Routine

I guess life has been so routine lately that I haven't had much to write about! I usually post fun photos from the weekend, but what if you just hang out and don't do anything?

We have been trying to save money. Trying, trying, trying. We are writing down everything that we spend money on and of course doing our best to eliminate the extra stuff.

I am also doing my best to eat healthy again. Not really sure what this is going to mean for me for the long term, because being completely Primal girl doesn't seem to work for me. I seem to do better mood-wise and weight-wise when I can have a little greek yogurt or cheese or oatmeal. But for the most part I am sticking to Paleo principles, at least during the work week.

On the weekend, it may be a different story. (Remember the SUGAR weekend? Yeah, that happens. Although this last weekend was not so bad!)

I'm back to running! 6 miles yesterday, and the previous weeks I have ran 5.6 miles (twice Green lake) a couple of times each week. So far, no pain! I am really trying to train SLOWLY this time around so that I don't blow up my hamstring and can't run for months. I am NICER when I run! I think my husband needs it.

Still drinking black coffee. Still craving chocolate.

Still annoyed by two crying cats at 6:00 who try to get my attention by knocking over my tablet and books from my bedside table.

So yes, life is very routine and sometimes not super exciting. I will work on taking more photos (that's been lacking) and posting more exciting stories. I will just have to find something to do that's FREE! Any suggestions are welcome!

Happy Tuesday. :)

Project Life Weeks 2 and 3

I finally got photos printed for the last few weeks and was able to finish my Project Life pages. I'm still having so much fun with this. :)

Here are lots of photos...hopefully this wont bore you!
And week #3...
I love having extra space on my photos to add a little extra writing.There were a lot of extra photos this week because I got pretty excited about the snow. I added an extra insert so more photos would fit.

A couple close ups...
I've been recording my weekly work outs on one of the cards for the past two weeks. I think I'll keep it up!

Snow Day

I am thoroughly enjoying my snow day!

Only two patients.

Ran home in the snow.

Paleo cookies for Breakfast.

Lunch made at home. Fajitas.

A little Love Actually.

Fetch with Leo.

Fuzzy socks.

A "storm" is brewing outside!

Matt is skiing.

In a few minutes I will be walking to the gym for a work out and then to a friend's house where I will spend the evening in a warm home with a hot fire and great people (and a baby!)

What could be better than this?

My weekend

If I could sum up my weekend in one word it would be this:

SUGAR.

It all started on Friday night with a trip to REI and some delicious Chukar Cherries. Then the sugar eating continued throughout the entire weekend!

Highlights of Friday night were a beautiful sunset and getting to see Peter and Hannah, if only for a little while. I bought her this cute hat at REI:

(these are phone photos...made into a collage for my Project Life book)On Saturday night we had a little surprise party for Josh since he's turning 30 next month. Of course there were donuts galore and I ate some!
I mostly spent all day with Ellen preparing for the party (and as I've mentioned, eating sugar!) The boys got home a little early so it was pretty hard to get ready for the surprise party. Here they are taking a quick teaser...

I love how Ellen can balance a coffee cup on her cute belly!
We had to send the boys to the store to get them out of the house. So then they bought TONS of food even though we already had pizza ordered! Silly boys. :)

Most of my party photos didn't turn out because my ISO was set at 200 and they were blurry. Darn!

I made the banner and Ellen wrote on the chalkboard.

On Sunday we woke up to SNOW on the ground! This made me very, very happy! :)
We went to Josh and Ellen's to eat up some of the food that the boys purchased the night before. We ate yummy fajitas and more donuts.
I took some pregnancy photos of Ellen while the snow fell outside.
Then we relaxed in front of the fire and chatted for several hours! It was fun, but I also ate some ice cream and pecan sandies...don't really feel very well after eating all this SUGAR!
Well that was my weekend. How exciting it has been!

Project Life week #1

I went to Ellen's on Thursday night and finished up week #1 for Project Life! I usually don't develop my pictures this soon, but since its the beginning of the year I am super motivated!
In this last picture you can see the custom journal card that I made!
Because the title page has a transparency, the first page also has a transparency of course. I used the work "Love" on the back. The little blue card can be seen from the front. This gave me two less journal cards to work with this week, which made everything a tight squeeze. I had to add more writing on some of the photos.

Well that's all for now! Happy Friday everyone!

Crazy Crazy

Thought I would do a quick post since things that been so busy around here and I haven't had much time to share any photos. Here are a few updates:

1.) Paleo no more! Actually I am mostly sticking to the concepts, but adding back a few things such as oatmeal and quinoa. Just an experiment! Yesterday I ate raw oatmeal with Greek yogurt for breakfast (an old favorite) and it kept me full for 7 hours! I am back to recording my calories on my phone...something I HATE, but hey, it works. So there we go.

2.) Running is progressing slowly. I can still run pretty quick on the treadmill but haven't gone longer than 4 miles at a time. I'm REALLY trying to stay healthy so I can run the Mercer Island half marathon in March that I already signed up for.

3.) Today I did a baby photo shoot of Brooke and her brother Andrew. I was less than excited about the results, but it was great practice! The photos were properly exposed and lighting was good...the subjects were just a little difficult. Darn! I guess child photography is pretty hard!

4.) Spent Saturday and Sunday in Spokane. Made lots of lattes for some friends and ate lots of Starbucks cookies.

5.) Tonight I am making home made soup out of random stuff from the fridge, cupboard and freezer. I love using up old stuff!

6.) I am still working on Project Life and I so far I still love it. I will post last weeks layout as soon as I get some photos printed and put in there.

That's all for now!
Hopefully a more exciting post with pretty pictures is on its way!

Jenn

30 before 30

Here it is...

30 before 30!

Some were adopted from the last list and I have pared it down to only 30 (not 40).

1. Visit all the counties in Washington

2. Learn to speak Spanish better

3. Try paddle boarding at Green Lake

4. Go to Europe

5. Master manual mode

6. Have a baby

7. Take a photo in a European phone booth

8. Go unplugged for a week

9. Take an art or photography class

10. Run a marathon

11. Take photobooth photos with Matt

12. Finish reading the Bible

13. Paint pottery

14. Mini Sprint triathlon

15. Get published in a scrapbook magazine

16. Make a chalkboard

17. Make Paleo cupcakes

18. Go to a tropical place

19. Learn to really swim

20. Find the perfect little black dress

21. Stay on top of health & nutrition

22. Organize my closets

23. Go to New York

24. Ride my bike around Mercer Island

25. Draw more, doodle more, sketch more

26. Put my toe in the Atlantic Ocean

27. Get a sewing machine

28. Perfect my handwriting

29. Paint my kitchen (hopefully)

30. Have a picnic with Matt

My updated 27 before 27 list

I have completed a few of the things on the list and I have made them Bold. I only have a year left! Tonight Renae and I were making 30 before 30 lists and I searched through my blog to find this list for inspiration....now I pretty much have nearly 40 goals before 30...that wasn't supposed to happen!

Soon I will post my 30 before 30 as soon as I complete it!

1. Travel outside the U.S.
2. Learn to play the guitar.
3. Learn how to speak Spanish.
4. Be happy with my body.
5. Pay off my student loans.
6. Organize all my scrapbooks.
7. Make a new friend.
8. Read the Bible more.
9. Visit all the counties in Washington. (Yes, I know, a silly goal. :) )
10. Learn how to run barefoot.
11. Do chin ups and pull ups more easily.
12. Write more. Write some poetry.
13. Bike around Mercer Island.
14. Paint pottery.
15. Complete a mountain bike race (maybe a beginner one!)
16. Learn how to swim.
17. Have a picnic with Matt.
18. Randomly try a new restaurant.
19. Paint my kitchen (hopefully!)
20. Learn how to get enough sleep.
21. Make my house look cute.
22. Visit Cannon Beach again.
23. Stay on top of my health and nutrition.
24. Drink more tea.
25. Go unplugged for one week (no internet!)
26. Spend a weekend in a cabin.
27. Go to a play or musical.

Journal cards, exploding spaghetti squash, eggplant frog in the hole

My pictures from this week are a bit odd...

On Monday night I made spaghetti squash w/ sauce and ground meat and veggies. Still sticking with the Paleo diet! But of course, the squash exploded in the microwave. Matt yells, "grab your camera!"



And Tuesday night I took a photo of those journal cards I told you about. They are not perfect, but they are fun and I love them.



This morning I made a delicious breakfast...Eggplant frog in the hole! It was really easy and really delicious! I have extra eggplant that I can use tomorrow. I got the recipe from "Make it Paleo"



1 egg plant cut into 1 inch strips
Sprinkle a little olive oil and salt
Broil in the oven at 500 degrees, on both sides
Cut a circle in the eggplant
fry it up with an egg and coconut oil. Delicious!

Project Life 2011

Here are a few pages I made last year for Project life. My new lens allows me to actually photograph these pages!

This spread is from Thanksgiving week. I added a 12x6 page protector as well, to add some extra photos. I also added an 8.5x11 sheet which holds some recipes I used for Thanksgiving (not pictured).







And another layout...
This one is from my birthday week and I added a birthday card in a small page protector between the two pages (not pictured.)





Another way of adding extra photos is to use a tiny attacher or sewing machine and add a 12x6 page protector to the outside which folds in. I had cut up a 12x12 divided page protector for my Thanksgiving page and then I added the leftover to the edge of this page:





And here it is closed...



I had to snip those 4x6 photos by about a 1/4 inch to make room for the staples. But it turned out well! It closes and opens easily.

This week I also made my own customized journal cards on the back of some of the ugly cards from last year! There were some leftover cards that I didn't care for, but I hate wasting anything! I used some stamps and ink to make my own cards that match my book for 2012. Hopefully I will photograph and share soon.

Project Life Cover Page

Yay, for a new year and a brand new book to fill with lots and lots of photos and random scraps of stuff! I did Project Life all year last year, and even though my book doesn't even close, I REALLY love that project!

It gave me a chance to collect and display all kinds of extra stuff from life, as well as collect photos from every day life. Now that a whole year has gone by and the book is finished, I love it even more! My over-sized book is so much fun to look at. Sometime I may photograph and share some favorite pages...they are just so hard to photograph with the glare from the page protectors.



So here is my new 2012 book. I have completed the cover so far. I was inspired by Ali Edwards cover page.



I definitely "altered" the original cards to make it more fun and also added some photos. I plan on adding some writing at the end of the year on the first card, after the year is over.

I also just finished last year's page. Not as artsy but I love that I summed up the whole year on that one card.