Ready to go... somewhat...

First of all... I'm trying to write this post after the shocking season 5 mid-season finale of The Walking Dead...  Those of you who watch the show know exactly what I'm talking about!  So, hopefully, my post will be coherent!

Tomorrow is December 1... the first day of my December Daily documented.  What I wanted to do today was get all of my foundation pages completed.  But, turns out, that takes a lot longer than planned.  So, I was able to get my cover page and the first few days of foundation pages completed.  I will post my cover tomorrow and possibly day 1 if I can get it together.  I'm a little concerned that I won't have enough to document each day since we don't really do much during the week in December, but we'll see how it goes.

I did get my December Daily stash somewhat organized and portable for the month :)

~AKO

Happy Thanksgiving... and some thoughts on shopping...

I hope you and your family enjoyed a safe and happy Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We spent the afternoon with Freddy's family in the city.  It was a fun afternoon and evening with food and drink.

I then did what I've never done before... went shopping on Thanksgiving night!  I refuse to go shopping on Black Friday because I refuse to get up at 4am on any day just to go shopping.  But, seeing some of the awesome deals on Thanksgiving night might have added this little ritual to our Thanksgiving evening activities.

The last week had Facebook blowing up with protests about retail workers required to work on Thanksgiving.  And to be honest, I didn't feel bad about shopping at all tonight.  You see, back when I was in college, I worked at Meijer for almost 6 years.  For those of you who don't know, Meijer is a 24 hour store and the only time they are closed is from 7:00pm on December 24 until 6:00am on December 26.  Every year I worked just about every holiday... which included a 3rd shift on Christmas night to get ready for the day after Christmas sales.  And you know what?  We were asked for volunteers first and then the shifts were filled by seniority with the lowest seniority selected first.  And guess what?  Most of the shifts would fill with volunteers!  I can tell you that holiday pay was a nice bonus so, yes, I was one of those volunteers every year.  It is great to see stores close on holidays, but our economy cannot support everyone shutting down during the holiday season when retailers need a big boost in sales.  And really, why are there no outcries about the Military, Police, Firefighters, EMS, hospital workers, gas station workers, and anyone else I forgot who also have to work every single holiday???  My sister works for the admitting department at a hospital and had to work today as one of the holidays in her rotation.  Just really my opinion on the matter... but we really need to get our priorities in line with our rants these days.  What do you think about Black Friday starting on Thursday night?

Back to my shopping excursion...  I intended to just hit up Michael's, who had a coupon for 30% off all items (including sale items) on top of some pretty good doorbuster sales.  I found my supplies for embossing and some other cute items that I needed for my December Daily project.  I also picked up a Gingerbread House kit that was on sale that I'm going to try with Marshall in the next couple of weeks.  I am planning on putting together my foundation pages for my book this weekend and hope to be able to share them with you Sunday night.

So I leave you with one of the few images where Marshall actually stopped and posed for a picture today.  I'm not sure what he was trying to be.  I'm sure in his head he is a ninja warrior.

~AKO

December Daily 2014

This year I started on an endeavor to document our daily lives.  While I'm VERY grossly behind, I started scrapbooking in January using the pocket scrapbooking system.  If you're not familiar with this, you can take a look at BeckyHiggins.com to learn more.  You can embellish your pages if you want, but pocket scrapbooking is super easy in that all you need to do is drop in your journal cards and photos and you're done.

Anyway, I was introduced to the December Daily project about a month ago.  December Daily was created by Ali Edwards to document 1 story each day in December.  So, I thought, why not give it a go this year??

So I did some research (like I always do) and decided that in order to be successful at this I was going to need an all inclusive kit.  Otherwise, I would probably just buy a whole bunch of random Christmas paper crafting supplies and then never do anything with it.

I decided to go with 2 kits and use pieces from both of them for this years try at my first December Daily.

My first kit comes from Take Ten Kits by The Studio 29 Designs.  I subscribe to this kit every month and, in October, she offered a "Days of December" kit.  There was a small kit available at $10 and a larger kit available at $25.  Of course I had to get both of them!  As of the date of this post, the $25 kit is still available.

It is hard to see in the picture, but the kit comes with washi tape, sequins, flair buttons, chipboard designs, acrylic words, a stamp set, pocket cards, and a 6x6 paper pad.

To be honest, I was just going to use what I received from Take Ten Kits... until I saw the video from the Ali Edwards kit.  I hadn't decided on what kind of an album to use and her kit came with all sorts of awesome supplies AND an album.  You can still order a kit from Ali Edwards.  They are currently offering free shipping in November to US recipients and double the paper (while supplies last).

The kit from Ali Edwards comes with a stamp set, paper, chipboard sets, large chipboard gold alphas, plastic shapes, wood veneer numbers, puffy stickers, small alpha stickers, and more!

Unfortunately, due to all the delays on the west coast with the dock workers and such, the album hasn't arrived yet, but it should be here next week.

Next weekend, when I sit down to put together my foundation pages, I'll have more pictures of the individual pieces.  Everything is so neatly packaged up that I didn't want to take things out yet until I figure out how I'm going to organize them for easy access next month.

I can't wait to get into this project and share our Days of December with you!

~AKO

Another Dimension

That is where it feels like I've been for the past 8 months... another dimension.  I've been in a bit of a funk over the summer and had to do some self help and soul searching on how to improve my situation and move forward.  It was nothing life threatening, just a bit mind and body threatening (if that is even a valid statement!).

I'm now ready to move forward and get back out there!  I have quite a few projects lined up that are going to start in the next 2 - 3 weeks that I'm excited to share with you.  Although, I'm sure I've lost a few readers with the unplanned hiatus, but I guess that goes with essentially starting over.  1 of those projects is starting on Monday and I'm really excited to put it out there, even if no one but me reads it :)

I recently went through Chalene Johnson's 30 Day Push, which is a 30 day program to help you focus on the goals that are most important to you and also help you to complete the daily tasks that need to be completed.  It is a free program and I highly recommend it.  The program really helped me to put into perspective what was really important to me and what I needed to prioritize to move toward my goals.

So, I promise I am back.

I can't promise there won't be a refocus of topics.

I can't promise that I won't overhaul this blog.

I can't promise there won't be whining... or soul searching.

What I can promise is that I'm back!

~AKO