About that About page

I've been trying to write my About page for months.  Months.  I have a draft page all set up and every once in a while I stop by, write a few sentences and then delete them.

I can't do it.  The words won't come.  I keep coming up against the fact that in order to write a halfway decent About page it would be good to know what exactly it is that I'm doing here and that is proving to be a stupidly difficult thing to describe.  For me, at least.

It has occurred to me that my journal pages are the closest thing here to the real me.  That's me on those pages, probing, wondering, marveling.  Trying to figure it out.  All of it.  Even as I stumble along, screwing it up.  Trying to figure out how to balance day-to-day happenings against the bigger stuff.  Trying to remember that much of the time, the day-to-day happenings are the big stuff.  Thinking about the people who inspire me, who connect me with the world, who take me along on their adventures and offer to ride beside me on mine.  Remembering just how many reasons there are to be grateful.  Remembering to be curious.  Looking back.  Looking forward.  But always looking around.

And all of this with colourful borders.  Hand-drawn borders.  (Pretty ones, I hope.)  Because I like for some things to be in their boxes.  So that I can try to figure them out. 

Is that an About page?  I don't know.

Hardly waiting . . .

Things I can hardly wait for . . .

• hugs and kisses from my girls
• dinner, in the last ten minutes before it's ready
• stolen moments with the husband
• happy emails
• late evening meetups with friends involving deep-fried foods, decadent desserts and deep conversation
• each small success on the way to larger goals

What's on your list?

(Find a colour-it-yourself version of the quote right here.)

Rekindling the spark

Here are a few of the people who rekindled my spark this week:

1. Aimee, the amazingly talented doodler behind Artsyville.  Her work is bright and witty and utterly delightful.  On Wednesday, when I couldn't figure out how to take pictures of my journal page (and considered giving the whole thing up), I remembered that she often uses paper as a backdrop for her work, so I gave it a try and it opened up a whole new set of possibilities!

2. Ben Cuevas.  He knit (knitted?) an entire skeleton.  A skeleton seated in the lotus position, which was created, in part, as a meditation on transcendence.  I am in awe.

3. Scoutie Girl, who wrote about the dangerous spiral of criticism and how to deal with it.  The article is directed mainly to artists, but I believe the message is universal.  My favourite line:  "Recognize failure as a part of the process and act on your ideas as if it doesn't matter."

4. My three year old daughter, who has perfected the art of negotiation -- and at such a tender age.

The Husband:  Let's go.  We're late.

The Three Year Old :  I want to take all of my babies.  (Note: there are millions of them.)

The Husband:  Your Barbies (note: also millions of them) are already in the car.  Why don't you leave your babies at home?

The Three Year Old:  No.  I want all of my babies.

The Husband:  Okay.  You can take two babies in the car.

The Three Year Old:  No.  All of them.

The Husband:  Two babies or no babies at all.

The Three Year Old:  No.  All of them.

Guess how many babies made it into the car?  Let's just say that my husband and I are still marveling over just how much you can put in those reusable shopping bags.

Happy Friday friends!

P.S. Here is my quote drawing before I coloured it and cut it out:

Is this something you might want to print out for yourself?  If so, let me know in the comments and I'll upload the pdf and post a link.

Edited to add:  Here are the links to the black and white pdf and a colourful one too!

Wednesday journal page -- take two

Update: The journal page in this post is no longer available for download. For a selection of free, printable journal pages, please visit my Printable Journal Pages collection.

~~~
Note:  This page is exactly the same as the previous one, except I changed the photos.  Better?

I thought I'd bring you images of today's journal page via photograph.  While I'm fond of the graphic images I've been using lately, I'm never happy with the way the text blurs when it is uploaded to the web.  That said, the text in the photos isn't all that clear either.  Who knew that generating images containing small letters would be so difficult?  It's something I'm working on.  I'll get there.  Eventually.

In the meantime, today's page is full of fun stuff!  There's a place to think about the people who bring out the best in you . . .

And a place to answer a few totally random lightning round questions . . .

The full page looked like this before I attacked it with my daughters' markers . . .

and after . . .

As always, you'll find today's journal page in one or more of the usual variations here (no border) and here (border without colour) and here (coloured border).

Happy Wednesday friends!

Wednesday journal page

Update: The journal page in this post is no longer available for download. For a selection of free, printable journal pages, please visit my Printable Journal Pages collection.

~~~
I thought I'd bring you images of today's journal page via photograph.  While I'm fond of the graphic images I've been using lately, I'm never happy with the way the text blurs when it is uploaded to the web.  That said, the text in the photos isn't all that clear either.  Who knew that generating images containing small letters would be so difficult?  It's something I'm working on.  I'll get there.  Eventually.

In the meantime, today's page is full of fun stuff!  There's a place to think about the people who bring out the best in you . . .

And a place to answer a few totally random lightning round questions . . .

The full page looked like this before I attacked it with my daughters' markers . . .

and after . . .

As always, you'll find today's journal page in one or more of the usual variations here (no border) and here (border without colour) and here (coloured border).


Happy Wednesday friends!

A few weekend images . . .

Leftovers from a little lunch buffet.  Nobody ever eats the peppers.

Like this photo, the peanut butter cookies were a little bland.  I used
peanut-only peanut butter and unsalted butter.
Next time, must remember to add salt!

Met a friend for lunch in the cafe section of our small city's largest grocery

store. Grocery stores that carry items other than groceries are still relatively

new to me, but I've got to admit that it's fun.  Not only did we eat and catch

up, but I managed to find a few cute stripey tops for me and my youngest.

 Pretty close to the perfect lunch!

Today, my three year old and I are achy and sniffly and we plan to spend the day doing our best impressions of bumps on logs.

New journal page coming on Wednesday.  Stay tuned!

Wet paint

This is where you'll find her at some point nearly every day.  This morning it was first thing.

"Mommy, I need my smock!"

She loves to cover the whole page in paint.  She starts off with the brushes and the best of intentions, but eventually her fingers always find their way into the colours.

Wishing you a happy, creatively messy weekend!

Awe and the October prompt

I spent the morning on flickr looking for photos inspired by the October prompt and your lists of things that leave you in awe.  Here is a tiny sampling . . .

the ocean . . . 

Photo by marix_sublime

spring renewal . . .

Photo by AlexRK

snowflakes . . .

Photo by nutmeg66

children, pregnancy, birth, love . . .

Photo by nettsu

eyes (direct quote: "knowing my body made eyeballs!") . . .

Photo by Michele Catania

starry nights . . .

Photo by kern.justin

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in my October prompt and giveaway.  I have now sent out all of the giveaway links, so if you left a comment and you haven't received an email from me, send me a quick note at christie (at) graceisoverrated (dot) com and I'll get those out to you.  Oh, and if you'd still like to participate, by all means, stop on by and leave your own list of awe!

October prompt and giveaway

Maybe it's the changing of the seasons.  Maybe it's fiery red leaves on old maples and hot apple crisp after dinner and fleece jackets zipped all the way up against the chill on an evening walk.  I don't know, but I'm feeling a little more awe than usual.  It's like I can feel the planet moving under my feet.  (Not in a terrifying shifting of the tectonic plates, death and destruction sort of way, but in a momentous change sort of way.)  And it feels good.  It feels like adventure and novelty and endless opportunity.

And with all this change swirling about, I've decided to tweak the Friday prompt.  From here on in, the Friday prompt is history.  Instead, I'll do a monthly prompt and it will always involve a giveaway.  Doesn't that sound like more fun? 

So, my friends, today I've got a little sneak peak for you.  It's one of the elements from a new and exclusive giveaway journal page.  I won't be posting the page online, but I will send links to the mystery page to everyone who leaves a comment in response to this prompt:

It's a giveaway that everybody wins!  (Just like last time.)  Woohoo! 

There's just one last thing.  Today -- or maybe it's tomorrow -- marks the beginning of the Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada.  I'll be in and out all weekend with the husband and kiddies visiting family and friends and won't be back in the swing of things until Tuesday, at which point I'll start sending out mystery page links. 

This is the important part:  If you haven't received an email by, let's say, midday on Wednesday, it's most likely because I can't find your email address.  This caused me all sorts of stress last time, so please, please, please, if you would like the links, please make sure that your email address is super-easy to find on your profile or better yet, include your email address in your comment.

Now let's all go out and be awestruck for awhile.  I'll write about my three things in the comments and I hope you'll join me there to add yours!

Happy Friday and Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian friends!

Hey! Isn't we supposed to be having a fiesta?

(All of my contemporary cultural references involve animated, talking animals.  That one up there in the title is one of my favourites lines by Puss in Boots in Shrek  2.)

It's an unmitigated riot of fall colour out there people!

The sky is bright, the air is cool, the leaves are autumn-coloured and I'm feeling a giveaway coming on.  Meet me back here tomorrow for my second secret journal page giveaway -- a contest that everybody wins!  (Here's the first giveaway, in case you missed it.)

Happy Thursday friends!

Wednesday journal page

Update: The journal page in this post is no longer available for download. For a selection of free, printable journal pages, please visit my Printable Journal Pages collection.

~~~
One of the things that gives me regular pause while I'm creating journal pages is the appropriate wording of the prompts.

Take for example a prompt from today's page:

See that?  I've ended with a preposition, which I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to do.  The problem I run into over and over again, however, is that the correct alternative sounds ridiculous.

It's either: 3 songs I can't help singing along to: or 3 songs to which I can't help singing along:

The second option just sounds odd; so for now, I'm opting for casual, conversational prompts where prepositions find themselves in all the wrong places.

I'm also opting for quotes that make me smile . . .

Today's page, prepositions and all, looks like this:

You'll find the usual variations here (no border) and here (with the colour-free border) and here (the full technicolour version.)

Happy Wednesday friends!

Monday recap . . . on Tuesday . . . again.

For some reason, I'm finding this post incredibly difficult to write.  No matter how I write it, it just doesn't sound right.  So I went out and walked around and ended up at the local market buying mini pumpkins. 

Now I have a photo of mini pumpkins that doesn't really work for me either and still no post.

Prepare yourself for some questionable grammar ahead, with a neurotic side of neurosis . . .

What I want to do here is thank everyone who commented on last Friday's prompt about time-honoured traditions.  One way to do that (since a bar graph wouldn't quite do the job) is to respond to each of your comments in the comment section of the Friday post.  So I did that earlier today and you can go on over and take a look if you'd like.

But what I also want to do is tell you in some coherent manner how much I enjoyed reading your comments.  It was a lot.  Like, totally.  A lot.  Because you guys really have some great traditions (anonymous birthday calls and growing older in front of mirrors and singing the birthday song really badly and Trivial Pursuit on the Wii.)  The utter sweetness of this one by Heather Wilson has stayed with me for days.  And I'm humbled that you shared your experiences here and I hope that you've been able to take something good away from it as well.

Okay.  That's it for now.  Come on back here tomorrow for a new Wednesday journal page!

Happy Tuesday friends!

Friday prompt

Today, my good friend the Scribbler is hosting a delightful online post-along called Weekword, which challenges participating bloggers to create a post based upon a single word.  This week's word is ten.

When I think about the word ten, I think immediately of time.  A decade.  Which feels like a really long time -- long enough to achieve big goals, to gain perspective, to set in motion enduring practices.

Today's prompt is inspired by the thought of those enduring practices.  I'd love to hear about your traditions -- the things that you do to celebrate momentous occasions; the ways that you mark the passage of time; even perhaps the small, lasting rituals that give meaning to your day-to-day comings and goings . . .

I'll start things off in the comments with one of my longstanding family traditions and I hope you'll join me there to share yours!

Happy Friday friends!