Around Here | January 2014

Last week I took some time to go back through my Project Life albums since 2011.

It's so fun to look back.

It's always been fun to be able to look back even through all our family changes. It's one of the reasons I do what I do - in addition to knowing myself better through the process of documenting and creating and on and on.

One of the things that stood out for me is that I often included inserts that featured more writing - most often those words came from blog posts. They were often Around Here style posts or What's Real Right Now - repetitive journaling prompts that help my words flow easily. I want to get back in the habit of writing those kinds of things down more frequently again - they are longer stories that have a place in Project Life or on traditional layouts.

So here we go:

Around here I'm planning a really big surprise for Simon's birthday this week (his birthday is today). He's turning 12 and it's about time the two of us had a little adventure.

Around here I loved participating in the Big Picture Play event in Anaheim last week. It was awesome to connect with old and new friends and I loved the challenge of creating a presentation around the topic of play (which is something I struggle with in terms of letting go enough to just have fun).

Around here Katie and I are hoping to start our new "block" schedule next week. I talked about this sometime last year and it never got implemented. The idea is to set aside time each week for certain tasks - making it a little less flexible than we are used to with intention. The goal is to move us away from screwing around online when we could be doing more productive, content creation sort of tasks (but building in time for messing around). I'll let you know how it goes.

Around here I've learned that reading chapter books out loud to my kids in the evening is just awesome. After writing my post about distraction a couple weeks ago I really did take action and it's continued to be something I'm super aware of as I got about my day. There is a special, special connection happening during those evening reading times with just the three of us.

Around here my Christmas tree was still up as of Sunday morning. Now it's packed away in the garage, ready to make another appearance later this year.

Around here Simon is all about Ghostbusters. He's creating scenes with his Lego guys. He wants the book. He tells me scenes over and over again. We listen to the soundtrack every single time we get in the car (Anna asks for it now too). He also really wants the Back To The Future Lego car for his birthday. And you know I'm loving all these blasts from my own childhood - things I loved and watched and played and pretended.

Around here Anna is all about the alphabet and working on writing her letters. She sees words and wants to copy them and wants to know how everything is spelled. Last night she wrote the names of all her friends she wants to invite to her birthday party next month. I'm slowing down with her and it seems to be just what we both needed.

Around here I'm making spring break plans. It's so, so grey here during this time of the year and the idea of heading to somewhere sunny makes it a little more bearable.

Around here I'm reading Hands Free Mama and a book called 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker and I might have started watching Breaking Bad (okay, I watched the first four episodes one night last week). I'm reading more than watching though since last year I'm not sure I read more than a handful of books and for me that's just not enough.

Around here I'm working on a post about my unfinished projects and the way I plan to tackle them this year. I'm also working through the last few months of Project Life 2013 and my 31 Things Workshop (a re-run of the same class from last year) starts on Wednesday. One Little Word® is in full swing and I'm working on a new article for the next issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today.

Around here things are good.

And now I'm off to celebrate one of the most awesome blessings in my entire life: Simon.