some new pictures from the park

playing around w/my new camera and the 50mm 1.8 lens.....I took 195 pictures in about an hour. What a burst feature this camera has! It was fun!

Kits for Sale!

If anyone out there would like a kit for my "A Year in the Life Mini Book," please leave a comment and let me know. Kits include a handmade blank mini book (16 pages, made with Bazzill), 8 6"x12" sheets of patterned paper (the black and white Junkitz paper), 15 inches of ribbon, a "graphics sheet" of pre-printed titles and such, a customized Dymo Label saying "The ___ Family", and a VERY detailed instruction sheet (with pictures! and sketches!). Cost is $10.00 plus actual shipping. I don't have a large corner rounder right now, so the corners of your books won't be rounded. Sorry. I take paypal at DianneKNelson@yahoo.com. {These are only a few of the pages in the album.}

Smiles!

Dianne

So

So I can't really think of anything to say.

I'm busy today preparing for my classes at Stampin'Cat on Saturday. Seems like I'm crazybuzy....I need to create a couple of more handouts, and finish two mini-albums for my Feburary Paper School class. And when I mean finish, well, one of them isn't really started.

I had this fallacy that when I was a stay-at-home-mom, I'd have all of this time. I'd have a clean house. I'd have time for my hobbies. I'd have time to work out every day. I'd take lots of naps because I had all of this free time. Well, I've been a SAHM (well, 'cause of the store more of a Work-at-home-mom) for about four years now, and I've yet to see much of this elusive free time. I know I'm not the only woman in this situation either. Where did all of the time go?

For me, I know that a lot of my time has been slowly chewed up by lots of volunteer work. I work with the youth group at Church specfically the 14 and 15 yo girls. This takes the bulk of my Thursday nights and some of my Sunday as well. Plus there are various planning/presidency/organizing meetings scattered here and there. And quarterly, I chaperone a youth dance. And now I'm helping out with the annual summer Girls Camp, so that's another meeting. I do a lot with my church. I lead choirs, sing, help out whereever I'm needed. It's all good work, but it does take a lot of my time.

I'm also on the design team for the ScrappersChallenge yahoo group. This is a very large group that will be moving to it's own website in the next few months. While I am thrilled with this honer, it does come with specific responsibilities, like writing articles and working with monthly kits, and so forth. I moderate or help moderate a couple of other scrapbooking groups, specifically ScrapbookTalk and ScrappingReflections. More time. Small bits of time here and there can add up to a lot at the end of the day.

I also teach 3-4 classes a month for Stampin' Cat. I'm learning that this realistically needs 10-15 hrs a month prep time, as well as the 6-8 hours of teaching, as each class is 2 hours each. Plus the store is about 25 minutes away from my house, one way, so if I am dropping off samples, etc., that's an hour of drive time alone. If you total it all up, that's about twenty to twenty-five hours each month or 4-5 hours each week of work (or with me, it's 10 hours of prep time the week of my classes or about 15 hours that one week 'cause I didn't spread out my work) not counting any drive time.

Speaking of drive time, my youngest ds has been diagnosed with a Speech Communication Disorder. This is really not much more than a fancy way of saying, "he's a little behind in his speech." Not enough to be very worrisome (especially when you are looking at the long run of things) but enough to qualify for free preschool through the county (Yes! A nice side benefit of paying taxes). Well, his preschool is 25 minutes away from my house as well (the OTHER direction, so not really easy to combine trips) so every Tuesday and Thursday, I get to spend an hour in the car dropping him off. He takes the bus home.

Throw in a little volunteer work teaching music at the elementary school (I'm teaching one Kindergarten class this year), driving for taekwondo classes, scouts, grocery shopping, library trips, and so on, and then add on the demands of keeping house for and feeding five people, and you can see where the time goes. It's also important to me to have time for myself, for reading and scripture study. And for naps. Naps are good.

So where does your time go? Personally I hate the phrase "waste time." Time is too precious to waste. Sometimes we spend it too frivolously as well. I think as part of my challenge to "DO" this year, I'm going to pay attention to how I am spending my time. Maybe through careful budgeting, I can find some more of it.

And that's the other side.

I thought of a few more....

DO take more pictures
DO make financial decisions from a place of wisdom
DO improve my relationship with my Heavenly Father
DO send handmade birthday cards to my family and extended family and friends
DO sleep when I'm tired and give my body the rest it needs
DO spend less time on the computer
DO sew more and beautify my home
DO support my friends and their hobbies and interests
DO start some kind of "girlfriends" club

more later!

Do

So Ali challenged the world at large to think of a word to sum up their year. She talked about how her last year's word was "play" and how it really blessed her life last year, and that this year, she was going for "peace." She's expecting us to have layouts and stuff talking about our word. I don't have a layout yet, but I do have a word.

I started first thinking about things like "balance," "action," "self," and things like that, to go with my resolution for self-improvement this year. For awhile, I was seriously considering "wisdom," since I want many of my choices this year to come from a place of wisdom. Finally, I decided on "Do."

"Do" is a very good word. It can be used to give permission, like "Do enjoy some refreshments." It can be almost a command, like in Nike's famous "Just Do It" ad campaign. It can be an action word--"What do you do?" "Go do something!" For me, as my word of the year it's a frame of mind, a motivation. What it boils down to is this: I want to DO things I have previously only talked about doing. I want to stop talking about things. I want to do.

Do start a lifelong exercise program
Do learn new skills
Do pursue my scrapbooking goals
Do yell at my children less
Do take them more places
Do make food choices from a place of wisdom
Do love my hubby more
Do work for long-held goals
Do start writing stories and books and essays
Do have more regular blog posts
Do sleep more
Do keep a tidier house
Do remember the wonder of it all
Do put action behind my dreams

I hope that all of my readers will give themselves a wonderful new year. With permission to do.

And that's the other side.