ANNNNd that's a wrap. . .

This month has been a flurry of activity, and every event was so awesome-here's a snapshot

 

 



PJ turns 20

 

 

Steve and I celebrated 22 years-photo is from Katie's wedding cause I forgot to take a photo on "the day". It was also the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby which I had a lot of fun watching.



A trip to Miami was included, but can't seem get the photo, there are some on instagram.

Mother's day-complete with going to see the Great Gatsby and Mexican

Andrew celebrates turning 18

Girls night out with Katie before the wedding festivities.  The Optimist.

Rehearsal dinner at Bistro VG-amazing.

Katie and Rob say I do at Summerour-it was a lovely ceremony.

The get away car

Celebrating Mom's birthday with afternoon tea

Sending PJ to France. He had to actually take a flight the next day due to weather delays.

Steve celebrates a birthday, we also had lunch with Polly, Roy, Andrew, Mom, Karen and Mary.

Celebrating Andrew's graduation-it was the perfect day to have a graduation OUTSIDE!

 

Final celebration of the month at Karen's along with the rest of the family-Paula and Andrew.



Next up-time to pack clothes and knitting for vacation!  Everything was so wonderful and I'm reminded how lucky I am to have such a great family.

a few quiet moments before.

this happens...sigh.....they really DO grow up!

half way through..divided into thirds

disclaimer-the photo has nothing to do with content-just an illustration of making the most of my "found moments" to knit. one of my jobs is escorting the vending machine guy when he comes each week, am on the collar of my featherweight cardigan (yeah!)
so since it's been a while since my last post-i think instagram is becoming my mini blog-i figured an update was in order.  we are half way through may, and so far i've:

celebrated 2 birthdays
celebrated an anniversary and the kentucky derby
attended a conference in miami

pre-mother's day mani/pedicure + lunch
made a strawberry pie
mother's day brunch + great gatsby + mexican
acquired and conquered a cold
maintained my house keeping, laundry and exercise regimes-may have missed 2 bike rides or walks
visited the dog park twice
nearly completed a cardigan
nearly completed a shawlette (pendulum's almost done!)

still to do:
get a car wash
make sure i don't forget to get some fresh air and exercise
celebrate with "the girls"
go one more time to the dog park
buy one more gift for family abroad
wrap gifts for friends/family abroad for PJ to pack
celebrate with "the wedding party"
attend a wedding celebration 
make one round trip drive to the airport
prepare and host a birthday tea
bake one cheesecake for the final birthday celebration for the month
attend the final birthday celebration for the month (lunch out :-) )
attend one high school graduation
celebrate high school graduations for 2 awesome people
finalize sophie's doggy day care
finalize sophie and mom's meals
finalize travel plans
gather quilt day bits and pieces (must not forget!!!)
pack for trip . . . . relax (i hope!)

what i most likely WON'T do before may 29, but would like to:
find cute skirts to take on vacation
get to see the dixie stars for sewing
finish reading a book
create some playlists for vacation-thank goodness for pandora
plant veggies in the patch that has been plowed for me at a friend's house
go for an outdoor bike ride
find a new blog reader "thing-y" since google reader is ending (SOON!)

so much to do, and seemingly so little time, but is all so good-my list could include trips to visit sick family or friends or worse.  i see from this list that i am richly blessed and lucky to have so many "good" things to celebrate.





 

Project Life Week 14

hard to believe i'm 14 weeks into this project, and i know at some point i'll fall a bit behind.  in an attempt to  keep things somewhat orderly, i've already created folders on my computer for weeks 15-23 along with the calendar dates so i can at least file the photos in the appropriate week.  i'm really loving the project life core kit-the cards are so awesome, and i don't have to re-size, or find coordinating paper. they are helpful in providing "prompts" to help create a story for the week.  with the many events coming up, i'm sure i'll have more pages for each week, but for now i'm trying to go with simplicity.  i love this approach to scrapbooking better than what i've done in the past-i have several albums filled with pictures i cropped and created a story of sorts which included paper and stickers.  at one point i was doing 3 simultaneously-yes i know!!, one as a family album and one for each of the boys.  once they got to the age where they didn't want their picture taken the former way of scrapbooking was abandoned for albums with sleeves that captured the year's highlights.  i may have to go back and fill in the gaps in their own albums-some day!  my other favorite album approach is to create the albums online-how easy is that?! i think if you priced out the cost of the album, embellishments  supplies, and the cost of the photos, it's a cheaper alternative.   as i reflect over my photo journaling throughout the years i'm totally okay with it all.  it not only documents what our family has done, but it shows the changing trends and techniques of scrapbooking, and at the end of the day it's all about the photos and the story they tell.

this week's highlights

the weather has been gloomy, and most days i'd have been happy just staying in my pajamas eating soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and watching trash tv, but alas it was off to work for me and a few extras "events".  first up sophie's dog park incident-poor thing in the cone of shame. fortunately she seems to be in no pain, but the limited activity is wearing us all down. hopefully this weekend, we can find some low energy ways to entertain her.  she's really being a champ-despite being photographed at 5:20 this morning-this is her-i'd rather be sleeping than have my mother take AND post my photograph-look.

there has been some knitting- am nearly finished with the shawl i'm making to wear at katie's wedding. stockinette with short rows-how easy is that now that the lace portion is complete. also, am about half-way finished with the baby blanket i'm working on for co-worker whose wife is expecting any day now. LOVE LOVE the yarn-berroco vintage-i highly recommend this yarn. i have a couple other projects just waiting to be cast on once these are finished.

my project life kit came in-whoo! i've only use a copy of the cards and am so in love with this kit. am glad i took advantage of the awesome deal offered on home shopping network, even if it mean me setting my alarm clock so i could check it out. i'm NOT normally a HSN shopper BTW.

there's been some shopping for-i've got 2 bridal showers and an engagement party at the end of this month, and of course, the fun part for me, aside from picking out the gifts, was finding stemless champagne flutes-i didn't know these things existed (these are for me-can't wait to use them). i've even made some headway on the gifts that need to be bought in May!

other good things coming up- joining the ladies at cast on cottage for the new KAL, weekend of predicted nice weather. hopefully sophie and i can sit on the deck and enjoy the fresh air, and having an empty calendar. perhaps i'll have my long to do list wrapped up before sunday's season premier of mad men! what are your highlights?

currents.

celebrating ...getting things off my "to-do" list. this past weekend i was super productive, project life week 12-done, i made all the cards i need between now and the end of may, and tackled one of the biggest lingering projects.  i completed and ordered 3 photoboos (photo is of the first one arrived yesterday in the mail-LOVE it!), and i uploaded photos for the final two.  shutterfly makes these so easy, i've used premiere in the past, and was just so cumbersome. perhaps that's what was really my hold up in getting these finished.  books include paris, new orleans, rosemary beach, north carolina, and 4 work trips which i put into one album. i also finished the blocks i need for quilt day in june which included 100 4 patch, and 100 snowballs (squares with 2 1/2" in squares sewn on each corner, which means i had to cut 400 2 1/2" squares-yikes!). i have 2 large blocks to complete by june, but really for me that means April 15! hope to finish those this weekend. i'd say this alone is worth opening a bottle of champagne!

hoping for a sunny sunday morning, a warm sunny sunday morning would be really awesome.

planning all kinds of stuff-mostly food stuff for saturday and sunday. of course, this time of year, i'm always planning AND acting so that i don't get behind.

cycling- still sticking to riding inside, probably until april, it's been so easy to spend and 1 1/2 hour in the comfort of the basement AND watching shows on my ipad.

enjoying spending time in the kitchen with andrew

reading the greater journey: americans in paris.

knitting a lace shawl for katie's wedding, i have a pair of socks cast on, and the tulip tote.

watching vikings, walking dead, the bible, ripper street, and trying to find whitechapel on on-demand. looking forward to madmen and breaking bad starting again.

listening the heating vent at my desk, and co-workers down the hall.

eating oatmeal and granola for breakfast.

drinking coffee

wearing black skirt, black tights and shoes, and new silk floral print blouse from white house black market

wondering about the weather, what dessert to fix for easter dinner, what the fall is going to be like when andrew heads off to college.

what's current with you.

Project Life Week 11 and a lesson

here's week 11, i'm thrilled that the page was done AND a blog post right at the end of the week. you can tell from the single page layout that it was a very uneventful week. we had beautiful weather, and steve and i were able to get out for a bike ride.  it had been 8 weeks since the last time i was on the road, and was surprised that i was able to complete 20 miles at my normal pace. this week we ate lots of veggies, the veggie soup from tuesday, and for quilt club i made a veggie lasagna which i forgot to document, but it was really good, and i'm looking forward to leftovers.  also, steve, kathy and i are registered as a group for the peachtree road race, not sure if we'll get a number, but this is the first step. (i included the lottery confirmation), we are the acworth ambush! looking forward to steve joining us this year. sophie also got groomed, and i'll explain the "lesson learned" on that one.

sorry, it won't rotate

 

a couple things i've added are the monthly menus that i create, essentially i put on the calendar any evening or weekend activities and print it out, then i pencil in my dinner plans.  i try to do the whole month, but sometimes i only get 2 weeks at a time done, and i have to work my way through.  i've been doing this for about 10 years (+/-) since it allows me to plan means for those evenings when we need something quick.  when the boys were playing baseball, it was not unusual for me to pack a picnic basket and eat our dinner at the ball field.  i have a feeling that when andrew leaves for school this will be used mostly on the weekends.  it also really helps with the grocery shopping and cooking enough stuff to carry over into another meal. i thought it would be fun to include this in the PL album, as i normally just throw it away.  on the other side is my weekly 52 lists that i get each week from mooreaseal.   i'm getting better collecting bits to add, like this article







it's about the bizarre blizzard of 1993, i had hoped to find this is the printed newspaper, but instead i had to print it out.  i recounted our experience on the back side as this was the year i was pregnant with pj, and we were stuck in the blue ridge mountains with no heat or electricity for several days, not fun on a regular day, but even less so when there are 3 pregnant women! i thought is was a timely addition to the album. now to the lesson-sophie spent 3 hours with the groomer the other night. i knew sophie had high maintenance hair, but it was until this grooming session that it was fully explained to me how high maintenance it was. she MUST be brushed/combed every day, when she is washed she has to be blown dry and BRUSHED! she has the equivalent to very very curly human hair, and the idea is that it needs to be straightened in order to be manageable. sophie's aunt mary i'm sure can relate! so, hopefully we'll be able to keep this style going, and maybe a tad shorter during the summer.  i wish i'd taken a photo of the amount of hair that was cut off.  the groomer uses both clippers and scissors to complete the grooming-wow, i had no idea, but i do now!