Friday, March 17, 2017

a long absence

It's been a LONG time since I've been around!! I've been quite busy these last several months and I am going to share all about that over the next several days, weeks, months. I actually saw in my timehop that I started this blog exactly 7 years ago today! I can't even believe that!! I stated the blog to share my crafty hobby: scrapbooking, card making, photography, and more. And while I plan to continue to share my projects when I can, I want to morph this blog into something more. I want to share more, and I have already got a list of topics for myself to be successful in that endeavor!

You see, almost one month ago I had a baby. Our daughter came into this world after we believed for so long that we couldn't/wouldn't have kids. We had only ever talked about having one child when we started trying all those years ago, and that's still our plan especially now that we're quite a bit older than we had thought we'd be when we'd have our child. I want to share stories about the whole experience of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, along will all the ups and downs of parenthood. I want to share what I've learned as I find my footing as a mom (still can't get over the fact that I'm a MOM)!! I want to share milestones, holidays, and monthly progress updates of our girl. But I still want to share craft projects. Finding time for them is a whole story in and of itself. (Confession: I'm still finishing up my 2016 December Daily, at our coffee table in the living room instead of at my craft desk because the baby spends most of her day time hours in the crib portion of her pack n' play in our living room.) I've got vacation albums partially done (MN-2013, Boston-2014, Disney-2015, SC-2016), annual album pages that need completing (I make a list and put page markers in the page protectors so I at least have a plan of what photos to scrapbook and where they go in each album), and my nephew's first year album to complete (he just turned 8 on March 12th...why rush into things...I really need to make this album a priority when I finish the December Daily). I am also planning to participate in Ali Edwards' week in the life that starts on April 17th. I'll still be on maternity leave from work, there will be lots of events that week to document (8 week shots for the baby, baby turns 2 months, meeting her grandparents for the first time, etc) and I think it will be fun to look back on years down the road. It won't be a normal week in my life since I won't be back at work, but I decided that it's still worth documenting. I know I'll enjoy looking back on the album years from now (like when my daughter graduates from high school...remembering and looking back on bottle cleaning, diaper changes, walks around the neighborhood, trying to find time to take a shower, etc). I did make one intentional decision to not purchase a WITL kit this year. I ended up getting 2 kits last year to document our Saturday to Saturday South Carolina vacation so I have lots of left overs from those two kits and a ton of 6x8 albums I can use, not to mention all the Studio Calico documenter kits and other supplies from my stash to put together a pretty great album.

That brings up another topic...supply stash! My stash is in need of a good purge! We want to use Expedite bookshelf that currently houses our annual albums (plus a few themed albums like our wedding) for toy organization as our daughter gets older. Instead of housing 12x12 American Crafts albums, it will house bins and baskets of toys. We don't have a lot of space in our house, so we figure the Expedite is a good way to keep the toys contained and under control. It's an 8 cubby Expedite so it should make for plenty of toy space!! But that means that I need to clear enough out of my space to move the albums in (and there are at least 7 cubby's of albums that need to move)! It's going to be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I want to share that process here as well.

So, if you're still with me here, I've got big plans to share a lot of stuff moving forward. And it's going to start on Monday!! I can't promise I'll blog every day (I do have a new baby), but I am going to do my best to blog a few times a week. Just share things even if no one is ready! If anything, it will be my record to document the stories later!!

Thanks for stopping by!
deb

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