Quick Post

Only have a few moments to post...

**Staff party last night was a great deal of fun. We got home around 1:00 am and Chris was back out the door this morning at 5:00 am. Meet was in Dekalb, 2 hours away. Think he will be sleeping in tomorrow!

**Did some shopping this morning. Now I can say that I have started!

**Off to Chucky Cheese.... EEEEEEEEK! My sister is having the kids birthday party there tonight. Will only be staying for a SHORT time!

**Made peanut butter balls for cookie exchange tomorrow. Lots of work, but will be worth it... I hope!

**Officially behind now on Christmas Journal... but that is the plan for tomorrow and maybe even tonight. We'll see!

Off to the insanity that is Chucky Cheese on a Saturday night in December.....

December 7/Journal Day 6

So I think I am going to end up a day behind at least until the weekend! I have my staff Christmas party tomorrow so I don't even think I will be able to post. I still need to bake the brownies, wrap the white elephant gifts, and make dinner.

Another late night at school... special services team meeting. One of my least favorite meetings each month. Thankfully it was not too bad today! :-) Went to Target with Becky after school to help her pick out a birthday present for a friend's daughter. By the time I got home it was almost 7:00! Where does the time go?

Ok... I know you are really here wanting to look at my journal pages. This was another tough one for me. The prompt was to remember a not so great christmas and a great christmas and contrast the two. I took a little different approach and journaled about one Christmas that was both bad and good. The left side holds my "bad" aspects of that Christmas, which included losing my grandfather and having a miscarriage. I used the BG magnetic snaps to hold it shut. Boy do those things have some staying power!



On the other side I wrote about the good of that Christmas. Chris made it extra special with many presents and the constant reminder that we have each other...



The design is inspired by Cathy Z. Much more simple than I usually do, but I played with my text a little and am happy with the way it turned out.

Starting to panic about all I need to get done tonight... better go get started!

December 6/Christmas Journal Day 5

So I am a little behind. It's already after 8:00 and I only have Day 5 done. Looks like I might end up being behind until the weekend. We'll see!

This prompt was about Advent Calendars and couting down to Christmas. Here is my journaling:

There are 20 days until Christmas Day. Christmas really starts on Christmas Eve, so really there are only 19 days! It seems so far away and yet so soon at the same time. There is still so much that I have to do and so much that I want to do.

I have fond memories of advent calendars growing up. When I was in elementary school, my mother worked for a German company. Her main responsibility was booking the travel arrangements for the many executives in the company, often for trips to Germany. She was very well liked and often received small tokens from the executives when they returned from a trip. Each Christmas, she was given two advent calendars filled with the most amazing German chocolate! There was one for my sister and one for me.

Each day had a little door that opened to reveal a picture and a piece of this amazing chocolate. Opening the day’s door was one of the highlights of each day in December. One year the calendar even had pieces that got larger the closer we got to Christmas! I can almost feel those wonderful bits of chocolate on my tongue as I type this entry!

It has been years since I received or bought an advent calendar. I don’t know why. Maybe it seemed a little too childish for grown adults to get excited about a piece of chocolate. Maybe it was the fact that I haven’t really looked forward to Christmas for the past few years.

This year is different. Although I may not have little doors to open that reveal savory bits of chocolate, I do have a treat each day leading up to Christmas. I can’t wait to see the day’s prompt from Shimelle each day. Opening my email is just as magical as those little doors on the chocolate calendar. In the end, this journal will be my advent calendar. Maybe next year I will invest in some chocolate, too!

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First day with the new hair color. You just have to love middle school boys. More than one of my students said to me today, "What happened to your hair?" :-) One even told me he didnt like it, but maybe he will get used to it. Another suggested that maybe next time I should color my hair pink.

I came home today to a clean house. Chris cleaned this morning before going to work. I am so lucky to have such an amazing man for a husband. That left me more time to play tonight. I wouldn't have even gotten one day done if he hadn't done the chores for me. :-)

Should think about making dinner soon. I accidently bought a jar of MUSHROOM spaghetti sauce. Chris and I HATE mushrooms. Looks like I will be making some from the plain tomato sauce I have in the cabinet!

December 5th

No Day 5 Christmas Journal to share YET. I did the journaling, so I accomplished the one goal. However, I just didn't have time to create the page. It is all done in my mind... just need to get it down on paper! :-)

Decided to go get my hair cut today after school. On Friday night we went out to dinner with one of our High School friends and his wife. We had a great time at a little martini bar in Grayslake. Great food, great drinks, and even great music! Before we knew it, we were closing the place down at 12:30! Chris (not my Chris, but our friend Chris) and his wife, Cori had a great evening with us. Cori owns a salon in Mundelein and she cuts MY Chris' hair. I decided to go in and see her today. I decided to let her color it as well. I am getting used to it. I will try to remember to post a picture tomorrow maybe. I think it is really different, but Chris (my Chris) thinks it isn't that different at all. Tomorrow will be the test. We'll see what my students say! They are known to be brutally honest.

Tuesday is Chris' one night home early. Early being 7:30ish. By the time I got home it was almost 7. I made dinner and then we watched Friday Night Lights. I snuck back upstairs to read email and post this entry. I am not going to break my streak on Day 5!

I am planning on leaving school right after work tomorrow. Planning to get todays entry as well as tomorrows done. I also have orders for about 15 ornaments and an album to get done. I really should get started on that!

December 4/Day 4

It was really tough going back to work today! The kids were still groggy from having the snow day on Friday. Had to make up all of the things I had planned to do on Friday... but on a Monday. That is tough for my kiddos who so desperately need routine! On top of that we had a staff meeting after school so I didn't leave until close to 5. I had to stop at the grocery store as well since we have NO food in the house. It was almost 7 by the time I got home.

So onto Day 4 of the Christmas Journal. I was happy to discover that the prompt was posted before school this morning. I printed it off and then had the day to think about it. That was nice. I could steal a few moments for myself throughout the day. This was a hard prompt for me. We were supposed to describe our perfect Christmas without any negative thoughts or feelings. This was tough for me since the past few years I have really not enjoyed Christmas, so every time I had a thought about a perfect Christmas a negative thought would counteract it.

In the end, I decided to do some frank journaling about how in order for me to have a perfect Christmas, I really need to have a child. This really goes against the point of this journal as I am trying to get away from the constant pangs of our infertility. But in the end, it is my hope that this journal will not only allow me to truly experience Christmas Joy, but also provide some healing.

The page is pretty simple. I even decided to make this one a single page even though all of the others (all 2 of them) have been two pages. Rebel, I know!

Ok, so here it is:

The stamps are Making Memories. The artistic challenge for today was to use a photo that shows your perfect Christmas. Shimelle even suggested getting one from a magazine. This photo is from a printer advertisement in Family Circle. She reminds me of what I imagine our daughter might look like. The journaling is hidden in the file folder. It is a little more intense, so I decided to tuck it away. The basics are that I really feel that I need to have a child in order to have the perfect Christmas. I also talked about the "magic" feeling that believing in Santa brings.

The acrylic is KI. The santa is from a christmas card that was sent to us a few years ago. I pulled those out for yesterdays challenge, so I had this one handy. I used foam dots to make the pocket stick out enough for the folder to sit in. The folder is from Rusty Pickle although I covered it in KI!

Off to read my email. It's already 8:45! Hoping to get to bed a little earlier tonight!

Cover and Day 3

This is my cover. It is a work in progress! The papers are all KI Memories. Flowers are Heidi Swapp, Doodlebug, and KI. The letter stickers are Doodlebug. The cover is sealed with Sparkle ModPodge, which adds glitter to the entire thing.

I decided to make my own book so I could adjust as needed. More ribbon will be added once the book is finished. The pages are 8 1/2×8 to allow for the binding.


This is day 3's entry. The prompt was about Christmas cards. This is the outer pages without the overlay of journaling. Here is the journaling overlay:

This is a transparency with my journaling written on it. I then painted on the back of it with a very light pink paint. Here is what the journaling says:

12~03~06

I love Christmas Cards. I love getting them in the mail and I love making them each year. They are one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.

I love getting Christmas cards in the mail. I love reading about the lives of our friends and family both near and far. I know that some people are annoyed by Christmas letters, but I really do enjoy reading them. I just recently went through all of the cards that I had saved from years past. It was fun to look at photos and see how families have grown and changed over the years. I try to send a card to everyone that we receive one from.

I love making Christmas cards. I started making our cards shortly after we were married. At the time I did much more stamping and the cards were usually embossed. One of Chris’ co-workers told me that she framed my card each year! Talk about pressure!  I used to try to outdo myself each year. Not anymore. Now I just create whatever feels good. Last year I did the cards with my digital scrapbooking tools and I enjoyed playing with those techniques. However, this year I am going back to a more traditional card. I have the design in my head, materials gathered, and photos printed. Now I just need to sit down and create them!

Over the years I have also written our own Christmas Letter. I have been able to share the joys of the past year as well as challenges we have faced. As I look back on letters from years past, I am able to see where my faith was at that time. In the beginning I was hopeful and determined that we would have a biological child of our own. In last year’s letter, I was not so hopeful. I mentioned that we may even be considering adoption. We haven’t followed through with that. Each year when I sit down to write the letter I hope that next year I will be able to include information about our child. I am making a promise to myself right now and right here. This will be the LAST letter I write without a child. We will resolve our infertility one way or another in the coming year.

Here are close-ups of the other two pages:

That is last year's card as well as some cancelled stamps from years past. Envelopes is my current address book method, so I had lots of these lying around. My next goal is to get started on this year's cards and address list!


This year's card will go in the envelope. Notice that I said will.... it isn't done yet. It is done in my mind, just need to get them created on paper!

More on the weekend later... I am in creative mode and don't want to stop!

Christmas Art Journal Day 2

I will come back and post more later, but wanted to get these images up.

This is the day 2 entry of my Art Journal. The prompt was to talk about the weather with Christmas. We were also challenged to try making paper snowflakes! Loved it! Since I am a teacher, we often make snowflakes for the Winter Dance each year. It was fun to make these minature ones to put on these pages.

All paper is pretty much KI memories. I did cover the bazzill with glitter paint and added snowflake brads that I have had forever. I have no idea where they even came from! The acrylic is from Heidi Grace.

Here is the two page spread:

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Here is the left side up close:



And the right:



I just let myself go with these... a little more "junked up" than usual. The snowflakes are actually created on the back of another paper that I printed on. You couldn't read the text... so I embraced my mistake. That is something new for me! Maybe I am already growing with this process!

Here is the text since it is so hard to read:

12~02~06

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! It is hard to believe that on the very first day of December, we end up with a blizzard that has basically paralyzed most of Chicago. It’s not unbelievable that we have snow… it is the timing! It was 60 earlier this week!

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without some snow. The blizzard outside is truly making me feel the Christmas spirit. I love the snow and can’t imagine living somewhere that doesn’t get it. I am blessed to have a car with 4-wheel drive, so I am able to get around when I need to. I have a husband who is able and willing to shovel us out if need be. But there just is nothing better than the two words I heard yesterday morning, “Snow Day!”

I remember one Christmas when I was in grade school. We had been home for a few days on break and we were making my mom crazy. I am sure my sister and I had argued most of the time! Christmas Eve arrived with a snow storm. We wanted to go out and play and I think mom wanted us out of the house just as much! Mom surprised us by allowing us to open a present before we went out. Inside the boxes were brand new snow suits. I still remember putting on my new snow pants and going out in the snow for HOURS that day. I honestly don’t remember any of the toys I got that year, but I do remember the details of that snowsuit!

As an adult, I still love new winter clothes. Each year, I treat myself to a new pair of mittens and matching scarf. Usually I try to get the warmest ones I can that still match my coat. Last year I bought a bright green coat which has made finding matching mittens a challenge! I have not bought a new pair yet this year, so that will be today’s mission. After all, the forecast for tomorrow is a high temperature of 20! Bring on the Christmas weather!


We've had a busy weekend, and I really want to post about that... will come back and do that later today!