Lately

I’ve been busy. 

Using Blurb.com, I’ve been converting my blog into a book!  I began this bog almost three years ago in order to scrapbook my photos and family stories.  I took a Scrapbooking class once and was really very bad at it.  I just didn’t have the artistic vision to make a page beautiful. However, my blog has helped me capture those photos and memories so well.  But what happens if someday Blogger’s server crashes (I’m not sure those are the right terms…but you know what I mean.)  My blog would be lost, like a scrapbook that turns to ash in a housefire.  Hence the decision to make the blog into a book (that could also burn up in a housefire, whatever, shut up.)

I have to tell you though, that three years of blogging is a lot to organize.  I’m having to rewrite some things, choose templates that fit the right number of photos and text for each blogpost, and on top of that, Blurb is really slow.  I don’t think it’s my computer, because it’s usually pretty speedy, but when I ask Blurb to delete a page, for instance, it will do it…after about a two minute wait.  I usually must wait 20-30 seconds after most moves (which seems crazy slow), but the Delete a Page move is the most annoying.  I’m enjoying the whole process though, and it’s fun to take a walk down Memory Lane (it’s mostly fun…but I’m embarrassed at how bad my writing was in the beginning, middle, and sometimes even the end.  Man, I use way too many exclamation marks!!!!)

So besides the blog business…

I found this ladybug inside my house, which I think means good luck.  Except, doesn’t the ladybug’s house burn down in the little nursery rhyme? Maybe I should rethink the book.  Anyway, I put her outside on a pumpkin for a nice little photo shoot, but she promptly fell off and scurried away, which I think means she’s taking her luck and/or housefire with her somewhere else.

Dave and I repainted the shutters on our house last month!  He did the top floor, I did the bottom, and then I also painted the bench, front door, and storm door (I had to as I also changed our paint color from Faded Pukey Maroon to Sherwin William Tricorn Black.  I think the house looks much better now as our old shutters were so faded from the sun.

Before:

After:

Also, I took the screens off the windows, hosed down the whole front porch, and then washed all of the windows until they were squeaky clean.  It’s probably the last time I’ll do that until we paint the shutters again in 2021,  just sayin’.

I’ve also had two photo shoots this month in an effort to get a Christmas card photo.  For the first one, I took the kids to Founders Hall where the foliage was blazing away.  For the second one, I threw some Christmas lights down on our living room floor and stuck the kids in front of them.  I got some good results for both, but I also got some bombs.  Here’s a sneak peek at some bombs (because I’m saving most of the bombs for my Annual Christmas Card Reject Post, click here to see 2009’s rejects and here to see 2010’s rejects):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School conferences were about a week ago, and they all went well.  Jack’s teacher asked if I noticed the Community Helpers bulletin board in the hall, which I hadn’t.  She thought I would be interested in seeing Jack’ s contribution to the bulletin board.  Oh boy.  Did I get a nervous feeling in my stomach. 

The theme of the bulletin board was how community helpers help people.  For instance, one child wrote “I would like to be a policeman so I can help children cross the street.”  Another child wrote, “I would like to be a teacher so I can teach children how to read.”  So admirable.

Jack wrote:

Hmmm.  Maybe I need to whine about the orthodontist bills at a lower volume from now on.