Project Life 2014 :: Week 44

Hello! I am back (already!) with another week of Project Life catch up! I am not keeping track of how much I have left because that would be way too depressing.

Not a lot of pictures to choose from. Apparently I was more focused on relaxing than documenting. But that is okay because I was able to get it done! I'm not a fan of going back in time, but it will definitely help me to remember to take more pictures this week!

Project Life 2014 :: Week 45

I'm back! Again…and finally! Hooray! I am procrastinating grading some essays and had forgotten how quickly I can do a Project Life week. So I'm glad for that.

I loved last week! I took Friday off, met one of my favorite authors, and Tyson put an inflatable turkey in my parents' yard. It's getting through this week that is challenging…I have an allergic reaction to something going on all over my neck and don't get me started on coming back from a long weekend. Perhaps today will be a better day!

Project Life 2014, Week 38

I had to google what week this was...because for now I am starting with the freshest in my mind and working backwards! And I am okay with that.

I realized that I will have to switch to doing the 3x4 cards as dates because I really don't know where I will end up on left vs. right side of the page. I think it will depend on what I have for pictures and if I do a monthly review or what. All I know is that Vegas will get its own two page spread.

I am a fan of these pictures from last week. I used to hate selfies, but they really are fun! I was bummed that I forgot the front camera on my phone takes much smaller pictures...I'll have to remember that in the future! I also love the picture of my cheerleaders under the rainbow, but it makes me wish I had lugged my real camera out for a better shot. Next time! Tyson's BBQ from Saturday was exceptionally tasty and merited recognition. The small pieces on the bottom right are trimmings from the ribs--he calls them meat candy, and they are oh.so.delicious. They are always done a couple hours before everything is actually ready, so they are a perfect appetite-whetting delight.

All in all, it feels great getting back on the "documenting life" train. I have quite a bit of the summer to catch up on, but I will definitely be glad to have it checked off. I might have to give myself an incentive to get it done though...

Here we go again...

I don't know what it's been about this school year, but it has been absolutely insane on my campus this year. I've talked to several teachers and coaches about this, and the general feel has been frenetic and stressed. I finally settled into things this week (week 4), so now I'm ready to catch up blogging and Project Life-ing.

So, what's new with me? I don't think I've mentioned that this year I'm teaching 8th grade...and one class of 7th. It's been good for me to change things up (new curriculum, new room, etc.).

We've also been enjoying a little football season! It's the last season before the big season ticket holder move, so have been enjoying heading up to College Station for the games. We will be in a new section next year...but sometimes change is good (as I have discovered this year at school)!

I got a Fitbit for my birthday and have been enjoying tracking my movement and daily rhythms. I've definitely been taking the pups out more--which I know they love! I have recently hit a plateau on the weight loss and have started re-evaluating what I do, especially after reading this article.

When Tyson barbecues, he takes our bedroom TV outside so he has something to do besides watch a fire for hours. Last night he got the idea that afterwards he could put both screens in the living room so he could keep tabs on multiple games...and it's still like that today. Brody gets stressed when football is on, so I think now he is double scared. 

That's all for now...I will start working on Project Life here soon and hope to share later this week. Adios!

Catching up...

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I've updated. I feel like I turned around and summer was pretty much over! I have also been neglecting Project Life, so I will have quite a few updates coming up. In the meantime, here's a list of my current faves.

1. Tyson, as always! Especially vacation-mode Tyson. More specifically, Vegas-mode Tyson.

2. My puppies. This was my first day at home with them after dog sitting for a week and a half. I think they missed us!

3. Myfitnesspal app. I have tried to get into this several times, but something about seeing the scale tell me that I've gained 21 pounds in the past two years helped me to rededicate my efforts. I've been using it for the past two weeks along with the pedometer in my phone, and I've really enjoyed the accountability. I even like it more than the game on diet (I blogged about that here) because I can eat what I want and easily see how much I can eat.

4. My cheerleaders. We held practice to learn cheers this week, and it reminded me why I do this. I just love getting to know students better and investing in their lives.

5. Carrots.

6. Composition notebooks.

7. Vacuuming.

8. Rain!

9. Cuddle time with my little monster. Still working on taking a good selfie.

10. Keeping up with Kyle Field construction updates. My husband shows me the most exciting parts, so it doesn't take much effort on my part. I really enjoyed seeing it in person last weekend!

Project Life 2014, Title Page

I finally got around to making a title page! I figured it was easy enough to come back to, so I just never thought much about it.

2013 title page here

Project Life 2014, Week 18

I've still been under a blog coma, but I worked on a little Project Life this weekend while procrastinating some grading I needed to get done. After I decided to just do a "rest of April" page, I had May remaining. Here's the first week!

Tyson and I went to the opera--definitely out of the norm for us, so it warranted mentioning. I had to also include an in-progress shot of Tyson's pit as well. It's come a long way in a month for sure!

Here's how it looks with the previous page:

I just realized I need to redo the left side; I forgot to clip the photo of Iris and that will totally bug me. I guess that will have to be added to my summer to do list!

Project Life 2014, "The Rest of April"

Hello, laziness! This is my attempt at not spending a lot of time "catching up" on the weeks I have been skipping. I am strangely fine with it...not that much happened anyways. 

Project Life 2014, Week 15

Another page done for 2014.

This was two weeks ago...mostly weekend fun because I haven't been taking pictures during the week. And Vortex was seriously good. I feel like my list of books to read is getting longer than my to do list! 

I have not been the best blogger lately...generally I can post more if I write them over the weekend and then set to publish through the week. But lately I've been a little sickly, a lot tired, and trying to spend my time either resting or tackling my to do list. I am going to work on that though!

DIY :: enamel dots!

source

So in the scrapbooking realm, enamel dots are all the rage (at least for me!). The downside is that a pretty package with about 40-60 dots usually costs $4-5. Not highway robbery...but I love to put a nice little cluster on a card or scrapbook page, so as a result I tend to hoard them. Anyways, on instagram I noticed that some people were making their own with perler and pony beads. I decided to give it a try this weekend.

I bought this package of perler beads from Michael's for about $10. That's 11,000 dots for $10 plus the electricity to heat my oven. Yes, please. Of course, you can't get the variety in sizes...but that's okay.

before...during...after

They make me so happy. Now I just need to find maroon beads!

Here are a few tips from what I researched and experimented. This worked for my oven, but I'm sure everyone's is different.

• Put down parchment paper on a cookie sheet and lay them out. I like to arrange by color because it's prettier to look at. :)
• 280-285*F for 30ish minutes. I put a timer on and rotated the pan halfway through because they seemed to cook a little unevenly.
• At first I tried dark colors and light colors separately because I heard they took different amounts of time...but I did not find that to be the case. Black, white, grey, and clear beads all seemed to take longer than the rest of the colors though. On the last batch I did a variety and just kept those four colors in the back the whole time.
• When the dimple disappears from all of them, take them out and let cool to the touch. Mine didn't stick to the paper, so I was able to funnel them into a container easily.
• In my experience there was no smell at all, but I didn't try any pony beads (I read differing reports on smell between the types of beads).

Project Life 2014, Week 14

Last week was kind of brutal. I just had no motivation to blog! I worked on this over the weekend in between cleaning and watching Pioneer Woman. Unfortunately my laziness extended to taking very few pictures last week, so I'm not sure how I'll work that one out...

I might add text over some of the pictures. I will have to keep looking at it and see if it needs something else. Also, I must admit that the picture of Brody is from earlier this year that I never used. I've been taking more Sophie pictures lately, so I felt he needed a cute picture in the Project Life book. :o)

Project Life 2014, Week 13

Look out Oscars selfie. Our cheer selfie is pretty awesome! Last week was a really strange week--I took a half day off work for a nap, I had some weird stomach bug on Saturday, and Tyson was super busy running.

Weeks 12 and 13 together. Hizzah!

Project Life 2014, Week 12

I did not take many photos this week...I even had to go back through my texts to remember about this week. How sad, considering it was only a week ago! Seems like a really long time. My photos seemed so very beige, so I needed a little pop of something in my cards. I choose pinky red from the cut & paste kit. I think I am liking how it turned out!

Enjoying...

I read We Were Liars last Saturday. It was amazing and thought-provoking and strange and I loved it. I knew nothing about it when I started, and I think that's the only way someone would enjoy it. My librarian got an Advanced Reader Copy of it and said she needed someone else to read it so she could talk about it. Best book I've read this year. It comes out May 13th. Get it before someone lame spoils the ending for you.

I'm still working on The Here and Now. It's interesting in the fact that it's time travel, but there's still a small element of dystopian (to me, at least) because there's a society that has traveled back together and they have rules to coexist with the time natives. Reserving judgement until I finish.

Project Life 2014, Week 11

Project Life, Vegas edition! Little on journaling...the photos can speak for themselves. My plan this summer is to compile photos from all our Vegas trips in a minibook (which will probably turn out not-so-mini), so this is more of a highlight reel.

I picked up a new brush set on sale last week...I love geotags and it was only 99 cents!

I decided to represent the "bests"of the trip. At first the bottom picture bothered me because the Wynn was reflecting my image...but then I decided it was kind of cool. :o)

Random Photo Wednesday

Project Life 2014, Week 10

I could have made this a two-pager, but then Vegas would have needed to be three pages. Or I guess I could have put in a February "currently" page, but I wasn't thinking quickly enough for that. As it is my "currently" feature will have to be a bi-monthly occurrence due to the way my pages turned out.

Anyways, this was just a blur of a week. Pretty much every time I take a day off and need to get a bunch of things done in preparation for a substitute/life/whatever, the week flies by and I have no time to do anything. But I wasn't unhappy this time because it was the week before spring break, which is notorious for dragging by super slowly. The big thing on these pages was Galveston for my father-in-law's big birthday bash! Hizzah!

And in context with the other page. I love all of the green!

Random Photo Wednesday

Project Life 2014, Week 9

I skipped another week...I should have just combined 8 and 9 because not too much happened, but hopefully I go back and finish. Normally I would be sad not to do real Project Life because I liked the coaster from Baker Street, but my friend Ashli pointed out that I could take a picture of it to represent happy hour. So I complied, and the result isn't too shabby!

Random Photo Wednesday

Brody loves hanging out on the weekends! Don't let the picture fool you, though--he is not on the couch! He can only get his two front paws up and then gets nervous. :)

Project Life 2014, Week 7

I'm a little late posting this week because iCloud and I had some differences of opinions. I thought it should continue to work, but it didn't want to. We are all sorted out now though.

I had enough pictures for a full spread this week! It must be something about Valentine's Day because I remember it was the same case last year too.

I still think about that brisket pizza...I am just obsessed with pizza in general though. Or maybe it's carbs. I am also an aficionado of cheesy bread, french fries, baked potatoes...the list can continue, but I'll stop now.

I didn't really feel like journaling much. I should have said something about the fact that Tyson had three different drinks with dinner on Friday night (water, iced tea, Long Island iced tea), but I thought it was rather obvious. I'm also a fan of the heart filler card. I enjoyed making an ombre effect while filling in the hearts...much more fun than all one color!

Project Life 2014, Week 5

I am procrastinating grading some essays, so I finally sat down and did week 5. I realized that I waited too long to do this and didn't feel like journaling much about the week. And I was already short on pictures, so it was a little rough! 

Here's how the two pages will look together. You would think we like our dogs or something. 

Project Life 2014, Week 6

Not very many photos taken last week. I kept assuming other people would be taking pictures, which is weird for me because I am pretty particular about what I like in photos. Anyways...this is what came to pass. The "take a picture it will last longer" was a freebie found via Brooklyn Limestone here. Totally love that! I also used a little seafoam and midnight card action to keep in neutral-ish. I wish I would have switched the top two cards to mix up the background colors...but such is life. Also, I skipped week 5 so I need to go back and do that soon-ish. Hizzah!

Project Life 2014, "Currently"

I had one odd page for my January Project Life spreads, so I thought I would fill it in with random things and ideas that weren't included before but might be neat to look back on. Ideally I will try to work one in each month. Below is what it will look like with the adjacent page.

I wasn't really thinking about making it flow with my week 2 page, so hopefully I take that into consideration more next month. They don't necessarily go together though, so it doesn't really bother me.

Project Life 2014, Snow Days!

I wanted to capture a bit about our "inclement weather"...it's still kind of crazy that we got two days of school off to me. I think it will be interesting to look back on, especially because last summer I totally predicted that it would snow this winter. Not that it stuck or anything (and it was only snowing for about 5 minutes at my house), but still cool for Houston.

Project Life 2014, Week 4

Week 4! Just one side this week...I have our "snow" day(s??) in a separate page. Right now we are forecasted for another possible ice day tomorrow, so I am waiting to see if I will be adding to it or just filling in with journaling and info. I will share that page later this week! :)

Random Photo Wednesday

Better late than never, right?

Iris likes to say hello. I was able to visit her + my mom on Monday. :)

I love three-day weekends. The last day always zooms by though! No matter if it's a Friday or Monday off, the third day seems nonexistent by about 5pm. At least I was actually productive and not sitting on the couch watching a Criminal Minds or CSI: Miami marathon...

Project Life 2014, Week 3

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Not only do I respect and admire the man for his civil rights efforts, but I also appreciate the three-day weekend shortly into the new semester. Much needed for the students and myself! :)

Hello week 3! This consists of a little midnight + seafoam action.

I was really proud of my outfit on Monday, so I felt like it needed to be documented. The blurred picture was from our pajama spirit day at school...the cheerleaders all wore one-sies. They are presh.

I went ahead and played with the TimerCam app in an effort to get myself in PL more. That would be me watching Courtney Loves Dallas (or Toned Up...can't remember) with the last cup of Starbucks Christmas blend coffee. I watched those shows while Tyson was running his 5K on Saturday, as they are not his favorite.

Get crafty :: card rampage!

Last weekend my craft buddy and I got together for some dedicated hobby time. Skinnygirl margaritas were helping us be creative...always a favorite.

Anyways, I have been in "card making mode" lately because I have had so many occasions to give them! Thank you, housewarming, just because...they are all my favorite. I tend to write notes to my students, so I've been stockpiling small, simple cards in my desk to use as needed.

(Sidenote: my favorite card making necessity for this endeavor will always be these sets of cards from Target. They are flat, but perfect for a quick little note.)

So this weekend I decided to use up some old tags I've had lying around and make some cards. I ended up with 16 simple but sweet cards. I'm a fan.