Fresh

After 8 years with a red living room, we've gone gray - Timber Wolf to be exact. I've always loved the red because it felt like us. It was warm and fun and really fit our aesthetic at the time. But, it was time for a change.

We painted our office a (different shade of) gray back in the fall, and had fallen in love with how bright and clean it felt.

It makes me sad to look back and see how few pictures of the red we have. In fact, the only pictures I could find were from when we first painted it.

From Housework

From Housework

Our AWESOME canvas of a photo taken at Eastern State Penitentiary by the lovely Hillarie Jason. This snapshot does not do it justice. On the left wall, not well seen in this picture are some botanical shots of mine.

From Housework

The print on the left we purchased at an art & wine festival we happened upon in Carefree, AZ on our first trip together in 2002. We had not framed it until now because we never had the right place for it. On the right wall is the amazing quilt my mother made for us. She is so talented!

January Craft Project

So, I squeaked by with my January craft project by the skin of my teeth. I did it on the second to last possible day - but that doesn't matter because I did it.

Like many people out there, I am spending more time these days on Pinterest than I am on Facebook. But what good are all these ideas, recipies and inspiration pieces if I don't do anything with them.

So, this month's project is an abbreviated version of the Paper Heart Wreath from The Hybrid Chick Click the link to get her wonderful instructions.

From She's Crafty

I wanted to do this only using things I already had in the house. I had glue, I had ribbon and boy, do I have paper. Now, Hybrid Chick's version uses double-sided strips that are 2" x 11". I had no double-sided paper. And some of the paper that I wanted to use was from a square paper pack that was 8" x 8".

To make my strips double-sided I cut from my paper pack strips of 2" x 8" and cut other 2" x 8" strips from my 2010 and 2011
Paper Source Wall Art Calendars*

I then glued my strips together so that each strip would have two sides before shaping the hearts and glueing them together. I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results.

My version is definitely smaller than the original inspiration, but it looks just perfect on our front door. I really want to make sure that I set attainable goals for myself and if that means scaling back certain projects to make my goals fit into my life that is fine by me.

From She's Crafty

From She's Crafty

I already have planned my February craft and hope it goes just as well.

*I love the idea of the Paper Source Wall Art Calendars. Each month's calendar has patterns on the back so that you can cut up the calendar after it's original use to make pillow boxes, square boxes, note cards, etc. My problem is I've been stockpiling the calendar pages and not using them (until now!!!).

2 0 1 2 Goals and Aspirations

I'd like to not call them resolutions, because I throw resolutions away so quickly. But that doesn't mean I don't have things I want to strive for this year. And unlike last year, I need to be a lot less ambitious and give myself more credit for the things I do accomplish. A big one of those is updating my blog on a more regular basis, which should be accomplished if I can hit some of the other goals I've outlined below.

1. One craft related project a month (documented here on this blog).
2. One 30 day photo challenge this year (documented here on this blog). Project 52 will happen one of these years, but I'm not ready to fail at it again this year.
3. Read 25 books this year (documented via Goodreads)
4. Live a more active and healthy lifestyle. Don't just talk about it, read books about it, or half-ass it - this means to really change myself and my relationship with food.
5. Quit identifying who I am by my job. The highs and the lows bring me way too high up and drag me way too far down. I need to loosen what ties me to my job identity.
6. Write something start to finish. Anything.
7. Open up myself to failure. Stop seeing failure in everything I do; instead take more risks and realize life isn't as difficult as I've chosen to think it is. Enjoy the risks and forget the failure.

Dude, I'm updating my blog

This was a year of lofty goals that were not quite met.

Project 52 - Lasted 13 weeks
Goodreads Book Challenge of 40 books - Completed 25
NaNoWriMo - Lasted about 15k words out of 50k

Regular blogging? See Project 52.

And I am ok with this. It's not so much about not meeting my goals as looking at what I did do. I read 25 books. I wrote 15,000 words in about 2 weeks. I took 13 photos that I actually like.

For 2012, lower goals, higher expectations and maybe some regular blogging. I am going to attempt to not limit my blogging to photos, but we'll see. Let's not shoot too high now.

Week 13: Gadgets

I think I'll just stick to being literal from now on.

From Project 52

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From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

I also need to pat myself on the back for following through for 13 weeks so far. Pat, pat.

Week 12: Signs of Spring

From Project 52

One of my favorite traits of the character Temperance Brennan on the show Bones is how literally she takes things. Often it's worked into a joke at her expense, but it also shows a vulnerability and almost innocence to her character that really appeals to me.

Our Spring season may officially be here, but you wouldn't know it based on the temperature, the snow we have had in the last week or how grim and gray everything looks. It will bloom, we're just not there yet.

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Another sign of spring would be mud. We don't like mud.

From 52 Outtakes

And mud doesn't like us much, either.

From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

Week 11: Around The House

This was a strange week for me to try to capture a moment of my domestic life. I had a hectic schedule at work, I started a night course, and I've been sick. And when I think about my domestic realm, it includes my husband and two cats - all three of whom I have barely seen this week.

But something else was going on in our house this week. We have declared war on SUGAR. We are in the process of cutting out sugar and as a result cutting out most processed food. So, when I was present in my house this week - I was preparing food, eating food or thinking about food.

From Project 52

My relationship with food has always been a difficult one. I love food. I eat when I'm bored, I eat when I'm tired, and I've always eaten for comfort in times of stress. And I've tried different diets over the years with various amounts of success and failure. I had a hard time for a number of years with the outpouring of encouragement and adoration when I was at my skinniest and have fought for ways to get back there. This journey though, is not about being skinny. It's about caring enough for myself to treat myself the way I should. I know weight loss will be part of this journey, but it's about changing my lifestyle, changing my committments to myself and really becoming a healthier person.

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I originally imagined what I wanted to capture as retro, and what I ended up with was quite different but something I love just as much. In that way I am finding photography a lot like writing - sometimes you don't write the story, the story writes you.

From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

From 52 Outtakes

And for the record, cutting out sugar has already given Ron and I a fast and enouraging weight drop. A nice added bonus.