Assembly Lines

FMIL and I hunkered down today for some serious card-making. She wanted to work on her Christmas cards after experiencing my madness for the past few years. We had some friends who said that they may stop by so she put out quite the spread.

We have been nibbling on Cheddar and Gouda with crackers, chocolates, grapes, and Bugles chips with sour cream and sunflower seeds. Weird, but oddly addicting.

She managed to get all of her cards done! Woohoo! It's funny how efficient you can get at mass-producing a bunch of cards.

I made a bunch of cards to replenish my stash, a pack of little gifts, and started on another set of fancier cards. We were super productive!

Here are some pictures of the cards that I was working on today:

 

 

Clean Up, Aisle 2

I swear we're going to work on more Christmas cards tomorrow. It's been delayed for a few weeks but I think it'll finally come together soon.

Floors were thoroughly cleaned, living and work areas have been tidied and prepped, and supplies have been collected.

In the midst of all of that, our poor baby had the saddest of accidents. Pet-parent (just plain ole parent) alert- kitty was going Number 2 and it was softer than ideal but getting stuck via grass strands.

He was having a bad day already with dealing with the wild runt and all of the changes going on around the house. But I was cleaning things in the room when I saw him hop up onto the bed and start butt-scooting. That's not so bad because usually it's just an itch, but this was the first time he left chunks and a big ole smear on the sheets.

Oh, yes.

I yelled for some help from the SO who was in the other room finishing up his lunch that we had just come back from getting. We had to corral a very panicked and embarrassed kitty cat who was running away from us while trying to wipe his butt clean. On the floors, on the stove, and on the fridge. Sigh. Thank god we hadn't done the floors yet at that time. I managed to get the chunks that were still hanging from him, make him realize I was trying to help, bleach wipe the other surfaces, and help him get his back-end fur clean.

At least the now clean sheets are going to feel lovely tonight.

Poor baby boy. He already is disgusted with himself when everything comes out normal, but to have this happen? He was very embarrassed and super sulky for several hours afterward. We've been very cuddly. I told the SO that this was just a practice run for dealing with kids. Needless to say, he'd rather take the cat. We both agree it's a million times easier.

In other news, next week should be so full of fun mail-wise. I'm expecting a really fun package that we'll set up for a baby shower gift and my prints for the Florida scrapbook that I ordered yesterday (thanks to the Fall Sale at Persnickety Prints) are already ready to be shipped! So excited. They're such a great company. Tons of people did not enter the coupon sale code with their order and they are double-checking and refunding the difference to those customers! How awesome is that?

Canyon

A couple of the kids today were insisting that we were going on a field trip to the Grand Canyon today. That's several hours away with two classrooms-worth of children. No, thank you.

We actually went to Sabino Canyon and it's about 20-30 minute drive away from school on the bus. I had not been there yet so was excited to see what they had to offer. Only authorized vehicles were allowed in and there were tons of people jogging and walking the trails.

Nature walk ending with a quick coloring activity surrounding camouflage, hiding our creations nearby for each other to find, and lunch. It ended up getting pretty warm today and there were only bits of shade on the trail.

We did have to learn what to do if we happened upon a mountain lion or snake an vice versa.

Here are some pictures I took of things that we observed.

 Stood in an empty wash.

 Noticed the different kinds of greenery.

 Saw mud and new were were close to some water.

 Saw many spider webs. This one was huge.

 Observed the different layers and shapes of the rocks.

 Hypothesized that these were old deer tracks.

Found little alcoves of water!

 Found schools of little fish in small pools of water.

 Spotted tiny red toad/ frog.

Tired and a tad dehydrated so I definitely need some rest now. TGIF!

Celebrating

I wanted to start off by saying Happy Birthday to my best friend! I'm glad I got to see you tonight even if Skype was being evil, rude, and mean. Hope you have fun celebrating this weekend!

Cannot wait until the weekend, mostly because I want to sleep for many many hours in a row without freaking out in the middle of the night thinking that I slept through my alarm. Sigh.

Got a few basic cards done tonight. I think that's my next medium-potentially large project. My nice stash is very depleted because card sets do make for a nice and quick gift. Plus, I have a stamp set or two that have been barely used because I couldn't figure out how I wanted to use them.

Thinking about the past two weeks, I have accomplished or made serious progress on many solid projects. I'm very proud of myself for that. Not sure what's changed but have decided to keep riding this wave and trucking through in the meantime.

I get to order the prints tomorrow for my family's scrapbook! We're planning to make a bunch of Christmas cards this weekend too. I hope that pulls through. I should have something pretty fun to share tomorrow! Fun as in different that what I've been posting lately, lol.

And Out

The last thing I remembered doing was downloading and labeling reading materials for the kids and seeing which episode of Garfield & friends the SO was watching.

I suddenly woke up with  a start an hour later not sure how I got upside down.

Guess I've had a long few days.

Wish I wasn't as tired as I was/ am. There's just so much stuff to do! However, I am allowed to rest or my body will do it for me, lol. We're several steps closer to many big gift projects being done. Cannot wait! I'd be more excited but then may just drop to the ground.

The weather is nice and cool while tempers rise what with the Presidential Debates and holiday tension settling in. Oye, the drama and insanity.

For Me/ Us

Couldn't contain myself any longer. Went through all of my digital photos from 2009 until now (2012) and set aside any that I thought would be good for my own Project Life book.

It would be as a sequel to the original 12x12 inch scrapbook I had made for our first year of dating. I'm pretty sure all of the picked pictures would fit into a single book this time around.

I know I talked about wanting to use up more of my patterned paper, (there is already a book I pictured out as our second album!) but I cannot express how little I am interested in handcrafting another volume like the original. It was just way to pain-staking and long enough to take a few years to finish!

I also noticed that we've taken less and less of ourselves as the years go on because of the tight spot we've gotten into financially. I'm going to try to change that in a few ways. Mostly by embracing the every day moments more.

Haven't been able to focus on too much more even though there's been plenty of projects done for others. The holiday gifts and ideas continue.

Review So Far

Well, I finally have caught up with the Garden Tab!

It was only, say... five months that I was behind? Sheesh.

I have not blogged nearly as much as I have in the past about my pathetic garden. The vlogs helped cover more info in a shorter amount of hands-on time, but I have come so close to giving up so many times this year.

Well, I have more posts than I did last year, but the amount of information, pictures, and frequency are much less this time around.

At least I've learned a lot about what to keep track of and what has been worth the effort. When we do get into our own space, I really want to keep a garden up, even if it's on a small scale or never gets any bigger than it is now.

It started off with so much diversity this year and now has just under half that amount. I haven't really done the numbers. I'm tired and sick.

Turns out that I'm chaperoning a field trip to a local canyon this Friday. It involves larvae-hunting and a great nature walk that one of the teachers from last year ended up passing out on. To say that I'm worried about some of these flimsy kids is an understatement. I hope it's only super fun.

More gift-giving plans are being made each day and it makes my spirit happy but worries my wallet just a little more. I'm trying not to let that overshadow making this holiday season a happy one. Learning to adapt and find simpler ways to celebrate is definitely a priority this year. Good life skills. :) Oh yes, I am grabbing onto those silver linings. Lol.

I can't even think of what else I wanted to accomplish tonight, but at least I surprised myself with catching up with those garden summaries!