Catching Up...

Catching up on life. This pretty much sums up what I've been doing this month. It's really been a good thing.

Sleep:
Ben and I have been working hard on getting to bed say before 2 am, which is huge for us. It's amazing what 8 hours of sleep can do for a person! We did okay except for Thursday night when we fell off the bandwagon big time by staying up until 4 am... but it was all for a good "cause" which brings me to the next place where I've caught up...

Friends:
Wow, I have them! I don't mean this like "oh, I've got so many friends". It's more of a statement of amazement because I don't really deserve any of them. Sometimes I feel like the world's worst friend...not intentionally...but because I let life get in the ways of those important relationships. But over the last few months I've realized that there's no such thing as being too busy for friends. We've started having a lot more friends over just to hang out and we've worked hard to juggle our schedules to be sure we're at those important birthday parties and gatherings that we're invited to. I have some unbelievable people surrounding me that have really invested time and energy in my life. I'm completely undeserving! They're such a blessing and I want to make sure I'm there for them when they need me.

Church:
We go to Richland Bible Fellowship Church. We love it! It's great for the kids and it's great for us. We've been going to this church for about 2 1/2 years and have finally started to get involved. Ben and I recently started to volunteer our time in the learning center. We definitely wanted to give back to that which has done so much for our kids, but we also wanted to make a serious commitment to get ourselves to church every Sunday no matter what. It's been fun and we've really enjoyed the kids. I also love getting to know the other parents in the church. Catching up with God has been the most rewarding catching up I've done!

Scrapbooking:
A few months ago, I succumbed to digital scrapbooking. I dragged my feet because it's a bit blasphemous for a paper scrapbook designer to scrapbook digitally...and it's not that I've given up on paper scrapbooking...I still love every second of it...but it's time I catch up my memories and the only way I can do it is by going digi. I think I'm the slowest paper scrapbooker in the whole world - that could definitely be part of the problem. Regardless, I've embraced digital and am loving it. One of my dearest friends, Virginia, didn't think she was capable of digital scrapbooking. Just to prove her wrong, I coerced her into taking the Big Picture Scrapbooking class "Doing it Digi" with me. Mind you, Virginia works on a $100,000+ piece of sonogram equipment everyday and is amazing at her job but she's scared to death of doing something wrong on the computer. I think she's getting over the fear. She did great on her first page and I'm totally impressed that she's putting up with me right now...at least she hasn't started ignoring my phone calls as of yet. She might after this post. But anyway, here is the first page I completed for the class.
This brings me to the next area of my life where I'm playing catch up...

My Kids:
Recently, my son (who is brutally honest) told me that he thinks he and is dad have a "better" relationship because I'm always at work. Ouch! That hurt! But it's important for me to hear it no matter how painful. It made me realize that I better do one of two things: start saving for his therapy fund or shape up. I decided on the latter. I've made some very simple commitments that are helping me invest more of myself in my kids. For example, I've started taking Nolen to his piano lesson every Tuesday. It's perfect because I can still get wireless internet while I'm sitting in the car and I actually can get a lot of work done in that 30 minutes...but the conversation in the car on the way to and from the lesson is priceless. One day Ella, Gracie & I walked up to Target to exchange some clothes. We walked because this gave us time to have idle conversation...and I got some exercise and we still got an errand done. These little changes will matter in the long run. I just have to be creative and look for the opportunities to connect. My kids are the most important thing in my life and I can't take a second of their childhood for granted.

Easter Sunday

The Office:
For the last year and a half I have successfully ignored the tremendous amount of clutter at the office. There's simply so much stuff it's hard to know where on earth to start...but we we've been making some progress and just maybe...pretty soon...we'll get to hold some amazing crops! I know we're going to have a huge scrapbook supply garage sale that Virginia is heading up this summer! I hate cleaning but I love the results!

PTA:
I'm the Historian for the MST PTA. This is my third time to do the job and I admittedly failed miserably the last time I did it. I was pregnant with Ella, completely exhausted and totally shirked my responsibility. Shame on me. Luckily, I didn't make the same mistake this year. I did however realize on Monday that it was due on Friday, but thanks to the miracles of digital scrapbooking, it was a breeze to complete on time. My son goes to the most amazing school. It's the Math/Science/Technology Magnet in Richardson, TX. The population of the school is incredibly diverse but the kids all get along great and completely thrive in their differences. I love it that my son gets to have this experience. It's really a beautiful thing. It's a total "I have a dream" school. Anyway, the principals are wonderful! They're funny and cool and completely connect with the kids. They even dress up as rockers and sing an MST spirit song to Guns & Roses music. Here are some of the layouts from the album:


This was made using the Space Boy kit from The Shabby Shoppe.
You can buy it here.


This layout was made using the piece-of-cake page from the Shabby Princess' free kit, Moody Blues. You can download it here.

More catching up to do:
There are still areas of my life in total disarray. The laundry in our house for example is a mess! We have no problem washing our clothes but putting them up is somehow beyond our capabilities. It's totally out of control. Ben and I could definitely use some kid-free time together. I still need to finish painting my hall. I need to workout. etc., etc...Slowly but surely, we're getting all caught up. Of course, the trick is staying that way. One day at a time...

Now that my blog is caught up I'm off to teach my son how to create an animated .gif and how to put a slide show on his blog. He's so dang smart!