Yoga - Day 23

Whew, I did the Jillian Michael’s workout again today . . . that one is tough. I couldn’t do quite everything on there, but I definitely worked hard. We are at a lovely bed and breakfast for our last night in Canada and we got a really nice room with a little sitting area complete with TV, so I was able to do my work out much easier than when I tried to do it at the campground. This place is really lovely, and I will be sad to leave Canada tomorrow, but it’s been a great vacation and I know I have lots to do when I get home. So it’s been a great break, but I am looking forward to getting back to my yoga studio too J

Yoga - Day 22

It’s our 3^rd anniversary today J We are going to see some monuments and waterfalls today. I wanted to get my yoga practice out of the way early on, so right after breakfast (which was rather late as I’ve been sleeping in every day J) I did the “advanced” Rodney Yee video again in the same spot as yesterday. It wasn’t as windy today and the sun beating down on the tarp actually made it rather warm in my little yoga spot, not quite “hot yoga” warm, but still pretty nice. The video has some weird “cardio” aspects in it that involve a lot of arm swinging and little hops. It’s kind of weird. Oh well, I still got my hours’ worth of practice in . . . now to go have some fun!

Yoda - Day 21

I tried another Rodney Yee yoga DVD today . . . the 50 minute advanced work out. It was much easier than most of the classes at the hot yoga studio, but definitely not as crazy as the Jillian Michael’s one that I tried the other day. No difficult wheel, camel or crow poses, just a few warrior one and warrior two poses, but it felt much more like yoga than my “yin” stretching yesterday.

Warrior I

Warrior II

Also, I tried a different spot (under a tarp my husband put up over the tent) and the ants seemed to leave me alone, so today was much better. Still nowhere close to my enjoyment of the hot yoga studio, but at least I felt more relaxed than the other day, and it is good to get in tune with my body and nature at the same time I think. I think the campground should have yoga classes on the beach or something J

Yoga - Day 20

I did pretty much the same yoga routine tonight as I did last night because by the time we got back to the campsite, it was about 9:30 and I didn’t feel like doing my yoga outside in the cold and dark. Plus, my legs could still use quite a bit of stretching, so that’s what I did. Unfortunately, being on a somewhat squishy air mattress, covered by a thick sleeping bag and surrounded by cold temperatures, does not make for a very good yoga practice. I was distracted by the sounds of the campers around me, and my husband was moving in and out of the tent and when he moved on the air mattress, of course I moved too. Plus the space was cramped and I couldn’t breathe very well in the poses where my face would be on the mat. I don’t really feel like I did yoga today, it was more just a little bit of stretching. Oh well, only a few more days of this improvised yoga and then I get to go back to my hot yoga classes . . . they are so much better.

Yoga - Day 19

Crow pose

So we hiked to the “Top of the Giant” today in Ontario (near Thunder Bay). It was a pretty tough hike, but the views at the top were spectacular. I decided to try to do some nature-inspired yoga while we were up there J I saw a crow, so I did the crow pose, and then there were lots of trees around, so I made myself into a lovely tree among the trees. On the way back, instead of going back the shorter, flatter way that we came, I decided it would be more fun to make a more looping path. Since we are cheap and didn’t feel like spending $11 on the topographical map, we didn’t realize that the mountains were connected and our hike was ridiculous and our round trip for the day was about 18.5 miles of hiking (there were some serious bits, not just walking on a trail) that we completed in eight hours. This lead to very sore knees, feet, hips, and legs. Therefore, my yoga hour for the day (which of course I saved until after the hike) was a very “Yin” practice. I did lots of leg and hip stretches and held them for about four minutes each. My legs will thank me in the morning J  

A tree amongst the trees

Yoga - Day 18

I got in tune with nature doing my yoga today. Let me tell you, it is not as glamorous as it sounds. At the campground, I wanted to find a somewhat secluded area so people walking by our campsite wouldn’t think I was crazy, so I found a small patch of grass behind our tent (since the ceiling in our tent was too low to do my practice in there) and I used that. I watched a Jillian Michaels yoga DVD and it was much more intense than the Rodney Yee one yesterday. She made it more like aerobic yoga where a lot of the poses were fluid between poses (does that make sense?). At any rate, it was tough, and I couldn’t do it all. Granted, the uneven, rocky ground with the large tree root in the middle of my mat made it a bit more difficult as well. Also, since I couldn’t have my laptop plugged in, of course the battery died right before the video was over, so I didn’t get to see the very end and just had to make up my own cool-down segment, but I still got a good work out. Let me tell you, the “shavasana” (corpse pose) at the end is much more difficult outside. I normally don’t have a problem just letting it all go and relaxing into my mat, but ants don’t seem to respect that my mat is my space and I can’t relax when I feel things crawling on me . . . gross. So for all the issues that came up, the one highlight was doing a sun salutation and looking up at the blue sky and clouds and feeling that sunshine warming my back during my practice. God truly has made a lovely creation.

Yoga - Day 17

Well, this is the earliest I’ve done yoga yet . . . 5:15 am. I was supposed to start at 5, but of course, I turned my alarm off and fell back asleep ;) I did Rodney Yee’s Yoga for Beginners DVD. It was pretty good, but when my husband asked me how it compared to my classes, I had to say “easy”, and “not as warm”. I miss the stillness and focus that comes more easily in the yoga practice room than at home, but as an alternative to accommodate our busy travel plans, this worked out pretty well. At least my body got some nice stretches in today, I think that will really help prepare me for the long day in the car.

Yoga - Day 16

My last day of hot yoga before my vacation L Granted, I am very grateful for the vacation, but sad I’m missing out on my hot yoga. I did get a few yoga videos to take along, and I think I know enough poses now to make up an hour’s worth of practice for myself, but it probably won’t be in the best order like a class would be. Tonight’s class was a “Core” class so my abs were definitely burning for part of it. For the inversion section of the class (designed to get your hips over your head in really any way possible) she said we could just do whatever we wanted, which I’m not used to, so I was just looking around aimlessly so she came and helped me do a rather easy one. She demonstrated a head stand, and since I didn’t get to do one in class, I made my husband help me when I got home J I’m so intrigued by the tough poses, I really want to push myself so I can do some of them by the end of the month. Yoga is cool J

Yoga - Day 15

Well, I’ve made it about halfway through the month and I’m feeling good. I do have to say (and pardon the details, but in the interest of full disclosure I feel I must share this), I have never sweat this much in my entire life. I could feel it running down my whole body and when we were doing inversion poses, it was running into my mouth (gross) and I even felt like my ears were sweating. Hooray for Fire yoga at 105 degrees for 90 minutes. It was sweaty and hot and difficult, but I feel so good when I’m done. I never got a “runner’s high” from all of that running I did, but I definitely feel good after hot yoga. My whole body feels more fluid and relaxed. This could have been a really stressful month for me with the new job and having to leave all of my friends at my old job, but the yoga has been really good for me just to take a lot of deep breaths, trust that God has everything under control, and r-e-l-a-x. It doesn’t hurt that it’s making me stronger and healthier at the same time. I’m going to be bummed when this month is over (although I saw a new Groupon today for hot yoga at a different studio . . . one month of unlimited classes J) . . .maybe I'll have to get that.

Yoga - Day 14

Slow flow class today. It was a bit easier than the previous two days, but it was still hard work. Learned a new pose today . . . frog pose. There are so many fun yoga things to do. I’m really going to miss hot yoga when I’m done. We are going on vacation next week so I’m going to have to do “nature yoga” because we are going camping, but I think it will be fun. Oh, in other news…we saw a real, live skunk digging in the grass near our car in the middle of the city today . . . how odd J

Yoga - Day 13

Today was just as tough as yesterday. She had us do all sorts of tough crazy poses like wheel, tripod, crow, and headstand. I almost got the headstand! I was very excited about that J I’m going to be sore tomorrow. We are supposed to set an “intention” for each practice, and today I picked “courage” . . .. see where that got me ;)

Yoga - Day 12

Something that I have to remember to mention tonight . . . I noticed it in my very first class and I thought it was funny. We are supposed to have our fingers spread out when we have our hands down on the mat . . . like starfish J I think that is one thing that I will remember from this month for a very long time. Anyways, today’s class was pretty core-intense, even more so than the actual “Core” class that we took on Thursday. I could not do everything that she was demonstrating, but I still feel like I got a pretty good workout, and made some progress on my “Side crow” (I can get it on one side, but not the other). This class was a fun mix of strength exercises and yoga stretches. I think the instructor we had today was my favorite . . . I hope I get more classes with her before the month is over.

Pretty yoga girls :) 

Yoga - Day 11

Today was a relaxing late Saturday morning Yin class (deep stretching). I was having issues with my legs getting all tingly (probably from lack of circulation) while I was in some of the stretches, so I couldn’t hold them quite as deeply as I wanted, but I still feel like I got some good stretching in. At the end, the instructor put a little bit of peppermint oil on the backs of our necks and ears and it was a very relaxing end of the class . . . I almost feel asleep J

Yoga - Day 10

After work “happy hour” yoga was definitely needed today. I’ve been rather stressed lately with work stuff (I just got a new job so today was the day I got to inform most people at my current job . . . kind of a stressful situation). It was the smallest class yet, only five participants, and one really wanted to work on her lower back so we focused on doing a lot of poses to strengthen the lower back. My husband has back issues, so he really should have been there, but he is not too sure about this whole “hot” yoga idea so I doubt he’ll join in the fun. At any rate, it was a nice end to the work week, and I feel like I’m much more flexible than I was a few weeks ago . . . we’ll see how I feel at the end of the month J

Yoga - Day 9

First “Core” class today . . . ouch. My core was definitely feeling it. It was nice that it was a little later at night and the teacher slowly turned the lights down throughout the class so by the end it was dark and now I’m all ready for bed. It’s really cool how yoga can be so intense and relaxing at the same time. We’ve been trying to convince some other people from work to come, but so far, no luck. We’re just all enjoying every day that we get to go and I’m very happy with how I did tonight, even with the crazy “crow” pose (I don’t know if that’s what she was trying to get us to do, but it was close, so that’s what I did). Try this on for size:

(Image from http://www.menshealth.com/yoga/poses.php)

Yoga - Day 8

Another good day of yoga today. It was a very hot class today . . . 105 degrees. It was fast paced and challenging though and I felt like I had accomplished something when I was done. I feel like I squished my abdomen too much, but hopefully it will feel better tomorrow. I was definitely sweaty by the end of this class (I don’t usually sweat much), so that was progress. I should go shower now!

Yoga - Day 7

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole week of hot yoga already. I really like it and wish I could continue after this month, but the studio fees are a bit more than my budget has room for. Today’s class was a little more intense than yesterday’s, but not as difficult as tomorrow will most likely be. It’s really nice to take that hour for myself to just relax and not have to think about anything. I fully intend to enjoy every class and try my best for all the classes I am able to take.

Yoga - Day 6

Another rather relaxing late night class. This one was called “yin” class (as opposed to the “yang” classes where we work on strengthening the muscles I guess). Tonight we focused on easier poses but held then for longer, some for as long as four minutes, to help stretch the deep, connective tissues instead. My hips are definitely feeling it now, and they said some people feel taller afterwards. That remains to be seen, but as I am rather short, I’ll just pretend that I’m taller, even if I’m not ;)

Yoga - Day 5

We got a new member of our little yoga group now, another girl from work. We visited the other yoga studio tonight and it was the most relaxing class we’ve been to so far. I didn’t sweat too much, and I felt very relaxed after class. I think this is doing wonders for my stress levels. I made a little progress on my poses too . . . I think I did a pretty good shoulder stand and I finally got the camel pose and could reach my heels. Here’s what those look like:

Shoulderstand

Camel

(Images from http://www.menshealth.com/yoga/poses.php)

Readers, I think you should be trying some of this at home J

Yoga - Day 4

Me and my tea

Another good day of yoga, although it was awfully early in the morning. I must have changed a lot this year because I had a little yogurt for a light breakfast before I went and when we got there, they have a cute little tea/relaxation room, so I was brave and drank a whole cup of tea before yoga class. Last year I didn’t eat yogurt or drink tea, so I’m doing pretty well at trying new things this year J The class was a little less intense than yesterday, and I felt pretty good about it. I am happy that I have a little more time between classes as tomorrow’s class isn’t until the evening. My body could use a little time to rest. I think I should go take a nap now J

Yoga - Day 3

I’m still rather sore in the shoulders today, but I’m excited for another day of hot yoga. Strangely I’m even regretting planning the vacation a little bit, just because I’m going to miss out on my hot yoga days. It’s okay . . . regular yoga will have to suffice. Class today was pretty good, it was a similar style class to yesterday, but with a new instructor. I think perhaps my circulation is improving already because I’m usually very cold at work, and I haven’t been lately. Also, I have noticed that I’m less stressed and have a happier demeanor . . . all from 2 days of yoga. We’ll see if it really is the yoga and not just a random phase later on this month. I don’t really sweat a lot either, but I think that is changing. The room today was 95 degrees and I think I sweat more in that one hour than I have in all of the rest of the year combined (even rock climbing and running didn’t make me sweat much). I think this will be good for my pores and my body in general (I have pretty healthy skin, but am very prone to lots of acne on my face, so I’m hoping this month will help that too . . . we’ll see). So, even though we weren’t planning on going to hot yoga today, I’m glad we did, and we have another class with the same instructor bright an early tomorrow morning at 7:30 (on a Saturday . . . why do I do this to myself?). In other news, two of our other friends from work will most likely be joining in the hot yoga craziness. They saw how much we were enjoying it and decided they would come too . . . how fun is that? This month is going to be great J

Yoga - Day 2

Another good day of hot yoga. We had a different class with a different teacher (and a little cooler room . . . only 95 degrees today) but it was still fun. It’s more difficult than I thought it would be. They do a nice job of offering different suggestions to make things easier or harder depending on what different people need. There are some things that I tried that were really hard. It’s funny how many of the poses are named after animals. The tops of my shoulders are very sore and instead of just doing regular yoga tomorrow, we signed up for another hot yoga class. I really like this stuff, but we’ll see how long my body can hold out. So much craziness, so little time J

Yoga - Day 1

Lovely tea room at Dragonfly Hot Yoga Studio

Today was my first day of “hot yoga”. If you know me personally, you know that I’m always cold and it takes quite a bit of heat to warm me up. So even though it’s August and rather hot outside, I’m still generally cold at work, so I am looking forward to spending time in the hot yoga studio. I won’t go to the studio every day (an exception I planned this month as we are hoping to go camping in a few weeks and I can’t take my yoga studio with me), but I’m hoping to get in as much hot yoga as possible. One added bonus this month is that my friend (you may remember her as the “Ganache Queen” from Cake Month) agreed to go to hot yoga with me, so this is a joint adventure.

We're ready!

I really enjoyed my first hot yoga class. We had gone shopping a few days ago to get yoga/running clothes (running clothes work well as they are designed to wick the water away from your body and sweating is one thing that is guaranteed in hot yoga) so I had some fun new outfits to get me in the yoga mindset . . . I looked the part at least J I changed after work and headed right over to the studio. We got a tour because it was our first time there, and I was rather impressed . . . it’s a pretty nice place. We were a little early, so we laid out our mats (with towels on top to catch all of the sweat . . . eww, I know), and just chatted for a little while before class started. It was a one hour class in 105 degrees. I don’t know why we decided to start with one of the hottest classes first, but it sure made the lower 90 degree temperatures outside feel nice when we were done J I felt really good after class (even though there was one pose that didn’t feel good, the camel pose I think, and I couldn’t do the lotus tree standing on my right leg because my left ankle is hurt and can’t twist that way, so I just did the regular tree instead). I don’t usually sweat much, so I think this will be good for my body, as long as I remember to drink water regularly throughout the day to stay hydrated.

Okay, that’s enough for today. I am really looking forward to the rest of this month now . . . wish me luck J 

August Reveal

So, have you been wondering when I’m going to do something crazy again? I bet you have, and guess what? The time is now. I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the last month and it’s been a while since I’ve had an exercise month, so it’s time for that again. Any guesses on what it’s going to be? It’s something that I actually enjoy, but with a little bit of a twist. I am not very flexible, so I figured that was something I needed to work on; hence, one month of doing yoga for at least a half an hour a day. And the twist? I bought a “Groupon” for a month of unlimited classes at a hot yoga studio. What is hot yoga? Basically, it’s yoga in a room that is between 85 and 105 degrees. Sound fun to you? It sure does to me . . . here we go!

Scrapbooking - Week 4

Day 22 – Scrapbooking split up into two 30-minute sessions again. It seems I will never get to actually scrapbooking . . . maybe next year ;)

Day 23 – I think I’m having problems focusing on this project. I find it easy to go through a large folder and delete the thumbnails because they are actually smaller, but when it comes to dragging a ton of pictures around trying to find their match when sometimes there isn’t one (modified versus originals) to try and pick the better of the two and delete the extra, I can’t focus. I get most of the way through the folder and then I get bored and move onto a new folder . . . I’m guessing I’m not going to have them all perfect, but hopefully they will be close and then they can all get backed up on my external hard drive. I can’t believe this month is almost over and I’m still working on this part. Whew.

Day 24 – I can’t believe I’ve been working on this for a full day (24 hours this month, and I’m still not done). I did discover Picassa’s “Sort folder by date” feature today though and that is sure helpful. I have a feeling things will go much faster from now on. I’m working from oldest to newest and I finished 2004 – 2006 pictures today. 2007 has a ton of pictures, so we’ll see how tomorrow goes, but more progress was made J

Day 25 – Things are going faster now, but I’m still stuck in 2007. Many more photos to go . . . as usual.

Day 26 – I scrapbooked in the car to and from the farm where we went to pick blackberries tonight. I finished all of my 2007 pictures, I think the end will go faster now. The end is near?

Day 27 – Today was the opening ceremonies for the London Olympics, so I worked on my scrapbooking during that. I finished 2008, but it was a long week and I don’t think I got as much does as I should.

Day 28 – I scrapbooked in the car again today. We made the trip up to the EAA airshow in Oshkosh today . . . that was pretty fun. I’m blazing through the last sets of pictures because they don’t have so many duplicates or edits to do, but I’m rather confused as some of my pictures are much smaller/lower quality than the rest. I hope I have the full-sized versions somewhere (but that means finding more sets of pictures to organize L).

Day 29 – More of the same today, still not done, still didn’t look for the larger versions of the pictures. Too much to do around here.

Day 30 – I’m making more progress . . . think I can finish my picture organization by tomorrow?

Day 31 – Well, unfortunately, I didn’t finish my pictures, but I can’t imagine how I could have gotten this far without setting aside all of this time every day to work on this. I am very close to being done, so just a few more hours of working on this, then I think all of my picture organization will be done. Then maybe I can get to actual scrapbooking ;) Well, enough of this laziness . . . can you guess what I’m going to be doing next month? 

Scrapbooking - Week 3

Day 15 – I think I am almost done with all of my organization J I should be finishing that up tomorrow and then it’s on to the duplicate picture removal stage . . . hooray.

Day 16 – So I was almost done with my organization, and then I found a folder with a random 2,500 pictures in it . . . ugh. They are so scrambled, I have no idea why they are all grouped together, so I guess I’m not done sorting yet. But you know what? It’s 11 pm again and I am still awake and very tired, so these can wait until tomorrow.

Day 17 – I tackled more of that gigantic folder today. It’s still not done, but it’s down to about 200 pictures now. Here I thought I was almost done with my organizing . . . not so. So much for this being “scrapbooking month”, it is definitely more “picture organizing” month. Oh well, life happens right?

Day 18 – So, this month’s blog may be even more boring than the novel reading month, I’m very sorry about that guys. I was really hoping to have pictures of completed scrapbook pages up by now, but alas, I’m still organizing pictures, who knew that would take so long! I’m still plugging away at it though, so progress is good. In other, non-challenge related news, it rained today!!!! J After being in a severe draught, I think we saw more rain in an hour today than we have in the last two months combined . . . thank you God J

Day 19 – Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 19 days already and I’m still just organizing. This is taking way longer than I thought . . . sorry about that. It might have something to do with the fact that I feel like my heart is just not into this challenge so I’m not working as hard at it as I have some of the other ones. I really wanted to be creative and get to use my fun supplies and see lots of old pictures, but here I am still looking at folder upon folder of duplicate and unedited photos. Oh well, I needed to do this in the worst way, so it’s good it’s finally getting done.

Day 20 – I got up early this morning and did a half an hour of scrapbooking before work because I have music practice tonight and I didn’t know if I would have time later. I did end up having a half an hour later to finish out my time. I worked on cleaning up two of the larger folders . . . unfortunately, I didn’t get either one done, but again, progress was made.

Day 21 – Just more organization . . . I will never be done with this. I did get two big folders almost done though. I’m excited about next month and ready for this month to be done, although I was definitely hoping to make much more progress this month than I have. 

Scrapbooking - Week 2

Day 8 – Today I worked on a lot of my study abroad pictures. It was fun to look back and since I’ve already done the scrapbook for those I could see some of the organization and transformation and how it would pay off. I still have a very long way to go though.

Day 9 – I organized more pictures today, surprise surprise. I’m going to have to work on this stuff for more than one hour a day if I ever want to get it done this month L

Day 10 – Unfortunately, I added even more pictures today, some recent ones. Luckily, they were pretty easy to organize. It’s crazy how pictures can be manipulated using computers and that these aren’t even pictures, just files of numbers. I hope I can get these all organized and backed up before anything goes wrong with my computer.

Day 11 – Late night scrapbooking again . . . can you guess why? Yep, that’s right, I was up way too late baking again. I made these: Scooter Pies. They were pretty amazing J Scooter pie! I need to learn to get started earlier, and not be quite so ambitious . . . I don’t think I’ll ever learn.

Day 12 – So the TV was on while I was working on my scrapbooking tonight, so I was probably not as productive as I should have been, but to counteract that, I worked on it for a little bit longer. I think I need to lock myself in a study room at the library or something until I get these all organized . . . it’s just so tedious, I wish I could get to the creative part already.

Day 13 – I was bad today and only worked on my scrapbooking for about a half an hour, but it was a good half an hour (and I really didn’t have any other time unless I would have gotten up even earlier in the morning, and I just didn’t think about it then), so a half an hour is going to have to do. I made quite a bit more progress on my study abroad pictures and I think those are the majority of what I have, so that’s good. Tomorrow is Saturday so hopefully I’ll be able to make up for a little bit of lost time (provided I’m not baking all day ;)).

Day 14 – I scrapbooked for about an hour and half today to make up for my short day yesterday. I think I almost have all of my 2007-2010 pictures organized . . . yay J That is a big job. I still have to go through and delete all the duplicates, etc. but at least they are organized. I finally feel like I’m making progress. 

Scrapbooking - Week 1

Day 1 – Well, today I got all of my pictures on CDs loaded onto my computer…about 5000 in all. This is going to be a big project.

Day 2 – And so it begins . . . wading through all of those pictures. I got quite a few duplicates deleted and some organized into folders.

Day 3 – Lots more organization accomplished today, mostly in pictures from 2006, yes, I have lots of pictures to go through since then. This is why I think this organization step is going to take me half the month . . . so much to do yet.

Day 4 – Almost all of my 2004-2006 pictures are categorized . . . now to go through each folder and delete the duplicates. Switching from Mac to PC format is not fun. PC decides that all of the Mac files (originals, edits, and thumbnails) are different pictures so I have three copies of most of them and they are all scattered around . . . how annoying.

Day 5 – So. Tired. Again. I had to get up at 5:15 this morning, and now it’s almost 11:00 and I’m still working on this. I need to stop planning so many things to do. Still going through and deleting duplicates and organizing things into chronological order. This is rather boring.

Day 6 – This project is so huge. I really wish I had all of the picture organizing done already. They are all mixed up. I did get a chance to look through my previous scrapbook today though . . . I needed to remember where I took some of the pictures. Maybe by the end of this month I’ll finally get to real scrapbooking.

Day7 – I took my computer along in the car while we were driving and worked on my pictures then . . . that worked out pretty well. I’m still amazed by how crazily mixed up these pictures are, but every hour I put into this is one hour closer to having it all done, so I’m grateful for that. 

July Reveal

As you can probably imagine, all of these crazy challenges have resulted in plenty of pictures and other memorabilia, and that’s just this one portion of my life. I love to travel and go to concerts, etc. so I have plenty of “scraps” lying around. I have the habit of putting them in my bedside drawer until the day that I finally have time to start scrapbooking. Well, I feel like that time is now. I mostly have that feeling because I can’t close my bedside drawer anymore . . . oops! I have made one scrapbook in my life, a whole book to document three wonderful months I spent studying abroad in England during college. Everything before and after that got skipped. Therefore, I have tasked myself this month with working on my scrapbooking project for about an hour every day. If I don’t do quite an hour, it’s not the end of the world, but if I get wrapped up in it and spend more than an hour on it, that’s okay too.

If any of you out there are “scrapbookers”, you’ll understand that it’s not a fun and games. This is an arduous process. I’m guessing there won’t be too many days of exciting things to blog about, but I’ll try and record a few blurbs every day, just to keep you updated. The first step in my scrapbooking process is to wade through the thousands of pictures I have stored on CDs and on my computer. They need to be labeled, categorized, and then backed up onto my external hard-drive (something that I probably should have done a long time ago, but I’m glad I’m finally taking the time to work on it now). After that, I will go through all of the pictures and scraps that I have and decide what should be documented and what can be skipped. Throughout that process I’ll probably make some sort of outline, and then spend way too much money at Walgreens or Snapfish or someplace getting lots of prints made. After that, the fun starts and I actually get to make some scrapbook pages (my husband already let me buy some awesome supplies to get me started). So, here we go, here’s to a creative and productive month of scrapbooking J

Juggling - Day 30

Well, today was my last day, and I didn’t do anything spectacular. I didn’t learn any fancy tricks, or four object juggling, in fact, I did my last juggling in the car. Juggling in the car actually did help me, by the way. My Klutz book suggests juggling while sitting down to help figure out how to juggle without chasing after the bean bags, and that’s exactly what I did . . . and it worked. So it was more juggling in the car because we were very busy all morning picking berries and then we headed to a wedding in the afternoon. Real life takes up some of the time I should probably be devoting to these projects, but there’s not much I can do about that. At least at the end of this month I can say I can juggle. That was my goal, and I may not be very good at it, but I am infinitely better than I was one month ago. I think that deserves another gold star. Stay tuned for my next challenge, starting tomorrow!