Rocked the Move!

Too exhausted to write much, because the Hubs and youngest kidling and I moved my scrapbooking cubes downstairs to my new scrappy place.  If you missed the beginning of this story, you can read it here.  And, I promise to post more pictures of the progress this week.  In the meantime, stay tuned... because as I organize my fun new crafty corner, that giveaway I promised a while back will be coming! 

Oh!  And Nicole K, Christina H and Lori???  Where are you?  I need my organizers!  Helloooooooo Ooooouuuuttt  Ttthhhhheeerrrreee?!

Truly, I do so wish you could all be here to help.  Another friend offered to help with the move, but I declined as we were on top of it today and had almost all of it done when she called.  Little did I realize that it wasn't the MOVE that was going to be a pain... it's the putting everything BACK and organizing!  How is it I moved to quadruple the space and I still feel like I don't have enough room?

PASSION debuts tomorrow (Feb 1st) at Scrapbooking from the Inside Out... check it out.

Oh, and thanks for your patience this week.  I was absent more than usual with all my travel for work and this weekend due to work and the scrappy move.  More fun to come!

Time Passing...

Stock Photo from Stock Xchng

Isn't it odd how time passing is so different depending on the situation you are in?  I often get caught up in this train of thought and wonder at the diversity of time, when in actuality... it is what it is.  A second is a second.  A minute is 60 seconds.  An hour is 60 minutes.  And so on. 

Yes, I understand that every four years we have to 'catch up' to time, and to do so we have an extra day.  A leap year.  I get that there is a whole science behind that, etc.  But that's not what I'm referring to here.

When I was a child... I can't describe how many times in my life I would wish that time would speed up.  Church, school, a boring Sunday afternoon... please let it go fast so I can get to the next, more exciting moment.  How much of my youth was spent wishing for time to go by faster?

Now that I'm older, so much of my "time" is wondering where my time went.  How did it go so fast?  I take great care in reminding myself to not wish it all away.  Even the bad stuff... the days that are just horrible and depressing and out-and-out bad.  Soon enough (too soon) it will be gone and I can't get it back.  My weekends fly by and my weeks drag by... and through it all I try to remember that it isn't really... it's happening at the same pace every day... 1 second at a time, 1 minute at a time, 1 hour at a time. 

Take this week as an example... it's already the last week of January 2010.  Where did this month go?!  On Sunday, this week looked loooong to me, because I'm traveling and attending 3 days of training.  But now it's the end of the day on Thursday, the training is over and tomorrow we're driving back home.  And geez, tomorrow's Friday!  Which means the weekend is already upon me.  There are so many things I want to accomplish over the weekend... but will it go too "fast"?  When I return to work it will be February! 

I even apply this to my scrapbooking.  I make an album for all of my kids to have - showing birth to high school graduation - and a  year or two ago, I decided to take some time off on my last child to do this for.  I wanted to concentrate on other scrapbooking projects.  I figured I'd take a year off and then get caught up so I won't feel stressed toward the end.  That was THREE years ago.  At the end of the school year this year she will be heading into high school.  The time is going so fast!!  And I didn't accomplish all I wanted during my "kid's album break".

Does anyone else feel the same about time?  Any one out there who has mastered time?  I'd love some tips on how to not wish my time away and, more importantly, now not to miss the time as it goes by me.  I hear all the catch phrases of "live in the moment" and I try to do so... but by the time I feel like I am, the moment is gone and several more have gone with it!

It has been a crazy week here... with a lot of learning (for my job) and a lot of things going on my head, which happens when I'm away from the distraction of family issues.  I'd love to hear from you... give me a shout out on what you think about time and your challenges and victories over it.

It's YUCKY!!

Just wanted to share a little tidbit about the Hubs...

He is a man who doesn't eat green foods.  I think there are many men like this out there, but I've never met one So Opposed to green things on his plate.  To the extent that when I add chives to my mashed potatoes, he (at first) questioned it and gingerly picked them out (he eats them now).  To be fair, he will eat a salad... defined as iceburg lettuce, onion, carrots, cucumbers and cheese... slathered in Thousand Island dressing.  Once... maybe twice, I got him to eat broccoli, but it was slathered in cheese sauce.  But, well... that's about it.  There's no "five servings a day" in this man's life.

I often wonder what caused this in him.  Is it because he grew up in the military and never had decent, fresh veggies to taste?  I grew up in a home that was surrounded by gardens. I would run over to my neighbor's very abundant garden and eat raw green beans by the handfuls.  Warmed only by the sun.  YUM!  To this day, I still love eating fresh, raw green beans (or wax/yellow beans).  My husband tried one once and I think his face turned green.

Then I thought, maybe something traumatic happened to him.  Was he trapped in a vegetable cellar surrounded by broccoli, green beans and peas?  Was he the unfortunate victim of a veggie food fight as a child? 

What could it be?

Then I saw it.  I saw The Instance when he became violently opposed to green vegetables.  It had to be him!

Except he's not blonde (he has black hair)...

And he's not little (anymore)...

Oh... and he's not a little girl...



But it's HIM! It really IS!

It's the Little Things...

It’s the little things we do and say

That mean so much as we go our way,

A kindly deed can lift a load

From weary shoulders on the road,

Or a gentle word, like summer rain,

May soothe some heart and banish pain,

What joy or sadness often springs

From just the simple little things.

~ Willa Hoey ~

Sometimes it is all about the little things.  Right?  Often I don't take the time to stop and really think about it... think on it and absorb it and... appreciate it.

Tonight, when I didn't really feel like cooking dinner,  my youngest pouted.  I asked her what time she was going "home" (to her bio-mom's).  She said 5pm.  I truly, honestly, did not want to start dinner at 3:30pm so she could eat before she left.  I wasn't hungry.  I had a lot of things to do.  It's a Sunday and I just sometimes want to do nothing on Sundays. 

And then she said, "But your cooking is always So Good!"

It wasn't manipulative.  It wasn't whiny.  It wasn't pouty.  It almost went straight over my head, but I stopped and took a breath and realized... it was a compliment from a 14-year old.

She got dinner.

My Scrapbook Room - The Beginning

It is a dream of every scrapbooker (I believe) to have their very own "scrapbook room".  A place with space to create and make a mess and just get things done.  I am green with envy for those scrappers who have four walls and a door and S - P - A - C - E. 

Not that I am without my own little corner.  I do have my own little itty bitty creation station.  It's in my bedroom, and it is a little drop-leaf, green formica kitchen table surrounded by Store-in-Style cubes.  Don't get me wrong, I loved my space when I first got it.  It was perfect... and organized.  It looked like this (only better - I can't find my "just set up" photo):

Yes, this photo shows that it is a little disorganized... I'm terrible at putting things away when I buy something new... any tips would be super appreciated, by the way.  After a while, I bought a few more cubes and moved things around and got more and more scrapping supplies, and still didn't learn how to put things away, and now things sorta look like this:

and this:

Yikes!  Anyone want to come over and help me clean this up?  I'll pay you in excess scrapbooking supplies! 

Actually, my solution is that I just need MORE space.  I have too much stuff.  Well, not too much stuff as in I have more than I "need"... but too much stuff as in I have more than what the space I'm using will allow for.

So, early on in summer 2009, the hubs and I started talking about how we are always on separate levels of the house.  He spends much of his free time on his computer playing games, in our computer room downstairs.  I spend much of my time in the bedroom, staring at my scrapbooking mess and wishing I was Samantha from Bewitched and could just wiggle my nose to get it all cleaned up and organized.  But I digress.

We really don't spend a lot of time together now that I have mostly given up computer gaming.  When I did game, I'd be in the same room as he is, our backs facing each other as we played together on the same game (World of Warcraft and before that, Asheron's Call - any closet gamers out there reading this?)  He offered up the suggestion that my scrapbooking stuff could come downstairs into his "man cave" and then we'd be together more.  (Aaaaawwwwww... isn't that sweet?).

So I looked around and almost cried.  Because, you see, his "man cave" is overrun by crap.  Mostly my crap, I will admit, but he has his share.  Take a look see:

The silhouette of the hubs.  He was looking a little grungy that day so I just cut him out...

The walls in this room are unfinished.  When we first moved into the house in 2000, they walls were covered with 1970's-green paisley wallpaper.  One of my sisters and I ripped it down quickly, but it was wallpaper on untreated drywall, so chunks of the wall came out as well.  My dad came out later and 'mudded' the walls for us so that we could paint. 

Uhm.  I'm embarrassed to say that this was in 2002.

But the hubs and I... we tried to gussy it up a little.  We hung beautiful artwork:

I wish I had a close up of this gorgeous artwork so you could you appreciate the talents of the artists.

Aside from the unfinished walls, this room was my computer room, my file room, my pay the bills space, the place where I "stored" projects I would get to later, and also where I kept my candles (I used to sell Partylite and I have a huge addiction to candles... almost as bad as my scrapbook supplies addiction).  On the other hand, my husband kept several computers in various states of repair (or disrepair) among other pieces and parts "just in case".  Oh yeah, and lots and lots of computer game CDs, books and whatnot.  Much of this was in the closet.

Because of the lovely state of constant mess, I didn't take many photos down here (obviously as I'm using the same one over and over to demonstrate the area). 

After my mini meltdown about what needed to happen to move downstairs with all my scrappy goodness, I began to plan... and buy more stuff!  I'd have to fill the space, of course! 

Wait 'til you see the transformation.  It's still "in progress", but I wanted to share the various steps that are completed and then give you a Grand Reveal.  Once I'm downstairs, watch out!  I'll be creating left and right!  I'll finally use my Wishblade!  I'll be able to view all of my stamps!  You won't be able to stop me!  You won't believe how productive I'll be! You'll get sick of the projects I post!

For now, though... until I get the rest of the pictures posted... someone PLEASE come over and help me organize!  Pretty please?  I'll buy you pizza! 

Hello?  Anyone out there?  All I can hear is crickets...

*sigh*