june 12-of-12

this month i decided to skip the frustration my desktop computer surely has in plan for me and go all digital. it ain't fancy, but it's done. :)

next month, timmy and i will be in chicago visiting the big kids and arie. squee! we will have sooo much fun - and should make for a more interesting 12-of-12, too!

may 12-of-12!

it's getting easier and easier to post just my psd file for my 12-of-12s, but the pictures are taken and the words are written, so i say good enough!

now, if you'll excuse me, i must return to michael, who is resisting his nap and shouting, "bob! baaaaahhhhhb!" i don't know who this bob character is, but i wish he'd just answer already. i could use the help! :)

april 12-of-12

i am not one iota more organized today than i was last month at this time. what is with me? i don't know, but something's gotta give . . .

timmy's preschool is holding a board meeting to decide whether to continue after this school year. it seems they can make $30,000-ish more if they use the preschool space as daycare instead (they have a daycare, as well, but have a classroom or two of preschoolers who don't attend daycare). can't blame them for wanting more money, but . . . they're part of the local college and the teaching students receive some of their classroom training in the preschool. i want them to continue, at least for one more year. after that, timmy will be in kindergarten, so i won't care . . . i'm small and selfish, i know, but i needs to look out for mines own, right?

easter was hard for me this year, as evidenced in my 12-of-12 layout. tim was supposed to be off that weekend. alas, it did not happen. again. he had to do some sort of "extra patrol" way out in some other county, miles and miles away. he did get to see timmy wake up, and came back in the evening. i did not make a ham, or anything else, for that matter. i offered left-over pizza to timmy for lunch, but he'd eaten so much candy he wasn't hungry. and i let him. (today we're back to our normal no-candy-ness.) i think the week of grey, rainy weather probably added to my emotional slump.

also? my desktop is on its last leg - well, last pre-computer-guy leg, anyway, so i am unable to print my pictures on photo paper and stick them on cardstock. instead, a very plain-jane digital version:

in other news, i have decided i am too fat to exist as is. enough is enough! ish. i do not know what i will do about it, but i am ready to do something. i have begun researching nutritional requirements. i figure i'll start there. i have never had my cholesterol checked (i know!), so a call to my doctor is on the horizon. also a call to our insurance company to determine whether a dietician's consultation is covered.

as for exercise? well, for the most part, this will have to be cobbled together from the tiny snippets of time i have available due to michael's nap schedule. as soon as school is out for the summer, i will only have my own boy at home, so off to the ymca we will go. ethan and timmy can go into the ymca "kid zone" or into the pool with me, but almost michael's entire waking time is taken up by eating and preparing for sleep. next school year, ethan will be in kindergarten and michael will be old enough to join timmy in the kid zone.

aaaaanyway, i do not know how i will get rid of my fatness yet. all i know is i have never been on a "diet" and i am not willing to try one now. whatever i do, it has to be something i'm willing to do forever.

(join me now for a prayer: please, dear God, do not let me read this post one month from now without my having done anything to help myself! :D)

march 12-of-12

i'm a little late on this one. and i'm posting an image of my psd file instead of a scan of the actual page b/c i don't have an actual page yet. good ol' timmy borrowed my card reader and can't remember where he might have left it. but i'll replace this with the real one soon, i hope.

it was really a great day, despite being so stinkin' cold we had no outside time. and that is really hard on timmy. it appears michael is growing up to be an outside guy, too.

there's a large part of the day unrepresented by pictures, as usual, b/c i was busy making st. patrick's day t-shirts for the kids. this single-minded craftiness resulted in the abandonment of my camera . . . and maybe my mind. just a little bit. hence, the mcdonald's dinner again.

i hope by april 12th i'll be able to report a lot more organization going on here!

february 2009 twelve of twelve!

wow! february already! and it's half over. i have got to get my new email address to susan keuter so i'll get the 12-of-12 email reminders again. yep, i'm blaming susan for my memory loss. fortunately, i think i made up for my shortcomings by recreating certain parts of our day.

i wish i'd printed the title in a darker pink rather than red. but, i was rushing.

timmy was begging me to go to his room to listen to highwayman for the 100th, 101st, 102nd and 103rd time today. he likes to manipulate his cd to listen to a favorite song "again. and again. and again. and again..." did you know "many a maiden lost her marbles to my train"? it's true. timmy sang it to me.

January's 12-of-12

after all my planning and scheming to scraplift other people's 12-of-12 layouts, i ended up using the same ol' format. and i think i'll just stick with it. it's so easy, and getting the day documented is the point, so . . . we had a busy day yesterday! it was really hard for me to narrow the photos down to just twelve.

after putting this thing together this morning, i've learned two things. first, i have learned i am not above begging. i plan to call stan and beg him to get my laptop in sooner. i'll pay more; whatever. the second thing i learned is that i should not have been putting off taking the old desktop in for service. it is s-l-o-w. and i can't work like i'm accustomed, with fifteen different applications all going at the same time. uh, no way. one thing at a time, and so slow i had time to change laundry loads while each picture was opening.

December Twelve-of-Twelve

i'm not doing well this fall/winter with the whole blogging thing, or with the whole twelve-of-twelve thing, either! i anxiously awaited december 12th, only to have my memory erased at 11:59pm on the 11th and not think of it again until yesterday. what's up with that?! so, instead of the usual, present my december 12-of-12:

november's 12-of-12

several days late in posting my 12-of-12, but when you take into account how long it's been sincei posted at all, it doesn't seem so bad, now does it?

something so funny to me: i printed out my text to review for typos and found none. then, after i'd printed it onto the cardstock (no going back), i re-read the first sentence: "Once again, I did not beat Timmy up." lol!

what i meant to say was that i failed to wake up before timmy. but i suppose the other possible meaning is also true. i did not assault my little guy, either. once again. :)

October's 12-of-12

october's 12-of-12 was fraught with difficulties. for example, i forgot about it for an hour or two first thing in the morning. then, i forgot again mid-day. then, my camera battery went dead because i forgot to charge it.

ah, well, i improvised, and here's my layout:

quite the artist, aren't i? :)

september's 12-of-12

i finished my september 12-of-12 layout in record time! (this will change, come january, when i will abandon this super-simple layout and begin shamelessly scraplifting some of the other layouts i've seen there.) once again, by mid-morning, i completely forgot to take pictures. but i did remember gain right at the end of supper time. i also forgot a self-portrait again. oh, well.

we didn't leave the house all day. hurricane ike, along with the tropical depression (can't remember its name) off the west coast of mexico, has wreaked havoc here in kansas.

nothing like texas - i'm not whining or comparing our plight to theirs. i'm just saying it's been really rainy here and that'll continue for another week or so. which means we will not have much time to play outside. which means (again, i'm not trying to compare my teeny problems with those who've had to leave their flooded homes) we will most probably have time-out-o-rama at our house. our little guy needs his outside time. i'm not opposed to a little fun in the mud, but not all day every day! or maybe . . .

the kind of day (week) i'm having

i finished my 12-of-12 layout for august. and a couple hours later i removed it from the scanner to put it into the album and i read it. oh, boy. i got the date right! but, my journaling sounds like it was written by an esl student. i flipped two pictures around. i left the end of one sentence off. i misspelled many words.

but you know what? it is, as written, an accurate portrayal of my day. my real life. one day many years from now, my descendents will read this page and know their grandfather and great-uncle drove me crazy on august 12, 2008. and that my house was a mess.

harvest

yesterday, i used my entire harvest of tomatoes (upside-down tomatoes, remember?). to make blt's. for one meal. my tumbling tom produced five grape-tomato sized tomatoes and three cherry-tomato sized tomatoes. my two early girl plants have produced the five big (well, comparatively - they're bigger than the tumbling toms . . . a little bigger than golf balls, a little smaller than tennis balls) tomatoes, plus the three still green on the vine. 

ah, the fruit of my labors:

i don't know why they look so spotty here - they were deLISH! and although it might sound like a big waste of time to nurture three tomato plants all summer in exchange for such a paltry harvest, i'm still happy. my herbs (in the tops of the hanging baskets) really did well! they're so pretty growing, particularly the oregano (which i have decided i do not like to cook with as much as with dried). the tomatoes might have needed a deeper basket. more room for roots might have meant more tomatoes.

i will beg tim to put in (and care for) a "real" garden next year in the back yard, but i think i'll continue to grow herbs in hanging baskets each year. maybe i'll even try to bring them inside somehow for the winter, even though my kitchen garden experiment from last winter failed miserably. (my mom, ever my unconditional cheerleader, says the problem was probably the seeds.)

other highlights of the day yesterday . . . i was able to sit in a lawn chair outside. sitting at all is an accomplishment, but in the slouchy lawn chair? oh, yeah. my little guy was desperate for some outside time!

he and ethan hunted for buried treasure (chuck e. cheese coins) in the gravel pile, went to "the dump" with many loads of "garbage" (leaves and sidewalk chalk) in the dump trucks and discovered a new species (three caterpillars i found eating my italian parsley leaves!). why, oh, why did i not take even ONE photograph of the day's activities? what a shame.

but i'm making up for it today, because today is the 12th of august. 12-of-12, baby! documenting my everyday life. the life i'd better get back to right now, since timmy has NO clean underwear and both boys are starving . . .

july's 12-of-12

the twelfth of this month dawned grey and rainy. just like the three days preceding it. yuck. i needs me some sunshine. (maybe that's why i used such a retina-searing color of cardstock?) and timmy needs him some outside time.

but . . . i powered past my feelings of blah-ness and made sure my camera was ready to go. i lived my life. i took my pictures. once again, i forgot to take pictures of meals. however! i did type in the correct date this month. this is progress.

i hope my photos next month will be shockingly improved after my photography class (which was scheduled to start on the 10th but was canceled at the very last minute b/c the instructor's wife was involved in an auto accident - she's fine, and we'll make it up with a class meeting added to the end). i plan to learn the heck out of it. 

june's 12-of-12

i finished my june 12-of-12 page today. not on june 30th, but today. go me! something i've noticed these past three months i've been doing the 12-of-12 thing? i forget to take pictures around mid-day. i guess i forget often throughout the day. see below? no pictures of meals. oh, we did have meals - at the table, talking about our day. just no proof. until next month, when i will accomplish my goal of remembering to take pictures all day!

i love the shot of timmy peeing on a tree in the back yard. twenty years ago when andrew was potty training, i would never have allowed such a thing. now? who cares? i'm just thrilled he's keeping peepees out of his undies! when we travel - even to the grocery store - we have a potty seat in the cargo area. no peepees on trees in public. that you know of.

next year, i'm copying sara's layout, as seen on susan's 12-of-12 blog. but you know what? the simplicity of slapping it all down on a sheet of cardstock and being done with it is very freeing. i suffer from low scrap-esteem and foiled perfectionism, so i finish very few pages, even though i have journal page after page of ideas and even sketches. i just feel more successful and want to start and complete more pages after this. after doing last month's 12-of-12 page, i completed two more within a couple days.

if i never do another page other than these 12-of-12s, my family will still have an accurate record of our daily lives. and that's really the point, isn't it?

my first 12-of-12

seems like such a simple concept. take twelve pictures of your everyday life on the 12th of each month and then scrap them. cathy zielske's first try was what caught my attention, causing me to check out susan keuter's 12-of-12 blog and sign up for her email reminders.

talked my friend susan into it, and maybe her sister sharon, too. they, of course, had an exciting april 12th. they went to a quilt show or auction (something creative and exciting)

i didn't leave the house all day. timmy was feverish and woke up several times in the night, so like any good . . . uh, tired . . . mom would do for her baby, i snuggled in mommy's bed for a while watching my friends tigger & pooh.

he finally got hungry, though, so i made oatmeal. then, since i was up anyway, i decided to load and start the dishwasher, vacuum the living room and do some laundry. oh, and the laundry remains undone. but i did make some no-bake cookies. that's just as good, right? no, really - wouldn't you rather have no-bake cookies than clean socks? no . . . me neither.

aaaaaaaaaaanyway, my first 12-of-12 day turned out extrmely boring. but at least i put in an attempt. i even chose which twelve pics i'd use and "sketched" a layout in pse. sent it to susan and sharon (& susan keuter), too. with march 12th 2008 on it. yeah. march. when i finally get around to actually scrapping it, though, i'll use the correct month just to make it interesting.