Yup, I had a date night without my son, but don't tell him! My sister has a season subscription to the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Last week when she was unable to find a babysitter - I got to stand in for my brother-in-law. He was just as happy to stay home and me, well I was just as happy to go to the show.
We were treated to a wonderful dinner out, right around the corner from the theatre. Truly a great meal!
Jen and I had a chance to catch up on each other's lives and enjoy a wonderful show. It was an awesome opportunity to spend time together and a treat to have a "date"!
"One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries."
A.A. Milne
I have spent the past few weekends in a hopeless attempt to organize my house and deal with the fact that I have too much stuff to even thinking about moving in less than a year. Today I saw this quote and I believe that perhaps this is my underlying problem. I love the little discoveries and delight in the pleasure they bring. I must also admit, I love the distraction they provide from the process, I am hopeless. Call it adult ADD or task avoidance it doesn't matter because after three weekends I do not feel any closer to being done.
So, I have decided to put everything in large plastic containers until I have time to once again enjoy the little discoveries and the process!
reality sneaks up from behind and takes you by surprise. Today, that happened to me. I had grabbed my digital SLR and ventured outside to capture fall. The leaves on the trees in my yard are just beginning to change. The golden color of the birch trees looked brilliant blowing gently in the sunshine. That was when it hit me. This is the last fall that I will spend in this house. Wow. That was a dose of reality that I did not need right at that moment. But, knowing that, I took a closer look at the state of my yard this beautiful fall day.
The maple tree, an Autumn Splendor, was planted just a few years ago and I am amazed at the size of it. I love the colors of the leaves as the season progresses. Here, we are right at the beginning of the color change, very few of the leaves have turned the beautiful crimson that this tree is known for.
I love that there is one colorful leaf nestled in the middle of the tree.
The birch tree out front seems to be the first tree in the yard to take on the color of autumn. The leaves turn a lovely gold before they flutter to the ground.
The shrub roses still have some blooms, the last of the pink blossoms seem to be holding onto the last bit of warm weather.
The backyard looks lonely and deserted save for the weeds, don't look too closely, and the adirondack chairs. The weeds will be pulled and the chairs, well they are coming with me.
My front yard is ready for fall. Next week I will add pumpkins to celebrate Halloween, my last one in this house. I hope the neighborhood kids will stop by in their costumes, I will miss them next year.
I think my favorite part of the weekend is Sunday afternoon, especially if I can stay at home and putter around my house. This weekend I was blessed with just that sort of Sunday.
The weather was warm and sunny, the perfect autumn afternoon. While I spent most of the day inside, I was able to catch a glimpse of the colors of autumn in my yard.
My mums are still looking good. And the October daisies are just at their peak!
While I was outside this morning I also discovered Morning Glories that have sprouted up in my yard. They are a beautiful purple color and are a sight to see mingling with the longer grass!
I also noticed a cluster of weeds that are just too pretty to mow.
More days should be just like today. I love the opportunity to work at my own pace and accomplish just what can be done, with no requirements or deadlines. Now, time to get ready for Monday!
I started by calling this blog post Lessons Learned, but clearly, not enough has been learned for me to boast. In my defense, I am not speaking of life's lessons, but merely scrapbooking lessons.
Back in 2008 I signed up for Cathy Zielske's class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking, Design Your Life. It was to have been 12 weeks of design classes focusing on the elements of design, including but not limited to, line, white space, unity, repetition and symmetry. I love Cathy Zielske's simple, no nonsense style and, at the time the class started, I was so excited. I walked around with my special scrapbook, designed just to hold the layouts from my class, proud as a peacock. I loved my initial layout and could not wait to complete at least one layout each week. I had big plans, I was going to keep up with this class.
Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. Recently I revisited my class notes and completed two layouts using photos from my recent adventure in Washington. This past weekend I uncovered a few photos taken one evening last January when Jason, Jessica and I were all together. A rare occurrence and a blessing to boot. The one thing that I love about these photos is the playfulness between my two children. The photos show the special relationship that Jason and Jessica share and as I prepare to move away from them, this is a relationship that I want to document.
This layout uses the first sketch from week three which focused on repetition. While the layout is not quite finished, you can see that several elements were repeated, the space around the photos and the patterned paper. I am hoping to switch out the patterned paper in the lower right hand corner for some type of appropriate embellishment and to include a similar embellishment to the left of the larger photo on the left hand page, again repetition.
I have tried to spend a few minutes creating a couple of times a week while I attempt to balance time for work and working on the house. It hasn't been easy to allocate the time but I feel really out of sorts when I try to muddle through without it. Here's to finding balance and seizing opportunity when it presents itself! Here's to finding the time to reflect on what's most important to me.
Following along with yesterday's theme - I present three days of 10. Yesterday, 10 things that I am grateful for. Today, 10 things I made, inspired by Amy Krause Rosenthal.
I made this bed,
this bracelet,
and this mess.
I made this wreath,
this boy,
and this girl.
I made this quilt,
and this quilt.
I made this display,
and this decoration.
I had fun making this list. Enjoy Amy's little video and then stop back tomorrow for my list of 10, number 3!
This date comes around only once in a lifetime. That alone deserves some special recognition. So, for the next three days I will offer up my lists of 10. Today - a list featuring 10 things that I am grateful for. Not in any particular order, just off the top of my head.
1. Jason and Jessica top my list. They keep me grounded, honest and focused. Absolutely grateful for those two.
2. Mark. What can I say? Grateful for his patience, his understanding and his love. So looking forward to the future that we will create together.
3. Family. I have a large, multi-faceted family. I am grateful for my sister Jen, her husband and her girls for including me in their lives and making sure I don't get too lonely. My sister Suz for keeping me in check, holding me accountable and reminding me of the positives. My mom who, just today, offered to help me with something that was sure to stress me out. Gotta love that!
4. Colleagues that are supportive and caring. Especially my grade level partners. I know that I would not be able to make it through this year without them!
5. I have the most amazing group of friends. Friends that have known me for years and new friends that have joined my journey. I am grateful for each and every one of them.
6. This time of year I am grateful for weekends off. A chance to rejuvenate and accomplish something at home. Well, maybe next week that will happen!
7. My house. It is the perfect house for me. I love coming home. I love the opportunity to stay at home. I just love my house. Here's hoping that the next one suits me just as well!
8. Today, I am grateful for crisp warm autumn days that offer tons of sunshine and cool autumn evenings that allow for snuggling up with a warm quilt.
9. So very grateful for memories that warm my heart and touch my soul and dreams that keep me moving forward.
10. Grateful for good health and lots of happiness. I am truly blessed.
Allow me to indulge, Louie Armstrong singing a song that always reminds me of my dad. Memories.
the longer birthday celebrations seem to last. Well, that was especially true this year since I started celebrating my birthday on September 11th in Yakima, Wa. Today there seems to be a lull in the festivities, but I have yet to catch up with my daughter and you can be assured that there will be much to celebrate when that finally does happen.
This week was a blur of activities. My birthday was actually on Monday, the same night as back to school night. A special thank you to my boss for making that happen! Tuesday found me asleep at 4. Too much celebrating with the parents I guess!
Wednesday I arrived home to find a birthday present from Mark. A beautiful new point and shoot camera, a Canon Elph. I couldn't wait to use it so I immediately plugged in the battery so that it would charge. That evening I was treated to dinner by a dear friend. Plus, we had scrapbooking to do, three months worth for our Year in the Life albums. Giddiness set in around 9 and by ten I have no idea what the pages actually looked like. But, everyone agreed that we were done. So, that was that!
Thursday I was treated to a festive evening in South Philly by my son. What a time we had. Delicious food, great conversation and phenomenal service. Carluccio's is a relatively new restaurant in Jason's neighborhood. In fact, it is only 7 months old. Jason had stopped by on Tuesday to check out the menu to see if it was mom appropriate. While it pains me to admit, I can be a picky eater. But the menu had more than enough to offer and the intimacy of the restaurant was a treat.
Since Jason had stopped by on Tuesday, the fellows in the restaurant knew that I was celebrating my birthday. Our dessert came with a candle and a wish.
Dessert was delicious. An apple layered in puff pastry with a walnut and cinnamon sort of filling. Jason and I split dessert and Jason was able to take half my dinner home. It was just too much food! We walked back toward Jason's house and stopped just to take the obligatory self portrait, with the new camera of course.
It is times like this that I know I am seriously going to miss living close to my children. While moving south has been something I have wanted to do for a long time, moving away from Jason and Jessica will never be easy. I think I have to plan on spending as much time with them as physically possible before I relocate!
Around my house birthday celebrations can last a full month. I think that started back when Jason, Jessica and I lived on LBI. Many birthdays were celebrated with immediate family, meaning me, friends and then a trip to north Jersey to celebrate with the rest of the family. Coordinating all of that took time. Now that my children and I live in different areas, it seems that the birthday celebrations last even longer.
This year, my birthday celebration is no different. My celebration actually started on the west coast, at Lake Quinault, where Mark bought me a beautiful necklace. It continued in Yakima where we celebrated my birthday with a dinner at the 2nd Street Grill.
And then it continued when we arrived back in Seattle. I took a break from celebrating for a time and then the celebration continued this past Thursday when the scrapbooking ladies surprised me with a cake, an Italian Rum Cake at that!
I had never had Italian Rum Cake and I believe that we were actually given someone else's cake. The greeting on the cake read, Happy Birthday Janice. Oops, Janice was stuck with a plain vanilla cake. Bet you she was as surprised as we were!
Tonight the celebrating continued with dinner at Benihana thanks to my sister, brother-in-law and their family. My mom even came - we had such fun! I haven't seen the girls in weeks and it was good to spend time together. Em had to tell me all about kindergarten and the others were all excited about their new schools also. Benihana knows how to celebrate birthdays. They light a large candle next to a golden Buddha. They sing Happy Birthday in English and then Japanese while playing some sort of tambourine. And then, to top it all off, they take a birthday photo. Since I forgot my camera, it is the only photo I will have to remember this evening. I am grateful for that.
While my actual birthday is tomorrow, the celebrating will have to wait until Tuesday. Monday, unfortunately, is back to school night which means I will be at school until later in the evening. But, I have plans with friends on Wednesday and Jason wants to do something special also. Jess and I will get together, hopefully, sometime later this month. The celebrating goes on, thanks to family and friends, and it feels really good to have so much to celebrate.
