Project LIfe 2014 [week 6]

Project Life week 6:

 

Left side only:

Right side only:

Faves from the week:
love the color combos, like a dreamy watercolor
love that photo of my laptop
love that tiny wooden word "look" on the left side

Words [Find Joy in the Ordinary]

Blossom [Tater @ 8.5 months]

 

photos taken mid January 2014
tater @ 8.5 months old

Make A Friend

Just a fun little video from Soul Pancake.

Have a happy day!

The Weekly Capture

 

 movie night

 

 

doggy bagel treats

 

 

 always a sketchbook

 

 

celebrating twelve

 

 

post-hike

 

 

great grandpa and a cupcake

 

 

trying to break the $5.00 latte habit

 

Busy week. Lots of birthday moments. Sleepover, pizza and tokens with friends. A family party the next day with steaks and spice cake and sharing the birthdays wishes with other February babies (my dad, Mark, and Mark's sister).

 

Saw the Lego movie. Laughed so, so much. Go see it!

 

Not sure when I became the person who buys her dogs treats while at the bagel shop. But I am. And they loved them.

 

Heading off to San Diego for the weekend to celebrate Mark turning 1 year older.

 

Now go have a fabulous weekend!

 

Linking up with Jeannette at Life Rearranged.





22 Hikes in 2014

 

If you read yesterday's post, you saw that we spend quite a bit of time on the couch watching good TV.  I feel like we are too sedentary as a family. So last weekend I got a wild idea to go on a hike. And it was so great, I've decided we need to do this 2 times a month. And that's how 22 hikes in 2014 was born.

 

Now, I have to admit that when I say hike, I really mean walk. But I like the word hike better.

 

Why walks? I'm a bigger girl who doesn't get a lot of physical activity. So a hike up a mountain is not possible at this time. I have to take it easy and work my way up to that. But I'm hoping that after a bit I will be able to tackle something more challenging.

 

Hike #1 was at South Mountain Park. Katie, Mark, and I walked both the Challenge Loop and the Interpretive Loop, which were 0.5 miles each, and relatively flat walks. I'll probably have to repeat this one a few times before I feel ready to tackle a different trail.

 

Moments from Hike #1:

 

// quiet, fresh air // a few wildflowers //

// smells of some desert bush or tree // shadow selfies //

//cool morning air (61 degrees at 9 am, 75 at 10:30 am) //

// gunfire (must be a shooting range nearby) // time alone with 1 kid //

 



Currently

eating:  eggs and bacon and toast for lunch. loaded baked potatoes for dinner (insert more bacon). why does bacon taste so darn good?

wanting:  Friday to get here. this week is passing by at a snail's pace. I'm so ready for our solo road trip.

loving:   nights off when I can snuggle with M and binge watch good TV.

needing:  to quit the latte habit. bought a coffee maker and am determined to enjoy coffee from my kitchen and only get Starbucks once or maybe twice a week (rather than 6). had an awful headache yesterday, but it's gone today. that's gotta be a good sign, right?

feeling:  relaxed. had a hectic night at work yesterday, but hoping for a better one today. plus I keep closing my eyes and imagining the ocean breeze on my face.

reading:  Hands Free Mama. finished The Cuckoo's Calling, The Book Thief, The Gifts of Imperfection, and One Person/Multiple Careers. Downloaded Where'd You Go, Bernadette today. seems like the perfect beach book.

watching at home: Nurse Jackie, House of Lies, Shameless, Homeland Season 3 (better than 2). we have free Showtime until 2/24 so we've been trying to watch all their series before they are gone. also watching Season 2 of House of Cards. if you are one of those rare people not watching, you should. like right now. seriously.

watching at theater:  Anchorman 2, Her, August: Osage County, Lone Survivor, and Winter's Tale. whew. I've been busy!

planning:  don't laugh, but I'm thinking about the next Disneyland trip. I needed to figure out when I have to start saving. Decided on May of 2015. I know, so far away. how will I cope

photo taken in Balboa Park in San Diego June 2013.

How the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle changed my life...

Last year I broke down and read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I say "broke down" because I knew that this book would be a life changer. I had read many reviews, and I was scared to become more informed about my food choices. Honestly.

I highly recommend the book. I plan on reading it again, maybe a year later. I'm positive I'll take home different messages with a re-read. For now, I've switched over to organic milk and beef and chicken. I buy cage free eggs. I try to eat out less, especially fast food. I buy more organic vegetables. I added a few new stores to my regular shopping trips. I'm working on finding a farmer's market close by that is open on a night I don't work. If I have to drive 12 miles to my favorite one, aren't I missing the point?

Basically, I try to make better choices. One day at a time.

Below, I'm sharing some excerpts from the book that really spoke to me. Hope you enjoy.

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.”

     “CAFOs house them as tightly as possible where they never see grass or sunlight. If you can envision one thousand chickens in your bathroom, in cages stacked to the ceiling, you're honestly getting the picture. (Actually a six-foot by eight room could house 1,152).”    

  

 

 “Households that have lost the soul of cooking from their routines may not know what they are missing: the song of a stir-fry sizzle, the small talk of clinking measuring spoons, the yeasty scent of rising dough, the painting of flavors onto a pizza before it slides into the oven.”  

 

 

 

 

“We're a nation with an eating disorder, and we know it. The multiple maladies caused by bad eating are taking a dire toll on our health--most tragically for our kids, who are predicted to be this country's first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That alone is a stunning enough fact to give us pause. So is a government policy that advises us to eat more fruits and vegetables, while doling out subsidies not to fruit and vegetable farmers, but to commodity crops destined to become soda pop and cheap burgers. The Farm Bill, as of this writing, could aptly be called the Farm Kill, both for its effects on small farmers and for what it does to us, the consumers who are financing it.”    

 

“We can´t know what we haven´t been taught”
 

 Oh, and in case you're wondering what my kids think of this? They are not loving it. They hate that we make pizza in the kitchen on a weekly basis, but get Pizza Hut on the rare occasion. They hate that we don't have as many frozen prepared foods in our freezer. They miss chicken nuggets. And they really hated the day I brought brussel sprouts home and made them take one bite. But I understand. I'm the one that taught them to like the foods they like. It's what I've been feeding them all their lives. And when they hang out at the mall with their friends, they still get to eat at McDonald's.

The Weekly Capture

 

//perfect day to wander outside and work//

 

//my inner OCD voice let out a sigh when she saw the neatly arranged packets//

 

//new at Chili's. tablets at every table. used to order alcohol, play games, view menu and pay bill. handy for that last one//

 

Funny how some weeks I take so many photos and others there are just a few. It was a simple and quiet week but always a good one.

Linking up with Jeannette at Life Rearranged.

Project Life Goodies

1. Card storage



2.  12 x 12 photo idea





3.  Instant Download Journal Cards






4.  Hand Stitched Cards




5.  Flair

I Choose Both

source

 

This perfectly sums up how I feel about my husband and I marriage. Not perfect. But you take the good with the bad. And the bad is sooo overshadowed by the good!

 

Having warm and fuzzy thought as we approach Valentine's Day.

 

Now go hug someone you love!

Double Desk Office

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9

 

Last month we went to Ikea and bought my husband a desk, the same desk that I got 6 months ago. They kinda look like the ones in picture #2, but they have white tops. How did we pick these desks? Mine was in the As Is area, for $15. The legs were red, but some gold spray paint fixed that problem. And we wanted the desks to match so that's what my husband got stuck with.  He has never had a desk of his own, and truthfully, I was tired of seeing his laptop and fantasy football papers on the kitchen table every night.

 

So we decided to get him a desk of his own and I made the commitment to clean out one of my file cabinets (the ones pictured in #8) to store his papers/stuff in. I keep all my craft supplies in 3 of these cabinets, so emptying one out meant I had to do some major purging. We have our desks back to back at the moment, but we could move them side by side on a wall if we choose to rearrange the space one day.

 

I really love working on projects and looking across the table to see him on his laptop. I think he likes seeing me across from him too. And I know he enjoys having a space all his own.

 

The problem now is how to keep the desks clean. I tend to leave multiple projects lying around on mine, and he tends to leave the laptop bag and mail on his. But I love the clean look of the above offices So we will just keep trying to clean off the desk surfaces every day.

 

We're still working on decorating the walls in the room. And I want to add plants to the top of a low bookshelf. And clean out that last file cabinet of mine. And I really want this rug to come live under our desks and behave itself by lying flat at all times and not shift around. Area rugs make me crazy when they start shifting around.

 

How about you? Do you have a dedicated space for crafting or laptop play time? Do you keep it clean or is it messy most of the time? Any favorite inspiration photos you have pinned? Do share!

 

P.S. If I owned this house, rather than renting it, I would totally install wood beams on the ceiling in our living room/office space, like the one in picture #2, but darker. I actually have a whole list of projects I would love to do to this house. If it were mine. And I had a treasure chest full of money in the master bedroom closet!



Project Life [January 2014]

Sharing all my January Project Life pages:

Intro Page:

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Week 4:

Week 5:

Thoughts on this year?

Love it so, so, so much! Why?

It gets the photos out of the computer and onto pages that can be touched and shared...

It lets me continue with my love for pretty papers and embellishments without the actual time consuming scrapbooking...

It simplifies everything for me by having pre-determined sizes to work with...

It takes about an hour from start to finish for each page. To print photos, pick out cards, add journaling, and some pretty touches...

It helps me pull out the camera when something strikes my fancy. To be more mindful of the life going on around me...

I'm so happy that this year I invested in the official Project Life protector pages and subscribed to the Studio Calico monthly Project Life kit. Everything is easy to put together. In the past, I kept quitting PL because it was too hard to cut everything down to size (used old supplies I had on hand) and getting things to look just right. I've now figured that I like 5 or 6 pictures per page, or it feels too cluttered. And I like to keep the colors neutral, with just a pop of color on each 2 page spread. I prefer pages that have ample white space. And I like the date cards that I created. Again, keeping the clean look.

Are you working on a Project Life binder this year? How's it going for you?