on courage

I have written about bravery, curiousity, and about courage before. The quote from Seneca, "Even to live is an act of courage," resonates in my mind like a mantra and has been ever present lately. There's a lot going on in my life that has me facing insecurities and doubts. And I feel like I am in a cycle of heartache as I talk to my parents as they try to deal with my grandmother's illness and to my grandmother herself who is suffering from dementia. 

Last week, my grandmother turned 84. I called her to wish her Happy Birthday. She was happy to hear from me, knew (kind of) who I was but she said she only just remembered it was her birthday. We chatted about the weather, about pie and fresh fruit. She told me a story about a birthday from her childhood and then said goodbye. 

This week, she moved into assisted living which will give her more concentrated care. And though I know it is the best place for her, it saddens me that she has to leave her house, that it has come to this. I miss her terribly and each time I talk to her I do the best I can to embrace who she is now. But it breaks my heart each time to know that the woman I knew, the woman who taught me so much is... well, gone. I don't know if any of you have had to care for someone who suffers Alzheimer's or dementia or how you manage such a wrenching illness. 

Seneca was right. We face so much on a daily basis, choosing to wake up and live, really, really live is courageous. I think it must be so for my Gran who spends her days often confused, pieces of the puzzle of her life missing. I will continue to reach out to her, to let her know I am here, loving her, thinking of her, even when she doesn't remember who I am. And I will continue to remember the woman who washed my hair in the sink with peach shampoo, and then braided it while the smell of gumbo filled the kitchen, the woman who loves fiercely and quietly, who taught me to be confident and live with conviction. I learned to make cornbread and how to make the perfect pitcher of iced-tea in her kitchen. I stood at her counters with my friends waiting for oven pizzas to crust perfectly. I will remember how when she was mad at you, she refused to speak to you (like when the pizza you were making dripped cheese all over a fresh batch of cornbread muffins). I remember her in the yard, tending to roses with my grandfather the first year I lived with them. I was young and selfish and had no time to help or to learn how the roses grew so large. Later, after my grandfather died, so did some of the roses, no matter how we tried to coax them into survival.

Even to live, is an act of courage.  

The stories of my grandmother are ones she no longer remembers. I have to remember, to hold on, for us both. 

Project Life 2012 Week Twenty

Week 20 I traveled to one of my favorite academic conferences. This year it was held in Raleigh, NC at NC State University. Because M and I like road trips and it was possible, we drove. We were able to see one of our friends who moved to Durham for a doctorate program. And I caught up with my ISU friends; I love when things fall into place that way. Most of the layouts this week are dedicated to the trip. 

I repeated the process from last week, taking the photos from my phone and printing them without the instagram filters on them. This means that many of the pictures are in portrait instead of landscape. This first page is Design Page B. I cut the parking pass we used to fit into the 4x6 slot and I like that it breaks up the photos instead of having photo, photo, photo. I took the first photo in the car before we left at 5 a.m. for North Carolina. The other photo in the top panel is of the Memorial Bell Tower on NC State's campus. Underneath I included some details about the belltower on one of the Original Editional Journaling Cards. My name badge from the conference is in the center. I cut Afternoon Muse Glitz Pack 8x8 paper and attached the NC state seal from one of the folders I got at the conference, the theme title from the conference book and a Remarks Journaling Sticker (Book 2) for the date which I stamped using the Becky Higgins Date stamp from the Original kit. The last row are all 4x3 journaling cards from the Clementine kit. I stamped "Enjoy" and "make it memorable" from Stampabilities Clear Stamps Definitions, which I think came from Hobby Lobby but I can't find a link anywhere to the set I used. I also stamped "20" using the small number stamps from the Inkadinkado Calendar of Events set. I added this card after I had already written about Week 20 on another 4x3 card but instead of rewriting it, I used them both. I finished off the page with a speed limit card I had in my stash. 

Tunnels were throughout NC State's campus because a railroad track runs through part of the area. I loved the one with all ivy, which is the first picture on this page. There was also a graffiti tunnel where students are encouraged to tag and express themselves, and thus, leave the other tunnels untouched. M took some amazing photos of the graffiti and some students spray painting. 

One of the coolest things about the conference were the Craft sessions the school offered as part of the conference. M and I took Byzantine chain making and Pinhole Photography. M took a photo of all of the various jump rings and her finished bracelet. She was very good at working with the metal and much quicker than I was. I cut the 4x6 portrait photos in half so they would fit into the spaces. I like how they turned out. I used the Live Out Loud journaling card from the PL kit because I liked all of the color on it. Above it, I took one of the blank cards and used Purple and Pink Heart Washi Tape from Freckled Fawn along the bottom and I really like how it turned out. I've been trying to think of different ways to incorporate washi tape in the last few layouts and I like the color this tape added to an otherwise plain journaling card. 

We ate at an amazing place called The Rockford in downtown Raleigh, which I highly recommend. We ordered the ABC, apple, bacon, cheddar on whole wheat with honey sesame sauce. Man, it was amazing. We sat outside on this small deck, which we had to ourselves. M snapped a pic of the flowerboxes that lined the balcony. I used Geometric labels from Freckled Fawn, which I don't see on their website so maybe they aren't stocking them anymore. The bottom photos are M's pinhole shots. 

This is still unfinished because I haven't printed my pinhole photos yet which will go in these slots. At the top you can see my original pinholes, which don't look like much. M was much better at "getting it" than I was. The Burt's Bees tin was the camera M used. The heart is a close-up of some of the graffiti from the tunnel. And I snapped a pic of my keyring while we were sitting outside at The Rockford.

As part of Ali Edward's 31 Things class I snapped a photo of my makeup as part of my morning routine since my routine changes, depending on what's going on. I love photos of the everyday, which you'll see more of in Week 21. 

I haven't had the opportunity to use the "Overheard" Smash card from the Quote card set so I decided to write down a Twitter conversation that was important to the conference because my mentor, whose head is in the picture of me in conversation above, had some smart things to say I wanted to remember. The "You Are Great" is from a Chronicle Small Object thank you card I decided to cut and include here on top of more Afternoon Muse paper. I used a filler card from the Clementine kit beside it because it mentions all of the things the conference was about. 

While driving through part of North Carolina, we saw Pilot Mountain, which I've never seen before as I haven't driven that way before. We didn't have time to properly visit but we enjoyed the view as we drove. 

Overall, it was an excellent trip and I'm really glad to have Project Life as a way to record it. 

blog redesign

When I first began blogging, I redesigned my blog frequently. Partly because I was learning more about design, about how I wanted to express and represent myself and partly because I would get bored. Last summer when I switched my blog host, I had to learn some new things about design, to rethink layout possibilities and color schemes, which was probably a good thing. I asked my sister-in-law to create some owl icons for me that I could use in my header, and she did an amazing job. I used some variation of the owls and various fonts and colors for the header and a few different backgrounds/schemes but essentially, I had the same design for about a year. 

I wanted a bit of a change. 

I understand the purpose of keeping the general design of a page, of brand identity and reader expectations. I'm hoping this isn't too drastic of a redesign, though almost everything has changed or shifted. 

Here's what the blog used to look like: 

And the new design:

I love color palettes. In the past I used Adobe Kuler to create color schemes. I just discovered there's a Kuler app, which I may have to look into. For the purposes of this redesign, however, I turned to a recent obsession I discovered through Pinterest, Design-seeds.

This is the color palette that inspired this design, which you can find here: 

As I was working on the design, I felt a little unsure if I would like it, if I was making a mistake in completely redesigning the blog. But when I went back to capture the previous design, I realized how much I like the new one. Sometimes a little risk in design and in life is worth it. 

Project Life 2012 Week(s) Eighteen and Nineteen

A few weeks ago, when I was sick, I was feeling discouraged. I was behind in PL and didn't feel the same joy that I've felt about putting my pages together in the past. The process of using Instagram for Android was making the whole process more time consuming than I felt it needed to be. This week, I plugged in my phone to the computer and grabbed the original, non-Instagrammed, unfiltered images. The resolution was much higher and I was able to print them easier. Maybe it was the time I was able to spend on the layouts, but printing the pictures in higher resolution and in traditional sizes again, revived my excitement in this project as a whole. 

In some ways, I'm glad that I struggled in the previous weeks and worked through the challenges and was able to stick with it. These two weeks (18 &19) reflect, I think, that kind of waking up, coming back, pushing through feeling. 

I feel like it rained all of Week 18. Not all day but it seemed like every day. I took a lot of pictures of flowers in the rain, drinking it in. We babysat Nora and it finally cleared up enough to get the lawn mowed. 

I love the umbrella picture I took in the top left. I took it quickly one afternoon leaving campus. I cut one of the Turquoise kit cards and on top used a Dear Lizzy Feather Phrases sticker that reads "Flowers, Birds, Sunshine, Puddles, Raindrops." The owl is a Natural Life Ocean Scented car air freshener. They came in a pack of three and this one lost most of its scent this week so I traded it out for one of the other ones. I like the pops of color it provides here as well as the sentiment. More rainy flowers, a lottery ticket that did not win but was fun to scratch off and a Smash Quote fill-in-the blank card finish out this page. 

That's the end of Week 18!

Moving on to Nineteen:

I used the Cherish Everyday date card from the PL Clementine kit purposefully because I like the color but also because of the sentiment. There's a lot of everyday happening here. Popcorn and a list of movies we've seen lately, grilling hot dogs, noticing the peonies growing in my neighbor's yard. But also a bit of celebrating; we went out to dinner Monday for our 8 year anniversary. I saved the receipt for the Parking Garage and wrote a bit about dinner on a piece of Reflections card stock. 

Love all the reds here. We have been making an effort to eat more fruits and veggies for our diet. Strawberries are some of my favorites, especially with a bit of goat cheese crumbles. My new obsession. The Sweet Life tag is 7Gypsies. A few months ago I used the Smash Entertainment Pad to record my current playlist and I really liked including what I'm listening to. I've been making monthly playlists on Spotify but here I listed what I've been listening to most this week. 

We went to Bloomington for Mother's Day. The weather was amazing and so I spent some time outside reading, which I've been doing when I can at home, as well. I combined two photographs I'd taken while reading in Photoshop. I layered Ali Edwards' Embracing the Everyday Brushes "So Love These Moments" on top of the two photos in teal, which match the bottom layering I did with the photo of M and her Mom learning how to use her Mother's Day present, the iPhone. I used the PL Original Edition Paper Pack and I really like how part of the flowers show on the corners. The font is Ali's Handwriting Font.

Week Nineteen is in the books.

I'm very excited for Week Twenty because it will include one of my favorite conferences and hopefully some photos with the DSLR. I'm also taking a craft class at the conference on Pinhole Cameras so I'm hoping to have something to share from that. I feel energized and happy about this project again and I'm very glad I didn't give up a few weeks ago when I felt so crummy.  

new habits

One of the things I've been trying to do lately is create better habits, mostly better eating habits but also better thinking habits, as well. I am not one of those people who have struggled with their weight. This doesn't mean I've been healthy but rather that my weight was never a concern to me. I have a pretty good sense of who I am, an overall positive view of myself. I never worried about what I ate before. I enjoyed my body, its curves and extra fleshy bits. No one I was with ever complained about my looks. I don't work in an industry where my worth is based on my appearance and I put a lot of energy into my mind. So, I never struggled with my weight. I accepted. I ate what I wanted and however much I wanted. That isn't to say I haven't dieted or tried to work out and do yoga and be healthier in general. I have tried and then I got busy and broke all those good habits and made excuses and stopped thinking about it.

May 1st I decided to quit drinking soda. Simultaneosly, M and I started talking about eating better and paying attention to what we ate. We bought a scale, downloaded a calorie counter app and began taking our health seriously.

I can you tell that I already feel better, happier. Not yet lighter, but better.

I have been reading about habits lately, about why and how they form, what they mean and how to change them. One suggestion is that to really change a habit, you have to make it public, talk about it, create accountability in a variety of ways.

I'm trying to do that with this post.

I don't want to be obsessed about a number on a scale or the numbers of calories I'm eating but I need to think about food differently and I need to form new habits. This doesn't mean that I'm never going to eat Creme Brule or cupcakes or chocolate. But it might take me longer to decided if it's worth it and I'll definitely be more aware and appreciative as I eat it.