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What books and/or magazines did I read this month?
I finally read a book that wasn’t required reading for homeschool. My kids have enjoyed this series and have been anxiously waiting for me to read these books so we can discuss them. I finished the first book and have started the second one. I’m enjoying them so far!
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What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?
Survivor was really the only show I watched regularly during the month of March. We saw Rango in the movie theater which I do not recommend. I thought it was dark, predictable, and really not the kid movie that they advertised.
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What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends
My son got his braces off! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. It was no easy feat to get him through all of those orthodontist appointments, but I’m so proud of him for doing it. What a champ! Now both of my kids are all straightened out! lol!
We got treated to courtside tickets to a Jazz game complete with a fancy dinner, some free hats, and 2 extra seats to invite a few friends. Talk about living it up!
Of course I thought that watching the professional photographers was one of the best parts of sitting right on the floor!
I took this photo with my iphone camera. I had major lens envy when I saw what he was using! lol!
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I got to meet Steph for a lunch date when she came to town over her spring break. So fun to see her!
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What gifts did I give and/or receive?
I had a fabulous birthday and hubby and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, so I got to go out to dinner several times. I also received some fun gifts (legos, treats, & money).
We have some friends who were finally able to adopt a baby girl from China. They traveled there to pick her up in March and had a big party to celebrate her arrival. She’s 10 months old and just adorable! We bought her a darling dress as a present. I snapped an iPhone photo of some of the traditional Chinese food they served.
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What special or unusual purchases did I make?
We decided that my daughter’s room was just not functional anymore with the way it was set up. It has been impossible for her to keep clean because she did not have enough places to put things away. She needed more storage space and a more open room design. Her bedroom is small so we decided that a daybed would be the best solution. We found this one at IKEA. I tried to convince her to let me paint her room bright green like this showroom in IKEA, but she’s happy with her purple wall. It will be really pretty with the bed and I’m looking forward to getting everything set up very soon. We did get a matching dresser, but it’s not the one in the picture.
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What illnesses or health concerns did I have?
I’ve blogged many times about my tummy issues and I think I finally had a major breakthrough! I have done a lot of research and thanks to a digi friend who blogged about her daughter’s issues, I decided to cut out all high fructose corn syrup from my diet. It has worked wonders! I haven’t been sick at all in almost 4 weeks. I’m not sure I can say that about any time in my entire life! This has required a lot of label reading and eating mostly homemade food. I haven’t minded it at all because I’ve been eating better than I have in a long time and feeling great. My kids have even been very supportive and when we go to the grocery store they check the labels for me. I haven’t forced them to eliminate hfcs from their diets, but they have mostly done so as a result of my changes. I don’t think anyone really needs the stuff.
My friend’s daughter actually has an allergy to all forms of fructose so she has to stay away from fruits and some types of vegetables. I’m looking into that a little more (thanks to some information she sent me). I can eat fruit, but not very much of it at a time. Orange juice makes me very sick so I do wonder if I might have a more broad fructose problem? For now, I’ve been able to manage it with cutting out the high fructose corn syrup and being careful about how much fruit I have in a day and at a time. I’m curious to see if my problems with lettuce,oats, and yogurt, in the past were really related to hfcs? I haven’t gotten brave enough to test those out yet because I’ve been so happy to NOT be sick to my tummy!
If anyone else out there has any experience with this, I’d love to hear about it!
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My other major health issue has been my ongoing finger pain and hand issues. My doctor diagnosed me with osteoarthritis in March. I need to go see a specialist and get more information and figure out how to manage this. The interesting thing is that typing isn’t what bothers me the most – the most difficult thing for me right now is holding a pen or pencil. I can barely stand to do that. I also have a hard time holding utensils like forks, and also tying my shoes. I’m not too thrilled with the prospect of lifelong pain management, but I’m also hopeful that I can find some answers to the ongoing issues I’ve been having and find a way to treat them.
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What were my accomplishments this month?
I had all my usual stuff like The Daily Digi, this blog, and the Paperclipping Digi Show podcast, and I finally finished everything for my workshop on Power Scrapping – Digi Style for Big Picture. Registration is now open!
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What were my disappointments this month?
Not too much. Life was pretty good for me (except for a too-short haircut).
I feel sad for the people of Japan and what they have gone through because of the earthquake and tsunami that happened on March 11, 2011.
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How did I do on my goals for the month? (Or any current short or long term goals)
I made good progress on my one little word of HEALTHY. I made some big changes in my diet by eliminating high fructose corn syrup. I took a new approach to finding out what is wrong with my hands. I based many of our meals on recipes from the Flat Belly Diet.
I continued on with my 11 months of holiday prep plans. I did one post about the New52 project I’m participating in, but now I’m pretty behind on the updates. I have still be doing something new each week though so I’m proud of myself for that.
As far as my other important projects for this year… I’ve been doing regular Memory Mondays, doing my roundups, and even making sure we get a picture of the 4 of us each month.
This is us in Albuquerque, New Mexico and I promise that I didn’t even touch up the sky – it really was that blue! We arrived in New Mexico with just a few hours left in March and we stayed until April 4th, so I’ll be including that trip in my April roundup.
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Anything else noteworthy to include?
Digi layouts from March (each one is linked to where it appeared online).
+ 5 more layouts that I can’t show you because they are part of my upcoming Power Scrapping – Digi Style workshop.
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I also updated these pages on my blog:
- Memory Monday Index
- Celebrations
- List of all Paperclipping Digi Show episodes I’ve been on
- List of all Daily Digi posts I’ve written
Feels good to get my roundup done!
P.S. the font I used for the roundup titles is shadowed serif available for free on dafont.com.
