I have THE BEST son-in-law and..

 Happy Friday!! 

Since discovering I have arthritis in my hands, both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, I've been trying to find some comparable alternatives. Having quit smoking 20+ years ago, knitting was what I did with my hands. Now..when watching tv, I eat. Not a good idea since I've lost close to 20 pounds so far doing Weight Watchers and I DO NOT want to gain that back. 

So far I've been working on puzzles, I started a junk journal and a paint by number. I am going to work on some watercolors too. Possibly this weekend. 

On to my story of why I have THE BEST son in law. The other day, I brought out a paint by number set I had purchased YEARS ago.  

as most of you know, I have a thing for doors. 

I brought out the little paint pods (not sure what they're called) and I was thinking, how do hold these and paint at the same time? Maybe I could make something to hold them out of a cardboard box. But, then I thought, Dan and family got a 3D printer at Christmas time. I wonder if he could come up with something. 

And lo and behold! Check it out! It even has the little slots for the side pieces of the pods and he personalized it for me!!! 

Needless to say I love it! I did discover the paints are dried up. No surprise there. So I contacted the company who I bought them from and come to find out they are under a different name now. They used to be Simple-Painting and now they're Art Spark. I explained that some of my paints were dried up because of not using them and would they be willing to sell me some that go with my particular painting. Can you believe they are sending me a whole set? Free of charge!! Now that's what I call excellent customer service!! 

I've also been working on my storytelling. I got a couple more pages done for January..

Looking at this journaling card is a little reminder of why I usually don't write in my own handwriting and I type on the computer. Not only do I not like my writing, I make mistakes LOL. 

Working on puzzles. I found this little acrylic puzzle in the secretaries desk, it was in there during the move so it's been a long time. I bought it years and years ago at Barnes & Noble. It is little, only like 4"x 6" but super fun!

After finishing the little acrylic puzzle, Paul and I started a one I got for Christmas from Bev. It's fun and challenging at the same time. It's not real big, but the puzzle pieces are wood and ALL different, with a large amount of animal shapes. Paul's doing really well with it in spite of his color blindness. 

I recently started Junk Journaling. They call it that because you can put all kinds of ephemera inside. Ticket stubs, postcards, buttons, beads, pictures, stickers etc. I think for this year, this will be my journal. I don't think it will be called my junk journal but rather my diary.

So, I got a couple of pages done.

The other day as I was making a cup of tea, I noticed the labels on my tins. Doing a junk journal has me looking at things around the house in a whole different light. Anyway, I saw these labels and immediately thought, I can add those to my diary! Recently I bought a book (or magazine) at B&N called Daphne's Diary Paper Creative Book. Filled with so many fun cutouts, stickers and paper. It's a treasure!! 

And, that's where I got the little teapot cut outs! I decided to put a quote from each character on the inside of the tea pots. I think they turned out really cute!

I finished this book..

it was great, and now I'm on to this book. 

I'm hoping I can finish it before I start the series. I just love ANYTHING with Jennifer Garner. 

We, like almost everyone in the country right now, have quite a bit of snow..

If you've read this far, thank you. I will leave you with a couple of funnies. No politics as it only brings me DOWn, DOwn, Down, down.

Paul: "this is what happens when you leave me alone with Ensley" LOL. 

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As always, thanks for stopping by. 

What's Happening!

 Happy mid January! 

I can't believe that 47 years ago today, I was getting ready to have my first baby! I knew NOTHING! LOL!! 

In this picture I'm 12 days late and I'm both extremely excited and scared..and as you can see, I gained 50 lbs!! It was the Burger King Whoppers with cheese without tomato LOL.

Tomorrow's the big day! 

In my previous post I showed you my December Daily for 2023. Since then I've started telling my story in the Project Life style but this year, I'm using a 9x12 sized album instead of my usual 12x12. I'm definitely excited starting this project. Also, I'm going to be documenting weekly instead of monthly. Lots of changes and changes are GOOD! 

Here's my title page. Usually I'll include a Christmas photo of the whole family but this year we didn't all get together at the same time. But..that's ok. I've included my 3 kids in the title page because I document what we do together as a family anyway. 

Here's my first week of January..

I've just started week 3 and will post that along with week 2 after I add the smiley faces to the kids etc. Gotta clean em up first. 

I bought some sock yarn last year during the eclipse and it's actually dyed to look like the different colors of the eclipse. I've started some socks with it. 

How cute is that little stitch marker?! 

For years I kept a journal in a Daphne's Diary notebook. She designs these GORGEOUS spiral planners, I guess you'd call them. Not enough room inside to actually call them a journal but I used to find the room to write every night. Then, the pandemic hit and I couldn't find them. Since 2019 they haven't been in Barnes & Noble (and believe me, I've searched). So it was a total surprise to see them on Amazon at the end of December! I bought one and I'm having so much fun with it! 

Check it out!! It comes with a little paper flap on the inside front and back with all kinds of stickers, post cards, bookmarks..just yummy stuff!! 

Here's the inside back flap. So cute!! 

So Eric sent a text message to our family group about journaling. When I was looking through one of my journals, I came across this page that just warms my heart..

Funny story;

I had bird feeders in the backyard during the summer and we had the hardest time keeping Oreo from eating the seed. He'd pig out on it then get sick, plus being the only house in the neighborhood with bushes and trees, we didn't get much in the way of birds. So we didn't put up feeders this year and when we did put one up, it was the kind that didn't make a mess or sprout. It was in a flat tray type of feeder and the wind would just wreck havoc with it. 

Fast forward to now, I told Paul since Oreo isn't playing out back and nothing is going to sprout in the cold and snow, I wanted to put out some feeders and see if the birds in the arborvitae might come. I didn't have a finch feeder that wasn't a mess so I used a regular small feeder. 

The next day I told Paul. LOOK! Our feeder is almost empty! We've had birds! 

the feeder on the left

Paul says, no we haven't had any birds. The wind took all the birdseed 😡

Anyway, I tried and I did get a new finch feeder. Hopefully that will cut down on the amount of seed the wind whisks away. 

Well, I've rambled enough. As always..

Thanks for stopping by. 

December Daily 2023

 Hi and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

2024 flew by! We went to Jenn & Dan's last night and had some fun. We didn't plan on staying up til midnight and we didn't. But Jenn put a countdown on her phone for the kids around 9 pm. We celebrated with some leftover NYE clappers and hats and we even had a couple of poppers. It was fun! Maybe next year if we get to know some of our neighbors a bit better, we can invite some over for NYE. 

I'd like to show pics of the kids jumping on the bed a yelling YAY with their noise makers but not seeing their faces is missing the point. 

I've got some awesome pages done for my 2023 December Daily which you can learn all about here: 

Ali Edwards. I chose a 10x8 album for my very first December Daily. I love the design because it reminds me so much of the pj's Ethan and Elliott had for years! Here's what I have so far. 

My reason why page. Ali does this every year and I'm not sure I'm going to put my reason why next year. But there were lots of reasons why for me to make an album in 2023. 

I've scattered around the days but they will be in the appropriate days in the album. I see something and get excited to create it and it doesn't always go with the next date, if that makes any sense. 

Inside the little pocket on side 1

Inside pocket on side 2. 

This was fun sewing a pocket and filling it with sequins etc. 

At the end of the season, I gave each person who could write, a large tag with Christmas questions "Would You Rather". Everyone filled their card and I created a pocket to put them in. It might go at the back of my album since I don't have a specific day. Or if I'm missing something and need a filler for a day, this could be it. Anyway, it was loads of fun to create. 

This was one of the first pages I did and I think so far the most fun. I loved creating the title on vellum and adding the little charms. 

So, that's it for my December Daily album so far.