Project 366 Week 8

Happy Leap Day

Can you feel it, the excitement of living in a day that only exists every four years?  I can.  I love this day.  I have always pictured a little door opening on the calendar and a day spilling out of it.  Sunlight, birds and butterflies, flowers and grasses all tumbling out and coming into being just for this day.  I picture little elves in funny little clothes walking out that door with brooms in their hands and sweeping up the dust of yesterday and laying down a path for today's animals to stroll out on.  It's a special day so go out and make the most of it.  There's only 15 hours and 6 minutes left, you better hurry!

Before I forget, the beautiful elements and papers used on this page are from Creation 23 by Createwings and Catherine Designs.

Sunrise, Over-rated?

   
 I've got in this habit since Christmas vacation of getting the older kids up for school and then as soon as the bus pulls away I crawl back in bed and sleep until the youngest one gets up.  This is the first time in my adult life I have done this.  By nature, I'm a morning person.  I love to see the sun come up, the quiet stillness of the house, and throwing back a few cups of coffee before anyone needs anything from me.    It is in the early hours that I draw, sew, craft, and daydream up new worlds.  These are precious hours, these are the ones that keep me sane, well relatively... sane enough to get by.  My new habit, while giving me a more adequate amount of sleep, has killed morning.
     This morning, for the first time in a couple of months, I woke up, really woke up.  I didn't need to go back to bed.  It was perfect!  The house was quiet, I was drinking coffee, loving life, when I hear, "Momma Cat".  What?  I got really still and there it was again, "Momma Cat".  Lil' Miss calls me Momma Cat when she first wakes up every morning and she is, of course, the Sniffle Kitty.  Apparently, I was not the only one with this new found morning energy.  Sniffle Kitty was up for the day too.  I had no idea what I was in for while I was sitting there just moments before, soaking up the sun and enjoying my coffee.
     You moms out there know where this is going though.  You've seen this phenomenon before.  I know you have.  When you have a morning so peaceful and it's interrupted so suddenly by a child that normally sleeps another hour and a half... you know you're in trouble.  Now it's a good kind of trouble today, a fun trouble, but oh my goodness has she kept me hopping!  It was pizza rolls for breakfast  because nothing else would do (don't throw stones we're all in this glass house some days).  Then it went to Calico Critters and Lalaloopsy which had to be kept separate, her rules, until the calico bunnies needed to go to school and borrow the Lalaloopsy bus.  Of course, at school the bunnies were learning about agriculture and needed to borrow the Sleich elves greenery at which time they needed to do some planting for a hands on lab, and well, that required the pirate toys because they have shovels.  Are you counting along?  That, my friends, is 4 huge sets of toys in the living room and it is still before 8:00am...  From there it was Ramen noodles and salad (there we go salad is healthy, salad wont get me stoned... as in the glass house, some "salad" will get you stoned but that is not the reference here).  Then we move to, "Can we please make cupcakes?  Cupcakes would be a delicious surprise.  My friends (her siblings) love cupcakes!".  The cupcakes are still cooling (sigh... yes, we made the cupcakes) and while cooling, while still eating salad every stuffed animal in the house has came out to play and, by the way, they all need their own chair and the chairs had to be lined up in rows making my house look like an auditorium holding a meeting for over-stuffed anonymous or plushies with problems.  Deep breath.  It's cute but I'm tired, it's only 1:00pm, and now I'm wondering if maybe it would have been smarter to crawl back in bed.  Just how important is the sunrise anyway?
     Do you hear that? La la lala la la... oh good, the smurf toys are out and playing too...

Silence

There are times when silence has the loudest voice.  ~Leroy Brownlow

     I'm not sure when it happened, but, I did go out of this world in silence.  I left the blog that had become my online home, packed up my virtual sack, tied it to a stick and slipped away with it thrown heavily over my shoulder.  I quit speaking and even posting photos with quotes.  I'm not sure what caused me to do it.  Perhaps it was because I had read many bloggers being torn up for bad grammar, insulted for their opinions, ridiculed in their own blog homes.  I had seen stalkers in action and piracy on the high seas off Digiland and the Realm Of Photography.  I quit writing with my heart, I think, because I am unwilling to let anything negative touch it.  I know people that are so jaded that it makes me sad.  People that only want to see the negative, find the wrongs and uglies of this world in the guise of "the truth" and bring them out into harsh daylight completely willing to hurt anyone in the process.  It may be their truth but it is certainly not mine, mine is beautiful, positive, and filled with light.  So, I walked away to keep my reality alive.  It wasn't a conscious decision, just a slow progression.  It wasn't that there were any negative comments here.  I have been fortunate enough to come across the sweetest people here, other than the pirates of course, and them... I just don't get.   

     This morning, I came home, here, and I really looked around.  Other than the cobwebs, it's vacant.  The heart of the place is gone.  It had to happen.  I mean, if I'm not writing and just dropping off freebies it's really nothing more than a getting spot.  I don't like it.  I read a while back on another blog people complaining about designers who wrote about themselves and their lives on their own blogs.  The argument went a little like, just show us the kits, give us the freebies, it's a digi blog, I don't want to know about the designer.  Ok, fine, but that's called a store not a blog.  If you have a blog you should be able to write whatever you want, that's what it's for.  If you're visiting a blog and you don't want to read, don't read, that's your prerogative.  Why criticize someone for sharing a piece of them with you that's worth far more than an element or paper?  Just don't read, no comment necessary.

     The silence that lives here spoke loud to me today.  It needed to be filled.  This is my blog, this is my online home, this is where I speak.  This is not a digi blog, it has digi gifts in it but those things are not the whole of it.  If you are here just for those then skip the writing, I totally understand and you are welcome as always.  If you are here for more, if you find we share things in common and connect, I am pleased to have you here.  Say hi, I don't bite, really, and hearing nice things from you always does my heart good.

     A lady I met online, Nana Diana, through her blog, coined the phrase Blove and I love it!  You should go read about it and her (And, by the way, I'm not sending you there for her giveaway.  I actually didn't realize she had one going until I went to get you the link just now.).  I'm suggesting you go there because she is sweet and uplifting.  It's actually her that made me want to come home again.  While absent I have been reading and following blogs, her's I visit nearly every day.  She fills her blog with stories of family, love, and always with a touch of humor that makes me smile.  Through her I have found even more lovely bloggers who, like I did at one time, enjoy the positive aspect of blogging.  It was refreshing and left me wanting to blog again and realize how much I have missed it and the virtual community.  It was at one point a morning ritual for me along with a hot cup of coffee.  Ok, a hot pot coffee, I do love coffee.  

     Anyway, it feels good to be home and rambling again... regardless of who likes it or not.

Project 366 Week 7 Template

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Project 366 Week 7

snow, ice, cold, rain, sun, Valentine's Day, my birthday, illness... that about sums it up in 10 words.

Project 366 Week 6 Template

here ya go, have fun :)

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Project 366 Week 6

the album version with just the template:

and because I thought what if...

I'm still just using the basic one for the album because to me it's all about the photos

 but the "what if" was fun too.  The template coming up will be for the album version, you're

on your own if you want to add to it :)  all the elements and papers were from my kit Mouse Tales.

Project 366 Week 5 Template

Here's the week 5 template.  The elements and papers I used in my layout are all from my kit Love Birds that you can download here.

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Project 366 Week 5

Week 5 started out grey as the week before but we did manage to end with a couple days of much needed sunshine.  By the close of the week, we started getting a little more excited about Valentine's Day coming and did some crafts and made treats to help beckon the spirit of the season.

Project 366 Week 4 Template

Here's the week 4 template if you'd like to add it to your collection.

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Project 366 Week 4