Everyday Epiphanies

2013 Project Life OVERLOAD | Week(s) 15 - 42

So here it is..
(Prepare yourself for some serious scrolling)
I spent a week channeling my inner creativity. I left off at Week 21 when I "stopped" scrapbooking and let life's crazy schedule get in the way. But as soon as Fall break hit, I vouched that I would catch up no matter what. It was such a good release too, I needed this creative time to balance my sanity. 

But I realize I haven't taken any photos of layouts, so I started at Week 15.

 

 

 

 

 

I found an "Instagram" template online and just added the pic I took that day for IG along with the caption and hash tags. Thought it would be fun to look back at this years from now and realize how far social media has come.

 

 

This is where I left off, the beginning of summer and Caelan's graduation.

After uploading the pics I was afraid I skipped a week, but I just forgot to take a pic of week 22, but it's there.

 

 

 

 

Love that little "Selfie" titled photo... I think it's a word that's a part of the dictionary now.

 

 

 

 

 

I love using my poloroids in my album, but I admit, most of it is hanging up on the walls. A little washi tape on a patterned paper.. and there you have it!

 

I also love splitting the pics on those 2 (3x4) openings. I've seen it a few times and decided to try it out.

 

 

 

 

 

Added an extra 8.5x11 insert in this week because of all the cute artwork I got from Izzy and my neices.

 

 

I've also been printing on my 3x4 cards. I found a way to print them out and I just have to eye ball where the text may go.

 

I also love printing right on the photo (above half marathon photo). I also love printing "collage" photos on a 4x6 layout.

 

 

 

A closer look at the 8x6 layout of my "Insanity" page.

 

 

Been loving printing my weeks on these patterned 3x4 cards.

 

I have a 3.5x5 output in my printer so I use this as a guide to print my 3x4 cards. This has made it easier to print on these cards.

 

 

 

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We are now on Week 43 and it won't be long before I have it here on the blog as well.

 

 

Summer So Far...

Has been spent with my Superman... (He was really excited for the Man of Steel movie, I ran out to get him a shirt just in time for our date night).

 

And these kids... Caelan has been busy with work and his social life! Ethan is my homebody who has been a great help in the house. And Izzy has been busy with her Art Academy.


And my handsome pup... keeps me busy all the time, in a good way.

Enjoying the sunshine.

 

Found an awesome plant based protein shake that I've been using for a few weeks and actually love the taste and the fact that it contains no soy like the Visalus. I've been doing some research on the Vi Shake and it's not for me and my new lifestyle. It is packed with preservatives and milk products, all the things I've been staying away from.

 

Still challenging myself.
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. - Fred Devito
One of the great things about pushing yourself beyond what you think is possible is that the act of doing that will change your mentality which will pour over into other areas of your life.

More time spent with this guy...

 

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“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. - Jim Ryun

I think this is the picture from Jan 2013 that Izzy got of me playing with Kai that made me realize, I fell off the fitness bandwagon:

By then, moving to Hawaii really got to me, all the good food, the constant eating out and my excuse of "It's to hot to run outside" was taking a toll.

Nowadays, I try not to weigh myself to much, but of course I can't help it.. but I've lost over 10 pounds.. and it's the stubborn weight too.. But I've started to gain muscle, something I never saw even in my early running days. When I started running a few years ago, I never strength trained at all so I was fine in my size 2's but it was like chicken legs and wobbly arms. Now I look at my arms and back.. and smile.. Where have you been all my life?

I'm definitely not there yet, I have a long ways to go... but seeing the little changes in the physical and mental aspect is enough to keep me going. Plus I've got an amazing team by my side, my hubby pushes me because he knows I can push harder, and my brother in law and sister in law have joined the exercise bandwagon, so we've become a "strong" support system. Don't get me wrong, I know my IG feed looks like I live in the gym. But I have my days where I don't feel like doing S***, and some day it gets the best of me and some days I suck it up and go anyway. Now it's become more of a routine, if we have a busy weekend planned, my first question is always... "When are we going to the gym?"

But I cannot stress enough that for us, what we decide to eat out weighs any gym weights. Making healthy choices has been key in this journey so far. But that doesn't mean we never eat junk, if we didn't we would d a lot more binging. So allow yourself that cheesecake or brownie every now and then.

“You must begin to think of yourself
as becoming the person you want to be.
- David Viscott

2013 Project Life | Week(s) 10 - 14

Why yes, I still scrapbook!! April has proven to be a "busy" month with tons of celebrations and I've been terrible about managing my time and trying to make time to get on the computer. My priorities shifted (when I'm in bed by 9pm every night). But I feel more refreshed than I've ever been during the day which makes for a busy-bee-mama. I feel like I'm always on the go!

I think I left off at Week 10, when all was calm...

 

WEEK 10.

 

WEEK 11.
This is where it starts to throw me off, because I had that wonderful week with Keri, I debated a while wheter to use those photos and create an entire separate album or just stick in Project Life. But I realized.. those are the only photos I have that documented my week.. so I kept most of it in Project Life, making Week 11& 12 more than a 2 page spread.

Then it was Caelan's Senior Prom... So I had to add a few pages of his memorable night... (Notice blank spots..) I was hoping he would fill some thing in there...

These photos (below) I grabbed from his Instagram, great way to incorporate what my kids are doing..

 

WEEK 12

 

WEEK 13

 

WEEK 14
This also turned out to be a several page spread... It was a week of celebrations and remembering mom I wanted to all a lot of journaling and most of the photos for the week.

 

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SO.. Not bad, I'm catching up. Luckily I have my photos organized and all I really need to do is print them and put them in these handy dandy page protectors. I do have another post lined up (if and when I hit "publish" we'll see). Till then Happy Scrappin!

 

 

One Week With Her.

After not seeing her for nearly 9 months.. my heart was over whelmed with joy to be near her again, even if it was just for a week. Funny how so much time has passed and yet when we are togther it feels like no time has passed at all. Needless to say, 7 days go by in the blink of an eye.

 

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I have yet to write all my thoughts and gather all our photos from our week togther. But it's nice to see where we started:

Our friendship circa 2004.

See how much we have grown togther :

And continue to remain the best of friends:

*****

Spring Break is officially over for my kids (crazy schedule they have) They head back to school on a Wednesday only to be off Friday ! We've had a crazy 2 weeks.. right after Keri left, we headed to a camping trip!  We are finally home, somewhat rested, and ready to get back to our routine (sort of).

2013 Project Life | Week 10 In Photos.

Sunday March 3 was Girl's Day here in Hawaii. Such a nostalgic day for me, because I can remember growing up, Girl's Day was a big thing for us "girls". I wanted Izzy to remember this special day. She spent the night at a sleepover with her "girl" friends and we took her and her good friend, Kyla to lunch at the mall. She chose one of her faves, Bubba Gumps.

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• The week started off with Izzy home not feeling so good. (All the kids and I have been fighting some nasty cold).

• I finally brought Kai to the beach, sat out, got a good tan, and talked on the phone and caught up with an old friend.

• Just when I thought I wasn't tan enough, Izzy and Rudy joined me on a quick 4 mile run in the blazing sun.

 

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• The hubby joined me on my morning routine. He started working mids/shifts this week (sigh, it's been a while since he's done this, I'm still trying to juggle it all). But it's nice to have him home during the day.

• While waiting for Izzy to come home from school, Kai and I sat and took some pics.. I just love this guy!

• Lunch (minus the kids) is always enjoyable, we enjoy these little day-dates.

• And the kid is getting ready for his Senior Prom! It is this weekend!!! I'm more excited than he is.

 

So last week was a bit on the exhausting side. The hubby's mid/shift schedule gets a bit much when I'm trying to manage several roles in the house and there's only one of me. This is the last wee of school before it's Spring Break! The days are getting warmer (as if it's not warm enough) but I'm looking forward to a fun week.

2013 Project Life | Week 09

 

(left side)

 

To fill out some of the photo-less week, I (once again) have been enjoying quotes that I have pinned from Pinterest. This one stuck with me last week because I've been really trying to push myself to start everyday with a positive attitude and just making the most of it. I know we get so caught up in routine, picking up kids, track practice, volleyball practice, gym, dinner meals, dog walks, etc.. I always feel so exhausted by 7pm only to repeat the again the next day. Weekends have been far less than relaxing, we are always on the go as well. That in the midst of things I just want to be able to enjoy the day.

I also added a snapshot of a short run that I was so proud of. I kept a good pace and felt great running in the heat at 4pm. When we first moved here, I could not even stand jogging outside, let alone running through it. I'm getting used to this tropical heat, luckily I'm always blessed with some trade-winds to keep me cool.

 

Again, I've been loving quotes from that show "Touch" I just had to add that in.

 

(right side)

 

I've been loving adding more white space to my instagram photos. I've been loving the simplicity and the focus shifts to the photo itself.  So lately my Instagram feeds will be filled with lots of white space.

 

I'm still adding texts to my photos, makes for an easy photo + journaling layout.

 

Multi-page photos are still the way to go when you have quite a bit you wanna share. Just enough to tell a story without using words. This weekend Izzy's Girl Scouts Troop was at the local Safeway selling Girl Scouts Cookies.. And I'm sure she enjoyed our selling methods here :) We support our kids any way we can. (Can you tell?)

*****
We are in March of this project and creating my pages have become a part of my weekend routine. We never have enough time do much of anything... but you always make time for the things that matter. That's the thing, when people always say "I don't have time to... workout, scrapbook, walk my dog, etc... that is because people do not want to take the time. If something is important to you.. you will make the time.

2013 Project Life | Week 09 In Photos.

I actually got to finish Week 09 (will blog tomorrow) over the weekend while Izzy was a sleep over and hubby and I had some quiet time to relax and watch "Touch" while I scrapbook. Love weekends like that, just relaxing and getting creative.

I found some simple photo templates via Cathy Z on this post HERE to showcase the days I got without blogging and I have several photos I want to share.

• (top) Early morning bike ride to school at 6:45 am with Izzy because to get to her Track Team practice.
• (Top left) Izzy and I in the car saying she's gonna pop some tags with the $20 in her pocket.
• (Top Right) BBQ'ing some chicken wings for my love while listening to Mumford & Sons, Perfect Evening.
• (Bottom Left) Quite possibly the best Chicken Pot Pie I've had from Sweet Revenge Honolulu.
• (Bottom Right) Our morning routine, 3 mile walk along the harbor.

 

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•  (Top Left) Door to Door selling Girl Scout Cookies. We didn't do a whole lot of presale, I decided to order 150 boxes and determined to sell all of them. Izzy and her daddy has been hard at work going out every afternoon selling the cookies. On this day, I decided to go out with Izzy and try my best to sell as well. I love this way of selling cookies!
• (Top Right) Kim Chee Fried Rice. So good!
• (Middle Left) My niece, Audrey and Kai.
• (Middle Right) While at the park with Audrey, I looked up and snapped. Thought it was pretty cool.
• (Bottom Left & Right) This weekend we sat outside Safeway to sell cookies with her troop.

 

The weekend always seems to fly. One by one, my children are catching the cold/flu. My middle guy has been home from school for the past 3 days and is still on the mend. Tonight (Sunday) I noticed Izzy felt a little warm... So cross my fingers while I inhale some Zicam this goes away soon.

2013 Project Life | Week 07 & 08

I got a chance to finish Week 7 & 8 and I have to say Week 7 was plentifull in photos but Week 8 lacked photo substance. But I have to say, I found fun and interesting ways to fill in the blanks.

2013 Project Life | Week 07

(left side)

A closer look at the left side.

If you haven't guessed yet, we are Walking Dead enthusiast. The show finally returned 2 weeks ago and we couldn't be more excited!  We even uploaded The Walking Dead app and "zombiefied" oursleves.

I've also been pritning my journaling a lot more especially since I found an easier way to print on my 3x4 cards. I like to add "Highlights" of the week,  just little tid-bits. I try to write some of these down in my binder througout the week like simple things such as the latest rave on YouTube, The Harlem Shake. I admit, we recorded a little shaking ourselves, LOL!

  (right side)

 

A closer look at the right side. For this page I used a layout that had a 6x8 opening, which I've grown to love. This is great for those days when I have tons of photos. I make a collage in photoshop and print it to fit.



 2013 PROJECT LIFE | Week 08
(left side)

 

(right side)

 

A closer look at some ways I've filled in the photo-less slots.
I'm a big fan of quotes (my Pinterest is filled with them), so when I find one that catches my eye for the week I try to print it out and add it in my pages.
I also added a snapshots of the people I've texted that day. Great way to document the media world we live in.

Again, there's my week in reiview, little tid bits of the week.

 

2013 Project Life | Week 06

2013 PL | Week 06

(left side)

(right side)

 

Week Six, came and sped on by....
I don't know what it is, but I've been slacking in the blogging area. What can I say, as a fellow blogger of over six years, there are days... when you just don't feel like getting in front of the computer to recap your day or to just write. By 8pm this house is ready to call it quits and hit those lights off, everyone just seems to always be on the go. The kids with their after school activities, getting out there to push for a late afternoon work out (it's simply to hot during the day to do so).

But week six did not go by unnoticed.

Last night (Saturday night) Izzy and I have discovered the joy in water colors! And we have had so much fun creating inserts for my Project Life, okay I had a say in the size and orientation the cards should be (3x4's or 4x3's  right fellow Project Lifers :)

So below are just some of the many inserts that are getting ready to be placed in my albums.

(Below) you can see I figured out how to print on one of Izzy's painting for me. Unfortunately I cut them all to size already and as you know, that size is not easy to stuff in your ink jet printer. LUCKILY, Paislee Press had a tid bit on her blog about trying to print this size HERE. So I added a quote I found via Pinterest. (Thinking adding Pins from Pinterest maybe a part of my weekly "must-have".)  I can't wait to add more, there's just enough space in a 2 page layout :)

 

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A closer look at some of my pages.
Now I'm actually not so thrilled about my pages, I feel like I'm lacking creativity, but again it's hard to get so creative when I'd rather stick photos in the pocket than add some cute little flower, ribbon, or arrow.. And as of late, I've had more photos than journaling. Which is a good approach, the photos pretty much tell you how my week is going.

Here Izzy had a sleep over on Friday Night with her friend and we took them out for some late night dining. They goofed off as I snapped photos of them. I love how a simple black and white collage was enough to show for her night out.

 

(Below) Titled, Photobombed. Hilarious!  I used one of the water colorings I made. I've also been into writing captions on my photos instead of trying to squeeze them in around the photo or using an extra slot for it.

 

 

(Below) We visited an office store and I found a pen that was photo safe and had a nice thin tip... hence, my over-writing on each photo... I'm kind of wishing I didn't write all over this photo, but oh well.. It was a caption that I used for my Instagram Photo with my 4-legged pup... who celebrated his 3rd Birthday with us. What better way to spend it than a day at the Harbor enjoying a long walk. I sat on the edge of the harbor and I saw our silhouettes in the water and "snapped".

 

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There was so many more photos I wanted to add to this week.. but I've learned to cut them down a bit. I wanted to save a few for some serious journaling. Most of which are about my children. One of which was Caelan and his friends, it just warms my heart to see him out there taking on this world, fearlessly.. like he has always been. I fell in love with a photo of Izzy being carried by her dad. But just before that she refused to hold my hand. LOL! It's simply watching "daddy's girl's" evolve as the years past. More to document about that.. soon :) For now, good night, we are all "Zombied Out!"

2013 Project Life | Week 05, The First Half...

(The morning sky as I drop my boys to school).

So far the week is still a little slow...
I'm not sure if I'm still wallowing in the idea of resting to get better (aka being lazy) or I'm actually still recovering. So Kai and I have been snuggling quite a bit.. okay a lot!

Look how comfy he looks in the blanket I found at Target for $8! 

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I turned around during our short car ride to get the boys Haircut at 808 Haircut by Rodel. (Yes, another Rodel... LOL we went to highschool together. It's so cool to run into my classmates and to see their families.) And I see my kids up to their shenanigans in our 15 minute car ride. That would be my 17 year old who has my almost 10 year old in a headlock! And he's off to college in a few months?  Always a kid at heart I guess :)

"Quite Fond of This Blonde".. Been loving the Blonde Roast from Starbucks lately. My french press is always ready to go.

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4 Miles in the Rain... Something about running in the rain that is both exhilerating and childlike. I simply love it! All day I kept trying to amp myself up for a good run, but kept telling myself it would probably be another bad one, considering it has been 16 days since my last run. But even though the pace was slower, my legs hurt, I was sniffling.. I still enjoyed every bit of it, especially on mile 2, when it started to pour. Hubby went for a bike ride and caught me basking in the rain.

 

So far it's only half of the week... I've got a shoot scheduled for later on for a family I met in Alaska, she called and asked to meet up and I'm so excited to see her and her family!  It's so nice to get a call/email like that from my clients from AK :)