$72 project that might change your life

I will be trying to scrounge up $72 before Feb 16th to do this. If you have a camera and would like to focus on yourself for some much needed introspection, I think you will agree this looks miiiiighty interesting and amazing. Let me know if you decide to do it and I'll let you know if I do.

Friday - We made it!

(ETA: This is the post I posted yesterday like a damn fool.)

Well, it's Friday. Sooooo looking forward to the weekend. Both of my girlies have been sick - Lily since last Friday (and she had to stay.home.from.school.boo.) and now Natalie. Baby Natalie Noodle has the most hideous cough. It's heartbreaking. Mike and I took her to the emergency "clinic" last night to make sure she wasn't going to keel over with pneumonia. It was that bad. Nope, she was fine. Makes you feel like such a boob when there's nothing *really* wrong. You can never be too careful, though, right? Ask me about how a few weeks ago we took her to the real live emergency room when her temperature was 96 degrees. Yeah, we looked like bigger boobs then.
It's my favorite day of the year tomorrow - Jan. 31. MY BIRTHDAY! Yahoo!!! I just love birthdays. I really do feel like this date was made especially for me. When I hear "Jan. 31st" on commercials I get all tingly. That's MY DAY they're talking about ;-) Mike and I are handing over Noodle and Bean as early as possible tomorrow and will spend the day possibly in silence, lying down, relishing the peace and quiet and maybe even taking a nap. Ahhhhhh....then we'll go to Pappasitos (using gift cards...thanks to SM!!!). Because have I mentioned we're very poor? It's good for us to be this strapped for cash. Teaching me so much...
Then, we have good ol' SuperBowl Sunday. I really love sports, but pretty much can't stand the Super Bowl. It's just so over the top. Plus, could give two flips about the teams in it this year. To Mike, it is a holy day and I have been clearly instructed to make no demands of him. I must admit that last year I had him going to Old Town Spring for some crazy reason the morning of the Bowl and he was none too pleased. He still brings it up.
I would also like to mention that if you think anyone else would be interested in reading this blog, please send me their email and I will add them on. I know people who check in infrequently might be feeling slighted that they were not able to get in and it's not meant to be that way. I'll gladly take more readers (not that I have anyone else who cares, I realize.)
Just for fun, here are some recent pics. You might have seen these on my flickr, but if not...

P.S. Just found an amazing singer/songwriter named Ane Brun. Farrell...get on this! She's on itunes and has her own website. Listen to this.

The Goddess to Whom I Pray

Would you, could you get a LOAD of this.

2009 Wishes (Update)

1. Relax. R.E.L.A.X. (not my body - my mind.)
Not just yet...needs improvement
2. Organize my life just a wee bit more
Plans are in the works. I'm loving that Aussie guy Peter Walsh's strategies for organization. A while back I bought (used!) his book "It's All Too Much" and Mike and I are beginning the purge slowly, but surely.
3. Reduce, reuse, recycle! I can't believe our city doesn't offer curbside recycling. Travesty.
Mike is going to take our recycling to a place right by his school. I just need to find a sanitary way to organize the paper/plastic/glass b/c I can't buy any bins! I'd also like to compost. Any tips?
4. Be nicer to my dogs
Doing this.
5. Meal plan on Sunday for the entire week
Oh my goodness, yes, doing this and it really helps. Finally!
6. Eat out less
Uh, yes. How about never (unless my parents take us).
7. Restructure my bidness
Yes! Just worked out a plan yesterday and am getting feedback for it today on my forum. No idea if people want to pay for photography with the economy, but we'll see.
8. Be firmer with the grandparents about my expectations for the kidlets. (Remember we see them a lot more than most peeps see their grandparents.)
Yes and whining has begun (on their part). My mom thinks I'm nuts. She thinks I'm making a mistake limiting spending the night and overall reducing the amount of time Lily is away. Great.
9. Get more exercise
big, fat F on this one so far.
10. Spend less money
When there is none to spend this takes care of itself ;-)
11. Learn to sew (in progress!)
Am learning that sewing takes precision...something I am not, nor have I ever been good at. But I still like it and look forward to what I can make one day!
12. Craft more, make things (I used to love scrapbooking...then business got in the way)
Doing the journal thing, making waldorfy things with Lily - yes!
13. Take pictures just for fun!
Good heavens I've been a photographing fool lately. Am love love loving flickr. I finally see what all the fuss is about on there! Addicted.
14. Take a self-portrait every day. Yikers, this will be hard.
Bailed out on this and told you why in yesterday's post. Will do one a week.
15. De-clutter my life (this means YOU house)
See number 2
16. Make a garden
Gotta wait on this one. Tips Farrell and Stephanie??
17. LOTS LESS STARBUCKS (in progress!)
Totally. I still go, rarely, but am just using up gift cards.
18. No yelling at the Bean when she frustrates me to no end
This will be an ongoing work in progress as she is one tough cookie, but I am consciously trying to keep my cool. I only really lose it when she's mean to Natalie.
AND FOR THE UMPTEENTH YEAR IN A ROW....
19. Send out birthday greetings and prezzies ON TIME
I don't think I'll ever get this one right.

Prezzies

Got some prezzies in the mail for my birthday and xmas! Thank you soooooooo much SM!!

A "guitar bird" shirt (that's what Lily called it)
















REAL fingerless gloves from etsy! These are gorge and so much better than my 2.99 pair from Randall's that I cut the fingers off of...
















I love new stuff. Guess I'll have to get over THAT.

Blather

Some randomness for you:
1. I've lost 10 pounds of late. Yay! Don't ask me how...it's not healthy.
2. I am becoming so.dang.thrifty. Pretty soon Raegen Takahata won't have nothin' on me! Inside Vancouver, WA joke.
3. We, as a little family, are broke. Whose fault is this? Mine. All mine. I do not know how to save money. It's crunch time now, though. When pushed, I can do anything. See number 2 above.
4. I am going to go on a 3 month buying hiatus. This means I will purchase absolutely nothing, and I do mean nothing, for myself. I need to break some baaaaaaaaad habits.
5. Feeling very good about my New Year's Wishlist. I will update on that soon with progress. I didn't see many of your resolutions in my comments or links to your blogs! I wanna know! I saw Miss Tonya is going to run her ass off, and I am so proud. Girl, YOU can totally do it. You have more stamina than I ever had at running. Will never forget how it was you who literally trained me for my marathon. Mwah!
6. Hubby and I are in a good place right now. Some of the recent drama and money situation has drawn us closer for once, rather than pitted us against each other.
7. I'm totally bailing out on my 365 days of self portraits. Oy vey. I could not keep up, nor am I creative enough to take an interesting photo of myself every day. I'm going to change it to once a week. Much more manageable.
8. Have you all seen Slumdog Millionaire or Benjamin Button? I loved Slumdog (on my all time favorite list) and Benjamin was interesting and sweet, but it didn't change my life. What have YOU seen lately that you would recommend?

Be back later with more stuff.

52 Q Mini-Journal (Q3)

So I did my third journal entry which was the question: "Do you believe in fairies?".

My tag is so ugly I cannot share.

However, my wording was something to the effect of: "Sadly, no. No fairies for me. I don't believe in ghosts (or angels - gasp!) either. Have never come close to any encounters, therefore, I cannot believe. For the sake of my girlies, I will pretend."

Not such a fun question last week. This week is, "When I look in my eyes I see ____________".

The frame of mind I'm in lately, this outta be interesting.

Addictive Game

Have fun with THIS! Kids can play, too!

Confession: My Dirty Little Secret

I have decided to start a new series of posts called "Confession". Boy, do I have a lot of them.
Here's my first one:

More Today, than yesterday

My morning ritual is: take care of my babies and WATCH TODAY SHOW. The Today Show is like a member of my family. Matt Lauer? Yum. Meredith? Eh. She's grown on me. Ann Curry? She is just about up there with Mother Teresa in my book (soooooo nice! so perfect.) Al Roker? Ugh.

Anyhoo, watched the inauguration yesterday through their eyes and loved every second of it. Today, however, watching all the recaps and discussion I can't get the tears out of my eyes. Hence the title of my post - more moved today, than yesterday even! I am so proud and excited to have Barack Obama as our president.

I loved:

watching the President and First Lady looking so in love and like a team all day long.

their adorable girls seeming so well adjusted and poised.

the people that turned out to watch - all 2 million of them!

the flags all waving (chills!!!)

that Aretha Franklin looked awesome and sang for real, no lip synching.

hearing Tom Brokaw get all choked up talking about the indignities and humiliation African-Americans suffered not so long ago.

seeing tears streaming down the faces of people of all races and ages

seeing the president get his groove on and mean it

listening to Beyonce sing "At Last", doing a bang up job, looking beautiful, and being from H-Town!

seeing G-Dubya get on that helicopter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will NOT miss you, (but appreciate that you tried to serve our country.)

watching Barack come down the lonely hallway of the capitol about to walk out to the throngs of people - THAT gets me every time.

knowing that our country is so civilized and our constitution and forefathers is/were so BRILLIANT.

Hail to our new Chief!

Painfully True

click to enlarge!

Aha!

I've been wondering how people did this!

52 Q Mini-Journal

Well, I'm very, very rusty...so don't be too harsh in your mind about these pics of my mini journal. I think I'll warm up eventually. Also, all my scrapbooking supplies are at the MIL's house. ALL of them. I think I need to send Mike over there to retrieve them! I had a joined a monthly scrapbooking kit website (http://www.labeltulip.com/) so had some paper and embellishments from there. I highly recommend label tulip if you're into a monthly kit. Beautiful stuff. I had to postpone b/c I am BROKE for the moment. I digress...
Here are my cover, and first 2 questions completed. Have you started yet????? Link me to your pics. Oh, these are on my flickr site, too. Click on my flickr badge to the right to see what other photos I've been taking. There is one of a rose that I am in love with right now.

The cover:

Q1

The 3 thoughts I had written down in response to the above question were : calm, organization, and living in the moment. Since I don't have a lot of options for getting writing onto my tags without my supplies and I hate my handwriting, I had to improvise with found words in my stash that came close to my 3 words.

The flipside of the following tag asked "Am I afraid of Change" but was too ugly to take a picture of. Ha.

Wet Cement

Found this quote on a favorite blog this morning:

children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.- dr haim ginott

I wanted to blog the following tidbit the other day but forgot, and this reminded me that maybe I should. I have some wise souls reading this blog and I could use your advice.

The other day Lily and I were getting me ready in the bathroom. I usually don't put much, if any, makeup on these days (if I'm not going somewhere REAL). But this day, I opened the makeup drawer and put on the standard blush and mascara and some powder. If Lily asks to put on my makeup I always say yes. Sheye and Ava taught me that this is totally ok. She doesn't put on much, sort of just pretends - fluffs the brushes over her cheeks and tries sloppily to put lipstick on.

The other day, she was intent on putting on a LOT of lipstick. I told her, whoa!, you have way too much lipstick on (and she did.) She said back to me that she wanted to put a lot on so she could look a lot prettier. I was immediately saddened. Hated what I had just heard. She may not even know what she is saying, but somehow she already associates makeup with pretty. Of course I told her she is prettier without it, and finally convinced her to wipe it off before we saw any other human beings.

I make it a point to never knock myself in front of her, and never talk about make up making me prettier. Somehow, she still gets that message. Why? How?

And where do I go from here?

That Plane Crash

What a complete and total miracle. The more I think about it, the more goosepimples I get, and the more miraculous it seems.
What an amazing job the pilot and his crew did. Uh, that doesn't do it enough justice, but I am in awe.

And gosh dangit I hate planes.

Flickr

I've been updating my flickr account (saraluna14) lately with all sort of new pics. I'm doing a self-portrait a day there, and a shot a day also. Have had lots of creative energy lately without my photography outlet! That's why I've been craving crafting so much, I think. Kinda cool to find out that I have a true need for creativity after almost 35 years of life. Geez, I'm almost 35. I didn't mind being 34, but 35 just sounds harsh.

Anyway, I put a new flickr badge over there to the right, beneath the pic of me, noodle and bean. Take a click and leave me some love on a photo you like!

Also, have you started your 52Q mini-journaling project yet? I haven't but plan on it very soon. I ordered some tags and am waiting for them to get here. Remember you can do this on a deck of cards (perfect!).
The first two questions:
1. What do you wish for the new year to bring?
2. Am I afraid of change?

Get going! Here is the flickr group for inspiration.

Here was my self portrait from yesterday...wonder what kind of mood I'm in? Verrrrrrry introspective and dark (in case you were wondering.) My hands always freeze while I sit at the computer punching away and I have been longing for some fingerless gloves. Bought these black gloves at Kroger the other day and cut the finger tips off. Pretty ghetto, but man! do they make me feel like such a badass!!!!

This made Lily and me laugh

Juvenile, but so cute and hilarious. Ignore the basketball game at the beginning. It's nice and short, promise!

Scattered

This morning, while trying to do a few too many things at once, Lily brought me her panties that I had asked her to fetch. When handed these panties, I proceeded to attempt to put Lily's pint-sized panties on my not-so-pint-sized self.

I've been laughing about this ever since.

Look what I made!!

My first sewing project, ever!! I took pics from faaaaar away so you can't see all the flaws. It was fun! Can't say that I'm hooked (yet), but it was interesting and I'm willing to try something else.

Clarissa, did I hear you got a sewing machine? Do tell!

Got the pattern from here: http://www.soulemama.com/SouleMamaGratitudeWrap.pdf

A New Day

Well, I have seriously loved reading your responses to my "sitcheeeayshun". You have shared so honestly and generously and there is nothing I like more in the world than feeling I am not alone. I have read and reread your words and I feel a little bit better thanks to each of you. Big internet hugs to all of you. I wish you were here in the living room and we could brew up some coffee and chat fur rrreeaall. I am so glad to know each of you.

I'll keep you updated, but I'm going to move on from this nastiness starting now.

Do you have new year's resolutions? I kinda call them wishes, because it's so rare that I stick to them. Does that make me suck - no - just normal I like to think.

Here's mine. Feel free to post yours in the comments!

1. Relax. R.E.L.A.X. (not my body - my mind.)
2. Organize my life just a wee bit more
3. Reduce, reuse, recycle! I can't believe our city doesn't offer curbside recycling. Travesty.
4. Be nicer to my dogs
5. Meal plan on Sunday for the entire week
6. Eat out less
7. Restructure my bidness
8. Be firmer with the grandparents about my expectations for the kidlets. (Remember we see them a lot more than most peeps see their grandparents.)
9. Get more exercise
10. Spend less money
11. Learn to sew (in progress!)
12. Craft more, make things (I used to love scrapbooking...then business got in the way)
13. Take pictures just for fun!
14. Take a self-portrait every day. Yikers, this will be hard.
15. De-clutter my life (this means YOU house)
16. Make a garden
17. LOTS LESS STARBUCKS (in progress!)
18. No yelling at the Bean when she frustrates me to no end
AND FOR THE UMPTEENTH YEAR IN A ROW....
19. Send out birthday greetings and prezzies ON TIME

Thursday

The "Drama" post is down below...in case you missed it.
Also, Lily started at her new Waldorf school today and I am so excited. I swear to you when I say I wish I could attend the school. Like now. Be a student. Learn through Miss Jill's teaching. Actually, what I wouldn't give to go back to being 3 years old and starting my life in the Waldorf way.
I am so excited for her and so excited that I found this little enclave of happiness for her and Natalie.
Peace out.

I want us all to do this.

Yes, you. You blog readers. On a deck of cards. Start this week.
Read this: http://www.embers.typepad.com/ (post titled 52Q)
I'll post my example soon.