Ode to My iPod

Everyone over the age of 10 in my household has had an iPod of their own for years ...

Everyone except me, that is.

I put it on my Christmas wish list several times, hinted at Mother's Day and flat-out asked for one on one occasion, to no avail. I think the response I got was something along the lines of ...

"What would YOU do with an iPod?"

So this year I got smart... I did NOT ask for an iPod for Christmas. Instead, I did a little research on exactly what I wanted and just went out and bought myself one soon after the holidays ... the top-of-the-line, best and newest at the time iPod Touch!!

Since then, I have done all kinds of magical things with my now-favorite toy ... things that I've had good intentions of doing for a very long time but simply had not because I hadn't found the right combination of time, tools and motivation that worked for me... until now.

 So here's my answer to that "What would YOU do with an iPod?" question at this point in this 40-something-year-old, stay-at-home, not particularly "hip" mom's life...

1. Keep a daily gratitude journal via the Gratitude Rock app where every evening right before I go to sleep, I jot down a minimum of three things I'm thankful for at this stage in my life. Very, VERY helpful in the effort to appreciate the good stuff and maintain a positive attitude!
2. Make better use of waiting room and otherwise wasted time by reading a few paragraphs of whatever is currently on my Kindle via the mobile app on my iPod. The best part... my Kindle knows where I left off with the iPod when I open that same book later on at bedtime.
3. Jot down my constant stream of biz & other ideas via my Evernote and QuikCards apps, both of which I can then sync to my iMac versions at home so everything is up-to-date no matter where I am or which tool I am using!
4. Quickly check the temperature and week-long forecast in Lewistown, as well as the cities where my parents and in-laws live.
5. Check my calendar, which allows me to schedule appointments on the spot and look at our family plans months in advance... also synced to my iMac.
6. Keep up to date with my Twitter and Facebook streams.
7. Play week-long rounds of Scrabble and/or chat with my online buddy (hey Jen!) clear across the country while simultaneously doing the dishes, cleaning my office, folding laundry or whatever else is on my plate at the moment.
8. Manage and/or check in on my Log Your Memory blog and forum from wherever I happen to be at all times of the day.
9. Check out the latest pins on Pinterest and re-pin to my board anything that captures my interest.
10. Play around with different ways I could re-arrange/re-design my office space via the Mark On Call app (where was THIS when I was a kid?????)
11. Warm up (or distract) my brain with the Sudoku, iReverse (just like Othello!), Yahtzee and Shanghai (Mahjong) apps (eh, games).
12. Indulge my urge to shop, even in the middle of nowhereville, via the App Store, Amazon app and iTunes.
13. Capture my kids antics, crazy family life, multiple music performances and all kinds of other great stuff in all formats, from audio snippets to photos to video.
14. Automatically, with literally NO DAILY EFFORT WHATSOEVER on my part, aggregate all kinds of cool memories & daily observations in one easy place, including photos and my Twitter & Facebook comments, via the Momento (genius!!) app, which I can then back-up to my iMac and use in all sorts of fun memory-keeping projects.
15. Watch movies in the bathtub, thanks to the Netflix app and the subscription we already use as a family via our Wii.
16. Search for, look up or check out whatever I want to online via the Google and Safari apps.
17. Time and/or remind myself to do anything and everything, from how long Kody plays Madden Football on the Wii to reminding myself to take the tater tots out of the oven to making sure I don't forget to jump online for a group call in the latest class I'm taking.
18. Track my crazy moodswings via the MyMood app... if I'm in the mood, that is! ;)
19. Keep a log of every book I've read, including start and end dates, and any notes I want to take along the way via the iReadItNow app.
20. Explore various types of music based on a few artists I already know I like (ie. The Beatles) in my attempts to figure out just what I DO like to listen to these days (which I seem to have lost over the years), thanks to the Pandora app.
21. And last, but definitely not least... in fact, my absolute number one reason my iPod Touch is my favorite and most personally influential tool right now ... get up at 6 a.m. nearly every weekday for the past 8+ weeks to run/walk a total of 130 miles so far in my efforts to become the healthier me that I've pretty much always wanted to be. How does the iPod help me do this? A combination of the Couch to 10K app (go from couch to 10K ready in 13 weeks!), the LogYourRun app (helps me track & measure all those miles), the amazingly entertaining, inspiring (and thankfully distracting) podcasts from the gang at Paperclipping (both the Roundtable and Digi Shows) and the very convenient Weight Watchers app which has helped me get my eating habits back on track while losing 13 pounds so far in the process! I can't even begin to tell you the difference this has already made in my general well-being and attitude toward life, but I can tell you that there is no way I would have gotten to where I am right now WITHOUT my iPod Touch. It gets me out of bed, prompts my next move, reminds me of how far I've already come and entertains me along the way. It just works for me.

So... what would I do with an iPod, you ask?

Careful kiddos... if it comes down to it, I might just sell one of YOU to replace it if it ever konks out or disappears on me!! ;)

Time for a shift of focus

I have blogged every single day since officially launching Log Your Memory on October 8th, yet since that time I have only done one post here on my personal blog. That seems like a pretty good illustration of why I've chosen this particular word as my "word" for 2010.

If you recall, I blogged and scrapbooked not quite a year ago about choosing one word to serve as a mantra of sorts for the year. This particular practice was inspired by scrapbooking queen Ali Edwards, and thousands of us have adopted it for ourselves. The act of choosing a word kind of lodges that thought into the back of your mind, serving as a pretty consistent reminder as you go about your day. Almost like your conscience.

Last year was my first year doing this. As you might recall, my word was "begin." It proved to be a pretty effective word, particularly in the scrapbooking realm. I went from calling myself a scrapbooker, but not really ever doing it, to BEGINning what turned out to be a scrapping frenzy. I've created just short of 300 scrapbook pages since last January, which includes two complete theme albums and tons of other pages for our family and individual scrapbooks. The number would be even higher, however, if I had managed to continue my scrapping after BEGINning my new business this fall. Since that time, I've only created a handful of pages, and they've all pretty much been driven by something I wanted to illustrate at Log Your Memory.

Hence my new word.

Finding balance has always been a struggle for me. When I get interested in something, I tend to have a very difficult time focusing on much else and it becomes something of an obsession. A more flattering word might be "passion," but whatever it is, it does a good job of throwing the rest of my life a bit out of kilter.

Granted, there are generally good reasons for this focus - at least that's what I tell myself. It's pretty tough to get a business up and running and make it successful without a lot of time and attention. All of that focus has paid off, too ... Log Your Memory is quickly becoming known throughout the online scrapbooking realm and I have a very steadily growing membership base on the site, as well as continually growing book sales & customer numbers. We're getting the attention, and hopefully the respect, of some pretty well-connected scrappers. Best of all, it's been fun and I feel more strongly every day that this is the right biz for me... finally.

But as my husband pointed out early on, this level of attention is simply not sustainable over the long run. You can only put in so many long days and short nights before it will catch up to you. My house could use a pretty thorough cleaning - and not just right before company comes. If I don't get my butt out of this desk chair and get some exercise and do a little menu planning instead of throwing less-than-healthy meals together at the last minute every night, I'm going to need to squeeze in time to shop for new clothes - literally. And if I don't take time to just sit and actually scrapbook once in a while, I'm going to lose touch with that which prompted this whole thing in the first place. It's been at least three months since I updated our family's photo site at Shutterfly because I haven't taken the time to process our photos. I haven't even touched my jewelry-making supplies, crochet hooks or other hobbies in almost a year. And at some point, I need to go through the girls' closet and sort clothing so maybe they can wear clothes that actually fit for a while before they've already outgrown them.

I need to find a balance between my online pursuits and the rest of my life.

How am I going to do this? I'm not real sure. As I mentioned, this is something I've struggled with my entire life. Looking back on my younger years, I can remember many "phases" where a particular interest consumed my every waking moment. When I would read a book, I would read it start to finish, pulling it out of my desk at school at every little opportunity and barely pausing to eat once I got home. I could literally sit for hours drawing imaginary floor plans or devouring dollhouse catalogs or designing Lego houses. As I got older, these obsessions were replaced with new ones - new jobs, new babies, new (short-lived) diets, new homes to decorate ...

So now by choosing balance as my word for 2010, I'm hoping to make it my new obsession. And if I'm successful, it will be one "obsession" I can sustain. If you have any good tips on how to achieve this goal or examples of how you maintain balance in your own life, I'd love to hear them! And if you're curious about my progress, keep an eye on this blog. It seems to be a pretty good indicator of where my attention lies!

Crop, er CHAT, till you drop ... and other fun news

I'm slowly sneaking back to the computer after more or less taking today off. Yesterday I woke at 5:45 a.m. with Jacques' hunting alarm and immediately realized that an all-day scrapbooking chat at Designer Digitals was set to start at 6 a.m. Do you think I could go back to sleep knowing that? Nope ... not a chance. So I settled in with a couple hot cups of coffee and chatted away, all the way until 10 p.m. last night.
The last time I did this, I could not figure out how people chatted AND scrapbooked at the same time. But this time, I took little mini breaks from the chat screen and in the process, completed five layouts in response to the various chat challenges. It was tons of fun, even though my eyeballs were sore, sore, sore by the end of the day. Here are the layouts I did for the challenges & a little info about the "rules" of each little contest...
First challenge: Use the word art provided in a layout. Here's what I came up with...



Next: Cassie's 30 Minute Masterpiece Challenge
The rules: 1) Use only one photo; 2) Use at least 3 of the items provided in the freebie download; 3) Use punctuation elements as part of the title; 4) Use a non-frame element as a frame; and 5) Tell a story about the photo ... all in under 30 minutes!!! Here's my result ...
 
Next challenge: Template challenge
The rules ... use the template provided in the freebie as a starting point for a layout. Here's mine...
 
Next challenge: Use the word art provided in conjunction with a photo of my hands. This took a little brainstorming first, but here's my page...
 
The last challenge I did was probably the one I was least excited about the result. The task was to take the template provided and use a scrapbook page by someone else that was based on that as inspiration for my own page. I think by this point in the day, I was too tired to feel very "inspired," ya know? This isn't my favorite layout, but it's okay ... and I do like the photos!!
 
All in all, it was a fun day and I'm already looking forward to the next all-day chat, which is scheduled for early November.
My other fun news is I have recently been given the opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do for a while now and that is be a member of a digital designer's Creative Team (CT). Even better, I have been asked by not just one, but THREE individual designers to serve on each of their CTs! That means I have full, free access to all of their digital scrapbooking products - including their newest releases before they are made public - in exchange for helping to promote their products by creating scrapbook pages featuring those products and then posting them in various online galleries.
Fun, fun!!! I have spent the last several days downloading lots and lots of goodies. Now I get to poke through my new wonderful stash and make lots of new scrapbook pages to share. I am already enjoying this immensely, as you can imagine. Here are the first couple layouts I did in this new role, creating almost entirely of products by "my" three designers ...
 
 
All three designers that I am a CT member for sell their products at Two Peas in a Bucket. Check out their individual products and/or blogs by clicking on their names below...
Mary Ann Wise
Jen Allyson
Carina Gardner
I'm excited about this new opportunity ... and you can expect to see lots more pages here and everywhere else I post as a result!! :)

Labor Day weekend wrap-up

This weekend ended up being a very productive one for me & a fun one for the campers, judging from just how dirty Skylar was upon their return!! Let's just say candy suckers & lots of dirt are not a great combination for a 3-year-old!!

The crew got home early this afternoon and got busy cleaning up, then it was time to get ready to return to "real" life. Karstin had x-country practice & Kody had flag football practice this evening, so they ended up going back to their dad's a little earlier than usual. Judging from how sleepy Jacques was all evening, there was not much sleeping done on the camping trip and he & the girls hit the sack soon after 9 p.m.

My weekend went well, too. Karstin & I had lots of time to hang out together with Danica. We ended up taking a couple nice walks, one of which was spent getting some nice local photos of the downtown area & the very ripe chokecherry bushes.
 

We also watched a movie (17 Again), as well as spent a fair amount of time on the computers chatting with friends & playing around online. With the relative calm in the house this weekend, I also managed to get several pages scrapped, as well as lots of progress on my business planning.
I was thrilled to discover this morning when I checked my inbox that a layout I did yesterday highlighting how Karstin likes to spend his free time was featured at Gallery Standouts. This website picks a handful of pages from around the virtual scrapbooking community to feature for various qualities they think are worthy of mention. Here's the page of mine that was featured (click on the image for a larger version) ...

And here's the link to the page & comments at Gallery Standouts.
I made another exciting decision today regarding my scrapbooking and an opportunity that recently presented itself, but I need to wait a day or two until the details have been worked out. More on that later... :)
Another page I did yesterday was one I've been planning in one way or another all summer. I made a concerted effort to take photos of each type of flower in our yard as they came into bloom. I then featured these photos in this two-page spread...

Now I can't take credit for anything beyond the photos. We are fortunate to have some great perennial gardens that basically came with the house when we bought it five years ago, plus a great flowering crabapple tree & lilac bushes. The few annuals we have were planted & cared for by Jacques, so if anyone gets credit, it would have to be him. I'm just glad I remembered to take photos this year, since I really hadn't done it any of the summers prior to now.
Now I'm thinking about calling it a night, so I can get some "real" work done tomorrow after sending Skylar on her way back to preschool and be ready for another busy week. Karstin has his school open house on Thursday, as well as his second team x-country dinner. Kody's first flag football game of the season is also on Thursday. Kody's busy taking hunter's education classes this week, too, and it's school & team photo time again already... then the annual Chokecherry Festival is next Saturday, as well as an all-day chat at Designer Digitals. Lots of fun on tap ... and lots of memories to scrap!! :)

Scrapbooking on the brain

I've been waking up ... or more accurately, not sleeping ... because of all the scrapbooking-related stuff buzzing through my brain these days. Maybe it's because school has started again and I have a little more time to scrap since our schedule is a bit more regular. Or maybe it's because I've recently given myself permission to venture outside my normal virtual hangouts to explore some new designers, both of pages and products. Perhaps it's because I just found out this week that one of my layouts has been chosen by Creating Keepsakes magazine for publication in their January 2010 issue (yay!!). It might be because the online class I signed up for a couple months ago in which we create an all-about-me type of scrapbook finally started this week. Or it could possibly be because I believe I have finally hit upon the right combination of scrapbooking, writing, web & other skills in my most recent business brainstorm. Whatever the reason - probably a combination of all of the above - I've been rather consumed lately with thinking, playing, shopping, wandering & designing in the scrapbook realm.
I plan to do more of this over this nice long weekend. Jacques, Kody, Skylar & our neighbor Kevin left this morning for Esther Lake for a weekend of hunting & fishing with Kody's brand new compound bow. That leaves Karstin, Danica & me home alone for a few days of relative peace & quiet. I've already had a chance to do a little scrapping this morning, finishing up a layout I started last night about Kody's transition from cute "little piggy" days to one filled with "big boy toys."
 
While I'm on the subject of recent scrapbooking, I've also done a handful of pages highlighting Skylar's venture into preschool. She is thrilled to be going to Head Start and has made the transition quite easily so far. She will get to attend for two years and then, believe it or not, it will be time for kindgergarten already! Hard to believe ...
 

The whole transition to preschool got me thinking about how grown up Skylar is getting, but at the same time how she refuses to let go of some of her more baby-like ways, such as insisting on keeping that dang binkie in her mouth. So I woke up Thursday thinking about how I could document the irony of it all, which led to this...
 
This type of layout is an example of my favorite type of scrapbooking - telling the stories of the lives of myself & my family. It is this type of scrapbooking that is the basis of my newest business plan. I'm not ready to share details, but I will say this - I do not plan to actually scrapbook for other people for pay or design digital supplies for scrapbookers. Instead, I plan to provide some unique resources that hopefully will help all types of scrapbookers share their stories and ideally, allow me to make a career of this hobby that I love. More details to follow, once I'm ready to launch... :)
I do occasionally do a layout just for the sake of making a pretty page, especially if I have a photo I particularly like. This is one of my recent examples...

I took that photo while Danica & I were in San Antonio last month. She was wandering around the rock courtyard in front of the Alamo in her bare feet. Isn't she a cutie??
I have tons of other pages on my mind right now that I'd like to get done ... Karstin just started high school, as well as his first year on the boys x-country team - both of which I plan to document. I also have the entire month of July to somehow record, though it's a bit overwhelming because I took over 1,000 photos that month and I'm not sure what I want to pull out and scrapbook. I did a 4th of July album highlighting the Rutten family reunion, which you can view here. We also spent a week at Pelican Lake, which accounts for about half of the photos for the month...
Part of the reason I didn't document much of July is I was so busy last month putting together my San Antonio album, which you can see here. I also realized one day about a week ago just GOOD things have been going lately. So I documented that with this...

One of the things hinted at on the above layouts warranted a page all its own ... my neighbor & I decided about a month ago that we wanted to get to know our neighbors a bit better, especially since several of them have young kids and are relatively new to our neighborhood. So, we planned a "Summer's End East Broadway BBQ" block party. It was a big hit and we've had several people thanking us afterward for putting it together. The moms on the block even went out for margaritas after the BBQ, which was tons of fun. Hopefully we'll continue to get together, now that the ice has been broken. Here's the page I did about the BBQ...
 
This past month I also did a page about Danica that I like ... I've gotten in the habit of calling her "doodlebug" for some reason. Not sure why, but it fits her...
 
I want to do another page about her soon, documenting all the cute new things she's learning & doing right now. For example, she now waves bye-bye, says "boo" when playing peek-a-boo while changing her diaper, points & says "that," can make a ride-on toy go forward by walking her feet along the ground, sleeps through the night all alone in a crib by herself, has finally started napping in a crib instead of the laundry basket, and lots of other adorable things like that.
Speaking of my sweet baby, she is now demanding my attention after playing very nicely while I've been writing this post. That's my cue to wrap it up... one last thing - a quick thank you to everyone who voted for my entry in the Designer Digitals "Summer's End" contest. I didn't win, but I think I had the 4th or 5th highest number of votes, which is cool. Here's the page I finally entered ...
 
More updates on all of the above coming soon ... I hope!! :)

Attitude adjustment

• The sun is shining, it's not too hot or too cold or too windy, the girls are napping & there's my favorite soft drink waiting for me in the fridge.
• School starts tomorrow and the boys are ready to go and excited about a new year and new opportunities.
• I am able to work from home, create my own schedule and pretty much control my days while contributing to the family income and having a little time left over for my scrapbooking hobby.
• Skylar starts Head Start next week - at no charge to us - and gets to ride the bus every day with her little friend from across the street.
• My friend & I have planned a day each week where we'll take both of the younger kids in exchange for the same favor later in the week, providing each of us a free morning all to ourselves.
• The chokecherries are about ripe and I have ample equipment and supplies to properly make syrup and jelly this year, not to mention the opportunity to share this experience with my friend.
•I am relatively healthy and have just about mustered up the motivation and ability to take on an even healthier way of eating and living.
• I have several supportive friends, mostly online, who share similar interests with which I interact on a daily - and sometimes hourly - basis.
• I have a great husband who comes home from a good job every day to help with the kids and share the load.
I'm sure I could continue this list for quite some time ... and probably should do so on a regular basis as it helps me shift from what seems to be an all-too-easy negative or pessimistic outlook on life to a more positive, realistic, happier view. My tendency to land here was brought to my attention again today when contrasted against a post by my friend, who is currently doing a great job of seeing her glass as more than half full...{thanks, Heather!!}
My husband has more than once suggested that I am simply destined to be unhappy. That he can't understand why, when everything seems to be going well for me, I can still find a way to be miserable. Though I don't exactly agree with him, there does seem to be at least a little truth to his statement. And I really don't understand why, especially since I've been aware from a very young age of the power to choose an attitude and basically create one's own experience. I've read tons of books in an effort to figure this out and the quote below has been a favorite of mine since high school ... but it seems I still have a lot to learn. For today, though, I choose to remind myself of all of the positive in my life ... and spare you (and myself) the details of my latest frustrations.


{Butterfly & patterned paper available free from The Shabby Princess Promise Collection}

Summer's End ... Take 3

So I just keep playing with potential contest entries for the Summer's End contest. I went out and took some photos Sunday of our crabapple tree, which is probably my favorite subject in our yard to photograph year-round. It's beautiful in all seasons ... my favorite, of course, is when it flowers. But right now, it really looks like the first sign of fall with its little apples.
Anyway, here's my current favorite ... what do you think?

Where did the summer go?

Wow... I fully intended to blog more about my trip to San Antonio while I was still there, but obviously since I've been home for over a week now, that didn't happen.
This last month has been a flurry of activity ... we spent 10 days at the family cabin at Pelican Lake, returning home on Sunday, Aug. 2. Then Monday, Aug. 3, my Uncle Lennie & cousin William from Texas came for a visit, as well as my Uncle Terry from Chester. They stayed until Wednesday afternoon. Then Thursday, Danica and I left for Texas, returning Sunday. On Monday, my uncle & cousin returned, this time with my Aunt Ceci and cousin Adelia. They left Tuesday morning.
It took me the rest of the week just to get back to some sense of "normal." Apparently, this did not include blogging. I did, however, manage to complete a 46-page scrapbook about our San Antonio experience. So instead of blogging about it, I will share the album below.
Now we are getting ready for school to start in about a week, as well as playing host to more company. Jacques' friend Wayne from Livingston showed up here tonight after calling this morning. Then Jacques' Uncle John & Aunt Mary will be here Thursday for a "few" nights. And hard to believe, but school starts next Monday ...
I hate to say it, but I think I'm actually looking forward to September and a more routine schedule!!
Anyway, here is the link to my San Antonio scrapbook.
I've also been playing around with a couple entries for the Summer's End contest at Designer Digitals. The only real requirement is that the page use a particular set of flourish brushes and/or paper letters. Here's what I've come up with so far ...


I may or may not use one of these. The deadline isn't until the 28th, so I have some time to play. Let me know what you think...

Destination: San Antonio

So the big weekend finally arrived - my trip to San Antonio for the Designer Digitals digi-crop! After dropping Skylar off at the neighbor's house around 8:30 a.m., Danica and I hopped in the van and headed for Billings. We arrived just before 11, which worked out great. Enough time to get through security unrushed, which went perfectly, and not so much time that we had to sit around and twiddle our thumbs for hours (that came later!!).

This was Dani's first time on an airplane and she did great, pretty much sleeping the entire flight from Billings to Denver. The ride was a bit choppy thanks to some cloudy skies, but otherwise all went as planned.

Things weren't quite as smooth for the second half of our trip. What was supposed to be about a 2 1/2 hour layover in Denver ended up being closer to 4 1/2 hours because of weather and mechanical issues. We did lots of wandering while we waited and ended up sitting with a young gal for a good deal of the time who did a great job of entertaining Danica.



We finally boarded around 7:15 and arrived in San Antonio a couple hours later. Once again, my little angel slept for the entire flight!! By the time we got our luggage and traveled across town on the SATrans shuttle (great service, by the way!!) to the Hilton Palacio del Rio, which is right on the Riverwalk, it was almost 11:30 p.m. with the time change. Too dark to see much, but it was fun to look at the lights from our 19th story room, complete with balcony.


Arriving this late may have been a blessing, since even at that late hour, it was still over 90 degrees outside - and humid. Breaking us in gently, I suppose, since it was only about 70 degrees when we left Billings!!
The motel is great ... very comfortable and lots of nice touches, like the pewter-like finishes in the bathroom, eight fluffy pillows to choose from on the beds, sinks both inside and outside the bathroom, a coffee maker that can make two different cups of coffee at the same time, and details like that.


The staff also brought me a crib for Danica right away, assuming I'm sure that she'd be needing it soon. She had other plans, however, and at 1:20 a.m. was still wide awake. If only she'd call it a day ... we're both going to need our beauty sleep for our big day tomorrow.
More coming later ... Looking forward to meeting everyone at the crop tomorrow afternoon!!!

Inspired.

These lyrics have been running through my head for the past several days. The words come to mind when I first wake up in the morning ... and then I find myself humming the tune as I go about my day.
I imagine they first came to mind with all of the recent coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, who gets credit for the song.

But that isn't what has kept them there.



I had the great fortune this past weekend of spending some time with a very special person. She is my husband's cousin and has had the great misfortune of having her body invaded by a very persistent cancer. But you wouldn't know it to look at her as she tickled and played with Danica. And to sit and visit with her, you would never know just how serious her prognosis may be.



Her name is Heide. She is only in her late 30s, has a very funny, loving and supportive husband, and two adorable little girls under the age of 7. She also has a twin sister and a brother, mother and father who I'm sure would go to the ends of the earth for her.

Because Heide lives in California and the extended family has only gotten together a handful of times since I became part of the family, I hadn't really ever spent more than a few minutes here and there talking to Heide before this weekend. We knew about her health condition, thanks to frequent communication through the family lines. But at our distance, it didn't seem very real ... and we, or at least I, didn't really know what to expect when we first arrived at the family farm in North Dakota last weekend.

It seems far too real now.

As it turns out, I really like Heide. She's warm and friendly and open and positive, everything I wish I was more of. She just radiates a quality that makes you want to be around her as much as possible. After more than a year of battling this most recent bout of cancer, I'm sure she has had many highs and lows and moments of anger, frustration and sadness. I'm sure she has had a least a few "why me?" moments.

But all I could see as I sat and visited with her this weekend was a woman with amazing STRENGTH.

She talked about her family. She laughed about her girls, two very adorable little dark-haired, dark-skinned sweethearts who alternated between running and playing with their cousins (including kissing a frog or two) and crawling into their mom's lap for a few snuggles. She openly answered questions about her treatment and how her family is handling it. She explained how a careful regiment of naps helps her continue to be an active part of her family's life, which is very important to her. She even joked around with her husband and brother-in-law by taking off her wig, placing it on her husband's head, and allowing several photos of her with her other "follicly-challenged" family members.

She made me really, really wish there was a way to give her back the "normal" life the rest of us are leading.

And now, sitting back at home in Montana, I find myself thinking about her a lot ... and humming that song. I also found my way to the Website her family started back when her cancer was first diagnosed, which they use to update friends and relatives on her status, as well as raise funds for this expensive interruption into their lives.

What I found there was incredibly inspirational. I'm not referring to the updates posted there occasionally, sometimes by Heide and other times by her husband or other family members, though it is wonderful to see the support of this wife, mother, daughter, and friend that comes through in those writings. The thing that touched me the most was the message from Heide. Read it for yourself and you will understand what I mean. It's such an amazingly positive and hopeful way to look at a situation that initially seems nothing but horrible and unfair.

Thanks for reminding me to appreciate what really matters, Heide, and for letting me into your life, even if just for a weekend. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, and I really hope for many more opportunities to visit with you at future family gatherings.

Many {hugs} to you...

Sharing in the loss of an icon

Like most of the world, I was shocked to hear the news yesterday that Michael Jackson had died. After all, he was only 50 years old and he was, well, Michael Jackson! I was not surprised, however, to see this event dominate the news media, both on TV and online. Having been a teenager during the time Michael really hit it big, he obviously made a real impression on me. In fact, I still have my copy of his Thriller album, which I dug out of the basement today while thinking about this turn of events.
What did surprise me a bit, however, was the reaction of certain members of my family and a handful of folks I ran into downtown when I mentioned this news. My husband seemed much more affected by the death of Farrah Fawcett, who unfortunately lost her battle with cancer yesterday as well. The 20-something clerk at the local Albertson's, overhearing my conversation with a friend in line behind me, sarcastically commented only that "yeah, that guy really made a contribution to society the last few years." And my 11-year-old son Kody yesterday pretty much said "big deal ... that guy was weird." When he saw my album today, he said "Who's that?" Talk about making me feel really OLD.
I imagine my dad felt something similar when he told me that John Lennon had died. At the age of about 10, I really didn't see the big deal and remember saying something stupid about how a "Beatle" is just a stupid bug. I was just about as sensitive when my mom told me about the death of Bing Crosby, another amazingly talented human being I was relatively unfamiliar with at the time. So I guess I can understand the lack of reaction from folks who are a generation or two behind me. But my husband? He's only a year and a half younger. I don't get that one.
The Thriller album was one of the very first albums I owned and like many other teenagers at the time, I had the words of every one of the songs memorized and stayed up late on Friday nights to watch Michael dance on "Friday Night Videos," and later, MTV. This was the early 80s and back then, music videos were a "new" thing ... and it is largely because of Michael Jackson that they became so tremendously popular. Not only could that guy sing, but could he ever move.
You would be hard-pressed to argue that Michael Jackson lacked talent or that he did not earn his title, "King of Pop." Anyone who paid any attention at all ... before all of the weird stuff that happened later on ... has to recognize why "MJ" has so often been considered a genius, enormously talented, and a major influence on our culture.
At 14, Karstin, at least, seems to be a little more aware of the significance of Michael's death. When he came home today from staying overnight at a friend's house, he asked if the news was true. When I told him it was, he commented on what a great musician he was ... something Karstin respects because of his own interest in music. Michael Jackson is right up there with Elvis, the Beatles, and so many other icons who played a huge role in the entertainment industry. My husband disagrees with me on this, but frankly I just don't think he GETS it. This surprises and frustrates me a bit, especially since like Karstin, he is a big music buff ... but I guess that's life. It is some consolation that it takes only a couple seconds on the Internet to see that there are MILLIONS that share my opinion on this, even if my own husband does not.

Michael Jackson's death made an impression on me ... and because of that, I'm taking this time now to reflect on the role he played in my earlier years and to document my reactions. Not because I am one of Michael Jackson's biggest fans ... there are a lot of musicians I like just as well or better. And not because I approved of his strange behavior the last couple of decades, which I neither understood nor particularly trusted. I just feel sad that his life has come to an end already and realize that this is a loss shared with millions of others around the world, demonstrated by the hours of air-time already given to commemorating Michael Jackson's life ... not even 24 hours after his death ... and the fact that the online networks were nearly brought down yesterday afternoon because of the enormous activity that followed the first announcements that "Michael Jackson is dead."

Today.

Once again, I was inspired by Ali Edwards to take a few minutes to simply document what's happening in the here and now...

FOR TODAY 
June 22nd, 2009

 
Outside my window...hundreds of daisies - my favorite - in full bloom in our perennial garden.

 
I am thinking...it is nice to be at a place in my life where Monday morning is welcomed with open arms.

 
I am thankful for...being in the right place at the right time this weekend when Skylar slipped into the deep end of the pool. 

 
From the kitchen...leftover pizza from the weekend and a growing pile of dishes to be dealt with that I am avoiding until tomorrow.

 
I am wearing...jeans & a cream-colored, hooded pullover I picked up at Goodwill a couple weekends ago in Bozeman.

 
I am creating...a double-spread layout highlighting our weekend trip to Polson and Kalispell for the annual state newspaper convention.

 
I am going...to take advantage of having Karstin at home this afternoon so I can run a few errands and do a little last-minute birthday shopping.

 
I am reading...a couple great books - "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh (very inspiring!) and "That's Life" by Nic Howard (also a GREAT book!! Exactly my kind of scrapbooking!)

 
I am hoping...to have time this week to catch up on a growing list of layouts I'd like to do.
I am hearing...giggling girls and thumping boys. Our house is NEVER quiet when the kids are all at home. It's a happy, productive sound today though.

 
Around the house...signs of a typical summer day. Kody's shoes, Skylar's sandals, the boys' job lists, a stray glass, baskets emptied by Dani, pipe cleaners & stray beads left by Skylar.

 
One of my favorite things...sun streaming through the window and an uninterrupted hour to myself behind closed doors.

 
A few plans for the rest of the week...Rotary picnic tonight, dentist appointment and Jacques' birthday tomorrow, then getting ready for Danica's first birthday on Sunday with the possibility of a visit from Nana & Pop.

 
A picture to share... cruising Flathead Lake this weekend during the annual MNA convention.

Taking a different approach this summer...

Summer at our house is not what you would call nice & peaceful. In fact, as the end of the school year was approaching, I was beginning to dread the chaos of having all four kids at home - and their accompanying noise, inevitable messes, lack of predictable schedule, and frequent requests for money to finance trips to the pool, get-togethers with friends, must-have toys, etc. etc. I'm a creature of habit and I like my regular routines and, I admit it, I like my quiet afternoons when the girls nap. I was not ready to give this up...
So this year I decided to try something a little different and so far, just a little over a week into summer vacation, it's working out pretty well. My plan consisted of three parts:
1) I wrote out my expectations of the boys for the summer ... This includes the frequency with which I expect them to shower, clean their rooms, pick up after themselves, etc. It also included mention of the fact that the majority of the time, they could expect to have to shell out their own cash for any extracurricular activities, camps, purchases, etc. they wanted during the summer.
2) I created a list of "Responsibilities," otherwise known as "jobs you GET to do in exchange for the privilege of living here." This included tasks such as setting and clearing the dinner table, emptying the dishwasher, doing their laundry, sweeping the floor, etc. Here's the kicker: Next to each job was the price the boys would get to pay ME if they did not fulfill a given responsibility that week and I had to do it for them.
3) I created another list titled "Opportunities," otherwise known as "jobs available to you for which you can be PAID." This included a list of jobs I was willing to pay THEM to do, as well as when & by what deadline they needed to be done. For the most part, these are left blank and the boys get to choose their own deadlines, a privilege they will keep as long as they follow through. Jobs on this list will vary from week to week, depending on what needs to be done (and my budget). So far, they have included babysitting the girls for two hours in the morning while I work on my grant-writing, mowing the lawn, cleaning the fridge, weeding the garden, cleaning the bathroom(s), etc.
Kid Payday is every Friday, at which time I add up how much each has earned and deduct any fees incurred for not following through with responsibilities.

I presented these three items to the boys on the evening before the first real day of vacation and then they got to take turns signing up for the paid jobs until the blocks were filled in. They weren't too excited to see this at first, but once they started figuring out how much money they might earn, they really started warming up to the whole plan and those blocks filled up very quickly. I especially enjoyed listening to Karstin plot how he could sign up for the jobs that would bring him the greatest reward... $$$$$!

So far this plan is working, though I've already had to be flexible in order to work around a last minute decision by Kody to go to Day Camp last week and a crazy schedule this week as we get ready to head to western Montana for a few days. It helps that both boys feel a real need for cash this summer - Kody is saving up to buy himself a mini-bike and Karstin has discovered that daily visits to the pool and coffee shop tend to add up, especially when he likes to be able to treat his new girlfriend to her favorite coffee drink!!
I like that this system is helping create a bit of routine for the summer while simultaneously teaching the boys a bit about money management & how to be a good employee, not to mention start to be more aware that money doesn't just grow on trees!! It's also interesting to watch them figure out that work isn't always a heap of fun ... but that it's worth the effort sometimes. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that it is also giving me a solid two hours of more-or-less uninterrupted work time every day ... something I didn't even have BEFORE school got out!!!)
So far, so good ... maybe for once I won't be quite so anxious for school to resume again!!!

Taking a bit of a leap of faith...

I'm so excited tonight because I finally made a decision I've been weighing for over a month now. To make a long story short, I booked a flight to San Antonio during the first week in August, reserved a room at the Marriott for three nights and bought my ticket to the first ever Digi-Crop hosted by my favorite digital scrapbooking store, Designer Digitals.
Now this may not seem like a big deal to some people, but this was a big decision for me - for several reasons. First, I will be traveling alone with Danica, who will be just over 13 months old at that time and just recently learned how to walk. This means dealing single-handedly with a toddler in an airport, including switching planes on both legs of the trip, as well as juggling luggage, a carseat for use once we get there, a camera (a definite MUST!) and quite possibly my laptop computer. Not sure how I'm going to do it, so it's a good thing I have several weeks to figure it out. (Any tips on flying alone with a little one would be very much appreciated!!!) Fortunately, my new DD friends have already offered to lend a hand with Dani once I get there ... otherwise I don't know that I'd have the guts to give this a try.
Next, this isn't the cheapest way to spend a weekend, once you add up the cost of the flight, motel, food, transportation, etc., etc. I could find a million other ways to spend that money - including a lot of scrapbook-related items - but the idea of actually meeting all of these wonderful people I've been getting to know the last few months who share the same interests as I do was more than I could pass up. I know I would regret it if I there was a way I could go and I didn't follow through. It does feel a little odd (and guilt-inducing) to spend that money entirely on myself, though...
Finally, I've never really taken a purely recreational trip just for me, especially one where I will be hanging out with people I've yet to actually meet in person. Of all the things that make this trip feel a little risky, however, that's not really one of them ... through our sharing of scrapbook pages, comments, posts on Facebook, Thursday evening chats, and other messaging, I feel like I know many of these people better than a lot of others who I HAVE met face-to-face. There's something really special about the DD community that's hard to explain unless you are a part of it. For that, I'm very thankful ... and anticipate this will truly be a weekend to remember. Hopefully, it will simply cement the beginning of many wonderful friendships... :)
For now, it's time to pinch my remaining pennies to make sure I don't end up stranded and hungry somewhere in the middle of Texas in the August heat!!!

Celebrating Five Years

Jacques and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary yesterday. It started off rather humorously ... I had left him a card in his vehicle so he would find it on his way to work. In it, I had included a P.S. that we had 6:00 dinner reservations later that day at The Mint Bar & Grill. He found the card ... and came back into the house chuckling.
As it turns out, he too had left a card for me that morning. In it was the note ... "let's celebrate at The Mint at 6:30!"
Nice to know we're on the same page... :)

It turned out to be a very enjoyable day - and date. Because this was the last week of school, we had the treat of attending the junior high school talent show during the afternoon. Karstin & buddies Jacob, Chad, and Dillon played a piece under their current band name, "Name Pending." It was very loud - and very well-received by their peers. Lots of high fives & cheering followed their performance ... a great way to end <gulp> Karstin's elementary school career!! By the way, you can view their performance here.
Then later in the evening was our turn to get out and celebrate a little, just the two of us. Doesn't happen very often, so it was very, very nice. We enjoyed a very leisurely (about two hours!) dinner at The Mint, including our new favorite appetizer - batter-fried shrimp with a special house jalapeno sauce - and drinks, tap beer for him, white zin for me.  We pretty much stuck to our favorite entree's too - I had chicken & artichokes (very, very good!) and he had the pork medallions. This was accompanied by fresh-baked bread, so by the time we were done, we were too full for dessert ... at least for the moment.
We had walked down to the restaurant, which is less than a mile from our house, so around 8:30 or so we started back toward home via Main Street. We didn't get far, though, before we were drawn into Lola's, where they were hosting open mic night. We listened at the door for a while and eventually decided to get a bit of ice cream and sit down and listen. It was great ... the musicians were very good, the atmosphere even better, and the break from our usual routine was probably the best. We stayed until they wrapped it up around 9:15 or so, then walked back home to where Karstin was holding down the forte.
I then managed to sneak onto the computer for an hour or so and catch the tail-end of my weekly chat with my friends from DesignerDigitals.com before calling it a day. All-in-all it was a very nice day and a great way to celebrate our first "milestone" anniversary...
Reflecting on our first five years also gave me the urge - finally - to start a scrapbook about "us" as a couple. Since we eloped, I didn't ever really do a wedding album and rarely do a page that doesn't involve the kids, or just me. So, I'm adding a "Story of Us" album to my project list ... Here's the first page I did...

Hopefully you will see pages toward that effort in the next few weeks. I need another project or two, right??? LOL. This should be a fun one, though... I already have a long list of topics I'd like to include.

For now, I'd better continue packing ... we decided at the last minute to head to Bozeman overnight tomorrow for a Rotary gathering where, we found out this week, Jacques will accept a "Club of the Year" award on behalf of his group, of which he has been President for the past year. He is also going to sit on some sort of panel while the kids & I hang out at the motel pool and maybe do a little shopping. I love Bozeman, so I'm looking forward to a fun weekend. Plus, the forecast this weekend includes SNOW, so we're not missing any big outdoor opportunities.
Here's to a great "official" beginning of summer vacation!!! :