Welcome, warm!

I'm loving the warm weather. What a pleasant ending to a terribly chilly Colorado winter!

This weekend, I hope to tackle the yard/garden with my husband. The garden is a pitiful little mess, and the lawn has some need of fertilizer and even grass seed in spots. I've been convicted lately because acquaintances of mine have been talking about the hours they spend on landscaping-type tasks, and our poor yard stands neglected without even a glance in its direction (except to cringe now and then). I have a difficult time caring about the outside of our house sometimes, which deserves at least some love.

Now with the splendid weather, coupled with the holiday weekend, I have no excuse. It will be more of a delight than a hardship to be outside, digging in the dirt and making things look a bit more attractive.

Thank you, God, for warm and lovely sunshine!

By the way, if you're a green thumb type and have any tips (or words of motivation) whatsoever, I would be most gratified to hear them.

Onward toward the goal

One day short of a month ago, I mentioned that I had created a scrapbooking goal because I am so desperately behind in my albums. I also wrote that I wanted to use this blog as a form of accountability in my scrapbooking.

So here's an update: Since I penned that post, I have completed 20 pages. This accounts for some of August, and all of September, as well as the vast majority of October 2006 (I still have two pages to do).

My original goal was 12 pages or three months' worth of photos. I've decided to make the schedule a little more agressive and do 20 pages (unless I complete three months of photos in fewer pages), lest I still be working on my photos from my first years of married life when I've got a cane in hand.

Here's a recent two-page layout:

Mother of mine

For the first time in many years, I will have the honor of sharing Mother's Day with my own precious mom (she and I live thousands of miles apart). I'm excited to be with her and to show her how much I appreciate her—both now, and for all she did while I was growing from baby to little girl to teen.

There are many, many reasons why she is wonderful. Here are a few:

1. She gives warm hugs and is almost always adorned with a cheerful smile.
2. She's been there for me at every stage of my life, blessing me with love each step I take. A recent memory: When I got married, she sewed my wedding dress, three bridesmaids dresses, two candle lighter dresses, and the ring bearer's pillow, and put countless hours into other special details.
3. She's talented at crafts and sewing.
4. She is an excellent cook. I love her scones, ice box rolls, roast beef dinners, and so much more. Yum!
5. She calls now and then just to chat.
6. She opens her home and her heart to so many people. In the past, she's taught Bible studies, ESL classes, and children's classes, had people over for dinner or tea, babysat young children to give mothers a break, volunteered as a youth camp cook, baked cookies for people, and done many other loving things about which I may never know.
7. She has a great sense of humor. Family gatherings are a joy.
8. She is very diligent, always keeping her home in order and working on her home sewing business.
9. She is caring and offers a helping hand or equally helpful advice to me and others in need.
10. She's smart, especially in the areas of math and science. She's a nurse, so she has great medical tips for me when I ask.

I love you, Mom!

I'm it!

Courtesy of Marianne, I've been tagged into sharing a few random facts from my life. :-) (Check below to see if you've been tagged, too.)

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was a senior in high school, eagerly awaiting my graduation and the promised contact lenses that came along with it. Perhaps I was in the woods behind my house, practicing my graduation speech (over and over and over...). Or I might have been telling my mom that I refused to have cake at my open house like everyone did. Instead I wanted chocolate-covered strawberries and goodies my grandma baked. I was excited to leave South Dakota behind and move with my parents back to my hometown—at least until the fall, when I moved away to college.

Five things on your to-do list:
1. Prepare a Sunday school lesson for a second- and third-grade class
2. Proofread a magazine (because it's my job, not because I am an obsessive grammarian, though perhaps I am; see bad habits)
3. Clean up my office/craft room (it's a bit crazy in there; again, see bad habits)
4. Clean the bathroom
5. Clean out a bathroom drawer that has gotten out of hand

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Avocados
2. Cheese sticks
3. Craisins
4. Hard-boiled eggs
5. Sonic's strawberry limeade (maybe not technically a snack, but I love it!)
6. There are so many more...but I have to stop.

Five things you would do if you became a billionaire:
1. Open a home for needy/abused children and offer them a brighter future
2. Visit every continent (I've never been outside of North America), visiting my Compassion child at some point
3. Invest in my husband's business and elsewhere
4. Quit my job and volunteer instead (see number 1)
5. Pay off the house and redecorate

Five bad habits:
1. I edit everything. I jab my husband in church when there's a misspelling or grammar error on the PowerPoint slide (and sadly, there are many). I can't read a book or a magazine without a terribly critical eye, and then I shout triumphantly when I find an error. A little dorky, yes. A bad habit for sure.

2. I check my personal e-mail at least every hour during the day. This has been described as obsessive. It's also not great when I'm supposed to be focused on work. One benefit: At least you know that if you e-mail me I will get your note almost immediately.

3. I am not, shall we say, the neatest person who ever lived. (See to-do list above.) It takes some effort for me to maintain order; I wish I were better about having habits that fostered, instead of fought against, neatnicity (not a word, I realize). For example, piles of papers don't do anything for a tidy room. I'm working on this one.

4. I tend to be late more often than early. Fortunately, with the positive influence of my husband, whose firm belief is that if you're not early, you're late, I have been more timely recently. At least a bit. Yipee for my husband!

5. I steal covers. This only affects my husband, and in my defense, I do this while I am completely unconscious, and I have no malicious intent whatsoever.

Five places you've lived:
1. Richmond, British Columbia
2. Miller, South Dakota
3. Siloam Springs, Arkansas
4. Goldendale, Washington
5. Colorado Springs, Colorado

Five jobs you've had:
1. Painter of high school lockers, doors, and dorm rooms (it was a boarding school)
2. Deli girl (made sandwiches, scooped ice cream, ran the cash, etc.)
3. Newspaper intern (three times over)
4. Small-town reporter (three whole months of that was plenty)
5. Freelance writer

Tag, you're it! Becky Zwicker, Jessica Barnes, Jessica Mertz

Gotta get a goal

This past weekend, I went to a one-day scrapbooking extravaganza. As I walked in, the 1,500 people in attendance—all busily cutting card stock and taping down photos at paper-covered tables—gave me the feeling that I was going to a convention for some kind of cult. (One of my friends likened it to a Star Trek Convention.) People were rolling in bags and bags of supplies; one lady I saw had a whole luggage set packed, I'm sure, with punches, pages, and embellishments of every shape and size. (It made my two medium-size bags look rather like tiny purses.)

I got 10 pages done; some of the five friends I went with got 25 or more pages completed. I'm not the speediest, I'll admit. But I still have fun—especially when scrapbooking with delightful friends.

While fun is fabulous, the reality is that I am only now wrapping up the pages featuring August 2006 photos. (This is in part because my first attempt at scrapbooking was to preserve memories of my August 2006 wedding; I made three albums containing dating and wedding photos, which took me almost a year.) So I've decided to set a goal: 12 pages or three month's worth of photos each month, whichever comes first. At this rate, I will at least be up to date by the time Christmas comes to town (in all its dozens-of-photos-from-many-parties glory).

I'll post about my progress and share one of the pages I like best each month. This, I hope, will keep me motivated and get all my photos neatly into albums.

Here's one to start; it's the first—and only—page I've made since the event. It's the final page in my wedding album; I've been procrastinating it for a while.