Or you can type some text (for example "click here to see my layouts"), highlight the text with your cursor, and then click on the hyperlink button at the top of the post editing window (it's the icon that looks like Earth with a little piece of chain). In the pop-up box, hit Ctrl-V to paste the web address into the box marked URL. Click "ok" and and you're done!

Right-click on the thumbnail from the gallery view & choose "Copy Shortcut."

You can either use hyperlinked text or simply paste the web address
directly into the text of your post.

The other way to reference an image is to actually insert that image into the body of your post. Once again, you'll want to start by uploading your image to the gallery. Navigate to the image you want, but this time open up the page that features your image (the page where people can leave comments). Right-click on the image, and once again select "Copy Shortcut". This is going to copy the web address of the actual image. In a new post (or editing an existing post), click on the little yellow icon in the toolbar (it looks like a sun over some mountains). When you hover over this icon, a little box that says "Insert/Edit Image" should pop up. Click on this icon. This will open the "Image Properties" dialog box. With your cursor in the URL field, hit Ctrl-V to paste the address (which should end with .jpg). Don't worry about all those other fields, just click "Ok". Chances are your image will be too big for the post editor. That's ok! You can leave it super-big (the thread will automatically re-format to accomodate the size of your image) or you can play with the resizing handles to make it smaller (which is what I do). Submit your post and you're done!

Right-click on the actual image and select "Copy Shortcut." This won't
work if you're still in the gallery view. You must be on the image's feature page.

Paste the .jpg address into the URL field to insert your image into your post.

Drag the resizing handles to reduce the size of your image. Pay attention to the
shape of your 12x12 layouts, as these handles apparently don't lock the aspect ratio,
even when you use the corner handles.

I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I will do my best to answer them. See you in class! :)

~Heather H

My process.

2011-03-15T16:55:00.003-05:00

My completed layout. Click image to enlarge.

So I've been thinking a lot lately about my process and thought I'd share it with you. I took notes (and a few photos) the other day when I was creating the layout you see above.

My process actually starts when I upload my photos. Sometimes before, if I'm shooting photos with a specific layout in mind. :) Anyway, after I uploaded these photos, I printed a contact sheet. As you can see, I recorded the date (back in June 2008), and a possible title that came to mind when I looked at these photos: She Loves You. I filed this page, in chronological order, in my son's album planning binder (just a regular 3-ring binder from the office supply store).

Contact sheet from my album planning binder. Layout title idea and photo date at the top. Journaling at the bottom.

And there it sat, until February 28. 2011. I actually was avoiding scrapping it, because although I had a title idea, I didn't have a clue what I was going to write for journaling, and for some reason, with this layout, just the title didn't seem like enough. Then in February, I saw Karen Grunberg's layout Loved and Adored and instantly knew the journaling was perfect. She wrote, "Most kids are loved and adored by their parents. But you, my son, have the added joy of being loved and adored by your big brother. It's a big privilege." I made a couple of changes to suit my layout, but kept most of her words: I replaced brother with sister (obviously, since William doesn't have a big brother), and changed the last line to "Lucky boy" (this last change actually coming when I was writing the journaling on the layout).

Finally inspired to scrap these photos, I flipped through my inspiration notebook until I found a layout to scraplift.

My inspiration.

I processed my photos in Photoshop Elements 7, resized, and uploaded them to Mpix for eventual order. Then I printed drafts of my photos as part of a week's worth of layouts.

Once I sat down to actually create the layout, I started by matting my photos on white cardstock. I noticed I have the same Heidi Swapp transparent clocks as the inspiration, so I pulled mine out of my stash to use. I found a border sticker I wanted to use. I pulled out my butterfly drawer, and I dove into my stash of patterned paper. I ended up with a polka dot from My Mind's Eye and a stripe from Basic Grey Periphery.

The start of my creative process: picking out supplies.

At this point I was interrupted to pick up the kids from school. When I got started up again, I realized I should time myself, and noticed it was 4:20pm. First I inked the edges of my background with Chalk Ink in Charcoal. Then I sprayed Maya Road Glimmer Mist in Bubblegum (pink) and Carribbean Blue on the background.

Customizing the background with ink and Glimmer Mist.

Next I cut a 2-inch strip from the stripe pattern on my new trimmer (which I am loving, by the way!) and inked the edges.

I am loving the 12" guillotine trimmer from Tonic Studios.

I decided the strip needed some more interest so I put it through my favorite border punch, Apron Lace by Fiskars. I inked the lacy edge and adhered the strip to my background. Then I adhered the clock. (I just used my regular American Crafts This N That permanent adhesive on the bottom half of the clock, knowing it would be hidden behind the photos.) I adhered border sticker next, although it made me kind of sad to cover up so much of it because it really is so pretty. At this point I decided the layout needed another horizontal layer, so I dug into my ribbon stash. I already had an idea which butterfly I wanted to use (I've been wanting to use it for a while now), and I knew I wanted to add some more green to my page, so I picked out a green ribbon that was still sitting out on my desk after working on my December Daily album. I adhered the ribbon with regular adhesive as well. (I do like my Xyron X150, and use it often, but I knew the ribbon would be held well in place by the photos.) Next I adhered photos. I generally prefer my photos straight, rather than tilted, so I lined them up straighter than they were in the inspiration. The butterfly needed some work to better match my page, so I inked the edges, and went over the brown pattern with my black Slick Writer. Hello, perfectionism. LOL

For embellishments, I picked out some bling - some old Prima swirls whose packaging I am happy to finally see empty lol - and cut it apart into sections that worked better for me. I stuck it down without too much trouble. Then I wrote my journaling directly on the background, with the changes I noted above. I observed with some interest that while I have no problem scraplifting a design, or even copying others' photos, for some reason using others' journaling bothers me. Of course, you'll notice I did it anyway. lol I tried 2 different sets of letter stickers for my title before settling on my first choice.

At 5:30 it was done. I stared at it for a while, feeling that it needed something else horizontal to the left of the butterfly and to the right of the highest photo, but not sure what. I flipped through a bunch of stickers and borders but didn't find anything. I second-guessed my decision to use pink letters for the word "you." The husband said it was just fine though so I left it, and as I couldn't figure out what else to do with it, decided it must really be done after all.

And that's it! Layout complete - a page a day for 5 days in a row (at the time - I'm up to 16 now). Only 40 more days to reach my goal! :)

One Little Word | February + Blog Hop

2011-03-01T10:00:00.226-06:00

Welcome back, fellow OLW blog hoppers! :)

"Faith" in February.

I knew when I started this journey at the beginning of January that it would lead to me to some unexpected places. And that was for sure the case in February! I've been waiting for my word to "speak" to me, to "surprise" me, as people are saying, and in all honesty I was getting a little frustrated and impatient. I just wasn't feeling it. I think I was maybe focused a bit too much on the word itself, and forgetting to keep my mind open to the mysterious ways that God works in our lives. Which is really kind of the whole point of my word (or a large part, anyway). Finally, it hit me... In February I was being called to work on my perfectionism. (For those of you who may not know, I am a certified, card-carrying, type-A perfectionist. In all areas of my life, not just scrapping.) First, while browsing the bookshelves at the library, I came across this book: Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception. It intrigued me, so I checked it out, read it, and liked it. Around the same time, Big Picture Classes ran a new two-week class mid-month (free, no less!) called Embracing Imperfection. Wow. What an amazing class. Reading and participating on the message boards was like therapy, really. It really awakened me to all sorts of possibilities of ways that I can re-examine my life and make some changes. Changes that are likely to bring more peace into my life (perfectionism can be very stressful). I loved the class, I got a ton out of it (I expect its impact may reverberate through my life for a very long time), and I also really liked the teacher, Karen Grundberg, and her style of teaching. So much so, in fact, that I've also signed up for her next class at BPC (that started last week), Finding Your Way. It's all about the search for authenticity in your scrapbooking style, and I'm excited to see where it will lead over the next couple of months.

A few entries in my "Acting on Faith" log this month:

February 2, 2011: Today I started reading Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. Through this book I hope to find greater understanding of and empathy for young American Muslims.

February 3, 2011: Today I finished reading Praying with Katie: God, My Cat, and Me. Definitely an interesting little book. I liked that it had a different perspective and that it made me think about my relationship with God in a different way. The difference was refreshing.

February 9, 2011: Today Embracing Imperfection started at Big Picture Classes. Just listening to the initial slide presentation, I think I have a lot of work to do!

February 17, 2011: Today as I was driving Hannah to her piano lesson, I was thinking about embracing imperfection. Suddenly I noticed the marquee at G- Christian Church: “Welcome to your journey.” Well said, Lord.

February's OLW project: photos of Faith.

Sadly, this is where I really dropped the ball. I think I let myself get dragged down by the initial disillusionment of my word this month, and then after all the self-examination got started, I just got swept away into other things. I also decided I didn't want a bunch of pictures of my literal word, as I was first thinking. So then I had to reach deeper, creatively, and try to figure out some photos to take that would be more representative in a figurative sense of what I am wanting from my word this year. And sometimes that's not so easy. I did some brainstorming though, so in lieu of photos I thought I would share my ideas with you (I know, it's not as interesting, sorry!). In the list below, the first part of each item is one component of my word; after the colon is my photo idea(s).

Strengthen my faith, find a church home: a church
Faith that my son William will overcome his autism (read this post if you'd like more details on that) and that God won't give me more than I can handle: William, puzzle pieces
Faith that the world will go on post-2012: Earth (as seen from space), a 2013 calendar
Faith in myself: me
Faith that I am strong enough to do the things I need to do and get my life in order: free weights?
Faith to persevere through the changes in our life: the building where my husband works? (as this mostly has to do with changes in his job environment and uncertainty in the future)
Faith that I can overcome my clinical depression: my antidepressants
Faith that I can overcome my (Type II) diabetes: my blood sugar testing equipment
Faith that I can lose the weight I need to: a scale
Faith that God is in charge of my life and through Him I can have peace: a cross?
Having faith in others: a friend, my mother
Faith that someone else can take care of my kids as well as me: someone else with my kids
Faith that reaching out to others won't always end in rejection: 2 hands reaching towards each other
Faith that I am worthy of true friendship, and allowing that to develop: a friend
Inspiring others' faith in me: email, a telephone

It's for that last item that I actually do have a picture (taken last April as part of my Week in the Life project):

You might notice that some of the items in my list above have question marks, indicating that I am unsure. So if you have any brilliant ideas for photos I could take, please share! :)

Finally, I'd just like to mention that I have finally finished my December Daily album for 2010! I will be updating my December posts with photos and comments of my album. In the meantime, the album can be seen in its entirety at Flickr: December Daily 2010.

That's it for now! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Next blog in the hop: Cindy at Serious Play or start from the beginning of the blog hop with Margie at Xnomads.

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

If you're lost in the blog hop, here's the complete list:
Margie: http://xnomads.typepad.com/
Monica: http://scraplifters.blogspot.com/
Jill: http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
Miranda: http://mirandasscrapsite.blogspot.com/
Donna: http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com/
Lynn: http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Stacey: http://www.TheAcornGarden.com/blog
Lisa: http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog
Cassie: http://craftycassiescorner.blogspot.com/
Abbey: http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
Nicky: http://seejanebake.blogspot.com/
Holly: http://lovingrobots.blogspot.com/
Karen: http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/
Claudia: http://creative-moms.com/
Rebekah: http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Kimberly: http://foreverdaisies.blogspot.com/
Kat: http://www.katswonderings.blogspot.com/
Kristina: http://ciqis.blogspot.com/
Jan: http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/
Nikki: http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Amanda: http://www.scrappnbee.blogspot.com/
Lisa: http://luluoz.typepad.com/
Sam: http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
Maureen: http://cookingmylife.blogspot.com/
Kristi: http://theprojectofme.wordpress.com/
Tere: http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/
Karen: http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/
Katrina: http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/
Monica: http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Mandy: http://captureandcreate.wordpress.com/
Lisa: http://makeyourownescape.blogspot.com/
Chrissy: http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/
Lee: http://linarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife/
Jen: http://www.byjen.com/
Sylvia: http://baxtersmom1.blogspot.com/
Christianne: http://christiannemarra.blogspot.com/
Cheri: http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Joy: http://www.undiscoveredjoy.blogspot.com/
Beth: http://justbebeth.wordpress.com/
Jennifer: http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Kathryn: http://www.katlodesigns.com/
Heather: http://scrappyhare.blogspot.com/ <--YOU ARE HERE
Cindy: http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Cynthiau: http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/

December Daily 2010 | Thoughts

2011-02-25T20:20:00.002-06:00

It's done! My very first December Daily album. :) Here's my thoughts on the process:

Having a premade foundation is definitely a good thing. I don't know that I could have finished this project if I'd had to create each page from scratch during the holidays.
I loved the 6x8 format! It was just enough space for my photos and journaling, and a little bit of something fun.
I liked having all the main pages the same size. It created a nice boundary between the days and a nice home for the odd-size pages I added in extra (photos, tickets, etc).
I liked the ease of the digital templates but I'm definitely happier with the hybrid pages over the pure digital versions.
It is totally ok not to finish until the end of January - or even the end of February. :)
Just taking the daily photos and doing the daily writing is enough to do during the holidays! The fact that I was able to keep up with the photos and journaling is what allowed me to finish the album so quickly. And I never would have remembered all those stories in so much detail had I not written about them that day (or the next morning).
It was hard to keep up with creating the pages during December. Partly this was simply because that month is so busy, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that I don't print my photos at home, yet I like to handwrite on my photos and layer scrapbooking product over the edges.
I need more patterned paper next year; I liked each day having its own design.
I loved that I had a place for ticket stubs and such.
I will do it again next year for sure, so that we can capture Christmas as we celebrate with my side of the family. But after that? I'm not so sure that I want or even need to do it every year. Right now I'm thinking every 3-5 years.

I'm in the process of adding photos of my album pages to the respective blog posts, but you can see the entire album here on Flickr.

This post is part of a series. To see all posts relating to December Daily, please click here.

Diagnosis: Autism.

2011-02-18T17:23:00.003-06:00

We knew it was coming, really. After all, his sister is autistic, and that meant it was 6% more likely that he would be too. And in a way (in a big way, actually), that foreknowledge is a blessing, because it has made the news we got today much easier to accept. I had such a hard time with that with Hannah.

All things considered, though, it could be worse. It could be much worse. Overall, he is just fine - he tended to test right in the center of the "average" score range. When he decided to cooperate with the test, that is. His major area of deficiency is with pragmatic language (which is the application of his acquired language skills to social situations). They also identified a delay in his fine motor skills - though I'm certain that that's something that would naturally improve as he gets older, anyway, even without intervention. He also has major problems with compliance and self-care (read: potty-training).

So now it is up to us to decide the next course of action. He will likely be enrolled in the pre-K class at the public elementary school (thankfully, the same one Hannah attends). It's unclear right now if he will continue attending Mother's Day Out at the church.

Book Review | Be Happy Without Being Perfect

2011-02-18T09:22:00.002-06:00

Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception by Alice D. Domar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an interesting book. I have a lot of issues with perfectionism, so it definitely applied to me. I liked how the author presented examples of how her solutions would be applied in a variety of situations. Although I don't think it's strong enough to be the *only* book of its kind that I rely on, it will be a valuable tool in my arsenal against perfectionism.

View all my reviews

Book Review | A Reliable Wife

2011-02-18T09:14:00.002-06:00

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was fantastic, in fact when I finished it I was tempted to dive right in again. I found myself sympathizing with the main male character, Ralph, and hoping for a happy ending.

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Book review | Praying with Katie: God, My Cat, and Me

2011-02-18T09:10:00.002-06:00

Praying With Katie God, My Cat, And Me by Don Holt

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought this book had an interesting take on the God/human relationship. Definitely a perspective that hadn't occurred to me before, and that was refreshing.

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One Little Word | January + Blog Hop

2011-02-01T10:00:00.003-06:00

Welcome to my blog.

Today I'm participating in a blog hop as part of the One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes. So if you're new to my blog, welcome! :) Although I've had this blog for a number of years, unfortunately I've had a bad habit in the past of forgetting to update it... So not too many posts. I also don't post a ton of pictures (mostly laziness lol), though I've made an exception for y'all today. ;) If you're looking for more photos and projects, you can check out my work on 2Peas and Flickr.

One Little Word: Faith in Action.

My One Little Word for 2011 is Faith. (Check out this post if you'd like to read more about my word and what I hope to achieve with it in 2011.)

Title page for my OLW album.
Click image to enlarge.

One thing I did while I was researching my word was look up the definitions for all of the synonyms. This is something I learned in French class in high school: various words can all mean vaguely the same thing, but can often have very different connotations, and ultimately, different meanings. Sure enough, some of the synonyms didn't end up making it onto my layout, because I didn't feel that the meanings they embodied were really what I wanted to convey. On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised by several of the words, being so specifically related to the non-religious side of what Faith means to me. I will likely print out these extra words (and their definitions) and slip them into my album in an 8.5x11" page protector.

Exploring my word. Click image to enlarge.

I'm still waiting for my word to "surprise me," as they say, although I see it nearly everyday, mostly in the many churches I pass on the road. Only a few entries in my "Acting on Faith" log this month:

January 4, 2011: Today I am being inspired by reading through passages in the Bible as I search for relevant quotes. I especially like the book of Romans. I also signed up on About.com for a Bible verse to be emailed to me each day.

January 7, 2011: Today I bought some songs about faith on iTunes. Then I added a book to my list in Goodreads. I intend to go to the library and read some books on faith throughout the year.

January 23, 2011: Today I finished reading After the Baby Boomers by Robert Wuthnow. A disappointment, given that I am generally fascinated by sociology, and especially if you’re talking about my own generation. I gave it only 1 star on Goodreads: “The last chapter was everything that I needed to know about this book. Of course, I didn't get there until I had waded through the previous 213 pages. The concept of the book was interesting, but the text of the book itself, I felt, was exceedingly dry. Waaaaay too many statistics in the actual text for me. I was sucked in at the library by the subject, and the catchy chapter titles. Too bad the chapter contents didn't live up to the character of their titles, because this could have been a really interesting book.”

You'll notice (if you are a classmate) that my self-portrait is conspicuously absent from this post. That's because I procrastinated taking it until just a few days ago. I have randomly uploaded one to have printed for my album (at my favorite developer, Mpix). I may change it out at some point during the year, and I may decide to just go with it. No commitment.

Well I guess that's it for January! Thanks for stopping by! :) I can't wait to see what Ali has in store for us in February, and throughout the coming year...

Next blog: Life on Lilypad Lane

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

Christmas cards.

2011-01-30T15:23:00.004-06:00

Last year I read on Ali Edwards' blog about a great project she does with her Christmas cards every year. So I set mine aside. Of course, I never actually got around to doing anything about it. Until now! :) So starting with all the cards we received this year, I used a 2" square punch to punch out designs from card fronts, photo cards, and Christmas letters, and then mounted them on a sheet of 8x8" cardstock. I chose to use this smaller size because we don't get a ton of Christmas cards each year (Ali's is 12x12"). I also filled in some empty spaces with the signatures from the insides of cards. I added the year with some glitter chipboard number stickers.

I went back as far as I could, making a page for each year. I ended up with a page for each year from 2006-2010, and one page that uses bits and pieces from 2000-2005. But for most years I only had one page, and I wanted a little something more. One option would have been to mount our own family Christmas card on cardstock for the left page - except that I've been pretty bad about actually sending out cards in recent years. Lately I've been loving using really big pictures (when I finally post my 2010 December Daily album you'll see what I mean), so that's what I decided to do here. The final format for each year (again, except for 2008 which had more cards, and more photos, than the other years) ended up being: left page, big family photo; right page, collage of Christmas cards. I love it! No stressing, no thinking. No agonizing over embellishment placement or journaling. And it was fast: I put the whole thing together last night (about 6 hours). I plan to get an 8x8 album (probably red), and display it in our home each year during the holidays. Click on the images if you'd like to see them larger.

If you're one of those people like I am that feels guilty about getting rid of things like Christmas cards, yet you don't want to (or have the space to) store piles of them for years on end, this is a great project that provides the best of both worlds.

Resisting this process.

2011-01-29T18:49:00.004-06:00

With just a few days left until February, today I decided I should probably buckle down and take that self-portrait that I'm supposed to have for my One Little Word album.

I hate taking pictures of myself.

With some help from Chris, I took 47 pictures of myself this afternoon. 25 of them were deleted almost immediately (most were blurry or out of focus). In the end I had 5 photos that made the final cut:

Holding on to faith (#1)

Holding on to faith (#2)

By faith, not by sight

Leap of faith

Praying for faith

They pale in comparison with the amazing inspiration I was working with (I've just linked to them here since I can't get Blogger to embed the images directly from Flickr... I guess the uploader isn't working? something about the URL incorrect or some other B.S.):

In my defense, I am not a professional photographer. I have a nice camera (a Canon Rebel XTi), but I do not own professional equipment or have access to a well-lit studio. I am not a model. Nor do I spend hours in post-processing. However. I must admit to a certain amount of dissastisfaction with my own images. They look so much more like casual snapshots than carefully-planned photographs. The suburban background is simultaneously mundane and distracting. And anyone who knows me knows well what I think about pictures of myself... ;)

I actually have a bunch more inspirational images bookmarked on my Flickr account, but they all feature some kind of beautiful necklace with a cross. I have one such necklace... somewhere. It is small and gold and delicate, and it was a gift to me from my godparents on the occasion of my baptism. Some years ago the chain broke, but I know I still have it. I know I do. So if any of you happen to know where I left it, I'd be much obliged if you'd let me know. ;)

Speaking of letting me know... I'd love it if you'd leave a comment telling me which photo you think I should use as the opening photo for my One Little Word album. Which photo speaks to you?

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

Clarity.

2011-01-18T14:14:00.006-06:00

I had something of a "breakthrough" moment while I was driving home from yoga class this morning... Recently my weight loss has stalled and I've been trying to think about ways that I can change to get it started going again.

One of my big issues is eating late at night. So I started thinking, well, why do I do that? I think part of it is to help my body keep going as I stay up late. So what if I went to bed a little earlier? Then I wouldn't need to eat at night. And suddenly it dawned on me, I used to have sleep issues. I had terrible trouble falling asleep. Sometimes I'd lay there for hours before I finally fell asleep. So maybe what I need now is FAITH that I can fall asleep at night without being dead-dog tired from staying up late! And I need to have FAITH that my body will get all the nourishment it needs during the day, and I'm not going to starve if I don't eat every 4 hours around the clock. And when I realized all this, it was like, all of a sudden everything was perfectly clear. Of course! Now as I type this, I'm wondering how long this knowledge was simmering in my subconscious. So I should add, I need to listen more to what my body tells me, and have FAITH that it knows what's best for me. :)

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

Faith is a scary word.

2011-01-07T20:26:00.006-06:00

Is anyone else a little scared of their word, and what it might bring in 2011? My word is Faith, which doesn't sound all that scary, until I realized the enormity (for a type-A control freak like me) of handing my life over to God's hands and willing that He bring into my life exactly what I need right now. Whether that's something I think I need or not.

A big part of my journey to Faith this year is going to be working towards having faith in myself (and in others). Faith that someone else can take care of my kids as well as I can. Faith that reaching out to people won't always end in rejection. Faith that I am worthy of true friendship, and allowing that to develop.

I found a quote today that I really feel speaks volumes to this topic:

“As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.” Emmanuel Teney

Definitely something I need to keep in mind as I work on that letting-go of control.

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

Tips for sewing on paper.

2011-01-07T19:30:00.003-06:00

Use a fairly sturdy needle - I usually use a size 11 or 14. Paper is tougher to sew through than fabric, but the bigger the needle, the bigger the hole in your paper.
Use a longer stitch length on paper than you do on fabric; if you go for super-tiny stitches it could actually tear your paper.
Practice on similar-weight paper before you stitch on your layout, so you can adjust the tension, stitch length, etc and get a feel for it.
Go slow, and be prepared to help move the paper through the machine. Sometimes the feed dogs don't like to move the paper along (and that's especially true with page protectors or anything with a slick finish).
Use a spot of adhesive if you're sewing two or more pieces of paper together, but not in the path you're going to stitch. Adhesive on the needle will gum up your machine.
Keep your needle for sewing on paper separate from your needles for sewing on fabric. Paper dulls a needle very quickly.

Have fun! Machine stitching is an easy way to add texture and dimension your cards and layouts.

One Little Word for 2011.

2011-01-04T18:32:00.005-06:00

My word for 2011 is FAITH. It chose me about a week ago as I was thinking about the next year and trying to pick a word.

I feel like I’m being called to strengthen my FAITH – as in, finally find a church home here. We’ve lived in this city for 10 years but never found a church we were truly at home in.

I need to have FAITH as my son is tested for autism – faith that everything will be ok and that God won’t give me more than I can handle.

FAITH that the world will go on post-2012 (which makes me more anxious than I care to admit!).

FAITH in myself, that I am strong enough to do the things I need to do: get my life in order, persevere through the changes in our life that are happening right now (new NASA contracts mean my husband is changing companies although his job is the same), fight the depression and the diabetes and all the extra weight that (literally) weighs me down.

FAITH that God is in charge of my life and that through Him I can have peace in my mind and in my heart.

It’s a little bit of a scary word for me; when you let God take the reins you never know what will happen!! But I feel like this is what I need to do right now. For sure it will be an interesting journey!

This post is part of a series. Click here to see all posts relating to my One Little Word.

December Daily | Day 18.

2010-12-18T20:08:00.001-06:00

A sick girl was not part of my plan for the holidays. A happy girl, a creative girl, a smart girl, a silly playful girl, even a girl with an attitude was expected. But not a girl who naps on the couch in the middle of the day. Who does nothing but lie there and watch Christmas movies when she's awake because her temperature is 102.9 and she doesn't feel good.

I hope you feel better soon, sweetheart.

December Daily | Day 14.

2010-12-14T21:54:00.002-06:00

Click photo to enlarge.

Dear Hannah,

Tonight you had your very first piano recital. And you were fantastic. You have worked so hard this semester, and it really shows. I really didn't expect you to want to practice every day, but you did (mostly). Actually, you have surpassed everyone's expectations, right from the very beginning. From that very first day you sat down at Ms. Amanda's piano and learned your first song with both hands simultaneously, to the ease with which you are flying through the first volume of piano studies, to the evident love you have for music theory, to the apparent comfort with which you performed your pieces on the recital, you have amazed everyone. It is so obvious that the music comes easily and naturally to you. And I hope - I pray - that it is a gift that you will nurture and cherish for the rest of your life. I am so very, very proud of you.

Love,
Mom

December Daily | Day 13.

2010-12-13T19:39:00.002-06:00

Don't get me wrong - I have a wish list every year. It's just been a long time since I wrote to Santa! But if Ali can do it, so can I, right? LOL So here goes.

Dear Santa,

You've probably been wondering if I even still believe in you, after all these years. Well rest assured, I do! Watching Hannah write her letter to you every year still warms my heart. She is so intent, and so specific. And she loves you so much. And I loved watching William get in on the action for the first time this year. I don't really think he really understood what the purpose was, but he was certainly more than happy to add his special artistic touches of color to the letter I wrote for him. As for me... Santa, I'd love a big fancy tree skirt to put under my Christmas tree. And a media cabinet to hide all these game systems the kids are collecting. And a set of beautiful furniture for my bedroom, so it doesn't look so unfinished anymore. And a lot of other really expensive things. But mostly, Santa, what I want is peace. And happiness. And security in this fast-changing world. And strength to weather the storms.

I hope you have room on your sleigh.

Merry Christmas with love from

Heather

December Daily | Day 12.

2010-12-12T22:28:00.001-06:00

Tonight I brought the family with me out to the gig I was playing at Heights Baptist Church in Alvin. It was a great show! The kids really enjoyed the live nativity they had set up outside. The pygmy goats were very chatty! And of course William had to climb in and check out the vacated sheep pen. (Highly hygenic, I'm sure.) Amazingly, the show had enough energy and variation that it held even my kids' attention... at least through the first half. The music was fantastic - lots of rock and Southern gospel. And the choir and soloists were very into their performances, which gave the music a lot of energy and just made the whole experience a lot of fun. Hannah even joined the other children in the parade led by the hippo from I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas and wound up dancing onstage! I'm sure the two slices of cake she had (before dinner!) had nothing to do with that...

December Daily | Day 9.

2010-12-09T15:45:00.003-06:00

Do you see what I see?

I see a big girl who will sit still for a picture - but she will not smile.

I see a little boy who is willing to smile for a picture - if Mommy can catch him.

I see 2 kids who are growing up too fast.

I see a girl who is as smart as she is beautiful.

I see a boy who is joyful and full of love for life.

I see 2 kids who love each other immensely - even if they don't always get along.

I see love.
I see joy.
I see hope.

I see Christmas.

Today was full of challenges. The computer kept freezing up on me, slowing me down. Things not working and I don't know how to fix them. Looking for answers and can't find them. The children fighting with each other, and not cooperating with me, either. Not getting things done before it was time for me to leave for work. Lots of little frustrations and irritations, all piled on top of each other. On top of me. Today I'm just trying to remember to breathe. To keep it simple. To keep things in perspective. To see past the things that get me down and be thankful for all the many good things in my life. To remember that these days do not last forever. I can make tomorrow better.

December Daily | Day 8.

2010-12-08T23:57:00.001-06:00

I love listening to Christmas music. It really gets me in the mood for Christmas. My favorite songs to sing along with are the old ones: Louis Armstrong, Eartha Kitt, Bing Crosby. A lot of the songs I love are ones my parents played on LP when I was a kid: Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, the Carpenters. This year I was able to find a lot of those on Amazon and download them for my iPod. It has been really nice being able to take my Christmas music along with me wherever I go! I have a large collection of classical Christmas music too, which I've enjoyed on quiet evenings spent scrapbooking. It's also the perfect background to opening presents on Christmas morning.

December Daily | Day 7.

2010-12-07T15:46:00.002-06:00

Today I finished up our Christmas shopping. Lots of gift cards this year; it's not my first choice for a gift but lots of people are asking for them. Wal-Mart for my nieces, Sears for my in-laws, Best Buy for Chris' brothers. Jewelry for one of Chris' grandmas. A dinosaur for my nephew Aidan and adorable baby clothes for my new niece Kiera (so much fun shopping for a baby girl again!). Barbie and Polly Pocket and Nintendo DS games for Hannah. Fisher-Price Little People and cars and construction "tools" for William. A Wii from Santa, for everyone. Extra controllers (a pink one for Hannah, though she now says her favorite color is purple) and games. And as fast as the days before Christmas seem to be flying, somehow the money seems to be flowing [out, that is] even faster.

And oh yeah, three 2011 calendars I'm supposed to make. Hopefully using the Basic Grey kits will help me get them done before Christmas this year!

December Daily | Day 6.

2010-12-06T21:30:00.003-06:00

Today was just one of those ordinary December days. Chris & I were both so tired by the end of the day, we decided to get take-out from McDonald's and have a picnic dinner by the Christmas tree. We even put on a Christmas movie to watch while we ate (a rare event in our house).

I don't recall ever watching many Christmas movies when I was a kid, except for some version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (probably the Mickey Mouse one). And of course Jeff & I lived for the days that the Garfield or Peanuts Christmas specials would air on TV. Back in the days when I actually watched live TV. With commercials. LOL

As an adult, I have become attached to certain Christmas movies and now we have a short list we watch every year. My absolute favorites are National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story. This year, for the first time, we will share A Christmas Story and Home Alone with Hannah. And of course it's simply unthinkable at our house not to have a Barbie Christmas movie! Both of the kids love Christmas movies, old and new. Even the really old stuff like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It always amazes me that even after all these years, and all the innovations in movie-making, that these old films are not just still around but actually beloved by yet another generation.

In our Christmas DVD basket:

On our DVR for Christmas:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970)
The Polar Express (I really need to pick this up on DVD, but I haven't been able to get my hands on a widescreen format yet)
Mickey's Christmas Special (premiering this year on the ABC Family channel)
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976)
Disney Prep and Landing
Frosty the Snowman (1969)
Frosty Returns (1995)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original one with Boris Karloff)

December Daily | Day 5.

2010-12-05T20:44:00.002-06:00

All the good stuff at Target is already gone.

Reality check: You cannot go shopping for Christmas lights on December 5th and reasonably expect there to be anything left on the shelves.

I do this every year. I just can't get in the mood for Christmas until well after Halloween - no matter how much the retailers try to shove it down my throat earlier - and then my schedule is starting to get so busy that I don't even think about going shopping until it's actually December.

I guess the other part of the problem is that I really don't have a clear idea of what I want for the yard, other than that it should fit in with the candy + gingerbread theme we have going on. And of course it has to meet my standards for cuteness. ;)

December Daily | Day 4.

2010-12-04T23:29:00.001-06:00

William decorates the bottom 3 feet of our tree.

This afternoon we put up our Christmas tree - something that we typically do the first weekend in December, since we aren't usually home over Thanksgiving weekend. We start with the 9-foot prelit tree we bought last year. Then we add a few essential strings of colored lights around the middle: my favorite lights ever, lantern lights my parents bought in 1975. The tree just wouldn't be complete without them. Our garland is strings of red beads meant to look like strings of cranberries (as in days of old). Then the kids' favorite part - the ornaments. We have a hodgepodge collection of ornaments from my childhood and Chris', ornaments from Grandma Hare's and Grandma Howerton's collections, new ornaments we've picked up since we got married... and an assortment of unbreakable ornaments at the bottom of the tree, just for William. :) Some of our favorite ornaments include our baby ornaments, the kids' baby ornaments, our first house ornament, and several of the Hallmark bunny ornaments.

Finally, the star goes on top. We had to buy a new one last year, since the old star I grew up with finally gave up. The new one is super fancy, using fiber optics to change colors; it creates quite the colorful light show up on the ceiling. We don't have an official tree skirt yet; I've been shopping, but have yet to find one that fits both our tree and our budget and is pretty enough to suit me. ;)

Did I mention that the tree, with the star on top, has to be in just the right place in the living room, or it doesn't fit? Let's just say we neglected to account for the slope of the ceiling when we went tree shopping...

December Daily | Day 3.

2010-12-03T18:50:00.002-06:00

The CLS horn section after the concert (and a few margaritas!).

The Christmas concert: truly at the heart of practically everything I do during the month of December. Sometimes rehearsals and shows take me away from home more than I'd like; and sometimes I am all too grateful to be able to escape the house. But I love it! I love playing the horn, and I love that I can have friends and a life outside my family. I love going out for margaritas after the concert. ;) But I also love that Chris and the kids come listen and watch me play. I love sharing my gift with them, especially at Christmas. And if it really is the same arrangement of Sleigh Ride that I've been playing for the past 20 years, well this is the time of year when traditions seem to matter most. When they mean the most. So saddle up that horse and sleigh, and pass me a peach mojito!

December Daily | Day 2.

2010-12-02T23:28:00.004-06:00

This is our usual Advent calendar, which we've been enjoying every Christmas since 2001. Probably the only thing we ever bought out of a mail-order catalog that we've actually kept. lol

This is Hannah, asking can she have a new Advent calendar this year that has treats in it.

This is me, looking online and finding out they now make cool Advent calendars for kids with toys in them.

This is Chris, running to Wal-Mart at midnight to see if they have the Polly Pocket Holiday Calendar, because if they don't, I can order it online for a reasonable price. But it has to be done before 6am, and we are so not morning people. (And as long as he's there, picking up Aidan's Christmas present.)

This is me, ordering the calendar online and springing for 2-day shipping, so my girl can have her present 5 days earlier.

This is Hannah, excited because she gets not just a treat but a new toy every day until Christmas.

This is William, excited because now he gets to pull all the bricks from Santa's chimney himself.

This is what makes all the effort totally worth it for me and for Chris. :)

There's something really fun and exciting about an Advent calendar. I think maybe it's just being able to see, visually, Christmas morning getting closer and closer. I remember when I was a kid, my mom always got me a Hallmark Advent calendar. They were different Victorian buildings and each day had a charming little picture behind the door or window. It was always so much fun to hunt each day for the little door with the right number and see what the picture was.

Anticipation made tangible.

December Daily | Day 1.

2010-12-01T23:22:00.006-06:00

Around our house, the first sure sign of December is the appearance of Jack the Elf. He comes from the North Pole to hang out at our house during the first 24 days of December to observe the kids' behavior, and reports back to Santa at night. Every morning he is in a new spot, and it's a great game of hide-and-seek for Hannah to find him before she goes to school; William hasn't noticed him yet. When Hannah told her classmates at school about Jack, they informed her that they didn't have an elf at their house, her reply was that they must not be looking hard enough. Love that.

The highlight of my day was watching the sunset over the city from the 49th floor of the Shell building, where my horn choir was playing a gig at a private Christmas party at The Downtown Club. The view was absolutely amazing; the sunset was totally magical. Definitely a great way to start this season of wonder.

A first: Thanksgiving at our house.

2010-11-29T16:22:00.004-06:00

Chris and I have been married for over 10 years and this is the first year we were actually able to have Thanksgiving at our house! So cool. The only thing that could have made it any better is if I hadn't been sick for 4 days leading up to the big day. (Vomiting and everything - yuck!)

I started early with the cooking, making the Brandied Sweet Potatoes, Spiced Pumpkin Bread, and frozen pumpkin pie on Wednesday. That made it a whole lot easier for me on Thursday, although I ended up with a lot of extra time on Thursday once we found out that my mom wouldn't be at our house until at least 5pm. (So much for my plan to have Thanksgiving dinner between 2-4pm, like the rest of the country.)

Thursday morning I slept in - not really part of my original plan for this day and definitely not part of my "ideal Thanksgiving at home" I was trying to create, but when you're recovering from being sick, well... Sometimes your body has ideas of its own. We had set the DVR to record the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I hadn't seen since I was a little kid, but was as magical as I remember it. :) At some point in the early afternoon I popped the turkey into the oven; just a 13-pounder as that's all my tiny wall oven can handle, but it was still plenty of meat (and gravy! yum) for 3 meals. During the afternoon I made the Tart Cranberry Sauce, and once the turkey was out of the oven I baked the sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and warmed up the pumpkin bread. The table was set with our wedding china and crystal and a lovely floral centerpiece, my mother brought her silver, and the whole setup glowed softly by candlelight.

It was perfect. Since I did all the cooking there wasn't any arguments over who would make what or which version of what recipe. I got to cook in my own kitchen - where I am literally completely at home - and didn't even have to haul anything over to anyone else's house. Somehow I managed to get all of the food hot & ready to serve and on the table all at the same time. No reheating needed (which is good, since we haven't had a working microwave in about 2 years now). Everything tasted fantastic.

It was probably the euphoric high from the success of the dinner that made Chris and I go out to Toys R Us that night for the start of their Black Friday sale. I have never done that before - and I can say pretty confidently that I don't think I'll ever do that again. LOL We took our place at the end of the line at 10:15pm (15 minutes after they opened - that was our 1st mistake), a good couple hundred yards from the store. We heard a rumor that it would take 2 hours to make our way to the front of the line. Furthermore, the cold front that had been idling its way south all day had finally pushed through, dropping the temperature a good 30 degrees and sprinkling everything with intermittent showers, to boot. On the other hand, Mom was at home with the (sleeping) kids, and it was just the 2 of us... We decided it was an adventure. We froze, but we laughed. We fully admitted that we had lost our minds. We made friends with the people around us. We wished Starbucks was open. We were tempted by the guys that drove by selling hot chocolate out of the back of their truck but then decided we weren't ready for that much adventure. LOL Two hours and 15 minutes later, at 12:30am, we finally made it into the store... where we discovered that the one thing from the ad that we wanted to buy was sold out. Of course. We did pick up the rest of the items on our list, and a couple were actually on sale, but the sad reality is that everything we bought that night could have been bought the day before, or a week later, at the same price and without having to stand in line in the cold, rainy dark. Ah, c'est la vie! We did pick up some hot chocolate at McDonald's on the way home... which we drank in a moving vehicle... and seared the taste buds off our tongues!
Black Friday we didn't leave the house until after noon. Mom and Hannah and I had decided to go catch the new Disney movie Tangled at the theater, but it was sold out, so we went ahead and bought tickets for Saturday. Not wanting to go back home right away, we ventured out for a little shopping at Hancock Fabrics and Joann's. No crowds to speak of, though by the time we were done it was almost 5:30pm.

Saturday we went to the movie theater again, getting there an hour early for our show. Mom and I were surprised how quickly the time passed while we were waiting. When the previous show let out, it was funny to see a virtual parade of girls (of all ages) decked out in pink. :) Tangled was fantastic. Disney definitely knows their stuff! Yet I was still kind of surprised how much Mom enjoyed it - she was actually laughing out loud, even at the previews! Can't wait for it to come out on DVD and add it to our collection.

Sunday we went out to lunch at BJ's - no wait there either. We did run into a friend, which was a nice surprise. And plenty of leftovers for dinner that night.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. I wish we could do it every year.

Note to self.

2010-04-13T10:52:00.002-05:00

Layout circa 2004.

Yesterday I took a cue from Ali Edwards (yes, another one LOL) and I took a look back at Hannah's baby layouts. Thinking about what I like about them, what I'd like to do differently in William's album. And it was pretty clear - over and over again, I'd like to see more of the story. I remember feeling like I had this big stack of cute baby pictures and "nothing to say." And to a certain extent, that's still true today, especially with the event photos that I take every year. I've come to accept that sometimes it's okay not to have any words. Like at the pumpkin patch or Easter egg hunt. Unless, of course, something newsworthy happens that year.

My scrapbooking process almost always starts with the photos. The exception to that might be when I'm completing an assignment for a class, or if I'm particularly inspired by a product or a layout I see somewhere. But for the most part, I begin with my photos. Not just because some of them are really good, or because I'm emotionally connected to them, but sometimes I think partly because of the sheer number of them. But what if... What if I start with the story? How many stories remain untold, because I "have to" document all the major annual events of our lives?

I think it's time to start writing!

Time for a new routine.

2010-04-12T13:51:00.001-05:00

Image by livinglocurto on Flickr.

Lately I've been re-prioritizing my life - I do that, occasionally - and now comes the tricky part: trying to fit it all in the hours of each day. I'd like to work out first thing (after breakfast) in the morning... It's funny, but I've found it true, that a smart workout really does give you more energy for the day! (That's been my mantra lately... work smarter, not harder.) So including drive time to the YMCA, getting William settled in the nursery, etc. that's about an hour there. After that, I'd spend an hour or so at home doing housework; why not, I'm already sweaty, right? ;) Ideally, I can work in a practice session on my horn. Warming up for the day. If there's any time left before lunch, I can read a book or catch up on the message boards for my online class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Lunch, then, with William and Chris. Love this time in the middle of the day to refresh and reconnect. Then William goes down for his nap, and I can grab a shower (feels so good!). Then it's playtime for Mommy: scrapbooking, yay! At 3 it's time to wake William up (I hate doing that!) so we can pick up Hannah from school. Snacktime at home, and William sits on my lap while I do Facebook and Farmville on the laptop. Gotta get my daily fix. :) Then what - oh yes, practicing my horn, can't forget that. Supposed to be practicing 3 hours a day on non-rehearsal days, but I'm still working up to that. Dinner with the family, all of us at the table together - a good thing. More practicing after dinner, I guess. Bathtime, storytime, bedtime for the kiddos. Then it's Mommy & Daddy time. Lately that means watching 24 or House on DVD. Love Netflix. Bedtime, and it's a little earlier than it used to be, since I stopped drinking caffeine (been a couple months now - go me!) and stopped taking afternoon naps. (Let's just say I was a big believer in the old advice to sleep when the baby sleeps. lol)

Wow. That's a lot in one day.

I think maybe I'm gonna need to get up earlier. :P

Getting to know you.

2010-02-09T20:22:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the new 2010 edition of getting to know your family and friends. Here is what you are supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you.

1. What is your occupation right now? freelance horn player
2. What color are your socks right now?  white
3. What are you listening to right now?   am playing Shostakovich's Symphony #5 with the Houston Sinfonietta
4. What was the last thing you ate? a bagel
5. Can you drive a stick shift?  I can drive fine. Parking is another matter lol
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone?  Chris
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you?  yes
8. How old are you today? a day older than I was yesterday LOL
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV?  ice skating or football
10. What is your favorite drink?  Diet Dr Pepper
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? yes
12. Favorite food?  Italian
13. What is the last movie you watched? I, Robot
14. Favorite day of the year?  my birthday?
15. How do you vent anger? Yelling, throwing things LOL, sarcasm
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? Barbies, My Little Pony
17. What is your favorite season? fall
18. Cherries or Blueberries? cherries
19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? yes
20. Who is the most likely to respond? I hate questions like this!
21. Who is least likely to respond? Meredith she sent it
22. Living situation? homeowner
23. When was the last time you cried? Today

Photo from 12/4/2009. In the "snowfall."

24. What is on the floor of your closet right now?  ummm, everything you could imagine-not kidding ☹
25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to? Meredith - we met when I joined Mommy Track in November 2002 :)
26. What did you do last night?  watched TV with Chris, hung out on Facebook
27. What are you most afraid of? going over a bridge in a car into water
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers?  cheese
29. Favorite dog breed? Pomeranian
30. Favorite day of the week? Saturday I guess
31. How many states have you lived in? 4 states and 2 countries
32. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds are a girl's best friend :)
33. What is your favorite flower? Gerbera daisy

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

December Daily | Day 3.

2009-12-03T16:34:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year again.

The time of year when I'm hardly home. But hopefully, I'll have a few extra dollars for Christmas, and that will make it all worth it. Plus, I'll be doing what I love - and affirming who I am.

In the meantime, there's hardly time to breathe...

Monday night I had my regular orchestra rehearsal with the Clear Lake Symphony. Tonight is our dress rehearsal. Tomorrow night is our first Christmas concert. Saturday morning I have a rehearsal for a gig at Friendswood UMC, from 8 to 12:30, then I'll eat lunch in the car while I drive to Galveston. A quick rehearsal at Aaron's apartment, change into costume, and then perform at Dickens on the Strand for a couple of hours. Drive back home in late afternoon, have dinner with the family, and perform our second Christmas pops concert with Clear Lake Symphony that night. Early Sunday afternoon is another performance at Dickens on the Strand, followed by a dash back to Friendswood, another quick change of clothes, and play the gig in Friendswood. No rehearsal on Monday for CLS - we'll be on break for the holidays - but the following weekend I spend all day Saturday in rehearsal and performance with the Brazosport Symphony.

And somewhere in all of this, I have to find time to help Hannah with her science project, finish prepping the Christmas tree so the kids can put the ornaments on it, and help her make a gingerbread house.

Whew!

But as busy as I am, I always try to savor the few moments I find to just sit & breathe... Pray. And be thankful for all my many blessings.

Our quintet at Dickens on the Strand.

December Daily | Day 2.

2009-12-02T23:36:00.002-06:00

Wednesday.

A pretty typical Wednesday... Facebook & YoVille in the morning, a nap after lunch, more internet surfing in the late afternoon, dinner, enjoying my family, storytime, tuck the kiddos in bed, watch TV with Chris. More YoVille on Facebook after Chris goes to bed. I stay up way too late.

Welcome to my daily life.

December Daily | Day 1.

2009-12-02T02:22:00.002-06:00

Chris putting the garland on our new tree.

Almost can't believe I'm really doing this. It just seems like so much effort. LOL

I forgot to take a picture today. Guess there's gonna be some fudging going on when I finally get around to making the mini album. :)

So today was a pretty typical Monday. William got me up around 10:30 this morning (he's been a little late on his entire schedule since we got back from Thanksgiving). I played around on Facebook while he watched Sesame Street and Blue's Clues. Chris came home for lunch and we all ate together. Love that. After lunch William & I hung out some more. I spent most of the afternoon playing YoVille (my latest addiction) and William generally just played with his toys. I left the TV off and for a change he was actually ok with that. He said "tree" for the first time today, and "star" - he was quite impressed with the Christmas tree, but was very good about obeying me and not touching it.

To be honest I am in love with our new tree too! LOL It was 50% off at Hobby Lobby - always a good thing - and it is huge but best of all it is beautiful. It is a 9ft Oregon Pine, very lush and full, pre-lit with white lights (our first pre-lit tree), and has real pine cones tucked in among the branches. Which was cool, until they started dropping pine seeds all over the floor. Ah, the wonders of actual nature. Funny how Christmas trees assume monstrous proportions when you get them home - we had to rearrange half the furniture in the living room to make a spot for it but we did eventually get the tree up. ;) We also bought a new star for the top this year, it's got multi-colored LED lights that change colors. It's pretty (and casts a cool image on the ceiling) but... it's also a bit like putting a Vegas dancer's headdress on a Dickensian lady... Hopefully once we get our old lights + garland + ornaments on the tree it won't look quite so garish. LOL But anyway, I have very much enjoyed sitting today in my living room and basking in the gentle glow of the Christmas tree.

I picked up Hannah from school at 3 o'clock, put William down for his nap - excuse me, quiet time lol - when we got home, got Hannah a sizeable snack since dinner is late on Tuesdays. Chris came home shortly after 4, and Hannah and I left for the dance studio about 4:30pm. She had her ballet, tap, and jazz classes, and I worked on the laptop and chatted a bit with the other dance moms. I paid December's tuition and the recital fee. Ouch. At 7 it was time to go, we picked up Domino's pizza on the way home - 1 large cheese for the girls and 1 large pepperoni & mushrooms for the boys, though lately William's been spitting out the toppings. After dinner it was time for stories + tooth brushing + kisses (William has been very generous with these lately) and off to bed for the kiddos.

This evening Chris & I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and the 10 o'clock news. I made a Facebook group for the Clear Lake Symphony and kept tabs on my cookies in YoVille. ;)

And now here we are, at 2:46am and I really ought to go to bed. So much for Tuesday.

In the clouds.

2009-11-29T16:54:00.002-06:00

We were somewhere in south Texas today, making that long drive back home from the Valley, when Hannah (who had been looking out the window for at least an hour already), announces that she sees shapes in the clouds. What does she see, you ask? Well... she sees a worm, a boat, a dinosaur, a bald guy... and a lady being crushed by a rock.

Wow.

Photo taken 7/3/2007 at 27,000 feet above the northeastern U.S. (Yes, from a plane.)

Kids say the darnedest things.

2009-11-28T13:37:00.002-06:00

Having lived in the South for over 20 years now, I've heard a lot of interesting idioms... But this is a new one: Yesterday Hannah did a fabulous job cleaning up the playroom at Grandma's house (both hers and her brother's toys) and she was very excited to show all of us the results of her labor. So she was chattering as we all dutifully went in for an inspection, and she says (I kid you not!) "It's clean as a butterfly's neck!"

What??? ROFL

Making Plans.

2009-11-20T23:05:00.007-06:00

Amazing photo by kimmychau on Flickr.

Found a couple of cool websites: Free graph generators. Thought I might take a shot at printing my own graphic transparencies for layouts.
Instructions for converting an old book into a 3-ring scrapbook. How cool is that?
I wonder if there is anyplace reasonably near us that has some kind of Polar Express/train ride to do in December with the kids
Hannah's been wanting to go ice-skating; I think December sounds like a good time to do that
Need to put Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas movie on my Netflix list
I want to start a Christmas book tradition, to wrap them all in matching paper and put under the tree, then the kids can unwrap one each night in December before Christmas. It really would be nice to have some presents under the tree for a change… and what are we going to do with the desk??? Or will we have to find another place for the tree??? And speaking of trees, I think we finally got rid of our old tree after Christmas last year... gonna have to get a new one, and soon.
I wonder if I really have to create duplicate layouts for the kids' albums or if they can all go in one/other or in the family album
I'm thinking about using divided page protectors & just focusing on photos for annual events like the pumpkin patch, where I really don't have anything to say anymore; this might be a good solution for all those random school-year photos too... Which makes me wonder, will multiple page protector sizes fit into post-bound albums? I do like the look of a row of matching 3-ring binders standing on a shelf, but I also really like all the different patterns and designs available for the post-bound albums.
I wonder if I should go 3-ring with the family album, since I’m not really working on it chronologically…?
I want to make some centerpieces for our dining room table, maybe a gratitude cornucopia for Thanksgiving, and a (super-glittery!) Victorian gingerbread house for Christmas
I'd love to make some yard decorations for Christmas this year too; I still love the idea of cakes & other goodies, like I saw on HGTV last year.
I’m thinking we should pick a night that each year we would have our own Christmas dinner (and maybe Thanksgiving too) here at home, just the 4 of us. A fancy dinner. Just so that we could start making some memories & traditions of our own.
It’s definitely time to start seriously working on those 2010 calendars! Seriously!!!

Things I could include on my December Daily layout this year:

Jack the Elf
Putting the tree up/decorating it
Putting lights up outside
Christmas concerts we go to
How we decorate around the house (besides the tree)
Shopping for Christmas presents
Christmas books we read
Christmas music we listen to
Christmas movies we watch
Christmas toys the kids play with (such as the Little People nativity)
Pictures with Santa
Writing to Santa
Santa chimney countdown (anticipation)
Christmas parties at school & dance
Driving around looking at Christmas lights
Going to Grannie’s house
Wrapping Christmas presents
Making cookies for Santa
Opening presents on Christmas morning
…plus 6 more pages…

I think “Double the Fun” would be a cute title for the layout about Hannah’s playdates with Hannah; you know that old gum commercial jingle: “Double the pleasure, double the fun, double the freshness with Double Mint Gum!” LOL Much better than any of the others I’ve thought of so far: Hannah2 or Double Trouble (which they really aren’t) or Big/Little or simply Playdates. You know, I’m not even sure exactly how it started, but suddenly the girls were playing together 2 or even 3 times a week during the summer, trading houses. Many times David even came over here. For the most part he just played Lego Star Wars on Playstation 2, but when he tired of that… he talked my ear off!! And sometimes the girls came out of Hannah’s room long enough to pester him about playing tea party or some such… LOL At least (my) Hannah has stopped attacking him with hugs! (though to be fair, it might have only happened that one time at Challenger Park LOL) The best part for me, besides having someone around who actually enjoys playing Barbies, et al., ad nauseum, and thus freeing me to do as I would (more or less uninterrupted) while William napped, was getting to see Bobbi so regularly. I think that’s the biggest thing I miss about all the Mommy Track kids being in preschool at St. Bernadette’s; even if there was nothing else going on (like Book Club), I at least got to see my friends 2 or 3 times a week as we dropped off all our kids for the morning. I miss that, the small daily interactions with my adult friends. A lot.
Speaking of Book Club, I can’t decide on the perspective I should take with the layout: should I journal as if I’d created it while we still met, and how much I enjoyed it; or from my current perspective, and how much I miss it? Kind of wish I had more than just the one photo…

The happiest place on Earth | Day 1.

2009-10-03T21:10:00.012-05:00

Well here we are at Walt Disney World!! It's a little after 10pm as I write this, and man am I BEAT. I'm actually not sure where to begin telling today's story, as I never actually made it to bed last night. Yep, 38 hours and counting...

I thought I was ready for this trip. Really. I mean, I've only been planning for it for the last 2 years!! Yet there I was at 3 o'clock this morning, putting Stickles on a dollar-store tiara and swearing at the printer because the cardstock jammed it again, and at the computer because Photoshop Elements crashed...again. I didn't manage to make even a third of the items on my list (though I did get the 2 most important ones done...more on that later). In between all that and tossing last-minute items in the suitcases, it was 5am when I realized that sleep just wasn't going to happen... not really the way I wanted to start this trip, of all trips. So finally the bags were all packed, only to be unpacked and repacked in different bags, because the largest suitcase to be checked was a good 15 pounds overweight, and the tote bag I was so psyched about carrying on (the All My Memories pink camo one, yum!! lol) was never going to fit into the overhead compartments. Evidently I seriously underestimated the sheer amount of stuff that a family of four needs for a week-long trip.

About 7am I forced myself to shut down the computer, and we went to go wake Hannah up. I had printed out this sign (above - a really pretty piece I found on http://www.disboards.com/), and wrapped it in Cinderella paper along with the new satchel I got Hannah for this trip (a shimmery black number from The Children's Place, so cute!!). So Chris and I waltz into her room singing "Happy Birthday", tell her we're having her surprise birthday party today (which she's been saying she wanted for months now LOL), and oh yeah we're doing it NOW. She tears the paper off, doesn't want to read the sign, and isn't impressed with the bag. Naturally I have the whole thing on video. ;) By this time it's 7:15am and we have exactly 15 minutes before we're supposed to leave for the airport - and by "leave" I mean actually backing down the driveway. My brain is so foggy from lack of sleep that I immediately lose everything I set down, but as I am getting Hannah dressed she is coming fully awake and realizing that we really are going to Disney World, and not just "someday" but today and in fact RIGHT NOW... she starts getting really excited about the idea, and in spite of everything else I find her enthusiasm is rather contagious. :)

On the way to the airport, we end up having to detour through downtown due to an unannounced freeway closure for construction (well surely they told somebody but they didn't tell us! lol).

At the airport, I feel like I'm spinning in circles trying to keep track of all the bags (and children) at the security checkpoint. I was rather concerned about them giving me a hard time about Hannah's Tamiflu prescription - we had it in a Ziploc baggie with a gel-type ice pack (it has to be kept cold), and I didn't know if they would allow the ice pack on board. Or worse yet - if they notice the medication was Tamiflu, and they start asking questions about does she have swine flu, and maybe they won't let her on the plane, then what?!?! Thankfully none of it was an issue and we got through the checkpoint I think almost faster than we ever have (they even let me carry William through instead of making him walk like they did with Hannah at that age; an ordeal, let me tell you, and of course I was flying alone with her at the time).

At the gate William wanted to wander - in fact he wanted to take off down the concourse - and as he is a toddler naturally he threw a holy fit in the middle of the floor when we wouldn't let him. Then a few minutes before we're due to start boarding, they decide the plane has a mechanical problem, we all have to change gates, and by the time they got everything settled with the new plane and boarded and everything we were about an hour late taking off. The flight was relatively uneventful, given that it was William's first... His ears gave him some trouble during the somewhat turbulent descent, and that made him howl, but that was all and it didn't last long. He was fine with sitting on our laps (can someone please tell me what the hell we were thinking flying with a 30-pound toddler on our laps???) and even napped for a while. I'd say that easily 97% of the passengers were families with small children (ie, younger than school-age) headed to Disney World.

When we got to our resort (we're staying at All-Star Movies), I checked in and was told we'd been assigned to the Mighty Ducks building. Only problem was, that was the only building on the property that I was not okay with staying in; this trip is totally for our birthday princess, what do we care about hockey?! Thankfully they did have a room open in the Love Bug building, so that's where we are. (Evidently all the other buildings on the property - the ones with the best theming - are all premium-rate rooms. Anyone else think this is information my travel agent should have told me when I said I wanted to reserve a standard room in the Toy Story building?!?!) I had planned for us to go to Downtown Disney for dinner and to hang out, but we were all so tired that we decided to stay in. So we ate here in the World Premiere Food Court, which had surprisingly good food (I had the Hot Italian Sandwich and Chris had the Meatball Sub; of course Hannah inhaled her cheese pizza though William wouldn't touch his). After dinner we walked around a bit, though it was really too late for any photo ops with decent lighting, and stopped in the gift shop, where I thoroughly amazed myself by not spending a single dime, despite spending quite some time checking out all the "exclusive, park-only" merchandise.

Our room is small, but I don't mind... It's clean and seems to be in decent shape. Hannah is totally enchanted by the theming, and even I was impressed by the mosaic tile border in the shower that looks like a strip of film frames.

Hannah is very excited about being here; she can't wait to ride the rollercoasters, and see the fireworks over Cinderella's castle, and meet Sleeping Beauty and Mickey Mouse, et al. And of course I can't wait to share the magic with her... :)

Re: Bucket List

2009-07-09T09:06:00.001-05:00

Bucket List

These are fun, and I like to see what my friends have done! Hit forward and place an (x) by all the things you've done and remove the (x) from the ones you have not. Then answer the questions below. Send it to your friends (including me). This is for your entire life!

( ) been to Europe
() Been on a cruise
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(x) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Been lost (hello Louisiana!)
(X) Been on the opposite side of the country
(x) Been to Washington , DC
( ) Been to Vegas
() Climbed a lighthouse
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
( ) Been Sky Diving
(x) Seen the Cherry Blossoms in Washington , D.C. (not just in pictures)  I think the Cherry Blossom Festival in Sopporo, Japan should count for something!
(X) Played cops and robbers.
( ) Flown a plane
( ) Owned a boat
( ) Watched grandchildren grow
( x) Recently colored with crayons
( ) Been to the Kentucky Derby
( ) Been to Key West
(X) Been to a rodeo
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only?
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? (SCRAPBOOKING!!!)
( ) Made prank phone calls
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose/mouth
(X)Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
( ) Seen the green flash at sunset
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( )Owned a convertible
1. Any nickname?  no
2. Mother's name? Pat
3. Body Piercing?   Ears
4. How much do you love your job? Love it... SAHM
5. Birthplace? Cheyenne, Wyoming
6. Ever been to Hawaii ?
7. Ever been to Africa ?
8. Ever eaten just cookies for dinner?
9. Ever been on TV?
10. Ever steal any traffic sign?
11. Ever been in a car accident? Yes
12. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle?  5-door
13. Favorite number - 6
14. Favorite movie – don't have one right now
15. Favorite holiday? Christmas
16. Favorite dessert? ice cream
17. Favorite burger joint?  Fuddrucker's
18. Favorite food? strawberries
19. Favorite day of the week?  Saturday
20. Favorite brand of body wash?   Bath and Body Works cherry blossom
21. Favorite smell? spicy candles
22. How do you relax?  Read, Scrapbook
23. How do you see yourself in 10 years? in a better place than I am now
24. Furthest place you will send this message? League City
25. Who will respond to this the fastest? I hate questions like this!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Photo taken June 3, 2009.

OMG I FOUND THEM!!!!!!!!!

2009-06-10T02:15:00.004-05:00

So I'm going through some old large envelopes in the study (like 9x12 or so) and I find one in the stack that doesn't feel like it's empty. The front of it says "2007 Statements" and I'm thinking, really? I thought we took care of those... So I open it and lo and behold it is FULL OF PHOTOGRAPHS!!!! I dump the whole thing out on my desk, I'm getting excited now, and there it is - a white envelope, about 5x7, and in it - the missing dance portraits from last year!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently when I packed up the study for Ike, I grabbed all the stray photos (most of which had been waiting to be scanned) and stuffed them in an envelope... Then later lost track of it, maybe because of the old label.

I was going to say that this will happily end many nights of sleeplessness, but right now I'm so excited I'm not sure I'll be able to get to sleep tonight either!! LOL

Thank you all so much for putting up with me in my scatterbrained panic these last few months... :)

His favorite things.

2009-04-20T14:21:00.003-05:00

These cute little teddy bears my grandma made when I was an infant. She routinely sewed the family's clothes, and these adorable bears were made from the scraps. The ears, legs, and arms are the perfect size for William's little mouth, and are his favorite things to chomp on to soothe himself, going to sleep, or even just carry around in his mouth while he plays. (Like a puppy! LOL)
Board books, especially Goodnight Moon and the Happy Baby books. My limit is 6 consecutive repetitions of any given story!
Little Einstein water-filled teether. The best thing for sore gums, or when a distraction is called for.
Crinkly sounds. Or as Hannah calls them, crunching sounds!
Blocks and balls. For clapping together, throwing, or chewing on.
Clown and cube. They're soft and make noise. What more could a baby ask for? The clown was one of Hannah's favorite things too.
Remotes. And no, the Elmo toy remote is not an acceptable substitute for the real thing!
Banjo music?!?! Unfortunately, that appears to be the case. He's got a couple of toys that sound like simple tunes being played on a banjo, and those are the buttons he pushes over and over, even when he's actively playing with something else. Like background music. Seriously, dude. Enough with the banjos already.

Not so well.

2009-04-11T02:58:00.007-05:00

[In response to Wednesday's Plinky prompt: "What's the longest-distance relationship you maintain (or ever have)? How do you keep in touch?"]

I'm in Houston, Texas. She's in Vancouver, Canada. And I'm a bad, bad friend.

It's 1,981.7 miles, according to infoplease.com, but I imagine that to her, sometimes it seems a lot farther. Really, I am the worst about staying in touch. (My friends, you know the truth of this! Hmm, maybe I do have an answer to the "What are you famous for?" prompt after all!)

The short story: Ruth and I met in college, we graduated, got married, she moved to Dallas & I moved to Houston. We talked on the phone (for hours), we visited each other (after driving for hours), we were best friends and it was good. Then she moved to Canada, and I dropped off the face of the earth.

I feel bad about it, really, I feel terrible, but after a year (or more!) of no communication, where on earth do you even start to say everything that wants to be said? Even an answer to the simple phrase "what's up" accrues monumental proportions. And it's different in email; what's said in a few friendly minutes in person or on the phone takes pages in print.

Every now and then, I get a forwarded mass email from her. And I open it, and chuckle, or pray, or forward it to ten of my friends and the person who sent it to me... I think about replying, asking her "what's up", and attempting to summarize the last 525,600 minutes of my life in 500 words or less... So I delete it, throw away my daily opportunity to receive $10 million from the prince of Nigeria, and drown my guilt in a gallon of chocolate ice cream.

And hope she'll email again, and say she's coming to town, because I miss her, and the friendship we shared.

A message from Hannah.

2009-04-10T17:02:00.008-05:00

Dear Aunt Erin, I am Hannah [ ] I am in the [ ] family! Mommy, Daddy, and me Hannah. I will love $35,81,24,57,800 bill. Aidan is sooooooooooo cute because I like him and he is 0 yaers old. Do you have a toy? Gess what I a secret for you. Love Hannah!

Love watching Hannah work on the computer. Hunt and peck. Think, think, think. Love reading what she writes, especially in her own sweet handwriting. Love watching the wheels in that brain spin so furiously. She is growing up so fast.

I don't need your help Mommy, I can spell it myself.

I don't want the commas every three numbers, I will tell you where to put them.

How do I make a question mark?

Aunt Erin will love getting my email!

Yes, she will, honey. Yes, she will. :)

Welcome, little one.

2009-04-03T22:31:00.006-05:00

I'm so happy and excited to say that I finally have a nephew! :) After nearly 24 hours of labor, Aidan Mark was born to my brother Jeff and his wife Erin (bless her heart!) yesterday at 6:45pm. Aidan tipped the scales at 7 pounds, 13 ounces, and measures 20-3/4 inches long. Jeff said Aidan was one among several babies born unexpectedly that night due to a big storm in the area (though Erin was getting close to her due date), but the baby's in good health and sleeping well.

Chris & I are so happy for Jeff & Erin and we wish them all the best in the many (sleepless) days + years to come. Hannah is very taken with her "cute baby cousin" and can't wait to see him. (Unfortunately that probably won't happen until Christmas, and by then he won't be tiny anymore, he'll be a marauding crawler just like her little brother!) William, at 13 months old, is of course much too interested in banging on the computer keyboard to take any interest in the baby photos on the screen, but I do look forward to the day when he and Aidan can play together like the best of friends. I remember fondly the trips my family used to take when I was a kid, to visit my cousins in Fort Worth; though we didn't see them very often I always looked forward to hanging out with my "cool cousins" (who are 5 + 8 years older than I am, and that makes a big difference when you're 10!)

Edited to add: Photos taken April 8th.

In a totally unrelated side-note, I just realized that "tipping the scales" is another one of those phrases everyone says that none of our kids will understand (digital scales not having actual weights on them)!

A drop in the bucket.

2009-03-29T14:30:00.003-05:00

[In response to today's Plinky prompt: "You have to give away a million dollars. How?"]

Photo by Gnerk at Flickr.

One million dollars is not enough!

After nearly ten years, the church where my orchestra plays its concerts is kicking us out. They claim that they are not going to host any more "outside organizations". (We'll just see how loosely that's interpreted though, when certain choirs come to town!) The problem is, this church is by far the best venue (almost the only venue) in our part of town; most places around here aren't nearly big enough to accomodate the size of audience we usually draw, let alone seat a 100-piece orchestra.

It has long been a pipe dream of mine to build a performing arts center here, so that's where my million dollars would go, as the first drop in that (very large) bucket. I can see it all so clearly in my imagination: the grand entry, the acoustically-perfect concert hall, the more intimate recital hall adjacent, the drawing room for receptions (complete with caterer's kitchen), the green room, the staging area backstage, the music library and offices in the back...

But that's typically the problem with my visions (though I'll admit this one is more altruistic than most! LOL): vintage wine taste and a Miller Lite budget.

I have to choose just ONE?!

2009-03-29T00:36:00.006-05:00

[In response to Saturday's Plinky prompt: Name a children's book that makes you nostalgic.]

Growing up, I was allowed to watch only 1 hour of TV a week. (Seriously!) Of course I felt myself terribly deprived at the time, and it was occasionally awkward when everyone else was in on a joke or a story that I couldn't share, since I wasn't up to speed on all the latest episodes of Full House (or whatever LOL). So instead of spending all the empty hours of my childhood sitting spell-bound in a trance in front of the TV, I buried my nose in a book (to me there is nothing like the smell of a library full of old books!).

Which brings me back to the title of my answer: How can I possibly choose just ONE book that takes me back??? I read hundreds, and I saved dozens for my kids to read. But Cinderella has been there by my side since I was at least 3 years old. And it didn't have to be the Disney version, either - even to this day I own at least 4 different editions of the Cinderella story, that I can think of off the top of my head. Cinderella was my favorite. I liked to cast my mom as the evil stepmother, and my little brother as the evil stepsisters... Of course I was Cinderella, waiting for my prince to come and "rescue me"; and when I became a princess, sitting high on the throne I so rightly deserved, I'd finally be able to watch all the TV I wanted...

But like I said, there are tons of other books that take me back to my childhood, and each of them holds a special place in my heart. Some of my favorites are:

the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary
Judy Blume books
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
the Bobbsey Twins series by Laura Lee Hope
fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
My Friend Flicka, and the sequel, Thunderhead by Mary O'Hara
Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
the Curious George series by H.A. Rey
The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey
The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
the Madeline series by Ludwig Bemelmans (with more recent stories by John Bemelmans Marciano)
the Mr. Men and Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves
Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson

...and on and on. Those are the ones that come to mind at the moment; if I think of more I'll add them to this post. My copies of Little Women, My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead, two compilations of fairy tales, and some Bobbsey Twins books were actually given to me from my mom; she had enjoyed them as a girl and saved them. I can't wait to share them with my kids!

Just call me a diva.

2009-03-27T17:02:00.015-05:00

Photo by Matt Coats at Flickr.

[In response to today's Plinky prompt: "Give us your unreasonable demands. How does your backstage rider read? What will it take for you to release the hostages?"]

Trivial or serious, theoretically possible or totally outrageous: my [short list] of unreasonable demands. (Those hostages aren't going anywhere for a long, long, time!)

No more money worries.

The standard answer would be a million dollars, but sadly that just doesn't buy much anymore. So I was going to say a billion dollars, but with inflation and the stock market crash, I don't think a fixed sum is going to cover me for the rest of my life. So I want $250,000 a year, retroactive to the day I was born, with an annual 10% cost of living increase.

Forgiveness of all my credit card debts.

The mortgage and the car loan I don't mind so much, and the student loans are almost paid off, but the credit card companies just SUCK!!!

A new Toyota Camry.

Really not such an unreasonable request, but my husband needs his own damn car already!

No end to the Outlander series!

But all of the sequels have to be just as good as (or better than) the 5 that are already out...

Goodie's, come back!

Stores and restaurants that I love never to go out of business, products that I love never to be discontinued, TV shows I love never to be cancelled (caveat: see previous demand).

No more TV sales hawks like Billy Mays!

STOP YELLING AT ME!!!!!!

Professional assistants to do my hair, makeup, and nails everyday.

And most importantly, to take my makeup off at the end of the day ('cause I hate doing that). And while we're at it, a personal shopper to make sure that I stay up-to-date in the latest fashions (but only the things that look fabulous on me). Better add a cleaning crew for the house, too, so it always looks as good as I do. Oh and a personal chef, so it's as easy for me to maintain my ideal weight as it is for the celebrities.

My ideal vacation home.

A big, gorgeous old house in the town where my dad grew up, complete with a fully-stocked scrapbook studio. Also a kindly old caretaker couple to live on the property full-time, so I don't have to worry about the place being vacant all winter.

My own traffic lane wherever I go.

I love to drive, but I really hate traffic.

Time on my side.

Enough hours in every day to get done everything that needs to get done!

Something new.

2009-03-25T15:45:00.004-05:00

Somehow it's been another year already. What is it about this time of year that compels me to write in my blog? LOL I think in some ways that spring, with its spirit of all things fresh & new, is a bigger motivator for life-change for me than New Year's Day. What is January 1st, after all, than an arbitrary date on the calendar?

But I digress. What's new (this time) is that, in my annual effort to revive my blog, I've signed up at Plinky. It's an online social community, like Twitter, only less... inane. (Don't get me started on Twitter - that's for another post!) Each day, via email, Plinky sends a prompt for me to answer; my answer is then pushed here, to my blog. On their website, I can also see how other members answered, leave comments, follow specific people, etc. Mostly, what I hope to accomplish with this is to get in the habit of daily (or at least weekly) blogging, record bits and pieces of my life for future scrapbook pages, and of course share a little of myself with the half-dozen people who actually read my blog. LOL

So without further ado, my first Plinky post: today's question was, "Is it trampy or fun?" which I have to admit that I didn't totally understand (as a question without any context it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me) but most people on Plinky were taking the discussion in the direction of what defines and/or differentiates being sexy from being slutty. Here's my answer:

Against Light II, originally uploaded by Marcela P..

It's what's inside that makes the difference.
Sexy is alluring wihout even trying. It's a way of being. Some people have it, and some people don't - it has to do with attitude, and confidence, and very little to do with sexuality. It's when someone that doesn't understand that *tries* to be sexy that the line is crossed and they are perceived as being slutty. And some people are just naturally slutty; no matter how conservatively they dress, there's still a vibe they project. It's insecurity, it's desperation, it's trying too hard. Sexy is none of that. Sexy is subtle: it's intelligence, and manners, and self-confidence, and carriage (posture), and elegance. It's not about the way you are on the outside. It's about the way you are on the inside.

Family Fun Day.

2008-04-06T01:00:00.002-05:00

That's what was on the schedule for today, and I'm proud to say that we actually did it. :) It started with a trip to the hardware store, actually, to replace our edger that had died last fall. On our way we passed a Montessori school near our house that was having a fundraising carnival... of course Hannah wanted to check it out ("Mommy look, there's kids having fun over there!" LOL) and it was such a beautiful spring day that I agreed. So for $10 she jumped on the big inflatable thing and picked out a prize (pink lipgloss with a mirror for my princess, of course!); but it was the sheer delight on her face and in her laugh as she rode 'round and 'round on the airplane ride that really made the whole thing worth it. :) At home, Chris lit up the grill for dinner, and Hannah picked flowers from the clover that carpets our backyard to make a bouquet for Mommy. My favorite kind. :) After dinner we popped some popcorn and all watched Ice Age together as a family. Really it was a lovely day and I'm glad we got to spend some time together as a family, doing things that Hannah enjoys. William of course slept through the whole thing. ;)

As for the house... Nothing "officially" on the schedule for Saturdays but you know I couldn't resist getting a few things done in addition to my morning routines. Today I cleaned off another Hot Spot in our house, the washer and dryer: a big one for us, since it is the first flat surface we encounter as we come in the house from the garage (in practice, our main entrance, as we hardly use the front door). It is so easy to set stuff down there to deal with later, but then it's time to do laundry but first I have to spend half an hour cleaning off the machines... Not good. And while I had the machines uncovered, I decided to go ahead and toss in the wash a load of cloth placemats and napkins that my mother was nagging about the last time she was here. Of course about 2 minutes from the end of the cycle, I found another napkin under a pile of STUFF! Grrrr... I also did some more work in the kitchen, decluttering the kitchen counter and washing the stovetop and under it. The best part was when I was working in the kitchen and Hannah asked to help me! So I gave her a wet sponge and set her to work washing the lower kitchen cabinets and she went to town! Sweet girl. She can be such a good helper! :) I hope that the good cleaning habits I adopt from FlyLady will imprint on my kids, so that they will never have to live in a cluttered house like mine is and suffer from the effects of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome as FlyLady calls it! LOL)

A bit of baby news: I think William gave us his first "real" smile yesterday! :)

I'm back.

2008-04-05T00:26:00.001-05:00

Yeah, ok, so it's been almost a year since I've posted, but hey, I warned you from the beginning that I have a hard time keeping up with this type of thing... But along with spring and the new baby (5 weeks old already!!!) I've been bitten by some kind of bug that's making me want to change the way I do things. Mainly it's been the state of my house, it's been getting on me for a while now but lately I just feel like I've had it up to HERE with all the mess and clutter everywhere. I think the final straw was in the first couple of weeks after the baby was born, and all my wonderful and dear friends brought me dinners... I had to welcome them into this horrendous mess and even through the sleep-deprived haze I really was quite embarassed that they should see my house at its worst. So I signed up for the email list at http://www.flylady.net/ since I'd heard of the FlyLady but not tried the program myself. So far so good! Since April 1st, my bed has been made before breakfast, and the sink clean and shiny every night before I go to bed! I'm doing the dishes as they're dirtied and have written out routines for myself for each day of the week, so I know that everything will get taken care of, but I won't get overwhelmed. I've identified the "Hot Spots" in my home and have cleaned off half of them (and kept them clean!) The last couple of days I've even been able to accomplish a few other tasks, like polishing my beautiful dinner table, decluttering the dining room, and cleaning out the car. Today I tackled the pantry, threw out a whole bunch of food that expired in 2005 (did you know that soda goes bad??), and reorganized the shelves. I was able to clear enough room at the bottom of the pantry to put brand new receptacles for trash and recycling - no more looking at the trash can in the kitchen or tripping over the recycling bag on the way to the laundry room! Woo hoo! :) I've got Hannah (age 5-1/2) involved too; she makes her bed first thing, she puts her dirty dishes in the dishwasher herself, and if she wants to take off her socks and shoes after school she has to do it in HER room, not my living room anymore! In a month or so I'll teach her how to do a "5-Minute Room Rescue" and we'll start getting her bedroom into order as we move many of her toys in there (and out of the living room, as most are a choking hazard for the baby). Best of all, I really feel like this is a change I can KEEP! :)

Celebrity endorsements.

2007-05-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

One of my pet peeves is celebrities who don't use (and sometimes don't even believe in) the products they push. I'm sure the money for doing endorsements is great, but if I had the chance, I like to think that I'd be able to stick to my principles, and not try to use my influence to convince people to buy products that I myself don't have anything to do with.

Here's an excellent example: Martha Stewart recently unveiled her new line of scrapbooking products. Now, you would think, Martha being the generally acknowledged maven of all things crafty, that the woman would be an avid scrapbooker. Apparently, this is not so. One of the girls in my online class was actually in the audience for Martha's show... here's what she had to say about it:

Well, I'm back from the show... it actually aired live. I've never watched Martha's show so I didn't really know what to expect, but I did think she'd actually know something about what she was selling. During the scrapbooking segment, she called cardstock "construction paper," she called acrylic stamps "sticky letters," she called the acrylic block a "pounce pad" (whatever THAT is!), she called the cutting mat a "cutting board" and when asked what someone needed to get started scrapbooking she said "An album, some punches and photographs." Once the cameras stopped rolling she answered a few audience questions, one of which was how often did she scrapbook, to which she replied, "Never, I don't even put my pictures in regular photo albums." She is so out of her element with this - it's obvious that EK Success is doing all the design and everything and just slapping her name on the products to up the sales. All was not lost, however, they gave everyone in the audience a brand new HP photo printer, a carrying case, a 100 pack of photo paper, and four of the new Martha paper punches to take home - SCORE!! Oh, and the rumors are true... she is a very cold person and treated her staff quite rudely.

Wow. This is so much worse than an Olympic athlete who doesn't actually eat Wheaties, even though his picture is on the box. You would think (or at least I did) that the woman would know the proper name and function of her own products!!! Really, this is akin to calling a colander a "holey bowl," calling a wok a "skillet," and when asked what one needs to get started in cooking, replying with "a serving platter, some cookie cutters, and basic ingredients." I mean really!!!

Needless to say, you won't find any of her stuff in my scrap room. There's just too much awesome product out there from incredibly talented (and involved) designers for me to waste money on lame products pushed on me by someone who expects me to buy just because of the celebrity name that's on the packaging. Add to that the WorldCom scandal, and evidence of her true personality ("...the rumors are true... she is a very cold person and treated her staff quite rudely..."), and frankly I'm not sure that her name has such a good connotation, at least for scrapbook products!

Wish I had a picture.

2007-05-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

It was the funniest thing.

I was on my way home from dropping off Hannah at school, and as I pulled into the driveway, I noticed something sitting on my front porch. I'm not expecting my monopod from B+H to arrive until tomorrow, and anyway it didn't really look like a box, but I was curious nonetheless. As I got closer though I saw that what had initially appeared to be a pile of leaves was actually 3 brown doves! There they sat on my doorstep, peering into my dining room window, and looking like nothing so much as a flock of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Really kind of bizarre.

The car pulling into the garage didn't seem to disturb them too much, so I ran inside real quick to grab the camera (being careful not to slam the door shut). As I walked back outside, I headed toward the street at a moderate pace, not even looking in their direction - but to no avail. I heard a feathery commotion behind me as they took flight, flying into each other - and evidently into my front door as well - in their panic to get away. Bird brains.

It's a shame - it would have been a really funny picture.

Looking forward.

2007-04-27T15:09:00.001-05:00

There are so many great things I'm looking forward to right now, I thought I'd share...

My Everyday Beauty album kit arriving in the mail. It's designed by the fabulous Ali Edwards! I can't wait!
Dinner Saturday night with my girlfriends. :)
Cropping all day on National Scrapbook Day with some friends at my favorite store, The Scrapbook Junkie! Hmmm, guess I'd better start packing!
Hannah's dance recital on May 19th. They're doing The Wizard of Oz and she's a munchkin - too cute!!!
Memorial Day trip to Arkansas to see my sister-in-law April and her three kids. We haven't seen them in almost 4.5 years and I've never been to Arkansas before. Should be a good trip. Always enjoy exploring a new part of the country.
June: Jennifer is moving back to Houston! WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hopefully we'll be with my grandparents over the 4th of July. Looking forward to experiencing the holiday in the old-fashioned small-town way. Thanks, Mom.
And sometime this summer, I'm finally getting a digital camera!!! :)

Anyone see last night's episode of CSI? Very different from their usual episode format, but hilarious. Enjoyed it immensely.

Happy Easter.

2007-04-08T16:44:00.001-05:00

An interesting day - not our typical Easter.

I left the house at 7:10 this morning to play a gig at Sunset United Methodist Church in Pasadena (1st service at 8:30am, yikes!) only to discover that there was no traffic... highly unusual for Houston, even at that hour... and so I was 25 minutes early. LOL Froze my butt off too, as we are in the middle of an unseasonable cold snap! Since I was playing both services, but didn't have time to go home in between, we had decided that Hannah and Chris would stay home this morning. Weird not to worship as a family on Easter morning. All the little girls at the church in their pretty Easter dresses made me miss my own little girl, and I was eager to get back home. But when I got there at 12:30, I discovered that Hannah had been sick twice this morning and had finally just fallen asleep on the couch. Poor baby. This afternoon she has been napping a lot, sick twice more, and a fever to boot. You can tell just looking at her that she feels yucky. So, no Easter egg hunt in the backyard for bright plastic eggs full of candy and coins; no dyeing the 2 dozen eggs in the fridge shades of soft pastels. Instead of an Easter basket, Hannah clings to a Rubbermaid bucket while I hold her hair. And the washing machine has gotten more of a workout today than my baby, who, at her best, puts the Energizer Bunny to shame.

I guess there's always next year. At least I got my lily.

Like Christmas in April.

2007-04-07T19:02:00.000-05:00

I really think that mail is highly underrated. I was so excited to get a couple of packages today! I had placed orders at 2Peas and Addicted to Scrapbooking earlier this week, so I knew exactly what would (or should!) be in the boxes, and yet I was excited anyway when the mailman rang my doorbell. Part of it was surprise - I really wasn't expecting them to be delivered until Monday or possibly even Tuesday - but mostly it was just the sheer excitement of holding a box in my hands, and knowing there's goodies inside. :) Of course when you shop on the Internet, there always is the chance that the item you're buying doesn't look precisely as it does in a picture on the computer, so it really is a bit of a surprise sometimes to open the package and actually hold it in your hands. Today I had the wonderful surprise of finding out that a couple sheets of yummy Heidi Grace paper I ordered is actually double-sided; better yet, on one sheet I actually liked the back better than I liked the front (and I liked the front!)!! :)

So what did I get? I got two new awesome circle stamps from 7gypsies, some Heidi Grace paper (I love the cupcakes!!), a package of Heidi Swapp silhouette stickers, and purple KI Memories ribbon and rub-ons. My mom bought Basic Grey Wholly Cow boy rub-ons, Doodlebug boy Jellishments, a package of Junkitz Salsa Essentials paper, new Love Struck paper and transparencies from Marah Johnson/Creative Imaginations, and Flair sticker sheets for baby boys and baby girls (she's paying me to make scrapbooks of my brother's childhood and mine; I haven't done baby pages in a few years so it's been fun!).

Yep, I really do like getting mail. :)

Wednesday tidbits.

2007-04-04T23:44:00.000-05:00

Can I just say, first of all, that I hate trying to come up with a title for each blog post? Sometimes it's not a big deal, if I have a story to tell, for instance, that usually offers a nice title. Other days - like today - I just have a few random things to say... What to do then? So "Wednesday tidbits" it is. LOL

I had some friends over yesterday (my turn to host the monthly book club meeting). It was great. :) Hannah was so funny; as soon as the ladies walked in the door, she was dragging them down the hall to see her "pink room." Though some advance notice would have been nice... If I'd known she was going to do that, I would have made the beds! LOL We didn't talk much about the book, but that's ok. Sometimes it seems like there just isn't much to say except, this is what I liked, this is what I didn't like. (Which I don't feel like getting into right now, so I'll save that for tomorrow's post.) What was so great was finding out that I'm not alone in my feelings... I really thought I was being pretty sh***y and petty for being so jealous whenever I found out that a couple of the other girls had gotten together, or chatted on the phone, between our meetings. Felt so left out. Of course this plays nicely to my inferiority complex and depression, and makes me wonder do I even have any friends? (Not that I ever bothered to pick up the phone myself!) I guess I can still hear my mother's voice nagging about my high school friends, "You always call them. They never call you. They never invite you to do anything, go anywhere. Obviously, they're not really your friends." *sigh* It's the kind of thing that sets you up for a lifetime of paranoia. So, given all this, I was naturally surprised (and immensely relieved) to find out that I'm not the only one in our group who has felt a twinge of envy at finding out that (to paraphrase) "a good time was had by a select few"...

In other news... it looks like Ali Edwards is going to start writing her newsletters again! Woo-hoo! :) I've definitely missed the Life Artist Challenges since she took a break to work on her book... which is coming out this fall. I have her first 2, LOVE them, and I can't wait for her next one! I totally subscribe to her Life Artist philosophy and am looking forward very much to seeing it all in print.

I got a new battery for the camcorder last week. So far, so good, even if it isn't brand name (which I am definitely leaving negative feedback for that - beware batteries.com listings on Amazon!!!) but we'll just have to see how it holds out in the long run. The last battery I bought for that thing (at Fry's) worked fine when we got it in May, but wouldn't hold a charge when we used it again in December that same year. Because of that, we only got about 3 minutes of Hannah's Christmas concert at Mother's Day Out this year. >:( Very frustrating. And of course it cut out just as her favorite song was beginning (a children's tune with lots of jumping and stomping, etc. LOL). It's not a song I'm familiar with, but sooooo cute, so I was really looking forward to getting that on video. The photographs didn't turn out well, either (I'm getting a monopod before the dance recital!!!) except for the couple I took up close before the program started. The only consolation I have is, at least it wasn't her first concert - that was last year. And for last year, I have good pictures and the full-length video. :)

By the way, the new Basics Catalog from I Remember When is out (it runs March 2007 to March 2008). I've got it in PDF form for anyone who's interested. If you live in Texas, your order can be drop-shipped to your front door, and if you live in Houston I'll bring it over personally. :) Still kind of doing the consultant thing, though more on a hobbyist basis right now. I'm still not convinced that the whole direct sales idea really works that well in a city with 3 million people; it seems to be better suited to small towns where there aren't any stores. At the moment I plan to stick with it though, until I lose interest or until I get my Wishblade, whichever comes first... LOL

Gotta go to bed pretty soon. I've been doing much better about getting to bed earlier. Tomorrow is special because I'm helping hide the Easter eggs for Hannah's class party. Should be fun. And of course I'll have the camera. :) I'm also doing better with drinking more water, and I've decided to break up with Ben & Jerry - watch for a super-cute layout about that coming soon! :) FYI, I'm leaving them for Skinny Cow... sugar-free and really pretty good! :)

A typical day.

2007-03-22T23:43:00.001-05:00

8:30 It's a good thing I thought to set my alarm last night, because Hannah's still asleep. In my bed, but asleep. She is so beautiful when she's asleep. I can still see what she looked like when she was 6 months old... I hate to wake her up.

8:45 She's finally up, and as usual, full of sunshine. Disgusting. I hate morning people! lol The color of the week at Mother's Day Out is green, so I pick out her Gymboree turtle outfit (which cost more than I care to think about but was too cute to pass up). Naturally, she doesn't want to wear it, no doubt for the simple reason that I want her to. She opts instead for her pumpkin jumper over a long-sleeve shirt. It'll probably be 75 degrees today, but whatever. At least the stems on the pumpkins are green.

9:15 Today is a little different from our normal routine, because Chris is taking a training class on the other side of town, so his co-worker picked him up at 7:30 this morning (typically I drive him to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays). So this morning at 9, it's just me and Hannah, and I have an extra 15 minutes to stall her before I allow her to drag me out the door. She gets so excited about going to school! :) I'm a little later than usual, so I don't see my friend Bobbi today - usually we have a nice little chat after we drop our kids off. No errands to run today (except a couple I've been avoiding all week), so I head back home.

10:00 After coming home, I put in my contacts to help prop my eyelids open, and immediately hop online to check my email. 39 new messages, though some are nearly a month old; only 3 new ones since yesterday. Almost as soon as I get signed on, Jennifer calls my cell phone. We talk for 15 minutes and 49 seconds.

10:15 The Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame (HOF) results are being posted online today. I know already that I haven't won - since I didn't receive a call - but I can't help myself, and I scour the CK website for the list of winners. Apparently it's not up yet, so I head over to the Contest & Submissions Support Board on the CK message board to check out what people are saying. I've been lurking there for a few months now, throughout the HOF process; occasionally I do come out of my hidey-hole to contribute to a conversation. ;) I check a thread I commented on yesterday; my reply could easily have been taken badly, so I am much relieved to see that I haven't been flamed. I keep seeing references to the April issue of CK and want to know, why is it March 22nd and I don't have mine yet?!

10:45 I had intended to finish writing the blog entry I started last night, but after 45 minutes online already, I really don't feel like it: I want to scrapbook. I've done 2 layouts in the last 2 days, one of which I'm very happy with, the other which I posted online LOL, so I'm still kind of "riding high" - which means now is a good time for me to scrapbook, and take advantage of that momentum. I have some cute pictures of Hannah and Nathan playing at the zoo during Spring Break last week, and some ideas about what I want to do with them, so I think I will start there. I keep the computer online though, so I can hear if I get a new email.

11:45 The layout's only about 1/3 of the way done, but time's up, and I have to go get Hannah. Coming into the garage, I notice that a bird is yanking on a hanging shred of my window screen; evidently it would make good nest material. Nice. For a moment, I think about grabbing my camera (the bird is pretty close, after all) but I really don't have time. So I hit the button for the big garage door instead, and it flies away. At MDO, I find out that Hannah requested to use the restroom twice this morning. :) They're having an Easter egg hunt April 5th and I signed up to bring plastic eggs (there's only about a million of those damn things floating around my house). I also agreed to be a room helper, so that means I get to be there for the party... and THAT means I get to take pictures. :)

12:25 Having dropped Hannah off at preschool, I am back at home for more computer time while I eat lunch (though I won't tell you what I ate, since as the book says, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch! LOL) I log in at 2Peas, and of course the first thing I do is check for praise on the layout I posted last night - yes, I'm a self-proclaimed praise junkie, I admit it! But it just feels so darn good... LOL After all, your husband has to say he likes it! Total strangers don't. Four people took the time to say how beautiful it is, so I'm happy. (Pathetic, I know.) I lurk in the Pub for a while; a couple of Peas have posted their non-winning HOF entries, and you know I have to check them out. Yeah, I can do what they did.

1:15 Still online. Yeah, I got sucked in by the computer again. *sigh* CK has finally posted the official list of HOF winners and Honorable Mentions and though I knew already that my name would not be there, it was still just a little disappointing to face the realization in print. I've bookmarked the threads with links to the winners' galleries on 2Peas, so I can check out examples of their work later. Find out what I was up against, and perhaps get some ideas for things I can do different next year. For now, I've had it with the successful people, so I'm going over to the Photography board to see the latest on the challenges. As usual, one of my primary scrapbooking goals is to improve my photography. The online challenges do this by giving a specific photo assignment, which I can then post for constructive critcism. Which would be much easier (and more timely, not to mention more cost-effective) if I had a digital camera. Ahem! LOL

1:45 I quit. 2Peas is taking forever to load each thread, and after over an hour of this crap, I've had it. I'm going back to my layout.

3:00 Jennifer calls me on her break to pick my brain. LOL We talk for 11 minutes and 47 seconds, and then she has to get back to work. I can't wait for her visit next week - I've got a sweet surprise for her! :)

3:10 90% done with my layout, and it's time to go outside to meet Hannah's bus. For the first time in 3 days, I don't bother taking the phone with me.

4:30 Done! That's 3 layouts in 3 days, 38 pages in 2007, and 431 pages since April 2004! :) It's getting stuffy in here though as the sun lowers in the sky; I think I'll see if Hannah wants to go play outside for a while. I finally sign off AOL; I have spent 412 minutes online. Good thing we have unlimited usage this billing period! :)

5:00 Outside, I am recruited to push Hannah on the swings (of course she has to swing on both the red swing and the blue swing, what was I thinking? I should have gotten 2 of the same color); but after playing outside for only a short while - and pestering me a bit longer than that - she complained that it was too hot, and announced that she wanted to come back inside and watch Caillou. *sigh* I remind her that I told her when she picked out her clothes this morning that it was too hot to wear long sleeves but my words go in one ear and out the other, if they even got that far: she is across the yard and tugging on the sliding glass door by the time I finish talking. At her request, I sit down with her on the couch as I start the VCR. Unfortunately, I can't concentrate to read while the TV is on, but can still cross-stitch. Perhaps I can finish up the Ernie Christmas ornament and get started on Big Bird.

5:30 Hannah wants another glass of milk and another bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Yep, that's what passes as her dinner in our house. Really gotta do something about that.

6:30 We are watching Curious George for the 2nd consecutive time when Chris finally gets home. (My shift is done! LOL) Chris makes the mistake of asking me what I did today, so I whip out a hard copy of this blog post and start reading it aloud. In between the "uh-huh"s and "just a minute, Hannah, Mommy is talking"s, he actually seems to be paying attention. Score one for the hubby. :)

7:00 I really try to eat dinner as a family, but Hannah's eating issues often make it difficult. Tonight we are having spaghetti, which she loves but claims to hate: "Children don't like pasketti!" (I'm trying so hard not to laugh!) I put some on her plate anyway, and am thrilled that she doesn't have a total meltdown. This is progress.

7:30 Dinner is done and it's time for Hannah's bath - Daddy's job. Playtime for me! :) It kind of sucks that he's been home for only an hour now, half of which was taken up by dinner, and now it's her bath & bedtime already. At least his class is only these 3 days, and next week when we're back to our "regularly scheduled programming" Chris and Hannah will once again be able to have some daddy/daughter playtime between dinner and bed. I sign back online to update my blog as he starts the water for her bath and chases her around the house. (He's growling like a monster and threatening "I'm gonna get you!", so don't feel sorry for him. LOL)

8:30 Hannah is ready for stories and bed. I barely manage to hit 'save' before she yanks me out of my seat at the computer and drags me down the hall to her room, to snuggle with her while Chris reads In a People House by Theo LeSieg (aka Dr. Seuss) and Walt Disney's Cinderella for the 500th time. I love storytime. Hugs and kisses all around, and it's lights out.

9:00 Woo-hoo! My April issue of CK IS here! :)

9:30 Resizing layouts for posting. Yay. Definitely not real high up there on my list of favorite things to do. Worth it for the praise though. :) Lately I've noticed that a lot more of my layouts are getting praised on 2Peas, and I've got a few theories why this might be so: 1. My layouts have simply gotten better & better over time, thus drawing more attention in the gallery, and inspiring more people to leave a comment. Basically, I just rock! LOL 2. As more magazines require layouts that have never been posted in an online public forum, fewer of the best designers are posting their work, choosing instead to submit for publication. Thus my layouts stand out more. Also, fewer layouts posted means the gallery is not so fast-paced as it used to be, so my layouts get more exposure before being shoved back to page 257 of layouts posted in the last 24 hours. 3. For whatever reason, more people are taking the time to leave comments on the layouts they view.

10:30 Time for CSI:New York! Watching CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York together has become something of a ritual for Chris and me. It's nice: we cuddle on the couch, and afterwards it gives us something to talk about, a way for us to connect with each other that doesn't involve Hannah. (Not that she's not the center of our lives, but I firmly believe that a healthy marriage needs to be about so much more than just the kids. Healthier for Mom & Dad, and healthier for the kids, too!) Best of all, since we're watching the recording on the VCR, we can speed through the commercials!

11:30 More computer time. I really have a love/hate relationship with this machine. It's such a time-sucker, and yet there's some really cool stuff you can do with it! Provided, of course, that it's actually cooperating.

12:30 Chris is going to bed. Hm. I probably should too. I just have one more thing to do first...

2:00 This time I really am going to bed! I know, it's way later than I should stay up. There simply aren't enough hours in the day! Hopefully tonight I will sleep all night. And tomorrow it will start all over again.

Identity crisis.

2007-03-21T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well to be honest it isn't really a crisis, but I have thought about changing my screen name a lot over the last few years. It's just that I've been "velvethare" for so long (7 years!) that's it's a lot like changing your telephone number: a real hassle. There are so many people to notify, so many e-newsletter profiles to update, so many online accounts to change. I even have a new one picked out: "scrappyhare." One day, on a whim, I decided to check with AOL to see if it was available, though I really expected it to be taken already - there must be thousands of AOL users and most screen names have to be either garbled somehow or numbers added to them to make them unique. I hate that. I was very surprised that my chosen name was actually available and decided to take it, even though I hadn't yet decided to make the switch.

I get asked every now & then how I came up with velvethare, and the answer is really quite simple: when we first signed up with AOL I had to pick a screen name, and since we were still fairly newlywed I wanted something cute with my new name. I decided on "velveteen rabbit." Well of course it was too long. Thus, I settled on "velvethare."

For years, I've tried to come up with a catchy handle that involved my other great love, music. The problem is, I play the French horn. You know what kind of spam I'd get with the word "horn" in my email address?! (Though I have problems with having "velvet" in my address too...) My very first one was "ConnArtist" - which I loved, but got really tired of explaining (my horn is a Conn 8D, as a musician I am an artist, etc...)

To complicate matters even more, on some websites I have still different usernames: I used "horn diva" for a long time, then after Hannah was born I switched to "Ma Hare" (which also happens to be a longtime nickname of Chris' grandma).

But I think I like "scrappyhare" best of all. It's me. It's cute. And it's not something I settled for. I just have to convince myself that it's worth the trouble to make the switch.

All of this to say that I have changed my username on 2Peas. "Ma Hare" has passed away... (The 2Peas user, not Chris' grandma!) Meet "scrappyhare." :)

A red-letter day.

2007-03-18T13:24:00.001-05:00

Hannah has finally decided that she is going to be a big girl! :) You have no idea what a huge relief this is for us! Physically, I knew that she was fully capable, and could have been fully potty-trained since at least last Thanksgiving, but for reasons known only to her she elected not to. It's been 2 years since we started down this road, and I am so glad to see it finally finished. Really, I was afraid that she would be going to Kindergarten still in pull-ups... But just as it was with giving up nursing, with giving up bottles, with giving up the crib, so it was with the diapers: with every major transition, Hannah has done it entirely on her own terms. Cold turkey, no looking back. It's as if she simply decides, "I'm going to do this today." The difference is that she hit all of the other milestones early - this one was rather late.

So to celebrate Hannah's decision to be a big girl, we had a "potty party" last weekend (this was after she had been accident-free for almost a week). I made a cake that looked like a potty, and Hannah was all about helping me to decorate it. She showed me where I should put the white icing and the blue icing ("that's where I go pee" she said) and was a little upset that we didn't have a handle for the potty. She did like the flowers on the tank though. :) Chris's revolting idea of adding Tootsie Rolls was promptly vetoed. We gave her a couple of presents: she got the Azura fairy doll (from the Barbie Fairytopia movie) and a package of Hello Kitty underpants. With some toilet paper streamers stapled to the top of a birthday party hat, Hannah was transformed into the Potty Princess and had great fun prancing around. And in case you were wondering, Hannah is 10.5 squares of toilet paper tall... ;)

All in all it was a lot of fun. Chris' dad was here for the week, and I got some great pictures of them hanging out together, blue tongues and all. :) And it seems that Hannah got the message - that the potty party was a celebration of her decision to be a big girl and use the potty all the time, and she has done perfectly ever since. But the best part is - and I know it's hard to imagine that anything could be better than not having to change any more diapers LOL - the best part is that with the diapers into the trash seems to have gone a lot of her obstinacy. Because Hannah & I are no longer engaging in a battle of wills every hour over sitting on the potty, we are both more relaxed. We are both happier. Her tantrums in general have subsided dramatically, and a weight that I didn't even realize was on my shoulders has suddenly lifted. The little monster that plagued us for 2 years is gone, and I have my sweet little girl back again. :)

So very proud of my big girl. Now I can finally go scrapbook all those Karen Foster potty charts we used. LOL

The stuff of dreams.

2007-03-06T14:12:00.000-06:00

Isn't it odd how sometimes our bodies and our dreams sort of "interact"? I had a major allergy attack yesterday afternoon, and by evening I was an absolute wreck. I couldn't stop sneezing, my sinuses were swollen almost totally shut, you name it. I was also quite tired - probably a result of not getting enough oxygen - so I decided to go to bed a little earlier than usual (as in, before midnight LOL). Well of course you're not going to sleep well if you can't breathe, and it seemed that every time I woke up during the night I was still in the same position that I lay down in when I went to bed. I really don't think I moved much at all. Which explains why I woke up stiff and sore this morning (though the sneezing was much abated).

As I suffer from a number of allergies (I get a bad attack pretty much every time a cold front comes through and the wind shifts to the north), I have nights like this several times a year. The odd thing is my dreams on those nights. The content differs somewhat, but they all have one thing in common: in my dreams, I am experiencing some sort of strenuous activity. Last night it was ballet. I dreamt I was back in high school, in ballet class, and I was en pointe. It was kind of like that fairy tale, where the girl puts on the shoes and can't stop dancing (if I recall correctly, I believe it eventually kills her). Anyway, I was dancing and dancing, and twirling all around, I couldn't just walk anywhere, I had to dance, and my body was aching and exhausted, every muscle pushed well past its well of endurance, and still I had to keep dancing, and then...

And then I woke up, and it was morning. And I was tired from not sleeping well, and stiff and sore from lying too long in one position. Weird, huh? Truly amazing how the mind and body connect, even when we're unaware...

Something to be thankful for.

2007-03-01T21:07:00.000-06:00

So this year Hannah started going to the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities (PPCD) at our local elementary school. And, since it's a public school, this program is free. (Well, technically our taxes pay for it but that's a whole other issue.) This is a good thing. They have a summer program too, for the severely disabled children (and thank GOD she isn't that!), but it still leaves me wondering... what on earth am I going to do with Hannah all summer? It seems such a shame that for 3 months her therapy is put on hold. Who knows how much she will retain, how much she will backslide? And with school starting later in the fall, this summer will be even longer than usual.

So I put in an inquiry to the Kemah Early Autism Project, a private education program near us that services the needs of children with various types and severities of autism spectrum disorders. It looks great. One thing I thought was particularly cool was that they integrate typically-developing children into their program, as a role model for the special needs kids. What a neat concept. (Many schools do the opposite, and try to integrate the autistic children into "normal" classrooms.)

The thing that got me, though, was the price tag. This was in their informational letter:

Our client families end up paying fees of $500 - $3000 per month depending upon the numbers of hours and the services selected from our menu of offerings.

Yikes. I am so, so thankful that the public school near us has such a good program, and that Hannah is doing so well there. It makes me indescribably sad to think that if circumstances were different, if we didn't live in such a good school district, that I wouldn't be able to afford to get Hannah the help she needs. They did say that

We are beginning to see client families that are successful in having their private insurance companies reimburse for ABA or Behavior Therapy, particularly those client families associated with the military TRICARE Insurance program.

but that doesn't help us much; even if our insurance would cover her therapy, she would need an official medical diagnosis. Which she doesn't have. And might not be able to get. Yet whether or not Hannah is in fact autistic as the "professionals" define it, there is no denying the improvements in language development, social skills, and behavior that we have seen since she started preschool in August 2006.

I don't know what we'll do this summer. Among other things, I hope there will be summer dance camp, and playdates, and trips to the zoo. Dinner picnics in the park and ice cream for good behavior. Movies at the theater. Playing at the beach, in the sand box, and at the pool. A lot of laughs, and a lot of fun. Right now, I'm thankful for Hannah's preschool, and for the teachers she adores. For the bus driver that brings my baby home safely to me every day. And for Hannah. Most of all, for Hannah.

A beautiful day.

2007-02-27T09:23:00.001-06:00

Sunshine and sidewalk chalk. A happy girl. A happy mommy. Silliness and giggles and art. A beautiful day. Is there anything better?
Sun chalk drawing by my very own artist-in-training, Hannah. :)

The things I will do for a photograph.

2007-02-16T20:24:00.002-06:00

This morning I dumped all of my rhinestones, crystal brads, and other assorted shiny stuff :) out of their respective containers so that I could take this awesome picture. Now I have a nice big pile in the middle of my desk - which in & of itself is pretty yummy, but now needs re-organizing. As if I didn't have enough messes to clean up as it is. That got me thinking about all the crazy stuff we scrapbookers will do to get a photo. I remember one layout in Creating Keepsakes (I think it was by Sande Krieger) where she got stopped by the police because she was leaning over the edge of a bridge to take a picture; they didn't see her camera & thought she was a jumper. :o

Here's some of the things I have done:

Dumped things out of their neatly organized containers and packaging into one big pile. (Everything from scrapbook supplies to my gazillion pairs of shoes.)
Ironed and changed my clothes, fixed my hair, and put on makeup.
Laid down on the ground under the monkey bars at the park.
Waded barefoot through mud (well, I didn't want to get my shoes yucky! They were expensive! LOL)
Climbed up onto the kitchen countertop.
Blocked traffic (my girlfriend & I just had to get pictures of our matching minivans, ya know! LOL)
Waded through flooded streets.
Pretending to lick patterned paper. (Don't ask. LOL)

So to what lengths have you gone to get the perfect shot? You know, the kind of things that make people (read: non-scrapbookers LOL) look at you funny. Inquiring minds want to know! :)
On a related topic, I found this awesome quote by Stacy Julian (founding editor of Simple Scrapbooks magazine and author of The Big Picture):

I've been thinking about pictures... I'm pretty sure I have way too many. I remember my mother taking her old Kodak 110 film in to get it developed and showing me snapshots from the first day of school, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas - all taken with one 12-exposure roll of film. I've decided that having more pictures doesn't necessarily mean you have more memories - or even more detailed memories. It just means you have more pictures.

Have a great weekend & take lots of pictures!

Hannah's story.

2007-02-15T19:19:00.001-06:00

I just finished a layout for a circle journal I'm participating in; Kay's theme was "Bumps in the Road of Life." A tough topic, but the other entries in her book were very inspiring - and it felt good to write about this, to make a layout about it. Somehow it makes you feel more in control of the situation. Anyway, since the journaling is pretty long, I thought I would post it here on my blog instead of trying to scan it. Besides, I thought it would make a good blog entry: If what's good for the blog is good for the scrapbook, then what's good for the scrapbook is good for the blog, right? ;) I've posted a picture of the layout here too but if you want to see it in more detail you can see it in my gallery at 2Peas. I titled it "She is 1 in 150" because of the new study that found that autism affects 1 in 150 American children (read the article in the Wall Street Journal or at the Autism Speaks website). I hope that if you are moved by Hannah's story, you will consider sending a donation to Autism Speaks organization; donations received through this link by March 31, 2007 can help win a matching grant (click here for more details). So here is Hannah's story; she may be 1 in 150, but to me, she is 1 in a million...

Autism is one of those things that doesn’t happen to you. It’s one of those things that you read about, or you know someone who knows someone who has a kid with it. But it doesn’t happen to you, to your kids. Until it does.

Hannah was a perfect baby, always happy, always smiling, very loving. She hit every milestone in the baby books on time, if not early. Then she turned two, and though the “terrible two’s” really weren’t so difficult, the development of her language skills started languishing. Her social skills also stopped advancing, though I didn’t realize it at the time, having had no experience with other children with which to compare. All I knew is that most of the time, she was adorable, jabbering away in half-complete sentences and baby talk – and sometimes she was unbearable, throwing herself on the floor in violent screaming fits when she didn’t get her way. It was very stressful at times, but I figured, well, she’s only two; she’ll grow out of it.

Then she turned three, and she started attending Mother’s Day Out twice a week. After the first couple of months, her teachers expressed their concern to me that she was not as well developed linguistically and socially as her peers, and recommended that I have her tested for a developmental delay. I shrugged it off for a couple more months, partly waiting (and hoping) for her to simply “grow out of it,” and partly – I admit now – not wanting to even entertain the notion that something might be wrong with my precious baby girl. By the spring semester, though, even I could see that the gap between Hannah and her peers was widening, so I agreed to have her tested by the local school district. The evaluation team identified Hannah as having mild Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) – an umbrella that includes autism spectrum disorders and Asperger’s Syndrome – and we arranged for her to start attending the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities at our neighborhood elementary school in the fall.

After a long and difficult summer, fall finally arrived, and Hannah turned four shortly after school started. We made special arrangements that allowed her to attend Mother’s Day Out twice a week – all of her various caregivers agreed that it would be good for her to continue to have the exposure to “normal” children her age, as an example for her to emulate as well as a stimulus to her desire to grow. (The primary difficulty was that at four years of age, she is the only child in her MDO class not potty-trained, and the classroom is not set up for diaper changes and supervised bathroom trips.) She enjoys her mornings at MDO, but it is at preschool that the real work is done, and we were surprised and pleased to see rapid improvement in Hannah’s behavior and language skills in just the first six weeks.

I would not say that she is a “completely different child” (as you will often hear of children) – she remains as charming and delightful as she ever was. She is imaginative and amusing and beautiful and enthusiastic, and emanates a joyous warmth that seems to touch everyone who sees her. Yet the change in her from just a year ago is unmistakable, and remarkable: her sentences are longer and longer, and it has been months since I heard a syllable of baby talk. Her play-stories are more and more the product of her own fertile imagination, and less and less a mere repetition of the stories she knows from books and movies. She is learning to take turns and to share, and shows much more interest in doing things herself than in insisting that Mommy and Daddy wait upon her hand and foot. She is smart, learning to read and write, using logic to negotiate, and showing signs of a photographic memory. Best of all, she is starting to interact with other children, to call them by name, to talk to them and play with them; at home she likes to recite the list all of her friends to anyone who will listen.

There is still a long road ahead of us, though. She still has difficulty controlling her temper, especially when denied to have her own way, and she appears completely unaffected by any sort of external motivator or punishment. She has very little interest in toilet training and a very limited appetite. This winter, Hannah was evaluated by a psychologist, the summation of whose report was a single, concise word: conundrum. In all her years evaluating children, she has never seen one like Hannah, who appears normal and yet isn’t; who appears to be delayed and yet doesn’t. Her conclusion and professional opinion: Either Hannah is autistic or she is simply the most stubborn child this world has ever seen. Neither scenario sounds particularly appealing to me. Obviously, this is a “bump” that is going to take a long time to get across. In the meantime, I do what I can: I do my best to be a good wife and a good mother, I scrap, I go to church, I spend much-needed time with my girlfriends. I try to stay informed about autism research, the possible causes and treatments, and I am learning how to be my child’s advocate. I take one day at a time.

Wanted: one creative manifesto.

2007-02-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

Time again for another aeZine challenge from the incomparable Ali Edwards. This week the challenge was to create a manifesto for ourselves:

What is a manifesto? According to my handy dandy computer dictionary a manifesto is "a public declaration of policy and aims, esp. one issued before an election by a political party or candidate." Essentially, it is a cool, fancy name for a mission statement - a way to describe your overall creative purpose.

The challenge this week is to come up with you very own personal creative manifesto. Maybe it is one word. Maybe it will be paragraphs. Whatever it is or becomes, take some time this week to begin generating one for just for you. Create a layout, begin a minibook, or maybe just start writing out your thoughts...

Naturally Ali's (which you can read here) is simply the epitome of awesome. And mine... well, I have a list. A list of what, I'm not entirely sure, but a few months ago I started writing down things that popped into my head, little things that I need to try to focus on when I get stuck in a creative rut or when I'm just letting the pressure (real or imagined) get to me too much. At one point I had ideas for a canvas with these phrases (and any others that come along), and that may still happen (or not), but anyway, here's my list:

Live life. Create art. (Thanks to Ali for this one!)
Never stop dreaming.
Learn to let go.
Free your mind on the open road.
Listen to your heart.
Believe in yourself.

Is this a manifesto, a mission statement? I don't know. I don't know that it really describes my "overall creative purpose" as such. But there it is. It inspires me. It calms me. For me, for now, it is enough. And that, I guess, is really all that matters.

A new favorite picture.

2007-02-11T19:56:00.001-06:00

[12/21/2006]

Isn't she beautiful? That's my baby girl. :) She was having such a great time at the park that day - and so was I. The static electricity from the plastic slide was making her hair stand on end (which I thought was pretty cute & funny LOL) so I just crouched at the bottom with my camera and waited for her to come down. A beautiful reminder of a fabulous day.

It's days like that that make this whole thing worth it... this struggle to be Hannah's mom. Today was such a very bad, bad, bad day: everything from the cat puking on the floor first thing this morning to the computer crashing twice this afternoon to Hannah's violent insistence that Daddy buckle her into her car seat, not Mommy. Saying "no" when Daddy asked her if she loves Mommy (and this while she's sitting on my lap eating my dinner! but at least she was eating...). Throwing fits about having to sit on the potty. Peeing on the floor no fewer than six times today. Things like that that make me want to give up, quit trying, walk out and not look back. I went into my scrap room this afternoon and just walked right back out again. I couldn't do it. I wanted to scrap, wanted to take my mind off all the crap of this lousy day, but I was just too depressed. Feeling totally frustrated, bewildered, and... unnecessary.

A total waste of a perfectly good weekend.

Of mothers and daughters.

2007-02-07T00:36:00.000-06:00

I just got back from my monthly book club meeting about an hour ago and wow, what a great discussion! So much to talk about... and this time most of it actually relevant to the book we read... LOL This month we read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. The premise is:

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis.

Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood - the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers - Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah - the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts to sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate, immediate connection.

Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.

One of the big things that struck our group was the Jacobite women's practice of celebrating a girl's entrance into womanhood. Today, Jewish girls have a bat mitzvah; Hispanic girls celebrate with a quinceañera; society girls "come out" at a debutante ball. But for most of us American girls, that day passes quietly, at best. We have taken the essence of our femininity and made it shameful. Even worse, we have become alienated from each other with the destruction of the red tent; instead of several days a month spent in commune with our sisters, we gossip and envy and fight over family-vs.-career on national television. Legends are forgotten. Traditions are abandoned. Communication in the family breaks down. No wonder our kids don't know how (or when) to grow up.

But as in so many things, we, as women, have a choice. And my friends and I choose to reach out to our daughters, to teach them responsibility, so that when they reach adulthood, they will be ready. And we will not let them feel ashamed for their womanhood but we will celebrate it. A day with just the girls, shopping, a pedicure, an all-day crop... whatever we are into at the time. A celebration of the girl she was, and the woman she is becoming. We will set up a new "red tent" in our hearts.

...And look, just like that, one little book has changed the world. How cool is that?

Inspired by... Products.

2007-02-04T13:32:00.000-06:00

Every now and then, something really strikes me, inspires me to a fabulous idea, or simply kindles in me the desire to create, and I thought it would be fun to share some of that inspiration here on my blog. (Right now, I'm totally being inspired by the amazing Ali Edwards, but that's a story for another post. ;) ) Today I'm going to respond to the January 31st aeZine challenge, which is:

This week I want you to take a look at those "extras" that are truly delighting you right now and making you want to create. Make a list and then CREATE a layout that details your favorites.

It was so much fun to make a layout on this topic! It's totally yummy... ;) So here's my list:

Prima flowers. Just call me a Prima junkie! LOL 61 varieties and counting...

Shiny stuff. Crystal brads; bling words, frames, and borders; jeweled icons; I love it all! There is just something about a little sparkle that adds the perfect finishing touch to any page. :)

Acrylic stamps. Totally infatuated with the beautiful new stamps from Rhonna Farrer for Autumn Leaves, and also the Lil Davis sets. So elegant. KI Memories has definitely caught my eye, I may have to have those too... ;)

Transparency overlays. Loving all the swirls from Creative Imaginations and Hambly Studios for my wedding album. The 4x6 overlays and icons from My Mind’s Eye Bohemia line are another favorite – love it that I can get that digital look without all the work! LOL

Rub-ons. I love alphabet rub-ons of any kind and any color; Junkitz Expressions, Basic Grey Wholly Cow, American Crafts miniMARKS Accents, and 7gypsies; and of course anything fancy: Hambly Studios, Chatterbox Grafix… (The list goes on and on and on... LOL)

Photos and memories. Obviously also an essential, but like Ali, I included it here too because really, nothing inspires me to scrapbook more than a great photo or memory.

Connecting with other scrapbookers. Especially Jennifer. I love to meet other people who are passionate about scrapbooking, see their creations, and share my own. And when the ideas start flying... watch out! LOL

That's my list for today. Tomorrow it may be slightly different. But that's the fun part of this hobby/obsession: all the new and exciting products to play with! :)

Only the essentials.

2007-02-03T13:06:00.000-06:00

Another challenge from Ali Edwards' aeZine, this one from January 17, 2007. It's all about the basics:

What are your essentials? If you had to get rid of everything and just keep a modest amount, what would be on your list? The challenge this week is easy: draft up a list of your essentials. What do you reach for time after time?

I've actually been noticing these things a lot lately anyway, that certain things always end up on my layouts, so this question comes at a good time for me. Here's my list (in no particular order):

Patterned paper. Just about any color scheme, design, or theme – so long as it’s not cheesy. Right now I am loving Basic Grey and American Crafts.

Journaling pens in black, white, and brown. I like the Zig Milleniums in black, but haven’t found a good brown one yet (the Millenium is too light, too red; for now I’ve been using my chocolate Zig Writer). Love the white Uni-ball Signo from Stampin’ Up!

Black and brown ink. Usually Close To My Heart but StazOn is much better for inking photos and stickers.

My camera (and also, my photographs). I like my Canon Rebel a lot but I wish it was digital!

Stupid paper trimmer. I hate them, but I can’t seem to work without one. The Cutterpede from EK Success has worked the best for me so far, but even that's not perfect. (I can't cut a straight line with an Xacto and metal ruler either though, so maybe it's just me... maybe it's my eyes that are crooked... LOL)

Ruler, pencil, and eraser! I believe in measuring before I cut, and I’m a big fan of straight lines, so I really couldn’t do without these essential tools. I’m happy to report I’ve managed to convert several scrapping friends… :) My ruler is clear, my pencil is mechanical, and my eraser is a soft white Staedtler.

Scissors. Love the Fiskars SoftTouch (but I don’t like the new bumpy handles).

Adhesives: Herma, Xyron X150, Diamond Glaze, and Glue Dots of several kinds. Necessary, but boring. I hate spending money on adhesives.

Chipboard. At first I couldn’t figure out what to do with it, now I can’t seem to make a layout without it! I love the lightweight dimension it adds, and all the different ways it can be altered.

Jennifer. How on earth did I ever scrap without the other half of my brain?

Stickers. I’ve never thought of myself as being much of a sticker person but somehow I’ve managed to accrue a huge stash of letter and word stickers. I’m particularly fond of letter stickers from American Crafts and Doodlebug, and I am totally smitten with 97% Complete from 7gypsies!

Bazzill cardstock. The colors I find myself reaching for the most are black, white, Java, Pomegranate, and Kraft.

I don't know if it's a modest amount, exactly (I have a lot of patterned paper! LOL), but these are the things I can't scrap without! I made my layout using only the supplies in my list... Talk about stretching that creativity! :)

One little word.

2007-02-02T13:27:00.001-06:00

Working my way through Ali Edwards' aeZine challenges. I just discovered this gem of a newsletter (totally inspiring!!), so I'm a little behind... January 3rd's challenge was to identify one word to focus on for the coming year:

Can you identify a single word that sums up what you want for yourself in 2007? It can be something tangible or intangible. It could be a thought or a feeling or an emotion. It can be singular or plural. The key is to find something that has personal meaning for you.

This week your challenge is to create something, anything, that celebrates your chosen word for 2007. Maybe a layout. Maybe a blog posting or a journal entry or a simple post-it note that you put somewhere you can see it each day. Make sure to journal about why you chose your word and what it means for you - the more you let yourself explore the more benefit you will receive in the end.

After some thought, I have decided that my word for 2007 is more. At first, it seems like an odd choice; a lot of people these days seem to still subscribe to the "less-is-more" philosophy that first appeared as a backlash against the excesses of the 1980's. But really, when I thought about what I want for 2007, more just seemed like the perfect fit... In 2007, I want:

More time with my family. I need to remind myself what is truly most important to me in life, and adjust my priorities accordingly. Spend less time behind the camera and more time actively participating. Live life, not just document it. And after all, I have to make memories before I can scrapbook them, right? ;)
More confidence. Why do I sell myself short so much? Why do I have such a hard time believing compliments, denying them inside even as I graciously accept them on the outside? Who am I, really? What do I even want out of life? Good questions to ponder over the next year and a half; hopefully I will enter my 30's with a measure more clarity and confidence than I have had in my 20's.
More peace. I've gotten a good start on this one already, going to church every Sunday, and using Jesus Take the Wheel (Carrie Underwood) as the ringtone on my cell phone to remind me to pray and keep God in my daily life.
More organization. Starting with my studio, of course. (Yes I will post pictures when I'm done.) The kitchen and the garage are minor disaster areas, and all of our closets have a lot of wasted space. And eventually, I'm going to have to do something about all that junk in the guest room...!
More time with Jennifer. Life just hasn't been the same since she moved, though we talk daily and our friendship is just as strong as ever. Miss her so much.
More weight loss. I'm down almost 50 pounds since April 2005, but I haven't done much lately to further this progress. Need to get back on track to better health, which will also help my confidence!
More sleep. I'm still a night owl - but lately I've definitely felt the effects more strongly of burning the candle at both ends. Chris and I have been trying to get to bed earlier, but it's so hard to resist the temptation to stay up just a little bit longer... He loves his video games, and I love to scrapbook, and most of that fun stuff is done after Hannah goes to bed at nine. Of course, being the night person that I am, a lot of times I feel like my brain doesn't even wake up to its full creative potential until 10pm! Still, I think an earlier bedtime could do a world of good: I think Hannah would benefit from a more enthusiastic Mommy, and I know my body would respond better to my diet if I got more rest.

So that's my list. Just about the only thing I don't want (or need) this year is more stuff!
Here's to a great new year full of possibility!

Size DOES matter.

2007-02-01T19:15:00.000-06:00

Let me tell you for a moment about one of my biggest pet peeves right now: it's things that are supposed to be a given size, claim to be a given size, but aren't. Like patterned paper. I know, not all paper is precisely 12x12, and that's just the way some companies do things. Like the sheets you tear out of books; they aren't 12x12 because the part on the other side of the perforation (the part they bind) gets torn off. I get that. What I'm talking about is paper that actually claims to be 12x12, but when you measure it (or worse, when you adhere it to a sheet that truly is 12x12), it's only 11-15/16, or 11-7/8. Or even 11-3/4. Though American Crafts brought this issue to a whole new level of irritation for me the other day when I found out that two of their patterns made to go together are not even the same size. What am I supposed to do with that??? I think the least a company could do is make all their paper one size!

Even worse than the patterned paper issue is the problem of 4x6 prints. (You know, the thick stack of doubles you bring home every time you develop a roll or two of film, that is now leaning like the tower of Pisa on your desk because you haven't had time to sort, label, and file them all.) Have you ever noticed not all 4x6 photos are 4x6? A lot of them are actually 4x5-7/8. In my opinion, this is an even bigger problem because you really expect a 4x6 to be 4x6! As usual, I found this out the hard way: imagine making a grid layout using 4x6 photos on two sheets of 12x12 paper (which is really 12x24 since it's 2 pages). The whole thing is sketched out to a T in perfect proportions and you have all your materials gathered. You begin assembling the layout, thinking, this will be so easy... all the hard work (the planning & measuring, etc) is done! Wrong. Because the photos aren't true 4x6, suddenly the grid doesn't line up. So you trim the others - only to discover that the sides aren't perpendicular.

Of course, if you're really lucky, the fact that your photos are missing a couple centimeters here and there won't matter, because your paper isn't really 12x12 anyway.

Snow.

2007-01-31T23:52:00.001-06:00

This is from Jennifer. It is snowing in Arkansas, and she has great pictures of it. Her kids had a fabulous time playing in the snow, and she has great pictures of them. It is 50 degrees in Houston. Here it is not snowing; here it is raining. In 2004, on Christmas Eve, it snowed in Houston, and I was not here. I missed it. So she sends me this picture because she knows it will make me mad all over again.

At least it is not a great picture.

Thoughts on faith.

2007-01-31T22:50:00.000-06:00

Musing after church on Sunday...

They say that faith is when you believe in something that you haven't seen, and that to have faith like that is really something special. Personally, I think it's easier to believe in God as some invisible, higher spirit being. I mean, what if Jesus came down and walked among us like He did during New Testament times? What would your response be to some man, probably dressed in rags and not bathed, who went around claiming to be the Son of God? You'd wonder what kind of drugs he'd been doing, that's what. The ancient Hebrews didn't believe Jesus was who He claimed to be, and neither would we; when you get right down to it, people haven't changed much in the last 2000 years. And that's kind of sad, really.

New Scrapbook Basics catalogs are here!

2006-04-03T12:48:00.000-05:00

And they feature our beautiful new logo! New products include American Crafts albums, Bazzinks, new Bazzill monochromatic and trio packs, Karen Foster Clickit, Basic Grey Notch & Die Tool, lots of Karen Foster organizational items, and two new idea books: Journey to Junkitz and Big Picture Scrapbooking by Stacy Julian. (I already have this last book and I LOVE it! Plus she has a great new website at http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com) This catalog runs annually; watch for our new seasonal supplement in the next couple of weeks!

Get FREE SHIPPING on all orders placed through me from our old Basics catalog and the Fall 2005 supplement - these products have a limited availability, so get 'em before they're gone! I do also have some things in stock; if you're interested, please email me or call me!

Congrats!

2006-03-26T22:20:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to IRW Instructor Beth Quinn for being one of 25 finalists in the Chatterbox 2005 Make It Meaningful album contest!!! Winners will be announced April 30th - go Beth!

Crop Scheduled for April 8th!

2006-03-24T00:22:00.001-06:00

Take a break from spring cleaning! Come crop with me at my house on Saturday, April 8, 2006 from noon to 4pm. Enjoy light refreshments, door prizes, and get some pages done in your scrapbook. We’'ll also make a monogram magnet for your refrigerator (or your layout!) as we explore the wonders of chipboard, decoupage, and painting! Shopping will be available through the I Remember When catalog, as well as many in-stock items on sale and clearance, including Heidi Swapp, Making Memories, and more... Admission is only $3.

There will be at least 2 different "kits" to choose from, so RSVP early for the best selection!

2006 Hostess Club Now Open!

2005-12-02T18:54:00.000-06:00

Hey ladies! I am now accepting sign-ups for the Hostess Club, for the first half of 2006. In case you're new, here's how it works: Six people agree to spend a minimum of $25 each month for six months. Each month, a different person will be chosen to receive the hostess benefits (everyone will get a turn). If you so choose, you can also take orders from your friends to boost your benefits (up to $50 free products, and an additional product at 50% off). Reach just $200 in total combined sales for the month, and get an extra gift from me! At the end of 6 months, gifts and benefits will be distributed at a special party just for the Hostess Club!

Something new!

2005-11-30T20:08:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my blog! I've been wanting to get my business online for a while now, but somehow a website just seemed like way too much trouble! Although I have to admit I found the idea of creating my own background designs and navigation buttons via digital scrapbooking techniques intriguing...

What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to provide a fun, easy way for my croppers and customers to stay updated on news and events, as well as sharing ideas and inspiration (just as soon as I figure out how to post pictures!).

So here we go - I hope you'll come along for the ride!