What's Goin' On

I've been thinking about blogging for a while, I just haven't taken the time to do it. Mostly I've been doing photo stuff, or I've been reading, so I just hadn't had the blog on the top of my priority list.

One thing I have been wanting to blog about is the fact that I am back at all elementary schools in my job. (The last 2 school years I have been at 1 elementary and a middle school.) I wanted to try out middle school to see what it was like. The first year was good. I did more counseling (it's mostly testing and problem-solving for interventions in elementary) and I liked the kids I saw. But the second year was a little more stressful and the kids I had to counsel weren't as receptive. I decided I am more comfortable and skilled with the problems of elementary school, rather than the issues of middle school. So, even though I'm REALLY busy at both elementary schools, I am enjoying work so much more! I hate to say it, but it got to where I was really dreading going in those days last year. The best thing about it was that I got to go in an hour later. Of course, I had to stay an hour later, too, so that part wasn't as fun. Bottom line: work is going well.

I can't believe it's already Christmas again. I hate to sound old, but time really does go by faster the older you get. But, this was the first year that I was not in Idlewild's Christmas presentations since I started singing in them in 1988. Last year I was still in it, even though we had already started going to Grace. I welcomed the extra time this year, but the presentation had a story line, which are my favorite kind. We went to see it last week, and I have to admit, I teared up a bit a couple of times, just from the nostalgia, and that initial feeling of "I should be up there." It was so great to see people, including some that are back after having been gone for years. It was a fun night.

Christmas came early for the Johnsons this year. I decided that I really wanted a DSLR camera, so Jason decided that we should get it before Thanksgiving. (He said this was so I would know how to use it by Christmas, when I would want to get good pictures.) I got a Canon Rebel T1. I also was able to get the newest version of Photoshop, so I was very excited. (Since I work for the school system, I was eligible to get the student/teacher version for much cheaper.) So, now I will be able to do some awesome scrapbook layouts of some great photographs taken with my wonderful camera. Yay!

I'm just going to say, I am loving the cold weather we are having right now. I honestly can't remember it ever getting into the 30s this often, before Christmas. Yeah, January and February it does, but the beginning and middle of December? I just wish I was already on break so I didn't have to get up and out in it. I wonder if this winter is going to be another extreme one like last winter was. I hope so, it's fun.

Pictures

Last post I said I would put up pictures of Desmond playing with my uncle's dog when I visited my grandparents. So here they are.

I think they had a good time. I had to put Desmond in his crate, though, because he wanted to continually play with Rusty, even though they were both tired.

I'll have to take him up there again some time. He needs to socialize with other dogs more.

We have been taking him to a training class at PetSmart. He is a stinker, though. He learns pretty quickly once he realizes he's getting a treat for it. But, boy, is he talkative. He comes in the store yelping so loudly. The other day one of our classmates said she knew that was us. How embarrassing. But I guess it's a schnauzer thing. Gotta love them.

Last post I also was hoping that Amy would make it for a visit, which she did, even though it was so short. They got on a plane in Germany last Saturday and flew to an air force base in Mass, then drove 20 minutes to a Connecticut airport to fly to Tampa. So they got here on Sunday. I saw them Sunday and Monday evening, then they flew to Texas for the wedding that Ben and Jordan are in. At least I got to see them for a little bit. I had said I wanted to be able to see Ava one more time before she turned 1, so I got to do that. I got some good pictures, though, which was good.

First me and my sister.

Then my niece, Jordan. What a little "poser."

Then this picture of Ava. SO cute!

My parents with their grandchildren. All of them are so cute.

Then just my nephews and nieces. Love this picture. Don't know the next time they'll all be together :(

The next day, Jason was with me, so I got this picture of him reading to Jordan. It was so cute, he was reading the wrong words on purpose, and she was laughing and correcting him. (She starts kindergarten this year, so she's more advanced than a lot of the kindergarteners I see in my schools.)

 

Lazy Days of Summer

Well, my summer is over, as of tomorrow. They go by so quickly now that I'm an adult. I'm not surprised. I knew going into it that it would be over before I knew it. Although, I have to say, in some ways it does seem like a long time. I was off for just under 8 weeks, and, yes, I know that most people only get 2 to 5 weeks off. And my husband always reminds me that I also get 2 weeks at Christmas, a week of spring break, a week (since this last year) at Thanksgiving, and a few single days in between.

I didn't do a ton of things this summer, but I really enjoyed it. We did go to Memphis for my family reunion on my mom's side. It was fun to see my cousin who I hadn't seen since high school. I also met her daughter and niece, who I had never met before. Jason and my dad played pool most of the time. My grandparents' farm is really nice. We were just there for the weekend, but it was relaxing. We went to Graceland when we flew in, which was interesting. I've been to Memphis many times, but I had never gone to Graceland, so I figured I might as well. First of all, the house was not nearly as big as I would imagine (by today's standards). Then, it was kind of weird to walk in there and see things the way they were back in the 70s when he died. I mean, I know that they wouldn't change it, but it just felt really weird to be in there. The decorations were very tacky, but at the same time, it was kind of cool to see. It was weird to see gift shops coming out of all the exhibits. It felt like being at a theme park. I wonder what Elvis would have thought if he had known his home (technically the gift shops were all across the street, but still) would be turned into that.

Jason had the rest of that week off, so we hung out at home, then went to Orlando for a few days. We didn't do Disney, but we did go to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Sea World. It was so nice. We also got a good deal on a hotel room, so that made it even better. I definitely miss when we had our Disney passes and went over there all the time. Maybe one day we'll be able to do that again, but it doesn't seem to be in our near future.

I read a lot over the summer. If you haven't heard of the website goodreads.com, and you enjoy reading, you should check it out. It's a good way to find new books to read. You can also write reviews on books you've read, but I haven't done that too much yet. I think I'm too afraid that people will be critical of what I say. Yes, I'm that sensitive and care what people think of me. Maybe I'll get over it some day.

Of course, I also scrapbooked. I really worked a lot on my honeymoon album, that I tried to start last summer, but I wasn't as good at it then. I got a good amount done, and I feel like I've learned a lot about it at the same time.

I got together with a couple of good friends that I don't see that much anymore. I had a great time with both of them. It's cool how you can pick up where you left off. Of course, I wish that I did still see them, but going to different churches now and busy lives equals not much time for getting together.

I went to see my grandparents like I usually try to do. I brought Desmond with me, at my grandmother's request, so he could play with my uncle's dog, Rusty. More on this later, cause I want to post pictures, but I haven't taken them off my camera yet.

The one disappointment of the summer, was that I was hoping that my sister and the girls would get to visit from Germany. Because she's flying on a military plane, space available, she basically was on stand-by every day. She went to the airport for 12 days, with the girls, only to find out that she was not getting on the plane. I had no idea that it would be that unlikely for her to go, so I had expected to hang out with her for the last couple of weeks. Now, I'm hoping that she'll at least make it over with Ben and Jordan (they're flying to Texas for a wedding) for a couple of days so that I can at least see Ava one more time before she turns 1.

So all in all, it was a nice summer, even though not really exciting. Kind of lazy, but I need that sometimes. Especially since now that work is starting, there's no more time for laziness.

Monthly Challenges

In addition to participating in the Project Scrap Girls challenge, I also try to participate in Scrap Girls' monthly challenges, where they pick a different theme to scrap about. Note--I did participate in January's challenge, but I will post that later. February's challenge was to scrap about family. I really liked this quote that I had found by Gail Lumet Buckley, "Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future." I decided to use pictures of me and Jason from when we were younger, along with pictures of our parents from around that same time. Then I used a picture of me and Jason from when we were engaged. I used Brandy Murry's Background Blenders for the layout design. That's what made all of the photo masks. I altered it a little, since there are 9 photo masks, set up like The Brady Bunch. If I had a child, I would have done a solo picture of Jason, me, and our child, but I guess that can be a future layout. The background paper is actually a combination of 2 from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat. All of the embellishments also are from that collection. 

March's challenge was to scrap about a smile. My nephew, Kyle, had just lost his front tooth, so I thought that it would make an adorable layout. The polaroid template is from Brandy Hackman's Write It Down. The background paper is from Brandy Murry's The Bees Knees collection. The journaling tag and cut papers are from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (the Assemble Your Own Zoom Page) collection. The letters that spell out "smile" is from her Watercolor Whimsy collection. The handwritten "Your Smile" is from Brandy Murry's By Hand word art, and the buttons are from Amanda McGee's Applique Flowers emellishment template.

For April's challenge, they said to scrap about silly pictures or antics. Well, I had already planned to one day do a layout featuring the MANY pictures I have where Jason is being goofy, making a silly face, etc. I figured this template by Syndee Nuckles was perfect for a lot of pictures like that. It's from the Quick Collage collection. All of the papers are from Chere Edwards' Bliss collection. The circle tag and bow also are from this collection. The word art "a playful expression" is from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (Assemble Your Own Zoom Page).

P90X-For Real

I've mentioned before that I've had almost no motivation to work out recently. I wanted the benefits of working out, but just had no desire to get going with it and start doing something. I'm definitely probably the heaviest that I've been in my life, so I knew that I needed to. I'm not really loving pictures of myself right now, which planted the seed of motivation. I also would at least like to be more fit when I get pregnant, just because I think it would be better all around. So, I'd been thinking that I would at least start doing the P90X yoga a few times a week. I just needed the garage clean out a little, because that's where we set up our "gym."

So I got home from work on Tuesday and Jason had cleaned the garage for me. I went out and did the yoga. I couldn't even do the whole 90 minutes that it is, but I did most of it. I felt it in my muscles the next day, which I always LOVE, because I know I've done something good for my body. Jason suggested that I start the P90X again, but do the Lean program rather than the Classic. When we did the program before, Jason was working from home and had a lot more free time. His job now also is more physical, so he's often tired when he comes home and not as likely to want to work out.

So, I started the Lean program on Thursday. For the first phase of the program, only the first 2 days is different than what I did before, then the rest of the week is the same. This is very good for me, because my least favorite day of the Classic program is the Plyometrics (Day 2). Ugh. Although the Core Synergistics (Day 1 of the Lean) is probably a close second. At least for now. I'm pretty happy with myself that I immediately developed this motivation to do this. It does take a lot of time, though, but it's something that I need to do. I don't know why I had such an aversion to it before. I guess I get more motivated during this time of year. I will definitely update on my progress in a future post.

Project Scrap Girls (March)

This was the first layout I posted for the 2010 Project Scrap Girls challenge. This was the first time I extracted a photo, and I really liked how it turned out. The pictures were from one day when we were at my in-laws' house, and my husband was playing with his nephew. You can tell how excited he was, just clapping Jason's hands while he would say "Boom. Boom." I really like using the film strip for similar pictures like I had, then for the one I caught of him looking right at the camera, I enlarged it and extracted. The film strip template is by Sarah Batdorf. The background papers and the template to blend them together are by Brandy Murry (The Bees Knees collection and Background Blenders II). The "March" letters are by Amanda Sok from her Watercolor Whimsy (this is the same for all of the March layouts).

My second layout, from my nephew's birthday party. For the red background paper I used a paper template from the Panagea collection by Durin Eberhart. The red and yellow paper also was a paper template from the Appassionata collection by Amanda Sok. The layout of the photos was from Caroline Kaiser's Squares and Strips collection. The letters for "4th" are from Trish Yocum's Mosaic Retreat collection. The other font is Glitter Font that I got from a website, but I don't remember where.

This layout was commemorating my birthday, even though it was a very low-key day. I didn't have a picture of me from that day, so I just took one of myself when I was doing this layout. It wasn't that great, but I wanted to try out this new action that I had bought from the site. An action is basically a bunch of steps that are saved together so that you don't have to remember all the steps. You can buy the actions to load into Photoshop. Originally, I hadn't wanted to buy anything that I would be able to do myself. However, I really don't know that much about the settings for certain things I am doing (like blurs or filters or things), so when someone has already figured it out for you, and it only costs a few bucks, then yeah, I'll buy it. So this was a sketching action, which just turns your picture into a sketch. But the settings include the color as you see. (It's from Brandy Murry's Sketch It 2). The paper and flowers were from Brandy Murry's The Bees Knees (I recolored the paper). The frame is from her The Bees KneesAssemble Your Own Zoom Page (also recolored). The ribbons are from her Wrapped Frames collection. The 37 is from her Nuptials collection. (If you couldn't tell, Brandy Murry is one of my favorite designers. Love her designs!) This layout also was the second one of mine that has won as a weekly layout winner in the Scrap Girls newsletter. Again, I was surprised, but excited.

Lots of birthdays in March for my family. This layout is about my niece's birthday. She lives in Germany, so we didn't get to celebrate it with her, but my sister sent me pictures. The background paper is from Trish Yocum's Mosaic Retreat collection (recolored). The layout template was from Caroline Kaiser's Squares and Strips. The other papers, the little flower in the frame, and the "5th" is from Amanda McGee's Gleeful collection. For the other font I used a glitter style by Cheryl Barber.

In January and February I did a good job of getting my 4 layouts posted on the site by the end of the month. But I got behind in March, mostly because all of my events were from the 20th and after. Then, I was waiting for my sister to send me the pictures of my niece, so the last layout wasn't done until April. Then I've been stuck on one April layout, so I am really behind now. Oh well. I definitely want to stick with it, because it will be nice to have a completed album for 2010 (whenever I choose to print it).

Things I've been thinking about lately

At my church we've been going through a series called "Creating Space." It's basically about what it sounds like it's about. Creating space in our lives. The first message particularly spoke to me. He was talking about giving yourself more time, so you aren't just rushing to places last minute. He was specifically talking about church so that you can get yourself in the frame of mind to worship, but I needed to hear that for all aspects of my life. He also talked about just resting in God's sovereignty, trusting Him to work and not feeling like we have to do all this stuff in order for things to happen. Which was something that I needed to be reminded of at that time. I have all these things that I want for me and Jason, and our future family, and I have to just remember that God knows best (so I may not even really want what I think I want) and that He will work things out in my life according to His will. And I don't have to work so hard to make it happen. Not that I just sit back and do nothing, but it's not up to me. I'm not in charge.

Also in our small group, we've been reading the book Crazy Love. I really like it so far. But in one of the chapters he talks about the fact that we aren't promised tomorrow. Yet we live like we are entitled to it. I've heard the sermons before about the passage in James, where it says not to boast about tomorrow, because you don't know what a day will bring. But I guess this was the same weekend as the first Creating Space message, and something was said about that passage that really hit me about God's sovereignty again. Not only could something happen causing us to not be here tomorrow, but also something could happen to take us along a completely different path than we planned. There have been many things in my life that have changed as a result of events and decisions that were made within a day. So it just reiterated to me that God is in control, He knows what tomorrow will bring, and thankfully, I can trust that He loves me.

In that same chapter of Crazy Love, he talks about 50 or 100 years from now, nobody will even remember you. That made me think about how my sister has been doing some research on our ancestry. And it's true, some of those names are just names. It's who I came from, but I don't know them. I'm sure their lives were just as important to them as mine is to me, but apart from a few details, I know nothing about them or what they felt was important. The author states that our lives are basically two-fifths of a second in God's timeline. Makes you feel pretty insignificant, doesn't it? And makes you think twice about what is important.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't still want things that are probably meaningless. But I'm just realizing that they aren't as important, and if it happens, great, but if not, then my life is still blessed.

Project Scrap Girls (February layouts)

For the Scrap Girls year-long project, here are my four February layouts. The first one, Zoo Day, is from the day that I went to Lowry Park Zoo with my sister, Amy, and her girls, who were visiting from Germany. I used a layout template by Angie Briggs and paper and embellishments from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection. For all of the layouts, the February tag is by Amanda Sok, I just recolored it to match my layouts. I was excited to see this first layout was picked as a weekly layout winner in the Scrap Girls newsletter. This was the first time that's happened, so it was really cool.

The second layout is about seeing Wicked with Jason and our parents. We got them the tickets for their Christmas gifts this year. Our moms were so excited to go! The layout template is by Brandy Hackman. The background paper also was a template, by Brandie Valenzuela.

The third layout is from my first time singing on Saturdays at Grace Family Church. I felt silly having Jason take pictures during the rehearsal, but I wasn't sure if I'd be singing again (I have been pretty regularly) and I wanted to scrap it. I didn't have great quality pictures, but I didn't care. The layout template is by Syndee Nuckles. The background paper and alphabet is from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection. The small paper is from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy collection. The music embellishments are from Amanda Sok's Appassionata collection.

The fourth layout is a collage of pictures from the last few days that Amy and the girls were here. The collage letters were made by Syndee Nuckles. The papers and other embellishments were from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat collection.

This has been a fun project to participate in so far. I've been feeling pretty confident with my growing skills. Lately, though, I've felt a little more unsure of what I want to do. But I'm just sticking with it and not putting a lot of pressure on myself. I will say that I think having a creative outlet is helping to keep my stress levels down at work, so that's good. I'll post some other non-Project Scrap Girls layouts soon.

Long Overdue

It has been way too long since I've blogged. My scrapbooking has taken over for the last couple of months, but now I'm on spring break, and I wanted to update.

Things have been going well. Work has been busy, but not too overwhelming. But spring break was definitely needed. I'm trying to appreciate this week off and not look ahead to the 8 or 9 weeks of school that I have left. I know, most people don't get this much time off, which is why I want to appreciate it. I just would be completely satisfied if I never had to work again. At least I think I would be. Who knows.

I have now been singing somewhat regularly on Saturday nights at Grace. I've been put on the schedule a couple of times a month. It's a lot different than singing at Idlewild, so I'm still getting used to it. But I love getting to be a part of it. Plus I'm still singing every other month in the Sunday Blend service.

Also, Jason and I started going to a small group, which is Grace's version of Sunday school or Bible Fellowship. We actually weren't planning to go to one anytime soon because of Jason's class 2 nights a week, but we went to a weekend marriage seminar where they were advertising new small groups. We saw one that was meeting on Sunday nights near where we live, so we decided to try it. We've only met 3 times, but I can tell it's going to be a good group and a good thing for us. So I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to know some more people at Grace, which is something I was needing.

Like I said, I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking in the last couple of months. I get things done a lot more quickly than I did when I first started. This is partly because I'm buying things rather than trying to make them. Yeah, I'm not quite at that point yet, but maybe I will one day. I was excited, though, because I won something from the website I go to. Scrapgirls.com does a newsletter 6 days a week. On Saturdays, they feature layouts as weekly winners, and sometimes monthly winners. I was looking at the newsletter a few weeks ago, and one of my layouts was a "weekly layout winner"! I was surprised because I had posted the layout about a month before, so I didn't expect it to be one that would be featured. Here's the layout.

It's from when Amy and the girls were here, and we went to Lowry Park Zoo one of the days. I used a layout template by Angie Briggs, and the paper and embellishments were by Trish Yochum. The February tag was by Amanda Sok. I won $5 to spend in the store, which doesn't sound like a lot, but most of the digital supplies range from $3 to $10, so it's really pretty cool. Later that week I also got $3 to spend from the site for my birthday, so it worked out pretty well for me.

Speaking of my birthday, I turned 37 on March 23. I was a little weirded out by the number, because it's such an odd number, and frankly, it just sounds OLD. However, for some reason, my age has come up a lot lately, and it's really nice to hear that people are surprised to hear my age because they thought I was much younger. (I assume that's a compliment of how young I look, and not an insult to my maturity-hahaha). But, I guess it's probably a combination of my mother's genes and the fact that I am not a mother yet. I'm afraid that as soon as I have kids I'll immediately age :) But probably not, since my mom still looks good for her age. So, yay for good genes!

On another note, I do need to lose weight. I don't feel that heavy, but I have seen pictures of myself lately, and I am truly surprised at how heavy I look. I just have very little motivation to do anything. But, I think I'm slowly working up to it. I really would like to lose some weight before I go and get pregnant and put it back on. So I guess I better get to working on it. I think I wrote about P90X a few months ago, and we never really started it. We're talking about it again, so hopefully I'll update about that soon.

I had a great time with Amy and the girls. Just when I was getting used to them being here, they went back to Germany this morning. But I know Ben was missing them and ready for them to come back. I was glad that I got to see Ava while she was still a little baby. Of course, I don't know when the next time that I'll see them is, but we'll see.

I was so struck by how cute my 4-year-old niece, Jordan, is. I think all of my nieces and nephews are cute, but she is so expressive and dramatic, and she can't say the /r/ sound very well, so it's just very cute. We kept playing "ballet school." I was the teacher and I usually just sat on the bed and held Ava. Jordan played the different fairies from the Tinkerbell movie, which I haven't seen, so I was wondering where she came up with names like Iridesca, Rosetta, and Silvermiss.  She would climb up on the bed (and told me to pretend she was flying since she couldn't fly for real) and then she would jump off, and proceed to do these ballet moves. It was just too cute. I think I've said this before, I take so many pictures of my nephews and nieces. At this point, I'm going to have a ton more of them than I do of my own children.

Project ScrapGirl (January)

I've been working on the 2010 ScrapGirls project. A lot of sites do a 365-type project where you take a picture a day and scrap it, like a layout a week. This year, at ScrapGirls, they just want you to scrap current pictures. You can do it however you want. They are encouraging participation by awarding points (up to 4 each month) for each layout you post. They randomly pick someone each quarter to win money to shop at their store. Then, for each month you post something, you get an entry to their grand prize, which is your photo album printed. Nice. So, it's been good motivation to get the layouts done.

I decided to do one layout a week, focused on specific events from the month. For January, my 4 layouts focused on the streak of cold temps we had, our nephew Judah's 1st birthday, my nephew Kyle's 7th birthday, and Amy, Jordan, and Ava visiting from Germany (particularly the first day that I met Ava).

For the 1st layout, I used a layout template by Brandy Hackman, background paper by Syndee Nuckles and from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy collection. Also word art by Julie White and snowflake cluster by Diane Miller. These are all available at scrapgirlscom. The font by Erica Hernandez is available at twopeasinabucket.com.

For Judah's birthday, the layout template was by Angie Briggs. The papers and font were from Shalae Tippits' Promise collection (both at scrapgirls.com) The January font again was from Erica Hernandez's Vibe.

For Kyle's birthday, the layout template was by Angie Briggs. The papers and font were from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy collection. Font by Erica Hernandez.

For the Sweet Memories layout, Layout template by Amanda Sok, flower and bead also from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy collection, corner ribbon from Thao Cosgrove's All About Marriage collection (recolored). The tag was from Paula Wright's Tied Tag embellishment template. The paper was from Shalae Tippit's Promise collection. The font was by Kerry Veale. I also used paper from Amanda Sok's Appassionata and Danielle's Design, I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas. Whew, that's a lot.

It's been a lot of fun thinking about what layouts to do for each month. I've got to get caught up on my February layouts.

Show Yourself Friendly

I've been thinking a little bit lately about what being a good friend looks like. The verse in Proverbs says to have friends you must be friendly. I've always considered myself to be a friendly person, but as I've been thinking about it more, I don't think I'm as friendly as I should be. There have definitely been the times that I was focused on poeple I was around and was not friendly toward others who weren't in my "sight." That's not friendly.

I have a friend who really takes time to listen to people, always has a kind word when she's stopped by them, and people are drawn to her. I want to be more like that as a person. Kind, caring, getting out of myself more. I see God growing me toward that, but I'm definitely not where I want to be at all.

This is a good time for this, since I've changed churches, and am not really around my friends a lot right now. I haven't really made a lot of effort to make new friends yet, but I'm thinking it's time. Honestly, even when I was there, a lot of the people were more acquaintances than friends anyway. But I guess that's where friendship starts.

I think part of what has kept me from reaching out as much is a fear of rejection by people. But, I guess you have to take risks to get the rewards, huh. And God does want us to connect with people. And He doesn't want me to sit on the sidelines because I was afraid. I've always said that He brings people across my path at the right time, which He does, but that also can be an excuse to not reach out myself.

I guess, as always, it goes back to doing to others what you would want them to do to you. The way that I would want someone to be friendly to me, I need to do.

Catching Up

It's been almost a month since my last post. Things have been going pretty good. Very busy at work, but I'm determined not to get overwhelmed like I usually do. Although there are aspects about the middle school that I like, I'm trying to figure out if I'll want to stay there next school year. Elementary is my thing, I think. But we'll see how things work out. It's a nice variety to have both.

I finally got to meet my new niece, Ava! Amy, Jordan, and Ava visited from Germany. They've been here for about 3 weeks. It's been so good to see them, and we've had a lot of fun together. I took a day off and we went with my parents up to Lake Panasoffkee to see my grandparents. Amy and I took the kids to Lowry Park Zoo when I was off for "fair day." Then we just hung out at our house for a little bit. I've really noticed how expressive and dramatic my niece Jordan can be. And she hasn't quite got all her speech sounds yet, so she is just so cute when she talks sometimes.

The same week that Amy was coming into town, we found out that my dad was going to have quadruple bypass surgery. It was totally a surprise thing. Not like he had a heart attack or anything. He had just been feeling tired and short of breath, so he went to the doctor, got sent to the cardiologist, and had to do have a heart cath. That's when they found the blockage and said that he would need surgery. It was disconcerting, but it has become so much more common, and he seems to be recovering very well. But that week in particular I was feeling emotion overload, and I was really over it.

The weekend before my dad's surgery, Jason and I took our parents to Wicked. It was my third time and Jason's second time to see it. It was a lot of fun, and so good, again. I was singing the songs for a week!

I'm now singing background vocals every other month in the Blend service at Grace Family Church. When I started in October, I ended up singing every Sunday until I asked for a couple of Sundays off in December. That's because Jason and I usually go to the Saturday night service, so when I sing, I have to get up again the next day. So, it's not something I want to do every Sunday. So the girl who's leading found someone to switch off with me. I was used to doing 2 weeks on/off at Idlewild, and this is 1 month on/off. I was off the entire month of January, which was a nice break. And now, I've enjoyed being back in February.

I also got to try singing at the Saturday night service this last week. I was nervous beforehand, but once I got there, it was a lot of fun. Jason went with me to the soundcheck, which was good, because he pointed out that I was trying to sing over the band. I also had to sing with earbuds in, which I hadn't had to do in a long time. I think that was part of why I wasn't aware of how loud I was singing. Anyway, I really enjoyed getting to sing, and would love to do it again sometime, so we'll see what happens.

I'm so glad my favorite show, LOST is back on, even though it's the final season. It's still so good. I really need to catch up on a lot of the blogs that I "follow" that focus on the show.

I guess that's why I haven't been able to blog in a while. I've been so busy with these other things. Amy and the girls go back to Germany in a few days. I would so love to visit them while they're there, but we are trying to save money for when we have children.

I know I've already mentioned work, but I've felt very productive this week, which is a good feeling. I want that to continue for the next few weeks, especially. It's always hard in this stretch of time before spring break. But we have FCAT and then the Stanford testing for the 1st and 2nd graders, so really, it will be here before I know it.

Succession of Moments

I am getting on the Scrap Girls site a lot more regularly now. With one of my Christmas gift cards I purchased the Scrap Girls club, which is a monthly deal where you get collections for a reduced amount. I think they say you get $27.99 worth of material for $9.99. It's a recurring charge unless you cancel. But, you can also purchase 6 months or 12 months at one time for an even bigger savings. Anyway, I've really liked it so far.

Also, on the website, like most other scrap sites, they have lots of challenges to participate in. So I've started participating occasionally. This layout was for a quote challenge. They give the quote, and you do a layout for it. The quote was "Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed." It took me a long time to even decide which photos to use for this. I started out with some of Jason's and my engagement pictures, but then I wanted to do something with one of the kids. I liked the idea of using a photo that depicted an everyday moment because to me that's what the quote is getting at. I used these photos of my dad holding my nephew, Kyle (he was only 2 then, so cute!) while he was grilling. I love that Kyle was wearing my dad's hat. Almost all of the materials are from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy Collection (this month's club offering). The star brush is from the Scrap Girls Refresh collection.

Moments to Cherish

I wanted to do a year-in-review layout for 2008 when I started scrapping last year. I never did it, but I decided to do one for 2009, after seeing a challenge on the Scrapbooks, Etc. website. I decided to do a 2-page layout, with highlights from the year and favorite photos. I hadn't realized how much has changed in 2009 until I did the layout. I loved all of these pictures, it was fun making the layout. I don't usually do that many pictures. Most of the supplies are from Brandy Murry's Angel Dust collection at Scrap Girls. It also uses Brandie Valenzuela's Rippled Paper template and the "these are the moments" tag is from Chere Edwards. The 2009 was designed by Durin Eberhart, I just recolored it.

I put my Photoshop on my laptop, so now I can scrap while sitting on the couch. It's been nice, because if Jason plays his PS3, then I can still be in the room with him and scrap. Also, when he's at class, I usually watch my shows. Before, I had to be in the other room to scrap, so I couldn't get that done if I was trying to catch up on the TV. Now, I can do both. Yay!

So long, Benji

A couple of months ago I started a post that I never finished about how chaotic it had been to have 3 animals in our tiny house. I had Deja before I even met Jason. Then about a year and a half ago, I was working at Town & Country Elementary and three little kittens were found. We were told that they would probably be euthanized if they were brought in without their mom. Jason urged me to bring one home, which surprised me, since he didn't really like Deja then. So, then we had two cats, Deja and Benji.

Benji was so cute and liked to cuddle. But he often terrorized Deja. He grew so big, and he was just always getting into things. By August, we got our miniature schnauzer, Desmond. For most of that time since then, I was always having to keep Desmond and Benji separated, or I had to get onto Benji for pouncing on Deja. It really was driving me crazy.(This picture was a constant sight) But, when Jason said he was ready to give Benji away because he was constantly getting into everything, I resisted. I'm very sensitive about animals, and I probably assume too much feeling on their part. Like, I thought he would feel rejected (even though I know that as long as he's fed, he's probably content). But I hate seeing them at the pet store or in shelters, because I always feel bad for them.

Anyway, I had asked one of my friends to take him. I thought that he'd be great as an only cat. But, on New Year's Eve, he (not on purpose) scratched my hand. He had been sitting on my lap minding his own business. Desmond had gone after Deja, who cried, which perked Benji up. He went to jump off of me to get in on the action, and his claws scratched me. It was a pretty bad scratch. But that did it for Jason. So, the next day I contacted my friend, but she wouldn't be able to take him for a couple of weeks (plus, I think she was just being nice). She suggested St. Francis animal shelter, because they don't euthanize the animals. They foster them before adopting them. I told Jason that he had to do it, I couldn't. So, that was it for Benji.

I cried. It was a little traumatic for me, especially on New Year's Day! But, I told myself that Benji would be fine, and he would go to a family that would love him. And, I had to admit, I saw the difference in the other two that night. Before, Deja always had to sneak around, watching out for an attack by Benji. And like I said earlier, he and Desmond were constantly after each other. (Jason thinks Benji was giving off some sort of vibe to Desmond.) But now, I could tell Deja felt more freedom, and Desmond has been a lot calmer. And, of course when we have kids, I wouldn't want them to get scratched up by Benji, whether on accident or on purpose. Because that wasn't the only scratch from him. I have two scars on my foot from one time he ran past me, and his claws sliced my foot. So, I'm sure most people are wondering why it was so hard for me to get rid of him, but I felt like one of those people who adopt a child and then give them back. I'm a lot better with it now, though. It's the best thing for us.

It's funny, though, Deja seems to sometimes like being chased by Desmond. Yesterday Jason and I were both in the kitchen. Desmond was in there with us, and I saw Deja in the living room walking by the kitchen doorway. I saw her act like she was going to take off running, stop, look over at Desmond, act like she was going to take off, stop, look at him, and so forth like three times. I laughed, because I knew she wanted him to chase her, so I said, "Hey, Deja!" knowing that Desmond would run after her. Sure enough, Deja shot off, then they ran around for a couple of minutes. Cute.

The thing I miss the most about Benji is that he would come sit on my lap or sit on the arm of the couch and put his paws on my shoulder. Deja doesn't do that. I wish she did. But, I don't miss all that chaos and constant scuffling between them. So I have to say, it's a lot better. (Even though I still love Benji)

A Legacy of Love

I mentioned this layout in a couple of previous posts, but I wasn't able to post it until after Christmas, because it was a gift for my grandparents. This was the first layout that I was able to print, and I must say, that it looked great seeing it in real life and not just on the computer monitor! In August, my grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage. We had a big party for them, and at the party we displayed a bunch of pictures from the last 60 years of our family on a ribbon board. The picture on this layout is a photo of that ribbon board. A few days before the party my grandmother said she wanted to display the center picture (of her and my grandfather just after they were married) and she had thought about displaying the other pictures of the family, but since she hadn't told anyone, she figured we wouldn't do it. But I thought it would be a great idea, and Jason thought of using the ribbon board, so we were set. It was great at the party, too.

I had started working on a layout that was just using the old picture of my grandparents, and I wanted to give that as a gift for the party. Of course, I didn't finish it, so when it came time to think about Christmas gifts, I thought I would just do it then. But then I thought that it would probably mean more to have this picture of all their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and I decided to use this photo. Once I did, it started going a lot quicker than the other one had done, so I knew it was the right way to go. For the paper, I used a paper template, Appassionata, designed by Amanda Sok. The tags and strings were embellishment templates designed by Paula Wright, both available at ScrapGirls.com.

This was my favorite gift to give for Christmas, and I know my grandparents liked it. My grandmother already told me that my grandfather wanted to hang it near the front wall so everyone that comes to their house can see it. I definitely appreciate the example of love and commitment that they've been to our family, which was why I wanted to make it.

It's 2010!

I always love to read back through my journal at the end of the year, and reflect on everything that has happened in the year. I also write a review, highlighting important things that happened, for my own remembrance. So, this year I did the same thing. I always find it enlightening and exciting. It reminds me that no matter what bad happened, there were some good times, too. And in the bad, I usually find lessons to remember as well.

For me, 2009 was a year of a lot of changes. I went from having 3 niece/nephews to 5. Jason's brother had a baby in January and my sister had a baby in October. I went from singing on the praise team at Idlewild to singing in the Blend service at Grace. I went from working at Crestwood Elementary to working at Woodbridge Elementary. I went from having all of my immediate family living in Florida to having a sister who lives in Germany. But, despite the changes, it was a good year. From my journal, I can see that it was a big lesson for me in contentment. I still haven't mastered that, but I definitely think it's gotten better. A lot of what I wrote in my journal was prayer for being in a different situation (financially or with work) than I was in. Thankfully, I haven't felt that way at work in the fall. And, financially...well, I'm just trusting God. We're doing OK. Sure, our house is small, but it's enough for us for right now. And I'm thankful to call it our own.

But, I'm looking forward to seeing what 2010 holds this year. A facebook friend said it yesterday, so I'll repeat it...I don't know what it holds, but I do know God is there. That's reassuring.

I had a great Christmas season, I'll write more with pictures later.