Currently

Loving having Jason home for two extra days this week. It’s been an interesting time trying to pin down his time off this month. (He had to use it, or lose it).

Listening to Christmas music at every opportunity. I love the different Pandora stations.

Reading my next batch of books for my Holiday Murder Mystery Extravaganza. If that’s not your thing, the NovelTea book club is rereading Harry Potter this month, and the discussions are pretty great.

Watching scrapbook flip-through videos on YouTube like crazy. I’m obsessed, and if you know of any good ones, please share! Nic Mackin and Kitty Scrapper are new favorites. Megan also has a highly anticipated Project Life overview video.

Clearing our DVR, slowly but surely. We’re all caught up on Once, S.H.I.E.L.D., NCIS (regular and New Orleans), Elementary, and our new favorite this season, Forever. Jason is also digging The Flash and Gotham.

Making lots of pages from Louisiana and December Daily.

Looking forward to a relaxing December. November was kind of crazy busy.

Making mental notes on things I want to do differently next Christmas.

Feeling the cold- it was down in the 40’s last night!

Pinning lots of inspiration for December Daily.

Leaving lots of love in the GingerScraps gallery.

Drinking lots of port. Well not “lots”, but we finished up a whole bottle in two weeks, which is a record for us.

Thinking a lot about living my values lately.

Picking my One Little Word pretty early this time around. It’s going to be way more fun than my last few… or all of them, come to think of it.

Snuggling with a certain Miss, who actually Fell Asleep In My Lap this week for possibly the first time ever! That only took nearly a decade.

Currently

Visiting the pumpkin patch, finding it way too crowded, and deciding to try again in November.

Putting in applications for creative jobs and jobs that pay actual money.

Feeling incredibly anxious.

Doing it anyway.

Walking in the park.

Loving that the weather is down in the 70’s!

Closing doors so others can open.

Watching new episodes of Once Upon A Time and Sleepy Hollow.

Waiting for a fun delivery today or tomorrow.

Talking my sister through setting up her first iPad.

Squirting a naughty Miss Kitty with the water bottle.

Having nightmares regularly.

Pinning iPhone accessories.

Looking for more Halloween themed mysteries.

Eating homemade mac and cheese.

Worrying about family drama, always.

Planning a strategy for Week in the Life.

Signing up for our second 5k.

Feeling sad for three friends who’ve lost loved ones this week.

Currently

Burning fall candles every day

Planning fun things to do this season.

Scrapbooking my booty off.

Reconnecting with my sister.

Writing long emails.

Practicing gratitude.

Making chicken with apples.

Playing with the laser pointer.

Getting excited for fall TV.

Pretending it’s not 90 degrees outside.

Wearing skirts and tights.

Anticipating watching Gone Girl this weekend. (Can’t wait!)

Waiting and waiting and waiting for a certain store to restock a certain phone.

Loving that the “Summer of Burgers” is turning into the “Year of Burgers”.

 

Currently

Reading the Dresden Files books like it’s my job.
Watching the season finale of Once Upon A Time
(spoiler alert) Needing to watch Frozen now.
Ruining perfectly good gnocchi.
Turning it into mashed potatoes instead.
Enjoying going through last month’s photos.
Seeing how much progress we’ve made.
Planning to start hanging pictures soon.
Feeling sad and angry.
Trying very hard to accept the things I cannot change.
Writing every day.
Walking not enough.
Hovering over my tiny flower and veggie seedlings.

#MyDetailsClass Pre-Class Prompt (try saying that three times)

My friend Megan is teaching a class about getting more of YOU in your scrapbooks. She, along with Kristin of rukristin, will provide prompts to get you inspired to scrap about yourself. They’ll share two different takes on each prompt, one from the past and one from right now. I think that’s one of the coolest part of the class. Exploring the past and making connections with the present is absolutely one of my favorite things about this hobby.

The pre-class prompt is “Thinking” so I jotted down a few things on my mind right now.

Loving this response to the Honey Maid ads.
It’s the day before Jason’s birthday!
Planning which boxes to tackle next.
Prepping food for the week.
Still not quite believing that we’re actually here.
Adjusting to a new morning routine.
Missing scrapbooking.
Studying the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
Loving having him home an extra two hours a day.
Wondering what the big deal is about GOT.
Hoping to get to take advantage of my big bath tub this week.
Relieved that my knee is getting closer to normal.
Thinking I’ll try working out on Wednesday.
Taking walks around the track in the meantime.
Laughing at texts from my sister.
Needing to talk to Melissa.
Craving green things in my home and in my tummy.

I think things like this are really interesting to look back on. When I was writing Friday’s post about our move, I had a lot of fun taking a little trip down Memory Lane and remembering things that were on my mind a couple of years ago. I think that has given me a renewed love for this blog and memory keeping in general. I won’t have a lot of spare time to make pages for a bit, but I can certainly take a couple of minutes to jot things down.

Several of the ladies in the class are doing a blog hop with their takes on the pre-class materials. Check them out here.

January Currently

Everybody and their mama seems to be doing a “currently” post today. I’ve counted three so far and it’s barely 8:00. So of course I must do one as well.

Feeling irritated by the same sunburn I get every single year about this time.
Celebrating a new baby cousin from afar.
Conjugating French verbs with Jason.
Waiting on approval for our new apartment.
Catching up on some book series.
Slogging through a book I’ve been reading since November.
Eating Clean, starting today.
Easing back into Pilates.
Missing the feeling of strength and flexibility it gave me.
Knowing it will come back with practice.
Working through the Month of Challenges.
Spending too much money at The Lilypad.
Wearing tights and skirts.
Loving the cooler weather.
Finding new clothes at the thrift store.
Freaking the eff out over The Following.
Rigging up “redneck security systems”.
Laughing at Modern Family.
Breathing a sigh of relief that Jason’s work schedule is easing up a little.
Having hours-long conversations about everything and nothing.

 

Around here

This is LM’s last week in Florida. On Thursday he’ll be taking the trip to his new home with his grandparents. We’ve been lucky enough to see him almost every weekend since he went to stay with the gp’s. He’ll come stay the afternoon with us on Saturday, and after that, it’ll probably be another year until we see him again. This is the part of the year that I dread the most, the brief time between him leaving and when we start planning for next summer.

This is also the time of year when Jason and I tend to be most productive to keep our minds off things. He’s been so busy at work, with no ending in sight. He’s getting back into music again, which is so fun to see. It seems to feel a bit freeing for him to not be collaborating with anyone right now.

I am loving the new memory in my computer. It’s going so ridiculously fast! Programs are running so smoothly. I text Jason every day telling him how awesome it is.

I’ve been having a few nice phone calls lately. Slowly coming out of my summer cocoon and reconnecting with family again. Yay for Face Time!

I’m smack in the middle of a weight loss plateau right now. Frustrating, but it happens to everyone. My body just needs time to readjust itself. I will probably do a Clean Week next week and see if that jumpstarts things back in the right direction.

I’m getting the urge to declutter and decorate. My closet is looking pretty rough right now and we’re running out of coat hangers. That’s my sign that we have way too many clothes and it’s time to start donating.

I’m super excited to start this fall’s garden. I planted tomato seeds last weekend and crossing my fingers that they’ll start sprouting soon. It’s been years since I’ve tried to grow anything from seed.

*Also, I just realized I’ve never talked here about the calendar Jason made for me last year! He did it in iPhoto, just dropping in pictures taken from each month in 2012. One of my favorite presents ever 🙂 The calendar shows LM at the airport, Tropical Storm Isaac, and reaching 100,000 miles on the car.

My first guest post, August goals, and other random Friday stuff

I was super excited to do my first guest blog post over at the Nerd Nest on Sunday! It was all about food (some good, some very very bad). Go check it out 🙂

I saw that Elise has started blogging regularly again after going on maternity leave. Yay! That reminded me that I haven’t done a goals post in a while, so here goes…

1. Walk 40 miles. Maybe run a couple too.
2. Read 5 nonfiction books.
3. Participate in the 30 Day self portrait challenge from A Beautiful Mess.
4. Blog or scrap at least ten of our summer adventures.
5. Donate blood.
6. Continue looking for a part time job.
7. Try yoga with Jason.
8. Start planning a fall garden.

The past two months have been sort of “survival mode” around here. I’m ready to find a little balance and normalcy. It’s been an extremely busy time at work for Jason lately, and it’s taking its toll. I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to help him. I can’t change his work situation, but I can make home as nice as possible. It’s important for both of us that we find things to do together that don’t involve How I Met Your Mother marathons. (Although we need that too).

For me, I’ve found that having structure in my days is absolutely essential. We always have more of a schedule when the Little Man is here. I’m bringing aspects of that into my days by myself and I’m feeling much more productive.

I told you this post was going to be random…

Anyway, I’ll end with some Currents-

Watching HIMYM, Sharknado, and Glitter Girl.
Reading You Can Buy Happiness (and it’s cheap). Taking a little break from Phryne. She kind of went off the rails in that last book.
Listening to Garbage, Frame Rate, PRT, and Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Making LO’s for challenges.
Feeling very anxious all week.
Planning ways to fill up the weekend that don’t involve spending a lot of money.
Loving that my dad emails me about stuff he reads here.

Annd I think that’s about it. As LM says, I’m “out of information”. 🙂

Currently

Watching How I Met Your Mother. We started watching this on Netflix Streaming the night LM left, and we’ve already plowed through the first season and a half. So hilarious! And I finally found out where this quote came from last year, which is… wait for it… awesome.

Reading blogs on Feedly. Finally. This has been a month long trial trying to find an RSS reader after Google kicked it’s Reader to the curb. When Reader stopped, unfortunately so did my beloved Flipboard. I’ve loved Flipboard for a long time, but despite what they promised my feeds did not get migrated over and I stopped getting 95% of them. I tried Bloglovin’, but they don’t have categories, which I desperately need. And I got cranky that all my feed info was public by default with no easy way to change it to private. Which in the grand scheme of things is NBD, but I was having a crappy day so it turned into a BFD. Enter Feedly. I was able to import my old OPML file, so now I have all my feeds, and I’m busily sorting and organizing them.

Listening to Anna Kerinina. I’m almost finished. This might be one of my longest audiobooks ever, almost forty hours. I’m not sure what to say about it that hasn’t already been said. There is a lot more about farming than I expected.

Making lots of LO’s.

Feeling nervous, chilly, inspired.

Planning my first guest blog post.

Loving that Jason’s coming home early today.

Playing with Aperture. And loving it!

Looking forward to the new PL class coming up.

Applying for part-time jobs.

Missing LM. Always.

Thinking of going back to digital PL for a few weeks.

Enjoying the quiet.

Currently

Watching Being Human U.S. Just finished Season 3 and it was great! Sorry, but it’s put this season of Vampire Diaries to shame.
Reading Just finished World War Z. Nothing shows the best and worst of humanity like the zombie apocalypse. There are scenes in that book that will haunt me for a long time.
Listening to Fall Out Boy (My songs know what you did in the dark) and Imagine Dragons (Radioactive) on loop. Yes, I am heavily influenced by TV commercials in my musical taste.
Making lots of blog posts to let things run themselves here for a couple of weeks.
Feeling excited, but unproductive.
Planning Little Man’s birthday party. We’re on our second or third theme change, which is stressful.
Loving the quiet and solitude while it lasts.
Working out again.
Eating tons of salads.
Enjoying our last couple of days of cursing and general debauchery until we have to be good influences again.
Grabbing blog train goodies instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
Taking a break from most of my CT’s for June.
Dreaming vividly and violently every. single. night. And many of them involve people on the internet that I’ve never met, although those aren’t usually the violent ones.
Getting some nice MK snuggles.