Around here

We have officially been in our new apartment for six days now. It has been a whirlwind!

My sister flew in last Thursday to help with the move. She hasn’t visited since 2006, so needless to say, I was ridiculously happy. I made broccoli casserole at her request. We spent Friday finishing packing and loading the truck with boxes.

Saturday we moved. It went surprisingly well actually. And by “surprisingly well”, I mean we got through it alive. I only had one tiny meltdown. You never realize how much stuff you have until you move, and even though we decluttered a lot of things before the move, it was still very overwhelming. Especially carrying it all up three flights of stairs. Our movers were great though. We made it through relatively unscathed, except for my knee. And lots of bruises.

Sunday we went to Hatsumi fair at the Morikami. We’ve been wanting to take J for years, so it was very cool to show her what we’ve been yammering about for so long.

Monday we had fancy doughnuts, went to IKEA, and to the beach- twice. It sounds like a lot, but it was surprisingly relaxing. It was a lot of fun being tourists in our new city.

On Tuesday Jason gave Jamie skateboarding lessons. I think she had fun- except for the falling and hurting her arm part. We did not have a great week for injuries… She flew back home that night.

Jason went back to work on Wednesday and I started the unpacking process. I can’t wait to have everything unpacked so I can start on the fun stuff like picking out more plants! Right now I have most of the kitchen and some of our bedroom unpacked. I want to finish up those rooms today and figure out storage for the bathrooms. The bathrooms here are… different. Storage here in general will be a challenge, but we’ll figure it out.

I’m so excited to be in our new place! And the very best part is that I get my husband back. No more two hour a day commute! We could not be more thrilled. 🙂

It’s hard for me to believe that during the time I’ve had this blog, I’ve lived in three different houses! I was looking through my archives and found a few posts on the subject.

Finding out we had to leave our first place together.

Thoughts on Home and the stresses of moving.

Our last move.

2012’s Week In the Life was all about unpacking from the last move, especially Monday. I am extraordinarily grateful that MK has handled this move So Much Better than the last one. We’re all mostly sleeping through the night, which is fabulous.

Back in August when I was getting the itch to move (but hadn’t yet convinced Jason)

Apartment hunting in December. (The last picture is the complex we’re living in now)

I love love love having the blog to look back on!

Five Pages | Inspired by Freebies

My scrapping budget is pretty tight right now. Moving is expensive! Luckily I’ve rediscovered one of my very favorite sources for freebies- Quality Digiscrap Freebies. I’ve been super inspired to make all kinds of LO’s. I’ve made a ton of LO’s without spending any money.

Sidenote: I absolutely believe in supporting the industry and I do so whenever possible. (Y’all don’t even want to know how much money I spent on scrapping in January). But every family has times when budgets are tight, and this is definitely one of those times for us.

You can find free digiscrap supplies all over the internet. I think most of us did a lot of freebie mining when we first started out. But that tends to taper off as we keep scrapping. Our hard drives are only so big after all. And the quality isn’t always fantastic. It can be pretty overwhelming to sort through everything that’s out there.

That’s why Quality Digiscrap Freebies is so great. You get a lovely curated list of fabulous freebies. You won’t love all of them, but with at least three new freebies showcased every day, you’re sure to find some great kits and templates to suit your style.

Here are a few of the pages I’ve made using supplies I found on QDSF. Everything on these pages, with the exception of the Becky Higgins template, was a freebie. Most are still available, but some freebies have an expiration date.

The first page is from last year’s trip to the Morikami. Jason’s beer came with the cutest beer cozy ever, a tiny kimono! So being the super sophisticated people that we are, we proceeded to set up little photo shoots with “Kirin in Kimono” all over the park. Hilarity ensued.

Journaling reads- The Adventures of Kirin in Kimono. We met Kirin in Kimono at the Morikami. We had many adventures together exploring the park. We walked in the woods, checked out the koi pond, listened to the Tico drums, and made new friends. We even found Mi-Chan in the scavenger hunt! A fun, relaxing day was had by all. Looking forward to hanging out with Kirin in Kimono again really soon!

Credits:
Celebrate Life by Studio Basic
February 2014 template by Little Green Frog

The second page highlights a silly text exchange between me and my sister. And yes, I told her if she made faces at me that I’d put them all over the internet. 😛

Journaling reads- J got a new phone and was texting me to tell me all about it. We were both excited for the better camera. Then the conversation took an ugly turn….

Credits:
Well Duh, We’re Sisters journal cards by La Belle Vie Designs
Everyday Life flairs by Megan Turnidge
Template by Becky Higgins

As soon as I saw this cowboy themed kit, I knew which photo I needed to scrap. Despite having grown up in Nashville, we are strictly city people. I have never in my life owned a cowboy hat, unless you count my sparkly green St. Patty’s Day hat. But my uncle Mikey actually did once own a cowboy hat, that he used to like to terrorize me with. (See how my mom gave me ice to chew on? That was to keep the screaming at bay). I hated that hat. Well I guess we all have our childhood traumas… which in some cases lead to anthropomorphizing alcoholic beverages (see above).

Journaling reads- This horse on wheels was one of my very favorite toys when I was very small. I used to love it when my mom would take me to Shelby Park to ride around and feed the ducks.

Credits:
Country Strong by Jenn Barrett
Everyday Stroll template by Zollio

So this next page is pure silliness (like the previous ones weren’t). Yes I like scrapping squirrels And no, I can’t spell squirrel to save my life. I mess it up Every Time. But whatevs.

Journaling reads- Jason is the “sqirrel whisperer”. We were walking around the park and this guy came right up to him. He was probably looking for food, but we’ll say Jason has magical squirrel attracting abilities.

Credits:
Go Take A Hike kit by Jadyday
FB freebie template by AK designs

For my last LO, I did a family portrait page. I would like to do more of those this year. I’m usually a “story first” or “products first” scrapper. But I have so many photos that are nice, but don’t necessarily have a deeper story. Most of them are photos of our extended families, especially Jason’s. Which leads to almost no photos in our “family” scrapbooks. So I’m going to add “scrap more family photos” to my ever-growing list of pages to make.

This one shows a picture of Dad and Jeannie, me, Jay, and my mom taken after Jon’s memorial service. I’m sure the church ladies thought it was incredibly tacky for us all to sneak down to the basement and start snapping pics. (and they’re totally right). But I almost never have my whole immediate family in a room together, so I wanted to take advantage of that. Better than doing selfies with the urn right? Though he might have thought that was funny… I hereby give permission to anyone who wants to take selfies with my urn. Just don’t knock me over trying to get that great long arm shot 😛

Credits:
Addiction add-on by Fanette and Mel designs
Fuss Free Freebie template by Fiddle Dee Dee

Okay this is an almost 1000 word post, so I’m going to stop here. Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out Quality DigiScrap Freebies!

Oshogatsu 2013: Year of the Snake

Last weekend was the Japanese New Year, Oshogatsu. We always spend it at the Morikami Museum and Gardens. No, we’re clearly not Asian. But I really like the kind of New Year where you walk around a pretty garden, hear cool music, and eat tasty soba.

 

Love this place. So many good memories here.

And where else can you get a kimono for your beer??? Kiran in Kimono was so adorable, he might get his own post.

Cool story about those balls. (That’s what she said). They’re called mochi ice cream balls. Mochi is a kind of dough made from pounding rice until it has the consistency of bread dough. We watched them make it a few years ago and got to try some plain mochi. It was not the tastiest thing ever. But sweeten it up and wrap it around ice cream and it’s awesome! It came in a bunch of different flavors, traditional chocolate and strawberry, plus fruity kinds too. Very unique and we’ll definitely have that next time.

Happy Year of the Snake!

You can see our last visit to the Morikami here.

High Five for Friday is back!

I missed you, H54F.

1. NFL Bad Lip Reading. Damn you Molly Wood. One night this week I was all set to go to bed at a decent hour, but noooo. You had to tweet about NFL Bad Lip Reading. Which led us down the rabbit hole of all the Bad Lip Readings. An hour and a half later…

2. Halfway there. I mentioned in my goals post that I want to walk 40 miles this month and do 12 (small) strength training workouts. Still working through that, but doing well despite an uncooperative knee. Already thinking of what I want to add in next month.

3. Squash and smoothies. I’ve eaten something with summer squash or zucchini four times this week and I could keep going. Smoothies still aren’t my favorite, but I’m experimenting with green ones.

4. Picture of the Little Man’s new hair cut.

5. Oshogatsu at the Morikami was last weekend. It was awesome, as always.

Hatsume Fair!

Every year we go to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens for the Hatsume Fair. This year we went with Antoine and Heidi. Since it was also St. Patty’s Day, Jason and I dressed up in our finest hats,  green nail polish (me), and big boots (him). It was a great day, lovely weather, lots of sunshine. A little too much for me, I got a mild sunburn that’s just getting to that sexy itching and peeling stage.

Hatsume is probably my favorite of all the festivals that the Morikami puts on. There are the usual vendors, food, taiko drumming, and tea ceremony. But the fun part is checking out all the people in their anime costumes. Some people really go all out and it’s cool to just sit and eat soba noodles and people watch.

A couple of new-to-us things this year. We heard part of a talk on cosplay, saw a martial arts demonstration, and watched a costume competition. Other highlights included a turtle doing yoga, frozen lemonade, and of course having company. Jason and I always go by ourselves so it was nice having people with us this time. It was Antoine and Heidi’s first time at the Morikami, so I hope they had fun 🙂

I used Wendy Zine’s Round It Up Actions for the collages.

Oh and I also did my hair in a new way, which qualifies for my 52 in 52 weeks challenge. Usually I do not advocate pigtails in anyone over the age of six. But it was St. Patty’s Day. And I was wearing a sparkly cowboy hat. So I had no choice.