Project Life Tuesday - Week 1

I'm joining Jessica Turner at The Mom Creative and Becky Higgins in 2010 by taking a picture every single day of the year - at least that's the plan on this, the 12th day of the year!

Becky is the creator of this amazing kit, Project Life, that makes documenting your every day life easy and fun. Simply (well simple if I remember!) take a picture of something every day and write a little something about it on some super cute journaling cards Becky designed. The pictures can be of anything... the shoes you wore that day, your hubby/kids/parents/pets, a landmark you pass on the way to work every day, what you ate for dinner, a birthday cake... ANYTHING! It will all be an important part of your history in 50 years when your grandkids are looking through the book. Print your pictures and slip them into the page protectors. I love scrapbooking and watching the memories of my life take shape on a creative page, but I don't have time or space to drag out all my supplies frequently, so I get super far behind (think 5 years behind... yeesh)! Becky's kit makes documenting my life soooo much easier for me, which means it is more likely to actually happen!

Jessica is an amazing scrapbooker and I wish I had even a fraction of the creativity that she has. She firmly believes in telling your story. Since I already love scrapbooking and journaling, this is a great way to combine the two in an easy-to-keep-up-with project.

I'm going to be sharring my pictures for the week on Tuesday's (as will Jessica & many more! click over to Jessica's blog to be inspired by lots of creative people). The kit is very open ended and easy to adjust to your own likes & dislikes. I decided that I wanted to keep my weekends together so in my weekly layouts I consider my weeks to be Monday - Sunday. This isn't the same for everyone, but it works for me.

I started on December 31st with the first layout having 4 pictures (Thursday - Sunday) then the first full week layout started on January 4th.

~~~My computer would NOT cooperate and upload more than one picture, so I'm including only a picture of my entire first week layout instead of individual pictures. Sunday is missing because I haven't developed that picture yet, but amazingly - ok, so it's only the 12th day of the year - I'm caught up through TODAY on my journaling! Hoping I can keep it up for another 353 days!~~~

Mon., Jan. 4th, First day back to work after almost 2 weeks off :(

Tues., Jan. 5th, My Barnes & Noble deals - Christmas books for 60% off!

Wed., Jan. 6th, My 16 week prenatal appointment

Thurs., Jan 7th, Krispy Kreme free donut cupons - great for the wallet, terrible for the waist!

Fri., Jan 8th, Alllll the snow we got last night - and I was expecting a 2 hour school delay - HA!

Sat., Jan 9th, Dinner with my mom & pop

Sun., Jan 10th, 1st grocery shopping trip since Christmas - whoa!

*Since the weeks of my pregnancy change on Sunday, I also took a "belly" picture (nothing has really changed yet), printed it wallet size, and used it in the extra journaling card slot of the layout . This is the week 17 picture.*

It's catch-up time!

*Thanksgiving was low key this year and I loved it! We went to a Virginia Tech football game and had my side's Thanksgiving celebration the weekend before. That was also when we told my family that we are pregnant. That meant on the actually day of Thanksgiving we could relax and then make only one stop at Aaron's family's celebration. That's also when his family found out.

*Christmas was fabulous! I love being a teacher and having a week & a half off around the holiday. My sister & brother-in-law were able to come into town which was nice since we don't see them nearly as often as I'd like to.

*For New Years we went to Atlanta for the Chick-Fil-A college football bowl. The trip was so much fun, but way too short. We drove from VA down through Charlotte, NC and then into GA.
- We stayed a super ritzy hotel. I felt famous for a few minutes!
-The city was fun to explore for the very short time we were there.
- There was Chick-Fil-A food everywhere!!
-Virginia Tech won the football game!!!! :)
-The game was played inside which was a blessing since the weather was cold and drizzly.
-We missed getting back to the hotel lobby to see the ball drop by about 30 seconds. BUMMER! But I have it on good authority that the new year did indeed start that night.

*Back to school and work this week has been hard! I'm having a tough time getting back in the routine of things. Everything in the morning is taking me twice as long as it did before we went on Christmas break. My body just really liked an 8 am wake up much better than a 5 am wake up I think!

*There's a teeny-tiny chance that it could snow (about an inch) here on Thursday night. That would be BIG time snow for this area. hahaha so I'm hoping for atleast a delay in school on Friday morning. Don't really want to cancel since we'd have to make that up. But a delay is right up my alley!

*I'm on a decluttering, reorganizing kick lately. Just sitting in my living room I can look around and see about 14 projects I'd love to tackle to re-do the room. Maybe we'll start with some paint and curtains.

*I am seriously missing the Christmas tree and all the warm cozy feelings it gives me. At first I didn't even really care if we set up the tree this year, but I'm SO glad we did. Now I just wish we hadn't taken it down yet!

*The Biggest Loser is on and making me cry!

Now off I go to get some things done for school tomorrow. It feels good to be back!

looking ahead in 2010

It's been almost 2 months, but my internet service is FINALLY cooperating! Looks like we're going to eventually have to switch providers because I absolutely can not stand to pay for the internet every month if it's not even going to work!

I've missed keeping up with everyone and I'm going to do my best to go through my 1,000+ unread posts in my reader. It'll probably take a while, and I can't promise to comment on all (or more realistically - any) of them, but at least I'll be caught up on your lives. Now that the internet is kinda back, I'll be much better about reading and commenting in a timely manner!

With that little bit of housekeeping out of the way, there's been something I've been dying to get back here and tell you!

In June I'm going to be a mommy!

I'm terribly sorry for shouting, but we could not be more excited! I'm being seen by my regular OB and a high risk doctor and have a more appointments than an average pregnant woman would, and so far everything looks great. Being seen so often provides a lot of reassurance that I've very thankful for!

There will obviously be some baby talk to come, but I do not intend to turn my blog into a one track ramble. I am very sensitive to my friends who are struggling and wanting so badly to make the same announcement. I pray every night for you!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and that you are already enjoying the New Year! I can't believe that it is already 2010. Wasn't it just a minute ago that everyone was worrying about what would happen in 2000?

I'll be back soon with more catch-up-updates, probably in a long bullet style post. For now, I'm off to enjoy the last 24 hours of this lovely break before heading back to work on Monday.

losing touch

In high school I was lucky to have a good group of friends. Girls that would take me home even though it was 25 minutes out of their way just so I didn't have to ride the bus. Girls to lend me lunch money when I couldn't get my locker open to get my purse out. Girls that spent the entire weekend working on crazy history projects without so much as a shower. Girls that pushed me outside my comfort zone and showed me how to have more fun than I knew possible. Girls that forgave me when silly high school drama crept into our lives. Girls that I had a ton in common with. Girls that I still talk to and girls that I have lost touch with. Girls that could make me smile on a bad day. Girls that watched an insane number of movies with me. Girls that joined clubs and sports with me just so we'd have longer to hang out together.

Girls.

But my best friend was a guy. We talked about everything under the sun. He knew me better than any of the girls even though I spent more time hanging out with the girls. I planned on naming one of my kids after him no matter what my future husband had to say about it. We were teased some about being friends but not 'liking' each other... kids that age can be mean. But really we were just great friends.

I was afraid to go to college with 15 of my friends from high school. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to really find myself. {P.S. I was stupid!} So we went to different colleges. {Did I mention I was stupid?!} He had a girlfriend at the time that was still in high school and did not like him having female friends, especially me. So our talks got fewer and farther between. By the time I finally figured out how stupid I had been and transferred to the school with all my friends we were in slightly different places in life. Our talks were still wonderful and comfortable and we were still close, but something had changed and even though we were in the same town again {and he was crazy-girlfriend-less} we didn't go right back to how it was before.

After college it all kinda fell apart. He moved away. Our phone calls got farther and farther apart until they just stopped all together. I got married. And even though Aaron was really good friends with this guy too, it just didn't feel right to track down and pursue this friendship with Aaron on the sideline.

This entire life story has a point. This guy's birthday was last week. He was on my mind most of the week - wondering where he is now, if he's at the same job, with the same girl, happy? Same kinds of things I wonder about my other high school friends that I've lost touch with {and some that just give me glimpses of their lives through facebook}. Then the night after his birthday I had a dream about him. I actually don't remember any specifics of the dream, just that I woke up feeling like he's troubled, like he needs a friend.

I have no clue how to get in touch with him. I have no clue if my brain is just playing tricks on me since I was already thinking about him last week. All I do know is we were friends through a lot of tough stuff in high school and college and if he needs a friend now, I'd love to be there for him.

I don't plan on turning into a crazy stalker now and there's really nothing I can do about it, but it's just nice to get that out so that it can stop rattling around in my brain. When I told Aaron he just thought I was crazy, so maybe telling the bloggy world will make me feel less crazy!

learn something new everyday

I'm currently in the midst of my longest stretch of not being enrolled in school (not counting those 4 years before I started preschool) and honestly I don't like it much!

I can definitely do without the homework. But I love figuring out all the connections that make a new (to me) topic finally click! I love feeling like part of the college community. I love the sense of accomplishment when I finish a paper or ace a test. I love knowing that I'm doing something to better myself. I love the opportunities that open up to me based on the papers framed on my dinning room wall.

My husband thinks I'm certifiably CRAZY! He hates school and couldn't wait to be done with his master's. I hated finishing my bachelors and my masters simply because that meant it was over. I want to go back again, but I'm not sure what I'd do. A Ph.D. sounds way toooooo intimidating but another masters seems redundant. Maybe a masters in a completely different field? After we have kid's I'd love a job that I could do part-time, but nothing in education really works that way, so maybe I'll get a whole new degree that gets me closer to something I can do part time eventually.

I've thought about just taking some classes to learn a new craft (because I reallllly need another one of those!) but for some reason, I'm more drawn to the academic side of it all. This whole thing started simply by reading a post on facebook about a friend sitting in class. Well thats what got me thinking about it tonight, I think about going back to school at least twice a month. Nothing will probably come of it right now since I can't make up my mind what to do, but it's nice to dream of being Amanda Ph.D. one day!

walk AWAY!

Part of having rescue dogs living in our house until they get adopted is figuring out their quirks so that we can be completely up front with potential adopters in order to find a home where they will live out the rest of their days. Sometimes we get dogs that have virtually no issues and are only turned into rescue for reasons like the economy or a divorce. However, much more often dogs come in that have some pretty big issues that could have easily been avoided if they had been taught manners as puppies and been socialized.

*side note - our dogs are by NO means perfect little angels! They bark at the wind and jump up in the front window to protect us from the mail. They don't always remember that they aren't allowed on the couch and occasionally if there is a really really tempting paper towel carelessly left hanging out of the trashcan, they eat it. But we try very hard to make sure they know their manners!*

Our foster Wilson, who we've had since May is an example of the later. He was kept outside for his entire first year and because of that the family had no reason to teach him manners. He didn't interact with anybody or anything, so what would he need manners for? He obviously got no socialization either. And now we have a problem!

We've been working with him and have had him evaluated by several different professionals, but it looks like he will always carry some baggage with him. He is S...L...O...W to learn new things. It took him almost 4 months to learn sit and then another several weeks to be able to perform consistently when asked to sit. He's also very leery of new things, especially men. That is a big problem when the vet that we see is a man! So bad in fact that he needs to be muzzled for everybody's safety!

{shredded an entire dog bed while I was sleepin... and he was proud of it!}

Wilson does so well at home when nothing is changing; when he's comfortable. But on Friday my Father -in- law came over which in and of itself was a change that Wilson did not like. Add to that the fact that my FIL (drives me crazy with the way he) tries to get the dogs all riled up and you've got trouble. Dogs were at the fence barking when FIL got out of his truck. That's what the dogs do. They're letting us know someone is here. Instead of ignoring it like ALL of our other visitors, FIL walks over to the fence. The girls get excited when they realize that they know who it is but Wilson is showing increased aggravation. He's barking and growling and has jumped up on the fence. This dog weighs 130 lbs. If a dog that big was barking/ growling/ jumping at me I'd be outta there. But FIL keeps walking over towards him. Wilson barks at him a couple more times and then reaches out and pinches his shirt sleeve between his teeth. FIL was close enough to Wilson that if Wilson had wanted to hurt him he really could have bitten him good, but he just pinched his sleeve.

Wilson was definitely in the wrong here for nipping, but I'm more upset with my FIL. He KNOWS that Wilson has issues. We've warned him numerous times that he can not get in Wilson's face and tease him like he does with the girls. Hubby told FIL not to get too close to Wilson when he was growling/ barking/ jumping and FIL didn't listen. Instead of giving me time to get to the fence and turn the whole thing into a teachable moment for Wilson, FIL turned it into an threatening, react NOW situation.


If Wilson had actually bitten my FIL we would have had to report it to the rescue and then Wilson would have had to be put down. I'm so thankful that my FIL didn't get hurt and that we don't have to deal with the painful possibility of putting Wilson down. But now I am intensely worried about the next person who walks up to our fence. I just hope they have enough sense to walk AWAY from a huge barking/ growling dog!

Hubby gets the hint!

If at first your hubby doesn't respond... ask, ask again!

Friday Aaron had donuts at work and came home and told me all about how delicious they were. I mentioned we should get some donuts over the weekend.

Saturday Aaron went out with his friends. The event they were at gave out free donuts at one of the booths they visited. I *gently* reminded him that I wanted a donut too!

Sunday we drove by the Krispy Kreme but the hot sign wasn't on. I sighed heavily and batted my eyelashes while asking Aaron to drive back by on the way home from church. BUT we came home a different way.

Monday I walked into the teachers lounge and found and EMPTY box of donuts on the table. Oh the torture! I texted Aaron and told him of my hardships!

Tuesday I made clear during breakfast that I didn't even need REAL donuts... donut holes or munchkins would do the trick too!

Ladies, I'm here to tell you that guys may be slow, but give them enough hints and they eventually come through... even if it's just to get you to "zip it about the donuts already!"

Thanks baby! They are just what I wanted! :)