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Ok, I am SERIOUSLY behind in posting layouts here. Since I only have a few little things to report about, I'm going to upload quite a few today.
First the news:
1. Adam's deployment date has gotten moved up again. Things should still be fine, unless they move the date up again. So, keep your fingers crossed.
2. Adam is going to hear the First Lady speak at Eglin today. I couldn't go with because I have to work tonight. :( At least I sent him with the camera.
3. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sign up for another 5K on November 21st. Adam will be gone, but Will said he would come to town and run with me. Yay for races! Now I just have to get back in race shape. If I was ever in race shape....
Now to the layouts!
This is Adam cutting his birthday cake. I used this page as my inspiration, but kept it simple and I like the way it all came together. Adam's face in the second picture is priceless. And I'm pretty proud that I got away with using flowers on a page about Adam. :)
I love the way this page came together with just a few scraps. I usually don't think far enough ahead to match my papers to the colors in the photos, but I think the red of my shirt and the peek of yellow from Adam's undershirt really bring the whole thing together.
I shared this picture on the blog a few months ago and I finally got around to making a page about it. The page is not perfect (I don't like the crooked title), but I'm glad I saved this memory anyway.
This one took some work, since I seem to be so low on red, white and blue stuff, but with this sketch and the punch-out stars I think it came out well. The labels were a free download I found somewhere online and printed on red cardstock.
Well, I think that'll about do it for me today. I'd better hop in the shower and pack up my dinner for work. I have more pages to share, but they'll have to wait for another day.
Even when you're not having fun. Even when you leave for work just when your husband is coming home from work two nights in a row.
It's not really that bad, but it's not really that fun either. In any event, time definitely appears to be flying. We've been in the new house for more than a month and we're already gearing up for Adam's mom and grandma to come visit next weeked. I feel like I JUST updated the blog, but the truth is it's been awhile.
On Tuesday night after work, Adam and I went out and RAN for the first time here in our neighborhood. It had been altogether TOO LONG. I only ran 15 minutes total in 3 intervals and was still sore the next morning. And the next morning. I wanted to run again Thursday, but since I still felt a little stiff, I decided on a walk instead. I walked to the library and back (it's about 1.5 miles from the house). It felt really good to be outside and to be doing SOMETHING instead of sitting around inside feeling sore.
I was going to maybe go out running for a little bit tonight, but Adam wants to head into Pensacola to pick up some stuff (a book for his grad class and the tennis racquet he had re-strung). I am supporting this change in schedule because there's a good chance we'll stop at Office Depot and maybe buy a desk to be my scrapbook desk. Hooray for clearing off the mess I've made on the coffee table!
Anyway, I've got just a couple older pages to share before we get in gear and get out of here. Enjoy!
These are funny pictures of Adam and Skeletor with Skelly's head buried so he looks headless. There's not much to say about the layout, it's pretty basic.
This page is simple, but I like the way it turned out. I think it all works together since the picture is simple, the words I wrote are simple and the design is fairly simple. It's based on an older sketch at 52 Sketches, 52 weeks.
Drumroll please.....
Since I started this blog (first post on April 15) and started taking pictures of my scrapbook pages to share, I have made....
90 pages.
In 3.5 months. That seems like a lot. Even to me. And this doesn't count the 7-10 pages I've still got in the pile that just need to be glued together. Wow.
Alright, I'm sure no one else thinks that's interesting or cool, but I'm really impressed. Maybe I'd better stop blabbing and just post a couple of these numerous pages.
I wish you could see the photo on the page better online, because the face that Will is making is absolutely priceless. I was trying to recreate this page I found online, and I think it came out pretty well. I used the Wedding font with my Slice to cut the title AGAIN. My favorite part about using the die-cutter to make titles is that you always have exactly all the letters you need. When I went to glue this page, I couldn't find one of the "t's" for the title. I must have just gotten blown off the page while it was sitting on my desk. But no big deal. I still had a scrap of the black paper to just go back and cut another one. :)
I LOVE this page. First of all, the picture is came out really well, and I think the proportions of the picture fit really well with the rest of the page. I used this cute page as a guide, but obviously used a military theme instead. After about a week of cajoling, I managed to get Adam to write some thoughts and memories about his Detatchment Commander Colonel Taylor for the journaling, and I'm happy to get some of his perspective into my scrapbooking.Adam had to go in early to give a PT test this morning, and he has to go back for some sort of brief at 3pm, but right now we're going to head to Pensacola to spend the rest of his birthday money and scheme over appliances and home improvement stuff at Lowe's. Maybe I can even convince him to stop at the Hobby Lobby up there. :)
Hooray! What a good day. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with another six in a row (my boss scheduled me off for the LONG weekend even though our travel plans feel through), but that's a worry for another day. For now, things are going well. I've been cleaning, packing, scrapping and running errands. I LOVE feeling like I'm getting stuff done. Adam won't be home til after 7pm most likely because of his flight schedule, so I should be able to squeeze in a run before dinner, too. Well, since that has none of the drama necessary for an interesting blog post, I'll just finish with some recent pages. I got pictures taken of a few more today and I'll update tomorrow with how many I've made since starting the blog.
Part of me feels like I've scrapped way too many pictures from Adam's birthday/4th of July weekend already, but part of me still loves all of the pictures I've taken (AND the pages I've made so far) so I don't feel so bad about it. I thought this picture of Adam and Mike Alcide at Adam's birthday dinner came out really nice (good job on the matchy shirts, boys) and it gave me a chance to write about our friends living just up the block. The little diamond shapes were just part of the pattern of another sheet of paper. I thought they turned out cute as little embellishments.
I'm torn about this page. Sometimes I look at it and like, other times it just doesn't look right to me. It's kind of a shame because I was trying to recreate this page that I thought was so cute. Mine definitely doesn't do it justice. But I do love the picture of my little puppy acting like he owns the laundry, so I'm happy that now it's in my album forever.
So, I feel like I should be updating my blog more often, but then I don't have much to share. I'm just working, cleaning and packing while we wait to hear about our appraisal and repair requests. There's still more than four weeks until we get into the new house. Sigh...
At least that means that I don't have to pack up my scrapbook stuff anytime soon. I've been scrapping and gluing a lot in the past few days, but unfortunately my glue sticks are getting low again. Good thing I get paid tomorrow. :) I really hope that I'll be able to set my scrapbook stuff up even more efficiently in the new place, but I don't have a perfect vision of what it's going to be yet.
I guess that's all for now. Here's some scrapbook pages I've worked on in the last few days.
This is one of those pages that I kind of struggled with. I felt like I just didn't know what to do with the patterned paper background. I didn't want to cover it up or fight with it, so I went really simple with everything else. I kind of based the layout on a sketch in Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine. You can download a digital copy of the magazine from their website completely free. Score!
This page was also somewhat problematic. It's really hard for me to scrap pictures like these that are really nice, but don't really have a story to tell. It's just my mom and Adam's mom at our rehearsal dinner. Since I don't have a clear idea of what the page is "about" I have a hard time moving forward with the title, the design, etc. But after all is said and done, I think it came out pretty cute, and I'm glad that I can include this cute picture in my scrapbook.
Oh yeah, blogging! I always have such high expectations of blogging, but then never get around to it. Well, I was thwarted from taking Skeletor on our walk this morning by a storm that decided to blow in just as we were leaving the house, so I think it must be a sign that I needed to come back inside and post this update.
My weekend was pretty quiet. Adam had to work furiously on his final paper for his first online grad class since he pretty much left it all for the last minute, but he did have no problem making the deadline on Sunday night and already got his grade for the class by Monday. Hooray! He got a 96.4. Good job, baby. Anyway, since he was busy I mostly did my own thing. I cleaned up a little, packed a little and wasted time on the computer a little. I did have to work on Saturday night, but on Sunday I got a little spurt of scrapbook momentum and put together about four pages. Yay! I think I'm going to take and edit some more pictures later today and get an estimate of my total page count since starting the blog.
I skipped the scrapbook pictures in my last post because there was picture overload as it was, so here's a peek today at what I've been clearing out of that big pile on my desk.
This page was done with the help of this sketch posted on the Noel Mignon blog and also with the help of my pirate-wannabe husband. Since the picture is of him on a trip to Key West without me, I had to coerce him into writing the journaling since I didn't know the story behind the picture. (Though knowing him, I could guess.)
I like how this page turned out a lot. It was a little tricky to figure out how to make the inside cut out of the patterned paper using just my little trimmer, but I think it looks good. I also really like the photos and the kraft paper background. Usually dark brown is my go-to for a background, but I might have to start using kraft more often.
So things have been pretty crazy in the last few days. Tomorrow, we put down our earnest money and are officially under contract to buy a house. I'm SO excited and SO nervous at the same time. I just want everything to go smoothly and I don't want to make any mistakes. It seems like we're doing things right so far, but how am I supposed to know for sure? I've never done this before.
With all of this house stuff and working, I haven't done much of anything else lately. I'm looking forward to a day off tomorrow to take care of everyday stuff. We have to turn in our money and really get the ball rolling on an inspection, but other than that, I want to run some errands, maybe hit up the library and clean up this house with moving in mind. I do have a couple of pages to share that I made/glued earlier this week.
I really like this page of Adam at the beach on the 4th. It's kind of based on this page I found while perusing scrapbook blogs. My title didn't work out so perfectly. I feel like it's kind of crowding the picture. I cut all of the stars and circles with my Slice.
This one is kind of similar (I really liked the color palette for boy pages for Adam), and the pictures are even more outstanding. This is how I found Adam when he was supposed to be getting ready to go to the store on his birthday. No sketches this time, just me, and I think it turned out pretty well, considering.
That's all for now. I think I'm going to hit the hay early since I had a long day with church, work and serious discussions with the husband. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Did I seriously just offer to pay $214,900 for something?
Oh. My. God.
We'll find out by tomorrow at noon if the seller's agree to our offer on their house. If this seems sudden, it is. We saw this house for the first time yesterday morning, but it was too good to pass up. Of course, I'll update tomorrow whether they accept or not, but until then there's not much to do but wait. Guess I'll try to put my mind on other things by posting some scrapbook pages.
Just a real simple one I did with this cute picture of me and Adam in Budapest. I like that it's kind of subtle.
This one is cute and simple, too. I used this sketch posted on the Write.Click.Scrapbook. blog (definitely one of my new favorites). I cut the title with different sized letters from my Slice. Not bad, huh?
What is it about sitting quietly in the dark for three hours that makes you so exhausted? I don't know man, but I came out of the theater after watching Harry Potter and all I wanted was a nap. Fortunately, I was able to fight the feeling and still get a lot accomplished this afternoon. We went to a Jo-Anns on the way home and found albums I like (FINALLY!) on sale 40% off. Then we stopped at a bike store to order Adam a new post for his bike since the current one keeps slipping and screwing up his seat. Even once we made it back home I escaped the lure of my bedroom. We played with Skeletor, did some talking to banks about home loans AND I got out and ran for about 25 minutes. Now, after dinner and some TV time (along with some time putting pages into my new albums) I can literally feel my eyelids getting heavier. I will soon be tucking myself into bed, but not before I post a couple new pages.
This page came together really quickly with the help of this sketch from the Mix it Up! blog. I especially like the way the hand-drawn border lines came out, and I think you'll definitely see more of that in the future.
This one came together with the help of my pizza pan. I wanted to add a curve, so I traced my pizza pan onto the patterned paper. I thought I was pretty clever. :) As you can see, I used my new Slice design card again to cut the title. I still absolutely LOVE that font. I think the page LOOKS cool, but I also really love the picture and the story. I'm really glad to be including memories of other people in my life, not just me and Adam. I want to remember everybody that is important to our lives. I just know that I'll really appreciate this years down the road.
In another thought....the Harry Potter movie was flippin' awesome! Even Adam totally loved it. Money is a little tight right now, but I'm already thinking of reasons to go see it again. (Number one on the list is the crappy seats at the front of the theater that we had to sit in today. I'm sure it'll be even better at a reasonable distance.)
Our internet has been acting up all day. It’s definitely not the most reliable, and today there were some wicked (but short, thankfully) storms that I’m sure didn’t help the problem. The point here is that I’m typing this up in Word so I can (hopefully) post this quickly tomorrow morning. See how dedicated I am?
Anyway, my lesson for today is that To Do Lists are awesome. I got so much done today, just by looking back over the list I made this morning and working (relatively) methodically to cross things off. I ran errands, I did dishes, I sorted laundry and I also finished my book and made 2.5 scrapbook pages. I also threw in a 24 minute run before dinner. Can you tell I’m excited? I’ve really been needing a day like today, where everything gets done and I start AND end the day in a positive mood. Unfortunately, it's the kind of day that makes for boring blogging. So I'll keep it short and just upload a couple pages I've glued in the past few days.
Meh. I don't know how I feel about this page. It's kind of lame. Mostly I just wanted to try to make a flat little bow with my ribbon and the rest of the page is secondary. It kind of shows. Oh well. The pictures are still really cute. I think Adam looks a lot younger in the picture of him, but I guess that makes sense since it WAS four years ago. Kind of a scary thought, actually.
Clearly, this one is awesome. My idea was just to make sure that the awesome picture did all the work. I used this page as a template for mine and just added the man figure and the border of words to make it more...me. Also, I love that this picture of my husband is now out in cyberspace for the world to see. I love him. He makes me smile everyday.
And I think I'm about ready to hit the hay. Or at least brush my teeth and get into bed with my new book. (The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell; It's about the Massachusetts Puritans and she has a really funny writing style while still getting interesting historical points across. I'm definitely going to pick up some of her other stuff later.) Right after I finish up this post. I promised my dad on the phone the other night that I would post a page that I made using my brand new Slice design card, aka my present from my proud parents for finishing my first 5K. 
I cut the scalloped hearts, the title and the shape behind the title all with the new card. I can not even tell you how much I LOVE that font. I am going to use the HELL out of it for a long time to come. The picture is pretty cute, too, huh? Well, at least that good-looking dude. He looks so handsome and mature. He must have just turned 24. Of course I have to mention that this awesome page would not have been possible without the inspiration of this page. It really helps to have a template to work from with bold patterns like these.
This page is one of the many that had been desperately calling out for glue in the past weeks. I finally got it all put together and I think it looks pretty nice. A handsome man in the picture always helps things. Just see the above picture for further proof. This one also had some help, this time from a sketch. I found it here while browsing around A Cherry on Top eyeing up supplies I would buy if I won the lottery.
All in all, today was a good, relaxing day. I took Skelly on a walk, Adam and I went to church, and then we came home for lunch and scrapbooking time. We went to play some tennis before dinner and then had frozen pizza and a sidedish of Battlestar Galactica. I also got some more pages glued so hopefully I will be back tomorrow with more to share. Yay for two days off! I worked quite a bit last week as our store got ready for our Ornament Premiere (woo, that first hour Saturday morning was NUTS!), so I'm enjoying the little breather. I do have to work all day Tuesday, but I'm off Wednesday and there's a chance Adam will be, too. Can you say Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? :)
Have no fear. The glue has returned! And it's a good thing, too. The pile of pages needing to be glued together is getting a little out of control. I made a small dent the day before yesterday, but I think there's at least 15 pages still waiting for attention. I haven't managed to do any more today because I have to go into work tonight, and I've been trying to clean up around the house this morning. But I did get some pictures taken and edited. Yay!
Me and my bridesmaids midway through the getting ready routine. I used this sketch and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made the flower with my Slice and some adhesive pearls.
I know, no one is in the mood for Christmas, but I saw a page at Nick's blog (scroll down to see her "just be" page) and really wanted to re-create it. I think it all came out pretty well. And honestly, I've had a hard time recently with the "event" kind of pages, so I was happy to get this one done pretty easily. I'd like to have a good mix of "event" pages and "moment" pages to look back on years from now.
Can't think of any other interesting new to share. All I'm doing is catching up on gluing and counting down until Harry Potter comes out on Wednesday. :)
Yay! I've still got more than a week until my actual race, but yesterday I completed my last run in the "official" training program. I'm so happy that I made it all the way through, but still a little nervous about the actual race. For one thing, it's going to be very different to run with a big group of people. I hope I don't get jostled around too much or pushed to a pace I'm not comfortable with. Another thing is just that I haven't actually run the full 5K distance yet. From what I can estimate (since I run in the streets and not on a track), I've been running just under an 12-minute mile, meaning that my most recent 30-minute runs have only taken me about 2.5 miles or so. I'm going to keep running this next week, but the first time I attempt the 5K distance may be race day.
Adam took the dog on a walk yesterday while I was running and met up with me to run the last 7-8 minutes with me. As we were cooling down and walking the rest of the way back home, we started talking about the progress I've made, and I realized that right now I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been in. Nine weeks is definitely the longest I've ever maintained a serious exercise routine. So I may not be the thinnest I've ever been, but I'm in better shape. I can't think of any other time in my life when I could have finished a 30-minute run. But I have some mixed feelings about that. One the one hand, I'm proud of myself for the improvements I've made and the accomplishments I've acheived. On the other hand, it's kind of sad that THIS is my high point. I'm still overweight and pretty slow. I'm not in GOOD shape. My personal best is a pretty low bar.
I AM confident that I can and will get in good shape, and that I'm moving in the right direction. I'm doing my best to let go of the past. There is absolutely NOTHING I can do to change what I did or who I was in the past. I can only make changes and live the way I want to NOW. And to be honest, I wouldn't REALLY want to change anything in my past. It has made me who I am now, and given me the perspective to appreciate where I am now. Sometimes it's just hard to remember that.
Other than running, I've been spending A LOT of time this week watching Wimbledon. Since the Australian Open this year, I have been such a tennis fan. The only thing that would make it better would be some glue, because glueing scrapbook pages together is perfect for watching tennis, since I only have to pay half-attention to both. Since Monday, I've watched almost 9 hours of coverage everyday because I just leave it on in the background. (Obviously yes, I've got it on right now. Go, Venus!) I've got at least 10 pages that need to be glued, and this is the last one I've got saved on my computer.
I let the patterned paper do pretty much all the work on this page. Just a title, some journaling and 2 little punched stars. I think it works though.
The planets were aligned against me late last week. On Wednesday (a week ago) I ran as planned and everything seemed fine. Well, it was not easy, but I ran 30 minutes just fine. I planned on "officially" finishing my Couch to 5K program with a last 30 minute run on Friday. Until our house-hunting appointment at 4pm got moved to 5pm and we didn't get home til 7pm. I was hungry for dinner and there wasn't much sun left. I didn't go running. Saturday we spent with Will at the Gulfarium. I had hoped to get the run in, and even told Will to bring running shoes to come with me, but once again we got home hungry and tired and after a full day (almost all of it spent outside), a run was pretty much out of the question. And then Sunday my day was full from 8:30am as I headed to church until 7:30pm when I got home from work. No time and definitely no energy to run.
Finally, on Monday, even though I had plans for dinner with other CSO wives in our squadron, I knew I HAD to run. I went out at 4:15pm, even though the heat index was near 110. I got some BAD stomach cramps about halfway through and had to stop and walk, but when they got better I started running again and finished it out.
I HATED not running. I was so disappointed in myself for not finding a way or sucking it up and going out after work. Even though I didn't "complete" the run and the program on Monday, I was really proud of myself for doing it even though it was not that convenient and SUPER HOT. It was amazing how quickly I seemed to lose the mental momentum and positive attitude. But I'm determined to get it back just as quickly. Today, I'm going reinforce my renewed schedule. I'm going to go out and finish the whole 30 minute run. No more excuses and no more feeling guilty and unaccomplished.
In other news:
Adam and I have been doing more house shopping. It's still very much in the beginning stages. For me at least (and I think for Adam, too), I feel like we're kind of treading water and not moving forward. We haven't found anything really exciting and the homebuilders that we've talked to have not been very flexible or helpful. One of our problems is that we're pretty comfortable where we are. Sigh. I wish we could just buy this one.
On the job front, I'm still weighing the options for my next move. What I'm leaning toward is just finding a full-time job, any full-time job. The things that I'm sure I would like to do in the future (teacher, translator, European specialist) are just so few and far-between especially here in Florida. I need to be open to anything for the moment, because I never know what I might end up enjoying.
I've been reading my Harry Potter in French and still doing a little bit of scrapbooking. It feels good to be more well-rounded. I still haven't re-supplied on glue and this morning my printer ran out of color ink, so the balance is likely to stay the same for another little while. On that note, here are some of the last of the pages I have organized on my computer.
After our wedding, that is. This is the only picture I have of that day, as opposed to the 2000 I have of the day before. :) I like how I named the little "potty people" Mr. & Mrs. Dunn.
This one I had some inspiration from the Studio Calico blog. I really liked the idea of a busy pattern for the background and a solid color to hold the title. I cut the title and the green flowers with my Slice.
*I thought I posted this on Sunday, but I guess not. A little late, but whatever.*
Clearly, I'm old. I was up until 1am last night, and that was super late for me. I still managed to wake up in time for church, and now I'm trying to post a quick update before I have to go to work. The Gulfarium was fun yesterday, but I forgot my camera at home. :( I was charging the batteries and left it on the kitchen counter. We tried to take a few pictures with Adam's iPhone camera, so when he syncs that with his computer, I'll check out how bad they came out.
After the Gulfarium we got pizza from Hungry Howie's, went to Walmart to buy Scattergories and had a super fun night drinking a little and playing the game. Will had NEVER played it before. He must have had a very sad childhood. He got better as we played (and as he drank more), but Adam was pretty much unstoppable. I might sound like a lame night, but can't think of anything else I would have rather done.
And now, here are some pages I made last week(ish) that I just got around to cropping.
I LOVE this. I did a little experiment to make the flower on the bottom and I think it turned out really cute. The only thing that was hard about making it was using glue dots to fold the "petals" and stick it all together. I find them really hard to use for some reason. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
On this one, I tried the same thing again, but with wiry ribbon instead of paper. I don't like it quite as much, but I think it looks pretty good on the page. I used this sketch from a brand new sketch blog called Twisted Sketches that seems very cool.
I'm about to head off the Gulfarium (woo!). Well, actually, I'm about to head off to take the puppy over to Logan's house to play with Apollo while we're gone, but THEN we're on our way. Either way, I just wanted to post while I was thinking about it and share a few more pages from last week. I realized last night that I've run out of glue to put all my pages together, so even if I do make some pages this week (which I'm pretty sure I will), I won't be able to finish them all the way until I pick up some more glue. Til I get everything worked out, these will have to hold you over. :)
I think this wedding page is pretty good, just not very subtle. Big patterns, big shapes. I like it because it has the AU sign in the background and I wanted to write about how cool it was for us to get married at our university.
This one came from a sketch over at So Sketchy! Other than the fact that I ran out of room for the last word in the title, I think it's overall pretty successful.
Tomorrow will be a busy because I'm working pretty much all day, but I'll try to squeeze in some time to update about my day at the Gulfarium. Happy early Father's Day to all of the dads out there, especially the world's best one: mine.
It's amazing how a couple of days of work (even if only for four or five hours at a time) can really interrupt keeping up with your (too many) hobbies. Having some time away also made me realize that I really like blogging because I missed it. I'm glad to have today and tomorrow off to do some catching up. Maybe I shouldn't make any promises about tomorrow, though, since Will is coming over and we're heading to the Gulfarium to celebrate his birthday. I'm TOTALLY pumped for the dolphin show. :)
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Stuff just swirls around when I have alone time running, walking the dog, and when the Hallmark store is completely dead (and I've had plenty of all three recently). It's hard to put it all down in so many words, but I think I need to step back and look at the big picture more often. It's really so much easier to just put my head down and focus on the little stuff. I can handle that stuff; it doesn't require any big decisions or changes on my part. But if I lift my head in five years, where am I going to be? I need to make the moves NOW to be where I really want to be then. In terms of my money and my health, I feel like I'm actually doing pretty good right now. In terms of a job, not so good. My biggest problem is that I'm not really sure what I want to be doing five years from now. Do I want to be a teacher? Do I want to be a translator? Do I want to use my international relations degree? Is any of that even feasible here in Florida? What else is out there? I'm not really sure yet. But for the first time in awhile I'm actively thinking about it instead of burying my head in the questions that I DO have answers to.
With my working I haven't been making many scrapbook pages, but I still have some from last week to post. I'm thinking of taking a small break from scrapbooking or even just slowing down the pace a little bit to focus on other stuff I've been overlooking (like finishing book 2 of Harry Potter in French). I think it will be good, and that some time away will help me come back at scrapbooking with fresh eyes and enthusiasm. I just may not have a ton of pages to post for a bit. Until then...
This is me and Adam striking poses along the water in Cyprus. It's my own design, so everything is pretty simple.
I think this wedding page came out pretty awesome. I found this sketch at The Scrappiest and thought it would be a good way to include some of the outtakes of one of my favorite wedding photos. No journaling necessary, the title says it all.
It's about 95 degrees here in my humid corner of Florida, and I just made hot chocolate. What exactly was I thinking? Well, I wanted chocolate. And I wanted my chocolate to last at least 10 minutes. :) I figured that in the long run, hot chocolate for 10 minutes would make me feel better than half a bag of chocolate chips in 10 minutes.
Not much else going on today. We had another lizard/gecko get into the house last night and this capture and release did not go as smoothly. The poor little guy lost a limb in the process. I've got today and tomorrow off, and I've been trying to get rid of the embarrassing pile of boxes that is still scattered around the house 3.5 months after we moved in. On a good day, Adam is mildly resistant to such things, but because we haven't worked out if we're going to stay here beyond the end of August, he is outwardly hostile to moving anything around or hanging anything up. :( So I've spent my day mostly catching up on laundry, reading and making a few scrapbook pages. Here are a few I've been working on. I'm back to using a lot of sketches mostly because I have a big backlog of them I'm trying to clear out. When I come across a sketch I like or a page I want to scraplift online, I open it in a new tab. Right now I've probably got more than 20 tabs open in my sketches window, so I'm trying to get that down to a more reasonable number.
I think this one came out AWESOME. I had printed the picture awhile ago because I think it's a really nice shot of me and Adam and my parents, but I struggled to come up with a title. So finally I just decided to start putting the page together and left room for a title. When I stopped worrying about it, it didn't seem like such a big deal. I just went with the next thing I thought of. I moved a few things around, but mostly stuck to this sketch.
This one is fairly simple, even more simple than the sketch I used. I'm starting to realize that "less is more" is my style, and be happy with that. When I first started looking around online at other scrapbooker's work, I was impressed by the interesting ways some people can layer all sorts of papers and extra stuff on pages. I felt like that's what I should be doing and that my pages just said "novice" all over them. But I'm not making my pages for anybody but me and my family. So if we like them, that's all that matters. The photos and the story have always been more important to me than the "art" of scrapbooking, and going simple lets me make more pages and record more memories.
Ok, stepping off my scrapbook soapbox. I've got one more load of laundry to fold.
Too bad we don't have a flag post on this house to put one out. And that my husband had no idea when Flag Day was. Oh well. At least I had some scrapbooking time after church and two of the pages I made were military-themed for my husband's Air Force book. That's how I celebrated.
Other than that, today is shaping up to be a stereotypical "lazy Sunday." We had thought about going to our neighborhood pool, but got distracted watching Star Wars: Episode II. Seriously. That's how awesome we are. Now with Adam having to finish school work and finding something for dinner, we'll probably be lucky to get out on a short walk with Skelly. But I think that's OK with me. I'll keep this post short and sweet with just a few new pages.
I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. I used an effect on the photo of my parents at my wedding from this website to make it look weathered and vintage. Then I used sketch #23 from 52 Sketches...52 Weeks to put the layout together.
Another page from a sketch, and I'm really happy with the results. I found the sketch here, and I used more pictures from my semester abroad, yay!
I'm off to cajole the husband into doing his work. And maybe to take a nap. :)
I've written a lot about my running: about the program I'm following, the progress I'm making, the 5K I signed up for and just generally the way I feel about it all. What I haven't really talked about is that along with a new exercising plan, I've also been trying to watch what I eat and yes, hoping to lose weight. I decided to write about it today because I was thinking this morning about WHY I hadn't written anything yet, and I realized a few things.
First, I'm not actually making stellar progress with the scale. Right now I weigh 149.8 pounds according to my scale. I figure this is about 10 pounds less than I weighed around my birthday, March 4. That was just a week after we had moved to Florida. I'm not sure exactly because I started eating better and getting active right around then (exploring the neighborhood walking Skelly and stocking up the fridge/pantry with fruits, veggies and whole grains), but I didn't hit the scale for a few weeks. The first time I did I was 156, so I estimate my starting point was around 160.
While I definitely recognize that 10 pounds is significant, after three months it's not exactly Oprah-worthy results. Especially since I lost the first five in March and for the eight weeks or so that I've been running I've only lost another five. That's more than fine with me, but it's not very exciting. I guess it's a stretch to say that I only blog about exciting things, but I haven't really considered it worth mentioning.
Which brings me to the second thing I realized this morning. Running, and reaching my running goals is a lot more important to me than seeing a certain number on the scale. That's the other part of the reason I haven't considered it worth mentioning. I don't want to make it seem like I'm running just to lose weight. I'm running because I want to do something that I've never done before. I'm running because I want to be able to keep up (relatively) with my husband and my friends and join in their interests. I'm running because it's making my body healthier and stronger.
I think the strongest proof that running is what's most important to me right now is the fact that I still am trying to watch what I eat and lose maybe another 10 pounds. Ok, I know that doesn't make sense. But in the past, there's no way that after losing "just" five pounds in eight weeks I would still be at it. If that was the only thing keeping me going, the lack of progress would be really depressing. I would give up and start an unhealthy cycle all over again, convinced that I'm just not meant to be any thinner. Every day I go out running I am blown away by the difference that I've made. Today I woke up at 7am so I could run for 28 minutes before it got too hot. (side note: There's no such thing as "before it gets too hot" here in Florida. It was blazing at 8am.) It was a tough workout, but that's what makes finishing it so satisfying. THAT's what keeps me going. I want to lose weight so I can be faster and run longer (and run in shorts without my legs rubbing together painfully). My first 5K is in just three weeks. I'm pretty sure it won't be my last.
Switching gears...
More pages to share! I'm working today and tomorrow (and maybe Sunday) so I might not have as much time to post this weekend, so I need to upload these pages while I remember.
This one kind of goes with the "3-way Dog Fight" page I posted yesterday. They both turned out just a little too "busy" looking for my taste. Can't complain about the picture, though, I think it's totally adorable.
This one I love, love, love. Maybe just because it's pretty much the opposite from the last one in terms of lots of busy patterns. I cut the word "fur" with my Slice. Other than that, all I used was the patterned paper background, an alphabet sticker set and blue cardstock (and a pen to write the date). Yay for simplicity! This was my inspiration.
