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The Rubik's Cube is back

This photo is one of my new favorites! The story behind it is kind of long but worth telling.

At Andrew's middle school, teachers give out cards with ten blank squares on them - similar to a bingo card. Teachers award signatures in the blank squares for a lot of reasons including when they see students helping a classmate, being kind and understanding, and exhibiting exemplary behavior.

When Andrew redeemed his first card, he chose a Rubik's Cube from the school store. I couldn't believe my eyes when he brought it home. I hadn't seen a cube in over 30 years! But apparently, they are the new obsession among all of his friends and I've been more than happy to aid him in his pursuit of acquiring new and different cubes. So much better than video games, right?

It took him about two months to solve his first cube and now he practices on all kinds of different cubes in an effort to improve his time. Right now, he can solve a 3x3 cube (that his dad or I have scrambled for him) in 42 seconds and a 2x2 cube in 15 seconds. It's just awesome to watch and I wanted to photograph his cubes for him as a way to celebrate his success.

And look at the photo! One of them has a V in the center! I think I'm going to make it into a poster. :)

January 18, 2015 at 07:00 PM in Kids, Life Happenings | Permalink | Comments (0)

This might win

I love Pinterest. I've been pinning since the beginning of the site and use it for bookmarks, instructions, recipes, and lots and lots of inspiration. I've completed house projects, made quilts, crocheted blankets, and made countless recipes from pins I've found on Pinterest. You can see all of my pins or follow me here.

But the pin above - found here - combines two of my loves - books and Benedict. This just might win as my favorite pin of all time. :)

Have a great weekend!

January 17, 2015 at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Printed!

I got a bunch of Project Life layouts printed last week from Persnickety Prints and I absolutely LOVE them! Don't judge the quality by the shadows in this photo, though. They look even better in person than they do on my computer screen! It's very dark and dreary here and it's almost impossible to get good photos.

I've used Persnickety Prints for years now and I always print them at 12x12 and slip them into my albums with the rest of my digital layouts. I printed off layouts from both 2014 and 2015 and it feels so good to have the albums started!

I'll be back next week with lots of photos and info for those of you who are interested in printing digi layouts!

I think they heard me

When I walked into our family room this morning, this was only a small part of the mess I saw. All created by the cats so that they could stretch out where they wanted to.

They must have had a party during the night because even more things were pushed off the table on the other side - a Rubik's cube, water bottle, coasters, pencils, and books.

I guess it could have been worse, though.

It struck me as funny because I was just telling Tom last night that I was sick of the cats running the house and I was going to start taking measures to keep them away from certain things.

I think they must have heard me.

January 15, 2015 at 09:52 AM in Life Happenings, Pets | Permalink | Comments (1)

One Little Word | 2015

Many of you are familiar with Ali Edwards' concept of One Little Word®. For those of you who are non-scrapbookers, the theory behind One Little Word® is to choose one word to focus on throughout the year instead of making general resolutions or proclamations.

I participated in Ali's class in 2011 and that was the first year that I chose a word to focus on. My first word was balance, followed by yes, dare, and finish. Finish was my word last year and I loved it! For most of the year, I used its literal definition - "to bring a task to an end" - and that really helped remind me of my goals and helped me stay focused on finishing a bunch of household projects that had been undone for years.

My previous words had been more complex and I thought of them more as guiding principles as I parented, or worked, or strove to work on relationships. But I found last year that I focusing on a word that grounded me in the physical sense in my home was hugely beneficial. I'm a planner, an organizer, a thinker, and a worrier. Those traits are wonderful at times but they sometimes don't translate into getting stuff done.

So when thinking about words for this year, I was immediately drawn towards action words. Words that would help me get my crap done, like finish had last year.

And so my word for this year is do. As in don't just plan and organize, but also do. Take the action needed to complete the goal. As in stop spinning my wheels worrying about the future, and do things that will help me reach the goals I've set.

Do also immediately reminded me of Maya Angelou's famous quote:

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

I love this quote so much that I almost chose the word better. Maybe next year.

But I know that this year, I want to do. And if I can do better at the same time, I will be doubly successful.

January 14, 2015 at 07:57 PM in Life Happenings, Scrapbooking | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hope

My girls at (nearly) 17 and 14...

I hope their bond survives Emily going to college.

I hope Beth handles Emily leaving okay and that they find a way to handle being apart.

I hope they're best friends when they're adults and call each other every day.

I hope they live close to each other and raise their families together.

I hope they continue to support each other's differences and bask in their similarities.

I hope they always love each other this much.

January 13, 2015 at 01:26 PM in Kids, Life Happenings | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm sorry but please stop apologizing

Over the past week or so, I've been reading a lot of blogs. Many of the posts are about goals and plans and hopes for the new year. It should be an uplifting or inspiring topic but I've become very sad about a theme that runs through many of them.

Many authors express a feeling of fear and worry about choices they've made and even ask for forgiveness because the decision isn't the same that others have made. I've seen more than a few posts where the author admits guilt or embarrassment about her goals and plans and then apologizes for her choices. And while a lot of what I've read is about scrapbooking and memory keeping, many aren't. They're written by women who are apologizing, often in advance, for parts of their lives.

And it just makes me sad. And a little angry, I have to admit. And maybe because it's something I work on personally and so I'm hyper-aware of it. But damn it, women apologize too much. TOO much. And I've seen too many women apologizing for simply being themselves lately and it makes me cringe.

You don't need to apologize if you're a planner. You don't need to apologize if you're not a planner. You don't need to apologize if you're doing something different than the crowd. You don't need to apologize if you're following the crowd.

We all want people to like us. I totally get. As I said, I'm working on this issue myself.

But you don't need to apologize for being you. Life is a journey, not a competition, and you should celebrate being you. If people don't support you, then you don't need them. But don't apologize for your goals and hopes. It's your life.

And I know there's a much bigger issue underlying all of this in our culture and why I've become more and more vocal about feminism as I raise teens in this world but I don't need to go into that to make my point.

You don't have to apologize for being you. So please stop.

January 12, 2015 at 08:47 AM in Life Happenings, Scrapbooking | Permalink | Comments (5)

Thinking, Feeling, Doing in January

Thinking about ways to make the goals that I've set actually happen this year. I'm working away on the scrapbooking ones and struggling with finding ways to make some of the personal ones happen, especially the travel goals.

Feeling sad that school has started. Oh man, I miss my kids when they're at school all day. There are some days when I don't miss them quite as much as others but I'd still rather them be here. Seeing Andrew's blanket abandoned on the kitchen bench made me so sad on Monday that I had to move it.

Doing more. Of everything. I'm energized right now to keep the cleaning and purging going and I'm excited by my progress, even if it's just a little bit every day. I'm also excited to keep up with scrapbooking and organizing. I'm a planner. All year, not just in January, but January certainly gives me a kick in the pants.

Reminding myself that the kids being back in school gives me more time to do everything I just mentioned and so I'm very grateful for that time here alone. Last year, I was working almost full-time and trying to balance everything, along with Libby's seizures, and it was just hard.

Enjoying photography again so very much. Taking Ali Edwards' "Lens of Joy" class last fall brought it all back and I'm making plans for even more photography-related projects this year.

Appreciating my husband and kids so much. My birthday was earlier this week and they totally surprised me with fantastic, wonderful presents. They really thought about what would make me happy and that was what made the day so special. It was just the best, most fun-filled evening I've had in a long time.

January 10, 2015 at 11:15 AM in Life Happenings | Permalink | Comments (0)

Project Life 2014 | Weeks 5 - 8

I'm cruising along with 2014 and falling even more in love with the simplicity of the format I chose. I've gotten the urge a couple of times to add brushes and to mix it up but I'm not giving in to it. Stories + photos = simple and I'm sticking with that.

I was going to use just one kit for 2014, too, but some photos just screamed for different colors so I'm adding in a few more.

One of the things that kept me from working on 2014 before now was that I simply don't have a lot of photos from the year and those that I do have are pretty bad phone photos. I was working nearly full-time through May and so I just didn't take many photos.

What I decided to do was use what I have and move on. You'll see on these first two layouts that I only had photos of events - Em's birthday and Beth's competition. So those are the only photos for these weeks and it's fine. I kind of like the unity, to tell you the truth. :)

Week Six is one my favorites! I love the flow of it and the white space with the muted colors. Much more me than the bright colors of the previous week. :)

Week Eight is bright colors again but they match the fabric and there's a lot of white space so it feels more cohesive again.

Beth Update | January 2015

Beth playing her cello at our local mall in December with her Advanced Chamber Orchestra group

Note: If you're not familiar with my daughter's story of living with epilepsy, please start reading here - Beth's Epilepsy Story - or click on the button on the right.

Beth has allowed me to give some updates throughout the year so this is the first of our 2015 updates. It's also helpful for me to have it written out here to help keep track of what's happening.

She continues to have seizures about once/month and migraines a couple of times every month. For the past few months, she's had one very small tonic-clonic seizure once/month and it seems to be preceded by a week of just not feeling like herself and perhaps a migraine or two.

The good news is that we seem to be able to predict them a bit more because she starts to get daily headaches and has to stay home and stay in bed. For the past few months, she's had a seizure by day 4 or 5 of this and then feels better for a few weeks. She's also had a very clear aura before them so she immediately sits down and has been able to stay safe that way.

The bad news is that we can't seem to find a trigger or pattern outside of stress and fatigue. They are very definite triggers and we may never find any others but we're tracking everything in case we do.

We've decided to lighten her schedule a bit to help fight the fatigue issues. She's been in three different orchestras and/or orchestra clubs and she's going to pull out of one of them. She's also going to pull out of National Junior Honor Society. If this was high school, we'd try to find a way to keep them in her schedule but she's still only in 8th grade and none of her activities or grades will matter to a college transcript so we're not going to stress about it. Her health has to come first.

The stress is a harder thing to combat. She's a natural worrier and add to that the constant anxiety that comes with epilepsy and it's just hard to control. Plus, she's otherwise a normal 14-year-old girl and the social stresses that come with this age aren't easy.

How she manages to deal with it all astounds me. And usually with a smile! But I won't lie - she's not happy right now at all. Going to back to school yesterday was very rough and I have a feeling that she'll have a rough time all week, adjusting to a different schedule again and not being able to relax when she needs to.

But three good weeks out of four is much, much better than much of last year and we'll keep pushing for every more good days. :)