steph's stuff

Mouth Paralysis

This photo has nothing to do with this post but I love this little kitten so much. Sigh. I really could become a little old cat lady if I lived alone. And yes, my husband rolls his eyes at me and the kittens. And though he won't admit to it, I find him petting them often. ;)

I found myself in two situations this week that had me wondering if I was suffering from sudden-onset mouth paralysis. I don't have a cure so I hope someone who reads this does.

The first is a school issue - I am once again fighting with Libby's school over something. And it's such a stupid bureaucratic issue that it rendered me unable to speak. When the person-who-shall-not-be-named at the school told me the problem, I seriously couldn't move my mouth. I knew my jaw was hanging open and that I looked like a blithering idiot and I had a momentary panic about my mouth ever working again, yet I could do nothing. It was as if she was telling me that the sky was pink, had always been pink and everyone but me knew it was pink. I stuttered a bit. I tried to speak but I just couldn't. I finally just said I'd call her back once I had more time to think about it.

Since then, I have looked at the issue calmly. I have looked at the issue full of rage. I have talked to friends about it. I have talked to professionals about it. Everyone BUT the school agrees that it simply doesn't make sense. But because it is a rule that is written down, it must be followed. Can you hear my brain imploding yet? 

The second issue is just one of anger and frustration for one of my kids. And rudeness. I want to be very careful about not revealing identities on this one so I'm going to be intentionally vague. Bear with me and I hope this makes sense. 

We recently invited a group of kids over to the house to practice for a school-related activity at the request of someone I will call Child A. So we called Child A, B, C and D and set the time and date and said that we would be providing a meal. On the day of the activity, Children B, C and D showed up (two of them had to arrive late but had notified us of that detail). Child A didn't show. This entire thing had been set up at Child A's request. And I had food prepared.

So 30 minutes after the supposed arrival time had passed, I called Child A's house with the assumption that I would talk to the parent. Instead, Child A answered the phone and blithely said, "Oh no. We're doing something else today instead." 

Um.......................what??? Actually, I didn't even get out the "Um." Sudden-onset mouth paralysis hit again. My lower jaw fell down and hung open and I couldn't get it back to a functional state for what seemed like 15 hours. I guess I eventually said "Ok" and hung up but I don't even remember. I just remember that I was so shocked at the cavalier attitude and lack of apology that I just hung up. And after I hung up, I was so angry at myself. Why didn't I ask for the parent?! WTH? And I had a very upset and hurt child and the kids couldn't do the activity because Child A was a very necessary component. 

So, um................................any known cures for sudden-onset mouth paralysis? Because I know that I can be an excellent advocate for my children. I've been doing it for years. But this new affliction is getting the better of me right now. 

Project Life 2013 Style | Organization

I finished 2012's Project Life album yesterday!!!! Can I get a "WOO" to the "HOO" on that one?!?! And I love it. LOVE IT. And so do the kids. They've gone through it, they've laughed, they've asked for more. 

So onto Project Life 2013 Style.

I am definitely doing it differently this year. Monthly and not weekly. But more on that later.

Right now, I thought I'd show you my set up for the year. Last year, I wrote this post: Project Life 2012 - Organization. And it got pinned and pinned on Pinterest and I've seen it a lot again recently. Organization is clearly something all of us product hoarders scrapbookers care about. 

Here's how my primary box looked like after I finished the year. 

I started with two kits last year - the original kit that I had had for a couple of years and never used and the Project Life Clementine Edition. And I have a lot left. But the new Seafoam Edition really caught my eye and I knew I had to switch over to it. Fifty-two weeks of using the same supplies gets really, really old. And I totally lost interest in this by week 40 of last year so I knew some change was necessary if I was going to do another year. 

And I absolutely love it! The colors are much softer than I thought they'd be and the neutrals are perfect! So I took out the older cards that I knew I'd never use - leaving the plain grid cards and any older cards that would coordinate with the new kit. And then I filled my organizer box with all of the new stuff. 

And since we all know that digi is my thang, I also printed out about 30 pages worth of digi supplies from Designer Digitals that I'm going to cut out today and add to the stash.

As you can tell, I'm going with a lighter, more neutral palette this year and probably won't use too many of the orange and yellow cards in the Seafoam kit. I do like pops of red so I'll throw some of those in. And as soon as the Midnight kit is out, I'm going to snatch that up, too. Can't wait to get started!

Related links:

Project Life Organization More Project Life Organization Incorporating Digi Elements Project Life Intro Page Ali's 6x12 Journaler

InLinkz.com

Five Photo Friday

I'm making up a new blog tradition - Five Photo Friday - just a random photo share from the week. I'm not sure if I'll keep up with it and I'm virtually certain that it will never catch on with other blogs but here I go.

1. The kittens are still getting along beautifully and are together all the time (except at night because their craziness would keep us all up). But Becky is still scared of the crazy puppy and rarely comes downstairs. This has become a scene that we see several times a day - Scout a few steps below her watching her and (seemingly) encouraging her to come down with him. But she won't. 

2. Sawyer loves the kitties and would play with them all day if we let him. But he does get very jealous sometimes when we allow Scout on the furniture and on our laps. He doesn't seem to understand why a 90-pound dog who loves to get dirty in the woods is not allowed on our laps or on the furniture. So it totally cracked me up to see this sight this morning. Libby is home sick and got tired of his begging so she let him up.

3. My oldest baby turned 15 yesterday. I simply can't imagine how that happened. She was in the toddler class at Montessori just last week, I swear. 

4. Emily and I have lots of fun having silly celebrity crushes together - much to Tom's chagrin. We will often spam each other's Facebook pages with fun photos when we find them. I texted her this photo of her current crush yesterday as a birthday present. (If you haven't seen Sherlock, you NEED to see it.) It's a lot more fun having older kids than I ever thought it would be. ;)

5. I have a new restaurant obsession. Noodles & Company just opened by us and it is so, so yummy! Their tomato basil soup is absolutely the best soup I have ever had. I've been there with three different friends over the past couple of weeks and we all agree that it fantastic. And we seem to see a lot of other moms there every time - it has become the new hot spot for lunches. And if it had a fan club, I would be the president. YUMMY!

Have a great weekend!

It's really all about the kittens

I have only blogged a handful of times in the past 4-5 months. There was just too much going on, too many kid-related activities, too much stress about keeping up with my own committments, worry about catching up with Project Life, worry about other stuff and other people whose stories are not mine to tell, and then there was also the problem that I was just too dang tired of writing so much once I started blogging more for other sites.

I've thought about doing a huge catch-up post here about everything that's happened in the past few months and it would be fairly easy to do since it's all chronicled in my Project Life album. But that post would be monumentally long and who really wants to rehash Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas when it's almost February? Not I. Nor would I even know where to start.

So I thought I'd just be painfully honest and blog about what's really on my mind tonight instead. The kittens. We had waited almost two years to get them. After losing Maggie (Ode to the Best Cat in the World), we just couldn't seem to get another one. You know how some people claim to be "dog people" and some claim to be "cat people?" Well, we are definitely "cat people." And Maggie was our first baby. Losing her broke our hearts into more pieces than I ever imagined possible. 

But the time was finally right and we decided to rescue two kittens from a local no-kill shelter. We got Scout (the gray tabby) and Becky (the Himalayan) earlier this winter. We brought Scout home on November 20th and Becky home on December 15th. We fell in love with these babies hard.  

Unfortunately, Scout hated Becky with a fiery passion, to be completely cliched. We were shocked. And heartbroken. They had been fostered together and had only been apart for three weeks so we expected them to be very excited to see each other again. Ummmm.......not even close. Scout beat her up very badly the first night. And it just got worse over the next few days. We separated them, we snuggled them both, we put vanilla on them after getting advice from other cat owners, we let them sniff each other through doors and gates....we tried everything. And he just kept hurting her. And she became more and more terrified. And I became more and more worried and sad. 

Finally, a trip to the vet for her helped us understand a little more about what was going on. She was injured (scratched eye) but she was also sick. Most likely feline herpes but they didn't bother testing her because a previous test at the shelter was negative. So we completely separated them for 8 days and gave her meds. And that eight days was exactly what she needed. She had been running a high temp, wasn't eating well, hid all the time, and seemed lethargic ever since we'd gotten her. We assumed that it was because she was so traumatized by Scout. Nope. That poor little baby girl was just sick and needed to get well and gain weight.

Over the past week, we've kept them together every waking minute and they FINALLY love each other. I took the picture at the top of this post yesterday and I've been grinning like a fool every single minute since. And crowing, "My babies!!!!" every time I walk into the room and see them together. :)

|dare|

If you are a fan of Ali Edwards, you know all about her One Little Word class. I'm not taking the class but I have in the past and I decided to choose a word again this year. 

All supplies can be found in my gallery at Designer Digitals.

It's a good word for me this year. I've cared too much about what people think of me in the past and I'm kind of over that. Or, at least, hope to be soon. ;)

We are still not completely well here and have a very, very busy weekend but I'm working on some fun things that I hope to share here as soon as I'm feeling 100% again. In the meantime, there are kittens to watch. :)

Happy weekend!

January 7, 2013

Somehow I am now older than my parents are. At least in my mind. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Andrew and I are still recovering from an epic bout of illness and I'll just be grateful to feel well again. I am on my way.

In the meantime, Downtown Abbey has come back on the air just in time for my birthday and I am very appreciative. Not a bad birthday present. :)

Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year!!!

We started off 2013 surrounded by family and hugs and laughter - pretty much a wonderful, family night. We woke up after very little sleep with various illnesses and sicknesses but very grateful that it's all temporary and that we're all together to start the new year.

I don't have many creative goals for this coming year outside of appreciating my Creative Team spot at Designer Digitals and writing for Scrapbook Update. But I am going to do One Little Word and a slightly different version of Project Life and hope to blog about those later this week after the illnesses have left the house. 

I hope you all have a wonderful start to your new year!