Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I had mentioned a while back how much I enjoyed using Blurb for my digital scrap-booking. It is a free download, easy to use and probably cheaper than all the costs that go into paper scrap-booking. On top of that, I don't have the hassle of getting pictures developed and I can print as many copies of my books as I want for grandparents, friends, siblings, etc...

Again, thanks to marrying an Apple user, I can be more creative with programs like Pages to make my lay-outs. I'm sure Windows has some equivalent, but I'm not up-to-date on it. I highly recommend this method of keeping and sharing memories.

Here's my latest page for my daughter's "First Year" book:
If you *hopefully* get hooked and want to know how I transfer my Pages documents to the Blurb program as pictures, just ask and I will pass on what my computer-savvy husband taught me.

Here are some from the book I did for my son's first year:

Hooked yet?!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Having put the kids down for naps, all I want to do is sit down and "play" on the computer. It is finally "Mommy Time"... then I look at the chaos around me - the nuclear fall-out of breakfast, lunch, company for supper last night, international phone calls, getting in and out the door for Bible study, a bowel movement that didn't quite make it to the potty chair, laundry that's been begging to be hung up, rice strewn across several rooms and dishes galore... sigh!!

My typical nap time would be: resting if I needed it or setting a time-limit to "play" before tackling the necessary chores. The problem with those time-limits is that I keep adding "just one minute more" to the end. I knew that with all the mess around me, I couldn't afford "just one minute more", so I took a new approach. Rather than setting the timer for play, I set the timer for work. It is amazing what can get done in 20 minutes with that tick-tick-tick urging you on! Clothes hung, floors wiped/swept, table/counters cleared, meat out thawing for dinner, clean dishes put away... Everything got done except the still-large pile of dirty dishes before the timer rang. Now I can sit down with a relatively-free conscious and take a much needed rest from work.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

With few nice, warm-ish Saturdays left before the cold comes, we decided to head out to Sherwood Forest and see what we could see. We saw trees...

Lots of trees... including this famous tree right in the middle of the forest.
It really was QUITE large - and old.

More trees.

Hey, look who decided to wake up and join us!


So, while it wasn't all that exciting, it was a nice morning out in nature with the family. Some day we will check out the abbey near the forest as that looked pretty interesting.

Monday, September 7, 2009


I've been finding it hard to be motivated to blog at the moment. It's not exactly that I don't have time or ideas... in fact, I have many ideas running through my head throughout the day. However, when I finally sit down at the computer, all my energy saps away and I have no desire to write anything.

School has started up again here in the UK and with that comes routine (hurray!!) and busier days. Hopefully the writing bug will hit me again soon.

Meanwhile, here is a picture of me and my two blessings taken in a confined space. Gotta love the view up my nose, but the kids are looking sweet.