Five pages | NSD part one

I spent Saturday, May 3rd on a layout making spree. It was (inter)National Scrapbooking Day, and all over the world people celebrated memory keeping by making lots of scrapbook pages, mini books, and other projects. And shopping… oh the shopping! I was good this year and only spent $11, which is the same $11 I spend every month on product. But I was reeaallyyy tempted.

While I was waiting on Big Picture Classes to start their NSD festivities, I whipped out a couple of quick pages for the My Details class.

The idea is to get them printed out as a single 8.5×11 page and then split it into two inserts. They’ll probably go back to back, since they’re about the same time period. I spent a lot of last month writing for the prompts so I would have the journaling done for future pages. Both of these are for the “thinking” prompt.

First page journaling reads- I am such an over thinker. My brain is busy all the time. Things I’m currently obsessing over- What to do when my FIL comes to visit.  Exploring our new town.  My knee.  Making elaborate family trees for mideaval europpean monarchs.  Clean Eating and batch cooking.  The 20,000 LO’s I want to make.  Catching up on PL.  Blog posts that I write but never publish.  Blog posts that I publish that I think will make me look bad.  Finding a good Cuban coffee place.  My bathtub.  Once Upon A Time.  Unpacking those last few boxes.  Dresden Files books.  Finding a place where we can see the stars. April 11, 2014

Second page journaling- So Indecisive. Things I cannot make a freakin decision about.  Whether or not to have a baby.  Where to eat for dinner.  What to read next.  What I want to be when I grow up.  How to arrange my bookshelves.

(I started sharing pages on Instagram with lots of description, so I’ll just copy and paste those from here on).

Super simple page inspired by @stacyjulian for the@bigpictureclasses #nsd10k event. Love how she used a ton of photos with little embellishment. I took it a step further and used no ellies, just a little journaling. I used the AMAZING photo pocket template actions by Mommyish to knock out this page in minutes. Seriously digi scrappers, these actions will blow your mind. I think they’re on sale now too (no, I don’t work for her, they’re just that awesome) #mydetailsclass

Journaling reads- We love eating outside on the balcony with our awesome view. April 2014.

4th page for #nsd10k @bigpictureclasses Inspired by@cathyzielske ‘s journey of finding her style and not comparing herself to others. My style is in constant flux, but I love that. For the past year I’m all about journal cards, wood veneer, and photos edited with RadLab. “Comparison is the thief of joy”. Absolutely!

Journaling reads- (Im)Perfect Day. Things that went wrong on our wedding day….The wrong song was played when I walked down the aisle. The officiate pronounced Jason’s name incorrectly. The ring was tied too tightly on the pillow and we spent an awkward minute while Jamie struggled to get the knot untied.

Credits: Extra Extra! kit by Penny Springmann
Storyteller January 2014 alpha by Just Jaimee

Another #nsd10k for @bigpictureclasses Inspired by@celinenavarro and her pretty artsy sister LO. Love using all those #justjaimee cards. Also used the#mommyish template builder again. 👍

Journaling reads- Loved taking her to the beach for the first time in years! We haven’t been to the beach together since 2006. She liked it so much we went twice in one day. Palm Beach. 2.18.06 Pampano Beach 3.31.14

Credits: April 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

There are my first five pages for NSD! I’ll be posting the rest soon. 🙂

Action Plan for #MyDetailsClass, plus some pages and random stories

Here is my plan for this class

Stories first. LO’s can come later. I’m still unpacking and trying to get my routines established at the new apartment, so I’m not even going to attempt LO’s right now. Unless I get super inspired and have to make something Right Now. My plan is to keep a running list of journaling for story ideas in Evernote.

Simple page design. Once I get stories out of my brain and into Evernote, I’ll open up an 8.5×11 page in PSE. I’ll paste the text into that and format depending on how long the story is. So far I’m liking splitting the 8.5×11’s in half vertically. I’ll leave a little room for a photo if I have one. Keeping this super simple. If I don’t have a photo, leave some white space and I might find one later.

Tell past stories of the Teenage/ Young Adult years, plus current stories. I have over fifty LO’s in my “All About Jen” book. Only three of them are from my teenage years. And of those, two of them are about my hair! Clearly I need to work on filling some holes in my story. That hasn’t interested me before at all, but I think I’m ready to tackle that now.

I’m in a transitional stage right now with the move and all, so I want to be sure to document current things too. I’m going to try and do a past story and a current story for each prompt.

Community participation. There is a great FB group for the class. I’m getting lots of fun ideas for pages. I’m hoping to stay current with the class and soak up the inspiration.

Looking forward. I’ve done a ton of “Currently” type blog posts. I’ve made pages with some of those already, but I’d really like getting those in my books. That might mean making pages, or just printing them off on regular paper and slipping them in. Looking back at my “Jen” book, those are some of my favorite things to read so I want to make sure they’re in there. I think they fit in well with the theme of the class.

Here are my first couple of stories using the pre-class prompt of “Thinking”.

Thinking- 1996 Edition (modeled after “Currently” prompts.

Journaling reads-
Busting my ass trying to graduate high school after slacking off for three years.
Contemplating quitting and getting my GED instead.
Listening to the advice of a wonderful counselor who was the only person who “had my back”.
Ignoring the problematic behavior of my boyfriend.
Picking up my sister from school every day.
Walking my dog Tank.
Looking forward to a summer trip and working at the Coffee Shop again.
Getting accepted to Trevecca with a scholarship.
Taking my 4th year of French.
Eating nothing all day until the evening because I couldn’t afford lunch.
Hanging out with my girlfriends at school.
Screaming matches with my mom every day.
Loving on my Bella.
Feeling very strong in my faith, but losing faith in my church.
Talking on the phone to Melissa as much as I could.
Being grounded constantly.
Listening to 107.5 and 103.9.
Watching Days of our Lives and Oprah.
Mastering Algebra II the second time around.
Cutting.
Living within walking distance of Jamie’s school, Angie’s house, and church.
Staying with my dad every weekend.
Riding the school bus.
Carrying around seven big textbooks everywhere because I couldn’t be bothered to find a locker.
Reading Elizabeth Peters, Cleveland Amory, and Anne Rice.
Writing notes to my friends every class period.
Wearing a horseshoe ring from Jon, a cross necklace, and my grandmother’s engagement and wedding rings every day.
Loving Buttered Rum lipstick from Avon and Exclamation perfume.

I cold probably make pages about several of these. Having them in a list form like that was so much easier than trying to write out everything that was going on that year. I like that I was able to mix in fun stuff with the heavy, emo stuff.

Next to that is a page inspired by Megan’s LO that listed her college schedule. I would like to eventually do something like that, but I wanted to do a quick page about my feelings from my first attempt at college. At some point I’d like to find some pictures on the internet of the campus and add those.

Journaling reads- I knew Trevecca was not the right college for me from the start. But they offered me a scholarship, so that’s the one I went with. (My family was adamant that I attend college, but provided nothing in the way of help finding resources or money to pay for it). So when I got that magical letter in the mail offering me a little money to attend, that’s where I went.

It was a great school, just not for me. I was not raised Nazarene, so the idea of singing modern Christian pop instead of hymns and wearing pants to Chapel was foreign to me. I had recently broke off ties with my childhood church, so I was in flux.

But the biggest thing that caused me to leave college (the first time) was not related to school at all. My mom went into the hospital. At the time my sister still lived with her. So I moved back into my mom’s house temporarily to be with her. I had a hard time balancing taking care of her, visiting my mom, and going to school (all on the bus). I was having relationship problems during those months as well. My 18 year old self couldn’t manage it all, so I stopped showing up. The last straw was the decision to have eye surgery that December. It conflicted with Finals, so I ended up only taking one Exam and only getting credit for one class.

Despite everything, I really enjoyed my short time there. It was not my most shining moment academically, but that’s ok. And it’s a funny story to tell for people who didn’t know me in my younger days. Yes the girl who cusses a blue streak went to Christian college for a minute. (I also taught Sunday School and wanted to be a missionary, but that’s a story for another day)

My third page for the class hits a much lighter note. I think that will be a trend moving forward so I can balance out all the angsty teenage stuff.

Journaling reads-
I speak before I think.
So I have developed this problem lately, in the past couple years of being at home, of speaking the first thought that comes into my head. Being alone for most of the day with just me, the cat, and my inner monologue has somehow made me completely lose my “mouth filter”.

It is quite embarrassing and sometimes hurtful to other people, like when I say unkind things to my husband, or tell people what I really think of their boyfriends. I don’t mean to be a hateful bitch, I just blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. Which is almost always the wrong thing.

On the other hand, my spontaneity in speaking is probably mostly a good thing for my marriage. I tell him countless times a day how much I love him and how awesome he is. If I stopped to think before I said those things, they might go unsaid.

Words are important to us. I need to say all the words. I think I just need to pause a few seconds before I let the words spill out of my mouth. So I won’t accidentally tell him “I missed you today. And your booty” in front of my sister. TMI y’all.

And for my last page, I copied and pasted the text from this post.

And that’s just the pre-class! I actually have ideas for a couple more pages, but this is what I have so far. It feels good to get all this out of my brain 🙂

Yay for technology!

I have a confession to make.

I’m not so great at using the phone to call people. Including the Little Man. Jason is much better with that than I am. They talk several times a week, sometimes short calls, sometimes for an hour or more. I consider it a good month if I talk on the phone to LM twice. Bad stepmom, I know. I also know that it probably gets annoying to Jason that I’m always saying “Tell him…” or “How was…?” when I’m perfectly capable of calling him myself and asking.

But this school year things are much different. His mom has finally decided that he’s old enough for his own phone. Which means we can call or text whenever we want without having to call her phone and bug her. Which is awesome!

Now he texts me in the mornings and afternoons from the school bus. They’re not long conversations, but it is so great to see his texts pop up first thing in the morning!

And now I can ask him all the 500 random questions that I think of throughout the day. He doesn’t seem to mind the daily interrogation about his day, his friends, and what he’s had for lunch. I actually feel like a part of his day, which is a totally new and wonderful thing!

The stories we tell- Non-driving edition

Everyone has those stories. You know the ones I mean, the ones where we were young/stupid/drunk/etc. The ones where we look back as grownups and cringe. The stories that we should really keep to ourselves, but for some reason we’re compelled to tell. Here are a couple of mine. And I’m dragging my friend Melissa into them, because you can’t be friends with someone for almost thirty years without sharing many of “those” stories.

My best friend Melissa and I are not bad drivers, I promise. But when we were learning to drive, there were a lot of “non-driving” moments.

Like the time she got her car stuck on one of the raised lane dividers in the Kroger parking lot. My dad was with us and he hilariously tried to lift the car up off the divider. Our hero 🙂

Or the time we came out out of Walgreens and got into the wrong car. I noticed my seat covers were gone and got mad because I thought someone had stolen them. I won’t even tell you how long it took us to figure out we were in someone else’s black Camero.

Her car was acting funny one time and she got out to check under the hood. She was giving me instructions, and said “Don’t hit the gas”. But all I heard was “Hit the gas”, and almost ran her over.

Then there was that one time when I made a very bad left turn and ended up driving partway up someone’s front steps. I freaked out so bad that I made her switch seats with me and drive us off the steps and back home. Sadly, that was not the only time we had to do the switcheroo because one of us got into something we couldn’t get out of…

I swear we were never under the influence when any of these things happened. I think we just brought out the bad driver in each other!

I’m linking up with the Document Life Workshop.

Happy Valentines Day, and how I’m a failure as a wife

So I was debating on what to rite, if anything, to commemorate Valentine’s Day.

It’s been a rough morning. I might have texted Jason with a profanity laden diatribe on how much I hate printers and how I’m ready to give up scrapbooking forever. There may have been tears.

But then I got on Facebook and saw this gem, thanks to Stuff Mom Never Told You.

I, of course, immediately took the test, scoring a whopping 19 points. (apparently cussing and red nail polish were not huge hits in the 1930’s). This put me in the category of “Failure”.

Then I tested Jason with the husband’s version. I figured he’d get a higher score than me, but holy cow! He got a 96! (And I was kind of harsh with a couple of things, truthfully he could’ve gotten a 100). Clearly, as his score shows, he is a “Superior” husband.

My lack of children was an obvious detriment to my score, as was my love for garlic and onions. But the things that had me really laughing were the “marital congress” questions. Apparently his ardency is worth twice mine in points!

So on that note, I’ll bid y’all adieu. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

(and please tell me in the comments if you take the test yourself!)

Down and dirty journaling

Life isn’t all about rainbows and unicorns. Or mine isn’t at least. Family stuff happens. Health stuff happens. Life happens. For me, writing has always been an outlet. I’ve poured my heart out on many a diary page, e-mail, and even Word documents. It’s how I process things. I almost always feel better afterwards, and for the most part, nobody will ever see these long incoherent ramblings.

Somewhere along the line I started putting these words on scrapbook pages. It’s strange and uncomfortable because that’s not why I scrapbook. I scrapbook to remember the happy fun times. But every once in a while I get the urge to tell a not so happy story. I usually try to avoid the story. I do my best to ignore it. But some stories just won’t go away. They stick around, nudging me, then pushing me, invading my brain and keeping me from sleep. It’s usually at that point where I say “Fine! You win!” I go to my Notes app on the iPad, or Evernote, or a piece of paper. And I write. And write. Ignoring typos and proper sentence structure  as the story comes pouring out. I use run on sentences a lot. It’s not pretty. Once the story is finally put on paper (or in a document), I can finally rest. The story monster has been satiated.

Sometimes that’s where it ends. But every once in a while one of the stories makes it onto a scrapbook page. For these pages I try to keep the elements to a minimum. I usually don’t use photos. I’ll copy and paste the journaling that I did earlier onto the page. I don’t do much editing on these pages. The typos and run on sentences will stay there as a little joke with myself, reminding me that no matter what the subject matter, I can’t take this stuff too seriously.

So here are a few of my “down and dirty journaling” pages. I know some of them are kind of hard to read, but if you click on them you’ll get a bigger more clear version.

A page about the decision whether or not to have children.

A page about my fear of going blind one day.

A page about being un-beautiful that I did a long time ago. It kind of goes along the same lines as my bullying post I wrote recently.

A page about my conflicted feelings towards the house we used to live in.

A page about the first time Little Man said “I love you”

Another page about LM and how we’re not the “typical” family.

And one last page, because sometimes you just have to say “I’m sorry for being a bitch that one time”.

So there you go. Now you must think I’m a complete neurotic self absorbed insecure crazy person right? Well yeah. Sometimes. When I’m not thinking of rainbows and unicorns. 🙂

I do try to end most of these pages on a lighter more positive note. I think it kind of balances out the heavier stuff. And also keeps things in perspective.

Have you done much down and dirty journaling? I’d love to see some pages 🙂

30 Days of Lists- Day 26

Trends I cannot stand-
Skinny jeans. They are only flattering on about 10% of the population. The rest of us should steer clear. We will all live to regret this trend, mark my words….
Colored pants- see above
Yellow
The overuse of chevron. I really like chevron, but do we really need to plaster everything that will sit still in chevron?
Patent infringement lawsuits
Mustaches (fake or otherwise)
Big 80’s frames for glasses
Candidates on both sides spewing hate instead of facts
The term “Obamacare”, or anything that puts a candidate’s name in a word or phrase like that.

Now I feel kind of bad for writing all that. Usually Jason is the only one who sees this incredibly bitchy, judgmental side of my personality. I should say that with the exception of the political ones, these trends only annoy me.  They’re fine for other people. If you want to go around in yellow chevron printed skinny jeans, big glasses, and a mustache, more power to you! Just don’t bring up Apple v. Samsung or Obamacare, because you’ll get an earful 😛

List made 9.25.12

Curious about 30 Days of Lists? Check them out here. See all my lists (so far) here.

30 Days of Lists- Day 6

Today’s prompt is-

“Reasons to quit…”

Reasons to quit giving people unsolicited relationship advice.

• It’s not nice
• They don’t listen anyway
• Even when they do ask, they probably don’t really want to hear the answer.
• If they want to go out with Tools, that’s their right.
• No relationship is perfect, including mine.

In my defense, I have this thing where I like for the people I love to be with super-awesome mates. And sometimes they’re not. But I need to learn to keep my mouth shut and just listen.

The end.

List made 9.2.12

Curious about 30 Days of Lists? Check them out here. See all my lists (so far) here.