'nuff said!
Monday, July 31, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
The Power is in DOING!
So I've been looking a bit at my life and how I spend my time. I admit it, I am an Internet junky. I LOVE looking things up on the Internet, reading news and entertainment gossip, looking for new art and scrapbooking inspiration, learning about new hobbies like photography and collage/mixed media art, and reading blogs. I love reading people's stories! I actually have to set a timer to remind me of the passage of time so I don't spend all day reading about things on the Internet. (And if my mother is reading this, yes, I know this is not the best use of my time. Keep reading for my realizations. Love you Mom! MWAH! Big Kiss and Hug)
I've also been a bit frustrated by my desire to create pages and sew for myself and other things, but feel like I have no time left after caring for my home and doing my essential daily household tasks. (I'm sure you can see where I am going with this...)
The other day, I realized that I was tired of looking for new ideas and inspirations. I need to actually be DOING something. When we stop thinking, planning, dreaming, wondering, wanting, wishing, learning. visualizing, thinking, planning some more, and start DOING we claim our power. The power is in the actual doing, not the thinking about doing. No matter how small that first step is, it's still movement, not sitting there just thinking about moving. I wrote a blurb once that started with this sentence: The pursuit of a dream requires action. The key words there are pursuit and action.
Have you thought about your dreams lately? Have you forgotten them in the mad rush of daily life? Have you set them aside for a time, so you can focus on what needs your attention right at that moment? Or are you learning, thinking, planning, preparing for the day you put action behind your pursuit of your dream. Take that first step.
My moral of the story? I closed the laptop and started doing. I scrapped a little. Baked some cookies and muffins. Played games with my kids. Worked in the yard a little. I started moving.
No one can get your dreams but you. The power is in doing.
And that's the other side.
I've also been a bit frustrated by my desire to create pages and sew for myself and other things, but feel like I have no time left after caring for my home and doing my essential daily household tasks. (I'm sure you can see where I am going with this...)
The other day, I realized that I was tired of looking for new ideas and inspirations. I need to actually be DOING something. When we stop thinking, planning, dreaming, wondering, wanting, wishing, learning. visualizing, thinking, planning some more, and start DOING we claim our power. The power is in the actual doing, not the thinking about doing. No matter how small that first step is, it's still movement, not sitting there just thinking about moving. I wrote a blurb once that started with this sentence: The pursuit of a dream requires action. The key words there are pursuit and action.
Have you thought about your dreams lately? Have you forgotten them in the mad rush of daily life? Have you set them aside for a time, so you can focus on what needs your attention right at that moment? Or are you learning, thinking, planning, preparing for the day you put action behind your pursuit of your dream. Take that first step.
My moral of the story? I closed the laptop and started doing. I scrapped a little. Baked some cookies and muffins. Played games with my kids. Worked in the yard a little. I started moving.
No one can get your dreams but you. The power is in doing.
And that's the other side.
Friday, July 28, 2006
A Dream I Had the Other Night
So this is a real dream I had. If anyone reading this blog likes to interpret dreams, I'm all for it!
It was EAAARRRLY in the morning (sometime before 7am) and I was doing my best friend a favor by dropping her kids off at the preschool for a preschool field trip. As I was closing the doors of my van, getting ready to go home to my own kids, other parents and adults kept getting in the van. I shooed them out, explaining that I wasn't driving for the field trip, just dropping off my friend's children. But as quickly as I got one set of adults out of the van, another got in.
The dream morphed a little bit here, and instead of parents wanting rides to the field trip destination, it was adults wanting rides to work, as if I was their carpool leader. I explained again that I wanted to go home, that my kids were at home waiting for me (my oldest daughter babysitting) and that I wasn't driving anywhere else that morning. Blank faces stared at me as if I wasn't speaking english and they couldn't understand why I didn't want to drive them all to work. I explained again. More blank faces. Then I lost it and threw a bit of a temper tantrum, with foot stamping and everything. I AM NOT DRIVING YOU TO WORK!!! I AM GOING HOME!!! More blank faces staring back at me.
I then yelled "Fine! It'll be a hundred bucks CASH ONLY from EACH of you before we go ANYWHERE! And that's only for the first thirty miles. After that, it's another hundred. CASH ONLY!" At that point, they all nodded and understood exactly what I was saying and started passing cash up to me. I had no choice then but to drive them to work.
The dream morphed again, to me in the kitchen visiting with some friends and my husband as I told them the story of how I started driving people to their office buildings. I ended the story talking about how I was now pulling in between 12 and 15 THOUSAND dollars cash each month, and how grateful we were because now we were able to get out of debt and make some headway towards financial freedom, and all I had to do was drive grown-ups to work each day for about an hour. (a little "editor's note" here: I didn't drive them home...I'm not sure how they got home. I only drove them in the mornings...the bottom line was: I was glad to have the money) Then I woke up.
Any ideas on what this means?
It was EAAARRRLY in the morning (sometime before 7am) and I was doing my best friend a favor by dropping her kids off at the preschool for a preschool field trip. As I was closing the doors of my van, getting ready to go home to my own kids, other parents and adults kept getting in the van. I shooed them out, explaining that I wasn't driving for the field trip, just dropping off my friend's children. But as quickly as I got one set of adults out of the van, another got in.
The dream morphed a little bit here, and instead of parents wanting rides to the field trip destination, it was adults wanting rides to work, as if I was their carpool leader. I explained again that I wanted to go home, that my kids were at home waiting for me (my oldest daughter babysitting) and that I wasn't driving anywhere else that morning. Blank faces stared at me as if I wasn't speaking english and they couldn't understand why I didn't want to drive them all to work. I explained again. More blank faces. Then I lost it and threw a bit of a temper tantrum, with foot stamping and everything. I AM NOT DRIVING YOU TO WORK!!! I AM GOING HOME!!! More blank faces staring back at me.
I then yelled "Fine! It'll be a hundred bucks CASH ONLY from EACH of you before we go ANYWHERE! And that's only for the first thirty miles. After that, it's another hundred. CASH ONLY!" At that point, they all nodded and understood exactly what I was saying and started passing cash up to me. I had no choice then but to drive them to work.
The dream morphed again, to me in the kitchen visiting with some friends and my husband as I told them the story of how I started driving people to their office buildings. I ended the story talking about how I was now pulling in between 12 and 15 THOUSAND dollars cash each month, and how grateful we were because now we were able to get out of debt and make some headway towards financial freedom, and all I had to do was drive grown-ups to work each day for about an hour. (a little "editor's note" here: I didn't drive them home...I'm not sure how they got home. I only drove them in the mornings...the bottom line was: I was glad to have the money) Then I woke up.
Any ideas on what this means?
Saturday, July 22, 2006
A little project...
I'm teaching 3 upcoming classes at Stampin' Cat Studio--the first one, a beginning scrapbooking class, being today. After that I'm teaching a "Kid's Fun Pack" class and then this "Studio Decorations" class--otherwise known as "the Ribbon Jar Class". Seems like owning a Crop-A-Dile makes me want to punch holes in just about EVERYTHING so between the store owner Lisa and I, we came up with this nifty storage for ribbons. And while it's a cool class, it won't take 2 hours to punch 10 holes and rubon some letters, so we added the "Embellished Letter Art." This is a torn page from a board book that has a large, embellished letter on it, as well as a pithy quote. Those of you from the old ScrapHappy Yahoo group (now the Scrap101) group should recognize the letter from the Monogram Swap we did about a year ago. This will be taught later in August. I'm doing the "Kid's Fun Pack" on August 5th. And no, I didn't take pictures, 'cause I was caught up in "phew! Finished the samples, and made the checkerboard and checkers for the THIRD darn time and now if I see another checker piece I'll probably run screaming from the room so let's just drop it off at the store!" mode. I'll take pictures of it today. It really is super-cute!
Thanks for looking!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Some Ocean Love
We really had a good time at the Oregon Coast. Here are some pics of the boys playing in the ocean at Agate Beach in Newport, Oregon. C wasn't too thrilled about the temperature of the water--anyone familiar with the Oregon Coast knows that the water is COLD! Either way, both boys enjoyed the water immensely! C was a little nervous when the water rolled back into the ocean--I think he felt like he would go with the wave. I had to keep coming over to him and hold on to him so he would feel safe.
I love this action shot! H, my oldest son, has had a life long "caution" around water. He's not necessarily afraid of it, he just knows that when he is in water, sometimes the water controls his body, not the other way around, and he doesn't like it. This is the FIRST TIME I think, he's ever romped around so freely in the ocean. It is the first time I've ever seen him have so much fun with the water. They were playing "chase" with the ocean waves, and would yell "aaauugh!" as the ocean came to get them.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Stepping Out
I'm stepping out of my comfort zone. I've wanted to start taking casual portraits for people in an official capacity. I've been reading about light, rule of three, framing a shot, really any photography tips I can find. I asked one of the sweet girls I work with at church if I could take her senior pictures for her as part of this practice. This one is one of my favorites. Hope you like it!
According to the blogging thread on 2 Peas you are supposed to post an organization tip for your studio. I don't know if I have any tips, but there are some things that have helped me. Think about how you scrap BEFORE you buy a bunch of organizing stuff and (as no fun as it is, it's true) put thing away AS SOON as you finish a project. I get so scatterbrained w/my stuff I have to put things back IMMEDIATELY after I use them whether I'm finished with a project or not. Otherwise I'll lose them halfway through whatever it is I am working on.
That's all for today...Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Hey check this out!
I bought a domain name today. (Yahoo was having a sale...) Anyway, I was playing around with my front page (I have just the basic, basic package) and this is what I created: http://dkrndesign.com
Mostly, I wanted to have control over the domain name. I don't know if I'll do anything with it, but now NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE THIS NAME! (evil laughter and hand wringing here). I also have http://dianneknelson.com purchased through GoDaddy (who host my online store as well). I've had that for about a year, but haven't done anything w/the domain name. I'll have to see how much I want to do and get my wonderfully computer-savvy hubby to help me set something up. I want to have a place where people can buy my class kit designs, my quote pages, ask me to teach classes for them, and so on.
I know it's just a placeholder page, and there isn't much else I can do with it, but it makes me happy nonetheless.
Enjoy!
Mostly, I wanted to have control over the domain name. I don't know if I'll do anything with it, but now NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE THIS NAME! (evil laughter and hand wringing here). I also have http://dianneknelson.com purchased through GoDaddy (who host my online store as well). I've had that for about a year, but haven't done anything w/the domain name. I'll have to see how much I want to do and get my wonderfully computer-savvy hubby to help me set something up. I want to have a place where people can buy my class kit designs, my quote pages, ask me to teach classes for them, and so on.
I know it's just a placeholder page, and there isn't much else I can do with it, but it makes me happy nonetheless.
Enjoy!
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Count your many blessings...
It's time for a little blessing countin' here!
I find myself in an "I want it" funk. As in "I want a better house, a nicer yard, a better scraproom....yada, yada, yada. All a bunch of junk.
Even though my rational mind knows this to be true, and knows that all, in all, I'm pretty well off and pretty lucky by a lot of standards, my "inner brat" is having one HUGE pity party! It's not easy when you are living to the ends of your income and doing all you can to keep bills paid and food in the house and give your kids things like tae kwon do and cable tv and there simply isn't any money left to redo the kitchen (that's literally falling apart around you), or even finish big projects like the big hole in your bathroom where the shower stall USED to be that stripped to the studs that you've been living with for over three years now... (and yes, we do have another shower, so don't worry about my personal hygiene, thanks...). It's hard when you read magazines to get ideas to work with what little you DO have and everything, even the "cheap" ideas still cost a couple of hundred dollars that you do NOT have. It's VERY easy to get depressed and concentrate on all of the things you DON'T have. Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.
So, rational mind is taking over. Inner brat, go somewhere else! It's blessing counting time!
And that's the other side.
I find myself in an "I want it" funk. As in "I want a better house, a nicer yard, a better scraproom....yada, yada, yada. All a bunch of junk.
Even though my rational mind knows this to be true, and knows that all, in all, I'm pretty well off and pretty lucky by a lot of standards, my "inner brat" is having one HUGE pity party! It's not easy when you are living to the ends of your income and doing all you can to keep bills paid and food in the house and give your kids things like tae kwon do and cable tv and there simply isn't any money left to redo the kitchen (that's literally falling apart around you), or even finish big projects like the big hole in your bathroom where the shower stall USED to be that stripped to the studs that you've been living with for over three years now... (and yes, we do have another shower, so don't worry about my personal hygiene, thanks...). It's hard when you read magazines to get ideas to work with what little you DO have and everything, even the "cheap" ideas still cost a couple of hundred dollars that you do NOT have. It's VERY easy to get depressed and concentrate on all of the things you DON'T have. Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.
So, rational mind is taking over. Inner brat, go somewhere else! It's blessing counting time!
And that's the other side.
Monday, July 03, 2006
A funny for you...
Hope this works....we don't get any newspapers, so I read my comics online. LOVED THIS! Love that Scrapbooking is getting mainstream enough to make jokes about it.
Enjoy!
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