Friday, February 25, 2011

New 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.

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A few peeks at this week's page . . .


 


 

Don't bring me anything but trouble.  I am in love with this quote.

One last peek.  This week's to-do list with a nod to that pesky ticking clock . . . 


The downloads for today's page are here (border-free) and here (borderful and colour-free) and here (borderful and colourful).

Just a wee update too . . .

I've encountered a few health issues over the past several months that will probably end up being quite manageable, but which are affecting my energy levels these days.  I've been stressing about posting on some sort of regular schedule, but I just can't do it right now.  So all of this is simply to say that I probably won't be posting all that often for the next while, but that in no way means that I am giving up on our journal pages.  I'll still be posting them as often as I can.

Happy weekend, friends!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Working on a new journal page

Have I told you guys lately how much I love working on new journal pages?


It brings all the good stuff into sharp focus.

It reminds me to stop drifting (or reeling) for a moment and pay attention to the tug and swirl of time, place, circumstances and choice.  I've come to realize that I have developed a protocol, a modus operandi for determining which prompts make it to the page and which ones don't.  It's mostly an intuitive thing, but it has helped me to discover the surprising depths and breadths to be found in everyday events.  I look for meaning more often now in the places where once I saw only minutiae. 

It's such a gift to be able to do this on a semi-regular basis and share it with you and read your thoughts in return.

A few posts back I said I'd stop at page 40 and move on to new projects, but now I'm working on page 40 and I don't want to stop yet.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

It's good to mention stuff. You never know where it will lead.

Sometime late last fall, I mentioned to the husband that I was on the lookout for a book on watercolour painting.  Then life roared on forward as it does and I forgot all about it.

Skip ahead a month or two.

On Christmas morning the husband, sweetest of sweethearts, presented me with a gift bag filled with nifty art supplies and a brochure from the local art school in which the description of its introductory watercolour class had been circled in an extremely romantic fashion.

(I wasn't nearly as inventive on his behalf.  He asked for shirts.  I got him shirts.  Some really cool shirts, but shirts nonetheless.  And a few other treats he didn't ask for.  But still, mostly shirts.)

Anyhoo, all of the above preamble is meant to lead you to the fact that I've been taking a watercolour class on Wednesday mornings for a few weeks now.

Today I learned how to make clouds.  There are a surprising number of ways to make clouds in watercolour.  The technique in the photo below involves cerulean blue paint and Kleenex.  (Ignore the blue and purple stripes at the top.  I was also using this page to test out colour mixes.)

Making clouds is awesome.


I have also learned how to make trees.  Below is a partial shot of my first attempt at watercolour ever.  Trees mostly.  Painting spindly, coniferous-y trees is every bit as awesome as making clouds.  Way more fun than getting shirts for Christmas.


What are you learning these days?

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Pet balloons

On the husband's birthday at the end of January, he was given four helium-filled balloons.  One, the Spider-Man balloon, met with an early demise.  Death by three year old.

The other three have been let loose in our house and they've been wandering around, wherever the indoor breezes take them.

These are our star-shaped friends.  They've been hanging out up there for a day or two.


This one below, the polka dot, is slowly coming back down to earth and follows us from room to room.  I'm not kidding.  It does.  Last night, it hung out with me while I tidied up after dinner.


We've become accustomed to them, floating around, minding their own business.  Not pets, exactly, because that would be odd.  But we'll miss them when they're gone.  Seriously.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!


Almost an anti-Valentine's Day sentiment, I think, now that I look at it.  I tend more toward love for love's sake all year round, but it's always good say I love you, even if Hallmark and Godiva get a cut!

Wishing you love today and every day!

Friday, February 11, 2011

New journal page, take 2

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.

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Let's try this again!  I'm back today to write a proper introduction to this week's new journal page.

As I mentioned yesterday, the new page includes possibly my favourite prompt yet:  


After 38 pages of diligent introspection, I think it's about high time to write about our total awesomeness!  Personally, I suck at this.  I can think of a hundred things about myself that require urgent improvement, but the awesome stuff . . . that's under lock and key somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain.

And why?  That's something I've been wondering about for quite some time.  Actually, if I'm honest with myself, I haven't really been wondering.  Yeah, I know why.  It's a confidence thing.  Maybe I'm not awesome at anything.  Maybe I'm not awesome at all.

Except that I would never, ever, ever accept that answer from anyone else I know.  Not for one second.  I would sit with that person and talk to that person until they could see all of the awesomeness that I saw.

So enough of that confidence garbage.  Time to shrug off the inner doubter and acknowledge that, hey, there are a few things I do really well.  When I look hard, without unproductive self-criticism, I see -- even if only in glimpses, fragments, ghostly apparitions -- crap, I almost can't write this -- awesome creativity, some awesome parenting moments and some awesome flashes of empathy.

There.  Deep breath.

OK.

I totally qualified those last two things, but enough progress for today.

Moving on.

As soon as I finish this post, I'm skipping right to number three on today's to-do list.  It will involve sugar and caffeine and a strong probability of reality television.


If you're still with me, the whole page looks startlingly like the one in this last photo:


If you missed yesterday's post, the links to the new page are here (border-free) and here (borderful and colour-free) and here (borderful and colourful).

And if you have a sec, please stop by and tell me all about your awesomeness! 

Happy Friday, friends!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

New 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.

~~~

Today's journal page is finished and uploaded, but I've run out of time to write a proper post.  As usual.  So, I'm leaving that task for tomorrow.

But I just couldn't wait to share the links, which are here (border-free), here (borderful and colour-free) and here (borderful and colourful.)

Here, too, is a quick pic from the new page:


I love this prompt.  (If I do say so myself.)  I can't believe that it took me 39 pages to write it.  We are, each of us, totally and utterly awesome in so many ways.  Time to write about it.

Happy Thursday, friends!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Cereal for lunch

  • Cereal for lunch.  Blanket forts in the living room.  Banana-flavoured antibiotics three times a day.  Both of my girls had the flu last week and are better now, but the antibiotic routine for my youngest, who ended up with an ear infection, lives on.  The house has yet to recover.
  • Yesterday I spent the bulk of the day sitting under heated hospital blankets and waiting in various hallways for a test that I'm pretty sure was only marginally necessary and will reveal nothing of interest to anyone, but the key thing to know is that it involved sedation.  Not my area of expertise, but I'm pretty sure that I wasn't totally out for the procedure.  When I got home yesterday, all I could remember was having cool liquid pushed into my IV and then waking up in the recovery room.  Today, however, I'm having flashbacks to snippets of conversation that I may or may not have had with the doctor at some point during, before or after the procedure.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I have spent the past several hours worrying about whether I said anything embarrassing.
  •  This thing here . . .


  • . . . is a doodle I began and then abandoned months ago.  I've tried about a hundred times to colour it and can't seem to come up with anything I'm happy with.  Eventually it will sort itself out, I'm sure.
  • There is a new journal page on the horizon.  I'm thinking it will likely be ready on Thursday.  So I hope you'll join me back here then!