Concentration and Projects, and Friday Photo Challenge

I can't concentrate anymore. I think it's because I'm pregnant, have two young kids, work full time, and still have all the chores to do in between all of that during the week. When you take pregnancy out of the picture, then it becomes much easier, because I have energy, I sleep better and I exercise more. It's amazing what taking those three things away from you can do to your ability to concentrate. And really it's not only the concentration, it's the memory (mine is shot), my creativity drains out of me (notice no scrapping and fewer photos these days...) and mood deteriorates significantly (I'll save that dicey subject for another post!). It doesn't help that I read a million blogs (well not that many but enough) and surf the scrapbook pages at Designer Digitals. So that takes up a lot of precious time also. But when I do find a page or something I really like at DD, like this POSTER I think - So cool, I want to do this, it's so simple!! Yet requires concentration!! So last night I saw this. Opened Photoshop, created a new 16 X 20 300 dpi document..... and, then that was that... I realized it was 8:45 pm, I was totally exhausted from the week, so I resigned myself to watching a few shows we had taped, then went to bed at 10 pm. So another project for the project list! I won't even bother update you on project 365. I think I'll rename it project 25 (as in 25 days, hahahah!)

Last weeks Friday Photo Challenge (which I realized just now that I didn't post on my blog!!) was a composition one, focusing on symmetry or repetition. Here are my two for the challenge:




Oh... here comes Gillian, looks like computer time is over! Can't wait to see your photos! Have a good weekend.

Fun Beautiful Weekend

The weather was beautiful this weekend, no one was sick, so life was good! We spent a lot of time outside, which was fun. Eric tapped the trees for this year's maple syrup run, so I'm looking forward to that. Took a couple walks in the woods and it was beautiful! Speaking of which, Jen and my challenge this week was "beautiful". I didn't take my camera on my walks, so I didn't get any shots during that, but I did get these during the week:

I love our view it's always beautiful to me!

Needless to say - Abby - Beautiful!

And of course Gillian. Love this photo
(can you tell? I've posted it twice!)
definitely going to print this one for the wall!

This was taken today, while playing outside

This one I took yesterday, which playing on the cushions.
Her teeth are slowly coming it, but regardless, she is stunning!

Friday night we had a nice dinner with my parents. Hopefully we didn't tire Mum out too much. She is doing remarkable well for having a knee replacement less than two weeks ago. Hopefully the recovery goes smoothly!

And here are a couple other things I did this weekend. A little photoshopping with old slides:

And came across this:

Me: in 1975, colouring

Which reminded me of this:

Gillian March 2009.
She LOVES to colour!!

I guess that's enough photos for today! Happy Monday!

Another day at home, with Gillian this time.

This is how the morning went. I got up, ready for work, left with coffee in hand, drove to work, turned my computer on. Then Eric called to say Gillian had thrown up. So I put my coat back on, grabbed my purse, left with coffee still in hand, and drove home. She was basically fine for the rest of the day, but I wanted to be sure. Eric had too much work to do, so I went home, as I have no work to do right now.

So here is what you do with a day off with Gillian:

play on the couch

yell at Bender to sit, in "baby talk"
(notice her right finger)

Climb on the fireplace

climb up and sit on the table

Play Mr. Potato Head

Sit around and look beautiful

Random Gillian Notes from Today:

She is a busy girl, but a lot of fun. She fell asleep in my bed for the first time, which was really cute. And loved to cuddle. She can say a few words, that really only we can understand. She loves to colour. She is VERY determined, and likes to do what she wants to do. She is very agile, when running, climbing outside and chasing the dog (for a 21 mo old anyway).

Another Layout

Since I was home with Abby today, I worked on another layout. What got me started was I FINALLY put together Abby's 8 X 8 album of all the pages I ever did of her. I printed them out months ago, and they just sat there gathering dust. So we sat together at the dining room table and I cut each one out of the 8X10 sheet and put them into her book. She kept asking to see the Santa one from 2007, I guess that was her favourite. I made some notes on which months I was short some layouts and one of them was September 2008.


I have many more holes, but I'm not going to stress myself out in trying to fill them all at once. One page at a time!

We are all feeling much better, now my fingers are crossed for Gillian not to get sick! Back to work tomorrow for me!

Sunday roundup

So as I type here, Abby is now sick! Ugh! I really hope that it isn't as bad as I had, but time will tell... good thing we didn't go and visit Mum today... last thing she needs right now is the flu!

Anyway, apart from her starting to get sick during dinner, the day was good and she didn't show any signs of illness all day:

We did a little painting in the morning

Gilly got right into it!

Then a little sliding in the afternoon on "Snowy Mountain" (the rock beside our driveway)

Abby's Skeleton posture is perfect.
I think I'll have her DNA tested to see if we should
be hard core training her for the Olympics in 2026

Gillian trains on the baby Skeleton track...

Wish us all a sleep filled night... fingers crossed.

I really don't know what hit me...

On Thursday morning, I woke up feeling so exhausted! I didn't know what was wrong with me. By noon, I wasn't feeling to well, had little appetite, and just wanted to lie down. I went to visit my mom in the hospital later in the afternoon (she had a knee replacement this week), and I almost passed out while there. I thought it was because I hadn't eaten much during the day and had some blood taken for the IPS. I managed to make it home and we put the kids to sleep, and I crashed on the couch. By midnight I was throwing up. I'll spare the gory details, but it lasted until 5:00 am. I felt SO ill all of Friday, didn't eat anything other than water and Gatorade. I could barely make it out of bed, let alone downstairs to get something.. it was hell! Today is Sunday and my calves are still cramping up when I walk up the stairs and I'm out of breath when I do so, but I'm on the mend. The weird thing is that I have no clue what I got. Was it the 24 flu, if so why didn't anyone else get it?? If it was food poisoning I can't for the life of me think of what I would have eaten?? What I do find weird is that for each pregnancy, I've gone through this at least once. Is it some weird right of passage or something? Some way to test my body in what its going to go through? Who knows, whatever it is, it sucks!

Our challenge for this week was to include our husbands in our photos. As I was out of commission for 3 solid days, I didn't take too many photos this week! But here is what I have:



Here are some other random ones from the past week or so. Gilly playing around, first running - I know - BAD - but they just love to run from the door to the living room, and back. No blood yet. And pretending to sleep - love the belly shot!



I have some from painting today, but I'm in the middle of backing up so I can't download them yet. Hope to get some up later. Bye for now!

Friday Photo Challenge...

A few days late!! I started to do this post on Sunday, then was distracted... until today! oops

Since I already posted my flashlight shots for my s-curve photo I'll post something else for this composition challenge: diagonals or s-curves:

Library of Parliament ceiling
I like the curves and diagonals of the decor.

Other than the parliament shots, I didn't really get any other good shots with this composition... it was really a challenge! This week's challenge is to get photos with our husbands in them. I figure that I need to take more photos of him and really of us. Maybe that will be the next challenge - photos with us in them :)

LOOK I did a layout this week! It's been ages... it felt good to do a page, and I am so wishing I had more energy to do more... but I'm just SO tired!!

Because I could scrap all of these cute photos of the girls:

This page would be about Sisters

This page would be about how just
darn cute and funny Gillian can be

This page would be about how big
and beautiful she is getting

This would be a page about
Abby helping with the grapes

This would be a page about how, to Gillian's
horror, Bob the Builder is on and not Dora!

Off to bed...