The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Tonight, I am definitely not feeling the holiday spirit.  I guess that is the best time to shift my attitude. 

I will remember this manifesto.  Just reading it makes me smile. 

It comes from Shimelle’s “Journal Your Christmas.”  You should really sign up for the workshop (and it isn’t just for scrapbookers either).  The best thing about it is, once you sign up, you are in… permanently.  I can’t remember how many years ago I signed up, but it is always lots of fun.  I never stick with it for the entire season (December 1 through January 6?), but this year, I’m not going to feel guilty about it.  I will do what I can and that will be good enough.  I’ve always tried to do Ali’s December Daily as well, and end up feeling like a failure because I don’t do it daily.  But it is time to cast those doubts or feelings of failure aside and just have fun.  Any little bit I do will be better than nothing.  Don’t you think? 

Today was definitely not very Christmas-y other than waking up to everything being white from frost… and boy it was super cold. 

Kennedy and I went to the Little Gym this morning, and he amazed the instructor with his ‘forward rolls’ and strength.  He can just do them one after another.  He was also hanging from the uneven parallel bars today and then would just drop without a care in the world.  So much fun.  Once we got home, we got into our typical daily routine.  After Jessica got home, I started dinner and then Tim called and said there’d been an accident with the train.  The train in front of his had hit someone.  So totally depressing.  I had to drive to Kent to pick him up so he didn’t have to wait for hours while they did the investigation.  We didn’t end up getting home until about 7:30.  The only thing holiday related was the fact that UPS dropped off a couple of boxes at our house, and I finished up frosting the first trial batch of cookies. 

Yay!  Welcome, December.  Let’s get this party started!

December?

Apparently, the month of December has gotten away from me.  I started out with verve and enthusiasm, and am finishing with those things mostly intact, but I didn’t do my blogging or most of my December Daily activities as planned.  I should clarify that.  I did do the DD activities, I just didn’t get around to getting them documented each day.  I now understand the reason that Ali Edwards creates her album ahead of time and just plugs pictures and may add a few elements in.  Trying to keep up this year, I learned that I really need to keep the documenting as simple as possible. 

I was able to steal a couple of hours here and there to do some digital scrapbooking even though it was difficult to find the time to do the real thing.  I still think that part of my problem is the fear of imperfection and the fear of permanently sticking a picture onto a piece of paper and adding things without screwing it all up.  LOL. 

So here are some of the scrapbook items I accomplished in December for my December Daily project. 

   

 

 

Yes, I only got through the 11th of December.  I have pictures taken for other days, but just haven’t scrapped them.

After doing a few digital layouts, I decided that I really needed to pick a digital home and focus my efforts there since there are so many rules as far as posting to galleries.  So I decided that, since I spend most of my digital dollars there, I should park myself at Sweet Shoppe Designs.  So I’ve been participating in their “portfolio challenge” and during December you could choose any from the year you hadn’t done before, so I threw a few together. 

 

So we will see how it goes.  I’d really like to be able to get on a creative team for a designer, so maybe if I practice and put together some good pages, I will have a chance at some point.

I am getting anxious about the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011.  I am getting anxious about my trip to England (but overjoyed at the thought of a day trip to Paris).  Everything just feels all uncertain and like I’m vibrating on a different level these days. 

Little man is just getting up from his nap (of course he sleeps when his mom is home and is awake the whole time I have him).  So I guess I will end this post for now. 

I hope that you have a safe time and find a lot of joy ringing in the New Year and all that is ahead!

December Daily – Day 1: Advent

I know that the idea behind Advent is a religious one, but since I am not particularly religious, I’m going to stick with the Advent that is secular in nature.  I found a lot of neat ideas for different advent calendars this year, but I think that we’re going to save those for next year, when little man is just a bit older.  This year, we’re going to do the December Daily/Journal Your Christmas/Countdown to Christmas thing only.  LOL. 
Now it is the first and we’re kicking off December with a spirit of happiness, peace, celebration and magic.  I love the idea of rekindling the magic of the season.  It has been a long year full of ups and downs, frustrations and huge emotional highs.  Now it is time to focus on the magic. 

Jessica bought me an advent calendar at the store.  I am using that for my first picture/page.  We got a big laugh out of it because the chocolate inside is so totally horrible.  It is the size in diameter of a nickel probably, but I couldn’t even eat it.  I think that Dove needs to get into the advent calendar business.  :)

We’ve started planning out our activities and things for December.  It is going to be a month chock full o’ things, and I have to get ready for England (leaving january 7th), so time is of the essence and I want to wring every juicy moment out of December. 

It is especially important this year because it is little man’s first Christmas.  It is so exciting.  I know he isn’t going to understand it all, but it is special anyway, and I want us to have some family traditions that he can grow up with.  Today, Jessica and I looked through one of my first scrapbooks.  It was crazy and made us laugh about the old school page layouts and stickers used.  How ugly things were!  Good ol’ Creative Memories and Mrs. Grosmann’s stickers.  LOL.  Even though it was ugly and embarrassing to see how stupid it looked to me now, it was still fun to reminisce and have those memories.  I want to be sure to capture those moving forward.  I’m not getting any younger.  LOL. 

It makes me sad that my grandma has no scrapbooks or photo albums or anything really from her life.  She has a few photos that she still has (I could choke her for giving away a bunch of them before), and I’ve laid claim to them before she tries to throw them out too.  I want our family to have some history and tradition and if that starts now, then so be it!  We have some minor traditions, but I want to have them be recorded and passed down even if they are no longer being practiced. 

But now... let the countdown begin!

We’ll see…