2010-11-01: Daybook

Day: Monday

Date: November 1, 2010

Right Now: almost 9 PM. Four of five children are in bed, with little fight or argument. Littlest guy isn’t feeling very well. I have a full tummy and am contemplating turning in a little earlier than usual.

The weather today was clear, sunny, and cold. Definitely needed mittens early this morning.

Today I feel optimistic, after all, it is a new month and anything is possible.

Today I am grateful for my oldest son’s love of cooking! He made a delicious Taco Cornbread Casserole for dinner tonight. Going to pay close attention to this section this month and make sure I am grateful/thankful for something every.single.day.

Inspirations: I will have to share this category another day…

I said a special prayer for my friends Marty & Sherry and their new forever family. Today was adoption day for them and their two children! I am also praying for the elections tomorrow – for a strong Pro-Life victory at the polls.

Prayer(s) answered: Father-In-Law will be coming home from hospital soon. He suffered a stroke a little over a week ago. Thankfully, not a major one.

Donations of the Heart (Random Acts of Kindness, Sharing, Caring, and Forgiveness): Another day of forgiving a person special to me that hurt me deeply. Every day, the pain gets lessened.

What I would like to see happen tomorrow (Goals, ideas, etc.): VOTE! I need to tackle Mt. Foldmore – I know I have a blue sofa under there somewhere. The laundry situation has taken over our home. I need to get it all under control.

This weekend was not nearly long enough. Shopping. Visiting Father-In-Law in hospital. Trick-Or-Treating. Baking cookies. Attended Mass as a whole family for the first time in a couple of weeks (colds, fluish stuff, etc.)

If I find time for myself, I would like to get some reading done and some scrapbooking. Several ideas for new scrapbook albums bouncing around in my head.

I am reading (when I can steal a moment or two) First Things First by Kurt & Brenda Warner with Jennifer Schuchmann on my Kindle app for iPhone.

New Apps

I am an iPhone user. In fact, I probably depend on it a little too much.

I buy apps a little too often. Probably spending too much money on them, sometimes. Mostly, I get free apps. Today was not one of those free app kind of days.

Patrick and I have been talking about finding and buying an app that we could all use to keep track of the family schedule. We found several and after careful consideration and investigation I chose the Cozi Family Organizer.

It has everything we need.

1. - Color coded Calendar for handling our large family’s schedules.
2. - Shopping Lists
3. - To Do Lists
4. - A Family Journal

Joining the site and using Cozi Online is *FREE*. The cost of the app is minimal and the app is ad-free! Just exploring the site, I’ve found several recipes that I would like to try. I’ve also got a ton of ideas for how we might use the Family Journal to make my digital scrapbooking faster & more enjoyable!

I also picked up the new Nike + GPS app.

Hoping to start walking/running again. I loved the Nike+ that required the thing-a-ma-jig in your shoe, but I wasn’t running often enough to make those fiscally responsible. If I ran every.single.day. maybe, but I don’t. Life with two toddlers (1 year 51 weeks and 2.75 years) makes running daily almost impossible.

Since I loved the first one, I figured it would be safe for me to buy the new one with the GPS capability.

I spend a lot of time cleaning up after they have been too curious for their own good.

I expect the Toddler Twosome will be waking up from their naps soon. I should try to throw together something for the Cross Country Team Dinner tonight.

Countdown & Calendars

I’m counting the days until

And I just found this great challenge that started yesterday…

 

Looking forward to getting some calendars made to give as Christmas gifts this year! The other participants seems to have decided to start with January & February. I’m going to be the rebel and start with September and October. I’m just so inspired by all the Autumn/Fall, Back To School, and Halloween kits that have been released lately.

Tadpole Tuesday is tomorrow!! A little birdie told me that PixelWorks has some things for the Vampire loving scrappers on sale for just $1 each.

Coming Soon to The-LilyPad…

More details coming soon.

I’ll post as soon as I know more!

Froggy Friday 9/24: {Generations} Heritage Series

Hello there and welcome to another Froggy Friday edition of PixelWorks’ product previews! Today’s new releases will help you take your modern digital scrapbooking back in time to produce some drop dead gorgeous heritage and genealogy pages.
Without further ado, Pixelworks introduces the {Generations} Heritage Series
No self respecting genealogist would be caught without their charts!
These papers are perfect for scrapping about HER side of the story . . .

What better way to frame those heritage photos than with some vintage frames and papers (these are a re-release)

And who says you cannot have some fun with your title work! Check out this Vintage Ransom Alpha (also a re-release)

Here’s my layout!

Product images are linked to the store. Have a great weekend!
Note: I received complimentary copies of the above mentioned products. I receive these items in exchange for my time helping PixelWorks promote her products through writing blog posts for her, promoting on Facebook and Twitter, and certainly through actually using the products and displaying my end results.

Defeating the Obama Machine

Thank you, Catholic Harvest for sharing this! I can only hope the majority that voted the "Obama Machine" in has wised up and will vote this November to compensate - to effectively cut off his power and control.

Today is Peace Day

The Digital Celt: Peace One Day - and a freebie!: "On September 21st, people from all over the globe, people of all ages, races, sexes and faiths, commemorate Peace Day in many ways. What a..."

Thank you, Catriona for bringing this to my awareness.

I would like to share with you a Celtic Prayer for Peace from Carmina Gadelica.

Peace

Peace between neighbours,
Peace between kindred,
Peace between lovers,
In the love of the King of life.

Peace between person and person,
Peace between wife and husband,
Peace between woman and children,
The peace of Christ above all peace.

Thinking of peace, I always start singing the following hymn:

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there is hatred let me bring your love,

Where there is injury your pardon Lord,

And where there's doubt true faith in you.

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope,

Where there is darkness, only light,

And where there's sadness, ever joy.

O Master grant that I may never seek,

So much to be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

In giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life.

In fact, we sang this at the close of Mass this past Sunday. One of my favorite hymns. No surprise that I am drawn to it, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta made this prayer of St. Francis part of The Missionaries of Charity's morning prayers.

So in honor of Peace One Day, I am going to pray for understanding between different religions and cultures.

Tadpole Tuesday 9/21: Who Let The Dog Out?

Great deals abound at the The LilyPad on Tadpole Tuesday! Is it ok for Tuesday to be my favorite day of the week?
Who Let The Dog Out? available today at The LilyPad. A crazy silly kit with unique papers and elements for scrapping about man’s (or lady’s) best friend.

Note: These were formerly available at ScrapArtist. Images are linked to the store.

Michaels Acquires ScrapHD

Article here: Michaels Acquires Digital Scrapbooking Technology ScrapHD application expands retailer's scrapbooking offerings with online component. – CNBC

Do you think this will help Digital Scrapbooking to become more main stream? more widely accepted?
I have still on occasion when acquaintances start talking about their love of scrapbooking as a hobby been met with the attitude that what I do is somehow less of an art/craft/hobby than what they do. Glue, scissors, and mess just aren't for me. My budget wouldn't allow for me to do my memory keeping in a more physical medium. I like making my layouts on the computer. I can share that layout digitally through email, on my blog, on facebook, etc. with anyone that chooses to look. I also have physcial options. I can print and frame a single layout, a series of layouts, etc. There are many companies that offer printing and binding services.

Will this drive the price of digital supplies up?
I don't know. It is one of the first questions that popped into my head when I saw the article. Many "paper companies" are coming out with digital lines and the prices so far have been far higher for their digital kits than those of an independent artist/designer.

Does this article raise any questions for you?

Do you have thoughts you'd like to share? Please leave a comment!

Holiday Organization

If you are like me, Christmas or the holiday season in general sneaks up behind you, beats you up, and steals your lunch money. For example, Christmas Eve arrives and you find yourself without stocking stuffers, so you drag yourself out to the nearest 24-Hour store you can that is still actually open and you pay way more than you should for stocking stuffers.

I found 100 Days To Christmas a couple of weeks before the official countdown began on September 16. I've also been following along with Organized Christmas and Christmas Planner. This is a desperate attempt to make Christmas less stressful and chaotic than previous years. I want to build good and happy memories with my 5 Little Monkeys. I would really rather they don't have memories of Mommy & Daddy stressed out, exhausted, and cranky.

Organized Christmas and Christmas Planner had us start about the same time the kids went back to school. The first week of September was chaotic. Seems the First Day of School sneaked up on me and tried to pin me to the mats. Thankfully, being the office & school supply hoarder that I am, my stash was able to handle the demands my school aged children put on it. Next year, we buy for the kids *and* the stash!

Last year, I tried to do Holidays In Hand class from Jessica Sprague's site. Can we say "Epic Fail"? Yep. I'm going to start planning my Christmas Memory Book now! I'm going to plan and schedule activities to build memories for us to share, that way, there's actually stuff to scrapbook about!

Howdy

Welcome to my new blog!

I am "reinventing" my online self. Watch this space!