For Shame!

I know, right?!? 

Two stinkin' months of no posts.  Sorry, y'all...I needed a break.

My plan is to be back on a (atLEAST) once weekly blogging schedule by the beginning of March.  It seems that I have no concept of time management lately and I'm not sure what is going to need to be done to remedy that.  The train VERY APPARENTLY derailed, but I'm not schooled in putting trains back on tracks or whatever, so I'm still doing research on how to do that.

I wanted to do a quick check in to let all of you regulars know that I am indeed alive and well and that I'll make sure you don't miss out on all of the junk that was my holiday season and the things that have come after that.  My life needs rearranging and you all will be a huge part of that also.

Some things that need work:

• I am quitting with crochet until further notice.  I just can't juggle crochet hooks right now.
• I haven't done any form of scrapbooking since sometime in 2010.  That is stupid crazy.  I LOVE that hobby and I am super freakin' sad that I've neglected it for that long.  To deal with this, I've started a system called Project Life.  If you have any interest in preserving memories, but aren't really a scrapbooker, I HIGHLY recommend this system.  All you have to do is buy the parts to the kit, take pictures and get them printed out and stick them in the page protectors.  The page protectors are sectioned off and are designed for 4x6 photos...one a day.  BUT YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TAKE ONE A DAY.  It is also designed to be done weekly.  You also can buy little cards where you can write small snippets of your week on and then add them to your pages.  I also have added a tag from clothing, a card, an invitation, etc.  Super easy and efficient.  When you are a parent with a job and have lots of other obligations, efficiency is the name of the game.
• I am doing P365+1.  I take (atleast) one photo a day, ordinary or special, with my iPhone and I put it into my Photo 365 app.  This helps me with Project Life.  I certainly need help with my memory and this is the perfect app for that. 
• I installed the Blogger app on my iPhone.  I'll just admit it now:  I DO MORE THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH PICTURES/INTERNET/SOCIAL NETWORKING WITH MY IPHONE THAN I DO WITH A CAMERA AND A COMPUTER COMBINED.  I haven't taken one single picture with my actual camera all year.  I haven't needed to.  My iPhone is right there.  Handy.  Easy.  No fuss.  And I can upload or save my photos to 10 different places via my iPhone.  No uploading photos to a computer, etc.  I LOVE IT.
• If my iPhone dies, I probably will too.  Just a note to myself. :)
• The fact that I do so many things from my phone has inhibited ONE aspect of my life:  Blogging.  I miss blogging, but it's so dang many steps to turn on my home computer, go to my blogger account, type a post, find all my photos and figure out how to get them to the computer I'm working on and then publish and then link to Facebook.  Now that I've figured things out, I can do all this from my phone.  This will result in more but shorter blog posts.  Y'all can live with that, right?
• My good friend MZQ and I are planning to start (very soon, I hope) a weekly topic and linkup situation where we blog about a topic and...get this...LINK up to one another.  If I'm reaching any other bloggers out there, please let me know if you'd like to be a part of this.  We don't have any topics yet, but I'm assuming they'll be across the board topics that range from funny to serious to opinion to stories.  I hope she's thinking the same here. :)

So that's how I'm rollin' this year.  I used to use my blog to preserve my memories.  I am now doing that more privately, but I still want to include you all in that process.  Stay tuned for some ACTUAL blogging. 

Loves to you all. :)

Five for Friday: Cheap Crafts

I am a crafty person.  I like to paint and scrapbook and crochet and arrange flowers (but not well) and refinish furniture, etc.  There isn't one craft-type thing I haven't tried.  I am super excited to be getting back into some crafty things after a busy holiday season and such.  Problem is...I spent all that money at Christmas!!  I am now challenging myself to use what I have instead of buy all new stuff for each craft project.  Here's what I'm doing now:

1. Jayna wants to give her female schoolmates "bows" (hair barrettes) for Valentine's Day.  I told her that was a GREAT idea!  Except all the ones she's tried to pick out are about 3 bucks each.  Um...NO.  There are 8 girls and 8 boys at her school.  That's too much.  So I'm crocheting little flowers from leftover pink yarn to sew onto some cheap dollar store plain barrettes.  Total cost for all 10 that I'm making:  FIVE BUCKS.  Score. 
2. Jayna also wants to make by hand all the Valentine's Day cards so she can "decorate them with stickers and glitter or something" (her words, not mine).  So I visited my new favorite kid's crafty website Family Fun and we're making owls for the girls and fish for the boys.  And I already have 90% of the supplies in the mess of a craftroom at home.  Score again.
3. A friend of a friend is getting married later this year and she asked me to help her come up with cheap-in-price but classy-in-looks centerpieces for the tables.  I happily accepted the challenge and hope that she asks me for more help.  I have the most awesome idea for favors!!!  This doesn't fit in to me not spending money, but I do have a budget to work in, so we'll see how that goes.
4. Since the weather is supposed to be warmer over the weekend and next week, I'm hoping to get the garage cleaned out so I can finish some painting projects out there.  All materials were bought last year, but it's just too cold to refinish furniture in an unheated garage right now.  The warmer temps will be welcomed with open arms!!
5. I am working on finishing a photo collage of Morgan.  All I need is a frame!!  I'm thinking of making one...it can't be THAT hard, right?  I surely can come up with something.  (Yes, I can and don't call me Shirley.)

Too Many Hobbies Tuesday

I've decided that I have too many hobbies. And I will likely do NOTHING about it.


I have many pieces of furniture (okay, 4...but 3 are bookshelves and one is a storage cabinet) in my garage that are in the process of being finished. What's stopping me? I have to sand the hell out of all of them.

I have eleventyjillion unfinished scrapbook projects. But do I work on them? Absolutely NOT. I take up other hobbies like crocheting.

I currently have 2 crochet projects to finish for Jayna, one for myself and one for a friend. But last night I just wanted to watch television.

I have some minor woodworking projects (one was for Halloween and isn't finished...there's always next year) that I'm working on for an upcoming possible teaching workshop thingy. But they also have to be sanded and I feel that I can't work on them until Jayna's furniture is sanded. It's like my sander shakes it's finger at me and says, "You should be working on the kid's stuff!!"

I also like to bake and decorate cupcakes.  But when the HELL am I going to do that???

I've determined that there is one part of EVERY hobby I have that I don't like doing. I don't like sanding wood. I don't like printing photos for scrapbooking. And I don't like blocking and washing crochet projects.  I don't really like the actual MAKING of the cake.  My strong suit is decorating.

I also like to paint, but that's on the back burner because of all of the above. I also like to do, you know, PHYSICAL activities outdoors and stuff. I haven't been to the nature preserve in FOREVER. Yesterday I played outside with Jayna and it was delightful.

Many of my crafting issues are because of my Four New Things Expedition. I've gotta stop with the craft stuff.

My goal next year is to not add ANY new craft categories to my life. I am only allowed to add one-time events or things that are good for my body. I plan to play paintball. And I plan to run the mini. So I'm off to a good start.

So...what was the point of this post? As always, your guess is as good as mine.

Five for Friday: At A Loss

Some weird and out of place things have happened to me in the last week.  I don't....even know what to say.  So:

1. Chris and I began naming our baby before we even conceived a baby.  We decided that we wanted to have a baby around Christmas time of 2007.  We knew it would be atleast 6 months before we even tried, but we began talking about names shortly after Christmas of 2007.  By mid-December of 2008, right around the time I found out I was pregnant, we had already decided on a girl's name.  And that name was Jayna Madison.  Neither one of us had ever known anyone with the name Jayna and we've met a very limited number of people who have known a Jayna.  My grandmother is in town right now and told my mom just 3 days ago that "she named that baby" (that baby being my kid Jayna who was named before she was conceived).  WHAT THE F#*^($%??????  How is that even POSSIBLE??  My grandmother is elderly, but I was SURE that she was still of sound mind.  I guess not.
2. I got fleas today at work.  I know, right??  "But Danielle, you work in an office.  How the hell did you get fleas??"  Well, gentle reader, we have an extra warehouse to store things like, you know, carpet in that isn't in the greatest of shape.  It is our opinion that there are several feral cats living in there although we rarely see them.  Our warehouse guy (my brother) went to said extra warehouse today, picked up a carton of carpet tile and about 3 million (give or take) fleas jumped onto him.  It should be said that my mom brings her dog to work with her.  He is a small white bichon.  The first thing my brother does, KNOWING THAT HE HAS FLEAS ON HIM, is come back to our office, come in the door and say, "I have fleas."  They are now ALL OVER the dog and all over our office.  They've been jumping on our ankles and shirts and things.  The office is being bombed tonight.  The dog is on flea medicine, so he'll be okay.  But we still don't want our office OR OUR HOUSES infested with fleas.  I HEART MY AWESOME JOB!!!
3. I am The World's Greatest Procrastinator.  I really should have a trophy.  No, really.  I should.  I was up until 11:45pm putting together baby scrapbooks for a friend to give as a gift.  Why do I do this to myself??  For those of you who don't know me well, I DON'T DO WELL ON LIMITED SLEEP.  Napping is a hobby to me.  I am definitely dragging ass today.
4. My real estate teacher got fired.  I haven't ever blogged about him before, but I should have.  He was a giant douchebag.  I don't use that word very often, but there is no other better fitting word in this situation.  He constantly went off subject, told very crude jokes (that I always thought were funny IF WE WERE IN A BAR AND NOT AN INSTITUTION OF LEARNING), and offended everyone in the class to some degree.  And then he'd say things like, "Well, I don't care if you learn it.  I already have my license."  Or, "I don't know why I'm wasting my time on you guys since most of you are going part time anyway."  Or, "Oh, you're from Shelbyville?  I'll talk slower."  Or, "Jeff is pissed at me, but I don't care.  What's he gonna do, fire me?  Whatever, I own this place."  Well, joke's on you, assclown!!  Bazinga!!
5. I can't focus on anything else right now because I seriously ITCH ALL OVER.  I need a flea bath.  Gross.

Bloggy Randomnicity

Is randomnicity a word?  I could look it up using the interwebs, but I'm way too lazy for that.  I'll save my websurfing for shopping and celebrity gossip.  For the record, if it isn't a word, it should be.

And here it is, in all of it's randomnicity:

• I have a friend who organizes conferences for her place of employment.  While I'm still unsure of what her company really does, I do know what her actual job entails now.  She is super busy and it makes me sad.  I mean, it makes me happy because being so busy for her conference means that she's doing her job well which always makes a person feel better.  But it makes me sad because she feels like she doesn't have time for anything except work! 
• So, the above-mentioned friend who is so busy asked me to come to her conference and do a cardmaking workshop with the spouses of some of her co-workers.  And of course I agreed!!  I'm always willing to help out a friend, especially when I get to go out of town overnight with no child and go to a big party with green beer!! :)  I'm super excited and a little nervous because there will be possibly 16 people there.  SIX-EFFING-TEEN people that I have to sort of instruct.  Yikes!  I'd better brush up on my people skills!!  I only have a week.  Probably not going to cut it.
• My kid can't decide what to do with her sleeping.  It's really a vicious cycle that can only be ended in one way:  force her to only take one nap a day.  If she takes 2 naps a day or naps past 3:30pm, she doesn't go to bed at night until about 10pm.  And then when I have to wake her up at 6am it's a horrible nightmare.  She took only a morning nap yesterday and then fell apart by dinnertime because she was so tired.  She crashed at 8pm sharp and I didn't hear from her until 6am when Chris woke her up.  So now I'm forcing the issue.  ONE nap in the afternoon.  End. Of.  Story.
• I can't decide if I want to move.  It's ALOT of work!!  And I don't want to move just to be moving.  I want to move where I can STAY.  Which means a big yard and 4 bedrooms.  If I can't get that now I'd rather wait.  I have a very specific list of what my new place will be.  I wasn't picky the first time, but I will be the second!!
• The change in the weather has turned my life around!  A little dramatic?  Not in the slightest!  It really has made me feel better and want to do more things instead of just watching television all day.  I'm so excited for spring!

What are y'all up to lately?

And the winner is...

So I entered the baby girl album into a contest...and WON!! I get some free scrapbooking supplies and that is always good! Go here and check it out! Yay me!

Happy Valentine's Day...

I can NEVER get things posted on time. I don't know when that happened. Oh, yeah I do. When I began having more important things to do than blogging. Ah, those were the days...blogging and drinking. I get there again SOMEDAY!

So, my Valentine's Day was very low-key. We had pizza and watched TV. I know, exciting! Actually, it sort of was for us. We had Papa Murphy's chicken garlic pizza...it was AWESOME!! It has some sort of garlic white sauce, chicken, cheese, roma tomatoes and green onions. Delish. And we had the cinnamon wheel too. We won't be getting that anymore...it's WAY TOO GOOD!

We've been loyal DirecTV subscribers for 4 years now, so they gave us 3 months of free Showtime. I know...what a deal! (It may help if you could hear the sarcasm in my voice. Four years and all we get is a measly 3 months free of Showtime? How about a lower monthly rate? Yeah, sure. That's never gonna happen.) Anyhoozy, there is a new show on Showtime called United States of Tara. (It was created by Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno. I'm a big fan of hers. If you haven't seen Juno, DO SO IMMEDIATELY!! It's a fabulous movie...so funny and awkward and heartbreaking all at the same time.) But I digress. We watched all 4 episodes (half hour each) of United States of Tara and we are now sucked in. We watched the new episode last night. Very interesting. I won't say anymore in case you want to watch it. :) This show would be one that I'd buy the DVDs. So now will I have to pay for Showtime after my 3 months is over to watch it? We'll see.

So that's it! Pretty boring, but I liked it. I'll leave you with some photos of Jayna's Valentine's Day decorations...

Jayna's decorated shelf

Close-up of the banner I made for her...can you see the jeweled stickers at the bottom?

Jayna's sparkly topiary. She LOVES this and it matches her room, so I'm leaving it on her shelf all year.

It's a girl!!

My hairdresser, Kelly, is pregnant. She's due mid-March and she's having a girl. She is also the hairdresser of my mom and aunt. We LOVE her!! I actually think she and I could be friends otherwise, but neither of us really has time for that at the moment. Anyhoo, mom and I decided to make her a gift...you know, using our mad scrappin' skills. Summer helped also and we got the whole album finished in one Saturday afternoon. (to one faithful reader, this will look VERY familiar...)

Album Front Cover

Album Front Cover

First Page

Body Pages (all the same layout for months 1 thru 12)

Another Body Page

Body Page #1 Detail (LOVE that quote!!)


Body Page #2 Detail

Last Page

And now for some shameless advertising...do you know someone who is having a baby?? I do make these as gifts for you all to buy. Just let me know. Hope you likey!