A Different kind of blog hop

Hi! I was tagged by two wonderful scrappy ladies for a scrapbookers blog hop that has been making the rounds.  The lovely Betsy Sammarco, aka PharmGirl, who is also our fearless leader at the JBS digital team.  She is such a lovely person to work with and I consider her a friend and major source of my self-esteem.   She does that amazing thing where she combines talent and organization and sweetness and encouragement all in one.  The very  talented and sweet Tisha also tagged for this blog hop.  She has such great style and awesome ideas. Like, her recent post about placing albums around the house for people to see.  I love that, scrapbooks need to be shared!

 
  1. What am I working on right now?


So many things.  My oldest two kids (that feels so weird to type, since we always now tell the baby that Avinash and Nandini are his kids) have been with their grandparents for a week so I have time for everything and nothing.

I find myself painting a lot.  This little antique book holder we had got some circus-y triangles painted on it.  I also repainted the pink doll house a more stately grey. The chalkboard frame also got a fresh coat of grey paint.  Turns out chalk markers aren't always as washable as they claim.

Also put up shelves in the playroom.  I couldn't decide between staining the wood or painting but ended up doing white on white.  Love it.  Now I just need to keep the shelves organized and neat.  And pray they don't climb on them when they get back.

I recently had one of my digital designs licensed for resale by The Ink Road, a really cool Etsy shop.   So exciting and fun to do something different for me.  Hope to do more of this stuff in the future.


        2. How long does it take me to create a project?

Forever and no time at all.  Take this layout for example.  I spent a whole afternoon stamping and watercoloring along with the kids.  I loved it so much that I turned the scrap paper it into a layout.  That part took no time at all and I finished three other layouts that night.  The longest part is usually coming up with an idea.  I think I am guilty of trying way too hard to scrap each page differently. 



        3. What are my favorite things to create with at the moment?
Have I mentioned paint yet?  Yes, that.  Also, stamping and mini books.  I have too huge a stamp collection not to use them.  I started a few mini books with Avinash.  We actually finished one about the aquarium and I am still plugging away at my Disney book. 



        4. How does my writing/creating process work?
I used to have naptime.  Now it all happens after bedtime.  I love scrapping because it lets me unwind while we watch TV.  It also helps me pause life, just for a little bit.  I do all of my cutting and pasting at night and find little quiet times during they day when I'm alone to write.  I need to capture the things that are going on because otherwise I get overwhelmed with the feeling that life is just whooshing by me.   


        5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?
Um. Pinterest?  Yeah, defiintely that actually.  I just love to look at a bold image, grab an idea from that and put it on a page somewhere.  It is a lot tougher for me to scraplifta page, than to just take one idea or embellishment and make it my own. 


        6. What is my signature style?

  Still evolving.  Always evolving I hope.  I have a lot of different interests, knitting, nature and science, scrapbooking, painting, photography, etc.  I like my pages to reflect that when I can.  They definitely vary a lot, I think.  I have been finding more of a style with my PL pages lately though.  Lots of black and white elements, because it is so bold and clear cut.  I also love to add openness to my pages by adding see through elements. 


I am tagging three crafty ladies of my own:

Michelle Hernandez, aka my analog life.  This woman has style for days.  Is such a tough New Yorker, who is so tough she even dared to leave Brooklyn and start something new for her family.  I love following all of her adventures on instagram too.

Smitha Katti, from Smiling Colors.  She seriously does it all.  There is no crafty skill she can't teach you.  Did you see her statue making abilities?  Blown away so much, I can't even describe it.  

Anandi Raman Creath, of papercraft labratory.  Seriously? Could her shop and blog name be any cooler? I love that she shares so many great memory keeping tips all the time and shares her memory keeping talent with others who want scrapbooks but can't make them or don't have time.

Currents // @35 weeks

currently // at 35 weeks and one cm dilated, not a huge deal in and of itself but my last labor with Nandini was fast and I really want this baby to keep growing before he comes out.  so yeah, I'm freaking out a little bit.  I'm ready to pop but also not.
drinking // white hot chocolate, an old favorite we found at Whole Foods again recently
listening to// the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia series on CD in the car.  This is the best thing for our family and my sanity since I don't have to hear the same ten Disney songs over and over anymore.  Less whining for dropped crayons too as they are occupied with listening to the story.  I kind of want to show them the Lazy Sunday video now, but I don't think they'd get it. 
loving // my prenatal yoga class.  everyone is so friendly and it always leaves me feeling so peaceful and happy
loathing // the nightly insomnia that has me waking up for an hour or two at 5am each night.  If I'm lucky enough to fall back asleep I end up with zombie dreams or something.
watching // lots of great dramas like Justified and Sherlock.  some mediocre ones (re: guilty pleasures) like Downton Abbey.  and great comedies Mindy Project and Super Fun Night, which is new but I think has a lot of potential.  plus I love Rebel Wilson
eating // veggie burgers and fries from the drive thru after every trip to the Y.  kinda defeats the purpose but I love eating in the car.
wanting // to get caught up with Project Life and my Day in the Life album from last year

making // custom flair for One Little Word, oh how I love my little Etsy shop
needing // ten times more patience with Avinash and Nandini right now. four weeks off of school is just too much.
grateful for // playdate with school friends today, and one planned for tomorrow.  they needed it and I needed it. also, the only motivator to good behavior that has worked all week.
looking forward to // our baby shower this weekend.  put together by my husband's lovely coworkers, this will be our first real baby shower.  couldn't be happier about it, resisting the urge to make the decorations myself

Six for Sunday (?)

I know the thing is 'five for Friday', but I barely knew when Friday was.  November is just flying by.  I can't believe I haven't blogged at all this month yet. Well, here is what we have been up to.

1. Celebrating. We celebrated Diwali.  Once in Houston (by chance) and a week later in Austin.  Both temples are very different but still lovely.  Avinash

2. Dancing.   I still love just sitting and watching Avinash at his ballet class.  His whole face just lights up joy as he leaps across the room.  Nandini likes to copy him but was too shy to try the class at the Y.  A few days later a friend invited her to a different ballet class and she danced for almost three hours (without me!).  Now, just have to wait for her to turn 3 so she can take her own classes as well.

3. Coughing, aka The Black Lung.  If you know me, you know this was a problem from like winter 2001-summer 2008.  It somehow cleared up but it does come back with a vengeance every once in a while.  That and being six months pregnant has really knocked me out.  Luckily no fever, but everything else.  I have been staying in and letting the kids watch as much TV as they like.  My doctor sent me to the hospital to get checked out for pre-term labor.  That was awful but everything turned out to be fine. Does ever twinge make me nervous now anyway? Absolutely. 

4. Scrapping.  I have been working on a ton of Project Life pages.  I finished all of October and am almost caught up.  I have lost all count of what week is what though.  I stretched our Disney trip into two spreads, even though the second week we were only there for one day.   Still counts! Will share those pages on here soon!

5. Loving the new christmas goodies at Target.  They have so much cute stationery in the dollar spot.  All metallics and kraft.  Plus, these insanely gorgeous wooden trees in the gift wrap/holiday section by Paper Chase.  Target does it again!

6. Ordering some holiday cards already.  If you haven't seen this deal yet, it is worth checking out.  Minted is the best quality, and they have so many cute new options like gold foil and ornament cards.  Ends Monday 11/11: $25 off + Free Shipping on all holiday cards. Code: JOY25FS.  Choose Express Service for an extra $20 off, you can get more than a total of $45 off your order that way!  Plus if you use my personal referral link we both get a $25 credit which you can use on any $100 order (before coupons). 

Around here.

 I am working on a makeover for this site.  New name, new domain, everything. So many little decisions to be made with no methodology behind them.  Just going with what feels right.
We finally got off the wait list for Avinash's preschool.  Technically it is not even a school, it is a 'child and family laboratory'.  We are super excited about this one.  It seems sort of a given it will be more open minded than our last preschool experience. I had a lot of fun on our adventures around Austin this summer but I am so needing a little more 'me' time when school starts.  Hopefully we can still keep up the friends we made here this summer. Playdates are fun but harder to do on a limited schedule.

Ryan and I actually did go out together this weekend. Double date to the totally 80s sing-a-long at Alamo Drafthouse.  I'm telling you, Austin has the best stuff to do.  We haven't even begun to check out the live music scene.

Ryan was so good and took the kids out so I could get some alone time again today.  I watched a Scandal marathon and worked on Project Life. It was wonderful and left me feeling so refreshed.  I actually had the urge to vacuum and put away laundry tonight. Trust me, it has been a really long while since I did either.
Afterwards we had a little family movie night. We all voted and Pete's Dragon won.  I absolutely love all the old mixed animation/real life Disney movies and I was so happy when I saw this DVD at Target the other day.  I'm just lucky my kids love it too.  Nandini's favorite scene is Pete and Elliot eating apples together.  I love how she can communicate more and more now.  All the excitement took place before the movie, however, when Ryan found a lizard crawling down his leg.  I think the poor little thing was more scared than we were (and possibly suffered a head injury) but it did seem to be still moving when he put it outside.
So, what was the weekend like for you? 

Lately..

I have been ...

craving cheetos or any other junk food.

eating all the produce I buy at whole foods (or trying to, I live in Austin now and feel like I need to keep up).

drinking topo chico with mint in it, so good.

listening to Heera, my favorite song from the newish SRK movie Jab Tak Hai Jaan.

watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix with Ryan.  A really funny and quirky new show.

singing songs from the Sound of Music with the kids a hundred times a day. They both have the lyrics memorized which amazes me.

going swimming by myself and with the kids at the gym. I so need to get some energy back.

helping Avinash fill out workbooks. Picked up a ton at the Target Dollar Spot and he loves going through them together.

putting together the little baa and baby duck puzzle with Nandini. I can never say no when she wants to p'ay togedah.

enjoying the little bit of rain we got and the lack of humidity in general this summer.

feeling thankful for my family and being together. 

Go West: Exploring Round Top

Round Top is a huge antiques fair in Texas April 3-6, just roughly 1.5 hours from Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

Normally the population of Round Top is 90.  

How cute is that?

I have read about people's adventures to Round Top before, but it sounded so impossibly far away I never even considered going.  And even though I may love decorating and buying new old furniture, it is not really a necessity.

I didn't learn where it was located until last weekend when we took a one hour wrong turn cheerful country detour on our way to San Antonio last weekend and literally drove through Round Top.

Combine this amazing discovery with the fact that we are moving soon and I suddenly want all the things I've been pinning, I mean pining, over for years. 

Luckily it was no trouble at all convincing Ryan to go too.  We decided to make a day trip of it and opted out of renting a uhaul or anything. Many places offer shipping and we were planning a second trip later with friends anyway.

 We brought both kids.  People were really sweet to them all day.  They both got candy, which tasted like ice cream with chocolate chips on it. Apparently. Avinash also ate three donuts (poor Nandini only had one). Which is good because he has really been craving them since seeing an episode of Curious George with 100 dozen donuts.

We worked on the 'one finger rule'. He was very good about it.

 

 

There is so much to take in. We just walked around for a while and gawked.

Apparently having a huge move coming up makes me lose the urge to do many things like do laundry and pick up clutter and toys all over the floor for the 80th time in a day.  But, the need to buy huge marquee letters for the kids? Sky high. 

Antique multicolored abacus? I never even knew that I wanted this! (I didn't get it, but it is so cute, sigh).

How do we feel about this tiara? Not enough or too much?

This solar system model is so cool.  But cost way too much (400? No way. Sorry.)

 

There are a ton of cute pieces for scrapbookers too.  I didn't get much, but it was good to get ideas and just fun to see what was there.  Love all the old post office cabinets and printers trays.


We actually bought the most stuff at this little tent stop right off of 290.  The prices seemed much better there than at the big tent places.  By this time is was raining so I didn't get any pictures of our finds, but I promise some tomorrow!

We ended our trip with pie, so even the kids were happy.  And, I totally did not bring home like five extra slices for later. Nope, not even one.

I am counting this for the JBS Centipede blog challenge ... take a walk.  Take a walk we did. 

Back to the world of Today.

Just spent the last week at Disney World with my family. The great thing about that place is how at the end all of the hassle and waiting and running around (and tantrums and meltdowns) seem to melt away into a haze of happy memories.

I was a little crazed when we got home, looking at the humongous suitcases to be unpacked, piles of mail to be read and Etsy packages and layouts to be shipped.  But, most of the mail turned out out to be lovely holiday cards. My husband even made a trip to the post office for me.

Nandini was practicing her tantrums with gusto this morning.  Mostly because she could not have num nums for breakfast.  She laid down for her morning nap, but resumed crying and screaming almost the whole way to pick up Avi from school.  At some point on the road I started to feel really zen and just realized how happy and relaxed I was.  Somehow the long break had cleared off the grime of my day to day routine.

I feel that I sometimes focus on the negative too often.

I just want to remember the random, good little things from Today.

I want to remember them playing by themselves and playing together all day. Making treasure maps and cooking in their kitchen.  Even cleaning up a little (when asked).

I want to remember the wonderful fragrant roses I got at the grocery store today (most are fragrance-free in stores).

I want to remember the pile of happy mail awaiting me when I got home.  And, how good it felt to get everything organized and put away after.

I want to remember simple and delicious pea soup dinner at home which even Nandini tried.

I want to remember how much fun it was to look through my Disney pictures and get started on my Project Life right away while everything is still fresh.

I want to remember how grateful I am for everything Ryan does to help me and the kids.

I want to remember Nandini's relaxed laughter and even her incredible determination and stubborness.  I know it will serve her well. 

I want to remember how nice our little life together is.

It was nice to have a break, but I am very excited to start crafting again.  Lots of new things to come!

Fantasyland Dress Rehearsal, Disney 2012

 

Our first day at the Magic Kingdom.  I love everything about this place. The sense of whimsy and magic, the rides, the shows, talking pictures, reliving my childhood with my children and recording the memories.  We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the new Fantasyland is partially open for 'dress rehearsals' already!  They were shut down half the day to film a commercial, but we got to go in after that.  I sort of suspect the filming is the reason for the perfect looking clouds in the sky today too.  If anyone could make perfect clouds on cue, it's probably Disney.

He's so excited.  I can't believe he let me take as many pictures as he did.

The new dumbo ride was a little hard to find so we went on Winnie the Pooh first. Nandini totally earned her nerd nickname by heading for Eeyore's gloomy place first. I think she might have stayed there all day if I didn't pull her out.  She already loves going on rides luckily.

The new Storybook Circus is awesome.  Mostly a facelift of what was there before, like the barnstormer, Pete's side show and Dumbo's new location.  I have to say I really really miss it being right behind the castle and one of the first rides you get to if you walk straight up main street and through the castle. 

I didn't even have to pose him for this, he started twirling on the lamp post all on his own. 

I love Dumbo pictures.  Note the awesomely perfect clouds in the sky.  Nandini was there too, but I was holding her in my lap at an awkward angle for pictures.  I'll have to wait until Ryan joins us for that.

For the first time in the history of ever I actually rode the mundane carousel at Disney World.  This little baby wanted to, and  how could I say no the one ride request all day (that I could understand).  We rode Small World and Peter Pan after that too.  It is amazing to see them both looking at everything together with so much wonder. 

Then, we got to see the new Fantasyland. 

First we went to Belle's interactive storybook experience.  They loved exploring Belle's cottage and then traveling through a magic mirror to see 'drawers come to life.'  The animatronics are pretty amazing.

Then all the kids got to be in the show. Some one is the Beast, Belle's father, the Mrs. Potts, Chip, etc.  Avinash was the horse!  He gave the softest, cutest little neigh on stage but luckily Belle knew what he meant.  The whole thing is really just a photo-op with Belle, but done in a fun and different way.

The big surprise was Ariel! The new little mermaid ride was up and running as of a few days ago.  We were all so excited, Avinash included, who decided to put off eating fries to ride.

The pictures don't really do it justice.  Everything is so life like.  Her hair had this movement to it, like it was really floating underwater.  There are so many songs and fun moments along the way.  Definitely glad we got to see it this year!