2013

Well helllllllooooooo 2013!

Today is the 15th of January already and I just logged into my blog for the first time in weeks... just to realize that the email address I had attached to it had been compromised (fancy for 'mean people in Spain tried to hack into it') and it was saying the blog had been deleted... PANIC!

As much as I have not been on my blog over the past several months and as spotty as my posing sprees can be, I absolutely LOVE my blog and the way it helps me track our life.

Well, because you are reading this, you can see it was a fairly simple fix and here I am yet again posting about my lack in posting...lol.

I was so ready for 2013 to get here.  2012 was a fun year full of much excitement, fun times, my sister's beautiful wedding and some wonderful family time full of growth and change and happiness, but it was also a year with a few things I would like to move away from.  Sometimes that turn of a calendar can give you just that new perspective you need.

I am looking at January as a month of re commitment to several things that gotten out of control over the last several months.  (Eating clean and my daily exercise are making a reappearance!) I feel so blessed to have a little bit of time to recover from the craziness that was inevitable during the last three months of last year.

Much of our past year still needs to be posted, written about, documented.  2012 was a definite year of growth and conversation about where we are and where we would like to be.  It was a year of figuring out our real dreams and looking seriously at the steps it will take to achieve those goals, be they for the year or in the next ten.

So hello there 2013.  Your presence alone has me thinking positively and I can't wait to see the amazing things that you will bring!

**Edited to add- I am back dating a lot of the posts around this post so they show up as they actually happened, and not as I am getting the time (slowly but surely) to post them :-)**

February Goals

Health

• (at least) 20 minutes of working out six days per week.  More is better. 
• Don't go overboard at Super Bowl, bring healthy foods.
• Incorporate/try two (healthy) new foods that you have never used at home before.
• Make a dinner plan/menu for each week.
• Shop one winter farmer's market in town.

Household

• Clean out and organize our bathroom cabinets. <--Make them functional!
• Clean, fold and PUT AWAY (at least) one load of laundry per day.

Projects/Crafts

• John- paint brown cabinet for girls 'in box' (find bins for the shelves)
• Complete girl's Valentine's for friends/school as early as possible
• Blogs:
• Personal through September & Everyday in February
•  10 Crafty Blog posts for February
•  5 Photography Blog Posts

Alrighty!  Short, and to the point!  Attainable. 

January Goal Reflection

• Health: Take specific steps to become a healthier person and family.
• MOVE at least 15 minutes everyday and get your heart rate up. More is better. Moved MOST days, I would say six out of seven days on average for the month.  Most days were a full workout instead of just fifteen minutes.
• As the budget allows, choose real food to bring into the house and actually cook with it I have purchased more fruits and veggies than I ever have before!  (Almost) Every meal is full of veggies and fruit.
• Avoid high fructose corn syrup and as many chemicals as possible. I am VERY aware of the HFCS, and have even told the kids that we will not be buying foods with it.  (More on this later)
• Toss or donate the foods that don't fit the bill. Working on this one! As of right now I am just not buying any new bad foods
• Avoid all wine and beer for the month (I had one glass of wine, it would have been rude to avoid)
• Join Weight Watchers and attend a meeting each week I have been to three meetings, but have follow up feelings for this.
• Eat out as little as possible. Choose places that serve real food... not processed stuff. This is a tough one.  I am doing better at choosing healthier places, but we eat out on the weekends. 
• Other:
• Personal Blog: Catch up through September of 2011, and post at least 20 posts for January. Well, I am through August 2011 and have only posted 14 for January.  Baby steps.
• Enroll Claire in gymnastics <-- I had to add this, I was putting it off for so long! Check!
• NO Starbucks for the month (this falls under my 'financial' goals, but I am still throwing it out there. If you see me at Starbucks in January, kick me out!) Done, except for a business meeting where I paid with a gift card. 
• WFP Blog: Post (or schedule) all sessions from 2012 so far and five from 2011. Fail!  This is going on next month's goals.
• Crafty Blog: Post (or schedule) at least one ILTC post and three personal posts. Fail! Again, a start toward next month.

Reflection:

I feel like I have made strides toward many changes in my life over the past month.  My number one priority was getting healthier foods in our house and getting myself in the kitchen more.  Both have been better, but I have a ways to go.

I normally ease into the healthy eating and then move to the excercise.  This time I went gung-ho on both and I am really seeing the results which is keeping me motivated to continue.

The only goals I really failed on were the blogging ones.  Which, if I am honest, shouldn't be top priority.  I will try to do better at getting caught up though.  The main reason for this on my personal blog is that I would like to make a MyPublisher book for 2011 and would like to have the blog as a reference for the timeline of last year.

February's goals will be coming up soon!

Goal Reflection from 2011, Happy New Year!

I will just go ahead and say it.

2011 (kinda, sorta) kicked my butt!

It seems like the last few months were a whirlwind that I thought I had planned for, and was (at least somewhat) prepared for. While it wasn’t quite as crazy as it could have been had I not planned for it, it was pretty crazy! What a year!!

So many good things have come out of the chaos of our life, though. So many things I thank God for everyday…

• A new job for John. After almost a month at training across the country in March and April and since then spending many extra hours learning the ropes, he is settling nicely into his position. While he has been working in this field for several years, this position has raised the bar for him.

• Steady growth to my photography hobby/business. I feel SO blessed by the support of friends, family, and the new clients I have had the pleasure of working with over the past year. I am looking forward to working with everyone again in 2012, growing and learning even more in the coming year. I stopped several times over the past few months and reflected on how truly lucky I am to be doing something that I LOVE.

• A new dog! Toby hasn’t exactly created chaos, although he has definitely added something to our little family. As he lays here at my feet while I type this, I realize how much he has become a part of our family and how much his wonderful demeanor and presence really fit and clicks with us. What an answer to a prayer! (I was a little more than worried about adding a dog to our household.)

• A new gig for me. For several months, I had been throwing around the idea of getting my name out there to watch a baby a few days a week. Not exactly a ‘daycare’ situation, but a few days a week or few hours a day to make a little extra. It is amazing how God knew my heart and provided an opportunity for me to watch a sweet baby girl starting last month. So far, it is working out well!

• Happy, healthy kids! Ahh, school, dance, soccer, homework, carnivals, class parties, etc!! Gotta love it!

Needless to say, these, among other things have caused the abrupt stop to last January’s goal of blogging for 365 days. What a bummer! I do not feel as though my efforts were a complete fail. I did realize through the seven months that I did manage to blog, that I LOVE having this record of our life. There are many wonderful things that blogging does. I liked having to make that post everyday because it made me reflect and keep on top of editing my own family photos and happenings. I am planning on attempting this project again this year. Yes, I am already late… but I would rather start today than tomorrow or the next day.

As for the other goals I had on my list of resolutions from last year, I (we) made some progress. Some things from the list that got accomplished…

• Family - Created a family schedule area, a cleaning plan, and schedules for the girls (girl’s schedule is made but hasn’t been put into effect yet).

o Other goals included a chore chart which hasn’t happened yet.

• Working out - I can’t exactly call this a complete success, but I didn’t fail either. For many weeks I averaged 2 workouts per week. Although I didn’t lose weight… I managed to stay within a 5 pound range for most of the year.

• Reading – I read 3 fiction and 1 self-help book last year. Missed the ‘classic’. (All three in the Hunger Games series, The Fred Factor)

• House- the only thing we managed to do on our house projects list from last year was to get Claire a daybed and some storage. We did do SEVERAL other house projects that weren’t on the list.

o Other projects on the list: paint 2 areas of the house and the pergola, make a stoneware and cast iron rack, finish the wall décor in Hannah’s room, epoxy the garage floor, and mulch the flower beds. (Prioritizing some financial needs caused us to change to a few different projects.)

• Financial- Unfortunately, 2011 was not the year for us to take control of our finances. I am optimistic for 2012 (goals to follow).

o 2011 Goals included: Creating a budget, pay of existing debt, no new debt, and using the cash system

• Projects- Completed several. The list changed as the year progressed.

• Photos- Organize, back up, print. Yes, yes, and sort of! ;-)


I will be recapping the happenings of 2011 on another post, and sharing my excitement for the events of the coming year - A new brother-in-law is at the top of the list!!! - I am also working on some new goals for 2012... YAY for new starts!!

Happy New Year! (plus four days)

Catch Up

Well, being as behind as I am at this point, I am just going to start from here and move forward... possibly adding a few posts to the back as I can.  This is the craziest week of the year for me.  Literally. 

Father's Day, our anniversary, Claire's birthday, Vacation Bible school, dance recital, swim lessons, swim team/meet, and Summer Fun class (like fun summer school) all either start, end, or happen during this ten day period most years.  It's like the bermuda triangle of kid activities. 

I am letting myself off the hook a little and will try to post a photo here and there, but like I feel like I have been saying a lot lately... I am NOT giving up.  I love how we have a journal of our lives this year here on this blog.  I did say that even if it was just a photo, I would try to have a post everyday. 

So, here is the photo for today.  It is a John iPhone photo.  He has been playing with all different sorts of lenses and programs on the iPhone and I am so in love with (him and) the photos he has gotten!

In the midst of the crazy week, we took a trip this weekend.  Can you guess where??  :-) 

June 18, 2011

Behind...

If you check the blog everyday (I truly appreciate those of you who do!) you might have noticed I have been a day behind here and there.  I guess that is bound to happen a little now and again.  I am not giving up though!  Here is my little filler post to try and get myself up to date, again back dated to yesterday.  Hopefully I can keep myself on track now!

And, because every post is better with a picture, here is one of John taking the photo of me from the previous post :-)

Technical Difficulties

Is it a fair to blog about the fact that Blogger was down all night so I was unable to post? 

Because, really it was... and then it dropped a few of my last posts... grrrrr!

All seems to be back in working order and my posts have been restored.  I have been told that I wasn't the only one that was stuck with blogger going wonky on them. 

So, this post is going to be dated back to yesterday.

100

Today is day 100.   The 100th day of the year {really?!?!}  and the 100th post since I made this little blogging commitment. 

I think milestones like this deserve their own post.

What I have learned in the last 100 days...

• Blogging everyday is hard.  Not just to remember to do so, but to THINK of something to write about.  And yes, there IS TOO such a thing as Blogger's-block.
• I am proud of myself for actually sticking to something like this for this long.  It just goes to show that I have no excuses for the other things in my life that I let fall behind.
• I don't deliberately do things just to blog about them as much as I thought I would.  I do, however, take my camera out more often to capture the things we do everyday, and for that I am thankful.
• I realized that this is a GREAT record of our lives, a great reference to what we did at any given time, and a great indicator of my mood and attitude about any given subject.
• and I am sure all sorts of other things, but that is where I am at right now...

I am looking forward to where I will be in the next 265 days. 

I know you are riveted...

stay tuned ;-)

All Day Crop

{whoops, didn't get to the computer in time to post this yesterday...pretend you didn't notice}

Today my friend Alice and I left the kiddos behind and headed out for an all-day scrapbooking event at a Greek church here in Fresno.  I hadn't scrapbooked in so, so long so it was nice to dust off my old supplies and get some work done.  It was a National Scrapbbok Day event, so there were between 100-150 people there... It was awesome!!

We were discussing why it is so hard to get scrapbooking stuff out to work on, and one of the main reasons is that scrapbooking is NEVER done.  You can't say you are done because there are always photos to take and events to remember.  I think that is a good reason to have a blog.  I don't feel so badly that my memories aren't in books or 'cute' with sweet paper and embellishments... they are at least written down and somewhere for me to refer back to if and when I ever get the opportunity to make this year's scrapbook.  And, truth be told, I will most likely move on to a more digital version of a scrapbook.

After the day long event, we headed back to her house and kept our momentum up... scrapbooking until the wee hours of the night.  I feel very accomplished.  Claire now has 20 (or 40 if you count each side!!) pages of a baby book that she did not have two days ago and I learned a more speedy way of getting my scrapbooking done... a very productive day. 

Now everything is put away, but I do have more of the motivation to continue. 

[I need] Something to blog about

For the past few months I have been writing blog posts having to do with playing catch-up.  Basically, I organize all my photos by date and I followed the date along and wrote about the photos that corresponded.  If the event waranted taking a photo, then it could be blogged. 

I have made it.  I am caught up. 

Now what? 

I thought I had a list of blogging ideas, not on paper, but in my head.  And I do.  Well, I thought I did.  Every now and then I think of something that would make a good blog post and I make a mental note, but mental notes are like Post-its... sometimes they lose their stickiness and fall on the floor to be found a few months later.  My blogging ideas have fallen to the floor.  Either that or I am going to have to get used to writing about the more mundane events in my life. 

Needless to say the past few days I have been experiencing a bit of writer's/blogger's block.   The only photos I have taken have been for my photography business and for my crafty blog. 

So, I guess I'll go with it. 

Here is one of the projects I have been working on... a yarn wreath with felt flowers inspired by Mrs. Priss's tutorial found here.

I am now a felt addict. 

One Month

• This month has flown by and dragged on at the same time.  I am DONE with the cold.  This California girl would NEVER survive living permanently in a cold climate.  50 degrees is my limit. 

           {I can hear you laughing at me Carrie... you are my hero to brave those snowy Iowa winters.}

• I am happy to say that I have stuck with my blogging resolution.  I have made it 31 days out of my 365...and I am still going.  I am (almost) up-to-date and can finally start blogging things as they happen instead of being so far behind.  In all honesty, that is the reason I gave myself this 365 day project.  I want to record our life as we live it and not be in a constant state of catch-up.
• I am still happily working on my other New Year's resolutions.  I am also trying to get the house cleaned out in an effort to live more simply.  Huge yard sale pending.
• I happily turned the page on the calendar yesterday...two days early... bring it on February. 

31/365

Eighteen.

Today marks post number 18 in a row. 

It also marks the last day of 2010.  Wow!

About a month ago, amid the craziest time of year for me, I stopped and re-read part of my blog.  I noticed that I make spurts of effort here and there, but for the most part I am never that consistant of a blogger.  I also happened to catch a glimpse of someone's post on Facebook that had taken up the 365 project.  For them, this meant that everyday, for 365 days, she took a photo and posted it on Facebook.  I didn't read enough into her criteria to see if she actually did this everyday or uploaded a few from the past week at one time... it really doesn't matter...but it did spur my memory of other photographer's blogs I have read over the years that have taken on the 365 project for themselves.  For one, it meant taking 365 photos of herself and commenting on why she decided to take them and what she was feeling on any given day.  Another, took the 365 project to mean they took a different photograph everyday to expand their photography skills... but the subject matter could change anytime.

I really wanted to do this.  Make a 365 commitment in terms of blogging, photography, memories and being consistant.  But, being me, I knew that making a commitment to blogging might be a bit of a HUGE undertaking.  So I tried right then and there to post a blog EVERYDAY.  So far, it has been a success.

18 blog posts is quite a bit different than 365 blog posts, I get that.  However, it is also a start.

Mornings, Monday's, the first of the month, and the begining of a New Year are all traditional opportunities to start new and fresh.  I like the start of the New Year the best.  It makes me feel refreshed, like anything can happen.  It also marks the start of a little down time for me in terms of commitments.  I can hopefully reflect on what has happened over the past year and take the time to implement new systems for the coming year.

So this is where I am at.  Aiming to be 365 blog posts in at this time next year.

And, because every post is better with a photograph... here is a hint of what is to come... :-)  

Start from the begining... and go from there.

The crazy time of the year has slowed for me and my photography hobby.  It was a fun, full, fall... but I am ready for a break and to spend time with my family celebrating the Christmas season.

I would also like to finally blog about the goings-on from where I left off.  In a sense, start from the begining and go from there.  What's sad is that I left off in August... so there will be a lot of catching up to do, but fortunately no lack of subject material!

I think I mentioned in this post that I needed to get a few photos from my Dad's camera... here is what I was looking for.

The annual photo of my Dad and the girls in the hammock at our cabin in Tahoe.

And the annual photo of the family in front of the cabin.  We have been doing this since before I was born. 

 From then to now, what strikes me most is the difference in the girl's hair.  Hannah's being so much longer now and Claire's being... different.  More on that in another post.

It is good to be back!

poor blog

My poor little blog hasn't gotten much love lately.  If you follow me or even check in every now and then, sorry for the lack of posting. 

We are in the full swing of life right now.  Busy more often than not.  I am trying to get used to our new fall schedule. 

Tomorrow, the 29th, I will be 29.  The last year of my 20's.  It is a weird feeling, but I am not one to dwell on birthdays.  I fully intend to go get my free Starbucks...

The photo above was taken at the annual Clovisfest here in town.  I have so many photos from that morning I would like to share.  I will probibly share them on the photography blog, but thought it would be nice to add one today.

iLoveToCreate: Tote Bag Revamp (on my newest blog)

Because I have the need to compartmentalize the different aspects of my life, I have created a blog specifically to showcase all of our crafty projects and household revamps. 
Check out my recent iLoveToCreate project here at the new blog: Frankly Speaking Too!

Dance Like Nobody's Watching

I am making myself blog more. 
Even if it is just a photo, I want to blog something everyday.
I want this blog to grow and become a journal of our life. What we love and who we are. 
I need to 'Dance Like Nobody's Watching'...and then blog about it.

Definition

For whatever reason I have really been into this blogging thing lately. Not just writing, but checking out others. I enjoy reading about both people I know, and complete strangers that bolg about things that interest me. Honestly, my favorite thing is reading photo-blogs. I love to see the different perspectives people take with their photography.

I have also been checking out other's blogs trying to figure out what will define my own. I know I can just blog to blog, but the little toolbar down at the bottom of my posts keeps asking me to label the post. I think I have labeled each post something different! It was really bugging me that I had no definition. There are so many things I would like to record about my life. I want to keep a sort of cyber-scrapbook of our daily life for my children, I want to keep a log of the photos I take so I can look back and see their improvement, I want to share some of the FABULOUS deals I get while shopping, and finally I want to share the really cool things I find or love. So, I guess there you go... definition! I am hoping this sort of takes on a life of it's own. I want it to be a part of my daily routine to get on here and blog, even if it is something completely silly, like blogging about blogging!