Category Archives: life

Where’ve you been?

Oh wait, that should probably be “where’ve I been?”

Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or hang out on ScrapHappy, you probably know where I’ve been. Moving!

We said goodbye to our lovely house in the Pine Hills, and our wonderful neighbors, and moved a whole 3.5 miles away to Guilderland. Except the post office tells us we’re still in Albany. 😀

Hey, this way my husband gets to say he’s still in Albany, and I get a different school district. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Albany. It just wasn’t a good fit for my geeky, pun-loving, history adoring no.1 son.

So. We moved.

Instead of living in a 100+ year old house with a decidedly arts and crafts bent, we’re living in a mid-century split level (if one step difference counts as a split level) with an upstairs.
We’ve got a garage and a driveway. That means room for 5, count them, 5! cars. As opposed to renting a parking spot across the street. Five steps to get into the house, instead of 15! No sidewalk to shovel. Instead I have a driveway. Which, since I won’t have the whole neighborhood trooping over it before it even stops snowing, will be much easier to shovel. Since I have no stairs!

Although, I thought the heavy, clay filled soil at our old house was bad, the soil here is even worse- it’s all sand. Jonathan and his compost pile have their work cut out for them.

We miss our old neighbors. We’ve somehow managed to go the whole summer without getting together, which is sad. At least we have some wonderful, welcoming new neighbors. I really hope I can manage to introduce the old and new soon. I know! Party at my house! After we get the kitchen remodeled.

Now that’s exciting!

(Oh, and check out my new craft room!)

Family News

So have I mentioned that my sister is expecting her first baby at the end of February? Well, she is. And she makes a mighty cute pregnant lady, if you ask me.
Both she and her husband are reading baby books and baby blogs and talking to all their friends with kids to get ideas, advice, and recommendations on what they need to have, and what they need to do, and what they can expect. Of course, you never really know what it’s like to be a parent until you have your own child, but it never hurts to be informed.
Our brother has started a betting pool on when the baby will come. I’ve called dibs on February 29th. My sister is hoping for the 15th, since that was our grandfather’s birthday, and he was a pretty awesome guy.
I’m really looking forward to meeting the next member of our family. I know my sister is pretty excited too.
belly!

I am the typo queen!

I make a lot of typos. I correct them as I go, but when I am chatting or texting, typos just proliferate and bloom and take on a life of their own.

At least I have yet to send out an email with my name misspelled. Which I do just about every time I type it.

Hetaher
Hather
Hetahr
Heathr
heather
Heather

See what I mean?!

Status Report

My to-do list is certainly not shrinking. Last month was super hectic, and I managed to miss a number of things, in spite of having them on my agenda. (I suppose it would help if I had them in my agenda on the correct day.)
Every day has been very busy, but because of the nature of the things I am doing, I have to frequently switch gears. I finally got one thing on my to-do list checked off today: Ethan’s room has been decluttered. Well, except for the two boxes of books and the trunk full of toys that need to be carted up to the attic. But that’s 5 minutes work, unlike most of the other tasks that keep piling up.
So let’s list this month’s highlights, and see how I do getting them done.

1. More cleaning and decluttering. I think I’ll tackle Simon’s room next. And then the dining room and back porch.
2. Painting. I still need to paint the hall, but Jonathan put his last coat of spackle on today, so I should be able to get to that this week.
3. Replacing the paneling in the downstairs bath. What’s there now is just ugly. I hope what’s under it is okay, so I can have beadboard paneling on the bottom and paint on top, but we’ll see.
4. Yearbook. I’ll need to place the order this week, so we can have it before school gets out.
5. Another PTA meeting. And RIF, because last month didn’t work for the kids. Can you say state testing? I think I hate state testing.
6. My craft room! I have left this to last, and have been piling more and more stuff in there as I find more things that should probably live there.
7. There’s more, like this month’s open house and scrapbook social, but those are fun things comparatively speaking.

I just want to be done.

I think I need some curled up with a silly book time, but I’m under a self-imposed time crunch, so it will have to wait until all the big projects are on their way to done.

Speaking of big projects, can anyone recommend a good housecleaning company?

Lots of Plate Juggling

Tomorrow is the start of another round of LOAD. I am glad it is starting again, but I expect this month to be much more stressful than past LOADS have been.
In no particular order, here’s a brief list of the things that May will bring:

  • Simon’s birthday
  • Jonathan’s birthday
  • Jason’s birthday
  • PTA meeting
  • make PTA schedule for next year
  • figure out how to fit in a school board budget presentation for our parents
  • run another round of RIF (reading is fundamental–I love this program!)
  • teach 3 more classes of a beginning scrapbooking class. Also something I love and look forward to.
  • Open house at JoAnn’s to try to get more students to sign up for classes
  • Scrapbook Social the last Monday of the month. Another thing I love.
  • Coordinate roofers, painters, and basement waterproofers to finally get done the work we’ve been wanting to do on the house for years.
  • Interior painting, cleaning and decluttering. While I love my orange hall, I know most people won’t really appreciate the color. And I have more books than most people want to look at as well.
  • All so I can try to put the house on the market by the first of June.

Doesn’t look like too bad a list right? LOAD’s totally doable, right?

That’s what I keep telling myself. But I’ve already given myself permission to NOT do a page every day this month. Because, in the end I want to make pages that my kids and I want to read. Not just because I’ve set a goal for myself. So if I have no stories to tell on a really difficult day, I am NOT going to make a page. Because after a day of painting or cleaning or packing, I may not have any words left to add to my pages, and I find that words are one of the most important pieces of scrapbooking for me.

Not the “go for it!” attitude you’re accustomed to hearing from me? Au contraire. I am going to try. But I am giving myself permission to keep it fun. If LOAD becomes a chore rather than a reward this month, I am going to take my own advice and remind myself there is no “should” in scrapbooking. I love LOAD, and I want to keep it that way.

Just a quick share…

I am in the process of going through my photos from this past summer and fall, finally. I have an old version of photoshop elements (3!) that I was using, and it has been dying a slow and painful death. But that may be the junk computer I’m using. At any rate, I treated myself to the latest version of photoshop elements yesterday, and have spent today getting it installed, and starting to go thru the past 6 month’s worth of photos. (gotta archive them, before something bad happens to them…) (cos it will. I’ve already lost a total of a year’s worth of photos due to computer issues since I got my first digital camera Christmas 2001.)

As I have been going through my photos, this one leapt out at me. Not because of the wonderful interaction between Simon and Jonathan, but because of the imp filling the bottom of the frame.

Made me laugh out loud when I noticed him. How about you?