2015 Documented Life Project: Week 19

Documented Life Project - Week 19

Can you say "fallen off the wagon?" Alas, yes, I am dreadfully behind on the Documented Life Project. With our official move to Tallahassee in August, I've not yet had time to get my studio fully back up and running, so I've not spent a lick of time in this journal. And yet I still have pages I haven't shared! This is Week 19. The challenge was "stitching" and the journal prompt was "All that I'm after is a life full of laughter."

Documented Life Project - Week 19

As I mentioned in my last DLP post, my sewing machine has been out of commission, so instead of even tackling hand-stitching, I used this series of stamps (which if I remember correctly are from Roben-Marie!) to act as my stitching. I do remember painting the girls hands to place them on the pages. They took the opportunity to put hand prints several other places as well. I hadn't even paid attention to the journal prompt when I decided to put the girls hand prints on the pages and "stitch" them together, but through sheer serendipity, the prompt already fits my life with these girls every day. They certainly keep me laughing!

Documented Life Project - Week 19

This was Mother's Day week so it was the perfect week to be filled with laughter. We spent Mother's Day morning at the beach and then came home and snuggled on the couch watching movies all afternoon.  See more of my 2015 Documented Life Project posts here and check out what all the Art to the 5th gals have going on here.

Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap: Done!

Last year when I received my card deck in the mail from Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap, the redheads immediately went rummaging through, trying to steal all the cards I received! So this year, I told them that if they wanted to receive cards, they had to make their own deck to send to others!

Sarah's cards for Jessica Brogan's card deck swap

Above are some samples from Sarah's deck. She went with a fun quote stamp that said, "If you are feeling blue, try painting yourself a different color." Love that!

Olivia's cards for Jessica Brogan's card deck swap

Above are some samples from Olivia's deck. The stamp quote she chose is "Count your rainbows, not your thunderstorms." Good message for my emotional girl.

Kelly's cards for Jessica Brogan's card deck swap.

And lastly, here are samples from my deck. I stuck with our family awesomeness theme with a "Stay Awe Some" stamp I found on Etsy. If you'd like one of your own, it was created by A Sensible Habit. This is my second time participating in this swap, and I can't wait to see what little beauties arrive back in my mailbox! Here are the cards I created last time around.

Best Shot Monday: Wild Rose and Continuing to Adjust

Wild Rose
It's been five weeks since I've stopped in here! I need to get back to blogging! We are still adjusting to our big life change, adapting to life in Tallahassee and making trips home when we have the opportunity (and, yes, Benny has more opportunity than the girls and I do!). My creative side hasn't had time for much of an outlet, but I did grab my camera for a little walk the other day and found this little beauty in our neighborhood. I was playing with a very wide aperture, thus the very short depth of field on this pretty little wild rose. The image was made with a Nikon D7100, 35mm, f1.8.

"Adjustment" is still the constant word of the day for us. The girls are doing great, no question there, and we're enjoying their ability to play in our cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids. They certainly can't do that at home on Heckscher Drive. Benny's continuing to adjust to his new role as stay-at-home dad. He's working on starting a small business to do some handyman work to keep him busy. I'm still pushing through, though I'll admit it seems that most days I'm having the hardest time making the adjustment. Good Lord, do I miss being on campus.

I had lunch with a very close friend last week who helped me talk through my struggles getting adjusted, and he had some pretty good advice. He reminded me that in less than a year, I've left the home I love, left the college I'd been at for 22 years, sold my vehicle (and he took the opportunity to remind me that I get more attached to my cars than the average person, thus the fact that all our vehicles have names....is that a problem?) and set up life in a new town. I think what's surprised me the most is that I didn't expect it to feel so weird living in Tallahassee. After all, I spent six years in college here. It's not like I don't know and love the town!! So his advice was time. It'll just take time and making some connections here.

To that end, I went to a Chi Omega function last week for which local alumnae were asked to come have dinner with all the new members. We had about a dozen alums there and 90 new members! I really enjoyed my conversations with the young women at my table and hope to get more involved with our local chapter. That'll give me my student fix again.  Now I just need to get into the animal shelter here!  Have a great week!  I hope to get back to posting regularly this week!